Pork-ginger miso stew

You may have noticed that most of the recipes I post here are things I'm trying for the first time. I'm kind of using this blog as my recipe book. Sorry. Here's one, for a change, that I've actually made enough times to swear by. An honest-to-goodness tried-and-true go-to recipe, and I sort of even invented it. I first tasted it in Hokkaido when I was on my mission, and tried to re-create it on my own.

Ingredients:
Potatoes - 2 big ones, cut into large pieces
Carrots - handful of baby carrots, cut into small pieces
Green onions - 1 bunch, chopped, including as much of the green parts as look edible
Boneless pork chop(s) - cut into big chunks
Shiitake, fresh - 2 handsful, sliced
Dashi (bonito soup stock) - 2 tbsp or so
Miso (if you have a choice in the store, go for "awase" miso - pure white will be a little bland and pure red will be a little salty, but "awase," which is a blend, will be just right)
Ginger root, grated - maybe 2 tbsp

1. Cook some rice in your rice cooker.

2. Cut all your veggies and the pork.

3. Put some water in a big stewpot - maybe four or five cups? Add a couple of tablespoons of dashi powder, stir, and bring to a boil. I never measure the dashi, just add to taste.

4. Sear the pork in a frying pan until the outside is white, but the inside is still pink. Put it in the boiling water. (Searing it first helps keep the pork from drying out while it boils, which sounds paradoxical, but happens.)

5. Add the potatoes and carrots. (Cutting the potatoes in big chunks and the carrots in small chunks helps them to get done at the same time.)

6. A few minutes later add the onions and shiitake.

7. While everything is boiling, peel and grate your ginger. In Asian groceries you can get grated ginger in tubes, and I used to use that, but now I realize fresh is better. Grate a lot of ginger.

8. When everything's tender (the potatoes should be almost crumbling), turn the heat down so that the water is almost boiling, but not quite.

9. Add miso, a little bit at a time, to taste. What I usually do is scoop a big spoonful into a ladle, then dip some of the broth into the ladle, and start smashing and stirring the miso in the ladle to dissolve it. Do this a few times until all the miso in the ladle is dissolved, and then repeat. This helps dissolve all the miso without having to stir the soup energetically and crush the potatoes. I usually use maybe four tablespoons of miso, but I never measure. Use more than you would for a proper miso soup: for this stew it's better if you can really taste the saltiness. Don't let the soup boil after you've added the miso. You're not supposed to boil miso.

10. Add your grated ginger. The ginger taste should almost be strong enough to overpower the saltiness of the miso.

11. Your rice should be done by now. Scoop some into a bowl, and ladle some of the soup over it. And there you are.

The point here is the combination of the salty-sweet miso and the ginger: the taste goes incredibly well with pork, and the whole thing is a really warming, soothing winter dish. Especially over the rice. We make it when one of us has a cold. And it's really easy to make, as you can tell.

Of course it could be made vegetarian. You can find a shiitake-based dashi (I think I've mentioned it before), and tofu is a good substitute for pork. Use soft tofu (silken tofu). Tofu goes really well with grated ginger anyway. Sometimes I even add it when I'm using pork.

Tomato Cilantro Chutney Cheese Dip

Eric had a workplace Christmas party today and his friend Avishek brought this great curry cheese dip stuff, so I made Eric get the recipe. Yum!

- Very finely chop and saute one yellow onion in ghee till golden brown.
- Add 3 cloves of finely diced garlic.
- Add 1 teaspoon of cumin powder, 3 to 4 tablespoon of garam masala (depending on the potency) and 1 teaspoon of ground up chilli powder.
- Add 5 chopped tomatoes and saute till soft. If the masala has stuck to the bottom of the pan, use a few tablespoon of water to dissolve the masala out.
- Puree the mixture with a handful of cilantro leaves, and 2 tablespoon of lemon juice.
- Break about 24 oz of cream cheese and beat it in with puree with a whisk until its all mixed in uniformly and is fluffy.
- Add salt according to taste and beat some more. And its done.

P.S. Eric brought jam-in-the-middle muffins with Glynne and Akiko's jam from Oregon. They turned out pretty nice, I should have him blog them sometime soon.

Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff-ish Stew

This is adapted from this slow cooker beef stroganoff recipe and its comments. It came out a little more soupy than would have been quite proper for beef stroganoff, but that was fine because we were looking for a stew, rather than something to serve over noodles, anyway. And that's what this is.

Ingredients:
1 pound beef for stew
1 red onion, chopped
1 (10.5 oz) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
8 oz fresh chanterelle mushrooms
5-6 small new potatoes, unpeeled, cut into chunks
salt and pepper
1 tbsp dried chives
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cube beef bouillon
1/2 cup red cooking wine
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp flour
16 oz sour cream (could do with less)
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

1. Put the beef in the bottom of the slow cooker. Salt and pepper to taste.

2. Add the potatoes, onion, and mushrooms.

3. Add the mushroom soup, water, chives, garlic, W-shire sauce.

4. In a bowl or measuring cup, whisk the flour together with the cooking wine. Add to the pot.

5. Cover, cook on low for 5-6 hours.

6. Add sour cream and parsley, stir. Cook for another 45 min. to an hour.

7. Serve with rice.

Note on sour cream: The original recipe calls for 16 oz sour cream. That's what we did, and it tasted great. That much sour cream did, however, kind of dilute the awesome beef-mushroom taste that was going on before I added the sour cream. Next time I'll try only using half to two-thirds as much sour cream.

In any case, it's hardly a healthy meal, but it was really good. Especially with the fresh chanterelles. I'm sure other mushrooms would be good, too, but the chanterelles really hold their flavor nicely.

Holiday Rolls

This recipe descends from my Grandmother, and has become a holiday tradition in our family. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, I bake at least one batch; usually two or three, particularly for large gatherings. The recipe can be halved for smaller occasions, but make sure you have enough time: Starting at six or seven in the morning ensures enough rise time as long as you don't need them before two in the afternoon.

2 Tbsp. (or 2 packets) dry yeast
2 Cups warm water (warmer than room temperature, but not too hot for the inner wrist)
2 sticks butter (¼ cup each)
1 Cup sugar
½ Tbsp. salt
6 eggs, beaten
7 - 8 Cups white flour (optionally, one cup can be wheat)

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Melt one of the sticks of butter; mix the melted butter, the sugar, the salt, and the eggs into the yeast water. Add 7 cups of flour (including all of the wheat flour, if any) all at once, and mix to make a soft dough. Knead, adding flour as needed, until it holds together and isn't sticky. Let rise, covered, for 2½ to 3 hours.

Melt the other stick of butter. Lightly brush the counter top, rolling pin, pizza cutter, baking sheets, and your hands with butter. Divide dough into fourths. For each piece in turn:

1. Form into a ball.
2. Roll out into a circle the size of a small pizza.
3. Brush the top with butter.
4. Cut into sixteen pizza slices.
5. Roll each triangle from large end to small, placing it on a baking sheet with the small end underneath.

With remaining melted butter, brush the top of each roll. Let rise for 2½ to 3 hours.

Bake at 350°F for 11 minutes or until golden brown. Serve in a cloth-lined basket. Makes 64 rolls.

Notes and Hints

• Forgetting the salt is not a tragedy, but don't omit it intentionally.
• Softer dough needs less rising time, and results in a fluffier roll, but firmer dough holds its shape better. If the rolls unroll themselves while rising, the dough is too firm.
• Allow an hour for rolling time. It never seems like it should take that long, but it does.
• Place the rolls diagonally on the baking sheet, with larger ones in the corners and smaller ones in the center.
• A single recipe typically requires three half-size baking sheets, or four smaller ones. A double batch can be crammed onto five.
• Allow enough space between the rolls on the baking sheets for expansion. They should be just touching when they come out of the oven, but pull apart easily.
• Resist the temptation to bake two sheets at once.
• If you have a convection oven, turn on the convection for the first few minutes, but not the entire baking time.
• For best results, serve immediately. Once cool, they store well in a plastic bag until the next day.
• These rolls don't really need to be served with butter or jelly. Honey is interesting, but also unnecessary.
• The recipe can be adapted to cinnamon-walnut pull-aparts, but I keep failing to do so successfully.
• Feel free to experiment.

Chicken and Dumplings

Tis the season for comfort food. This recipe for Chicken and Dumplings isn't some great culinary masterpiece but it's delicious and cheap. Like six servings for about $15 cheap. It'll also leave you with a decent amount of broth, so if you line up something that requires chicken broth for the next night, you'll save yourself a couple bucks and end up with superior broth to boot. It takes a lot of time but it isn't particularly labor intensive. Have a book or magazine handy.

Thankful for...a new cheese?

We went over to friends' for T-day, meaning that for what must be the fourth straight year we didn't have to do any cooking. Well, Akiko made a pie, but I'll let her write about that if she feels like it.

Which meant no new recipes tried out. We ate a lot of things that I want to try someday, though, so blogwise there might have been something in it. In the meantime, we did discover an awesome cheese that somebody brought to the party.

It's a Spanish cheese called Idiazabal. Made from sheep's milk, although I don't think it tastes sheepy at all. In fact the person who brought it said it was cow's milk (or I misremembered), and I believed it until we bought some tonight.

The only Spanish cheese I knew about previously was manchego, and I'm wild about that. This is maybe a little milder, and the variety we have is smoked, so it almost tastes like a gouda, but without the gouda flavor. Like, it's sharp and dry but not nutty. Buttery? I need to develop a pretentious cheese vocabulary, obviously. In any case, it's real good. A new fave.

Chicken Marsala

Hey everyone! I am sorry that I haven't been doing anything on here in a while. I haven't been cooking much lately with school and stuff. I know everyone knows about this recipe but I have never made it before so I decided to take a little time for myself away from homework today to make a real meal.

This recipe is originally from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I had to make some changes and I included those.

1lb chicken breasts (I bought purdue ones that were already really really thin so I didn't have to pound them myself)
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. dry marjoram
salt to taste
pepper
2 cups sliced mushrooms (I used a carton of sliced baby bellas from the store)
2 small spring onions chopped finely
butter/margarine/cooking oil (this is where I had issues)
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup Marsala wine

Mix flour, marjoram, some pepper, and a little salt on a plate. Dredge your flattened chicken breasts and set aside. In a non-stick pan melt (med/low heat) about 2 tbs butter/margarine and add a tiny bit of cooking oil (The cookbook called for so much less and left me with sticking sad mushrooms until i added more lipids!!). Sautee your onion and mushrooms until the mushrooms are tender and browned. Remove the mushrooms/onions from the pan. DON'T RINSE/WASH/WIPE the pan - you need the good browned stuff on the bottom for later. Add more butter and oil (the same amount) and brown your chickens over high heat. This should go really quickly (about 4 minutes to cook a breast). Turn them over as they cook to ensure they brown on both sides. Remove from pan and set aside when they're done. Put your mushroom stuff back in the pan (low heat now) and add your chicken stock and Marsala. Add a pinch of salt to taste here (not much, the sauce is nice a little sweet in my opinion). Turn up the heat and proceed to deglaze the pan while reducing the sauce. This is where all the crusty junk from the bottom of the pan becomes magical :) All that stuff = Flava! But I digress. When your sauce is at a consistency you approve of, pour the sauce and mushrooms over the chicken breast. Enjoy. This serves 4 technically. I say 3 without a side dish if you are lazy like me.