Strawberries, Balsamic and Cream
We seldom make dessert at home. I’m not a baker, and would rather prefer to spend my time cooking up savouries rather than sweet things. But the husband has a sweet tooth, and this has helped us get creative with some quick-to-make items that can easily satisfy that after-dinner craving. Continue reading
Porco com Amêijoas à Alentejana
Surf and Turf. Land and sea. Mar y montagña. A classic pairing that seems to always work so well… I’ve loved this dish for a while now, having stumbled upon the recipe posted on Leite’s Culinaria several years ago… but this dish it seems, has a long and venerable history, originating out of the Alentejo region in Portugal. The best description I’ve read of the region comes from this personal account by Miguel de Almeida at West Coast Cooking. His recipe is slightly different from the one I used; indeed, there seems to be an infinite number of variations one can take with this beautiful dish. At its base it’s hearty, easy and comforting; however, it doesn’t quite work well if you want to gin up a quick weeknight meal. You want a bit of time for prep and leaving the pork ample time to bathe in its marinade (overnight is ideal), so it’s probably best to attempt this over a weekend or when you’ve got some time.
Oh – and you’ll want to use some sort of stew pot or large-ish dutch oven for this dish. Continue reading
Tonjiru and Nanohana, Rice and Pickles
The Asian recipe for this week is Tonjiru – or, Japanese pork and miso soup with root vegetables. I’ve made it a couple of times and love its ease, tastiness and generally healthy (are pork belly and “healthy” allowed in the same context?) contents. I also like this soup since it’s so flexible, and you can add or subtract ingredients to your liking and taste. For instance, the version below uses sato imo, or taro root instead of potatoes, and omits goubou (burdock root). Instead of just using Akamiso (red miso), add a little of the sweeter Shiromiso (white miso) for balance. Also, the amounts below are estimates, so please adjust as necessary. The rest of the meal included nanohana no karashi, or broccoli rabe/ rape flower with mustard dressing, rice of course, and pickles. Continue reading
Farro with Morels and Spring Vegetables
Those of you who know us are aware that DD’s been an avid mushroom forager for a couple of years now. Through our friend Brian, DD became the proud owner of the seminal Mushrooms Demystified, Mycologist David Arora’s 976-page tome on possibly everything you may want or wish to know about mushrooms in the U.S.A., with a focus on the West Coast. DD also has Arora’s pocket-book-sized version, All the Rain Promises and More, and has liked it so much as an introduction to mushroom study that he’s given it as a gift on several occasions. Over the past 2.5 years, my husband has lovingly and obsessively pored over these now dog-eared books, and is pretty much able to identify many fungi based on observed characteristics (cap colour, kinds of gills, whether it stains when bruised, smell, etc.). DD has successfully foraged for our favourites – Porcini, Chanterelles, black trumpet mushrooms, even Matsutake and many other not-so-prized specimens in-between. Morels have been his white whale, and until this past weekend, efforts to find them have proved sorely unfruitful. But, thanks to Hank Shaw of Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, DD finally struck morel gold on Saturday. Continue reading
Goma Dofu at the Hug Hovel
How can a dish with no sugar in it be such a stunningly tasty dessert? We fell in love with a number of things while in Japan, one of them being a fantastic dish called Goma-dofu, or sesame dofu. It had a creamy, savory-nutty sweetness that was terribly addictive. Note that it’s not actually soy-based tofu though; it’s made of ground sesame seeds and kuzu starch, and makes for a great vegan dish. Kuzu (or Kudzu) is a perennial ornamental vine that’s a member of the pea family, and originally hails from Asia where its root starch is used primarily as a thickener for soups, stews, and sauces. In Japan it’s used in both savory and sweet treatments.
We ate a number of tasty goma dofu dishes while we were in Japan, and before we had even returned to the states I vowed that I would try to replicate it at home.
This is my attempt at Reid’s (of ‘Ono Kine Grindz) yummy bread pudding, posted last week. Reid’s recipe makes the pudding more custardy, but I wanted mine with a little more bread.
Sauteed Pea Sprouts
Note: I originally wrote this post on my old blog, delectation. I haven’t found a great way of easily porting old posts over, so I’m attempting this manual method for now. I’m also slightly editing and updating the post from its original.
I adore this vegetable. It is, without a doubt, my favourite green, the foodstuff which I am constantly craving if I go more than a couple of days without it. Some of the Chinese restaurants in the city offer pea sprouts. Sometimes they are indeed the sprouts themselves, tiny, thin-stemmed multitudes, like so many green needles, crisp and crunchy in fragrant garlic sauce. Other restaurants, such as Brother Seafood Restaurant on Irving and 19th, the Go-Go Cafe on Irving and 19th (note: now closed), and Ton Kiang on Geary, actually serve pea leaves (Ton Kiang lists them as “Snow Pea Tips” on their menu) — which I’ve come to prefer over the more traditional sprouts. If you’re near the Tenderloin, Ken’s Kitchen will deliver within a certain radius (i.e., Alamo Square). In the restaurants I believe they can also be called Tom Yau, or To Miao, or even Tau Miao.
