Category: Cooking

Shades of my What to Do kinda Ali Nazik Kebab post. A couple of weeks past I decided to roast a leg of lamb.

Not wanting too much, I bought half a leg fro Seisel's, though in retrospect I should have gone to one of the many Halal markets in the greater San Diego area to pick this up. I rubbed the lamb with a paste of garlic, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. Same with the potatoes….I also threw in some leftover daikon as well. I decided to roast everything in my cast iron pan letting the fat from the lamb render off onto the root veggies.

Man, did the root veggies taste great….unfortunately the flavor lamb wasn't strong enough for the Missus. It was too tame and She refused to eat it. Then She uttered those fateful words…"I'm not eating it, but you better not waste any of it!"

Ohhhh-kay….there were a couple of pounds of lamb left after I had my fill, so what to do????

Duh…..one of my favorite things to do with leftover prime rib, ham, rotisserie chicken….not so much turkey though, is to make a hash. However, I wanted to roast more potatoes…so it was 86 on the potatoes in the hash. In the end, I minced up a bunch of the lamb, added minced onions, garlic, cilantro, oregano, and thyme. I used a couple of tablespoons of Greek yogurt as a binder and it crisped up pretty good. Finished with some salt and pepper, it was delici-yoso…..

 Roasted some red potatoes, sauteed off some collard greens and used the rest of the yogurt in a sauce, combining it with dill, lemon juice, garlic juice, salt, and pepper. Topped with a poached egg (of course), this was a heck of a brunch. For some reason the lamb flavors came through much better when caramelized in nice crunchy bits. I can't believe I've had years of cold lamb sandwiches (pretty darn good though), when I should have been making this.

I didn't stop there, though. Based on the Missus criticism, I decided to take this one step further and saved a small amount of meat and the lamb bone. Recently, I had been leafing through Jaque Pepin's latest cookbook, the huge Essential Pepin. I recalled the lamb-barley soup recipe.

So into the pot went the lamb bone, no beef broth for this version. Of course, the Missus requested it done to Her taste so no barley in this one. I replaced the barley with bulgur, which I added during the last half hour of simmering.

Flavored with some leftover fresh thyme, cilantro, and celery hearts (freeze the buggers instead of throwing them away – they have great flavor). This ended up being quite good, with no complaints from the Missus.

The Missus often takes credit for "inspiring" what I make in the kitchen……and She's probably right.

Strangely, one of posts that I most often get emails and comments about is the one on making Okonomiyaki. It's quite interesting, I'd get stuff telling me that you don't need the yamaimo, saying it doesn't make any difference in the texture, always from folks that had never even tried using it for making okonomiyaki(I have tried not using yamaimo – the result is fine, but it ain't the same)…so if you've never even tried using it, how would you know if it makes any difference? But hey, okonomi means "what you like", so whatever floats your boat…..I know what floats mine…a couple of tablespoons of gooey, grated yamaimo. Secondly, it's about the folks who tell me to use a non-stick…….I've never gotten the kind of wonderful caramelization you get with my cast iron pan on any non-stick…even the new expensive non-stick pan I have is basically for crepes and items that don't need a nice crust. Personally, I prefer mine to look something like this.

The Missus had been looking through a couple of recipes in Elizabeth Andoh's new cookbook Kansha. The one She found most interesting used this…..

It was the recipe for Natto Okyaki, a natto pancake of sorts. The reason I'm not linking to the cookbook is that the recipe really didn't work out…it uses soy milk and only two tablespoons of soba flour. Needless to say it really never really firmed up. It tasted pretty good…maybe a bit bland, but really made a mess and looked, well not very attractive. But the seed had been planted….plus, I still had a good amount of Soba-ko left over. I decided to use my base okonomiyaki recipe, replacing cake flour with Soba Flour and using natto as the main filling. I liked the idea of using zucchini in Ms Andoh's recipe so I cut back on the cabbage. I didn't think dashi and natto would make such a great combination, so I used plain water. I had thoughts of making and incorporating mustard paste, but had the idea of using wasabi instead. I also added some soy sauce to add another layer of flavor. It tuned out pretty well. It's also a nice way of having natto if you've never had it before or want to eat it, but find the look, smell, or sight of it rather unsavory.

I used a half recipe, but made two smaller okonomiyaki. After doing the first with the standard katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes), okonomi sauce, furikake, etc…the Missus found She preferred it unadorned using a simple wasabi-soy sauce mixture for dipping……as the name says, "as you like it"……

Natto Okonomiyaki

Batter:
1/2 Cup Soba flour, sifted
1/2 Cup water or Dashi
2 TB grated Yamaimo/Nagaimo(Japanese Mountain Yam)
1 tsp salt

1 – Sift Flour into a bowl.

2 – Add Water, yamaimo, and salt.

3 – Mix to a pancake batter consistency(do not over-mix). The batter will be sort of a gluey pancake batter

Filling:
2/3 Cup finely shredded cabbage
1/2 Cup finely julienned zucchini
2 scallions green parts only finely sliced
1/4 Cup finely sliced red onion
1-2 Tb Benishoga
2 – 1 1/2 oz portions (usually styrofoam trays) of natto
1 Tb prepared wasabi
1 Tb soy sauce
1 Egg

1 – Add natto to batter and using chopsticks stir in a figure eight motion to separate the sticky beans and incorporate into batter
2 – Add the cabbage, zucchini, scallions, onions, and benishoga. Crack an egg on top and stir to mix.
3 – Add wasabi and soy sauce and gently incorporate.
4 – Oil up your pan and your ready to go…..

My original okonomiyki recipe can be found here. Have fun and make it "your way"! Just don't tell me not to use yamaimo, or to use a non-stick pan…..

I think this is the Missus' new favorite………..

The really nice looking duck breasts were calling out to me at Nijiya and I just couldn't resist buying them. This lead to something of a problem. The Missus doesn't believe that duck should ever be made without five spice….ever. In fact, until we got married, the Missus actually thought that duck naturally tasted that way! He-he-he…..five spice. While driving home I got the idea of doing the standard pan fry technique that I've used many times. I'd season the duck with salt, pepper, and a decent amount of the anise heavy, somewhat potent five spice we have from Qingdao. I decided to go with a glaze that is somewhat similar to what I make for Char Siu Lamb Chops and Chicken. The problem being, that was more of a marinade and glaze using sugar. I didn't want the texture of sugar, but wanted that strong Hoisin flavor. So I substituted mirin for the sugar, placed it over heat to burn off the alcohol flavor and added Kecap Manis, Honey, Hoisin, grated garlic, soy sauce, five spice, and ginger juice, reducing the glaze by about a fourth.

I cooked off the duck in the usual manner to render off the excess fat and crisp up the skin. At the end, I brushed on the glaze. Of course I spooned extra sauce on it….you can't have too much of it!

I served it with Purple Cabbage Slaw with Sesame Dressing and a namul like blanched watercress with a dressing made from rice vinegar, sugar, sesame oil, ground chili, soy sauce and water.

The Missus was taking a nap while I put this together…….

I did make an adjustment for the Missus' duck. The meat was pretty lean and much of the fat had rendered off….thus, it had a texture close to that of, say, venison. When I put together Her plate, I made thinner cuts on more of a bias. The Missus really doubted that I could make duck breast into something She'd enjoy…..but one whiff and one bite changed Her mind. And so things ended with the ultimate back-handed compliment; "it's much better than I thought you could do!" heh…..

 I'm thinking that we'll be eating a bit more duck breast round these parts……

As darkness settles in on our street…….

And all the Christmas lights come on in the neighborhood……..

We wanted to wish you a……

Very Merry Christmas!

"Man, that looks kinda ugly….."

"It does look a little bit like natto, huh. But it tastes so good!"

"I'm not sure I can do a post on this one….."

Such was the conversation the first time I made my Mushroom Risotto a couple of weeks ago. I guess it's somehow appropriate to do a post on my kinda fugly risotto. The Missus had been asking me to make this for quite a while. And while risotto isn't really hard to make, it's a pain in the butt to babysit. You don't have constantly stir it, but you do have to give it a mix about every minute or so. Of course, as soon I brought home the arborio rice, the Missus went to work with the content and conditions…. "No butter, absolutely no butter…..no chicken stock. It has to taste very mushroom-my….." and so forth. So what I did was first make a somewhat concentrated mushroom stock. 1 ounce of dried porcini mushrooms in three cups of lukewarm water. Luckily, I had been making quite a bit of mushroom dishes and had about a pound of maitake, oyster, shiitake, and other trimmings stems and such in the freezer. To this I added about a pound and a half of chopped crimini and white mushrooms. First thing I did was take a leek (sorry, couldn't help that one), actually two leeks, half an onion, and five cloves of garlic which I chopped rather roughly. I softened the onions and leeks in a good amount of extra virgin olive oil, then added all the mushroom parts and lightly stirred over medium heat until the mushrooms started giving off it's juices. I then added 1 cup of white wine and let the thing bubble away for a few minutes. I strained the porcini liquid saving the porcini for the risotto. I added the porcini liquid (make sure not to add any grit) to the mushroom mixture along with seven cups of water. Two tablespoons of concentrated tomato paste, a dash of Worcestershire, two bay leaves,two medium carrots chopped, fresh cracked pepper, dry oregano, and some dried thyme (believe me, I was trying to figure out how to use leek and thyme in the same sentence), and all I had to do was bring it to a boil, lower the temp to a simmer and leave it to reduce for about three hours or until it reduces by about a third. After it had reduced enough, I gave it a taste, it should taste good enough to eat on its own, adjusted the salt and let it sit overnight. Of course, with nothing much else to do, I decided to peel five bulbs of garlic and make garlic confit.Instead of olive oil, I used canola oil this time around.

The next day I strained my stock, which ended up being just a little over six cups. While I warmed this on the stove I chopped the porcini, minced the other half of the onion, and shredded about one-third cup of aged parmesan cheese. The really neat thing about risotto is that you're basically using the starch from the rice to thicken the rice to the consistency you desire. I prefer mine with not too runny and with the rice being nicely al dente. Things start out with adding some extra virgin olive oil combined with some of the oil from the garlic confit and adding the onions and five cloves of confit garlic which you can mash with a spoon. When the onions soften I added the rice (didn't measure – about 1 1/2 – 2 cups) and mixed to coat well then in went  half a cup of white wine  letting it bubble away for a minute or so giving it a couple of good stirs. Then in went 1 cup of water to get things started. I then set my kitchen timer on twenty minutes. I'll give everything a good stir about every 30-45 seconds or so. Stirring creates friction which causes the outer layer of the rice (the endosperm) to dissolve away in the liquid. This also causes the rice to absorb some of the liquid, but using an unlidded pan also means evaporation takes place. I'll add a ladle of the warmed mushroom stock as necessary. You'll be doing this over medium heat, so be careful to stir well…scorched risotto is not good eats! At about the 18 minute mark I'll start tasting, both for texture and flavor. when it looks like we're headed down the home stretch I'll add in the cheese, porcini, and adjust the salt and pepper. You'll end up using about six cups of liquid And there you have it. The first time I made this, I was juggling the risotto, doing a pan saute of some halibut, and making a tomato ragout….talk about a three ring circus! Meanwhile, the Missus, forgetting how much time was involved was getting ravenous. By the time everything was composed….well, She went through the dish faster than Sammy and Frankie would a pata bone. So with just a bit of it left and no photo opportunity, we had that little discussion above.

Later that night, as I heated up the remaining risotto, the Missus had an idea. Guess what? "Why don't you put a poached egg on top of the risotto?" Duh….. And it was pretty darn good…..so of course the Missus wanted me to make it again this weekend.

Topped with fresh cracked pepper, sea salt, some grated aged parmesan, and of course, white truffle oil…..

Here's the requisite running egg shot…..

Man this was good………

Even if it did look a bit like poop…….. or natto…..

Ever since I made the mushroom ragout with poached eggs, the Missus, already an egg lover has been requesting poached eggs at every opportunity. I've been trying to oblige though I sometimes wrack my brains trying to come up with stuff on the fly. Here's one of those on the fly recipes. Çılbır is a Turkish dish that features poached eggs on a bed of yogurt. I know it doesn't sound very appetizing to many and frankly I don't think my pictures do the dish any favors….I often have less than 10 seconds after plating the dish to get my photos taken.

A bit too much white on white, not quite the poster child for the National Egg Society or whatever it's called. This is a sorta recipe because I took what I believed was a base recipe and adjusted it to what I had on hand.

First off, you can't have that little oozy delicious poached egg lying in a bed of cold, hard yogurt, can you? We've been trying different brands of yogurt, and though nothing comes close to what we had in Greece and Turkey, I think Voskos plain is decent. Make sure you get something full fat with no starches or gelatin or other hardening agent in it I warmed the yogurt to almost room temperature using sort of a double boiler method. One eight ounce container of yogurt is enough for two (or more eggs). I added three mashed cloves of garlic confit (don't ask, that's another story), though perhaps I should have used raw garlic for a more pungent dish. Sage or some other dried herb is often used, but I don't usually have that on hand so I thought dried dill would be nice. I added about a half teaspoon of that to the yogurt sauce and simply made my bed of yogurt.

I also made an smoked paprika oil, it's usually kirmizi biber a ground chili in Turkey or Aleppo peppers. Also, butter is usually used, but the Missus has some personal problem with using butter in savory dishes…in pastries and baked goods its fine…..but no butter in anything I make. So I used a combination of extra virgin olive oil and some of the oil from the garlic confit.

Topped the whole mess with more dill and a touch of truffle oil and made even a bigger mess…..

Pretty delicious if you like runny eggs and yogurt.

Here's a gallery of the Missus's latest egg-nourmous obsessions…..first up are poached eggs on rosemary-olive oil bread from Con Pane. It's topped with porcini mushrooms, aged parmesan, and a bit of truflle oil.

This one is poached eggs on crispy polenta with a tomato ragout…..

I really should have made my own polenta, but this was a weeknight, so I went with the tube stuff. I used extra virgin olive oil and oil from my garlic confit, salt, pepper, you name it……it still was mediocre. The Missus loved the ragout though. Roma tomatoes helped by some double concentrated tomato paste, basil, sugar, garlic confit, and onions. Had barely five seconds to take this photo……it was history.

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great week! Any big cravings recently?