Joe Cook Me

Japanese Cooking Binge

January 15th, 2024

Winter seems to be the time of year I most like cooking Japanese food. It’s not dependent on locally grown farmers’-market ingredients and it’s a pretty healthy change from all the holiday cooking and eating. It is also right up there with Italian and Peruvian as one of my favorite cuisines. This year I really wanted to push the envelope in trying several new cookbooks and new seafood.

Cookbooks

The top row of books are a great collection for those interested in learning Japanese cooking. Japan the Cookbook (JtC) by Nancy Singleton Hachisu (who is white and moved to Japan in her youth, ultimately writing a cookbook on the cuisine, Fusia-Dunlop style) has oodles of reliable recipes spanning different regions and styles. The vast majority of my recent dishes have been from this one. Rintaro is a reliably yummy and slightly more complicated Japanese-West-Coast fusion restaurant. Japanese Cooking, A Simple Art, by Shizuo Tsuji is an English-language classic on the subject and includes very helpful descriptions of how to pair and serve various dishes to form a complete Japanese meal. The bottom three cookbooks I turn to rarely but have seemed good so far.

Techniques

One technique that is common to almost all of the meals prepared below is making homemade bonito flakes. These are shaved from a dried, smoked, salted, and cured bonito called katsuobushi. The dried fish is so hard that a wood plane must be used. Specialized wood planes are rather expensive, but I found a regular Japanese carpenters plane is much cheaper and works just as well.

Na No Hana Ohitashi (Flowering Rapini in Warm Mustardy Dashi, Rintaro)

Joe’s Rating: 6
Difficulty: 3

Kani No Sunomono (Crab Sunomono, Rintaro), Kabocha Croquettes (JtC)

Joe’s Rating: 7.5 (Crab), 7 (Kabocha)
Difficulty: 5.5 (Crab), 4.5 (Kabocha)

Steamed Egg Custard Pots (JtC)

Joe’s Rating: 7.5
Difficulty: 3.5

Ika No Nuta (Mustard-Miso Dressed Squid, Rintaro)

Joe’s Rating: 6.5
Difficulty: 4.5

Miso-Fried Eggplant and Green Pepper (JtC)

Joe’s Rating: 6.5
Difficulty: 3

Salmon Nabe (JtC)

Joe’s Rating: 7
Difficulty: 4.5

Mountain Yam with Edamame and Nori (JtC)

Joe’s Rating: 7
Difficulty: 1.5

Kamo Nanban Soba (Japanese Soul Cooking)

Joe’s Rating: 6.5
Difficulty: 5

Salmon Sashimi

Miso Soup with Poached Egg, Crispy Green Beans in Sesame (JtC), Citrus-and-Soy-Glazed Swordfish (Washoku)

Joe’s Rating: 6.5 (Miso Soup), 6.5 (Crispy Green Beans), 7 (Swordfish)
Difficulty: 3.5 (Miso Soup), 2.5 (Crispy Green Beans), 3 (Swordfish)

Grated Daikon with Salmon Roe (JtC)

Joe’s Rating: 7
Difficulty: 1

Miso-Simmered Mackerel, Cucumber and Bean Sprouts in Sesame Vinegar (JtC)

Joe’s Rating: 6 (Mackerel), 7 (Cucumber)
Difficulty: 3 (Mackerel), 3.5 (Cucumber)

Peddler’s Udon with Spicy Meat Sauce (Japanese Home Cooking)

Joe’s Rating: 6.5
Difficulty: 4.5

Natto Soup (JtC)

Joe’s Rating: 6.5
Difficulty: 3

Miso Soup with Grated Carrot (JtC)

Joe’s Rating: 6
Difficulty: 3
Black-Sea Turkish Lunch (Istanbul & Beyond)

November 16th, 2023

After taking a break from cooking to move into a new apartment and job, I am back at it and looking to prepare Turkish, Japanese, Portuguese, Oaxaca, Cretan, and Peruvian meals in the coming weeks. I particularly would like to highlight fresh seafood from some of my local markets now that the mushroom foraging season appears to be very much over. Today, I decided to build a meal around some fermented Turkish pickled string beans I made back in August. According to Robyn Eckhardt’s Istanbul & Beyond, these pickles can be served along with pan-fried sardines, anchovies, or sand dabs to make a classic lunch served on the Black-Sea coast of Turkey. I particularly like how it includes both quick & cold pickles as well as stir-fried fermented pickles; in this way it reminds me of one of my all-time favorite dishes, Cumin-Scented Lamb from the Mission Chinese Cookbook.

Panfried Little Fish (Istanbul & Beyond)
I found these at Courthouse Fish Market, which has a wide variety of whole fish (relative to New Deal Fish Market down the street) and serves the local Portuguese community near Inman Square. I also noted very good deals on salt cod, Portuguese sausages (like linguiça), and frozen fava beans for future use. The fishmonger offered to remove their heads, which saves a lot of time (this also removes the guts and leaves them ready to fry). I used med-high heat and they came out good.

Sautéed Green-Bean Pickles
These Turkish pickles are very sour, but also very shelf-stable as a result. I fermented them for 10 days and left them in the fridge for 3 months and they still tasted great. I used a medley of my friend’s garden-grown string beans. The recipe is simple and benefits from high heat / minimizing liquid.

Hot-Pink Quick Pickled Cabbage, Griddled Corn Breads, Garlicky-Herbed Yogurt
I was unable to form the corn breads into the suggested ring without breaking them. I also wish I had made double the corn bread. Finally, the quick-pickled cabbage benefits from only a very light rinse so as to retain more salt.

The resulting meal was fun and required mixing and matching the 5 different components in every bite. The best involved the sardines, corn bread, and at least one of the acidifying accompaniments.
Joe’s Rating: 5.5
Difficulty: 4 (6 if you include making the pickles from scratch)
Foraged Mushroom Persian Dinner with Paw Paw Pudding Dessert

October 5th, 2023

Chicken, Herbs, Garlic + Sour-Orange Braise (Cooking in Iran)

Hen of the Woods (Maitake) are everywhere this fall. When I find Chicken of the Woods, particularly when it’s older and tougher, I like to make braised chicken curries. The similarity to real chicken breast is uncanny in these dishes. This is my attempt at using Hen of the Woods in the same manner. It doesn’t work as well at replicating the texture of real chicken unfortunately, but the meal was great!

The bounty of the forest: one big Maitake is enough to feed a crowd, and there are a bunch out there.

Joe’s Rating: 6
Difficulty: 5

Pawpaw and Banana Pudding (South)

This is tied for my favorite dessert of all time (with strawberry shortcake from Momofuku.) I try to make it every September when pawpaws are in season! The pawpaw is a tropical-tasting fruit that has notes of guava and banana but is native to North America. Keep an eye out for it at nice produce markets (or forage it). This recipe is a show-stopper.

Pawpaws for sale at Argus in Ann Arbor, MI

Joe’s Rating: 8
Difficulty: 8
Garden Dinner: Zucchini, Beans, and Cabbage (Nopi, Summer Kitchen)

August 7th, 2023

Today, it is harvest time for various types of string beans, cabbage, and zucchini. I recently received an new and lovely cookbook: Summer Kitchens: Recipes and Reminiscences from Every Corner of Ukraine by Olia Hercules. Olia also wrote another popular Ukrainian cookbook, Mamushka, and this one seems like a step up, featuring more interesting, recipes that are still approachable. The book is titled after a shed-kitchen that many Ukrainians cook out of during the Summer months. I decided to cook some simple zucchini fritters from this book to give it a try. For the beans and cabbage, I chose one of the few vegan dishes in Nopi (a favorite reliably impressive cookbook of mine.) Stay tuned for more beans and zucchini, as well as kale, nasturtiums, cucumbers, summer squash, peppers in the coming weeks!

Zucchini Fritters (Summer Kitchen): I used a slightly larger grater setting than the book recommended, and it worked fine. I also decided to keep the seeds in the fritters, and this also had no detrimental effect on the dish (just be sure to adjust the other ingredients to account for the added weight of the core). I squeezed the grated zucchini very hard to get out as much liquid as possible. This recipe calls for self-rising flour, so note that you can make self-rising flour by combining a cup of all-purpose flour with a half tablespoon of baking powder and a quarter teaspoon of salt.

The resulting fritters were light, fairly cakey. I would cut the flour down by a small amount next time. I served them with salted yogurt. It was refreshing and delicious!
Joe’s Rating: 7
Difficulty: 4

Snake Bean and Peanut Achar (Nopi): This dish combines Malaysian achar paste (spiced onion paste) with cabbage, peanuts, and snake beans. I actually just used regular garden-grown string beans instead of snake beans, a fine substitute! They recommend serving this with a poached egg or some other egg dish. As it was getting late, I just ate it with simple salted yogurt, and this was a fine way to enjoy the dish.
Joe’s Rating: 6.5
Difficulty: 5
Pasta Night! (The Splendid Table)

August 4th, 2023

Pasta was the theme; we went with “Tagliatelle with Caramelized Onions and Fresh Herbs” in The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (check out her 25-year-old eponymous podcast here.) This recipe is appealing because it is simple, features spring herbs, and is from an exceptional cookbook with numerous suggestions for paired dishes. I found a lone porcini at The Mushroom Shop and decided to make a raw porcini salad (from The Italian Regional Cookbook). Finally, I couldn’t help but make the “cool-weather” suggested Zabaione Jam Tart (also The Splendid Table). All courses are from Northern-to-Central Italy, keeping the dinner fairly regionally focused.

Wild Mushroom Salad (The Italian Regional Cookbook): I have made this recipe once before and loved it! The recipe uses Italian parsley as a leafy element, but I read that raw porcini is commonly served with arugula, so we decided to use that instead to keep the flavors very delicate. We sliced the porcini on a mandoline, used a mix of aged reserve Parmesan and regular Parmesan. The result was fantastic! We ate with our hands, rolling up each piece of porcini with a leaf and some salt, olive oil, and lemon.
Joe’s Rating: 7.5
Difficulty: 2

The porcini

Tagliatelle with Caramelized Onions and Fresh Herbs (The Splendid Table): To start, we had to make a batch of egg pasta. The recipe for egg pasta is very egg heavy, using 4 jumbo eggs for 3.5 cups of flour and no other liquids! We did have to add a bit of water to get the consistency right, but otherwise this produced a great pasta. We also used tipo ’00’ flour instead of the stated all-purpose, figuring that in 1992 that might not have been commonly available in the states and thus excluded from the recipe. We started by making the dough by hand using the traditional mound method, then switched to a machine (a Kitchen-Aid stand-mixer attachment) to roll out the dough. Be sure to flour generously and give it time to cure.

The sauce required caramelizing onions in an interesting manner; you first steam the onions for 30 minutes and only attempt to caramelize them rapidly once they are soft and lots of their juices had escaped. I found that this worked but that it took longer than they stated to do both steps (extract juices and then caramelize them) – I’d recommend going slowly. The rest of the preparation is straightforward. Note for the interest of wine pairing that the onions and herbs include 2/3-cup of cream, but that this is not enough to make the sauce “cream based”. The resulting dish was excellent – herbal, fresh yet satisfying.
Joe’s Rating: 7
Difficulty: 6

Zabaione Jam Tart (The Splendid Table): Finally, we get to dessert. The Zabaione is made with Marsala fortified wine, giving it a liquor note that is distinctively Italian. It also uses 6 large egg yolks for 6-8 servings, making it very rich. The pastry is also referred to as a “cookie crust” – keep this in mind when deciding how much to mix it. I opted to mix the dough very little, trying to get a flake like a biscuit; however, this makes the dough difficult to roll and fit into the tart pan. That is OK if you don’t mind building the crust in the pan, otherwise mix more thoroughly. The prune-jam flavor paired excellently with the zabaione. Yum!
Joe’s Rating: 7.5
Difficulty: 6
Whole Sea Bream, Fried Green Tomatoes Two Ways, and Strained Ricotta and Blackcurrant Compote

July 30th, 2023

Time to build a dinner around garden-fresh green tomatoes! I decided to fry the tomatoes according to two different recipes: one from Lost Kitchen, the other from On Vegetables (tl;dr: Lost Kitchen wins even though it is easier.) For the main, I decided on a whole Sea Bream, which is available at New Deal Fish Market and feels appropriate for the dog days of summer. Finally, I got ahold of some fresh blackcurrants at The Mushroom Shop and decided to take a stab at a strained ricotta dessert from Nopi.

Whole Sea Bream (Polpo): This dish is super straightforward and delicious! Make extra herb-garlic oil and salt generously. Cook the fish to 135F-140F. Grill if possible. I roasted in the oven in preheated cast-iron at 435F; I’d recommend going even higher to crisp the skin next time.

Fried Green Tomatoes with Buttermilk and Dill (Lost Kitchen): I’ve made this recipe before and know that it is excellent! The recipe is straightforward. Just make sure you get/keep your oil hot enough so that it doesn’t get soggy and oily. I needed to move the oil to a larger burner to accomplish this.
Joe’s Rating: 7.5
Difficulty: 4

Fried Green Tomatoes, Burrata & Green Tomato Preserves (On Vegetables): This recipe features a spiced green-tomato-raisin compote that takes 2-3 hours to make (it only took me about 2 hours) and is served with burrata, basil, and a cornmeal breading. Opinions were divided on whether the grittier cornmeal improved the dish. I also thought the spiced compote was more of a fall flavor than a mid-summer one (although it was delicious.) I’d recommend adding a hit of acid to the compote and salting all components generously.
Joe’s Rating: 7
Difficulty: 6.5

Strained Ricotta with Blackcurrant Compote and Rhubarb (Nopi): The strained ricotta is sweetened and folded together with sweetened whipped egg whites (so an unbaked meringue) and then strained for two days. I can attest that quadruple-layered cheese cloth works but is a poor substitute for the muslin cloth here. We also found the strained-ricotta to be overly sweet. In the future, I would add more ricotta and cut the sugar. Serving with good vanilla ice cream was very appealing and outshone the ricotta. My rhubarb (not pictured) ended up stringy and chewy because I left it unrefrigerated for a couple of hours; it needs to remain super fresh and crisp for this to work.
Joe’s Rating: 6
Difficulty: 7.5
Chilled Cucumber and Tahini Soup (Falestin) and Mushroom Skewers with Crushed Chickpeas (Mezcla)

July 26th, 2023

Tonight is vegan-food night! An appetizer of chilled bright-green cucumber-tahini soup and a main of roasted mushroom skewers seemed both seasonal and sufficiently rich to pamper my vegan friend.

Chilled Cucumber and Tahini Soup with Spicy Pumpkin Seeds (Falestin): The preparation of this dish is straightforward. Just make sure not to forget any of the many garnishes in the soup! I found this dish to be refreshing, but surprisingly light and simple flavored given the addition of tahini.
Joe’s Rating: 6
Difficulty: 5.5

Crispy ~~Oyster~~ Mixed Mushroom Skewers with Crushed Chickpeas (Mezcla): This dish really exceeded my expectations. First of all, I decided to use dried instead of canned chickpeas. I just followed the instructions for preparing them in the hummus recipe in Zahav. I believe it’s totally worth it if you are able to soak the chickpeas overnight and boil them for 60-90 minutes. The second adaption I made was to get a mix of seasonal / wild mushrooms from The Mushroom Shop in Somerville. After talking with the experts there, we decided on a mix of oysters, chanterelles, and morels. Finally, I’d recommend making significantly extra chili oil for basting and garnishing the mushrooms.

We absolutely loved this dish; all elements were important. The morels were our favorite mushroom, although all were very good. We noted that meat-eaters would not miss their meat in this dish.
Joe’s Rating: 8
Difficulty: 4.5
Mushroom Piadina, Pizzetta (Polpo) and Walnut and Fruit Crumble (Jerusalem)

July 21st, 2023

My friend Karen is a serious mushroom forager and had an assortment of lovely mushrooms to cook with (including a beautiful chicken of the woods!) I selected a mushroom piadina from my favorite Italian cookbook, Polpo. The recipes in Polpo are very simple and delicious, which is good for allowing the wild mushrooms to stand out. A piadina is a thin, folded flatbread from Romagna, if you were curious. To pair with this, I selected a fruit crumble from Jerusalem that I’ve always wanted to try because it features a guava-plum compote that sounds interesting. Finally, I used the extra dough from the piadina to make a pizzetta as well.

Mushroom Bounty!

Mushroom Piadina (Polpo): The flatbread uses the same dough as a pizza crust; this is convenient! The dough is also nearly identical to pitas as well as far as I can tell, so you have a lot of options when you make a batch of it. For the piadina, it is precooked on a stone (or in my case, a giant cast-iron pan), and then finished on a grill / grill pan. I have made this dough many times before, and it came out a bit more wet than usual, probably because of how I stored the flour (open in a hot, moist location.) I decided to leave it more wet and the resulting flatbreads were fine – so the bread shouldn’t be too sensitive to slight changes in wetness. The cookbook also makes a big deal out off rolling the dough thin, but I’ve never had a problem getting though dough thin enough; if anything, you want to make it a little thicker by starting each flatbread with a ball of dough that is a good bit bigger than the suggested golf-ball size.

The resulting dish was tasty but seemed to be missing a sauce. We added creme fraiche. I think an aioli would also go well here. We also experimented with adding a smoked miso; this was delicious, but definitely made the dish a bit rich for the heart of summer.

Joe’s Rating: 6
Difficulty: 5

Walnut and Fruit Crumble Cream (Jerusalem): The guava and plum compote was indeed very tasty (more tasty than the fig compote, which we also tried.) You can get guava in Hmart seemingly year-round. We were also big fans of the spiced mascarpone cream; I always like adding star anise to desserts! We were disappointed, however, that the crumble was baked and assembled separately from the fruit. I was hoping for more of a classic gooey American crumble. Be careful not to burn the crumble!

Joe’s Rating: 6.5
Difficulty: 5.5

Prosciutto & Rocket Pizzetta (Polpo): At this point I have made seven of the nine pizzettas in Polpo and I have loved all of them. Unlike most of the other Polpo pizzettas, this one has a tomato sauce and basic mozzarella cheese underneath the listed toppings. Unfortunately, I think this base took some of the magic out of it compared to the others I’ve cooked. I’d recommend skipping this one!

Joe’s Rating: 5.5
Difficulty: 4.5
Mapo Tofu and Sesame-Oil Broccoli (The Food of Sichuan)

June 2nd, 2023

Mapo Tofu is something that can go either way for me. I’ve had some very peppery, pungent versions that I love as well as some goopy insipid versions. I figure this is a good benchmark recipe to try from TFoS. At the very least I am glad to learn a canonical version of this classic dish to contrast with the pungent version I made from The Mission Chinese Cookbook.

Cooking Notes: I cut the amount of ground chiles as it seemed to be a lot; however, I believe using the whole 2 tbsp would have been fine. I increased the amount of Sichuan peppercorn and used a 50/50 blend of toasted and fresh peppercorns. I strongly advocate for increasing this key ingredient.

Tasting Notes: This version of Mapo Tofu is certainly a good one. It is not quite as intense as the one from The Mission Chinese Cookbook; however, the technique used to make the chile-bean sauce in the same pan as the tofu is very convenient. You could attempt to capture the flavors of the stronger version using this technique by adding some extra Sichuan peppercorn, a bit of ground black cardamom, and some mushroom powder directly to the sauce.

Joe’s Rating: 6.5/6.5 (Mapo / Broccoli)
Difficulty: 4.5/2.5
Watercress & Chickpea Soup with Rose Water & Ras el Hanout (Jerusalem)

May 25th, 2023

Cooking Notes: Dried chickpeas would definitely have been better if you have the time. You can easily make 1.5x-2x the carrot / ras el hanout topping. Also, toss the chickpeas that you intend to roast in ras el hanout as well; more spice definitely adds something to the soup.

Tasting Notes: Excellent! The ginger contributes a spiciness that I originally thought was cayenne pepper. Watercress adds an earthy-peppery note that is nice. Rose water is present but not overwhelming. 5x batch made 1.5-1.75 gallons. Note that a serving of this has less than 500 calories; can definitely use some bread to make a meal. One of my favorite recipes so far in Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem.

Joe’s Rating: 7
Difficulty: 6