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First, the ingredients:
4 nori sheets
1 quantity su-meshi (see below for instructions)
Omelet:
2 beaten eggs
25 mL dashi stock
2 teaspoons sake or mirin
1/2 teaspoon salt
vegetable oil
Other fillings:
3 large or 6 small dried shitake mushrooms, soaked overnight in water in the fridge
1/2 cup dashi stock
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon mirin
raw fish or canned fish mixed with enough maoynnaise to coat
avocado, cooked asparagus and/or cucumber
Divide all the ingredients into ~4 equal portions.
1 sushi mat (makisu)

Making maki can seem difficult at first, but if the ingredients are prepared in advance then making them is much easier. Make the su-meshi beforehand and ensure it is cool to the touch before rolling the maki.

Sushi rice (su-meshi):
This is essential to all moulded sushi dishes including hand-moulded sushi and maki sushi. Cook Japanese/sushi rice with the guideline that for each cup of rice, a cup and 2-3 tablespoons of water is added. Usually about 1 1/2 cups of dry rice makes enough for 4 thick maki rolls, so add 1 3/4 cups of water. Bring rice and water to a gentle boil and turn town heat to low. Cook for 13 minutes, then remove from heat. Mix together 3 tablespoons rice vinegar, 7 1/2 teaspoons sugar and 2 teaspoons salt until sugar and salt dissolve. Transfer cooked rice into a mixing bowl (wood is preferable) and sprinkle vinegar mixture over the rice evenly. Mix or fold with a wooden spatula without stirring, which will separate the grains. Leave to cool at least an hour before making sushi, otherwise sushi will not hold together. You can speed this up by putting the rice in the freezer.

Mushrooms:
Mix the soy sauce, mirin, dashi and sugar in a small pan. Add the mushrooms and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes (half the liquid or more should have evaporated). Drain and cut off the stalks. Slice the caps thinly.

Omelet:
Next prepare the omelet by mixing the eggs, dashi, sake and salt. Heat oil in a frying pan (the smaller the better) and pour a thin layer of egg mixture in the frying pan to cover the surface. When this sets, fold half of the omelet over and pour in more egg mixture. Repeat until you use all of the egg mixture. Once cooked, take the omelet off the heat and cut into 1/2 inch wide strips. The first few times you do this, it will probably look terrible, but it gets better with practice.

Prepare the rest of the ingredients:
If you use cucumber, peel or cut off the outer skin and cut 4 strips as long as the sushi mat (or 8 half as long to prevent wasting most of the cucumber). Slice the avocado and cut asparagus, if using. Slice the fresh fish into long strips (remove skin if present). Keep the fish in the fridge until ready to roll.

Roll, baby, roll!
Put a sushi mat on the counter so the long edge is horizontal (perpendicular to you). Place a single nori sheet on it in the same orientation. Use a spoon to put a thin layer (about 1/4 of the rice) on the nori. Or use you hands: make a bowl of 2/3 cup water and 1 tablespoon rice vinegar. The vinegar will prevent the su-meshi from sticking to your hands. Leave a space of about 1/2 an inch on the top and bottom edges free of rice.

In the middle of the rice, place the omelet, green vegetable, mushroom, and fish (if you use canned fish, make sure it is on the “inner edge” otherwise it will squish our when you roll the maki). Do not put the fillings all the way to the edge. When you are ready to roll, lift the edge of the makisu nearest you and roll it and the nori over on itself (don’t roll the mat into the nori!). When you finish rolling the nori, stop rolling the mat and just touch the surfaces of the mat together. Fold over the extra on the mat on itself and then continue to roll up the entire mat. This ensures that the nori does not come undone. Roll this on the counter several times to press the nori and rice together. This is hard to picture, so just try it, you will very quickly learn from your mistakes! I did.

Put the maki in the fridge and cover with saran wrap until all are maki are made. Wet a sharp, non-serrated knife with cold water or rice vinegar and cut the maki into 6 pieces. The edge pieces may fall part, but the rest should stay together. Keep refrigerated if not serving immediately. Serve with wasabi mixed with soy sauce. Eat within two days, preferably within one.

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1/2 cup (loosely packed) cilantro sprigs
1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1 tablespoon milk
5 large red bell peppers, cut lengthwise into flat panels
1 1/2 tsp olive oil
2 large onions, diced
3 garlic cloves, diced
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 1/2 cups water
1 can (400-500 mL) black beans, rinsed and drained
Preheat broiler. In food processor or blender, puree cilantro, sour cream and milk. Transfer to a bowl and chill until serving time. Place bell pepper pieces, skin-side up, in a single layer on a jelly-roll pan and broil 4″ to 5″ from heat for 10 minutes, until peppers are tender and lightly charred. Remove from heat and let cool. In the soup pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Stir in onions, garlic, salt, black pepper and cayenne, and sauté until onions are softened slightly, about 2 minutes. Add bell peppers, beans and water to pan; cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until peppers and onions are very tender, about 10 minutes.
In food processor or blender, puree soup. Return puree to saucepan and cook over medium heat until warmed through. Ladle soup into bowls and top each serving with some of cilantro cream.

Recipe slightly modified from here.

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Wow I’m tired today. I didn’t get home until 6:50 yesterday and Dan got home at 7. We at at 8 and then after the dishes it ws 8:30! I got up at 5:40 this morning. Thank goodness there is only 1 monday a week.

Tonight I made agedashi tofu. See image (above) and recipe (below). Mmm. I’m not that good at it and I’m sure it would earn a student at a Japanese cooking school an expulsion, but it tasted pretty good.

Agedashi-Dofu (Deep-fired tofu)
1/2 lb tofu (half of one of those round containers of 800 g or one of the 400 g rectangle packages)
cornstarch or flour
oil for frying
1 cup dashi-no-moto stock
1/4 cup mirin (cooking rice wine)
1/4 cup soy sauce
sugar (optional)
1/4 cup minced green onion
1 tablespoon or more bonito (katsuo-bushi) flakes
3 tablespoons daikonoroshi (grated daikon)
1 tablespoon grated ginger
lemon slices (optional)
Drain tofu on strainer for several hours or on paper towel. Cut tofu into bite-size cubes. Bring sauce ingredients to a boil in a saucepan. Coat the pieces of tofu with cornstarch or flour. Heat the oil for frying, but do not begin until ready to serve. Deep-fry the tofu just until golden brown; do not overcook. Pour the sauce in a bowl. Put tofu in the centre of the bowl and sprinkle bonito flakes and green onion over the tofu. Place a mound of grated daikon next to the tofu, and top the daikon with a grated ginger. Squeeze lemon juice over daikon if you wish.

Japanese food always turns the kitchen into a disaster zone though.

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Here is one of my favourite ways to prepare Salmon/Trout:

Alaskan salmon
1 Salmon fillet
3 cloves fresh garlic
An inch knob of ginger root, grated
1/4 teaspoon red chili flakes
1 cup of rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 lemon, juiced
Cilantro for garnish
Stoke the fire or set barbecue to hottest setting or preheat the oven to broil. Let the fish marinade for at least half an hour. (Works well to put all the salmon and all the other ingredients in a ziplock freezer bag). Wrap the fillet in foil, skin side down, or place in a baking dish uncovered, and put it into the fire/oven. Allow 6-9 minutes per inch thickness.
If there is a trout fillet or smaller pieces of Salmon, reduce the ingredients in half.

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Its been busy this past week. I made one of my only pork recipes and thought I would take a picture (apologies to the vegetarians and koshers I know). Here is the recipe:

Saucy pork chops
4 pork loin chops, (3/4 inch thick) trimmed
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup salsa or chili sauce
1 package instant beef bouillon (1 tablespoon)
1/2 teaspoon each oregano and basil leaves
dash of pepper
In large frying pan over medium-high heat, lightly brown both sides of chops in oil, about 3 minutes. Remove. Add onion to skillet and cook 2 minutes. Stir in water, beef stock, chesalsa, oregano, and basil. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes. Return chops to pan, spoon sauce over top and sprinkle with pepper to taste. Partially cover and cook 10-15 minutes or until tender. Serve with rice or noodles.

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Last winter our friend Édith had a muffin-themed birthday party. She made about 6 different kinds of muffins: sweet muffins, fruity muffins, savoury muffins, all kinds of muffins! So she kindly emailed me the recipe for her “ham, pepper, and cheese muffins” which are a very nice accompaniment to a meal because they not sugary and have veggies in them. But I have renamed them as “anything goes muffins” since one is quite free to add just about any ingredient avalable to them and they still taste great.

anything goes muffins
1 cup flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
a pinch of salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup red pepper, cubed
3/4 cup green pepper, cubed
3/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
3/4 cup ham, cubed
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup melted butter
Mix the wet and dry ingredients separately, then add wet ingredients to the dry ones. Place in greased muffin tray and cook at 400F for 15-20 minutes.

If you’re wondering why the muffins in the picture look very un-muffin like, its because I don’t have a muffin tray at the moment. Its really, its not necessary since any muffin recipe can be used in different baking dishes to make “un-muffins”.

Merci Édith!

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I first tried mushy peas in Sir Winston’s Fish and Chips in Edmonton. It is a traditional fish & chips restautant on 51st Ave in Edmonton just west of Gateway Boulevard/Calgary trail (assuming its still there). Dad, Dan and I had tried to go there on several occations, but they seemed to have the strangest business hours and were closed Mondays and all day until 6 or 7 pm. Anyway, after several months of trying we finally did make it to this restaurant. The fish and chips were excellent of course, but we were intrigued about the menu item called “mushy peas”. Having never heard of this before, Dan and I decided to try it as a kind of “extreme eating”, expecting the worst. My Dad, being English, of course new what they were and said “they’re good, those”. So, Dan’s order of mushy peas arrived, and to our surprise they were very good!

After this, we tried mushy peas whenever available. We visited another fish & chip shop downtown Edmonton called “Back Home”. As the story goes, it was opened by some people from the Maritimes for the truckers who had driven almost all the way across the country from the Martimes to Edmonton, so they could have fish like “back home”. And on our recent trip to England, of course, we had some too.

Last night we tried (and failed) to make fish and chips ourselves. The main problem was that we do not have a deep fryer, and such equipment is essential for the chips and for proper fried fish too. We used canola oil in a very large pot (and were careful to avoid oil-fire related disasters…) but the chips took forever to cook and broke up into little pieces and the fish got cold. But, the mushy peas were great. Dan got the recipe from the “Naked Chef”. The link to the recipe is here…

Minty mushy Peas

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I enjoy Thai food and have ever since we visited the King and I in Edmonton for Dan’s birthday (one of the best restaurants in Edmonton IMHO, many of the rock groups who visit Edm such as U2 order their food from it!). Finding Thai in the same level of quality here is difficult. One interesting option is Chuchai on St. Denis which offers a variety of vegetarian dishes cooked with Thai spices. Its very good and one hardly notices that the “chicken” and “duck” are actually tofu or tempeh, although the type of food is quite different from what the King and I offers.

I also make attempts at cooking simple Thai recipes at home. For a long time I have wanted to make Pad Thai, but it looked quite technically challenging and involved some ingredients I had never used before, including Tamarind. I had been using a pseudo-fusion recipe which Dan was not that keen on and had recently tried some Pad Thai sauce in a jar but found it (oddly) too sweet. And chunky. I found a relatively simple Pad Thai recipe online and gave it a try this week and it worked out very nicely. Its quite simple and undoubtedly is not the same as what people eat in Thailand, but I think its a good compromise and lightyears better than the other recipe I was using. The tricky bit was the Tamarind. The recipe originally called for “tamarind concentrate” but all I could find here was the fruit itself in a semi-dry brick. So I broke some off, mixed it with lime juice and cut into small pieces with scissors and that seemed to work very well.

Anyway, here is the recipe!

8 ounces rice noodles soaked in warm water at least 15 minutes
5-6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoons plus 1/3 cup chopped green onions (or small red or purple onions)
½ cup raw shrimp or raw chicken, cut in pieces
1/4 cup fish sauce 
1/4 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon red chilli pepper sauce
2 teaspoons tamarind mixed with 2 teaspoons lime juice and snipped with scissors
1 cup roasted peanuts, coarsely broken up. 
1 cup tofu that has been diced (1/2″ cubes), and marinated in soy sauce for approx 15 minutes
Heat cooking or soy oil in a wok and add the garlic and green onions, and briefly stir-fry until they just shows signs of changing color. At this point one option is to add chicken meat or shrimp and cook a bit longer. Add the remaining ingredients and stir-fry until the noodles soften (about 5 minutes). As you stir the noodles, periodically throw in 1-2 tablespoons of water, and after 2-3 minutes add 1 tablespoon of rinsed, salted radish (optional).
Garnish
Mix a tablespoon of lime juice with a tablespoon of snipped tamarind and a tablespoon of fish sauce, and use this to marinade 1/3 cup chopped green onions, and 1/2 cup coarsely ground roasted peanuts. Sprinkle this mixture on the cooked pad Thai. Cut several limes into segments and also slice up some cucumber into rounds then halve the rounds. Put the lime segments and cucumber segments around the serving platter. 

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This past week Dan and I made lentil soup. I found this recipe online and I must say its a really good one. For a soup recipe, it is very quick and easy and the vegetable chopping phase is minimal. The sausage is optional but adds a nice taste especially with a semi-dry one.

I am trying to cook more with lentils, given they are a good source of nitrogen and are excellent in non-meat meals. Most of my cookbooks, however, do not have ANY lentil recipes, and I guess that goes to show how very foreigh lentils must have seemed when they were written (they do have other recipes that are really good, especially one for a kick-ass vegetable soufflé). Its hard to find good lentil recipes online other than those weirdo lets-break-all-the-rules-of-cooking-vegetarian ones (whose sushi recipes use brown rice) that involve putting cold cooked lentils into a salad with red onions, chickpeas and cucumbers. Does not appeal to me!

Speaking of lentils, every time I cook with them I am remided of an intersting incident last year. At the metro station near my work a truck carrying red lentils must have either had a leak or have been in an accident, as when I stepped off the bus one day the road was covered in bright red lentils. I couldn’t tell what it was at first and thought it might be a spice such as cayenne pepper or maybe a red powdered dye. Over the next few weeks, the lentils continued to stay on the street (I guess nobody thought it was worth it to clean up the spill) and they eventially turned a brown colour and then eroded into nothing. It was quite a sight.

Anyway, there is the recipe:

French Lentil Soup with Sausage
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
1 celery rib, finely chopped
1 1/4 cups lentils (preferably French green), rinsed
6 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces smoked sausage, like kielbasa
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, or to taste
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a 4-quart heavy pot over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then cook onion, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, about 6 minutes. Add carrots and celery and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add lentils, water, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to moderate and cook, covered, until lentils are tender, about 30 minutes.
While lentils are cooking, heat remaining tablespoon oil in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until hot but not smoking, then brown sausage on all sides, about 5 minutes. Cool sausage slightly on a cutting board, then cut into 1/2-inch-thick pieces. Add sausage to soup and stir in vinegar.

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