Category: Cookbooks

Wow, it's Wednesday already. Here are a few midweek odds and ends.

Kayaba

One half of the new food stands in the Mitsuwa Marketplace has revealed itself.

From what I understand Kayaba will be doing Soba, Katsu, and the like. I'm hoping for a Santoka Ramen as well. One can always hope……

The Missus had a hankering for Una-Don, so I purchased some Unagi from Nijiya, but decided to make my own quick and dirty Nitsume(Eel sauce). We've purchased the bottled stuff, and found it either to be too salty, or too sweet, or having strange flavors. So I decided to try a slight modification of an interesting recipe I found in DK Kodama's  Sushi Chronicles from Hawaii, which I purchased on my visit to Sansei a few weeks back. The recipe is pretty easy, and after seeing the amount of Sake in it I had my doubts, but it turned out to be quite good. Maybe a tad on the sweet side, but not bad at all.

The recipe uses some short cuts, like hondashi…which worked out well, since I didn't happen to have a whole bunch of Eel trimmings lying around. The recipe also calls for the Hondashi to be boiled…which made it a fishy-bitter during the first pass, so I cut the amount in half, and added it right before the reduction process, and it worked. I'd been taught never to boil anything after adding Hondashi, but in this case it worked during the low boil. Purists may just want to skip the recipe, if it hurts too much.

Easy Unagi Sauce(Nitsume)

2 Cups Sake
1/2 Cup Mirin
1/2 Coy Sauce(Yamasa or Aloha)
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Tsp Hondashi

1 – Mix all ingredients except Hondashi in a pot. Bring to a boil stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce heat to medium-low and add Hondashi.

2 – Reduce mixture by half to a light syrup.

3 – Store in a tightly sealed container and refrigerate. According to the original recipe this will keep for up to 1 month.

I still don't quite know what to do about the Missus's other current obsession:

Have you ever known anyone who craved brussel sprouts???? With Nitsume??? And Rice???

One last item – mmm-yoso's very own Cathy Doe has been recovering from illness, so I'd like to make sure to tell Her to hang in there, and get well soon. She's still posting too..what a trooper!

Did I ever happen to mention the Missus’s obsessions? It really doesn’t take much…just a simple mention of an item, and a fast growing seed is planted. It’s something that demands immediate attention…if left alone to germinate, well, let’s not go there.

This past Saturday, we had a wonderful lunch at Chin’s with Ed from Yuma, mizducky, Howie from A Foodie’s Eye View, and last but certainly not least Codergirl. In the midst of the lunch Howie happened to mention that a friend of his makes Turnip Cakes at home. Now at the mention of this little comment, I saw the Missus perk up, and though I don’t think anyone else noticed it, with just the little "they make it at home…" I knew we’d be making turnip cakes.

And so it’s off to 99 Ranch Market we go……

We’ve always had pretty good outcomes with recipes from Ellen Leong Blonder’s book Dim Sum: The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch, and used the recipe as the basis for making turnip cakes, which turned out to be quite easy. We did make a few changes and adjustments in the recipe. The result is pictured below.

Turnip Cakes

2-3 Tb Small Dried Shrimp(optional – also soaking them in hot water for 20-30 minutes and draining is optional, we didn’t do this)
2 1/2 – 3 cups(lightly packed) Coarsely shredded Daikon Radish
1 Lup Cheong(Chinese sausage) finely diced
2 Green Onions (include white parts) finely sliced
1-2 Tb Cilantro – finely chopped
2 Cups Rice Flour (* Important note – use rice flour, do not use sweet/glutinous rice flour)
1 Tsp salt(adjust up if not using shrimp)
1/2 Tsp Sugar
1/4 Tsp Ground White Pepper
1 1/2 Cups Water
Vegetable/Canola Oil

1 – Place shredded radish in a small pot or saucepan with water. Bring mixture to a boil, than reduce the heat to a low and simmer for 15 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Remove radish from liquid(do not discard the cooking liquid) and place in measuring cup. Add in cooking liquid to bring the amount to approximately 3 cups. Let the mixture cool to a lukewarm temperature.

2 – While radish is cooking, heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a skillet or wok. When oil starts to smoke add the Lup Cheong,Green Onions, and Dried Shrimp. Stir fry for 1 or 2 minutes. Remove the mixture from heat and stir in Cilantro.

3 – Get the steamer going.

4 – In a bowl mix the rice flour, salt, sugar, and white pepper. Add the radish and cooking water, and stir to a batter-like consistency. Add the Lup Cheong mixture to the batter and mix. Pour mixture into a 8×8 cake pan, or a 9 inch round cake pan.

5 – Place cake pan into steamer, and steam at a medium-high boil for 35-45 minutes.

6 – Once done, remove the turnip cake from the steamer and let cool.

Once cool, you can cut into squares and fry, or fry, than add egg, or whatever preparation you desire.

I fried up a few squares, and the Missus told me, "you know what this means, don’t you?" "Wellll, I guess no more store bought, and we’ll cross this off our Dim Sum list, ala’ Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf?"

Thanks alot Howie…just kidding of course. Turnip cake turned out to be much easier than we thought.

I’ve had a few Emails asking if I still cook, and yes I am, but recently it’s been really simple things like Soboro, and other stir fries, but I thought this would be of some interest. I’ll be back with another restaurant tomorrow.

This recipe is based on the recipe for Beggar’s Chicken found in Eileen Yin-Fei Lo’s hefty cookbook, The Chinese Kitchen. I’m sure many of you own this cookbook. It has quite a few elaborate and somewhat complex dishes in it. What I have found with many of the dishes in this book, is that the seasoning of the dishes are quite mild. Still, it’s fun to play……..

I find more than a bit of irony in the name Beggar’s Chicken, as it is a fairly elaborate dish. And I would really have to stretch my imagination to believe, that if I were a beggar, I would even be considering making this chicken dish……

One more key note. Even though the presentation of the chicken in this dish can be pretty stunning; it’s the stuffing that makes this dish. As wonderfully juicy as the chicken is, without the stuffing, it would be quite bland.

So on the day before making the chicken prepare the stuffing. There is a stuffing recipe in the book, but I prefer something like the Glutinous Rice Stuffing here. The chicken will be amazingly juicy, so all the juices soaked up in the rice is so…delici-yoso!!!

Part 1 – The Lotus Leaf

Trim and soak 2 lotus leaves in hot water for 30-45 minutes(the book says twenty, but that’s not enough time), unfolding and turning every 10 minutes, until leaves are saturated.

Part 2 – The Chicken – here’s what we worked with.

1 – 4lb Chicken
1/4 Cup Salt

Remove excess fat from the chicken and wash under cold water. Dry, then rub salt over the outside of the chicken, rinse again, and dry well.

Part 3 – The Marinade

4 Tb Gin
1 3" Piece Cinnamon broken into 4 pieces
2 Star Anise
2 Tb Sugar
1 Tb Salt
Dash on White Pepper

In a bowl combine marinade ingredients, and rub the exterior and interior of the chicken.

Part 4 – The Dough

5 Cups High Gluten Flour
11/2 – 2 1/2 Cups Hot Water
Canola Oil
Additional Flour as necessary

Place flour on large cutting board or another surface. Make a "well" in the center of the flour. Add the hot water slowly while mixing the flour with one hand. Knead dough for 2-3 minutes, coat hand with oil to prevent sticking, and add flour to keep from sticking to kneading surface. Roll out dough to a size large enough to wrap the chicken. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Part 5 – Stuff that Bird!

And close openings with skewers.

Part 6 – Wrap it up.

You’ll need the Lotus Leaves, Flattened Dough, and 2-3 feet heavy duty Aluminum Foil.

Shake Lotus leaves dry. Wrap the chicken in Lotus Leaves, make sure leaves overlap, and the edges of the leaves are on the bottom. Place the Lotus Leaf wrapped chicken(breast side up) in the middle of the dough and wrap, sealing the top completely.

Place dough wrapped chicken in the middle of foil and seal completely.

Part 7 – Cook that Bird!

At 350 degrees F, for 1 hour, then lower the temp to 325 degrees F for 3 hours. Great time to make some side dishes…maybe some Crab and Corn soup, and Spicy Stove Braised Eggplant.

After the time is up(at last!!) remove chicken from the oven, and fold back the foil.

You can now either cut right down the center of the dough and separate, or cut around the dough and remove the top.

You’ll find the chicken to be very, very tender and moist. In fact, you just stick your spoon right into the middle of the chicken, and scoop out both the chicken and stuffing.

Since fellow bloggers Jo, Reid, and Kathy have already figured out that we were going to make these; I’ll get right to the point. We did see these during our Thanksgiving visit to Pearl (Yes Angie, we really did see them), but since I had just gotten the book Dim Sum – The Art of Chinese Tea Lunchby Ellen Leong Blonder, we decided to give this a shot:

We headed off to 99 Ranch Market and purchased some Dried Lotus Leaves, though I enjoy calling them Water Lily Pads…..which is what they are:

We made many changes to the original recipe, mainly because we wanted to use what we had on hand, and also because we enjoy having a bit more "filling" then the usual "smear" of filling that is the norm.

Sticky Rice in Lotus Leaf

Makes 8 "packets"

2 Cups Glutinous Rice
1 Tsp Salt
6 Dried Shiitake Mushrooms – soaked in warm water for 30 minutes, then drained and sliced.
4 Dried Lotus Leaves
2 Tb Soy Sauce
2 Tb Oyster Sauce
1 Tsp Xiao Tsing
1/2 Tsp Sugar
3 Tb Vegetable Oil
1 Boneless, skinless Chicken Breast – Chopped to coarse texture
4 Oz Dried Shrimp – Soaked in water for 15 minutes and drained
1 Lup Cheong sliced to 1/4" rounds
2 Oz Char Siu cut into 1/4" dice
4 Boiled Duck Egg yolks cut in halves
1 Tb Corn Starch mixed in 1/3 Cup Water

1 – Rinse and soak Glutinous Rice in water to cover, add Salt and let soak for 1 Hour

2 – Cut each folded lotus leaf in half and cover with hot water. Soak for 30 – 45 minutes, turning occasionally to make sure leaves are totally soaked. (Since I didn’t do a turkey this Thanksgiving, it was good to actually use a roasting pan for something!)

3 – Cook rice in 2 cups of water. Once rice is cooked allow to cool slightly.

4 – Combine Soy Sauce, Oyster Sauce, Xiao Tsing, and sugar to create a sauce.

5 – Heat wok or skillet, add 1 Tb oil and stir fry the shrimp and lup cheong for 1-2 minutes, add chicken and stir fry until the chicken starts turning white. Add mushroom, char siu, and sauce mixture and cook for 1 minute. Stir in cornstarch mixture and remove from heat when the sauce has thickened. Place onto a plate and put aside to cool.

6 – After leaves are soaked, rinse briefly and shake of excess water. Cut off about 2 inches from the "point end" of the leaf and trim any ragged portions of the curved edges with a scissors. Stack the leaves in the same direction and set aside.

7 – Divide the cooled rice and into eight portions.Divide the filling into 8 portions as well.

8 – Place the stack of leaves with the outer edge facing away from you. Spread a light coat of oil evenly over the leaf.

9 – Divide one portion of rice into two. Place this half potion of rice onto the lower center of the leaf and form into a 2"x3" rectangle. Place one portion of filling onto the rice, and place 1 half piece of egg yolk on filling. Place the remainder of rice portion on top of the filling. Press the layer gently together.

10 – Fold bottom end of leaf over the rice. Then fold over first the left then the right edges of the leaf over rice. Then roll up the rice packet to form a rectangular packet.

11 – Place seam side down in a steamer and steam for 20-35 minutes. (The book called for 15 minutes, but it was too short and the sauce and essence of the leaf had not permeated the rice).

Some notes: The recipe in the book used raw shrimp, but we decided to just use the dried shrimp we had on hand. The recipe did not use egg yolk, which I thought was odd. We’ve always had this with a quarter to a half egg yolk in it. The next time we may add some peanuts for texture, and maybe a scallop. But overall these tasted really good, and weren’t that hard to make – just a "whole lotta soakin’ going on.

Next Up, Shrimp and Chive Dumplings????