Monthly Archives: September 2010

Actually, its not a kimono, its a yukata: more informal, easier to wear for big blond beginners like me! And in fact, I’m not simmering chicken meatballs at all when this foto was taken, I was snapped on my way back from the outdoor hot baths on the Japanese island of Kyushu. The hot springs bubbled up into a pool surrounded by rocks; the night was freezing and while you can’t see my feet, be aware that they are tucked adorably into little wooden sandals!

And while i wasn’t simmering my dinner when this pic was taken, in fact whenever I make a dish with strong Japanese flavors, I always FEEL as if I’m wearing my yukata-kimono: I feel exactly as I look in the photo!

The dish is simple; one I make in a million variations, inspired by a hot-pot of chicken meatballs and vegetables I ate somewhere along the way: the chicken mixture came to the table in a bamboo-tube; when the broth boiled, someone at the table, whoever wanted to, spooned the chicken mixture into the bubbling broth; it made meatballs! there was also a plate of mixed vegetables: Napa cabbage, sprouts, onions, broccoli. Since I’ve been back from Japan I make variations of this whenever I yearn for something cozy, light, and quick.

You can use ground turkey in place of the chicken; and while i had a lovely cache of fresh shiitakes, you can use dried–just be sure to presoak in boiling water for about 30  minutes before using, and cut the stems off if they are tough!

Broccoli, Shiitakes, Chicken Meatballs and Miso

Serves 4

Meatballs:

12 ounces ground chicken (or turkey)

2-3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

2 green onions, thinly sliced

(if you have edible chrysanthemum leaves, coarsely chop those and add them; alternatively you can use a few tablespoons chopped arugula, a few leaves of shiso, or even cilantro, chopped)

Several generous shakes soy sauce

1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil (optional)

1/2 chicken bouillion cube or 1/2 teaspoon chicken bouillion powder (optional)

1 medium-large carrot, shredded

For the soup-stew:

4 cups chicken broth

1 teaspoon chopped or grated fresh ginger

6-8 ounces fresh shiitakes, or dried, soaked until rehydrated shiitakes (stems removed if tough)

1 small to medium head broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets and stems

4-6 heaping tablespoons shiro miso (white miso; the light, sweet, pale yellow one)

Combine all of the meatball ingredients; mix well. (note: a little cornstarch or potato starch gives a smoother effect, but I prefer the all meaty vegetable mix for the taste of the meatballs, and also for its flavoring of the soup.)

Heat the broth in a large saucepan; when it comes to the boil, reduce heat to a simmer, then add the ginger, and  spoon in walnut-sized nuggets of meatball mixture.

When meatballs are partially cooked through, add the shiitakes, and broccoli florets. Cook all together for 5-7 minutes or until the broccoli are bright green, the mushrooms and meatballs cooked through.

In a small bowl mix the miso with a few spoonfuls of the soup to smooth it out. Stir it into the pot, remove from the heat, and ladle into bowls. Sprinkle a little green onion onto each bowl, and eat on with a spoon and chopsticks, on a cold damp night, in your favorite kimono or yukata….

Whenever i forget how special Savoy cabbage is, i just remember how blown away i was last year in Champagne, eating the potee Chamenpoise: the grape-pickers soup-stew, a big pot of meats with carrots, leeks, and tons of Savoy cabbage.

The Savoy cabbage was so tender and silky, its frilly edges slightly textured with each strand tasting like the meat and vegetables they cooked with. The cabbage was juicy with the broth, and lightly sweet with the natural sugars of the vegetable itself; I’ve been a Savoy cabbage devotee ever since. In fact, right now i’m spooning up delicious cabbage soup.   someday, someday, i’ll have my foto-skills up-to-date and can share everything with you AT THE VERY MOMENT i’m making/eating/enjoying.

Meanwhile, i’ll tell you how this soup came to be in my pot, and in today’s bowl: Last night, after going through the fridge, and with a view towards low-carb, low-cal, and about 5 min start to finish, I made turkey meatballs: 1 lb ground/minced turkey (with a few spoonsfuls taken out and cooked for the pooches!) mixed with 2 cloves garlic, 1/2 chopped onion, 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, a little turmeric, and about 3 tablespoons shredded carrots. Rolled up up into walnut-sized morsel-ettes, then layered them in a pot with whole leaves of Savoy cabbage, sliced onion, and a couple celery stalks, cut up. Chicken broth up to the top, with a sprinkling of turmeric, then simmer simmer simmer until meatballs were cooked through. I went over the 5 minutes mark with this, but didn’t encroach on the 15 minute mark!

The meatballs were delicious; to eat, i  lifted them out of the broth and ate them with broccoli and shiitakes in miso. soothing, comfy, low cal and carb!

But TODAY is what i want to tell you about: TODAY i looked at that broth, then i tasted it, and whoa: delicous! cut the cabbage into bite sized pieces, and added a little more for good measure, then cooked it together til the new cabbage was tender. The broth is amazingly rich from the meatballs and golden from the turmeric, tasting like turkey and garlic and carrots; but that cabbage: what can i say? Star of the show.

Go make those meatballs for dinner tonight–so that tomorrow, you too can have that next-day welcome to autumn soup!

I have been in love with Slanted Door shredded salads since the very first time i lifted my chopsticks from their bowl to my mouth: such exquisite little shreds, so crisply cut, so lightly brightly dressed! I felt the same way at my first bite of banh mi: such vibrant delicacy in those sweet-tangy shreds! Since then, in my own kitchen i have been trying to replicate such beautiful salads, starting with the cutting of the vegetables.  I started with ordinary shredding,  using a handheld shredder which turned the vegetables far too juicy and mushy, indistinct. Next was the shredding attachment for my food processor, which had a similar effect; finally, my own–ahem– knife skills. I’m not saying that they all didn’t work, i mean, the vegetables got cut into the right shape and size, but…and there is a big but….the salads didn’t sparkle. Could that be the result of the vegetables cutting? I studied pre-shredded vegetables in the supermarket and gave them a try: they were the right sort of shape and size, but they just didn’t dazzle with freshness. they were perfectly adequate, i mean i could dress em up for coleslaw, but they didn’t make me want to dance.

i realized that to cut my vegetables into that combination of silkiness, crunchiness, crisp and tender, i’d need…..ulp…..a mandoline. A mandoline is a scary, dangerous little mini-guillotine for vegetables: you hold your veg firmly–strongly recommended that you use a hand guard–and rub it up and down, so to speak. With each passing of the vegetable over the blade, you get paper-thin delicate slices or julienne, depending upon which blade you are using. The blade and its size are all adjustable. A good mandoline will start at around a hundred bucks. The Japanese also have a similar one, made from plastic, that one should run you about 20 dollars and does an equally gorgeous job.

In pursuit of my elegant shredded vegetables, which will give me endless low calorie, high vitamin and fiber munching, and exquisite salads and relishes, I’d need one. A hundred dollars is too much for this free-lance foodwriter, so I bought a Japanese one. Beautiful green plastic! happy pictures on the box! but when i opened it up i got so terrified at the blades and their lethal looks that i put it away, high on a shelf, wrapped and double wrapped then in a box, if i had had a lead box i probably would have used that too….i had to put it somewhere that no one would stick their hands in and grab it, or that it would fall out and hurt the cat, or my doggies.

and there it has stayed, while my asian vegetable salads are beyond humdrum, and that tantalizing crispness has seemed an impossbility. And then….

THEN i got a press release for an OXO hand-held julienner/shredder. And I replied: send me one, Please!

okay, it too sat on my shelf  for a little while, during which time i tried to screw up the courage to actually use it.

Yesterday, bravely, i gathered my vegetables: peeled carrots, celeriac, cored red cabbage, peeled potatoes, trimmed courgettes. I started with the carrots; it took awhile to get the hang of it. I held the carrots at first, pushed them up and down, through the viscious little blades, then when my fingers got precariously close, I put the handguard on and finished up the job. Not too difficult, though admittedly a food processor much quicker! But how beautiful these shreds! how pristine and crisp! I proceeded on to the celeriac, and then the red cabbage; i was surprised at the cabbage, because the shreds are tiny pieces almost like a fine fine chop; but instead of losing their character, they retain such crunchy-ness that each tiny teeny morsel was complete in itself. As for the celeriac, i’m pretty sure that this is the way i’ll be making my celeriac-caper+preserved lemon salad from now on: the shreds are so light that even with mayo added they don’t get all cloggy sticky mushy!

To the combination of carrot+celeriac+red cabbage, I added several thinly sliced green onions and a few sprigs of fresh mint, thinly sliced. Then i dressed the whole thing in rice vinegar, sugar, and soy sauce; it tasted as if the Slanted Door had open up for business in my kitchen.

Then i shred a peeled potato, tossed it with a little salt, and fried it into a roesti-like pancake in extra virgin olive oil until crisp on each side. It was divine.

Today i returned to the kitchen for more salad: more carrots and celeriac, and white instead of red, cabbage. To the mix of green onion and mint i added thinly sliced red and orange peppers. So refreshing!

Then I shredded zucchini to add to today’s potato roesti, am right now shredding a few sour apples in lieu of green papaya for another Asian salad, and am poking around the kitchen looking for more things to shred, julienne! I feel like Edward Sizzorshands but with a hand held julienner instead, turing my world into a more beautiful place, one perfectly shredded carrot at a time, one bowl of salad closer to nirvana.

Crisp Asian-y Vegetable Bliss

Serves 4 as part of a multicourse dinner, 2 as part of a more informal dinner, and one for a couple of lunches and a snack.

2 medium to large carrots, peeled and trimmed

1/4-1/2 celeriac (celery root), peeled (or equal amount of either mooli–daikon–or jicama)

1/4-1/2 tight red cabbage

Rice vinegar to taste–about 2-3 tablespoons

Soy sauce or fish sauce to taste–about 1 tablespoon

Sugar to taste–about 1-2 tablespoons (and I confess: i often use Splenda or Stevia for such salads–they are a wonderful opportunity for low calorie eating, so why add the extra sugar?)

4-5 green onions, thinly sliced

About 2-3 tablespoons worth fresh mint, thinly sliced

1. Using your hand held julienne-er, or other mandoline or similar tiny guillotine slicer, grate first the carrots into the bowl, then the celeriac and cabbage. You’ll need to be careful when you’re doing the cabbage because your hand may well slide around a bit, the layers of cabbage are prone to moving as you slice; you’ll want to put the hand guard on as soon as you are able.Also you will probably have pieces and slices of cabbage interspersed throughout your mixture which at fist upset my feeling of precision, then i realized that i really like the varied result.

2. Combine all of the vegetables in a bowl, dress with the vinegar, soy or fish sauce, and sugar (or other sweetener), then toss in the green onions and mint. Serve!

Variation:

Today’s salad:

white cabbage instead of red, cilantro instead of mint, and add 1/2 each red and orange peppers, thinly sliced.

Google Alerts has just whispered in my ear that the New South Wales Australia library system has 18 copies of my book:  Peppers, Peppers, Peppers! Wow. I only have one copy myself–out of print in Europe and the USA, its hard to get your hands on, so if you are in Australia, go and check it out: I LOVE libraries, don’t you: you can walk in, BORROW  a book, read it, love it, and in the case of a cookbook, cook from it!

So delighted am I at the reappearance of my book, pepper x 3, i’m going into the kitchen right this minute and roasting a pile of peppers: red, yellow and green. Its the simplest of recipes, one you can nibble as a snack, tuck into a sandwich, toss into pasta, mix with grilled aubergine/eggplant, its kind of the most versatile and simple roasted pepper anywhere. Also, you can do it with mild large chillies, leave them whole, then stuff them with meat, or cheese, or eat them cold, filled with guacamole or tuna salad. To be honest, I think i could write a book devoted to recipes using these roast peppers; but that would be a whole cookbook; or another blog. on second hand, why not just start here with the inspiration, and take these peppers into your own kitchen life: be happy together!

Next time I promise fotos: right now my camera has issues.

Tangy Roasted Peppers for All Meals and Occasions

Makes a nice little bowlful, enough for maybe 4 people; you can double or triple or multiply this endlessly: its only a matter of roasting, charring, peeling, and dressing with salt, garlic, a dab of vinegar.

4 peppers, red, yellow, green, orange, etc, whole

3 cloves garlic

sprinkling of salt

About 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1. Place the peppers on top of a gas stove or under the broiler/grill; over medium high flame char lightly then move a little bit to char another side of the pepper, until each of the peppers is charred evenly. Once they were beautiful, shiny, smooth and bright: now they are blackened and wrinkled. But thats the way they are meant to be.

2. Put the blackened peppers into a bowl or plastic bag; seal tightly and leave to cool.

3. When cool, peel the peppers, saving any smoky juices that have gathered from the roasted peppers. Using a paring knife or your fingers, brush and peel off the charred skin; discard the skin, and remove the stem and seeds from the pepper. If using whole place in bowl with reserved juices; if slicing, say to eat as an appetizer antipasto, slice them.

4. Toss with the garlic, salt and vinegar. Leave for up to 2 weeks. They are delicious immediately, but I think at their best after two days. No olive oil in the recipe: I like to drizzle it over the top just before serving: use a nice strongly flavoured one, and drizzle accordingly to your desires and delight!

Here’s how i’m serving them tonight: with goats cheese and a sprinkling of Greek basil–the tiny-leafed, enchantingly fragrant type of basil.  Tomorrow, I’m having a birthday party for Bee, my favourite 92-year old. She drives a little red Mini–and she drives it fast!– has an enviable social life, and an inspirationally robust appetite for food and wine. I’m thinking of tossing the peppers in pasta with olives and maybe, just maybe, making a little porchetta. Dessert will be banoffi pie, with a big big candle on top!