Miso Magic

It never fails to amaze me how fermented soybeans stirred into a broth made of fish flakes and kelp is somehow deeply nummy. Although I was raised in a family of good cooks, being based in rural southern Iowa were green onions were considered specialty produce pretty much meant my exposure to the delights of miso came later in life. But I have embraced them wholeheartedly.

I just slurpped down a bowl of fat udon noodles with a few shitakes and some tofu that I'd let sit in a bit of dark sesame oil and soy sauce swimming in a miso-laced dashi. Less than five minutes of really doing anything in the kitchen and a wee bit of waiting. mmm.

On Sunday I also released miso magic on friends who came for dinner by pulling out a miso glazed salmon. It's a dish that I make for myself fairly regularly and the only "recipe" I've come up with that has what I consider a secret recipe (hint, it's not the miso). It makes me feel rather sneaky and clever. Also served as a starter a tricky cribbed from a copy of Food and Wine that was sitting around at Christmas: grind together corse salt and Lapsang Souchong tea and sprinkle on edamame. Goodness abounds.

ROI

Businessy folks like to talk about "Returns on Investment" when trying to decide if they're going to pony up the cash or not. In the kitchen, I sometimes function on a similar principle but thinking of time as my resource rather than cash. I have little to no interest in investing my time and effort on something like fruit carving, which is pretty but pays out low dividends in increased tastiness (which is my primary motivator after all) but I'm willing to hang out in the kitchen for extended periods if it's going to payoff.

I'm convinced that caramelized onions are one of the best investments out there. (Gosh, if anyone pulls up this post after Googling "investment strategy" I'm awful sorry, this won't help your bottom line at all but reading on might not be bad for your "quality of life.")

Doing them well requires about an hour and a half. Granted, you aren't actively doing things but you need to be around so you don't wind up with a charred mass.

In return for my time, however, I wind up with a pile of sweet savory oniony goodness that keeps well in the fridge. So, when I come home late from work and class I go to the kitchen and boil water. I put in whole wheat noodles and pour myself a glass of wine. When my noodles are done I drain them and put them back in the same pan with a little butter, a little rosemary, big spoonfuls of caramelized onion and blue cheese. Then it gets slightly warmed and stirred. It's filling and nummy and takes less time than getting takeout.

And there's still loads of jammy onion left for more lazy pasta or lazy omelets or ambitous tarty bits or...or...

A mighty high payout I sez.

Messing with a Good Thing

I have got Chicken Broth down. Cold. It is something I barely think about: I throw in the goods, let 'er sit, strain, pop in the fridge, defat and boil down to the essence. Then it gets stored in the freezer so I'm ready for rissotto, nummy sauces and soup projects.

So yesterday, what did I decide to do? Tinker. Rather than doing Euro seasoning (thyme, rosemary, parm rind, etc.) I went Asian and did something along these lines:

3 lbs chicken (parts is parts...)
2 stalks celery
1 large carrot
2 shallots
garlic
handful of shitake mushrooms
sliced fresh ginger
peppercorns
star anise
lemongrass
cilantro (actually, Golden Pacific Foods claimed it was cilantro but it was clearly a different variety...long broad leaves rather than the frilly normal kind, scent and flavor though was very similar)

I didn't add salt because I figured with this as the base I could then use it for either SE Asia or Chinese style cooking by adding in either soy or fish sauce.

Then today I pulled out my copy of Hot Sour Salty Sweet and put my broth to good use with a variation of the Silky Coconut Pumpkin Soup.

Sauteed roughly chopped shallots in a bit of oil, threw in diced winter squash, simmer in equal parts of the broth and coconut milk with a few splashes of fish sauce. When the squash was getting tender I added more fish sauce let then settle in and then added a big handful of chiffonaded sort of cilantro.

I'm looking forward to my lunch this week...

Shiny Newness

The blog had been floating around out there with nothin' really going on for, oh, about a year. But I've been cooking and fiddling with food all weekend and I have decided it needed a bit of a revamp. Inspired in part by Miss Mari's cupcake and other antics, in part by listening again to The Splendid Table I cleared out the random unrelated posts from the past and kept only the food related ones...

How exciting! A focus.

So, from here on out I'll try to stay focused on my food adventures. My New Year's resolution this year is to learn to cook Indian style. This is because I have never been a big fan of Indian food, which means I think I just don't know enough about it. I have eaten some really good Indian meals but I have never been very good at figuring out how it all works, so that will likely be a part of the upcoming information.