A-Z Project: E is for EDAMAME

As in: Edamame Dumplings in Miso Broth

Note: I originally was going to do an English Pea puree, ala the one stolen by Alex from Top Chef, but I forgot that peas aren't in season right now and I wasn't down with using frozen peas. So, we had a change of direction. I'll probably make the dish when peas are in season and post it up here just cuz I really think someone should steal the dish from Alex. Ya know: quid pro quo, douchebag.

Welcome back...

OK, I'm back. No excuses, no explanations, let's just pick up where we left off with this project, shall we? Good. Glad to be back...here we go...

I probably lost money trading you 6 months ago, ya little bastards

I'm a trader. I typically trade commodity futures, namely what are classified as the "grains." This includes corn, wheat, oats and soybeans. Don't ask: I don't know why soybeans are a grain either. So, I thought "if I'm trading them all day...why not cook them at night?" Brilliant! (Wait'll I pull this stunt with frozen concentrated OJ, pork bellies or live cattle) Granted, it's a little bit of a stretch to classify soybeans under "E" but we're using the Japanese name "edamame" which is how most people refer to them anyway so I'm OK with it, especially considering my affinity for Asian foods as of late.

I wanted to use them in as pure a form as possible so I chose a recipe for edamame dumplings inspired by the famous Buddakan in New York (it's on my list to try). Take a gyoza wrapper and stuff it with an edamame filling, steam and you're done. Simple, tasty, perfect way to showcase an otherwise plain ingredient.

The ingredients and recipe are fairly simple:
Edamame
Butter
Cream
Sriracha

Throw everything in the Cuisinart, puree, chill and the filling is done.

Q: what would I be without butter? A: about 170 pounds

The biggest pain was creating the dumplings. This is the 1st time I've tried making a dumpling to be steamed and I guess they didn't turn out badly, but watching me make the first few was a bit like watching a deer try and take it's first steps: awkward, but oh so adorable cuz he's trying so hard. After they were steamed, the edamame filling was bright green beneath the translucent gyoza skins and the photos really don't do the color justice; they were beautiful, if not maybe a bit of a grade school art project in terms of quality control and consistency.

I swear, I'll get the white balance right one of these days

How were they? Awesome. I served them in a simple miso broth and the results were great. Creamy texture, rich from all the butter and cream (maybe a bit overkill but still damn good) and a lovely edamame flavor with just a hint of heat and sweetness from the Sriracha. I will certainly be using this recipe in the future and maybe creating the dumplings won't be quite as clumsy. They're really more of an appetizer or dim sum sort of dish and making a main course out of them isn't advisable but with the miso broth you've got one hell of a 1st course to get you going.

 A wonderful soup course or dim sum item all the way

Next up: F. I have no clue what I'm doing yet but doing this dish got me jazzed to get back into this project so expect more frequent updates.

A-Z Project: D is for DAIKON

As in: Shrimp and Daikon Salad with Ume-Shiso Dressing

D wasn't that difficult, simply because I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head other than daikon. Sure, if I dug around I'd find dates or...whatever else starts with D...but I really wanted to do daikon so it was convenient.

 

Japanese radish by day, R&B star by night

What's up with daikon? (For the record, I think daikon sounds like the name of an R&B or hip-hop star but let's stay on track here) Daikon is a big white radish from Japan. It doesn't have a ton of flavor but I guess the fall and winter roots offer more flavor than those from spring and summer; bonus. It's a little peppery, firm and crispy and is just as good served raw as cooked. My first impression tasting it raw was a real crispy arugula flavor but not nearly as strong; the pepper is certainly there.

I actually pulled this recipe straight from Gourmet Magazine and cooked it exactly as written. Sidenote: it's becoming clear as I do this project that since I desire to cook unknown or little used ingredients I'll be utilizing more recipes than I initially intended. Maybe not exactly as written, but I'd rather use recipes over just forcing something to work with a recipe or preparation method I typically like to make. Imagine how delicious the grilled daikon tacos would have been!

 

Umeboshi paste, shiso leaves. Cue up The Vapors on iTunes

There's an Uwajimaya 2 miles from here so it was super simple to get everything. I love that place even though the local store is showing it's age big time and is about as haphazard as the playlists I create. But, it still retains that quirky, cozy, neighborhood market feel that has been part of it's charm since we first moved here in the early 90's; it's certainly nothing like the downtown location (which is super rad). I've always liked Japanese food and flavors and I find myself digging deeper into that cuisine more and more and having Uwajimaya close by makes it really easy to fall in love with food that many people shy away from simply because there's a lot of confusion about what to buy, how to cook it, etc.  Sushi and teriyaki aren't the only great foods from Japan, trust me...

Here's what I used:

Daikon
Shrimp
Mirin (Japanese sweet rice wine)
Rice Vinegar
Umeboshi plum vinegar
Umeboshi plum paste
Shiso Leaves
Soy Sauce
Brown Sugar
Vegetable Oil

Anyway, this was by far the easiest preparation yet. Basically, it's just thinly sliced daikon with grilled shrimp and a simple dressing based on umeboshi (they taste pretty much identical to plums if you ask me). That's it. If it took me 20 minutes preparation to make this entire dish I'd be surprised. But, it tasted fantastic. The daikon has a faint peppery taste and the dressing was deliciously sweet with umeboshi and the taste you just couldn't put your finger on had to be the shiso leaves. The super crispy texture of the thinly cut daikon (thank you mandoline slicer) paired with the firm shrimp made this unlike your typical soft and squishy lettuce-based salad with a protein, but in a really good way.

 

Plating change, still good looking

The flavors were great, it looked really nice and it was wicked easy to prepare which by my scoring makes the "D" dish a big success. I will certainly be making this salad again and would recommend this to anyone looking to expand your culinary horizons and sample some flavors not very common in our typical diets.

So, onward to "E" and for any Top Chef fans from this last season I don't think I need to tell you what controversial ingredient we'll be using.

A-Z Project: C is for CHANTERELLES

Nicole of Readily Edible fame (fantastic blog...go check it out...often) was in town and somehow this project came up in conversation. I indicated that C was a real tough letter with so many great choices out there.  Crab, corn, chorizo, coffee, carrot, clam, chevre, chives and myriad other ingredients made choosing one really difficult. She threw another into the mix: chanterelle mushrooms as they're both local and currently in season. Thanks, Nicole; that really helped me narrow it down.

But this got me thinking: why settle? Why compromise and just choose 1 ingredient? Sure, I had to choose an "official" one to put in the title (we're going with chanterelles, BTW) but this post is going to be a C MONSTER of sorts as we build a dish as plentiful in C ingredients as the PNW is plentiful in Subarus (likely my next car...but that's another post). I already had this dish in mind but why not just throw another C in there for good measure. We're making a wonderful crab, chanterelle and corn chowder garnished with crème fraiche and chives. How's that for not compromising?

As will be the case with many of the 26 star ingredients, I don't cook with them often if at all; chanterelles are no exception. I've cooked a few pastas where you throw a bunch of wild mushrooms (chanterelles included) in good EVOO, sauté them up and flick them up off the lip of the pan whilst sprinkling in some red pepper flakes and sea salt with intense focus and wow your date who now thinks you're Jamie Oliver without the cheeky accent (<--great visual, Bryan) and it goes over famously....but I digress. Long story short: I've never cooked just chanterelles.

What's so special about chanterelles? Well, they're local and in season but more importantly they pair very well with both the sweet corn and the crab and love to be cooked in a fat; bonus! They're a wild mushroom so they're automatically going to have that earthy and rich flavor unlike typical button mushrooms but they're also a bit sweeter and have a very nice flavor; magic things happen when you let them meet the naturally sweet crab and corn in the creamy chowder base to make everything that much better.

Ingredients:
Chanterelle mushrooms
Crab meat (dungeness)
Corn
Potatoes
Leeks
Onions
Celery (another C ingredient...meh)
Butter
Heavy whipping cream
Stock (chicken...it's easy)
Bacon (THE bacon, of course)
Crème fraiche
Chives (for garnish)

 

This is what corn should look like

OK, there are a few things in this world you need to do when cooking, no matter what. When cooking corn on the cob, throw it on the grill, PERIOD. Don't boil it, don't nuke it, don't use any other cooking method. Inclement weather be damned: use the grill. Oh, and you better get a char on a healthy portion of the kernels or you're doing it wrong...trust me on this: I'm a professional, and I most likely enjoy cooking/eating corn more than you.

This chowder is all about the animal fat. With copious amounts of butter, cream, bacon and crème fraiche it's a United Nations of fat but damn does it taste GREAT. The combo of sweet corn that's smoky from getting charred on the grill (method to the madness, people) along with the salty and smoky bacon, veggies cooked in the rendered bacon fat, earthy & rich chanterelles and finally the uber-sweet crabmeat all swimming in a creamy pool of awesomeness is...well...awesome. I considered using clams but crab is so much better and when I think PNW I don't think clam chowder; SF or Boston can have that claim to fame, we'll claim crab. Dungeness crab has quickly become one of my favorite proteins and up here it's just out of this world good; I doubt I'd have fallen so hard for it being farther from the source.

Preparation was tedious but not difficult; time consuming is more like it. Overall I think I cooked it well and my efforts paid off with a damn good chowder on a cold and windy late fall day. It was maybe a bit TOO sweet but the bacon reminds you that it's still got plenty of savory goodness and the chanterelles certainly brought a great deal of flavor and I'm stoked to have added them to this dish. That'll do, Bryan.

D should be easier...

Chow.

A-Z Project: B is for BUTTERNUT SQUASH

As in: Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Crispy Chorizo

There are a few letters in this project that are gonna be tough choices like kicking someone off Top Chef with only 3 left. B is one of those letters. Since I'm trying to stick with seasonal ingredients/dishes as much as possible I decided to go with butternut squash. I really wanted to do bacon for B but c'mon; probably 1/2 the savory dishes I'm going to create will involve bacon so no need to highlight it. Beef was considered, buffalo, beans, blackberry, blood orange...the list is deep, that's for sure. But, butternut squash was gonna be a good choice. It's an ingredient I never cook with, it's local/seasonal, there are good recipes out there for it, so I went with it and have no regrets. But damn: how could I pass up bacon like that?

There are a ton of recipes out there for a classic butternut squash soup so I just made my own. The components of a soup like this are pretty simple and as with anything it comes down to how everything tastes so we're gonna wing it.

What I really wanted in this dish was something to compliment the butternut squash. A soup like this is good but it could really do with some help; help from something that's say...oh, I don't know...not a vegetable?? Enter chorizo. Lovely, spicy, cured  chorizo. I could have done chorizo for C but C is quite possibly the most difficult letter in this project in terms of narrowing down the choices. More on that in the next A-Z post. Let's get back to the task at hand.

The soup is a pretty simple list of ingredients: butternut squash, celery, onion, carrot, stock, fresh thyme. Roast the butternut squash until it's fork tender then scoop it out and throw it in a stock pot with the other veggies you sauteed while the oven was doing it's roast thing, add some chicken stock, boil it for a few minutes and you're done. Next is the fun part: immersion blender. Blend it up until it's silky smooth, serve it up with the chorizo you crisped up in a fry-pan and you've got a damn good dinner.

I'm really pleased with this soup. It was crazy simple but as with most simple things, it was delicious. I really enjoy the balance of opposites in a dish; it really makes each individual ingredient that much better. The onions and butternut squash were really sweet but then throw in the uber-salty and spicy chorizo and it was heaven. The crisped up chorizo also played nicely with the really silky smooth consistency of the soup so that was an added bonus.

Oh and I screwed up the photo shoot on this one. The camera was dead from a day of shooting when I went to snap photos of the cooking process so I plugged in the battery and got enough juice for a couple photos and really only liked the one you see here; next time you'll get more...promise.

I'd give you the recipe, but frankly I don't really have one. Just make your own; it's ultra-easy and pretty hard to screw up. I do highly recommend roasting the butternut squash, though, as it really pulls out that sweetness and the edges near the skin get caramelized and intensify the sweetness of the butternut, which as Martha would say "is a good thing."

Not looking forward to the hard decision that will be the letter C.

Until next time...

Chow

A-Z Project: A is for APPLES

Well, here we go.

It's deep into fall, here in the PNW (Pacific Northwest, if you're not in the know) and I actually think it's fall everywhere else in the Northern hemisphere, though I never knew it for the last 9 years living in SoCal where it's perpetually stuck somewhere between late spring and early fall year-round. The leaves are setting a spectacular backdrop of red, yellow, green and orange across the azure sky as the cool fall breeze sets them in motion and the technicolor leaves flutter to the ground and create a blanket of color just waiting to be raked up and jumped in. Yeah, I dig fall in case you didn't read between the lines over the last couple sentences.

What says fall in the PNW more perfectly than apples? Nothing. So, we're using them as the 1st ingredient. It is low hanging fruit and I could have gone with asparagus or arctic char or artichokes? Sure, but apples are way cooler and more versatile and I like cooking with them so there. After seeing Bittman's podcast devoted to scones a couple weeks ago and then stumbling onto this recipe I decided it was a sign that scones were the delivery vehicle for the 1st ingredient in the project.

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen and was instantly intrigued: apples and cheddar cheese in a scone? It was sort of a freakshow which means you just have to check it out and I'm glad I did. I followed the recipe pretty much as-is (it's baking, after all) but my big substitute was for Beecher's Flagship as the cheese. Again, we're in the PNW so let's use local ingredients as much as possible; you will undoubtedly see this cheese again before the end of this project as I fell madly in love with it the first time I tried it. I also used whole wheat flour (eh, wish I used all purpose instead) and opted for the goldencrisp apples we just picked up over the go-to cooking apple the Granny Smith.

How were they? Awesome. The savory from the cheese, the sweet from the sugar and the apple, the tartness, it really worked. I'm not a baker (more a candlestick maker, myself) and I don't know how much I'll be baking throughout this project but these were a big success.

So, it's on to B. No clue what I'm doing just yet but there are some good ideas floating around that I'm looking at. There are still some kinks in the process, the kitchen is a total PITA for taking photos with the incandescent lighting and other little things I'd like to work on but I'll probably get it all nailed down by Q maybe M if I'm lucky.

Chow.

Let's Cook From A-Z, Shall We?

This should be fun.

I love to cook. I love gimmicks. I'm a crafty, creative mofo, far more than my choice of occupation would lead you to believe. With that said, I have a fun new project I'm embarking on.

I will be cooking a main dish (or side dish, which will really be the showcase item) from A to Z, in order. I'm not going to cheat and serve 3 items and knock 3 letters off the list at a time because that's just lame. Some letters will be a bitch but I'll make it work, trust me. It's going to take some time but it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm sure I'm not the only person that's ever done this but I'm the first person I know that's done it, so that's something.

I won't use simple low hanging fruit (C is for Corn) but will use it as the inspiration for a dish (C is for Corn Chowder with Chorizo and Chiles) that hopefully showcases the specific food item beautifully. The point here is to showcase a specific food in a dish, not just reference that it's in there. No, they won't all be alliterative as in the previous example; that would be a bit too kitschy, even for me.

I will be photographing the project as best I can with the Nikon and hopefully providing some beautiful photography along the way with some delicious dishes and good narrative to make it interesting. Oh and for the most part I don't use recipes when I cook I just sort of make it up as I go, just as you should when cooking; it's art, not science, people. With that said, if I use a recipe or base my dish off a particular recipe I will be sure to post it but don't expect much. If you've ever cooked with me or I've cooked for you, you know what to expect.

So, hang tight and very shortly we'll be posting the 1st dish both here and on Facebook.