Miso Ramen with Poached Egg and Spinach

Unlike many students who were forced - out of poverty - to subsist on a diet of dehydrated ramen noodles throughout their university years, I was lucky enough to live at home and, you know, eat healthily. That's not to say that I didn't have the occasional msg and sodium laden convenience product. My brother and I would regularly split a package when we watched WWE Raw that we would stir fry with veggies instead of turning it into soup.

Yes, I said WWE. I love Shakespeare, Jane Austen and the WWE. I also play video games. It weirds my students out to no end, but I like to say that my interests don't fit into nice, neat boxes.

The first time I went out and ate ramen noodles outside of my house was in my husband's town in Japan. There was a great shop in Toki-shi along Route 19 that served the most gloriously gigantic bowls of noodles. The first time we ate there, it was a painfully chilly, rainy Sunday night in November. The rain was pounding umbrellas with icy fury and we were both exhausted. We'd come back from Nagoya and with a long line at our regular Sunday night sushi joint, we decided to brave the vicious weather and try somewhere new.

Let me tell you, ramen is the perfect antidote to combat the bone chilling rain of an autumn storm. When your monster sized bowl arrives, you're immediately bathed in steam from the broth. On first bite, the noodles are so hot you almost burn your tongue, but you slurp them down anyway. And then, as you begin spooning the salty broth into your mouth, a warmth uncurls itself in your belly and begins to radiate throughout your limbs.

Frankenstein's monster could have been brought to life with ramen. If he had been, he probably would have been in a much better mood.

That first night, I had miso-butter ramen with corn, an egg, and bamboo shoots. And though I tried many other different varieties in my time there, I always returned to the comfort of miso ramen to warm myself.

I don't make ramen much for myself these days - only a handful of times for those chilly days in autumn and winter. The dehydrated stuff just doesn't do it for me. Luckily, there's a company in the GTA (Marufumi Foods) that makes fantastic fresh ramen and freezes it. Their stock base is a miso based paste, not a powder. If you can get hold of fresh or frozen ramen, you're working in a whole new ballpark of awesome.


Miso Ramen with Poached Egg and Spinach

(serves 1)

Ingredients

1 package ramen with seasoning mix (preferably miso)
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 egg
1 handful baby spinach leaves
shichimi, or chili-garlic paste to taste


Directions

1. Cook ramen according to package directions. Meanwhile, bring a pot with 1" water in it to a boil. Add vinegar and reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Crack egg into a small dish and slide into simmering water. Cook for 1-2 minutes or until your desired doneness.

2. Add spinach leaves to ramen and broth. Cook for 30 seconds, just until wilted. Ladle into a large bowl. Remove egg from poaching water with a slotted spoon and place on top of noodles. Sprinkle with shichimi to taste.

A Lightened Up Breakfast Poutine

One of my absolute favourite brunch places in Toronto is Fire on the East Side. They do this artery clogging but totally delicious breakfast poutine that features pulled pork, poached eggs, chipotle hollondaise sauce and mountains of home fries.

It's insane. And totally delicious. And a luxury, because eating that much egg and butter isn't good for anyone.

Around lunch time today I found myself thinking about that poutine. I really, really wanted a poached egg and more sweet potato fries. But, I also didn't want mountains of calories. We had kale in the crisper, Ewenity Sheep's Milk Feta and a ton of cremini mushrooms.

Slowly, a recipe began brewing in my head. I'd nix the sauce (hollondaise or otherwise) and top a bowl of sweet potato fries with some sautéed mushrooms and kale. In order to keep the flavour of luxury though, I made the sweet potato fries with white truffle oil and some truffle salt. This added a great depth of flavour.

Truffled Sweet Potato Fries topped with Kale, Mushrooms, Feta & Poached Eggs

Ingredients

1 tbsp canola oil, divided
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 small bunch kale, tough stems removed and leaves coarsely chopped
10 cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 large eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white vinegar
1 oz feta, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste

1 batch sweet potato fries, made with truffle oil (if possible)

Directions

1. Heat ½ tbsp oil in a large skillet set over medium heat. Sauté garlic for 30 seconds, or until fragrant. Add in kale and 1/3 cup of water, and let kale steam just until the water evaporates. Season with salt and pepper to taste, remove from pan and set aside somewhere to keep warm.

2. Wipe out frying pan, return to heat and pour in remaining oil. Sauté mushrooms for 5-10 minutes, or until liquid is complete evaporated and mushrooms are golden brown. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper.

3. While the mushrooms are frying, heat 1" water in a small saucepan. Stir in 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp vinegar. Bring to a gentle simmer. A small stream of bubbles should just be breaking the surface. If you have an instant read thermometer, it should read about 200ºF. Crack egg into a small dish and gently slide egg from dish into simmering water. Cook, for approximately 3-5 minutes or until the white outside the yolk is just set. Remove carefully with a slotted spoon and set aside while you cook the next egg.

4. To assemble the poutine,  layer potatoes in two shallow bowls, sprinkling each bowl with a quarter of the feta. Top with kale and mushrooms, one poached egg on each dish and sprinkle with remaining feta.

An easy, lightened up breakfast luxury!

A Rustic Quiche for a January Night

January is a month for simplicity and comfort. As you've probably noticed by now, I can't seem to stop throwing those words around, but it's true. I want food that will make me feel like I've curled up with a warm blanket.

A quick glance 'round the pantry revealed whole wheat flour, lots of eggs, some kale and a can of salmon. A quiche seemed the natural course of affairs.

Now, one of the challenges with quiche in our household is that my husband loathes eggs.

Well, he claims to loathe them. The way I see it, he'll enjoy them mixed in things so long as the main dish doesn't actually taste like eggs.

Egg fried rice? Not a problem for him. Loves it. Poached eggs? That's a problem.

So when it comes to quiche, it has to be flavourful. The eggs need to serve as a binder rather than the star ingredient.

Mmm. Chalk full of KALE.

 Luckily for me (or rather, for my husband), I'd been saving up a jar of The Fishery's smoked salmon since November for one cold winter's night like this.

Expensive, but SO delicious

It's massive hunks of gorgeous smoked salmon.... in a can. You cannot get better than this. It's sooo much smokier than your vacuum-packed cold or hot smoked salmon. I think I've waxed eloquently about their smoked salmon mousse before too.

If not waxed eloquently, then at least mentioned it in passing. Whatever. It's dynamite.

I used my go-to lighter crust for this recipe and included whole wheat flour in it (a first for me), and it turned out pretty decently (as much as whole wheat all-purpose flour will allow you to!) I'll definitely use this recipe again.

Salmon & Kale Quiche with a Pepper Whole Wheat Crust

Ingredients

Pastry:
½ cup white flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ tsp ground pepper
¼ tsp ground red pepper (I used my Japanese shichimi powder)
¼ tsp salt
3 tbsp butter, cut into small chunks
4½ tbsp ice water

Filling:
1 tsp butter
1 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3-4 cups shredded kale, stems removed and rinsed well
1 can salmon (smoked if you can find it)
1 small hunk of interesting cheese (I used the last little hunk of a raw milk cheese with ash in it)
5 egg white
3 egg yolks
½ cup milk
pepper to taste

Directions

Pastry:

1. Place flours, peppers and salt in a food processor. Pulse to combine. Continue pulsing, adding butter chunks slowly until mixture is coarse. Slowly add ice water, again, in pulses until mixture just holds together.

*Confession: I'm terrible at making pastry, but this version is reliable enough for me to make a serviceable, reduced fat version that everyone seems happy with. If you have your own pastry recipe that you love, use it!*

2. Turn mixture onto a sheet of plastic wrap and form into a circle. Wrap tightly and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

3. Remove from fridge and roll out until desired size. I used an 8" deep dish pie crust for this, but have use the same recipe with my 9" tart pan as well. Fit dough into your pan and crimp the edges.

4. Preheat oven to 450º.

5. Prick bottom all over with fork. This will prevent the dough from puffing up when you bake it in the oven. Place in the freezer for 10 minutes. Remove and bake for 20 minutes, or until beginning to turn golden.

Ready to be filled (have I mentioned how much I hate my harvest gold stove?)

6. Let pastry cool for 5-10 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 400º.

Filling:

1. While the dough is chilling, heat butter and olive oil in a pan. Sauté onions over low heat for 10-15 minutes, or until sweet and golden. Add garlic and sauté for an additional minute. Remove mixture from pan and place in a bowl.

2. Place kale in the pan and, stirring frequently, cook until wilted and dark green.

before wilting to a glorious deep emerald green

3. Remove kale from pan and add to onion mixture. Open the can of salmon and remove any large bones and skin.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg whites, egg yolks, milk and pepper (I leave salt out here because of the sodium in the smoked salmon and the cheese).

5. Begin layering fillings on top of crust. I started with the kale and onion mixture first.

And then the salmon:

And then poured in the egg mixture and dotted the top with cheese.

See the layer of ash in the cheese?

6. Bake at 400º for about 20 minutes, or until egg is set and puffed and the cheese has begun to turn golden!

Serve with a salad on the side and enjoy the leftovers for breakfast or lunch tomorrow!

Earthy, warming, rustic and delicious.