vegetables

Shopper's Guide to Pesticides iPhone App

maki — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:42:42 +0200

3 years ago, I mentioned a handy list of produce ranked by how much pesticide is used to grow them. The higher (=more pesticides) the ranking, the better it would be to stick to organically grown.

I recently got a new iPhone (yes…I’m the very opposite of an Early Adopter of tech gadgets) and discovered that the same list is available as a free iPhone app called DirtyProduce. Here’s a screenshot of the opening page:

It doesn’t do much beyond list the Dirty Dozen (the most heavily pesticide-treated fruits and vegetables), the Clean 15 (the last pesticide-used) and the full list of 47 produce items, but it’s handy to have around with you. Who knew for instance that peaches were the most pesticide-laden fruit or vegetable? I tend not to peel my peaches, and I ate, oh I don’t know, a few tons of them over the summer. I may start peeling them next season, or look for non-treated ones.

Anyway, if you do have an iPhone, take a look. And if you don’t, there is still the PDF list to print out and carry in your wallet.

EWG Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides

Nasu no miso dengaku: Japanese slow-roasted eggplant with dengaku sauce

maki — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:02:04 +0200

It’s still summertime, but I can feel the cooler days of fall coming, especially in the evenings when the temperature is dropping just a bit more than it did a few weeks ago. This is one of the best times of the year for food lovers, especially if you love vegetables.

Eggplants (aubergines) are in high season now and will be around for at least another month or so. While you can get them year-round, they are at their best of course in their natural season.

This is a classic Japanese way of serving eggplant, and it’s really easy. All you do is to slowly roast the eggplant until tender, either in the oven or on the stovetop in a frying pan, then serve with a glossy, salty-sweet dengaku (田楽）sauce. I could eat this every day, with a bowl of plain rice and some cold mugicha to wash it down.

Recipe: Slow roasted eggplant (aubergine) with dengaku sauce (nasu no miso dengaku 茄子の味噌田楽)

Serves 1-2, depending on what else is served at the same meal.

1 large, round or 2-3 small, fresh eggplants. Try to get ones with thin skins.
Olive or sesame oil

For the dengaku sauce:

3 Tbs. miso. Here I’ve used a haccho miso (八丁味噌）with some texture to it, but any miso you like will do. See Japanese miso primer.
1 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. sake
1 Tbs. mirin
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. olive oil or sesame oil
water

Prepare the eggplant, according to the type:

If you’re using a big round one: Cut off the blossom end, and reserve to use as a decoration.

If you are using a big long one (e.g. the standard Italian or American type eggplant): Take off the blossom end (optionally reserve for use as decoration) and cut the eggplant into thick slices crosswise, or into half lengthwise. (Note that I don’t recommend this type of eggplant for this, since the skin tends to be rather tough. Choose one of the other kinds if you can.)

If you’re using a small thin Asian-type eggplant: Cut in half lengthwise, keeping the blossom end on for decorative purposes.

Rub the cut surfaces of the eggplant with a little sesame or olive oil. Roast it in an oven at 200°C / 400°F, cut side down and tented with some loose foil until tender (the time depends on the size of the eggplant, but it’s about 10 minutes for a small eggplant, 30 minutes for a big eggplant, with the slices somewhere in between). It’s tender when you can pierce through easily with a skewer. You can try cooking the eggplant in a toaster oven too, but I haven’t tested this myself so you’re on your own as to timing and so on.

Alternatively, you can slow-roast the eggplant in a dry frying pan. Place cut-side down in a non-stick pan, and cover loosely with some aluminum foil. Pan-roast until tender over medium-low heat, turning once. This method is especially suited for small eggplant - it takes 5-10 minutes and doesn’t heat up the kitchen as much as the oven method.

While the eggplant cooks, prepare the dengaku sauce. Combine all the ingredients in a small pan, and set over low heat. Mix the sauce vigorously with a wooden spoon, until the sauce turns glossy. Adjust the consistency by adding drops of water. It should not be too runny, but should flow thickly, rather like a thick ketchup.

Serve the eggplant warm, coated with sauce.

About dengaku sauce

Dengaku (田楽 - the characters mean ‘rice paddy’ + ‘harmony’ or ‘music’ or ‘play’) is a classic miso based sauce. There are many variations, but the basics are the same: miso with sweetener, a little oil for adding gloss, and sake and/or mirin for added flavor. Sometimes a little soy sauce is added, or dashi stock instead of water, or even MSG. My version comes from my mother, of course, and is quite simple.

You can make dengaku sauce in quantity and keep it in a closed jar in the refrigerator, but I don’t bother since it’s so easy to make fresh. If you do make it and store it, warm it up a bit before using.

Dengaku sauce is terrific on other grilled or roasted vegetables, firm tofu, blanched konnyaku, and so on. It’s a bit sweet for my taste for serving on meat and fish, but you can try it out!

Add spice to dengaku-sauced foods by sprinkling on some shichimi tohgarashi (7-ingredient pepper, see Essential staples of a Japanese pantry).

Big, fat, round eggplant

These are the eggplants I used for the version at the top of the page, bought at my favorite farmer’s market in Provence:

You might be thinkng, “But Japanese eggplants are small and thin and cute!” Well the standard ones are, but in Kyoto (the home of Japanese haute cuisine) there is a variety of eggplant that is similar to the one in the photo called kaganasu （加賀茄子）- big, round, and quite thin-skinned. Here’s a photo of one.

There’s nothing like the combination of juicy, soft eggplant with that sweet-salty, thick dengaku sauce. Wait, I think I need to go to the market today…

Other favorite eggplant recipes from the archives:

Japanese country style stewed eggplant (nasu no inakani)
Steamed eggplant with spicy peanut sauce
Grilled eggplant and mushroom miso soup (you can make this just with eggplants)
Ratatouille

Postcards from Southwestern France: Gazpacho or cold soup, Cassoulet, Albi, Moissac, Conques

maki — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:04:28 +0200

We left Provence this week for a little trip to the Midi-Pyrénées in the southwestern part of France. We’ve been trying to save money by cooking at home most of the time since we started our nomadic existence in France (see previously; not that that’s much of a hardship, since the produce and other foodstuffs in Provence are spectacular). But this week we’ve been staying in an apartment in a 17th century townhouse right around the corner from the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in the heart of Albi, the capital of the Tarn Department. Since there are tons of great little restaurants here, we’ve been indulging ourselves a bit.

One thing I have noticed while eating out a lot more is that many places are serving little cups of what they usually call gazpacho, as an amuse bouche or as part of the entrée (appetizer). They are basically cold soups, made with various vegetables. I’m not sure this is a regional custom, but it is very nice regardless. Here’s one we had the other day in the small medieval town of Moissac, as an amuse-bouche. It was basically a cold tomato juice, but very nice and refreshing.

Here’s another kind of gazpacho - a cold melon soup, served as an amuse bouche also. It was just pureed melon with nothing added I think.

Here’s another one, served as part of an entrée. This time it was a cold sweet pepper soup.

Here’s a more classic gazpacho, made with tomatoes and cucumber, served in a tumbler. This was a full entrée portion.

Finally, here’s my favorite - it was merely described as a gazpacho des legumes (vegetable gazpacho). It was a cold vegetable soup; I tasted sweet corn, maybe carrot, celery, and so on. I know gazpacho purists may shake their heads, but it was really refreshing and delicious. It was one part of an amuse bouche - the other part was what you see on the spoon in the back, a piece of rough paté with a tiny bit of chutney. The combination was really nice.

Once we get back ‘home’ to Provence, I think I am going to start more meals with a little cold soup of some kind. It’s really a great start to a summer meal.

Cassoulet and more food from the region

The most famous regional dish is cassoulet, the hearty dish made of white beans and loads of hearty (fat!) meaty bits, such as duck, sausage, and - fat! I’ve had cassoulet elsewhere many times before, and made it myself, but the the way they make it here is really much better in my opinion. Here’s a relatively light yet still rich version that we had at a restaurant with the adorable name of La Fourchet A Droite (The Fork (is) to the Right) in Albi. The abundance of fat just makes it unctuously creamy rather than greasy. I liked it so much, I’ve managed to have it twice so far…and am contemplating having it again for dinner tonight! (Actually cassoulet is supposed to have originated in the town of Castelnaudary, which is about an hour from Albi. I think I need to come back here when the weather is cooler and more conducive to enjoying piping hot bean-and-meat casseroles.)

This is a Pastis Gascon, a speciality of the Gers region, also in the Midi Pyrénées. It’s a pastry made of many layers of phyllo dough, and is filled with Armagnac-soaked and caramelized apple. I’m not sure I totally love it, but it is so pretty to look at.

I much preferred this pie though. It was filled with poached apricots and served with a sour cherry sauce and rich vanilla ice cream. Gorgeous! This was dessert at the meal that started with the gazpacho des legumes amuse bouche pictured above, at the Hotel Sainte Foy in Conques.

A little more Albi, plus Conques and Moissac

Albi is a fairly large town, but very mellow, and not crowded at all, even though it is the hometown of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and has a fine museum dedicated to him, not to mention a big, fortress like cathedral, beautiful riverside views, a quaint old town and more. The town is built of red brick, which is a gorgeous pink-rose color. Here it is in the early morning…

…and in the late afternoon…

Here’s the inside of the large Marché Couvert (covered market) in the center of town. It has several produce stalls, a fish stall, bakeries and pastry shops, and a lot more. It may not be quite as awesome as the larger markets in Provence, but it’s still quite good. We bought stuff from here for the meals that we ate in.

I loved this little store, called L’Artisan Pastellier. They sell clothing, accessories and other products made from the blue Pastel dye that was highly prized in Europe until indigo was imported from India. The blue is softer than indigo. They also sell art pastels, watercolor paints and other art supplies, mostly made with vegetable based dyes. Their web site.

We also made side trips to the medieval towns of Conques (that’s a photo of Conques up at the top) and Moissac. One reason why I brought my mother here is because she’s been rather obsessed by the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostella, and Conques and Moissac were key stops. Both are beautiful places, though Conques is quite touristy. Moissac is a bit more relaxed I think. The Gothic cloister there is breathtaking.

If you’d like to see photos, they are all on my Flickr.

All in all, we really enjoyed our week here, even though the heat was stifling for much of it. (It felt a lot more humid than Provence, though that may just have been an anomaly.) I don’t think I would choose to live here full time over Provence, but I think I’ll try to come back here again in the cooler months - for, you guessed it, more cassoulet.

Vegetable Tempura

maki — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:24:41 +0200

I’ve never really been good at making tempura, the quintessential Japanese deep fried dish. My mother’s tempura has always been terrific - crispy, light, and not greasy at all. So, taking advantage of her extended vacation here this year, I drilled her properly on how she makes tempura.

Her method does not rely on special tempura flour (cheap in Japan but expensive or hard to get a hold of elsewhere), or other recently touted additions like vodka or other high-alcohol liquor, so anyone should be able to do it. Just follow the key points listed below.

Point no. 1: Use the freshest ingredients you can find

The light tempura batter is meant to enhance the flavors of the vegetables or shrimp or squid and so on that is being fried, not mask it. So the fresher your ingredients are, the better your tempura will be.

Point no. 2: Dry the surface of the ingredients completely

This is a point often missed in other directions for tempura. In order to keep the tempura batter crisp, it’s important to make the surface of the things you’re frying very dry. My mother cuts up her vegetables at least half an hour beforehand, and spreads them out in a single layer on kitchen towels or paper towels and puts them near a sunny window. (Since this article is about vegetable tempura I’ll leave the subject of how to prep shrimp or squid for another time, but squid is actually allowed to dry out for several hours in the refrigerator, and shrimp is patted dry with kitchen or paper towels.)

Point no. 3: Use ice cold water for your batter, and don’t mix it much

The flour in tempura batter is just there to hold the other ingredients together. It should not be allowed to develop gluten, which leads to heavy, doughy batter. Therefore, you should always use ice cold water with ice cubes in it for the batter, and not mix it too much. A few ice cubes and lumps of flour floating in the batter are fine - they won’t stick to the food you’re dipping in the batter anyway.

Point no. 4: Don’t overcrowd your oil

You should keep the frying oil at a constant high temperature. If you put too much in at once, you will lower the temperature, which can make the tempura soggy and oil-logged.

Point no. 5: Don’t make too much at one time

At a tempura-specialist restaurant, your tempura is fried right in front of you and served immediately. They only fry a little bit at a time. That’s the ideal way to do tempura. At home, you could stand at the stove making individual portions for everyone else, but if you don’t want to do that just make a small batch at a time and try to eat it immediately, even if you have to stand up again to fry another batch. (This is why I think tempura is really ideal as an appetizer, rather than a main course, in Western-style meal structures. It’s easier to make appetizer-sized portions and eat it right away.)

Point no. 6: Don’t fuss with the tempura once it’s in the oil

There’s not need to keep flipping over your tempura over and over. This just lowers the surface temperature unnecessarily. Let the hot oil do its work! Just flip over once if needed.

Point no. 7: Drain the oil very well.

If you hold the tempura piece for a few seconds just above the oil, with a bit of the end still in the oil, the oil will drain off a lot better. Then transfer the tempura piece to the draining setup that is explained later. Some people transfer the tempura to a second draining setup (with fresh paper, etc.) to drain off even more oil

With these points in mind, here is my mother’s tempura recipe.

Recipe: Vegetable Tempura

For 2 main dish or 4 appetizer portions

Use whatever seasonal vegetables you have. These are what we had in late June in southern France. See the end for some other vegetable suggestions.

1 small sweet potato
2 small eggplants/aubergines
About 9 baby zucchini, or 2 regular sized zucchini
8 green shiso leaves
1 medium carrot
A handful of green beans

For the batter:

1 egg
A jug of ice water
3 Tbs. cake flour or all-purpose flour (not bread flour)
1 Tbs. corn or potato starch

Oil for frying (My mother prefers rapeseed oil (natane abura 菜種油). You can also use sunflower, corn or peanut oil.)

Cut the sweet potato into rounds with the skin on. Take the blossom end off the eggplants, and slice into wide strips lengthwise. (If you have a fat Western style eggplant, cut into rounds as with the sweet potato.) Leave the baby zucchini whole, just cutting off the blossom ends; cut regular zucchini into wide strips. Leave the shiso leaves whole. Cut the carrot into matchsticks. Leave the green beans whole, just cutting off the tops and tails.

Spread out the cut vegetables into a single layer on kitchen or paper towels, and leave to dry out on the surface for at least half an hour. The uncut baby vegetables and so on should not need to be dried, but should be totally dry on the surface.

Just before you are ready to start frying, mix up the batter. If your egg is a ‘small’ size, use 250 ml of ice water (or 5 times the amount of egg). If you have a ‘large’ egg you’ll need a tad more water. Mix the egg and water together, then add the flours, mixing rapidly with chopsticks or a fork. Do not try to get rid of all lumps, and floating ice cubes are fine - they’ll help to keep the batter cool.

Pour the oil into a suitable container, no more than 1/3th of the way full for safety. A tip here: Use a heavy pot that retains heat well. A cast iron enamelled pot such as Le Creuset is ideal. In Japan, most people deep fry in a wok - a proper wok made of iron is good because it retains heat well. Don’t use a cheap thin pan. For very small amounts you can also use a frying or sauté pan with fairly high sides. (Neither of us owns a dedicated deep fat fryer nor do we want to make the space for one in our kitchens.)

Heat up the oil. You can use a thermometer if you like, in which case you should heat up the oil to about 175°C or 350°F. Otherwise you can see if the oil is hot enough by dropping a bit of batter in the oil. If the batter blobs drop down and them come shooting up to the surface immediately, the oil is hot enough.

Make ready a large plate or tray lined with newspapers covered with kitchen towels, or a draining rack.

Larger pieces or whole vegetables should be dipped in the batter individually; smaller pieces like the matchstick carrots or the green beans are usually fried in little bundles, dipped in the batter and then into the oil with chopsticks. Start with the more delicate vegetables first, such as the shiso leaves, which only take a few seconds. Proceed to the harder vegetables, ending up with things like the sweet potato slices. Don’t overcrowd the oil pot - be patient, and only do 3 to 4 pieces at at time!

The amount of time each thing should be cooked depends on the vegetable. As mentioned, very delicate thin things only need a few seconds, while hard vegetables need a few minutes. You’ll learn how long things need to be fried by experience, but if you’re not sure just take a piece and cut or bite into it.

Drain each piece on the prepared draining plate or try. Don’t stack the pieces on top of each other, or the pieces underneath will just soak up the oil from above!

Serve tempura when it’s piping hot, for maximum crispiness.

How to present tempura

Tempura is often served on a piece of absorbent paper called a kaishi (懐紙), folded attractively. You can use a piece of plain, unprinted paper with absorbent qualities, such as untreated drawing paper (which is what I used in the photo above), plain white paper napkins, and so on. Otherwise, just arrange it attractively on a plate.

What to serve with tempura

For vegetable tempura, my favorite condiment is just some sea salt, sprinkled on. You could add a few drops of lemon juice too, though this isn’t traditional. You can also use tentsuyu, which is just a slightly thinned out version of soba tsuyu or soba dipping sauce (thin out with a bit of dashi stock). Grated daikon radish is often added to tentsuyu.

Leftover tempura

Leftover tempura can be crisped up in a toaster oven or regular oven. Just spread out in a single layer and bake for about 5 to 10 minutes until it’s a slightly darker shade of brown.

Japanese people love soggy-on-purpose tempura too, especially in the form of tendon, which is just tempura on top of rice with some mentsuyu poured over it in its simplest form. Tendon is best made with freshly fried tempura, but you can use leftover tempura too.

What vegetables can you use for tempura?

Basically, anything that is in season can be used. Harder vegetables should be cut thinner or smaller so that they cook faster. Some examples, both traditionally Japanese and not so traditional:

Traditional:

Sliced onions
Green onions, cut into about 1/2 inch / 1cm pieces (fry in little bundles mixed with matchstick carrots)
Green shiso leaves (red shiso is too bitter)
Chrysanthemum leaves and shungiku
Green beans
Snow peas
Sweet potatoes (the white or orange kind)
Eggplant/aubergine
Kabocha squash
Shishito peppers (slightly spicy)
Burdock (gobo)
Carrots
Fava beans (soramame)

Not very traditional:

Green asparagus - cut into about 2 inch / 4 cm lengths
Parsley leaves
Sage leaves
Thai basil
Watercress
Arugula (rucola/rocket)
Green peas
Zucchini
Slightly unripe, firm tomatoes (cut into wedges and deseed)
Potatoes (cut into rounds or wedges)
Sweet peppers (cut into strips)
Jalapeño peppers (whole or cut into half and deseeded)
Firm banana (cut into chunks) - I’ve never tried plantain but that could work too

My Mother's Simply Braised Spring Vegetables with a hint of Japan

maki — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:52:08 +0200

Here’s another recipe from my mother. She just told me the recipe, and the reminiscences, verbally, (she says the recipe is too simple to write down!); I’ve written it down in the first person, from her point of view.

When I was young and Makiko and her sister were small, Makiko’s father was sent to England by his company. After brief stays in London and Kent, we settled in Wokingham, a small town in Berkshire. (Nowadays I have heard it’s grown a lot bigger.) This was in the 1970s, when we had to go all the way to London to buy basic ingredients for Japanese cooking, like soy sauce. Making any kind of Japanese food was a struggle.

I grew some Japanese vegetables that I really missed, but had no chance of buying even in London at the time, in the garden of our rented house - things like shiso, mitsuba, shungiku, komatsuna, daikon and gobo (burdock). [See a dozen Japanese herbs and vegetables to grow - maki] I didn’t know anything about gardening, so when my gobo and daikon weren’t nice and straight, but were stubby ugly things with multiple roots, I wrote to my mother (international phone calls were so expensive then) in tears, asking her what to do. She wrote back so many times with detailed instructions - she was an avid gardener with a real green thumb. I still have those letters.

As I gradually adjusted to life away from Japan and my family, I became better at using local ingredients and adapting them to Japanese methods. This very simple summer braised vegetable dish is one recipe that I came up with during those years, that I still make every summer. It doesn’t even use dashi, which is standard in so many Japanese recipes. It uses vegetables that are available in Europe in early summer - new potatoes, green beans, peas, and carrots. The umami comes from the fresh young vegetables. Japanese cuisine is first and foremost about using seasonal ingredients, so to my mind, this is a very Japanese way of cooking.

Recipe: Simply Braised Spring Vegetables

This makes about 4 servings as part of a Japanese meal, to accompany rice, miso soup and one or two other dishes. You can also serve it alone or as a side dish to meat or fish.

To get the best flavor, it’s very important to use the freshest, preferably organic, vegetables you can find.

10-12 small new potatoes
2 small or 1 medium carrot
1 small onion
About 1 cup of shelled green peas
A large handful of green beans
1/2 Tbs. soy sauce (well she said ‘shu-shu’ (drizzle-drizzle), which I’m extrapolating to be about 1/2 tablespoon! - maki)
Salt (good sea salt is preferred)
Extra virgin olive oil, or other good flavorful oil (I use olive oil because you can get such wonderful olive oil here in the Provence, but you can also use sesame oil, walnut oil, and so on.)

Wash the new potatoes, and cut in half if they are big. Scrub and cut up the carrots into chunks. (Don’t peel the carrots - there’s a lot of flavor in the skin!) Dry both well in a kitchen towel.

Cut the onion in half, then slice against the grain (parallel to the root - as you would if you are cutting onion rings). Cutting against the grain ensures that the onions will cook faster.

Cut the tops and tails off the green beans, and cut in half. (If you have old fashioned green beans, take off the strings too.)

Heat up some oil in the bottom of the pan over medium-low heat. Put in the potatoes, and sauté while shaking occasionally until they are turning brown. Add the carrots about halfway through, and continue sautéing. This requires some patience, since it takes about 20 minutes or more.

Drain away any excess oil at this point. Add the sliced onions to the pan, and sauté some more until the onions are transparent and limp.

Add a small amount of water, just to about halfway up the potatoes. Add a tiny pinch of salt. Make an otoshibuta (drop lid) with a piece of aluminum foil, by crinkling it up so it fits on top of the vegetables in the pan, then poking a couple of holes in it with a chopstick. This otoshibuta ensures that the vegetables will cook evenly.

In the meantime, cook the green beans and peas in boiling salted water until crisp-tender. (Put the green beans in first, then add the peas for a couple of minutes.) Drain and set aside.

When the potatoes are tender (test by poking with a chopstick or fork) add the soy sauce, green beans and peas. Simmer for a few minutes longer while shaking the pan so that the flavors are evenly distributed. The water should be almost completely gone.

This is best served warm, but is also good at room temperature.

Optional: Add a little bit of sake or mirin near the end of the cooking process. This gives the vegetables a little added flavor and shine.

Tip: Sautéing vegetables in oil before stewing or braising

You will notice that this recipe calls for sautéeing the potatoes and onions in oil before braising. While most people know about sautéing onions and garlic to bring out the flavor, not many do this to other vegetables. Sautéing vegetables before cooking further brings out the flavor and sweetness in them. To prevent the final dish from becoming too oily, I always drain off any excess oil before proceeding further, as I did here.

I send Happy Earth Day greetings to you all with pictures of virile vegetables

maki — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:03:12 +0200

Spring onions! Look at those virile roots.

Fresh, still-moist garlic!

Artichokes! Oh my, what artichokes!

What better way to celebrate Earth Day than with local, organically grown vegetables?

How to cook lotus root (renkon)

maki — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:53:53 +0100

(From the archives - since all of a sudden, a lot of people are asking about lotus root! Originally published in April 2008.)

Lotus root (renkon in Japanese) is actually the rhizome of the lotus plant. It’s a popular vegetable throughout southern and eastern Asia, but it’s still not that well known in the west. Lotus root is full of fiber and various vitamins and other nutrients. In Asia it’s believed to have various medicinal qualities, but in macro-nutrient terms it’s best to think of it as a starchy vegetable, like potato. Visually of course, it’s very appealing with all those little holes. Here I’ll explain how it’s prepared and eaten in Japan.

How to prepare lotus root

First off, this is how a raw lotus root looks like. You can buy them at an Asian (South or Eastern) grocery store. More often than not they will be vacuum packed. A nice fresh one is a light orangey-brown. The older the root the browner and darker it is.

Mature lotus root has a sort of slightly bitter or tannic quality, so should not be eaten raw. (Apparently young lotus roots can be eaten raw, but I’ve never encountered them unfortunately.) The bitter/tannic substance is most concentrated in the skin, so you should peel it. Inside, it’s a light flesh color.

(Another way to deal with a raw lotus root is to steam it whole, but peeling and slicing is easier for beginners.)

Raw lotus root will start to darken almost right away, rather like raw potato. To prevent this, put the peeled lotus root in water with a little vinegar in it. If I slice it up, I put the slices in the vinegar water.

If using the slices for a salad, or for any dish that has no further or very little more cooking, they should be boiled for a couple of minutes in vinegared water. This retains the crunchy texture but gets rid of that tannic-ness.

You can also buy lotus root in cans, which can be used straight away. However, many canned lotus roots have been bleached to make then whiter, so I prefer to use raw lotus root if I can find it. (The natural color of lotus root is a very light flesh-orange.)

Changing textures

Depending on how long it’s cooked, the texture of lotus root varies from crunchy to very starchy and a little sticky. I like it either way. Here are two ways of using lotus root in its crunchy stage.

Recipe: Lotus root, cucumber and Serrano ham salad

1/2 lotus root, sliced very thinly and the slices cut into halves
1/2 English or seedless cucumber, de-seeded and sliced thin
1-2 slices of Serrano or other dried ham, cut into thin slivers
1/2 Tbs. rice vinegar plus additional for cooking
Dash salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 Tbs. mayonnaise

Put the sliced lotus root into vinegar water as you slice it, as described above. Bring a pot of water to a boil, and add a little vinegar. Boil the lotus root for a couple of minutes. Drain and cool under running water; drain well.

Mix the vegetables and seasonings except the mayonnaise together well with your hands, scrunching them a bit to let the flavors penetrate. Add the mayonnaise and ham and mix well. Serve immediately, or cool in the refrigerator until dinner time.

Recipe: Stir-fried lotus root with sesame and green onions

1/2 lotus root, sliced very thinly
1 piece of fresh ginger about 1 inch / 2 cm or so long, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloved, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 cups of roughly chopped green onions
2 Tbs. hot red chili pepper, finely chopped
Oil
Vinegar for the lotus root water
1 Tbs. sesame seeds
Pepper
1 1/2 Tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. sesame oil

Put the sliced lotus root into vinegar water as you slice it, as described above. Drain well just before cooking.

Heat up a large frying pan with the oil. Add ginger and garlic, and stir fry until the oil is very fragrant. Add the drained lotus root slices in a single layer. Cook until the lotus root slices start to change color - they turn a bit translucent looking. Turn over and cook a couple more minutes.

Add the chili pepper and green onions, and stir-fry. Add the sesame seeds, pepper, soy sauce and sesame oil. The lotus roots should get a bit caramelized from the soy sauce. Serve hot or cold. This is very nice for bento.

Other ways to eat lotus root

Lotus root mini-cakes with sweet chili sauce. This uses the starchy, sticky quality of grated cooked lotus root.
Lotus root slices poached in dashi and vinegar - a very traditional Japanese dish
Cut up and put into soups or stews - the longer it’s cooked, the more starchy it gets
Deep-fried or baked as chips (these baked ones on jugalbandi look great)
With a batter as tempura
Sandwich some meaty filling inside and pan-fry (hasami-age)

Variable Roasted Vegetables (an everyday favorite)

maki — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:29:07 +0200

Following up on the previous post where I asked about your favorite go-to everyday dishes (keep your ideas coming!) I thought I’d introduce some of mine. The posting of them may be sporadic, since I’ll be taking pictures and things when I actually made them for dinner.

First up is something that is very easy to assemble, quite healthy, cheap, as seasonal as you want it to be, and almost infinately variable. It’s simply roasted vegetables. I make this all the time, throughout the year, using whatever vegetables I have. It’s a good refrigerator-clearer too.

This is not really a recipe, but a sort of generic formula for roasting vegetables.

The basic roasted vegetable formula

Prep time: 5-10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes + 10 minutes

Preheat the oven to 225°C/ 440°F. Make ready one or two baking sheets

For a well-rounded one-dish meal, I use this combination:

1 part starchy vegetables, e.g. winter squash or kabocha, sweet or white potatoes, lotus root, other starchy roots.
1 part a combination of aromatic vegetables, e.g. onion, leek, garlic, shallots, fennel bulbs. I don’t use ginger for roasting since it turns hard and horrible (though you could use grated ginger). Herbs are a nice addition too.
1 to 2 parts other vegetables. Here you can use anything that is not too watery. Vary this by the season. In spring you might use asparagus or spring cabbage; in summer zucchini other summer squash, eggplants and peppers; in the fall or throughout the year, cauliflower, broccoli, turnips, rutabaga, daikon radish, brussel sprouts…whatever you like.

The harder and more solid the vegetable, the smaller and thinner you should cut it. Alternatively, you may want to pre-boil it for a few minutes. Lotus root and taro roots require parboiling, and if you parboil white potatoes, when you roast them they will be nice and crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

For every 4 cups of combined vegetables, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil or other oil, salt and pepper, and mix well. Spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet, and bake/roast for about 15-20 minutes.

Take it out and give it a stir around. At this point you can add some toppings - see below for suggestions. Roast for another 5-10 minutes.

Toppings and additions

This is a great side dish to a main protein like steak or roast chicken, but it can also be a complete one-dish meal by adding a protein rich topping. Some suggestions:

Cheese! Feta cheese is my favorite for this, but any cheese you like will do. Add at the stirring-up stage.
Plain whole or chopped nuts. Walnuts, almonds and pecans are especially suited for this I think. Add at the stirring-up stage to avoid burning
Miso-tahini paste with walnuts (go easy on the salt on the vegetables if you use this) Add at the stirring-up stage.
Cooked chickpeas or other beans - add at the beginning
Cut up sausage. If cooked, add at the stirring-up stage; if not, add at the beginning
Leftover meatloaf, crumbled up, with a sprinkle of cheese - add at the stirring-up stage

A couple of combination suggestions

A flowery vegetable combination: Broccoli florets, cauliflower florets, artichoke hearts, tiny potatoes or chunks of regular potato, chopped garlic, rosemary. Toss all with olive oil; top with some gorgonzola cheese.
A fall vegetable combination (the one pictured in the photo): Winter squash (kuri squash or Knirps used in the photo), fennel, leek, broccoli, garlic. This can be topped with cheese or Miso-tahini paste with walnuts.
A root vegetable combination: carrots, daikon radish, sweet potato, onion, garlic. Toss with olive oil and some red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Optionally top with feta or other cheese, or go the sweet way and top with some sugar or honey.

Japanese country style stewed eggplant or aubergine (nasu no inakani)

maki — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:43:59 +0200

[Update:] I’ve added photos to show how to cut the eggplant.

It’s hard to take an appetizing picture of this eggplant (aubergine) dish. But I promise you that it’s absolutely delicious. Plus, it’s so simple to make, requiring just 6 ingredients and water.

I found it in an old Japanese cooking magazine, which had an even worse photo of the dish than the one here. I was a bit sceptical but had bought a too-big batch of eggplant at the market, and wanted a way to use some of them up. I am so glad I tried the recipe, because it’s now one of my favorite ways to have eggplant. And it’s vegan too.

There’s a saying in Japanese, akinasu yome ni kuwasuna (秋なす　嫁に食わすな). It means “Don’t let your daughter in law eat fall eggplants”. People debate what the intent of this saying is; does it mean that fall eggplant are too delicious to feed to the daughter in law, who was traditionally the lowliest member of the family? Or perhaps it’s a thought of kindness, since eggplant is supposed to be a ‘cooling’ vegetable, which is not good for a pregnant or fertile young woman. Either way, there’s no doubt that eggplant is particularily delicious in late summer to early fall, when they usually produce a second crop after a first one early on.

Country-style stewed eggplant (nasu no inaka ni 茄子の田舎煮)

I’ve adapted the recipe so that you can use large Western style eggplants as well as thin Asian-style ones. (Large Western style eggplants are known as American eggplants in Japan for some reason…maybe because anything oversized is associated with the U.S.!)

6 thin Chinese or Japanese style eggplants or 2 large Western-style eggplants - choose ones that are shiny, unblemished and hard
2 small hot red chili peppers
Salt
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar (For the sugar-wary, a sugar substitute should work fine)
Sesame oil or regular vegetable oil

Cut the eggplants in half. Make thin slit cuts in the skin side of the eggplants about 3/4 down, so that they stay attached at the bottom. (This makes the cooking liquid penetrate the eggplant evenly, and also looks much nicer than plain chunks.) If you are using big Western style eggplants, cut in half again lengthwise; if using Asian style thin ones, you don’t have to do this. Cut into chunks crosswise.

Here you see the slits are cut into a section of a large Western style eggplant. They are made from the skin side and go almost, but not quite, to the bottom. If you cut too far, not to worry - you are going to cut it up into chunks anyway.

Once you’ve made your slit cuts all the way down the eggplant, cut into chunks (cutting down through one of the slit cuts you’ve made). Then, if you are using a fat eggplant, cut lengthwise so you end up with quarter-chunks like this. If you are using a slim Chinese or Japanese eggplant, you can leave them as half-chunks.

Put the cut eggplant in a bowl of salt water (about the saltiness of water you’d cook pasta in). Put a bowl or plate on top as a weight to completely immerse the eggplant pieces, and leave for about 20 minutes. This gets rid of any bitterness in the eggplant, as well as making it easier to cook.

In the meantime, de-seed and finely chop two small red Thai chili peppers.

Drain the eggplant, and squeeze out the water. Heat up a pan with oil - you can use all sesame oil, all vegetable or olive oil, or a mixture. (Sesame oil will add a nutty flavor.) Sauté the eggplant slices until they are a little limp and coated with oil. Add the chili pepper near the end.

Put into a heavy bottomed pan, and add enough water to cover. Add the soy sauce and sugar, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer. Put an a pot lid that’s smaller than the pot (that fits inside the pot) on top of the simmering eggplant, and let simmer for about 20-30 minutes until limp but not falling apart. Let cool in the cooking liquid - it absorbs more flavor as it rests.

This keeps well for a few days in the fridge, well covered, immersed in the cooking liquid. It can be eaten hot or cold, though I think it tastes best when it is warm, eaten with a fresh bowl of rice. If you want to use it for bento, try draining off the liquid before packing.

Otoshibuta, or that small lid-inside-the-pot thing

I’ve used a small lid that fits inside the pot right on top of the simmering food. This is called an otoshibuta. Traditional Japanese otoshibuta （落としぶた）are made of wood, and I’ve sometimes seen people on some forums insisting on the necessity of a wooden otoshibuta. To that I say, nuts. Otoshibuta literally means “dropped lid”, and is put on top of cooking food so that the food cooks evenly. I usually just use a one-or-two-sizes smaller pot lid, but you can also use a heatproof plate completely wrapped in aluminum foil or kitchen paper, with a twisted ‘handle’ sticking up for easy of removal. For some delicate foods a simple layer of kitchen cooking paper or aluminum oil placed on top would be enough.

Corn on the cob with butter and soy sauce

maki — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:32:50 +0200

I have to admit that I’ve been quite taken aback by how popular the new potatoes with butter and soy sauce recipe has been. Butter and soy sauce are so familiar to me as a tasty combination that I hadn’t quite realized that it would be new and exciting to a lot of people.

Anyway, here’s another extremely simple yet delicious way of using this magic combination on another summer vegetable - sweet corn. Here in Europe, eating corn on the cob is a relatively new custom imported from the U.S. - corn around here is either dried and ground up (as polenta and so on), or used as animal feed. So it’s not always possible to buy great, very fresh sweet corn. This treatment can perk up even an ordinary supermarket-bought corn on the cob, and will really shine with corn that you’ve just picked from your own garden.

Corn on the cob with butter and soy sauce

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 360°F.

Unhusk and de-silk the corn.

For every ear of corn, use about 1 to 2 Tbs. of unsalted butter. Soften the butter, and smear it all over the corn, so that it goes into all the crevices.

Wrap each ear of corn in a large piece of kitchen parchment paper (aluminum foil will work too), twisted each end tightly as if you were wrapping up a big piece of candy. Place the wrapped corn on a baking sheet. Make a small opening in one seam and pour in about 2-3 tsp. or so of soy sauce, and roll the corn around a bit to distribute the soy sauce.

Bake for 15 minutes, then turn over. Bake an additional 15-20 minutes.

Serve each ear of corn on a big plate, wrapper and all. Each person opens up the paper to eat the corn. Here’s how a wrapped one looks next to a partially unwrapped one.

The butter will have penetrated into the corn kernels, while the soy sauce adds a great salty-yummy flavor. (You can dip the corn as you eat it in any residual soy sauce in the paper.)