Japadog meets K-pop

A nice couple weeks, it's been. Lovely weather, lots of delicious cooking, but nothing really noteworthy that I can think of. I guess I could show you the nettle risotto I made, but I've already blogged that (though this time I made it with ham instead of lemony chicken or artichokes or somesuch). Besides, everyone blogs risotto-y things this time of year. Steaks with roasted tomato mac and chee is also all well and good, but not anything new.

The weather has been so nice that I've been in the garden nearly every free minute. Free minutes, though, are relatively rare these days, as Zeph fussily teethes and his naps have become somewhat longevity-challenged. Therefore, I'm a little ashamed to admit that we eat the odd hot dog and tots dinner (washed down by either root beer or beer beer). And since I still have that pile of Korean pickled things staring me down every time I open the fridge (but no pickle relish or sauerkraut, oddly), I figured, why not make some Korean relish? It'll be kinda like those Japadogs Scott and I had in Vancouver that one time. Besides, if people go nuts over those bulgogi tacos why can't I bastardize someone's culture with a hot dog?

I coarsely chopped doraji (that spicy balloonflower root) and oijangajji (those spicy cukes) and added a little furikake for some seaweed and sesame kick. Relish done. And for the coup de grâce, I made my new favorite condiment: gochujang mayo. I got the idea from Japadog's Misomayo, but since I was going Korean with this I used gochujang instead. I did also add a little shiro miso for sweetness, and smeared on thick, this is the best hot dog I've eaten in memory. The hot dog was a Nathan's 100% beef (like we care!), but I wouldn't kick a kurobuta frank outta bed either. Daikon sprouts woulda been lovely, too, but I didn't miss them too badly as I shoveled this into my maw while standing over the kitchen sink. Manidŭseyo!

Serve with a crispy wheat beer (I really like Rogue's Morimoto Soba Ale these days) and rice crackers.

Pork-Shiitake Niku Dango

Niku dango are Japanese meatballs, and are the perfect accompaniment to beer and noodles (two of my favorite things). Meatballs, in general are huge right now - Bon Appetit magazine recently had a whole issue devoted to them. Shit, 20% of all my (granted, now craptastic) blog traffic consistently comes from people Googling Swedish meatball recipes. I love meatballs, and since I've been fiddling with Asian flavors again these days - mostly Japanese and Korean - I thought I'd make some pork meatballs with a Japanese twist.

Flipping through my cookbooks, I saw a recipe for such "meatballs with a twist" in the Japanese Country Cookbook, and this is very loosely based on that (I prefer fresh shiitake to dried, soaked ones). Mix a pound of ground pork with a beaten egg, a small handful of panko, 2 minced shiitake mushrooms, a clove of minced garlic, a couple tablespoons minced shallot and grated ginger, a small splash each of soy sauce, mirin and sake, a tablespoon or so of sugar and a pinch of salt. I also added a pinch of chile flake for posterity. Some minced scallion would've been a nice touch, had I had any around, and I guess some finely chopped hijiki or nori flakes would've been kinda special. Oh well.

I know people will say there are better ways, and I know that grilling would yield the best flavor, but I just portioned these puppies out using a small ice cream scoop and baked them at like 375 or 400 for about 20 minutes. This is just always the easiest way for me to make meatballs, even if frying in butter or duck fat does taste better. The mushroom and all the seasoning liquids (plus the lovely pork fat) keep the interior of the niku dango so nice and moist that you can get away with a higher temp to get a crispier exterior, but I brushed mine with store-bought tonkatsu sauce (pineapple flavor, though you could use a mix of soy sauce, honey and rice vinegar) and returned them to the oven to get all sticky and glaze-y.

Since I cooked these to sate a trashy izakaya jones, I originally served them with udon soup and gyoza, but I had so many leftover that I enjoyed the rest for a fast lunch the next day (reheated in the toaster oven) with shoyu ramen, soft-boiled egg and sprinkled with shichimi togarashi (Japanese chile powder) and nori goma furikake (seaweed-sesame rice seasoning).

Enjoy with a tallboy of Kirin (Marc suggests Asahi for proper Japa-redneckness) and Keyhole TV.

Yaki gyoza

I wanted to make gyoza with some of the ground pork from the quarter hog we bought, but having never made them before, had to thumb through my (only) two Japanese cookbooks for help. One of my books is just a pretty sushi book, but my favorite Japanese cookbook (maybe one of my favorite cookbooks, period) is the Japanese Country Cookbook by Russ Rudzinski. Funny, I never noticed a gaijin wrote that book until just now when I cited it, but it's really moot because these are authentic home recipes. Unfortunately, there's no recipe for gyoza, so I decided to shoot from the hip (my always wont).

Scott and I had gyoza in Tokyo that were incredible (Hakata hitokuti gyoza, a specialty of the Fukuoka Prefecture), and though I knew I'd never recreate the perfectly crusted sheet of potstickers, I figure the worst I'd end up with would be cooked pork meatballs. I could live with that. I got started.

I mixed together the ground pork, a chiff of napa cabbage, some finely sliced scallion, (too much) minced garlic and some grated ginger and a little finely-minced shiitake. I added a splash each of tamari, Chinese black vinegar, sake, sesame oil and mirin, and some pinches of salt.

I just sort of went on instinct as to how to actually make the gyoza, but it worked okay. My Asian friends are probably squeamish at the lack of proper folds - I'm sure their grandmas' nimble fingers get fifty creases along the top edge - but I think I did okay for a gaijin on her first try. I just took the gyoza wrapper, added a spoonful of filling, wetted one edge with a fingertip of water, and then pressed and creased until it was sealed. I steamed them in my bamboo steamer for about ten minutes (next time I will line with parchment to avoid the sticking) until they looked soft on top, then pan-fried them to get a nice crust on the bottom. I served these with a basic dipping sauce of tamari, rice vinegar and mirin and a quickle sopai no daikon that looks like every other sunomono I make, but with daikon instead of cucumber or green muskmelon.

Serve with a cold Sapporo and classic J-Pop hits.

Misoyaki Maki

We'd been invited to a champagne-tasting party, to which we were instructed to bring an appie or somesuch. Easy, right? Except that I totally procrastinated, and it started snowing. Hard. I didn't want to press my luck and brave a drive to the store for flour (I really wanted to make little empanadas, but couldn't make dough - who the fuck runs out of flour? Pioneers?), so I had to really wrack my brain. What in the hell could I scrape together? I didn't even have something fake to cook and sauce up. Like that one time when all I had was some quince jelly in the freezer and a thawed-out boneless leg of lamb, and hastily threw together "ooh, how 'bout some Moroccan-spiced lamb kebab with cardamom-quince glaze" that were doled out onto a platter with toothpicks and greedily devoured. Turns out a lot of people did their part, thought ahead and brought hummus to that party. A lot of different hummus, and my one platter of spicy, last-minute meat.

I am, if nothing else, the Queen of Pulling One Out of Her Ass. I looked through the cupboards. Nothing. Some fucking cans of fish and tomatoes, a can of lychee and coconut milk, and a can of mock abalone. Gross. Look again, see the jars of starch lined up all soldierlike: cous cous, bulgur wheat, barley, lentils, some aged jau mein (that's ay-jed, not to be confused with the savory patina of proper storage), arborio rice and calrose rice. Sigh. Look again. Grab cans of smoked black cod and sturgeon (from local waters), jar of calrose, then shuffle across the kitchen to the "Asienne" cabinet and grab the teriyaki-flavored nori sheets, the black sesame seeds, tamari and sesame oil, some sake and mirin and gochujang. To the fridge for shiro miso, some scallion and young ginger.

I was going to make mini onigiri, it turned out. With misoyaki filling. I forgot about the jar of umeboshi in the fridge, evidently. I cooked the rice on the stovetop, and then pulled it off to cool in the snow. I chopped together the drained fish, and blobs or glugs of everything else until it was perfectly seasoned and gingery. I sprinkled in some togarashi to give that proper umami, and then we mashed up little fish-filled rice balls until the rice was all gone, wrapping a little fingertip sheet of nori over each. Half the fish was still left. The party loved it, and the hostess even proclaimed it better than the onigiri in Tokyo. It worked well with the champagne, which cut through the rich, salty smoke of the misoyaki, the effervescence pushing past the huge starch molecules on its way into the tickly cilia of the olfactory system.

The next day, while Scott nursed a wicked champagne hangover (I never knew those even existed), I twisted up a fatty nori maki from the last remaining regular sheet of nori in our cupboard, with freshly cooked sushi rice (stirred and fanned with a pinch of sugar and salt, and a splash of rice vinegar). It was a tasty and quiet lunch, and a great way to pat myself on the back for thinking on my feet. It's good to be Queen.

Curry okra and green tomato pickle

A couple months ago, before the tomatoes were really getting good, I accidentally knocked a few off the vine trying to get to my beans or something. These were my first tomatoes, so I valued each one like my firstborn and I brought them in, even though they were just green. I could try to let them ripen on the counter, I guessed.

I also had a dozen or so baby okra with which I was smitten. They were 2 inches long, all covered with velvety lanugo, and I couldn't bear to cook them, such was their effect on the maternal parts of my limbic system. I'd seen Marc at No Recipes do a smoked paprika okra pickle (inspired by the artisanal pickles of one Rick), and remembered crunchy pickled okra is such a wonderful thing. Since okra is a vegetable enjoyed in Indian cuisine, I figured some curry and chili wouldn't hurt it.

I tucked the cherubic okra into the jar with some sliced onion, garlic and red chili, and tipped in some peppercorns, mustard and coriander seeds, and a bay leaf or two. There was still so much room in the jar - I looked around and saw the green tomatoes on the counter and the lightbulb went off. I sliced them into thick wedges and slid them into the jar.

I heated up some regular white vinegar with salt, a bit of sugar (just enough to take the edge off the heat, not enough to taste), and a nice spoonful of curry powder. I added a splash of water to balance the acidity, and poured it over the vegetables. Lid and back of the fridge, cut to last week.


I pulled them out of the fridge last week and gave a taste. Oh, man, these are a thing. Just straight from the jar, or dipped in hot sauce, if you really want a spanking. Fortunately, I prefer the green tomato over the okra as a pickle, because I have shitloads of them, and they're free. Oh, the okra is good, don't get me wrong - I just like the crunchy green tomato more.

I can't wait to see how these go with a Bloody Mary - maybe one of my jars of homemade tomato sauce will get turned to Bloody Mary mix?

Curry popcorn with dried cranberries

Yes, I'm posting popcorn. On a Friday morning. After the harried 5-times-a-week Foodbuzz challenge, I decided to take a wee break after the 10th. I'm still trying to figure out if I can/want to keep up the pace indefinitely.

So for today, I show you one of my favorite afternoon snacks. When I'm at the office, with no kitchen, and I need to graze (the only cure for the afternoon sleepies that doesn't require me to leave the building), I sometimes hit the snack box for a pick-me-up.

With so many people in our office trying to "be good" (why does eating food that bores us and makes us feel deprived equate to "being good"?), I have a hard time wrapping my mind around why we have one of those temptation boxes full of candy, meat "stix" and chips. You put a dollar in the box and take a snack. The only thing in there that won't give you diabetes is microwave popcorn. I put in a dollar and take my envelope of nutriment to the microwave.

Shake a little curry powder on top, toss in some dried fruit (always the diligent locavore, I like "craisins") and trudge back to my desk to finish up that EIS for Some Big Client.

I do have more interesting things to talk about, I swear. This weekend looks promising.