Sweet, Sweet Potato

In the wild of wilds, you’re stuck. Between this town and the next town, between the borders of this emperor or that emperor, what does it matter? The same warlords warring over the same land of the same island for generations with little give or gain. Your only reliable choice of transport was a horse, or that stubborn oxen, which while a few coins less, unburdened your pouch beyond bearing. So you turned to your loyal legs, which has never failed since you were but a stout child of a year. And anyhow, the last that you went to relieve your pouch, a delicious ball of onigiri was your reward.

The last bite of that savory, salty, umeboshi hidden within the rice ball, was many lost hours before. Long before the sun had fallen behind the hills, before the twilight tumbled into navy. And here you are now, onigiri-less, breathless, a bit thirsty, with a little bit to worry, for who knows how long that road travels before it reaches the gates of civilization. The fall wind catches your breath on occasion, a cold made colder by the dark. It’s a refreshing breeze, but if bed is to find you out here on the trail, it will be a fitful sleep.

How long do I wait? What am I waiting for? What is any of us ever waiting for? You ponder, sitting on the damp dead log shared by ants and beetles. Even if they hear your plea, perhaps even understanding enough to lend sympathy, they can’t do much to better your circumstance. Perhaps you can eat them?

As deeper darkness takes over and the stars twinkle brightly through the cover of the leafless branches, you sight a faint orange in the distance, like a glowing insect floating your way. Is this your cousin, beetle? Likely not. It moves like a man. Slow and plodding. Afraid of the dark. A light of brigands or salvation, perhaps? Better not chance it. You take cover in the brush with the bugs. And wait. And wait.

The light ringing of a small bell rises on the wind. A temple in the distance. It’s not roving brigands. Just a man alone, perhaps lonely as you this night, tugging his modest cart of burden along, the brassy halo of orange and rings attending. Soon, your nostrils comes alive. It’s the unmistakable air of charred food, a personal delight as a frugal peasant. Is it the oily skin of fish? Is it the bitter innards? No scents of the sea. No. It’s sweet, but not a sweet, lacking the hardiness to survive the rough roads of the country.

Ah, you smile, recognition coming to light. It’s potato, the skin like that of royal linen, somewhere between the purple of sky and the brown of earth, and upon the inside, a flesh like that of gold, a personal treasure from the home province of Satsuma. Mountains. Hills. Plains. Farms. Ocean. History. Mother used to puree it, shape it, bake it. Uncle fermented it, distilled it with frigid mountain waters, poured it into a white ceramic cup, the cycle of a pristine mountain spirit. All a bit much work out here, but fortunately, the best way to have Yakiimo or Ishi Yakiimo, was the simplest. Leave it to smoke in the coals. Let it reach that perfect temperature, piping, where the richness of the starches begin to melt, but not lose its vitamins, its wholesomeness. And indeed, it’s so good, one need only break it in half, watch the constant puff of steam rise. No salt, sugar. Just bite into the core of goodness. A pain, so tender, so good.

You leap out from the darkness, out from the brush.

“Dear heavens!” the old man screams, his straw hat given to the wind with a jolt. “What’re tryin’ ta do? Kill me with fright?”

You bow repeatedly, apologize meekly for your overzealous nostalgia, brushing off the skittering ants up and down your legs. He calms down eventually, after lecturing you on brigands and other troublesome things that creep in the night. You wonder at his own strangeness, of grilling potatoes in the dark, alone upon an empty road, but you try not to offend him. He is kindred, after all. A man enamored by a root. Then the moment comes, and you hope his trove of potatoes are still gooey and steaming on the inside. You take a look.

The lid of the iron pot uncovers. Inside, a heaping mound of potatoes sleep soundly on a still glowing pile of embers. You spot the one with critical eyes in the faintness. The one in the center, on top, an area not too hot, not too cool. You pluck it from the pile.

Atsuiiii!!!

You juggle it back and forth until it becomes bearable to the touch. The old man gives you a strange look, as if a child who needed the lesson of fire. Then you realize why his quaint stare. You dig into your near empty pouch and fetch another coin. In the faint brassy lamp light, his cold, crumpled face fades into a warm smile.

“You need a ride?” he asks, biting, then pocketing the coin.

You smile back, thinking, it’s going to be warm, and not so lonely this night.


Story by HVH

Recipe of the Day - Sweet Potato Cookies

Ingredients (makes about 2 dozens):
2 large Satsuma sweet potatoes
2 tsp butter
2 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp heavy cream
1 egg yolk
2 tsp honey
6 Tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment papers.

Wash Satsuma sweet potatoes and wrap each with plastic wrap. Microwave them for 7-8 minutes (alternatively, you can bake them in the oven just like baking regular potatoes.)

Peel the skin while the potatoes are still hot. Mash them in a large bowl until very smooth. Add butter and sugar and mix well. Add heavy cream and egg yolk and mix well. Add honey and milk and mix well.

Fit a pastry bag with #22 tip. Fill the pastry bag with the potato mixture. Pipe about 2” disk or however shape you prefer, leaving 2-3” in between cookies. Once the pan is filled with cookies, bake at 350F for about 15 minutes or until they turn golden brown.

Let them cool slightly on a cooling rack. Serve while they are still warm. You can let them cool completely and reheat them again just before serving.

Chasoba Salad

Hello, new year! Yes, it's 2012. It may or may not be the year, but I hope this year is going to be brighter, bringing in more cheer and deliciousness than ever to everyone.

It was a rather quiet holiday for me this year. No gift exchanges at home. No champagne. No wild parties. (Oh, that's never anyhow.) But simply staying home, enjoying homemade dinner and spending a quiet time as the year winded down.

And this dish, to me, sums it all up. I ended my 2011 with this vibrant soba salad as welcoming as the new year. Traditionally, Japanese eat plain, soysauce-based soba noodle soup (which is absolutely on the opposite spectrum of brightness and temperature but still pretty therapeutic) on New Year's eve as they await for the bell clanging from temples at midnight. While I didn't get to hear the bell and the fact that they were 17 hours ahead of my time zone, already celebrating 2012 while I was still living in 2011, I decided to celebrate and enjoy the soba in my own way.

These green soba noodles are called chasoba, which literally means green tea soba. It tastes better cold than warm and often eaten in zaru style. Cold noodles, while it may not sounds as popular, it's actually everywhere in Asian culture. Take Vietnamese for example. Have you ever tried those cold vermicelli noodles? Its lighter than spaghetti and should be more popular. They top it with various fresh herbs and vegetables and meat. I actually ended up eating that on the New Year's day. That's how much I like it. I borrowed the idea but turned it into a vegetarian version to keep simple and light like the traditional Japanese kind.

It's a salad, not quite a salad. You can add any fresh herbs and vegetables you like. This time, I used daikon sprouts, red onions, red bell peppers, fried tofu, walnuts, but I can't wait to try it again with fresh thai basil or shiso with tomatoes during the summer time.

As I promised last time, this dish can easily be converted to vegan. Just omit the fish sauce in the nuoc mam and squeeze some more lemon or yuzu juice.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Chawanmushi

Last week, I had this random thought wound up in my head as I was driving home one day. “How and when did I start cooking?” It was so vague that I couldn’t recall the exact moment, but I knew that I was pretty young. I remembered having to climb up on a chair to plate some vegetables and to stir potato salad in a bowl that was bigger than my head.

I also remembered around six to seven years old, I was dragging a dining room chair next to a bookshelf, reaching for my mom’s cookbook when only my sister and I were home. I liked looking at pictures of pretty food and instructional illustrations.

One of the first things I helped my mom make was Chawanmushi. Beating eggs with chopsticks, adding dashi, and stirring more with the chopsticks were fairly easy tasks for a clumsy child. I didn’t get to chop vegetables and to touch the kitchen stove at first, but I always stood next to my mom and watched how she did it. It was fascinating and much more exciting than wiping the dining table and aligning chopsticks neatly for everyone, just before the meal, each and every time.

Chawanmushi is a very common dish both at home and outside homes, making it to restaurant menus and even to school lunch tables in Japan. Everybody makes it differently and I secretly had an affair with the one served at school. Back then at the single digit age, I didn’t know exactly why I didn’t lump them with more ordinary foods. What made them taste so different? Was it the spinach used? Or the shrimp with the tail still attached? Or perhaps, it was the ginkgo nuts that my mom snuck in? Thinking back clearly, it was all those things and something more.

There was a certain something else that I realize now which gave the whole dish that umph, because while the subtle eggs were just eggs, the primary ingredient, albeit the finest, and the others extra players had their role in raising the dish, the dashi was what permeated it all and brought it all together in harmony. What my tongue was trying to put a finger to was the umami from kombu and bonito in the egg custard. And on top of it, because of course, when you have the best base, you might as well go all the way and use the best supporting ingredients. That is, if they are reasonably found.

Typically, mistuba is the choice of herb for chawanmushi, but unfortunately I couldn’t find them even at the Japanese grocery store. So, I changed up a little bit and used daikon sprouts instead. I also wanted to make something that resembled my mom’s humble home-style (save for the boost of dashi), so I kept the rest of the ingredients as simple.

If you’re a vegetarian, you can replace the shrimp and fishcake with other vegetables like spinach or carrots. If seafood isn’t your favorite, you can try using chicken breast, too. And if you are a vegan, I’m sorry. I’ll have something else for you, maybe next time. Happy holidays, everyone!

Recipe of the Day - Chawanmushi

Ingredients (make small 6 cups):
2 large eggs
300 ml dashi stock
½ tsp soy sauce
½ tsp mirin
1/8 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sake
3 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
herb – mitsuba, daikon sprouts, or shiso, etc
Other optional suggestions: kamaboko, wakame, shrimp, chicken breast, yuzu peel, fu (wheat gluten), carrots, ginkgo nuts, etc.

Stir the eggs in a bowl (try not to create bubbles too much). Add dashi, soy sauce, mirin, salt and sake, and continue to stir, gently. Run the egg mixture through strainer or cheese cloth and set aside.

Divide ingredients into prepared cups. Slowly pour egg mixture into the cups evenly.

Steam chawanmushi for about 10 minutes or until the egg mixture becomes opaque and solid. (If you are not using a steamer, you can fill a couple of inches of water in a large pot, place them gently, cover the pot with a lid and steam them over medium heat. The water should be simmering and never let it boil.) Remove from the heat. Serve warm.