Doyou no Ushi no Hi
I just learned that in Japan today is dedicated to the eating of eel as a means of beating the summer doldrums.
While I was in Japan in 2004 (that long ago?), I was treated by my host family, the Oshiais, to a meal for eel at a restaurant in Hamamatsu. Now I know that it was the right choice for a hot day in the middle of summer. The most challenging part of the the meal was the kimosui, a clear soup made from eel innards.
土用の牛の日 is doyou no ushi no hi
written in kana. It actually means day of the cow/ox in midsummer
.
(Though it might also refer to the day of the cow toward the end of any
season. I have conflicting information on that.) There's a complicated
reason having to do with the Chinese calendar why unagi is eaten
on the day of the cow.
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Sweet Potato Corn Cakes
I put this together for our New Year's Day breakfast: very tasty. The cakes are light and exceptionally tender, but still have a good structure. I served them with maple syrup, but they'd probably be good with a tangy preserve, orange marmalade, or the like, too.
- 1 good sized sweet potato
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup corn meal
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1 1/2 cup milk
- 2 large eggs, beaten
- 2 Tsp vegetable oil
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Start by preparing the sweet potato. This can be done ahead of time. Quarter it, and steam the pieces 40-45 minutes, then slip out of the skin and mash thoroughly. Allow to come to room temparature.
Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, using a fork or whisk to mix.
Combine wet ingredients in another bowl, stirring to combine.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry mixture, mixing only until the dry ingredients are moistened. If your sweet potato was particularly big, your batter may be too thick. If so, thin it with a little milk. Be careful not to stir too much, or your pancakes may become tough.
Allow the batter to rest while you heat a griddle to medium high, or about 350. Brush the griddle lightly with oil.
For each pancake, ladle about 1/4 cup of batter onto the hot griddle. Allow to cook 2-5 minutes per side, or until golden brown. Serve hot with butter and warm maple syrup.
Makes about 30 pancakes.
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Weekend Links of Interest
The ICU-Project has opened a ticket for the regex test failure problem I stumbled over back in October.
Mari of Watashi to Tokyo posted some links regarding shojin ryori, a Japanese style of food preparation founded in on Buddhist teachings. Tenzo kyokun is instructions from Dogen, founder of the Soto sect of Zen, to the cook at a Zen monestary. Fushukuhanpo is a set of directives, also from Dogen, on the method of taking meals. (There seems to be a lot of folderol involved in eating, when the Way of Eating should be to eat.) Most interesting, though, is the blog A Zen Priest's Kitchen. It's in Japanese, but it looks like fun to try to figure out the recipes.
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Friday Five
Five dishes to serve at your vegetarian Thanksgiving feast:
- Corn Bread Dressing
- Arugula and Blue Cheese Mashed Potatoes
- Acorn squash stuffed with fruit and nuts
- Cranberry Sauce
- Sweet Potato Pie
Barbara's Corn Bread Dressing
This recipe is based on Barbara's instructions. She usually just wings it, measuring nothing, navigating by sight, smell, and feel.
Ingredients:
- Corn bread (8x8 baking pan), prepared and cooled
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 celery stalks, chopped
- 1-2 Tbsp mayonnaise
- 1 tsp poultry seasoning or to taste
- 1 cup vegetable stock (more if needed)
- 1 egg
- Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Sautee onion and celery in olive oil (or any vegetable oil) until softened, about five minutes.
Crumble corn bread into a large mixing bowl. Add onion and celery, mayo, poultry seasoning, veggie stock, egg, salt, and pepper. Mix thoroughly with your hand (or a wooden spoon if squeamish). Mixture should be very moist, but not soupy.
Transfer mixture to baking pan that is large enough to hold it with some space at the top. Smooth and flatten the surface of the mixture. Bake at 350°F for about an hour. Serve hot.
Barbara says, if it's too moist after baking, just kind of crumble and mix it around with a spoon, and put it back in the oven for a while.
That's good eats.
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In It For Da Nuka
Technically, the nukadoko is now through its maturation phase, and has entered its production phase. Even so, we've been sampling results all along.
The nukamiso's aroma has become sharper and stronger, but not unpleasant.
Pickled carrots are well-received. I like turnips better than Barbara does. They're especially good with a beer, creating a flavor and mouth feel reminiscent of chocolate. Unfortunately, they lose some crunch if they sit in the refrigerator. Radishes—that is, little, round, red radishes—strengthen in their radishy bitterness even to the point where even I don't care for them.
While operating on the turnips, the nukamiso gained a lot of moisture, so I introduced a handful of dried soy beans when I stirred it up. After 24 hours, the beans were noticeably softer, and the nukamiso was slightly less damp. When I initialized the bed, I thought the nuka itself seemed pretty moist. Before adding the salted water or any other ingredients, it would clump if I squeezed it together. Perhaps in any future batch, I should try roasting the nuka, as some methods prescribe.
I'm still trying to figure out how this technique is used for preservation. Vegetables go into the bed and come out a day later. They must be eaten soon after being removed or, as seen with the turnips, they start to lose character. The nuka must be stirred daily, which would disturb vegetables that might be left in for longer than a day anyway. Some questions have arisen:
- Most methods indicate a minimum amount of time they must be left in
the nukamiso. Is there a maximum? What is it? My guess is the
fermentation would continue and the flavor would become stronger. Based
on what I've learned watching Barbara make cheeses and yogurts, I'm
guessing this process is similarly a method of giving
good
microbes the upper-hand overbad
microbes. If the veggies are left in the nukamiso too long, do they run the risk of rotting? - What would happen if no vegetables were placed in the nukamiso for a while?
- What do you do with vegetables being left in the nuka longer than the interval between stirrings? Just take them out, stir, and put them back?
Speaking of Barbara's cheese making, we realized last night that we are at risk of cross-contaminating each other's processes. We're going to work in the kitchen at different times, I think, and try hard not to touch each other's stuff. We may also store our products in different fridges, too. Barbara was working on a batch of yogurt last night when I pulled out some carrots and stirred the nukamiso. It will be interesting to see how the yogurt turns out. (With luck, it will be just fine.)
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