chilean hot dogs

one of my co-workers is married to a chilean guy and she started to regale us all the other day with stories of the wonder which are chilean hot dogs. of course i had to try them out for myself, because i love toppings. i cannot remember a time in my life when asked the question, 'what do you want on that?' where i replied anything other than, 'everything.' called 'completos' (with everything) or 'italianos' (because of the colours: white,red, green) there are a few variations of exactly what goes on top if you google around. according to my inside source, though, the essentials are as follows: chopped tomato, chopped onion, mashed avocado, mayonnaise, and crushed up potato chips.
i like vegannaise for this and other things, i think it tastes just like mayonnaise and has a better texture. because i am incapable of imagining a hot dog without mustard, into about 2 tbs. of vegannaise i mixed a heaping tsp of mustard and a few shakes of tobasco. the avocado i mashed with a little sherry vinegar for flavour and to keep it from browning, and the onion i soaked in acidified water for five minutes to take a bit of the raw bite off of it.
very simple and delicious, just take your favourite fake sausage thing, toast some buns, slather them with the dressing and build away. finish with the crushed chips on top and enjoy!

egg foo young

i used to work next to a chinese restaurant, where for four dollars you could get a slammin vegetable egg foo young. i realized after a while that despite the assurances of the owner there was no way the sauce could be vegetarian and i stopped ordering it. it's been over two years since i worked there but the fancy has never quite left my mind, so the other night i made an attempt. everything went well, and the end result was quite good, although the sauce needs a bit of work.
i used just a cup of vegetable stock plus a tablespoon each of soy sauce and sugar, thickened with a bit of cornstarch. the result was rather pallid, but tasted ok. in my mind it needs to be much thicker and darker - ideas for the future: worcestershire, vegetarian oyster sauce, hoisin... anyway the patties themselves were decent, allow about one egg per patty, two patties per person. for two:

• 4 chicken eggs
• 1 carrot, grated
• an equal amount of daikon (i used about a two inch piece from a big honker), grated
• 1 rib celery, sliced thinly
• 3 scallions, chopped
• ~2 cups loosely packed bean sprouts
  
• 1 shallot, sliced thinly
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• thumb sized piece of ginger, minced

in small sautee pan gently sweat the shallot, garlic, and ginger with a bit of salt, allow to cool. chop all the veg and add those that were sauteed together in a bowl. beat the eggs well and season them, then add them to the bowl as well. mix well.heat a large cast iron or nonstick pan over medium heat with enough oil to liberally coat the bottom. add 2-3 ounces of egg mixture at a time, and using a spatula keep folding the edges over the center of the mass to form a patty. fry on both sides until quite golden (i like some dark crispy bits on mine). keep warm in a low oven until ready then serve doused with sauce next to rice.
of course the veg herein are totally mutable, this is a dish to empty out the fridge. i think what makes it authentic for me are the bean sprouts and the scallions, but i guess it's really just a chinese omelette.

mojo de ajo

one of my all time favourite condiments - and i do fancy my condiments. simply garlic roasted in oil. i keep it in the fridge and use it in lieu of fresh chopped garlic in pretty much anything. coating vegetables in the oil and roasting them in the oven is quite sublime. this recipe is from rick bayless' pbs show mexico one plate at a time.

• 4 heads of garlic
• ~2 cups of olive oil
• 1 lime
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)

separate all the individual cloves and whack them with the heel of your knife.peel the papery skin off of the cloves and place them in a baking dish. cover with enough olive oil to fully submerge them and season with salt and pepper to taste. while you're doing all this, preheat the oven to 350 f.roast at 350 f for 40-50 minutes or until the cloves are golden brown and the oil is bubbling away.remove from the oven and mash thoroughly with a potato masher or two forks. add the juice of the lime and red pepper flakes. return to the oven for a further twenty minutes and voila! allow to cool and transfer into sterilized mason jars for storage in the fridge. this recipe usually gives me one pint jar and one half pint jar: enough for home use and one to give away!while home-made garlic oils are usually a no-no due to the risk of botulism, the prolonged exposure to the high heat of the oven will kill any C. botulinum and their spores. just make sure to follow hygienic procedures in the kitchen and sterilize any storage vessels to reduce your risk.

bottles and jars

on the far right is the completed tomato vodka. it's very subtle, and the tomato sings a sweet, soft note. at first i strained it through a sieve only, and it was much murkier. the flavour was stronger as well, but not pleasantly so - almost as of fruit on the cusp - about to go off. i strained it again, through muslin this time, achieving the end result, and i am pleased. i'm trying to come up with a cocktail to showcase it, but until then... bloody marys! but for a bloody mary you need worcestershire, so...
my worcestershire sauce recipe:

• 1/2 white onion, chopped
• 1/2 granny smith apple, peeled and chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 inch ginger, minced
• 3 cloves
• 2 allspice berries
• 2 tbs. olive oil
• 1/2 cup tamarind paste
• 3 tbs. palm sugar (it's a guess - slightly smaller then a golf ball size piece) - or brown sugar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
  
• 3/4 cup malt vinegar
• 2 cups water

crush the allspice and cloves fine in a mortar. heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion, garlic, and ginger. season with salt and pepper and cook on low until the onions are translucent. add the apple and the spices and cook a minute further before adding all remaining ingredients. bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for 20 minutes. taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning - if it seems too vinegary add more sugar. strain and bottle.

i like it because the vegetarian worcestershire sauces that i have been able to find (all two of them) have been thick and syrupy. this recipe yields something more like lea & perrins in viscosity, sans the little fishies.the other jar is tomato ketchup - which i am going to call love-apple catsup from here on after a recipe in salt: a world history. the book mentions how ketchup had it's origins as a fermented fish sauce - so worcestershire and ketchup have something in common... nice segue... the recipe i used is from jamie oliver, pretty much verbatim except for substitutions made out of necessity, but it's quite good. i used it to make a thousand island dressing, which along with my sauerkraut combined to make some mighty tasty tempeh ruebens (i'm trying tempeh again) last night that i did not take pictures of.
to come full circle, here is the vodka before straining:

sauerkraut and tomato vodka

that actually sounds like a pretty good combination, maybe with some blinis? but this union was just proximity of genesis. i've been planning on making both things for a while now, sauerkraut after reading wild fermentation by sandor ellix katz, and the tomato vodka after watching the good eats episode raising the bar again.
for the kraut i used:

• ~4 lbs of cabbage (i had more, this was all that would fit in my largest mixing bowl - the excess became a lovely bubble and squeak dinner)
• 4 or 5 tbs of pickling salt (weak brines make me nervous - i have no air conditioning)
• small handful juniper berries
• small handful caraway seeds

mixed all together and crammed down into this big cookie jar i found at tj maxx. a small plate with a large mason jar full of water atop and we'll see how time and my hot apartment treat this experiment.
the tomato vodka is just a simple infusion, though i doubled the amount of tomatoes that the good eats recipe calls for (i used 2 lbs). chop them into chunks and add vodka - i have very high expectations of this - i worry i can't help but be let down... only time will tell.

grilled mushroom torta

as often i was inspired by rick bayless's tv show, mexico one plate at a time, which by me airs on saturday mornings on pbs. it's reruns now, from last summer, and i wonder if they'll be putting anything new out soon. anyway, housesitting for my mum i had access to a grill again, and was my mouth started to watering when a torta show was rerun. the highlights of this sandwich are the sauces, though everything is good. the black beans were directly inspired by the show and are just cooked with a little roasted garlic, onion, and chile before being pureed. the grilled salsa verde was sublime and very simple.the mushrooms i marinated in a little mojo de ajo (garlic roasted in oil) and balsamic vinegar. for the salsa i took tomatillos, serrano chiles, and red onion and tossed them with olive oil, salt, and pepper before throwing everything on the grill. when it was all nicely blackened i set the mushrooms aside and took all the salsa ingredients and threw them in the food processor with a handful of cilantro, a bit of olive oil, and a squeeze of lime juice. not only did this produce a nice piquant salsa verde, but the smokiness of the charcoal gave it a wonderful body and depth of flavour. next i took a loaf of french bread, sliced it longways and pulled out most of the crumb.i lightly grilled the bread, then spread the black bean paste over the bottom. i then layered the sliced, grilled mushrooms, cilantro, pepper jack cheese, the salsa verde, and avocado before wrapping the whole thing up tightly in foil and throwing it back on the dying coals for ten more minutes.and then i ate the whole thing. all by myself. one of the best sandwiches i've ever had.

kimchi stew

four months of silence later and i'm just using up the last of my kimchi. it was getting a bit ripe so i used it up in this recipe i found from maangchi. i used more veg, adding in carrots, celery, and garlic, and instead of the meat i used this weird stuff i found at super h mart in the tofu isle called 'vegetarian beef.' it's basically wheat gluten and msg, not too bad considering. and as always i went with firm, pressed tofu; i just haven't developed a taste for silken, i must work on this. anyway, very spicy, yummy, and deliciously sour.
(tofu pressing under cans)

very quick cooking. it was done by the time the rice cooker shut off.
also, while i was at super h mart, i bought something i've been humming and harring over for a while. i've not been able to find it anywhere else or in any smaller quantity, so now i am the proud owner of my own pound of chile threads! the bag is about the size of a pillow case and i may well be garnishing to my heart's content many decades from now. only time will tell what the future holds for me and my pound of chile threads...

fermentation

nothing quite like just leaving something on the counter to spoil. and not in that strange roommates' relatives' way where they seem to think leaving things in the microwave or oven is akin to putting them in the fridge... no, this is controlled neglect. last month i made my first batch of honest to goodness put 'em up pickles after finally finding what i thought to be an appropriate vessel. i have been bugging my potter friend to make me a pickle crock (with that special lid that keeps the pickles submerged) for quite some time, but she's got other things on her plate (a baby being one), and the crocks online seem outrageously expensive for what they are, plus add in ~10 bucks shipping and there's no way.
then, i found at marshall's a drink decanter thingy for $10! it's glass, so it's non-reactive, and it has about a 3 gallon capacity. all i do is wrap a tea towel around it to keep out the light. the recipe comes directly from the good eats episode: dill-icious (for anyone who likes good eats, i highly recommend this site, it has you-tube links and everything). the only things i added were white peppercorns, green peppercorns, and some grains of paradise along with the black pepper, and they were some of the best pickles i've ever had. co-workers gave rave reviews as well. my second batch is fermenting as i write this, and includes some habeneros and shallots.
the next experiment was kimchi. for this i used the recipe from maangchi.com, omitting the oysters of course, and instead of the fish sauce, i tried using a mixture of soy sauce and vegetarian oyster sauce. there seem to be two different techniques for salting the cabbage, one being to sprinkle salt between the leaves, the other to submerge it and a salt water bath. this first time i did the former, because in all the videos i have seen on kimchi, that's what the people do, but i will be interested to try the latter some time.
the fish sauce substitution proved a little weak, though, and i think the kimchi could have fermented a bit longer. i only let it go two days (the website recommends none at all or one, but my kitchen is quite cold) - i think i'll try a week or so in the future. after the fact i started looking for fish sauce substitutions, and found this on wikipedia, which through my own inattention turned out quite good. i used:

• half a package (about 2 oz.) of kombu
• 4 cups of water
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 tsp. black peppercorns

add the kombu to the cold water then bring to a boil and simmer for 20 min. add the soya, garlic, and peppercorns. here's were inattention helped: the recipe said to reduce down by half; well i started playing a video game and damn near forgot about the sauce. so, an hour later, thankfully not having burned the house down, i was rewarded with a mere half cup of salty, ocean-tasting goodness. i was about to add boiling water to dilute it out, but upon tasting i realized... this is exactly what i was looking for.
and if you aspire to true economy, you can take this nice thick bits of soaked kombu left over, slice them into little 1/2 inch squares, add them to another four cups of cold water with 2 tbs. of soy sauce, simmer for 20 min before adding another 3 tbs. soy, 4 tbs. of rice wine vinegar, and 3 tbs. of sugar. reduce the liquid down to 2-3 tbs. and stir in 3 tbs. of toasted sesame seeds. voila - kombu relish.