Shelf Life

Tag: Asian cuisine

  • Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook

    Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook

    Nancy Singleton Hachisu dives deep into the Japanese food scene, having married a Japanese farmer and learning the intricacies of cooking various vegetables and other ingredients that most of us aren’t familiar with.

    The author of several cookbooks including Japanese Farm Food, winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2012: USA Winner for the Best Japanese Cuisine Book, Preserving the Japanese Way: Traditions of Salting, Fermenting, and Pickling for the Modern Kitchen, and Food Artisans of Japan, Hachisu is meticulous in her receipt development and helping us understand the intricacies of Japanese gastronomy. Her latest is Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook (Phaidon 2023).

    For those who want to learn, Hachisu’s recipes require attention to detail and buying foods we may have trouble sourcing. But the results, for those who like a kitchen challenge, are well worth it and as someone who has been following Hachisu and using her cookbooks for years, I can assure you it gets much easier.

    It’s a fascinating take on Japanese cuisine from Hachisu, a native Californian who moved to Japan to stay there just for a year and immersed herself in Japanese food culture. Love intervened and after meeting an organic farmer, she married and moved to the rural Saitama Prefecture.

    That was more than 30 years ago, time enough for Hachisu to raise a family in an 85-year-old traditional Japanese farmhouse and become proficient in both culture and cooking.

    The book is so very niche that it’s almost like being in her kitchen and on her farm, giving us an amazing insight into a tiny slice of Japanese farm culture.

    CHILLED UME-TOFU SQUARES IN DASHI

    • Preparation time: 30 minutes, plus 2-3 hours pressing and chilling
    • Cooking times: 10-15 minutes
    • Serves: 4 squares
    • Vegan, Dairy-free, Nut-free

    Junsai, harvested from ponds from May to September, are baby water lily buds called “water shield” in English. They have a natural gelatinous covering so add a cool, slippery element to summer dishes. They might be available at Japanese markets, otherwise, just omit or substitute with blanched julienned green beans or cooked edamame. Salted sour “plums” have been prepared in Japan for a millennium, since the Heian period (794–1185), and are purported to have many health-improving qualities, including aiding digestion and combatting summer fatigue during the rainy season. The combination here makes a subtle, but lovely little bite.

    INGREDIENTS

    • 101⁄2 oz (300 g) cotton tofu or Japanese-style soft block tofu • 1 tablespoon hon kuzu
    • 2 medium umeboshi
    • Canola (rapeseed) oil, for greasing the pan
    • Generous 3/4 cup (63/4 fl oz/200 ml) Konbu Dashi
    • 1⁄2 tablespoon shoyu
    • A pinch of flaky sea salt
    • Scant 1⁄2 cup (31⁄2 fl oz/100 ml) baby water lily buds
    • Boiling water

    DIRECTIONS

    Place the tofu on a dinner plate and weight with a small cutting board for 1 hour.

    Smash the kuzu to a fine powder in a Japanese grinding bowl (suribachi, see page 354). Squeeze the tofu by handfuls to express excess moisture  and drop into the suribachi. Mash into the kuzu until well incorporated.

    Cut out the umeboshi pits (stones) and discard. Finely chop the umeboshi and fold into the smashed tofu.

    Dampen a folded-up piece of paper towel with the oil and grease the bottom and sides of
    a 5 1⁄2 × 4 1⁄2 × 2-inch (14 × 11 × 4.5 cm) nagashikan mold (see page 353) or a 4 3⁄8 × 8 1⁄2-inch (11.5 × 21 cm) loaf pan (bottom lined with parchment paper). Scrape the ume-tofu mixture into the pan and rap smartly on the counter to eliminate air pockets and make sure the tofu is evenly distributed into the pan.

    Set a bamboo steamer over a large wok filled one-third of the way with water and bring to a boil. Place the pan in the steamer, cover, and steam over high heat for about 10 minutes until set. Remove from the steamer, blot off accumulated moisture, and lay a piece of plastic wrap (cling film) on the surface. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to chill.

    In a small saucepan, stir the dashi, shoyu, and salt together over medium heat to dissolve the salt. Transfer to a small bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour to chill.

    Place the junsai in a wire-mesh sieve and pour boiling water over for 10 seconds. Refresh
    by running the sieve under cold water. Shake off excess water and set the sieve over a bowl to drain. Store in the fridge for 1 hour to chill.

    Unmold the umedofu, cut into 4 squares, and place each on a small shallow individual dish. Stir the junsai into the cold dashi and spoon around the umedofu. Serve immediately as a light, palate-cleansing bite.

    Extracted from JAPAN: The Vegetarian Cookbook © 2023 by Nancy Singleton Hachisu. Photography © 2023 by Aya Brackett. Reproduced by permission of Phaidon. All rights reserved.

  • Singapore Cooking: Fabulous Recipes from Asia’s Food Capital

    Singapore Cooking: Fabulous Recipes from Asia’s Food Capital

    “If you love to cook, are undaunted with unique ingredients, and want to capture the flavors of another land, accept the challenge and get cooking.”

    In the late 1800s and early 1900s, chop suey houses were all the rage. Opening early and closing late, they were a place to get a good, cheap meal no matter what time of day or night. Over the following decades chop suey and chow mein remained the go-to dishes for those ordering Asian food. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that American diners discovered other regions of Chinese cuisine, Hunan and Szechuan being the first two major ones. For those who loved the flavors of Asia, Malaysian, Indian, Thai, Korean, and Vietnamese were also added to the selection of what to eat and cook. But Singapore gastronomic endeavors were often overlooked.

    Not anymore.

    To those in the know, Singapore cuisine has always been, as Terry Tan and Christopher Tan write in their introduction of the cookbook Singapore Cooking: Fabulous Recipes from Asia’s Food Capital (Tuttle Publishing), a topic of utmost importance.

    “Some wag once said that the quickest way to start a debate in Singapore is to walk up to a random group of people and ask them “So where can I get the best chicken rice?” the two Tans write in the book’s foreword.

    The great Anthony Bourdain also weighed in about the foods of this island nation saying, “New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Singapore’s the city that never stops eating. For a gastro-tourist, somebody who travels to eat, any kind of serious eater, Singapore’s probably the best place you can go . . .”

    Looking through this glossy paged book with its full-color photos and 100 recipes including those for such dishes as Ayam Tempra–Chicken Braised in Spicy Sweet Soy, Gulai Prawns with Pineapple, Nangka Lemak Young Jackfruit Coconut Curry, and Coconut Pancakes with Banana Sauce, it’s easy to agree that Singapore gastronomy is all “shiok” or in other words “sublime and unspeakably wonderful.”

    But though it all sounds delicious, this isn’t necessarily an easily accessible cookbook. Ingredients such as dried prawns, pandanus leaves, and tamarind may mean for many not only a search or special trip to an Asian grocery store but also an added expense and one where they’ll wonder when they might use the product again. Despite this, for anyone who wants to explore a multicultural cuisine that encompasses influences from many of the surrounding countries as well, it is very much worth the effort.

    To make it easier for the novice, the authors have organized their book into chapters such as “Marinades, Chutneys, Sambals and Achars” and “Breads, Rice and Noodles” and included a nice glossary of ingredients (with photos!) as well as a brief history of Singaporeans cuisine.

    If you love to cook, are undaunted with unique ingredients, and want to capture the flavors of another land, accept the challenge and get cooking.

    About the Authors and Photographer

    Terry Tan is a distinguished cooking teacher, food consultant, food historian, and writer who has been dishing up Singaporean delights to people around the world for many years. He writes and broadcasts regularly on Asian and Oriental food and cookery from his base in London.

    Christopher Tan is an award-winning writer, cooking instructor, and photographer who contributes articles, recipes and pictures to numerous magazines in Asia. Singaporean by birth, he grew up in London and now hangs out anywhere there is good food. You can find his work at www. foodfella.com.

    Edmond Ho is a noted food, travel, and lifestyle photographer based in Singapore. In the late 1990s, he introduced a new style of food photography in Singapore using extreme close-ups and blurred backgrounds together with natural lighting. He has done shots for more than 25 cookbooks.

    This review originally appeared in the New York Journal of Books.