Supermarket / Japan 4

As you might expect, the rice section is big in the Japanese grocery store.  Ten kilo bags weren't even put on shelves, just wheeled out on a dolly.  These were plain white rice, the variety most used in the Japanese kitchen.

But for the adventurous cook, lots of choice of other varieties.

And there was a little bit of our more familiar carbo, this the famous Japanese shokupan ("milk bread"), described as sweet, moist and fluffy.  It's sold in loaves with the heels cut off, in really thick slices, because Japanese kitchens have toaster ovens, not pop-up toasters.  Bread only became popular in Japan in the last century and now it's a staple.

Good fortune in the new year

Tradition says that you should eat black-eyed peas on New Year's Day to ensure good luck and prosperity.  Nobody knows exactly where the custom came from but people have been eating humble foods for luck for millenia -- you'll find few superstitions involving caviar or prime rib.  Some people eat the peas with collard greens and cornbread, others with tomatoes, others in fancy-schmancy recipes with parmesan cheese and bruschetta, but when we eat black-eyed peas it's in Hoppin John, the favorite dish of Low Country South Carolina.

I wrote about it a couple of years ago if you want to check back and read how to make it.

 Even if you missed doing this on January 1, there's still plenty of time to chow down and count your good fortune.  Happy new year!

Kale, the secret ingredient

Kale is one of the healthiest foods on the planet -- all that dark green fiber, rich in Vitamins A, B, C, minerals, antioxidant flavonoids and other good stuff.  I like to eat it, but not cooked.  I loathed cooked spinach as a kid, have barely been able to get by that prejudice as a grownup, and don't like anything that even reminds me of it.

So every now and then we buy a big head of kale and I search for ways to incorporate it, raw, into our menus.  This head was getting toward the end, having performed yeoman duty in a couple of soups.  It also showed up as an additive to mashed potatoes (chopped, stirred in just before serving).

Then I came upon it one night when I was putting some rice into the rice cooker and decided that the same approach that worked for spuds might work here too.  Just before serving, stirred the green shreds into the rice.

Since I had cooked the rice with salsa it had some red stuff in it already, so the deep green made a colorful Italian-flag display.  It tasted great, and the warmed-over leftovers made a good breakfast.

Rice cooker epic fail

I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to try making steelcut oatmeal in my rice cooker, supposedly a foolproof method.  I had a different result.

I measured out my regular quantity of ingredients: 1 cup oats, 4 cups water.  I usually make this in a saucepan somewhat smaller than my rice cooker bowl, so I thought it would work out OK.  But when you cook it in a pan, you watch and turn the heat down when it reaches a boil.  The rice cooker knows better, and just boils away till it thinks the food is done.

Unfortunately, as the oatmeal boiled, it boiled right out of the cooker.  Yuk.

I wiped up the mess and somehow finished cooking the oatmeal, which never achieved the proper texture.  Too bad I wasn't doing collage that day, because the goo was a wonderful paste, very difficult to get off the counter even with serious tools.

I don't know whether this was my fault for using too much oatmeal, or whether it happened because the cooker stayed too hot too long.  Also don't know whether I'll even bother to try again.  Steelcut oats take about 45 minutes to cook and I like to make four servings at a time (on subsequent days I heat them in the microwave).  Don't think it would be worth the time and trouble to make smaller batches in the rice cooker, since I can easily make four servings in the good old-fashioned pan.

Rice cooking -- without any hard work

So I made snide comments last week about people who can't cook rice.  In the spirit of improving everybody's lives, let me talk a bit about the helpless cook's best friend -- the rice cooker.

You've probably seen rice cookers in Asian buffet restaurants, big industrial models that do 30 or 60 or 100 cups at a time.  They're available for home use too, in any size appropriate to your family.  My cute little cooker produces two big servings at its smallest quantity, and goes up to six or seven at maximum capacity.

You measure out some rice into the little cup, then fill up the pot with water to the line.  If you used one cup of rice, fill up to "1" and if you used two cups, fill up to "2."  I usually do a can of chicken broth instead of water, which brings the liquid level up above the "1" line, so to compensate I use a bit more rice.  Add a bit of butter or olive oil, and in return the cooker will produce a nice browned crust on the bottom.

After several years of just cooking rice, I've learned to experiment with adding new ingredients as seasoning (one of my favorites is salsa), although I haven't yet gotten to the point of using the cooker to make things like chili or stew.  I have also gotten good results by replacing some of the rice with other rice-like substances such as orzo, quinoa or lentils.

I like my rice on the wet side, like risotto, so often when the cooker flips over to "warm" I'll add a little boiling water from my electric kettle, stir it in, and cook a minute more.

My cooker also includes a steamer basket so you can cook your broccoli or whatever at the same time as your rice, without throwing them all into the same pot.

Probably the greatest rice cooker aficionado is Roger Ebert, the former movie critic (Siskel & Ebert) who took a blog post and expanded it into a book.  His theory is that you need no other cooking mechanism to achieve nirvana -- "the Pot" can do everything.  He endorses its use in the office, in the dorm, in the attic.  I haven't read the book but I am persuaded that I should be more adventurous in my cooking adventures.  My next experiment, following Ebert's lead, will be to make steel-cut oatmeal in the cooker.

With this handy kitchen appliance -- mine cost considerably less than $20, as I recall -- you could theoretically live your life without a stove.  Not sure I want to go that far, but I'm intrigued by how far I can push its capabilities.

Rice cooking -- without all the hard work (!)

Prowling around in the middle of the grocery the other day I found this product -- ready-to-eat, just-warm-up rice!  It comes in a little plastic dish, to go in the microwave for two minutes.

The label reads, "We understand cooking rice can be a chore, that's why we have done all the hard work for you.  Rice so good, you will never need to cook it from scratch again."

This made me laugh.  Cooking rice is so far from being a chore that I can't conceive of the two ideas in the same universe.  With a rice cooker it's totally foolproof, as well as endlessly flexible to add ingredients and variations on the theme.  Even without a cooker, plain boiled rice is pretty simple, as long as you can use a measuring cup and multiply by two (or three if you like brown rice).

But I'm willing to admit that there are probably plenty of people out there who can't deal with this "chore," and for them the cute little dish full of rice is probably an appealing buy for those times when they absolutely have to pretend they know how to cook, and don't mind paying $1 a serving, compared to 8 cents or less if the rice comes from a bag.

What intrigued me was the corporate info on the label, indicating that the rice comes from the UK.  A google expedition revealed that the company is apparently headquartered in London but owned largely from India, a venture started 25 years ago by Indian farmers who wanted to get into the European market. They grow the rice, but process it in the UK to qualify for lower import duties.

Veetee has been selling microwave rice in Europe for some time, both in groceries and to restaurants, but has only sold in the US for a few years.  Which goes to prove that not all the technological "advances" in overprocessed food for lazy or clueless diners come from this side of the ocean.

Hoppin John

I am deeply and permanently in debt to George Plager, the master photographer who has taken all my quilt photos for several years and gotten me into a lot of really good shows.  Periodically I try to make inadequate payments on that debt by taking him out to dinner.  But this last time around, instead of going to a nice restaurant he wanted me to make Hoppin John.

I learned about Hoppin John on one of our many trips to Charleston SC, and then found it in The Joy of Cooking and made it at home.  Although it's humble fare -- basically just beans and rice -- it's such a wonderful recipe that I have served it for many a party, delivered it as post-funeral fare to bereaved families, and whipped it up for our own suppers more times than I can count.

If you're unfamiliar with this great dish, follow along -- maybe you'll want to make it too.

Although you get only one pot dirty, this is a two-part recipe.  First you cook up a batch of beans (in this case, the good old Southern staple, black-eyed peas) with seasonings.  You decant them into a holding bowl, where they sit while you do Part Two: a batch of rice pilaf in the oven.  When the rice is done, you take the pot out of the oven, dump in the black-eyed peas, mix, and stick them back in the oven to get everything nice and hot.  That's it.

Part One:  You can cook up the black-eyed peas early in the afternoon of your dinner, or a day or two in advance.  Your first decision is what format to purchase your peas in.  You can buy them dried in a bag (that form takes a while longer to cook) or fresh in the produce department (but in my grocery, only around New Year's).  My preference is to buy them frozen in a bag. 

Make a soup-like concoction with beans, diced onion, diced ham, dried thyme and water to cover, and cook it till the beans are as done as you like them, usually about a half hour if you start with fresh or frozen peas.  The proportions don't really matter -- heck, it's soup -- but I figure two big onions, 4 ounces or so of ham, and two 12-ounce bags of frozen beans.  Beans always need salt, but I like to use Penzey's Galena Street seasoning, which is salt plus some nice other spices and herbs.  Add plenty of thyme, maybe as much as a teaspoon, because that is the major flavoring agent in the recipe.  My recipe also calls for some red pepper flakes, but I usually omit them because the Galena Street has some heat to it.

When the beans are done, pour them through a colander or sieve to separate out the liquid from the solids.  I usually save the liquids in a big Pyrex measuring cup, and stash the beans in a bowl.  If you're doing this the previous day, stick everything in the fridge.

If you have used a dutch oven or cooking pot that can go into the oven, just rinse it out and use it for the second part of the recipe.  If you don't have an oven-proof pot, you'll still need to keep the stove-top pot for the first step of Part Two, then transfer the hot food to a baking dish.

Part Two:  This is the only time you need to measure, because you want the rice pilaf to come out fairly dry.  You'll need 1  1/2 cups of long-grain white rice, and 2  3/4 cups of the liquid you drained off your peas.  If you don't have enough liquid, add water or chicken broth to get to that quantity.

About an hour and a quarter before dinner, turn the oven to 325.  If the beans have been in the refrigerator, take them out and let them get to room temperature.

Put your pot back on the stove and cook some bacon that you have cut into small pieces.  I use about four ounces, but it doesn't really matter.  Get it brown and crispy over low heat, and then pull the bacon out and put it on a plate.  Keep the bacon fat in the pan.

Put the rice in the pot with the bacon fat and cook it over high heat for a few minutes, stirring, to get every grain of rice coated with fat.  If there doesn't seem to be enough bacon fat, add a little butter or olive oil.  (Don't worry, there's no such thing as too much.)  Before the rice starts to brown, add the pea liquid.  Bring everything to a simmer, then cover the pot and put it in the oven.

Check the rice in 20-25 minutes; when the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is cooked through, take the pot out of the oven.  Add the beans and the bacon, stir, and put the pot back in the oven for five minutes or so till the beans get hot.  Then turn the oven off and let the food sit on residual heat for at least ten minutes and as much as a half hour.  Just before you serve, add a good amount of chopped parsley.

If you have pea liquid left over, not to worry.  Put it in the freezer till the next time you're making soup; it will serve as pre-seasoned stock with whatever kind of ingredients you choose.

Risotto 101

Many years ago I read about an exotic Italian dish called risotto, and decided it was something I could make at home.  The cookbooks said to use arborio rice but I couldn't find it in my supermarket, so I used plain old long grain white rice.  Otherwise I followed the recipe, starting with toasting the rice in butter, then adding broth and hot water as the dish cooked over high heat.  The dish tasted great -- a big step up from the plain white rice of my childhood -- and became our regular preparation when rice was on the menu.

I can't remember how many years this went on before I ate risotto in a restaurant in New York, made with arborio rice and no doubt including other fancy ingredients.  I realized this was a different animal entirely from the faux risotto at home.  Eventually arborio rice made it to stores in the sticks, and I switched my preparation to the official version.  At the same time, risotto switched from a side carbo to the entree.

Best of all, I realized that just like pasta and soup, risotto could be the vehicle for infinite permutations of whatever was hanging around the refrigerator, which you may have realized by now is my favorite genre of cooking.  It's great for absorbing vegetables, anywhere from a couple of stray leaves of arugula to a big bunch of broccoli.  A little meat, whether it's leftovers or something new, goes a long way toward pepping up a dish of risotto, and of course the parmesan cheese grated in at the last minute adds protein as well as flavor.

Today's risotto, with radicchio, butternut squash and leftover chicken









As with pasta and soup, imagination is the key ingredient in fixing risotto.  Whatever you have around is probably going to work as an additive.  Some of my favorites:

-- Winter squash makes a classic Italian risotto.  If you have leftovers, just put the cooked squash into the skillet and mash it up a bit with your spoon; it will practically dissolve in cooking and turn the rice orange (beautiful!).  If you're starting from scratch, you can cut the raw squash into thin bite-size pieces, no more than 1/8 inch thick, which will retain their shape.

-- Another classic is radicchio.  In Italy, the words trevisano or trevigiana on a menu indicate the presence of radicchio, after Treviso, the city where farmers developed a technique to blanch the leaves and make the plant prettier and less bitter.  In Milan, the rice capital of Italy, I ate risotto trevisano con gamberi, with shrimp -- a magnificent combination that is easy to do at home.  But even without shrimp, radicchio makes a fine risotto.

-- Summer vegetables can all go in risotto, but you have to be careful not to overcook them, particularly zucchini.  I often saute the zucchini first, then take it out of the pan and let it rest on a plate until the rice is almost done.  It goes back into the skillet only long enough to warm it through and meld the flavors.

-- Olives add color as well as a concentrated flavor kick. 

I'm partial to risotto with mostly vegetables, but a cookbook check will reveal many ways to up the meat content for heartier versions.  Clams, squid, fish and of course shrimp are classics.  Sausage, pork, chicken and veal show up in various combinations with vegetables.

If you don't have risotto in your home repertoire, here's the quick technique recap. 

Risotto has the reputation of being tricky, difficult, beyond the scope of the beginner or hesitant cook.  But that rep is undeserved.  The tricky part consists solely of the fact that for 20 minutes you have to stand there, watch and stir.  You won't be able to do anything else during this time period, but so what? 

Make the rest of your menu beforehand, or put your helper in charge of the last 20 minutes worth of cooking other things.  Pare, chop or slice in advance whatever ingredients you're going to put in the risotto, place them right by the stove, and figure out whether they need to cook for 20 minutes (in which case, add them as soon as you add the liquid) or less (in which case, add them later in the cooking process). 

Maybe you want to saute your ingredient first, rather than just add it to a pan of liquid, but don't want it to cook the whole 20 minutes.  If so, saute it in the skillet, unload it onto a plate, and add it back to the risotto at the appropriate time.

Get a big skillet so your rice will cook in a wide, shallow layer.  Decide what kind of liquid you're going to use and have it at hand, can or bottle opened, ready to pour.  I always use about a half-cup of wine and a can of chicken broth, but you could also use other kinds of broth or vegetable juice.  When the moment comes to add liquid, you want it NOW, lest your rice burn.

Put a generous serving of olive oil in the skillet and get it hot.  Dump in as much arborio rice as you would normally use in other rice preparations.  I have a little measuring cup that came with my rice cooker, and one measure (it's probably about 3/4 cup) is what I would use to serve two of us.  The same quantity of rice serves two of us in risotto.

The rice is starting to turn brown -- time to add the liquid.











Stir the rice in the hot skillet and watch very carefully as the grains begin to toast and turn opaque white, then begin to get brown.  A few seconds after I add the rice I also add finely minced garlic and keep stirring so it doesn't burn either.  When the rice looks like it's starting to brown, pour in about a half-cup of liquid.  It will sizzle furiously and begin to cook away. Don't let the pan dry out; add some more liquid a half-cup at a time and keep stirring.  You want the rice to cook in liquid over high heat the whole time. 

Bubbling away, with only enough liquid to cover. 











Italian cooks will heat up a pan of broth and keep it at a simmer on a separate burner, adding it a bit at a time to the skillet with the rice.  I'm not quite that finicky; I add broth straight from the can but in small enough doses that the rice mixture never stops bubbling away.  And after I use up my can of broth, which isn't enough, I add hot water from my electric kettle.

Adding raw sliced squash














So when is it done?  The rice grains should be al dente, not soft.  And the whole preparation should be almost soupy, not so you need to eat it with a spoon but so it has a definite sauce-like quality.  The arborio rice sheds starch as it cooks and makes the liquid creamy.  But you do have to make sure the liquid doesn't cook away.  I find that when the rice is almost done and I issue the two-minute warning for people to get to the table, it's a good idea to add a half-cup of hot water and stir that around to make sure the risotto isn't dry.

You can grate parmesan cheese into the risotto in the pan and stir it around to melt, or you can let people cheese their own plates at the table.  A big grind of black pepper is usually pretty good too.  Mangia!

Improvisational rice

I ranted recently on my other blog about the product police making my favorite brand of salsa disappear from the shelves.  In search of a substitute, I bought three different varieties to try.  The first one failed the test, leaving me with an almost full jar of red stuff that we didn't particularly like.  Struck by the spirit of improvisation, I decided to make it part of our dinner.

Hauled out the rice cooker, made a one-cup batch using the normal proportions of rice and water, then dumped in about half the jar of salsa, maybe a half cup.  The improvisation was a success -- the rice looked good and tasted good.  According to the label, this added about 25 calories to the dinner.

Although the salsa was only "medium" in hotness, the rice was spicier than I would have expected.  It made a good complement to pork chops and broccoli.  I would even serve it to company.