A Thanksgiving Weekend Shopfest

You might think one would get sick of eating after the Thanksgiving holiday, but you would be wrong. At least when it comes to me! Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday (the foodie police will be coming to get me soon). I find the food not to my test, and I mean this not as a criticism to those who like it, but I simply don’t like turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy or sweet potatoes. I am a little partial to stuffing. But the point is that on the Saturday after the holiday, I was off in search of greener pastures for my grazing.

 Lucky for me the University District farmers market was open and bustling, just a short walk from my house. While the kale was getting me all excited I knew I didn’t have many meals to cook this week and tried to stick to things I would eat for snacks. I ended up with some Apple Farms non-fat quark and a bunch of radishes. There is something about the beautiful spectrum of pinks and reds on these radishes that you don’t find on the mass produced ones that makes them not only tastier but so much more endearing. I plan to eat them soon in the classic French fashion, with butter and salt.

On the way home I found to fantastic stores. The first one is a Brazilian market that I’d been meaning to go into for a while. Upon entering I met the new owner and discovered that she is redoing the place and was looking for suggestions as to what she should stock. She seemed like a wonderful lady and if you have any Brazilian products that you have been missing, be sure to ask her.

Half a block up the Ave, I went into the Indian and Pakistani grocery. Wow, it is a different world in there. I knew I was in for something good when I saw a pile of coconuts lying on the floor near the entrance. A fridge held varieties of pita, paneer and another one boasted halal goat meat. Again, not cooking too many meals this week, I stuck to snackables, coming out with a variety of chana dal (deep fried lentils, which I later ate as a snack on the quark), mint chutney and green chile paste. The most amazing deal I saw in here, however was the spices. Our house is quite well stocked with spices, but if you ever need any, I reccomend this place. They were all doled out into plastic ziploc baggies, labeled and priced at about $1.39 each. $1.39 for a full baggie of turmeric? You find me another place in town where you can get a deal like that!

Japanese Pork Belly and Asian Sides.

I recently had an amazing Kakuni, a Japanese pork belly dish at Maekawa in the International District and decided that I would try to make one myself. I also wanted to try to make yakionigiri, since I had been quite successful a while back at make onigiri (rice balls, I stuffed mine with smoked salmon and took them on a camping trip. Shown above is my full plate when I was done. Clockwise from the upper left you see the two hard boiled eggs, which stewed with the pork belly, the failed yakionigiri, the pork belly skin up, the hot mustard, the pork belly skin down, and the chinese broccoli.

I don’t have my exact recipes, but the yakionigiri I think didn’t hold together because I used fresh rice, but basically I just took rice and molded it into balls, then broiled it in the toaster oven, painting it with soy sauce and mirin mixture every couple minutes.

 The pork belly I seared on all sides then braised in water for two hours, then added a cup of soy sauce, a little mirin, some spicy peppers, ginger and the eggs, then braised for about another hour. It still was not as tender as the one at Maekawa (which, at $5 was about the same price), but it was fairly tasty and pork belly is such a forgiving meat, as long as you braise it, it will taste great. The chinese broccoli I simply seared and then threw in with the pork belly at the last minute. It was inspred by a recent Tea Garden dim sum where I had the worst chinese broccoli ever. I needed to remind myself how good it really was.

The whole meal worked really well together and reminded me that what restaurants do is not always that much harder than what you do in the kitchen.

How Easy is Tempura? It’s ThisEasy!

Tempura is something I recently saw posted on a message board full of people’s “Things I don’t make because it’s too hard/I can get better at a restaurant”. But really, Tempura is incredibly easy. I just made it last week while the (still ongoing) proliferation of squash existed in my house. There is still half a delicata and an entire sugar pie pumpkin, so it shall continue.

My disclaimer on how easy this was is to add that I have no deep fryer nor have I ever deep fryed or battered anything before in my life.

Ingredients: 1 egg, 1 cup of ice cold water, 1 cup of flour, a whole lot of oil, assorted veggies (I used squash and broccoli)

Because I was only making a few small items, I heated my oil in a small saucepan on the stove. I was aiming to get it to 350F, but think it topped out at about 200. This didn’t really seem to make a difference. I beat the egg, then poured on the cold water, then whisked in the flour. I think my recipe could have used a few things: a larger egg, colder water and a tiny bit less water. I am thinking of trying this again, but with seltzer water. I think it might make the batter lighter.

I dropped items into the pot of oil, let them fry for a minute or two, depending on the size, and then pulled them out with a slotted spoon. From start to finish, it was maybe 15 minutes, and it was easy to do all the prep work while I waited for the oil to heat up.

I didn’t have the ingredients for a real tempura sauce, so I dipped these little guys in a mix of 2 parts ponzu, one part shoyu. Worked beautifully, even if it wasn’t the traditional sauce.

So next time you think tempura is hard or intimidating, give it a try first!