dashi

killer stock for clear asian soups, which make an amazing first course, or as a base for miso soup. i've done this twice in the last week, the first time with dumplings filled with spicy mushrooms, and here with cabbage rolls. the idea for the rolls came from a madhur jaffrey recipe for a stew with potatoes, turnips, and seitan. i liked the picture and thought it might be pretty as a soup.
the broth is simple and spectacular. i filled a two quart rice pot with water, 1/4 cup soy sauce, about 10 dried shitake mushrooms, four crushed cloves of garlic, a thumb sized bit of ginger, and a sheet of kombu about five inches square. brought it to a boil and then simmered for about twenty minutes before straining through muslin. the mushrooms are totally usable for anything else, and i saw a recipe in the aforementioned jaffrey cookbook for some kind of japanese pickle/relish using the soaked kombu, though i haven't tried it yet.
for the cabbage rolls i cut the rough center stem (sliced thinly go great in a stir fry) out of about six of the outer leaves of a large head of napa cabbage and blanched the leaves for about two minutes.
the filling was just shredded carrot, garlic, and ginger sauteed together for about two minutes before adding a handful of frozen spinach, covering, and leaving to steam on low heat for an additional five minutes. i placed two leaves end to end before adding the filling, then rolling and slicing like maki rolls. a few of the slices were delicately placed in a soup bowl and the dashi broth then spooned around. a delightful, light first course with cold sesame noodles.
i also tried my hand last week at making both tofu, and seitan. guess what i had for diner... pizza! the seitan worked all right in theory, i used the recipe from the post-punk kitchen. but, no matter how i cooked it up it just tasted like bread to me. maybe the texture of meat, but the taste of soggy, chewy bread. i know i can make tofu taste good and i know i can get the texture that i want, why do seitan and tempeh elude me so? i am here officially giving up on seitan and tempeh. i will not attempt to dick around with these devilish things again, unless, at some time, i taste a dish containing one or the other that is truly sublime. i do not foresee this happening.
the tofu experiment went mostly well, i made the soy milk without problems, anyway. something went wrong with the coagulation and pressing, however (also, i fell asleep for about three hours while the tofu was pressing) - and wherein the problem lies, exactly, i do not know. i will do further reading on the subject before trying again.
other failed experiments of the last week included trying to make agar vinegar sheets, which looked and tasted horrible, and making agar caviar out of herb juice a la the top chef episode a couple back. the mint/cilantro pearls i made were absolutely gorgeous, at least the first few were, before they started to turn brown, but they tasted the same as the vinegar sheets, that is bland and rubbery.
i had the great fortune of seeing an old friend from new york a little bit ago, and she was talking about food as i was staring into her dark, beautiful eyes. in her infinite wisdom she said, 'i like food to taste like what it is.' alas, she's gone, but the lesson i took to heart; experimenting is fun, but it's time to get back to clean, simple, delicious food.