under10

Quick and spicy Chinese cabbage tsukemono or pickle (Hakusai no sokusekizuke)

maki — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:44:50 +0100

This has to be one of the easiest and tastiest ways of preparing Chinese or napa cabbage (hakusai) that I know of. All you taste is the fresh essence of the cabbage, with the heat of the red pepper and the slight twist of the orange zest.

Did I say easy? Wash and chop up the leaves, mix together the flavoring ingredients, dump all in a plastic bag, shake then massage. That’s it. It’s ready to eat right away, though the flavors to meld a bit better if you can manage to keep it in the fridge for at least an hour before eating.

I’ve used ingredients that anyone should have, even if you aren’t stocked up on typical Japanese ingredients. Adjust the amount of red pepper flakes up or down to your taste.

Quick Chinese cabbage pickles (Hakusai no sokusekizuke)

About 2 lb / 1 kg (a small whole head or half of a large head) fresh Chinese (napa) cabbage (about 6 cups cut up)
1/2 tsp vegetable stock granules (or about 1/2 a Knorr-sized stock cube)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. orange zest in thin strips
Optional: 1 tsp. lemon juice
Optional: 1 tsp. dark sesame oil

Equipment needed: a large plastic zip bag

Wash the cabbage leaves, and discard any discolored parts. Dry by spinning in a salad spinner or in several layers of paper towels. Chop up roughly.

Mix together all the dry ingredients and orange zest in a bowl. If you’re using a stock cube, crumble it up finely.

Put the cabbage in the plastic bag, and the dry ingredients + orange zest. Close the bag with plenty of air in it (so it’s like a balloon) and shake all around until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Open the bag, expel as much air as you can, and close again. Massage and toss the bag around, bruising the cabbage. Quite a lot of moisture will come out of the cabbage and melt the salt etc. Try not to burst the bag with over-enthusiastic kneading.

You can eat this right away, or leave in the refrigerator in the bag for about an hour (you can do it over night too).

To serve, drain off the excess moisture (which is delicious, but rather salty…though some people like to drink it off!). Drizzle with the optional lemon juice or sesame oil. Serve with any Japanese style meal. Makes a great bento box item.

Broccoli with wasabi sauce (wasabi-ae)

maki — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 12:48:47 +0100

All hail the mighty broccoli. While it’s always available in the produce section, it’s one of the few fresh vegetables that haven’t been shipped halfway around the world to reach people who live in many parts of the northern hemisphere during the colder months. In the spring we even get very locally grown broccoli and its relatives like romanesco.

Broccoli can be rather boring if it’s just served steamed, boiled or, god forbid , raw. (I’m sorry, I don’t really get raw broccoli. Raw cauliflower yes, but not raw broccoli.) A way to perk up broccoli without relying on those yummy yet caloric additions like mayonnaise, cheese sauce or garlic-and-olive-oil, is to make aemono or ohitashi with them. Ohitashi is basically vegetables that have been steamed or blanched/boiled served with a sauce that contains soy sauce, often but not always a little dashi stock, and sometimes a bit of sake or mirin and sugar. Aemono uses a similar sauce, with added ingredients like ground up sesame seeds. In this recipe, the sauce contains wasabi, so it’s aemono.

As long as you have all the ingredients on hand it’s very quick to make, and very tasty. The sinus-clearing qualities of the wasabi are softened by the other ingredients in the sauce, while still giving the broccoli a nice, bright flavor.

It makes a great side dish as part of a Japanese meal, or even a salad. It’s also a very nice bento item (you may want to contain the sauce in a paper cup or its own container).

Broccoli with wasabi sauce (burokkori no wasabi ae)

4 to 5 cups (one small head) cut up broccoli, the flower part broken into small pieces, the stem part peeled and sliced thin
Salt and water for cooking
2 1/2 tsp. wasabi powder, reconstituted to a paste with a few drops of water
4 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. sake
1 Tbs. sugar or sweetener of your choice

Bring the water and salt to a boil. Cook the broccoli until it’s crisp-tender and still a bright green in color. Drain, and refresh very briefly with cold running water. (Note: you can skip this step if you’re not in a hurry and have time to cool the broccoli.)

In the meantime, mix together all the remaining ingredients except the wasabi in a small pan, and stir over a low heat until the sugar is melted. Let cool, and add the wasabi, reserving 1/2 tsp or so. Mix well until the wasabi is dissolved.

Pour the sauce over the broccoli and mix well. Serve at room temperature or chilled, optionally with a little additional wasabi on the side for people to mix into the broccoli as they eat it (if they really like wasabi).

Notes

You can, in a pinch, use frozen broccoli.

While using fresh grated wasabi root is ideal, powdered wasabi is fine for this dish.

Use less wasabi if you find it too strong.

You can turn this into a one-dish meal by adding some protein of your choice, such as blanched and cut-up tofu, or poached and shredded chicken breast. The sauce is great with either.

Righteous tofu pudding in under 5 minutes

maki — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:32:28 +0100

One of the things I like to do with tofu that didn’t quite come together is to turn it into a pudding. Now I do not pretend to you that this tastes like a proper pudding or mousse made with cream and such, and if anyone tries to convince you that a tofu based dish like this is ‘just as good/rich as the real thing’ they are either lying or have no taste buds. It’s different, but still good. It’s a lightly sweet, cool and creamy dish that will quiet a sudden urge for Something Sweet. Since it’s quite healthy it will leave you feeling righteous, thus the name.

It’s also a dish that you can whip up in no time at all. I realize that many of the recipes here take a lot of time, effort or both, and I’m going to try to rectify that. Look for recipes with the quickcook or under 10 tags.

Righteous tofu pudding

1 cup of mashed up fresh tofu (a small block of either silken or firm tofu, or a mixture)
3 Tbs maple syrup, sugar, or sweetener of your choice (see notes)
Flavoring: a few drops of vanilla extract, almond extract, or 2 Tbs. cocoa powder (optional)

If the tofu seems a bit watery, squeeze it lightly in a non-terry cloth towel or several layers of paper towel.

Place the tofu, sweetener and flavoring in a blender and blend until totally smooth. If you don’t have a blender, push it through a fine meshed sieve or mash it up as fine as possible with a fork.

Serve cooled with optional extra syrup, honey etc. on top if you so desire. The one in the photo is flavored with maple syrup with additional maple syrup on top.

Notes

Try to use a superfine sugar - granulated may be a bit gritty. You can of course use an artificial sweetener.

Silken tofu will make a rather loose pudding, while firm tofu will make a more substantial pudding.

Maple syrup tofu pudding

maki — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:00:15 +0100