monkfish liver

Monkfish liver is rarely seen outside of Japanese cuisine where it is known as ankimo. Those who have tasted its creamy decadence will understand why it's often referred to as "foie gras of the sea", although its flavor is more delicate with just a whisper of its oceanic origin in the aftertaste.

Ankimo is traditionally prepared as a torchon, much like foie. After removing the skin and veins, it is soaked in milk for 4 hours, then rinsed and brined in a solution of water/sake/mirin at a 5:3:1 ratio, with salt added at 3% of total weight, for 8 hours. The drained livers are compressed and rolled into a cylinder in a double layer of fine cheesecloth and the ends are tied. The cylinder is steamed over a 50/50 blend of water and sake until the core reaches 63C/145F, about 20 minutes for a 3" diameter torchon. Or it can be cooked in a 65C/149F water bath for 30 minutes. In either case, the torchon is allowed to rest in the refrigerator overnight before slicing.

ankimo • kinome • red shiso • pear gelee

red frisee • pickled mexican cucumber • spiced croutons • plum sauce

At about $8 per pound, the price of commercially-fished monkfish liver is a fraction of foie, but it comes a much higher cost to the ocean. It's not that monkfish is overfished or endangered — it's a fast-growing, short-lived species whose population is currently stable— it's the method by which they are harvested that is of concern. Because monkfish live in mudflats along the Atlantic coast, they are easily caught with trawls that scrape the bottom of the ocean— a practice that results in high incidents of non-targeted bycatch and the destruction of their habitat. Choosing line-caught monkfish, though at a premium, preserves the diversity of bottom-dwelling species and their homes.

Peter Hertzmann’s floating island: the evolution of a dish

One of the most gratifying aspects of blogging is the private interaction with readers through emails. I love reading your thoughtful questions, comments, and ideas. It's these interactions that often become fuel for the fire.
Two years ago, I worked with a young cook who had mentioned a book that had helped him to advance his knife skills: Knife Skills Illustrated by Peter Hertzmann. Imagine my surprize when a few days later I found mail from Peter in my inbox!
Peter Hertzmann* and I have exchanged dozens of emails since then and I've always found his insights stimulating. Last month he began sharing a misozuke project (complete with photos) that was particularly inspiring and I asked if I could share its evolution here on the blog.
This is how it began:

Hi Linda,
You've created a miso-zuke monster—me.
I've now done oysters, scallops, endive, radishes, and cucumbers. I originally was interested because of your article where you pickled some egg yolks. I wanted to do quail, rather than chicken eggs. I was never able to get the eggs cooked just right, so I sort of gave up. Then a couple of weeks ago, I started playing with peeling eggs with acetic acid. In the case of quail eggs, an overnight soak in white vinegar leaves a shell-less egg with both of the membranes intact. The egg feels a bit like a full water balloon. I threw a few of these eggs in shiro miso and nothing happened, or so it seemed. After two weeks, they appeared for all intents and purposes the same as when they have been first immersed in the miso. So I'd thought I break one and look inside. The membrane was a bit tough, but I was able to pick a small tear in one end with some forceps. The white came gushing out—not quite as fluid as water, but not really a jelly. Inside was a firm, pickled yolk that I could carefully pull and then wash all the white away from. The taste was definitely that of a yolk, but the presence of miso was also pronounced. With a light sprinkle of ichimi, the task was marvelous.
A new dozen is now pickling to see if this was a fluke, or not. Thanks again for turning me on to this technique.

Several things interested me about Peters process:
1. dissolving the shell with vinegar allowed him to pickle the whole raw egg much more efficiently than waiting for the miso to penetrate the shell. This step alone opened up many ideas.
2. the texture of the cured yolk.
3. the miso-flavored egg whites.

A few weeks later, I received the following email:

Here's an update on the quail eggs. Like before, I removed the shells by soaking them in white vinegar (6% acetic acid) overnight. The following day I rubbed off any remaining shell with my fingers. The eggs, minus their shells, were immersed in shiro miso for two weeks. After rinsing they looked like…

Other than appearing a bit browner than originally, their appearance and firmness was unchanged. I used a pair of small 45° forceps to tear a small hole in the tapered end of each egg and drained them into a bowl. The "white" was as viscous as water and brown in color…

After removing from the membranes and rinsing, the yolks, which were firm but not hard, looked like…

I decided to cook the whites. I placed them in a small glass bowl and covered it with plastic film. This was placed in simmering water until the whites no longer jiggled. After cooling, the texture of the cooked whites was similar to a grainy custard. They tasted very much like the miso they had soaked in. I had hoped that they would cook hard so that I could sieve them for the final dish, but that was not to be.
About 4 hours later I plated the eggs…

As you can see the yolk weeps. (The flower is a rosemary blossom.)
I'm intrigued by your suggestion to make a meringue with the whites. These eggs didn't produce much white to work with so I'm going to try the same process with a chicken egg so I can get more white.

Then a few weeks later I received the following update:

Here's the followup on the previous email. I used vinegar to once again remove the shell from an egg; this time a chicken egg. I started with two but one broke with moderate handling during the shell-removable phase. The remaining egg was covered with shiro miso for 21 days. At the end it looked like below.

I should have measured the size after the shell was removed because I think it was then it grew. I should have weighed it also. Oh, well. It's obviously larger, but I can't say why.
I opened the egg onto a plate.

Normal eggs have four layers of albumin, two thick and two thin. It now appeared to have three distinct types of albumen.
The yolk was similar to an egg cooked at 64°C (and I did roll, freeze, and cut this into ribbons). In the picture I had already crushed it a bit with my fingers.

The white beat fairly normally in a stand mixer.

And they seemed fairly stable, at least for an hour before they were all destroyed.
I tried doing two things with them. The first was to make sort of a floating island in dashi. As soon as the egg white hit the hot soup, it started to collapse.

The final texture was similar to a kitchen sponge, but the flavor in the dashi was quite nice. It would be interesting to see if a little xanthum gum or versawhip would help stabilize them in the heat. I also tried some meringues, but they were a complete disaster. Besides collapsing most of the way, they turned brown like a cookie and tasted very salty. Maybe if they were stabilized they would have fared better. IN their plain form they weren't stable enough to pipe, but if they were, it would be interesting to make soup croutons out of them.

In a followup email, I asked Peter some questions about his experiment:

L: I'd be interested to know why the egg grew, or swelled.
P: I would too. I wonder if the hydrostatic pressure of a normal egg is slightly positive so that it expands once the restraint of the shell is removed. I guess it would be possible to conduct a small experiment, but I'm not ready to sacrifice a dozen eggs at the moment.

L:You said you made meringues, but they weren't stable… I'm assuming that you didn't use sugar because of the savory application. I like the idea of a salty/sweet meringue. Or perhaps a macaron?
P: Yep. No sugar, or anything else for that matter. Give the salt and sweet meringue a try and let me know how it is. I was thinking just savory, since the miso flavor is pretty pronounced.

A short while later, I received another email from Peter expressing a desire to use methylcellulose to stabilize the 'floating island' and he asked about ratios. I made some suggestions, and he responded:

I started with your suggestions and, as is normal for me, went my own way a bit. I also downloaded the Methocel tech sheet. It sounded like hot hydration would work better for me since I'm working in very small quantities.
I hydrated 1g of Methocel F50 in 20ml of simmering water, water that was boiled in microwave and then measured with a syringe. I stuck this in the frig for a few minutes. It was about 18°C when I pulled it out. I separated 1 extra-large egg white, about 30g. When i whisked the egg white and Methocel/water together is seemed to foam fairly rapidly so I decided to try whipping it in the KitchenAid. This took about 15 to 20 minutes to form soft peaks. I spooned this into hot hon-dashi to cook. I tried Chang's method of a 30-second steam followed by basting. I also tried a 60-second steam with less basting. The later was easier to do since I wanted to cook four at a time. In either case the linear shrinkage was about 50%, but still acceptable. I added ao-nori to the mixture part way through to give it a bit of color. I shot the picture quickly with my iPhone so the color is a bit off.

The final mouth feel of the island was similar to a spongy hard-cooked egg white. Not the same as a floating island made with sugar, but very interesting. I feel good about the results, at least enough to drop a couple more eggs into a vinegar bath and start the pickling again. I'd like to eventually serve the egg white in a double-strength chicken consomme and load the egg white with a fresh herb, maybe oregano. Everything should be ready by May 6th. I already have some guests scheduled for dinner that night. Little do they know…
As always, thanks for your help.

*Peter's bio: Cooking for Peter is a serial obsession. After spending 25 years studying Chinese cooking, history, and culture, in the mid 1990s, Peter started applying the same energy to French cookery. Over a period of 15 years he taught himself to read French, studied the history of dishes back to the 14th century, and worked in eight different restaurant kitchens in France to hone his skills. In 1999, he started an e-zine about French gastronomy and in 2011 added a weekly blog of amuse-bouche and mignardise to the site. In 2007, Peter wrote the book Knife Skills Illustrated: A Users Manual, now used for teaching in a number of cooking schools and restaurants. He has taught knife-skills classes around the country and in Canada. He has made many television appearances, including The Martha Stewart Show. He recently demonstrated knife skills for four hours at the Exploratorium for their After Dark: Gastronomy event. Nowadays, besides teaching recreational classes, he teaches knifes skills and general cooking twice a week at the San Mateo County Jail and twice a month at JobTrain, a vocational training center specializing in providing job skills for the underprivileged. As a charter member of The Butchers Guild, Peter is currently editing the official Guild Butchery Glossary. In July, he once again will be presenting a paper at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking. The subject for this year’s Symposium is Wrapped and Stuffed Foods, and Peter will be addressing how Modernist cuisine relates to the issue.

butternut squash fusilli

There's an hors d'oeuvre on our fall/winter catering menu that we refer to as "the squash box". It consists of a hollow cube of roasted butternut squash, filled with goat cheese and crushed pistachios. When we serve them inverted and lined up on trays, they appear to be simple bite-sized blocks of squash— the hidden filling comes as a surprise. The squash boxes exemplify the combination of appealing flavor and clean presentation that we strive for in our passed hors d'oeuvres, so naturally, we were pleased by their popularity. But back in the kitchen, they were a real pain in the ass to make.
At first, we hollowed them by scoring 1/4" thick walls with a paring knife, then meticulously removed the centers with a melon baller. This was manageable when making a few dozen, but when the numbers stretched into the hundreds, we had to rethink the process.
Chef Martin is a great thinker, a creative problem solver, and a lover of tools. His first attempt at a solution was to have a square metal die fabricated to score the inner wall. In theory, it should've worked perfectly, but in reality, the metal was too thick and split the walls of the boxes. Undeterred, he pulled out the power tools— specifically, a drill fitted with a Forstner bit. It was a beautifully quick and effective solution to a previously tedious task.
Here's a short clip of Martin in action. Please excuse his parting gesture—apparently, his hands are not a fan of the camera.

Delighted as we were by this streamlined solution and the clean holes, I was more interested in what came out of them: long, coiled ribbons of butternut squash that looked identical to fusilli pasta.
Here's a closer look:

In this by-product of the squash boxes, I saw an elegant alternative to vegetable pasta. But cooking the butternut squash fusilli posed a critical problem. I tried every possible application of heat: wet, dry, slow, fast, but in each instance, just as it passed into a palatably tender stage, they would go limp and lose definition. I knew the solution was somewhere in the folds of my memory, ready to access, but there I failed, too.
Memory is a curious thing. Sometimes it's as direct and linear as a gunshot, sometimes it's like fishing in a labrinth.
I felt a tug on the lure while reasearching nixtamalization for a pickling project. It bit down in my memory of the 2011 Star Chefs Congress. When I reeled it in, at the end of the line were 2 gleaming nuggets of information.
The first was courtesy of Andoni Luis Aduriz, who, in a workshop, demonstrated a fossilization technique where salsify was soaked in a lime (the mineral, not the fruit) solution to firm the surface before cooking. From my memory, his claim that "any fruit with pectin will react with lime to make calcium pectate".
The second nugget was from Paul Liebrandt's mainstage presentation from the later that day. In a similar technique, he used calcium lactate to form a skin on the surface of jerusalem artichoke, allowing it to keep it's shape while the interior cooked to a creamy texture, without loss of moisture.
So, it seemed there were two possible solutions that produced parallel results. One, alkaline and caustic, the other a neutral salt.
I went with the calcium lactate. In the photo below, you can see the results. In the foreground is the squash that soaked in a 1% calcium lactate solution for 2 hours, then air dried, and roasted— tender, but still defined. In the background is the untreated squash roasted on the same pan— limp in comparison.

Solutions, like a great catch, are worth waiting for.
That's an easy one to remember.

butternut squash ✢ black kale ✢ goat gouda ✢ kale stem

beet roses

If asked, I'd say that the rose is my favorite flower, but my husband knows better than to bring any home today. It's not that roses on Valentine's Day is a cliché… something so classic and eternally beautiful can never be that. I guess my objection is the mass-marketed, factory-farmed, ridiculously-priced aspect. Yet, as symbols of love and romance, they are undeniable. So, while there will be no long-stemmed, hothouse-forced, All-American Beauties in my house today, there will still be roses!

bull's blood beet chips on Couer de Bray (cow)

candy cane beet chips on Bonne Bouche (goat)

microwave beet chips

beets
1 quart water
1 Tblsp kosher salt
olive oil in a mister bottle

Slice the beets thinly on a mandolin so that they are slightly thicker than a credit card. (If your beets are round and you wish to make roses by embedding them in cheese, they will need to be tapered on one end like a rose petal.)
Add the salt to the water (yes, it's a lot of salt, but neccessary for proper dehydration) and bring to a boil. Drop in about a dozen beet slices at a time and boil for about 3 minutes, (adding more water to maintain the level or it will become too salty as it evaporates) or until they become flexible. Remove beets with a slotted spoon and spread out on paper towels. Blot the tops dry with additional towels. Transfer slices to a sheet of parchment paper on a flat, microwave-proof dish in a single layer. Spray the tops lightly with olive oil. Flip them over and mist again. Place beets in microwave and cook on high power for 1-2 minutes, depending on the wattage of your microwave (run a trail with a few beets to confirm the time— they should become crisp within a minute of removing them from oven). Repeat with remaining beets. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

salmon sausage

Sausages need a casing.

That conclusion was reached while considering a naked and unappealing cylinder of poached salmon paste. It might've been acceptable had it not been about to be presented as a sausage.

Clearly, it needed a casing. The casing needed to be vegetarian. And with service quickly approaching, it needed to be fast.

Looking at vegetables to encase the sausage, there were two ways to go about it: wrapping or stuffing. Stuffing into a seamless casing was aesthetically preferable, but short of whitling a long, thin tube from a vegetable, there were no quick or easy alternatives that I could think of.

Wrapping, by far, offered the most doable options. Blanched leaves were considered, but rejected for their unwanted color and opacity. Translucent paper-thin sheets (which would have required breaking out the mad knife skillz) of potato, cucumber, zucchini, or daikon seemed the way to go, until a simpler technique involving leeks sprung to mind. The technique, as learned from a chef long ago was as follows:

Trim the top and roots off of a long, fat leek. Cut halfway through the leeks lengthwise and dislodge the outer layers. Blanch, shock, and lay the leek sheets flat. Pipe the filling on the leek sheet, roll tightly around filling to encase, tie ends with string, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and poach in barely simmering water.

With the leeks trimmed, I made the first cut. It wasn't until I began seperating the layers that I realized my folly: I was making a sheet to avoid making a tube, yet I had cut through a tube to make a sheet.

And that's how the most perfect vegetable casing that Nature could provide had almost eluded me.

salmon sausage

These sausages are a great way to use up trimmings. The flecks of smoked salmon give it a more dimensional flavor, as would the addition of fresh herbs, dried spice, grated aromatics, etc. They can be served hot, cold, or finished in a pan with butter.

2 leeks
500g salmon, cut into chunks and well chilled
130g cold cream cheese, cut into chunks
4g salt
70g smoked salmon, minced and chilled

casings: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Trim the root end off of the leeks and cut the tops where they begin to seperate and turn green. Drop the leeks into the boiling water and remove after 3 minutes. Using a dishtowel, pull the outer layer of the hot leeks up and over the tops until they're free. If they don't slide off easily, return to the boiling water for another minute or two. Repeat until you have enough casings to hold the filling, about 6- 8, depending on their width and length.
filling: Place the salmon in the bowl of a food processor. Process in short bursts, scraping bowl 2-3 times, until reduced to a smooth paste. Distribute the cream cheese and salt over the top of paste and process again in short bursts, until the cream cheese is no longer distinguishable. Scrape paste into a bowl and fold in the smoked salmon mince.
stuffing: Slide a leek casing over the extension tube of a sausage stuffer, taking care to not tear the leek. Feed the paste through until it fills about 1" of the end of the casing (enough to release air pocket), then tie filled end with string. Continue feeding paste until casing is filled. Remove from tube and tie open end with string. If sausage stuffer is not available, fill casings by piping filling through a pastry bag fitted with a long, wide tip. Or, do it old school (like my mother still does), by forcing the filling with thumbs through a funnel fitted into one end of the casing.
cooking: Drop tied sausages into a 50C water bath and cook for 20 minutes (no bag needed).

puffed pasta

When I was first learning to cook, I found a recipe for fried pasta that intrigued me. As I recall, the instructions were: cook the pasta in boiling water, drain, deep fry. Being a novice, I didn't fully understand the hostile incompatibility of hot oil and water. But when I dropped the still-wet pasta into the pot of hot oil and watched it violently sputter and overflow, I at least had the sense to step back and turn off the flame.

I think every cook has a hot oil story, some punctuated with scars. I have those too, but from a later incident. That first traumatic encounter taught me that hot oil is no joke. With new respect, I cleaned up the mess and attempted another batch after thoroughly draining the remaining pasta and patting it dry. It still protested— but it didn't overflow.

I served the fried pasta with a marinara dip at a gathering of friends. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, which pleased me, although I didn't think that I would ever make it again.

But, you see, I was wrong. I have made it again… many times. But only because I learned of a better way.

Learning is about making connections. We gather bits of information and experiences and link them together into something cohesive that we can hold on to. Life's epiphanies— whether large or small— come from finding the missing links.

And so it was, while attending a workshop at The French Culinary Institute with Dave Arnold and Nils Noren that I was given the missing link for fried pasta: dehydrate the cooked pasta before frying. Yes, it's an extra step that adds 4-6 hours to the process, but it makes a world of difference. Not only does the dry pasta fry neatly and efficiently, it also blisters and puffs out extravagantly.

Lots of drama, none of the trauma.

puffed pasta

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until very tender (double the time on the package). Drain well. Spread out on dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 50C/120F for 4-6 hours until completely dry. Alternately, cooked pasta can be spread on a rack or silpat-lined baking sheets and dried in a low oven, or in the sun on a warm, dry day. (Note: tubular pasta may need to be supported with straws or dowels to prevent it from collapsing and loosing it's shape.) Pasta can be dehydrated in bulk and stored in airtight containers for months.
To puff: drop small batches of dehydrated pasta into a pot of oil that has been heated to 190C/375F and fry until puffed and golden. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with desired seasoning or serve with a dip.

kasu-cured scallop

Kasu is a by-product of sake. Also known as sake lees, it is the separated and pressed solids that remain at the end of the fermentation process. Consisting of rice, koji, residual yeast, and a small amount of alcohol, kasu can sometimes be found as a soft paste or, more readily, as square compressed sheets. It has a delicate floral yeasty aroma.

Kasu zuke is another type of Japanese pickles where food is embedded in a paste made from kasu, mirin, sugar and salt. Typically, the process is applied to white fish for a brief curing, or to fresh vegetables for longer periods.

These live scallops were so pristine that I wanted to keep them clean and chose to wrap them in kasu sheets instead of a paste. After spiral cutting them into thin, even strips, they were sprinkled with mirin, covered with kinome, then sealed between two sheets of compressed kasu. Looking like large ravioli, they cured in the refrigerator for 24 hours,. They emerged from their kasu cocoon all fragrant and delicious.

kasu-cured scallop ✢ blood orange ponzu ✢ kinome

mortadella kohlrabi pistachio

Kohlrabi is unique among vegetables in that the edible part is actually a swollen stem. The leaves, which are commonly eaten in parts of India, are often removed in US markets. On the few occasions that I've grown kohlrabi, I've found the leaves to be similar in texture and flavor to kale, collards and other cruciferous greens. This vegetable is really about the stem.

Always look for small kohlrabi, as large ones can be pithy. Once the thin skins are removed, the crisp, creamy-white orbs can be enjoyed cooked or raw. Sliced thin, they make excellent quick pickles.

Lately, I've taken to replacing the water in a pickle solution with fruit juice when I want a bit of sweetness. Apple juice works well, but white grape juice doesn't darken the pickle as much.

kohlrabi quick pickle

250g cider vinegar
4.5g kosher salt
200g white grape juice
2.5g pink peppercorns
8 allspice berries
2 bay leaves
5 small kohlrabi

Combine vinegar and salt in saucepan. Heat until salt is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in grape juice and spices. Let cool completely. Meanwhile, peel the kohlrabi and slice thinly with a knife or a mandoline. Place kohlrabi in a clean jar or bowl and pour cooled brine over top. Stir to separate slices. Set aside, covered, in refrigerator. Pickles can be consumed after 2 hours, but are better after 4. There is little difference in flavor if kept for longer than 4 hours, but they will continue to soften.

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I've always thought of mortadella as bologna's refined older sister and the hotdog as their skinny younger brother. Indeed, they all belong to a family of cured sausages that utilize meat paste.

This dish came together while exploring various textures of mortadella that started with thin, silky slices wrapped around a light mousse of liquid mortadella and gelatin. When whipped, the gelatin gives the mousse structure without added fat and a clean mouthmelt. For the third texture: crispy pan fried mortadella strips. The fourth was added when I heated a dollop of the mousse in a hot pan and watched it spread and form a lacy wafer. Brittle and crisp, the wafers add textural interest with a bacony flavor.

Mortadellaravioli

mortadella mousse

This versatile mousse can be used as a dip for crudites or spread on toasted brioche. Here, it's used to fill thin slices of mortadella ravioli-style and made into lace wafers by thinly spreading dollops on a nonstick skillet and cooking over medium-high heat until water evaporates and they harden.

90g mortadella, cubed
93g hot water
12g tepid water
2g gelatin

Place mortadella and hot water in high speed blender and blend for 5 minutes, or until mortadella is liquified. Place tepid water in microwavable bowl and sprinkle gelatin over top. Let bloom for 3 minutes, then stir and heat in microwave in 30-second increments, until gelatin is completely dissolved. Add to mixture in blender and blend briefly to incorporate. Pour mixture out into a large bowl and allow to cool to room temperature. Half-fill a larger bowl with ice and cold water to make an ice bath. Set bowl with mousse mixture inside ice bath and beat with a hand-held electric mixer until mixture lightens in color and texture and holds its shape.

mortadella mousse ravioli
pan fried mortadella
mortadella lace
kohlrabi pickle
raw pistachio pesto

autumn glory kimchi

Fiesty. Fragrant. Fiery. I love kimchi in all of its funky fermented forms

Koreans make a hundred different kinds of kimchi and perhaps a hundred more that are undocumented. They range from familiar varieties made with common ingredients like cabbage and radishes to wildly esoteric regional specialties such as Doraji kimchi, made with bellflower roots. Fruits, vegetables, seaweed, fish, meat— you name it— anything can be (and probably has been) made kimchi.
In addition to the bulk ingredients (or 'so'), kimchi's flavor is defined by the traditional seasoning of garlic, ginger, scallions, and the burn of hot chili pepper. But it was not always the fiery condiment that we know today. Early versions were simple pickled vegetables— a process that Koreans adopted from the Chinese.
During the Josean Dynasty that began in the late 14th century, Korea was swept by a culinary renaissance that stemmed from an agricultural boom. As cultivated crops became abundant and varied, new vegetables and spices were introduced from other countries. But no other ingredient produced such a profound change in the Korean diet as red hot chili pepper.

Pumpkins and sweet potatoes were among the newly introduced vegetables and it wasn't long before they each found a place among the expanding repertoire of kimchi— pumpkin in Hobak kimchi, and sweet potato in Kogumajulgi kimchi. Here they are united with asian pear and kale in a deliciously seasonal version.

autumn glory kimchi

1 liter boiling water
215g kosher salt
300g pumpkin, sliced 6mm thick and cut into 7cm long leaves
150g sweet potato, sliced 6mm thick and cut into 2.5cm x 7cm rectangles
100g asian pear, sliced 6mm thick and cut into 5cm rounds
80g kale leaves, roughly chopped

40g thinly sliced scallions
20g microplaned garlic
20g microplaned fresh ginger
5g ground dried bird chilies

Pour the boiling water into a large nonreactive bowl. Stir in the salt until it is dissolved. Cool completely, then add the pumpkin, sweet potato, asian pear, and kale, pressing down until they are completely submerged. Set aside in a cool place for 4 hours.
Pour the brine out of the bowl and refill with fresh, cold water. Set aside for 5 minutes, then drain thoroughly through a colander. Return vegetables to the bowl. Add remaining ingredients and toss gently until seasoning is evenly distributed.
Pack mixture into a glass jar or ceramic crock. Press firmly until exuded liquid covers the solids. If necessary, insert a weighted plate into the jar or crock to keep the contents submerged. Cover and set aside to ferment for 3-4 days in a cool (10C/50F) spot, then transfer to the refrigerator, where it can be stored for up to 1 month. Kimchi can be consumed after the 3 day fermentation, but the flavor will continue to develop in storage.

pumpkin oven

The final week of November is, without doubt, the busiest of my year. Between filling orders at the restaurant and cooking for clients, the cooking marathon known as Thanksgiving passes me by in a blur. Even though it's stressful, I enjoy the process, knowing that I am contributing to what is perhaps the most nostalgic— thus, emotional meal of the year. As always, organization keeps things flowing smoothly, but there are always glitches— forgotten ingredients, malfunctioning equipment, etc. The real drama, though, plays out when I shut down at night. The stress and anxiety that I have no time for during the day manifests itself in my dreams— or, more accurately— nightmares.

One perennial nightmare that perplexes me is when the entire turkey vanishes into thin air after being loaded into the oven, never to be seen again. In another, dessert turns into a calamity of events that begin with a pumpkin souffle that sinks like a battleship and ends with flambeed cranberries that set the dining room on fire. Then there's the one where I spill a cup of hot coffee down a guest's back. Oh… wait… that one actually happened.

Mercifully, whether in reality or the imagination, Thanksgiving does not only induce visions of disaster; sometimes there are glimpses of perfection: crackling golden skin, moist juicy flesh, fluffy potatoes, flaky crusts, flavors that produce smiles and make memories. And, in the most traditional of holidays, it is only in the nocturnal world that I am allowed flights of food fantasies like this one:
A colossal gilded pumpkin , pulled from a cavernous oven, placed on a carriage and escorted into the dining room by a pair of footmen dressed like dandy pilgrims. Guests gathered round as the lid was lifted off the pumpkin, releasing a cloud of enticing aromas. The footmen, standing on tufted stools, reached in and pulled out a golden brown turkey large enough to feed a crowd. They reached in again and each pulled out a pumpkin, one filled with potatoes, the other with chestnuts. They reached in yet again and pulled out more pumpkins, these filled with brussels sprouts and cranberries. This went on and on like clowns coming out of a Volkswagen until the sizable table groaned with pumpkins filled with all manner of fruits, grains, and vegetables.
An entire meal for the masses cooked in a pumpkin!

Cooking in a pumpkin is nothing new. Indigenous North Americans used hollowed-out pumpkins and gourds as cooking vessels. They would fill them with soups or stews and drop in hot rocks or cook them along with their contents, buried in hot embers. Early European settlers adopted this method by filling them with a custard made of eggs, milk, and honey. Although there is no documentation, there is speculation that this dessert appeared on early Thanksgiving tables. Similarly, in Thailand, Sankaya is a popular street food that consists of a pandanus-scented coconut milk custard, steamed in a small kabocha squash. You can find a recipe and video here.

Now that the holiday has passed (without incident), my waking life, as well as dreamland, can calm down. Inspired by the fantastical dream, I created my own private feast from my very own personal pumpkin oven.

Remove breast and backbone from quail. Stuff cavity with fresh lemon balm.

Cover quail with aromatic paste: Mix together 10g microplaned fresh ginger (1" piece), 10g microplaned garlic (2 medium cloves), 3.5g ground long pepper (1 tsp), 1g ground dried bird chili (1/2 tsp), 4g ground sumac (1 1/2 tsp), 16g extra virgin olive oil (1 Tblsp), 6g kosher salt (1 tsp).

Cut the top off of a medium-sized sugar pumpkin. Scrape out pulp and seeds. Bake in a 176C/350F oven for 30 minutes to heat the cavity. Meanwhile, bring 103g (1/2 cup) apple cider to a boil. Add 42g (1/4 cup) wild pecan rice and a pinch of salt. Return to boil and remove from heat. Immediately pour into warmed pumpkin. Lay a few sprigs of lemon balm over rice. Place quail on top of lemon balm. Cover pumpkin with lid and return to oven. Turn oven temperature up to 232C/450F and bake for 45 minutes, or until rice is tender and quail reaches 74C/165F.

Bring pumpkin oven to table and admire.

Lift lid and inhale.

Serve quail and rice with autumn bbq sauce and a scoop of the fragrant roasted pumpkin flesh. Enjoy.