Warning: Undefined variable $show_stats in /home/jdqespth/public_html/wp-content/plugins/stats/stats.php on line 1384

Category: vegetarian

Tofu Shirataki

Food experiment: Tofu Shirataki

Yeah, so this was a total shot in the dark as to whether they would be edible, but they were both weird and on sale so they fit my standard requirements for a culinary adventure.

Shirataki noodles are made from a root (often translated on the packaging as yam) and – in this case – tofu. They are packaged wet, kind of like sauerkraut.

Because the packaging warned that they are often parboiled to get rid of the smell (other notes included “distinctive texture”), I drained the packaging liquid and set it to marinate in a spicy cooking sauce. Then, I fried it all up in a pan with eggplant and shredded cabbage.

Right after cooking – fairly tasty, but still not as sexy a texture as proper noodles… they ended up having an almost al dente texture. Maybe I should have parboiled, but I was more worried about the flavor.

After freezing – No. Just no. So the website has a warning not to freeze, but the packaging didn’t, and ew! It turned into thin strips of plastic, I swear! So I am picking those out and dropping them in my trash so I can eat the rest of the goody.

Braising in the Sun – Beef Braised Beef, Braised Kohlrabi, Kohlrabi greens with garlic

Last night’s dinner was all full of experimentation.

My grocery has had cheap chuck roasts (and small ones, too!). And instead of making my standard pot roast or swiss steak, I happened across a recipe on the internet for beer braised beef (from [redacted]’s del.ici.ous links)

So I went and bought a six-pack of Negra Modela on my way home. I added the salt and pepper to the raw meat, and then I let it sit for a hour because I went to a demo at the restaurant school nearby last summer and the chef had said that rubs that included salt are used incorrectly when they are added right before cooking – instead they should sit on long enough that the salt not only draws out moisture, but also then re-dries forming a little crust of salty goodness on the outside of the meat. Whatever – I gave it a try.

After the browning stage with just the salt and pepper, the roast smelled wonderful and was very tasty (What? I hadn’t had lunch!).

I put in all three onions that the recipe called for (but none of the shallots because I didn’t have any and how were you going to notice the difference between onions and shallots in a dish with flavors this heavy?) and then I remembered that my roast was a little smaller than the recipe called for, so I pulled out some of them halfway through cooking – they are destined for an onion and potato curry with yellow thai noodle sauce.

Added beer. Cooked. Ate some ramen (because starving!). Flipped the roast. Dipped a piece of bread in the goody and ate that – MMmmm tasty! Cooked. Ate a yogurt cup. Made and ate a side dish. And then the roast was finished! So I nibbled at a corner and put it aside to be tonight’s dinner because I was full and it was 10pm.

Verdict: even with mexican beer, the beef tastes belgian. I think I’ll thicken the sauce to make gravy, and maybe that will give it a more yumminess. I secretly think that I should have added one of those mini cans of tomato paste to the braising right at the beginning, but I am not wise in the ways of tomato paste and do not keep those little can in stock. Maybe I should start.

ETA: Pulled beef out, brought liquid to a fast boil, and put a heaping Tablespoon of whole wheat flour in a little mesh strainer and sifted it in slowly while stirring – made a very tasty gravy.

About half an hour before the roast finished, I started preparing a side dish. Well, it ended up being two side dishes by accident. But I was trying a new vegetable kohlrabi.

A bit of preliminary research turned up that it was a member of the cabbage family and “just like broccoli.” Only it’s leafy and bulbous, and not much like either of those things, so I was puzzled.

Finally a found a recipe that seemed made just for this vegetable, instead of randomly substituting it into a brussel sprout recipe: Braised kohlrabi with garlic and parmesan

And thus I had a theme for the evening – braising everything!

And then I cheated on it because right after I had prepared the kohlrabi for the recipe, I realised that it wasn’t going to use the greens – so I cut them up into little strips and threw them into some olive oil a few minutes after I threw in some garlic. If I had thought it through, I think this is a dish that would really have been improved with the use of my fancy olive oil (I am starting to be able to taste the differences). And then, since I was shredding parmesan anyway, I tossed in a goodly handful of cheese before eating it

verdict (Greens): Reminded me a lot of broccoli rabe leaves. Soft and tasty without being bitter, but with a lovely amount of spiciness.

Right, so the real recipe – sauteing garlic and kohlrabi in butter was a brilliant way to start. Turns out that half an ice cube tray of duck stock melts out to exactly 200mL – win! So I had much more flavorful stock going in that is called for.

verdict (bulb): Again, color me unreasonably skeptical – it was just like broccoli. Well, broccoli stems. Only easier to peel and with more surface area. I’ve been using broccoli stems for years to replace water chestnuts from recipes – and kohlrabi will be even better. I am all impressed with this new (to me) vegetable.

Now I have leftover duck broth infused with the essence of garlic, butter, and kohlrabi. Do I (a) use it to marinate a chicken leg quarter as I thaw it, or (b) make some rice, pour that in, maybe cook a few greens for on top, and call it dinner?

Eggplant experimentation – Eggplant curry, Eggplant Jambalaya, Spicy Eggplant and Tofu Stir Fry

I have two different kinds of eggplant waiting for me in my fridge.

So, I looked through my cookbooks – vegetarian recipes, Italian recipes, eggplant recipes. and a binder with my recipes… and then decided that I’d do something different.

I have pre-cooked the two long skinny eggplants in the oven – that’s my current favorite way to peel eggplant: charring it under the broiler, and then picking the skin off in a couple long strips.

I put some beans (1/2 pink lentils, 1/2 yellow split peas) to soak in a small container. I’m thinking of making a curry with the beans, eggplant, and a bit of coconut. I still haven’t decided whether there will be dairy products or tomatoes or both – I’ll have to taste it.

And then I have medium-small “regular” eggplant. I think I’ll peel it, dice it, and then salt it and leave it to sit in a colander to leech out any bitterness. Then I’ll rise it and pat dry. That will turn into some weird (yet tasty!) jambalaya with diced chicken, eggplant, and zucchini – and maybe some collard greens. And that will get packed up directly and frozen for lunches.

And while I was reviewing the recipes I had put up here, I noticed that I missed one of my favorite eggplant recipes:

Spicy Eggplant and Tofu Stir Fry

Choose an eggplant that does not look bitter: a fresh, small, firm chinese eggplant or a firm white eggplant.

Use firm tofu. I often use the kind that comes in a plastic tub, but if it doesn’t you will need a container that is about the same size as the tofu to marinate it.

Cut the tofu into large slices no thinner than 1cm (I usually do one cut down the middle and several crosswise).

Work a crushed red pepper sauce in between every slice and then a little more over top. Let that sit overnight (or less, but I don’t usually have a couple hours to wait, so I’ll just prep stuff for the next day).

Heat up your favorite oil for stir fry. Lay the tofu slices flat in the pan (and this is the part where I confess to using a skillet to stir fry instead of a wok – if using a wok, improvise). Let them fry until they start to darken, and then flip them carefully to the other side to keep frying.

Immediately after flipping the tofu, add the eggplant, the tofu’s marinade, and a splash of some other liquid (water will do, but fruit juice or stock is better).

Once your can feel the peppers getting spicy, add a whack of creamy peanut butter.

Stir it all around – the tofu will crumble into bite-sized pieces and the peanut butter will melt and blend into the sauce.

And then it’s done.

Serve over lots and lots of rice – with more on the side because this dish is hella spicy.

I recommend having sauteed greens on the side as well – with lots of garlic.

food list – Eggplant & Cauliflower Curry

food I have
Produce
2 tomatoes
1 broccoli stem
cauliflower
collard greens
wee baby eggplants
cilantro
scallions

meat
chicken stock
leftover rotisserie chicken
leftover roast pork

dairy
milk
cheddar cheese
gorgonzola
cream cheese

scheduling food
Wednesday, April 4
dinner:risotto with chicken, broccoli, and stock

Thursday, April 5
Asian grocer: oyster sauce, sesame oil
start: pork leftovers, diced onion, oyster sauce – long cooking until the pork completely shreds
breakfast: collard greens w/ tomato over bagel with cream cheese
dinner: eggplant and cauliflower curry

Friday, April 6
produce truck: scallions
grocery: buy cream cheese and chicken leg quarters
breakfast: collard greens w/ tomato and egg in tortillas
dinner: make sticky rice balls with pork and scallions

Saturday, April 7
now that the large pot is empty of pork, make stock with chicken and duck carcasses.

recipe? for eggplant & cauliflower curry
Well, here’s the plan of approach for the eggplant & cauliflower curry

Char eggplant skin under broiler and then scrape out the goody once the eggplants have cooled enough to be handled.

Set to making basmati rice with turmeric.

Melt a chunk of ghee. Grill down onions. Add minced garlic and ginger. Add diced cilantro stems and jalepeno pepper meat. Add spices… I think I’ll crack open the garum masala mix from Penzey’s and see how that does.

Once the spices have grilled a bit, add the eggplant and a can of tomatoes.

Cut off just the cauliflower heads, in rather small pieces. Mix the cauliflower into the pan.

Taste and fiddle. And cilantro leaves?

Problem: I cut the cauliflower finely because nothing else had much texture, but that leaves me with cauliflower stems to figure out what to do with.

Roman Recipes – Roast pork w/ cumin and honey, Sauteed mushrooms, Split Pea Pulse, Elberberry Custard

So for making Roman Recipes, I first consulted the Vehling translation (because that was the one my mother let me take with me when I moved), but then later I consulted a more reliable translation, the Flower & Rosenbaum translation, which has the Latin and the English on facing pages. Oh, and then I am referencing a completely different translation after the fact – it’s not a good translation, but it is online so I can show you what I’m talking about.

So here’s what we had for dinner last night:
Roast Pork
The whole point of making this dinner was that I had bought a huge pork loin and had cut it into three, still large, roasts. And then my mother had been making pork roasts and sending me the leftovers. And my freezer has been slowly filling up with pork! If I made a roast on my own, I’d then still have 2/3 of the roast right back in my freezer. So I came up with the nifty theme and invited people from the SCA to join me for dinner.

I was intrigued by the Vehling translation’s description of a roast that was first broiled and then braised. And I was all, hmmm… that’s like browning it before you braise it, only we usually do that in a pan rather than an over – cool, it’ll be like brisket.

Only then I checked the Flower & Rosenbaum translation and found that Vehling had been smushing together two recipes that were supposed to be separate. I’m still a bit dubious and I am half inclined to check a manuscript edition because the Flower & Rosenbaum have very clear punctuation and separations of one thing from the next, and I suspect that is a modernization. I did not, however, get around to actually checking before I made the dinner.

So I made the simplest recipe – the one that is a lot like the way I make pork when I do not have a fancy recipe to go from: cover it in salt and roast it and then drizzle with honey right at the end.

Only I usually do all kinds of fancy things like embedding garlic cloves in the meat, and sliding sprig of rosemary between the fat layer and the meat, and studding it with cloves of garlic. The honey, however, was new.

So I figured that a little “roman inspired” creativity never hurt anything, so I lightly dusted the fat on top with asafoetida, and then a heavier dusting with ground cumin. Then I added a nice, thick coating of kosher salt. Oh, yeah, and I pinned bacon rind to all of the exposed surfaces so that the edges wouldn’t dry out during cooking.

I preheated the oven to 400 degrees, and then I lowered it to 250 as soon as the meat went in. Since I had no idea how heavy this roast was, nor do I own a meat thermometer, I went for long, slow cooking that would end up with the meat very thoroughly done, but still tender. I think it ended up cooking for about 4 hours.

And I completely forgot about adding the honey.

It was still quite tasty.

Not satisfied with how simple the roast was going to be, I gave in and decided to make one of the sauces for roasts. Since I was unable to obtain laurel berries or myrtle berries, I went for the third one – and still ended up having to skip half of the ingredients.

I put into a mortar:

  • a lot of pepper
  • dried lovage
  • dried celery leaf instead of celery seed
  • dried dill
  • asafoetida
  • cumin

and then I added slightly damp ingredients

  • ginger, cut into slices against the grain
  • parsley, shredded

then I started working in the liquid ingredients to form a paste

  • a splash of worchestershire sauce and thai fish sauce to make the equivalent of liquamen
  • olive oil
  • a wee little bit of red wine vinegar, which wasn’t in the recipe, to keep it from getting too oily

The sauce turned out very tasty and complemented the pork perfectly.

Mushrooms
This is just mushrooms sauteed with oil, liquamen, and pepper.

Almost every translator has you taking time to dry the mushrooms in the middle of cooking. Having cooked mushrooms, and read how modern cookbooks describe the process, I think Apicius is just talking about how mushrooms release a lot of liquid when the start cooking, and that you need to keep cooking through that point until the liquid evaporates before you start to add seasonings (esp. liquid ones) or you’ll end up boiling your mushrooms more than sauteing them.

Peas

Again, I chose to use yellow split peas because I like them so much that I had bought a brand new bag a while back only to come home and find that I still have 2/3 of a bag already.

So first I boiled and skimmed the peas.

In a mortar, I ground up black pepper, lovage, and cumin. I added cilantro and liquamen (worchestershire sauce & fish sauce) to make a paste. I then added about half a cup of wine (Manischewitz!) and let it sit and get happy together while the peas finished cooking, and I finished cleaning my apartment.

Then I put a decent amount of olive oil in a pan, poured in the spice and wine mixture to start

I also made some non-Roman accompaniments

After having tasted the peas, I decided that this was a rather spicy and pepper-heavy meal. So I got some yogurt, drained it, and made a raita. There are no yogurt sauce recipes in the cookbook even though there are references to soft cheeses. I think that’s because it’s a rather cold, wet sort of thing to be mixing with ones food and you never know what sort of digestive complications that might create.

And while there are recipes for cucumbers, I chose to serve them just drizzled in white balsamic vinegar to make them as refreshing as possible.

Both additions were good choices.

Elderberry Custard
I posted about this day before yesterday, when I made the first part of the recipe. While looking for the spices for the pork, I found dried elderberries for sale. So I stewed together the dried berries with a few raisins (as I did not have raisin wine, and I thought any sweetness added would be a good thing), a lot of wine (Manischewitz), and some pepper. I did add some honey because I was adding honey to the hard cider I have going, and I was very worried about the lack of sweetness to the dish.

So after it had boiled down and reduced, I strained the liquid out and refrigerated it.

After the roast was out of the oven, I beat together 6 eggs and poured in as much of the elberberry concentrate as looked right, beating it all together. Then I ladled it into greased ramekins and set them in a larger casserole that had an inch of water.

They were ready just as the musical episode of Xena (The Bitter Suite) was finishing.

I thought the end result was just too eggy, and everyone ended up adding some honey to it. I think I would like to try again with just egg whites (elderberry meringue?) and just egg yolks (elderberry zabaglione?) to see whether either one yielded a more favorable result.