Accessible Udon

If you've ever had udon soup at a Japanese restaurant, you know how hearty and soul-warming it can be. You probably also have a tough time picking out what it's made of, and wouldn't try making it at home. But I took on that challenge and, again, made it up! :) This is easy, great for feeding a big family or a bunch of friends, or even freezing for nights when the snow makes you crave it. There are a few options, and I'll give you 3 alternatives to this one at the end. The standard, for me anyway, is seafood. Start with udon noodles. You can find them in the Asian aisle of the supermarket. Dry are fine, just boil them like spaghetti. But if you like the chewy heartiness of traditional udon, get it in a plastic package near the ramen noodles, or occasionally the frozen section. That's a photo of the kind I get-- it comes in a package of three pouches. Use 2 large cartons of stock, usually seafood or vegetable. Get a head of bok choy (not baby) or a bunch of celery, slice into big chunks and toss in the stock on medium heat. Include the leaves. The other ingredient you likely don't have in your pantry already is fish sauce. It's...intense. You only need a little, so don't let it scare you. It smells like... essence of fish. Which it is. Also found in the Asian section. Now's the creative part. I like to use crab (actually, I usually use the fake kind, made of surimi, which is a whitefish-derived protein. just use the chunk style and not the stick style, because the sticks will unravel), shrimp, scallops, and calamari. Saute the seafood a bit in oil or butter just to get a little color on them. Then toss them in with your noodles, veggies, and stock. Add about a tablespoon of fish sauce, and two of soy sauce. Let it cook for a couple of minutes, then taste the soup. Need salt? Add more soy sauce (it blends much better than adding salt). Need spice and heat? Add a pinch of crushed red pepper flake. Let it cook, on low heat, for about 20 minutes to let everything combine. Big bowls on a cold day will warm you all the way through. Traditionally, it's served with a tempura shrimp on top, but that's up to you. Now for the options:
1. Veggie-only: Use veggie stock. With the bok choy and (instead of "or") celery, add mushrooms (shiitake, cremini, button, and/or king oyster), baby corn, bamboo shoots, scallions, and minced garlic instead of the seafood. Saute together and add to soup once the stock is hot. Skip the fish sauce, and add kombu dashi, which is made from seaweed and can be found at a Japanese specialty market.
2. Chicken: Use chicken stock. Cut chicken into chunks, white or dark meat as you like. Skip the fish sauce and add 2 tablespoons of butter and a sprig of thyme and one bay leaf. Make sure to remove the bay leaf and the twig of thyme when finished. When the soup is ready, heat it up quickly to high heat, and crack in 2 eggs, and cover. In 8-10 minutes, you're ready to serve.
3. Beef: Use beef stock. Cut beef into chunks, across the grain. Add a bunch of scallions to the bok choy or celery. Instead of fish sauce, add the same amount of worcestershire sauce.

Fili-paella

I thoroughly enjoy making recipes up. This particular recipe was inspired by a random request from my husband. He was planning to attend a summer BBQ last year, and wanted to bring a dish. He's not the chef-type, and he knows I look to cook, so he let me know there was a little bit of a Filipino-food theme, and let me run wild. So, I kind of did! I just met the woman who threw the BBQ last night, and she thanked me for the food and said it was great. I had mostly forgotten about it, but promised I'd post the made-up recipe. Have I mentioned it's completely invented? I'm sure it's not up to traditional standards and all that, but it was fun and easy to make, so here you go:
Prepare one box/package of yellow Spanish rice, according to the instructions, but substitute the water used with coconut water (not coconut milk). You can find it in most markets now. Forgive the basicness of these next ingredients, but they work best with all the other flavors going on. I used canned mussels, canned chopped clams, and canned shrimp (which is the salad size, and pretty little). Heat them all through gently. You don't need to cook them to death, just heat them up. Depending on what you like, add red and/or green bell peppers, sauteed lightly so they're not too soft, or onions the same way. When everything is complete and your rice is ready, mix it all gently so you don't break up the mussels and incorporate whatever veggies, if any, you like. Most markets also now carry plantains. Get 2 or 3. Peel them like you would a banana, and slice a little thicker than you would for bananas in cereal. Heat canola or vegetable oil in a deep fryer if you have one, or a deep skillet. Fry the plantain slices for 1-2 minutes, then pull out and drain on paper towel. Take a spatula and press down on the slice and smash it. Then toss them back into the oil to crisp and finish them. Take the plantain chips and cover the top of the rice and seafood mix, and serve at room temperature. It's a great hearty potluck item, can be a side dish for pork or fish, or can be an entree by adding more seafood or shredded chicken. And as always, if you come up with a tasty variation, let me know!!! :)

Intimidation-Free Pastry Cream

Pastry cream is ubiquitous-- you can find it inside a boston cream donut, or in a bavarian pie; in a fancy Napolean/mille-feuille, and in a basic fruit tart. It might seem a little daunting, but is a really simple, easy recipe to master. I guess it's more of a "technique" than a recipe, which automatically relieves you of the stress of getting it perfect. :)
Start with eggs. 2 or 3 whole eggs, or 3 or 4 yolks only. See what I mean about it not being a hard and fast recipe? I like to stick with the yolks, and usually use 4. Put them in a sauce pan on low-medium low heat. Add 2 tablespoons of flour and 2 of cornstarch, but if you only have one of them, just add 4 tablespoons of whatever you've got. Add 2/3 cup sugar, and a good pinch of salt. Stir in 2 cups of milk, cream, half-and-half-- whatever you have on hand. Once the pastry cream starts to get thicker and more pudding-like, take it off the heat and add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Toss in 2 tablespoons of butter and stir until everything is combined evenly, and let cool completely.
Now you can pour it into a pie crust, or put it in a pastry bag to fill donuts, or pipe between layers of cake. It goes amazingly well with berries, phyllo pastry, or chocolate. Wait, why "or"?? This pastry cream is excellent in a chocolate cookie pie crust, topped with raspberries.
Honestly, I'd even eat it plain with a spoon. ;)

Chocolate-Covered Bacon. Yep.

I'll try to combine the practical recipes and the out-there ones on this blog as much as possible. This recipe? In the out-there category. Bacon is pretty trendy these days, but I guarantee you haven't had it like this. Get some good-quality thick-cut bacon. Avoid center-cut (too lean) and turkey bacon (ditto), because they won't give you the whole bacon-ness we're going for. The recipe I'm giving you is a compound one. I am using Chocolate Pumpkin Bark, available seasonally, particularly at Cost Plus World Market. You can absolutely use other chocolate as follows: no candy bars. only good quality chocolate in morsel or bar form. Avoid dark chocolate-- it's just too bitter. White chocolate can be too light in flavor and miss the mark. Stick with semi-sweet or bittersweet if going purist. Cook the bacon, probably a little different than you usually do-- put each rasher (did you know that's the name of a slice of bacon? crazy!) on a wire cookie rack over a sheet pan with a rim. Pre-heat the oven for 450 degrees and "bake" the bacon for about 20-25 minutes. The fat will drain off (and you can save it to cook other stuff later) and you'll have flat, delicious bacon strips. Let them cool. Microwave your chocolate of choice in 30-45 second bursts until it's smooth and melted. If it's too dense, even well-heated, add milk, stir very well, and heat a tiny bit again. Drag cooled bacon through the chocolate, and return to the wire rack to drain and solidify. You don't want super-runny chocolate, because it will never harden, but you also don't want gloppy, chunky madness. ;) Once everything is dragged and dried, refrigerate. As little as 30 minutes is good, but it gets more integrated with time. And please! Get creative! If you want to turn white chocolate-covered bacon into a dried cranberry walnut white chocolate bacon brittle, do it!!! Just start simple and slow, experiment on your willing family and friends, and let me know if you create something new and amazing!!!

Baby Bok Choy

A friend mentioned she'd never have tried to make baby bok choy, or even buy it in general, but that the photo I took looked pretty good... so here's the demystified recipe! Baby bok choy is, well, cute! Not every market carries it, and mature bok choy will not yield the same results. It's a great option in the dark, leafy greens category, but without the bitterness other lettuces have. And in case you're worried about texture, it's fantastic-- not watery, not mushy, not stringy (and that's coming from someone who, as a child, asked my mom to take the bones out of celery). It is worth a try, and kids will love it, seriously. Just take the stalks apart after cooking and it's a kiddie finger food. My favorite, really simple way of making it is putting it in a not-too-shallow saute or frying pan. You can see in the photo at left that I was making three for dinner. About one per person as a side dish; I typically use it as the vegetable for a dinner meal. For 3, I initially used 1/4 cup light salted butter. You can add more if the pan begins to seem dry or the butter in the pan gets darker/nuttier (you don't want a brown butter sauce for this). The butter won't even really be a sauce when you're done. The baby bok choy will just be silky and buttery but not greasy. Start with everything in a cold pan, and heat on the stove to medium-low. Salt the baby bok choy just a bit to help it release a little of its moisture. This will take a while, but is SO worth it! Every 3 minutes or so, turn the baby bok choy. I find that putting the base in the middle of the pan at the hottest point works best, since it's more dense than the leafy tops. You can (and should!) eat the entire thing-- base and all. When everything feels soft, and slightly gives or bends when you pick it up with a pair of tongs, about 25-35 minutes, it's good to go! It's an excellent veggie to balance strong flavors like steak or lamb, or pair with sweet proteins like scallops or lobster for an unctuous, indulgent dinner with added vitamin D!