Happy Friday with Inari Zushi

Phew, this week couldn't end any sooner! What a crazy time.

I took some students to Peace Tree Day (I was approached by the Harmony Movement to take this on) on Wednesday - they were Peace Tree Spirit presenters, which means they were responsible for teaching 700 kids (ranging from grade 3-8) a multi-cultural fusion dance that they choreographed. They were awesome; we had great weather and only one child put their face into Mel Lastman Square's reflecting pool.

I consider that a success.

Some media coverage of the event can be found here.

Today, I went to the hospital  for my allergy tests. My doctor didn't bother to show up, and on top of that, I'd been told I'd be getting tested that day. Instead it was just a consult. Fantastic.

On the plus side, I sat in the waiting room reading one of my new books from the Penguin Great Foods Collection: A Little Dinner Before the Play, and I think I've found the first recipe I'm going to try for my Penguin Great Foods Challenge: Brioches. Now these appear to be little, sweet breads that ought to be served with marmalade.

I'm excited to try that out this evening!

See why I'm glad the week is over? I did have one big success with a new recipe this week. With all these beautiful days, I've started to really crave Japanese food. There's just something about the arrival of summer that makes me dream of kara age, zaru soba and gigantic purple grapes.

For the past two nights, I've been dying for some inari zushi. We ordered out for some sushi one night, but they didn't have any! So, last night I made it my mission to attempt to make them for the first time in my kitchen.

They certainly didn't look as pretty as I would have liked, but that's in part because I cut them the wrong way. But, they tasted pretty damn good! If I'd had more time, I would have let the tofu sit in the dashi marinade in the fridge overnight before stuffing them. But I was hungry, so perfection was going to have to wait.

Inari zushi is essentially deep fried tofu pockets that you simmer in a soy-sake broth to infuse them with flavour.

Then, you stuff them full of sushi rice (rice seasoned with rice vinegar, sugar and salt). I like to mix my sushi rice with little pieces of chopped pickled ginger and sesame seeds.

Alas, I was out of sesame seeds.

Inari Zushi

(adapted from Washoku)

Ingredients

Sushi Rice

2 cups freshly cooked white Japanese rice
1/3 cup rice vinear
1 tbsp granulated sugar
½ tsp salt

8 slices pink pickled ginger, minced

½ tbsp toasted sesame seeds


For Tofu

4 fried tofu slices (I usually buy abura age)
2/3 cup dashi
3 tbsp soy sauce
1½ tbsp sake
2 tbsp sugar

Directions

1. For rice: Place the freshly cooked rice in a large, wide bowl (you, like me, probably don't have the wooden dish traditionally required for sushi rice). In a measuring cup, stir salt and sugar into vinegar to dissolve. Pour about a tablespoon of the vinegar onto the rice and, using a wooden spoon or paddle, gently cut and fold the vinegar into the rice. Continue adding vinegar in a slowly, until it tastes appropriate and liquid is all absorbed. You may only use 2/3 of the vinegar called for, or you may use it all.

Stir in ginger and sesame seeds.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside until ready to use.

2. For tofu: Boil some water in a kettle. Place tofu slices in a strainer and pour boiling water over them. This will help remove some of the oil still clinging to the tofu. Squeeze out excess liquid. Cut tofu in half horizontally, and gently form a pull open the pocket. Mix together dashi, soy sauce, sugar and sake. Heat a nonstick frying pan over medium heat, an sear each side of the tofu (about 1 minute on each side). Pour dashi mixture over tofu and simmer for 3 minutes, turning once halfway through. Remove pan from heat. Place a slightly smaller lid (or a drop lid if you have one) directly on the tofu and let cool to room temperature.

3. Remove tofu from dashi. Gently squeeze out extra liquid. Stuff rice into tofu pockets and serve.

Another Soba Bowl: Marinated Tofu, Mixed Greens and Cilantro-Cashew-Coconut Pesto

Over the last weekend, while doing our weekly clean, my husband and I finally put away our winter boots. April had been so cold and wet, I just kept holding off on putting away the boots, but it seems like now, maybe, just maybe it's time to pack it all away.

Yesterday's pesto got me thinking. Along with the winter boots, mitts and jackets, it also feels like it's time to put away the cast iron dutch oven and to get out the salad spinner.

It's spring and I feel like eating my weight in vegetables.

Also, I'm in a wedding this summer AND going back to Hawaii and a man wished me a happy mother's day as an expectant mother last Saturday, which tells me that the belly fat has got to go because I'm not even vaguely pregnant.

Not hot.

And, what better way of plowing through some delicious greens than doing that than another gigantic vegetable-noodle bowl?

Tamari Marinated Tofu

(from More.ca)

Ingredients

1 block tofu, cut horizontally into 8 pieces, each piece then cut diagonally into triangles.
3/4 cup tamari
½ cup apple cider vinegar (I love the Eden organics brand)
¼ cup water
1½ tsp canola oil

Directions

1. Mix together all liquid ingredients in a non-reactive container (I used a glass container with a lid), then layer in the tofu. Cover and refridgerate for at least 1 hour and up to 5 days. Obviously, the longer you let it sit, the more marinade the tofu will absorb.

2. Grill tofu for 1-2 minutes per side.

Easy as pie... erm... tofu.

I like this served with soba noodles that have been tossed with the Cilantro-Cashew-Coconut pesto, topped with steamed broccoli, rainbow chard, bok choi and bean sprouts. A tablespoon each of cashews and toasted pumpkin seeds pumps up the crunch.

Green Curry with Bok Choy

Thai food has got to be some of my favourite food on the planet. Or, at least that's what it was on our most recent Monday Bachelor Fest Vegan Extravaganza.

Ask me tomorrow, and it's probably going to be the chicken wings I'm planning on making for the Superbowl.

I don't have a favourite food; I have a food I'm craving right now.

Now, making Thai food vegan is problematic because of the fish sauce. That savoury, umami goodness just can't be replicated. Even the good folks over at Moosewood haven't found the perfect vegan substitute for it - at least that's what they say in their Sundays at Moosewood cookbook.

And I won't pretend that I don't think this recipe could benefit from a tablespoon or two of fish sauce. In my opinion, it could.

Having said that, without the fish sauce, it's still pretty darned tasty. And what's not to love? Fresh herbs, coconut milk, serrano peppers... it's just a total winning combination.

And I may have stood over the stove with a spoon eating the leftover sauce.

I said may have.

...

Okay. I totally did.

Green Curry with Bok Choy

(Cooking Light Jan/Feb 2011)

Ingredients

1/2  cup  chopped fresh cilantro
2  tablespoons  chopped peeled fresh ginger
2  teaspoons  ground coriander
2  teaspoons  ground cumin
8  garlic cloves, peeled
3  small serrano chiles, seeded
2  large shallots, coarsely chopped
4  cups  coarsely chopped broccoli florets (about 1 head)
2  cups  (1/2-inch-thick) slices baby bok choy
2  teaspoons  dark sesame oil
4  teaspoons  sugar
1  tablespoon  lower-sodium soy sauce
3/4  teaspoon  kosher salt
3  Kaffir lime leaves
1  (13.5-ounce) can light coconut milk
1  (14-ounce) package water-packed organic firm tofu, drained and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
1/4  cup  fresh lime juice
2  cups  hot cooked long-grain white rice
1/4  cup  chopped fresh basil
2  tablespoons  chopped fresh mint
Directions
  

1. Combine first 7 ingredients in a food processor; process until smooth. Set aside.

2. Cook broccoli florets in boiling water in a large Dutch oven 3 minutes or until crisp-tender. Remove broccoli from water with a slotted spoon; drain and rinse with cold water. Drain; set aside. Return water to a boil. Add baby bok choy to pan; cook 1 minute. Drain and rinse with cold water. Drain; set aside.

3. Heat Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add cilantro mixture to pan; sauté 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add sugar and next 4 ingredients (through coconut milk) to pan; bring to a boil.

Add tofu; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 6 minutes or until slightly thick. Add broccoli, bok choy, and juice; cook 1 minute or until heated, tossing to combine.

Discard lime leaves. Place 1/2 cup rice in each of 4 bowls; spoon 1 1/2 cups tofu mixture over each serving. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon basil and 1 1/2 teaspoons mint over each serving.

Last night, one of my friends from forever ago came over for a baking extravaganza. She recently (over the past couple of years) got into veganism, which is something I normally wouldn't mention. But for some reason the concept of vegan baking is something I just can't wrap my head around.

Don't get me wrong. I like tofu. My husband and I eat a lot of vegetarian meals. But baking? The world needs butter and eggs, you know?

In the early years of this friend's veganism, as she felt that recipes are guidelines rather than rules... so she often substituted one ingredient for another... except she didn't really know how to do that yet. Can you see where this is going? We made Christmas cookies together two years ago and I've never really regained my confidence in the kitchen after that particular experiment.

Canned pumpkin isn't really a replacement for butter and eggs in gingerbread cookies.

Just throwin' that out there.

So, when she showed up at my apartment with a bowl in tow - a bowl whose mystery contents she'd been carrying around all morning to her movie premiere too - I was afraid. And when I got close enough to smell the pungent onion odour, I was terrified. It was clearly some kind of dough, but not like one I'd ever seen before. The stuff was so stiff, she literally broke her wooden spoon in half stirring it.

She asked me if I had any caraway seeds. I didn't. So she
shrugged and asked if we had any left over coffee... which she promptly dumped on top of the dough.

I'm not going to lie. I respect you too much. I have no idea how liquid coffee could be a replacement for crunchy caraway seeds.

Staring at the monstrosity in the bowl before me, I had the urge to start muttering, "The horror. The horror."

She stuffed it into a loaf pan. We baked it for two freaking hours. And when it came time to turn it out, it fell onto the counter like a led brick.

She was enthusiastic. I was trepedatious. My husband looked at it with a raised eyebrow and said, "That's interesting".

Just when my confidence felt like it couldn't get any lower, my friend tried to slice it with our bread knife. I say tried because she pleaded no upper body strength and couldn't do it. My husband stepped up to the plate. He sawed away. It took a good 5 minutes to get 6 slices.

It looked moist. It smelled good. I slathered small hunk with hummus. And then magic happened.

It was delicious. Moist, dense, earthy... everything rye bread should be! Make no mistake though; it isn't your supermarket's rye bread.

Perhaps I had been too quick to judge. Sure, it had looked awful, smelled awful and broken a wooden spoon... but in the end, it was seriously tasty.

Hmm. Perhaps I should start being less judgmental with my bread.

Links to Recipes after the Jump!

This week has been a total washout for cooking. All of my carefully planned menus went the way of the dodo - I was just too tired to think straight. My drama students had a presentation on Wednesday and we went on a field trip on Thursday. When I'm home alone on Monday and Tuesday nights, it's hard to get enthused about cooking for one, you know?

So tonight, this glorious Saturday, I'm emptying out the fridge (something smells in there, and I intend to find out what it is - my suspicion is it's old beet greens) and using leftovers to make some Singapore Noodles.

Ingredients:

Sauce: Mix together the following ingredients and set aside.

¼ c. chicken/veggie stock
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp brown sugar

Omelet Topping

2 eggs
2 tbsp water

1) Heat a small nonstick skillet over medium heat.
2) Make a simple omelet by whisking the eggs with water and cooking.
3) When cooked, remove from pan and roll up. Slice thinly and set aside.

Noodles:

½ package rice vermicelli
1 tbsp canola oil
½ tbsp sesasme oil
1½-2 tbsp curry powder
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp ginger
1 hot red pepper, seeded and finely chopped
one good handful beansprouts
two good handfuls sliced mixed veg (I'm using baby pak choi, sliced carrots, and some onion)
2 green onions chopped in ½ inch pieces
diced tofu (I'm using a 6oz package of smoked tofu from Wild Wood)
1 lime, cut into wedges
a palmful of chopped cilantro

1) Rehydrate rice vermicelli in boiling water until soft. Drain and set aside
2) Heat a skillet or wok over high heat. Add canola & sesame oils and heat until smoking. Add curry powder, ginger and garlic and stir-fry for one minute. Add peppers and all vegetables to the pan, cook 2-3 minutes until tender crisp.
3) Add tofu, drained noodles and sauce. Cook until just heated through.
4) Remove from heat, and serve. Top with sliced omelet and cilantro and serve with lime wedges.

Serves three starving adults or four to six reasonably hungry ones.