late night cravings for wasabi peas and peanut brittle… sometimes both together.
rereading a childhood fairytale… a terrible giant (who grinds the bones of Englishmen to make his bread!), redemption, and golden eggs.
revisiting a classic trio… fresh peas, cured meat, hard aged cheese.
observing nature in high summer… the race towards the sky.
random inspirations are often the inception of a dish.
english pea pudding ✢ pea sprouts ✢ prosciutto
manchego ✢ wasabi pea powder ✢ peanut brittle
It was on a blustery winter afternoon that I first sampled amazake. It came in the form of a traditional Japanese beverage, served warm with a sprinkle of grated ginger. Learning that it was essentially just fermented rice and water, I was amazed at the depth of flavor and sweetness that koji had coaxed out of the rice. And there was a richness about the way that it felt in my mouth that reminded me of dairy. It was, I was told, the vegan eggnog.
Recently, I had a visitor come to my home to see my newly remodeled kitchen. Because he writes about food, I wanted to cook for him and was eager to showcase some of the products that I had fermented. For dessert, I made an amazake ice cream based on the beverage, using coconut water for added flavor. It was really an experiment, as I was curious about the texture of churned and frozen amazake. The result was not as creamy as I had hoped and the inherent sweetness had muted to a mere whisper— which typically occurs with freezing. We both agreed that it showed promise, but needed work.
We also agreed that the flavor of strawberries and kinome with the amazake was quite special, so that part of the dish would remain intact.
Days later, I made a new ice cream with pureed amazake, cream, and sugar. It was a vast improvement over the original, but I couldn't help but feel that I had missed an important opportunity.
As someone who cooks customized food for a living, the upsurge of food intolerances is a salient concern. Coeliac disease, lactose intolerance, and food allergies are serious conditions that I have learned to make allowances for. Then there's an ever-increasing number of people who choose to refrain from entire food groups such as dairy or meat, or follow 'lifestyle diets' that exclude white powders and saturated fats. Add to that, the political eaters who prohibit foie gras, veal, unsustainable fish, factory farmed proteins, and unorganic produce; or picky eaters who refuse to eat (for example) anything with garlic or onions, and you can begin to see why chefs are so frustrated— some to the point of choosing to make NO allowances.
I don't have that luxury.
When a guest at a dinner party unexpectedly announces that there is something on the carefully planned menu that they can't or won't eat, I have to accommodate them. No excuses.
The upside is that when you feed someone with special dietary needs a delicious and satisfying meal that doesn't offend their bodies or minds, they are exceedingly grateful. Altruism aside, a happy client is always a boost to the ego.
Over time, I've learned to make adjustments to fit most diets, but vegan desserts continue to challenge me. In a pinch, I can turn to fresh fruit and sorbet or granita, but that often feels like a copout. So I reexamined amazake's potential to add texture, natural sweetness, and moisture to desserts that otherwise rely on dairy products and refined sugars, and I decided that an ice cream was a good place to start. To the pureed amazake, I added coconut milk for richness, rice syrup for added sweetness, and guar gum to improve the mouthfeel. The addition of sichuan pepper was specific to this dish to enhance the flavor of strawberries and kinome.
While I'm pleased with how the amazake ice cream turned out, if I were given a choice between the sweet cream version and the vegan one, I would invariably choose the former.
I'm grateful that I have that luxury.
amazake ice cream ✢ puffed forbidden rice
strawberry ✢ sake ✢ kinome
vegan amazake ice cream
400g coconut milk
260g amazake
20g rice syrup
5g vanilla
4g lightly toasted and ground sichuan peppercorns (optional)
3g guar gum
Place all ingredients in a high speed blender and blend 3 minutes, or until very smooth. Scrape mixture into an ice cream freezer and proceed according to manufacture's directions.
Making amazake is perhaps the most overt example of saccharification that I've ever witnessed.
Take some cooked rice, blend it with koji (about 2:1 by volume), embrace them in warmth (100-140F), and in less than half of a day the koji will have efficiently digested the rice's starch, converting it into simple sugars. The result is stunningly sweet and full of character.
Traditionally, amazake is used as a sweetener or blended with hot water and served as a warm drink, but I'm just starting to investigate its potential in other arenas.
Think you're looking at soft boiled eggs?
Look again.
While making kasu zuke egg yolks, I was struck by how natural the pale kasu looked surrounding the yellow yolks— a visual inspiration for a faux egg. The next step was to make an albumen with the flavor of kasu and the texture of a cooked egg white. After experimenting with various hydrocolloids, the synergy of gelatin, agar, and gelated rice starch produced a convincing (and delicious) fascimile.
kasu eggs
makes 6
You will need 2-part egg molds with a pouring hole at the top. The molding process is a bit fiddly— the first pour should be allowed to set just enough to support the weight of the yolk, but soft enough to meld with the second pour.
1200g water
180g basmati rice
Bring water to a boil. Add rice and reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook for 25 minutes, until rice is very soft and tender. Drain rice, reserving the cooking liquid. Cool.
190g cooked, drained basmati rice
280g reserved cooking liquid
60g compressed kasu
6g rice bran oil
5g mirin
4g salt
1.8g agar
1g gelatin
6 65℃ egg yolks (whole eggs cooked at 65℃/149℉ for 45 minutes, then peeled and separated from whites)
Place rice, liquid, kasu, oil, mirin and salt in blender and blend until smooth. Sprinkle gelatin and agar over top of mixture and blend for 10 seconds. Scrape mixture into a saucepan. (At this point, mixture will be thick, but will become fluid upon heating). Cover and heat mixture over low heat until it comes to a simmer. (It is important to keep pan covered while heating as evaporation will cause it to thicken). Quickly pour mixture into bottom half of 6 molds until about 2/3 full. Cover pan and keep warm. Place molds in freezer until barely set (mixture will yield slightly when pressed with a finger, but is no longer liquid. Center a yolk on top of mixture in each mold. Secure the top half of the mold in place, being careful to not disturb the position of the yolks. Fill the molds with the remaining mixture using a small funnel, if necessary. Carefully transfer the molds to the refrigerator and chill for at least 2 hours before unmolding.
To unmold: Submerge the molds in warm water for a few seconds to loosen. Carefully remove the top half of the molds, then invert the bottom halves over a plate until the eggs slip out.
Leavened bread is probably the last thing anyone would associate with washoku tradition. Indeed, when we take a protracted view of Japanese cuisine, bread is a johny-come-lately.
It was late in the 16th century when the first Europeans—the Portuguese—settled in Japan, bringing with them Western religion, science, technology, and food. Although the Japanese quickly assimilated cake (bōlo) and fried food (tempura) into their cuisine, the Portuguese bread was too sour and chewy for their taste and not widely adopted. Nonetheless, it captured their imagination and the word pan (from the Portuguese pão) stuck.
Fast forward 300 years to 1871: the samarai Yasubei Kimura opens a bakery, Kimuraya, in Tokyo, with the aspiration of producing baked goods for the Japanese palate. Kimura realized that making European-style bread in Japan would be challenging. Leavened doughs were a new concept and wheat flour and yeast were scarce. After many failed attempts using alternate sources of yeast, Kimura hired Kodo Katsuzo, who developed a dough leavened with kasu (sake lees), giving birth to anpan, a hybrid of manjū (a Japanese derivative of Chinese mochi) and light, cottony, Dutch-inspired bread dough, encasing a filling of anko (sweet red bean paste). After the emperor gave it his seal of approval, anpan became the first widely accepted Japanese bread.
It was kasu's potential to leaven bread that first drew me to it. I found many references to sakadane, the liquid kasu starter used in the original anpan, but couldn't find a recipe or process, so I developed my own. Using wild cultivated yeast as a model, I made a starter from rice flour, water, and kasu. It took 8 days of feeding and stirring for it to become fully active— a considerable effort for what turned out to be a less than remarkable loaf of bread.
I suppose I could have started over and tweaked the recipe, but with all of the lengthy fermentation processes that I have currently working, I wanted something more immediate. I wanted bread— conspicuous with kasu, and mellow with rice—that I could make start-to-finish in a day. To that end, I made a new dough, adding yeast to hasten the process, and folded bits of kasu and fragrant basmati rice into the risen dough. For that shortcut, I make no apologies— to you, or to myself— because the bread was truly remarkable.
kasu bread ✢ kombu butter ✢ salt ✢ kinome
Kimura's anpan is but one example of how cross-cultural influences inform and develop cuisine by borrowing ideas, processes, and/or ingredients, and tailoring them to the tastes of the people that it will feed.
My kasu bread goes one step further; it closes the circle.
The Japanese were inspired to create a national bread from their introduction to leavened bread via the Portuguese. Inspired by sakadane, I borrowed kasu from the Japanese and applied it to a bread from my own heritage: Portuguese pão.
How does it taste?
It tastes richly personal,
sweet with history,
seasoned with a touch of irony.
kasu bread
starter:
54g compressed kasu
180g water
100g bread flour
.4g active dry yeast
dough:
175g bread flour
1.6g active dry yeast
5g salt
5g rice bran oil
5g mirin
solids:
100g cooked, drained, and cooled basmati rice
40g compressed kasu, cut into small bits
starter: In a blender, blend together the kasu and water until homogenous. Place the flour in a bowl and stir in the yeast. Pour kasu water into center and stir with a spoon to form smooth batter. Cover loosely and set aside at room temperature for 2-3 hours until batter forms bubbles.
dough: Place flour, yeast and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Mix on low speed to blend dry ingredients. With the mixer still on low speed, slowly pour in the active starter. Turn speed to medium and mix for 2 minutes. Add the rice bran oil and the mirin and mix 2 minutes more. Replace paddle with dough hook, turn speed up to medium high and knead dough for 5 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl. Scrape dough into bowl and turn upside down, so that top of dough is oiled. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperate until doubled in volume, about 1 1/2-2 hours.
solids: Punch dough down to deflate and turn out onto floured board. With fingertips, press dough into a rough rectangle, about 1/2" thick. Evenly sprinkle rice over dough, followed by bits of kasu. Starting at wide end of rectangle, roll dough in a tight spiral to form a log, and seal the ends. Cover dough with lightly oiled plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 1 1/2 hours, or until nearly doubled in size.
40 minutes before baking, place a baking stone on floor of oven and preheat to 232C/450F. When dough has risen, transfer it to a floured baking peel and place on heated stone in hot oven. Mist the oven 3-4 times with water in a spray bottle during the first 10 minutes of baking. After 15 minutes, turn the oven down to 204C/400F, and continue baking for 15-20 minutes longer until deep golden brown. Remove from oven with a peel and allow to cool on a rack.
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
I've been in hot pursuit of this plant since I first tasted its young leaves over a year ago. Nearly gave up until http://www.raintreenursery.com came to the rescue.
Kinome is the young leaf of Zanthoxylum piperitum, a species of prickly ash. It's the same plant that produces sichuan pepper. The leaves taste lemony fresh and produce a mild tongue-tingling sensation.
Although I bought it for its leaves, I'm curious to see it bloom and fruit. Hope I can stop myself from stripping it before that happens.
With the other shad roe sac, I'm attempting a multi-stage curing process. Here it is so far:
First, it was brined for 2 days in a 3% salt solution. Then it was embedded in a thick layer of sea salt for 3 days. Next, it was allowed to dry on a rack in the refrigerator for another 3 days until the surface was thoroughly dry. After brushing off the excess salt, it was embedded in a thick layer of red miso, covered and set in the refrigerator to ferrment for 2-3 months. That's where it is now.
After that, it will be cold smoked, then dehydrated until it is hard as wood.
The intention is to transform the shad roe into a botarga-like product with the complexity of katsuobushi.
The hope is that it will be delicious.
The turning of the seasons brings a new palette of flavors that are never more ephemeral than in spring. For a few short weeks I gorge on newborn onions, particularly those of the sweet Vidalia variety. Grilled, roasted, braised— I can't seem to get enough of them before they're gone.
The season for shad roe is equally fleeting and depends on where you live. Like salmon, shad are anadramous fish that live in salt water, but ascend rivers and streams to breed when the waters warm. Along the east coast, they begin running in January in Florida, and continue through to June in Canada. In Connecticut, where the American shad (Alosa sapidissima) is the state fish*, the month-long season is nearly over.
And shad roe's perishability is more evanescent than its season. I only buy it when I know that I can cook and serve it the same day. Yet, I couldn't walk away from the remaining pair of sacs in the fish case and when I asked the fish monger to wrap those as well, I knew I would be enjoying them days later.
*Want to know your state's fish? Here you go.
pickled shad roe
1-2 shad roe sacs
1Liter/1.05 qt cold water
85g/3 oz kosher salt
56g/2 oz brown sugar
3.5g/½ tsp. pink curing salt (optional, but will give the roe a rosy color)
1 bay leaf
10 black peppercorns
3.5g/1 tsp mustard seeds
3.5g/1 tsp whole coriander seeds
1g/½ tsp dried thyme
rendered bacon fat
Place roe sac(s) in a non-reactive container and chill. Bring water, salt, sugar and sodium nitrate to boil in a stainless steel saucepan. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Pour cooled brine over roe. Add remaining ingredients, cover and pickle in the refrigerator for 3 days. Remove roe from brine, discard brine and rinse container. Return roe to container and cover with fresh cold water. Chill for 12 hours.
Remove roe from water and pat dry with paper towels. Place roe sac(s) in sous vide bag. Add 28g/1 oz rendered bacon fat per sac. Vacuum and seal bag. Cook at 64C/147.2F for 40 minutes. Remove roe from bag and pat dry with paper towels. Chill before serving.
pickled shad roe ✢ braised/grilled spring onion
coriander mustard sauce
Playing with Fire and Water 