How to Eat (70 page)

TATAKI OF TUNA

At its most basic, tataki of tuna is just a small, thick, fleshy piece of tuna, about 8 ounces, cut from the tail, seared on all sides on a smooth griddle or heavy frying pan, and left rare within. It is then left to cool, dunked in ice water, dried well, and sliced very thinly (see, for interest and comparison, though not for low-fat consumption necessarily, the carpaccio on
page 138
). Slice some scallions into 1½-inch lengths and cut these in half lengthways, too. Arrange on a plate. Then cut the tuna into very thin slices diagonally across. You will see the outline of the brown-crusted exterior, the ruby fleshiness within. You can dress the tuna with ½ tablespoon lime juice mixed with a pinch of sugar and 1 tablespoonful soy sauce and/or serve a piercingly hot dipping sauce of wasabi powder mixed to a thin paste with soy. And if you want to intensify the contrast between the fish steak’s soft, sweet interior and seared, almost bitter, crust, then dredge the tuna in some wasabi powder, too, before grilling it. Sprinkle with coriander and eat with a cucumber salad made by cutting a decent chunk of a cucumber in half, scraping out the seeds, and then cutting the two halves finely so that you have a mound of jadelike, glassy half-moons.

SUGAR-SPICED SALMON WITH CHINESE HOT MUSTARD

From a quirky American book called
Pacifica Blue Plates
by Neil Stuart, I picked up a way of cooking salmon that has contrast and impact. The title—Sugar-Spiced Salmon with Chinese Hot Mustard—takes almost longer to write than the recipe does to cook. I’ve adapted the original idea (leaving out the stipulated ¼ teaspoon cocoa), but the result, the almost uncooked Day-Glo interior, the crisp, dull bronze but sharp-spiced seared casing around, provides the satisfactions of the original. For an 8-ounce juicy, thick salmon fillet (cut from the top end of the fish), mix ¼ teaspoon each ground ginger, cinnamon, cumin, cayenne, sugar, salt, and (Colman’s) mustard powder. Heat a griddle (smooth side up) or a nonstick pan and, when hot, thickly dredge the fish in the spice mixture and cook for 2–3 minutes per side, or until seared and bronze without, still rare and coral-fleshed within. Remove and let stand while you make the purportedly Chinese hot mustard sauce, just by mixing a teaspoon and a half each of sugar and mustard powder with 1 teaspoon of warm water. I like this with barely cooked sugar-snaps. And the hot, sweet mustard sauce will jumpstart even the dullest piece of plain grilled farmed salmon. If you can find or afford wild salmon, let nothing interfere; save some lemon or the merest ghost of some freshly chopped tarragon.

RICE

Rice and broccoli, doused in ordinary soy sauce or citrus-seasoned soy or sukiyaki sauce, is a quick bowl-to-mouth supper. Basmati rice takes about 10 minutes, though if you keep some frozen in bags, you can nuke a portion in the microwave as soon as you walk in through the door in the evening. (I’m not mad about microwaved broccoli, though.) Sometimes a little bowlful of rice eaten immediately can stop you eating everything in the fridge later. In my more temple-food moods, I go in for brown rice, but it takes ages to cook and sometimes feels like a virtuous rather than a pleasurable choice. Where brown rice really works is in a salad; let the rice get cold, keep it in the fridge, and then you can make a quick supper by adding soy (by itself or with dashi and mirin added), chopped scallions, sugar-snaps, mint, and coriander.

A LITTLE SOMETHING ON TOAST

Less exotically, you should never forget the filling and comforting properties of baked beans or poached eggs on toast. As long as you get whatever’s covering the toast on top of it the minute the toast pops out of the toaster, the lack of butter won’t be a lastingly significant loss.

SMALL BIRDS

A 1-pound poussin is about 400 calories, skin and all—about half that if you can eat it without the skin. I prefer to double my caloric intake by eating it burnished and crisp-skinned; it feels like so much more of a treat. I often cook a couple of these when a girlfriend comes for supper; with it you can make any salad or vegetable you like. I like the lemony, herb-dense, grated beets on
page 391
.

I also love grouse, partridge, and quail, admittedly not everyday items. Eating the whole of something makes you feel less deprived. Roast grouse plain, which is no hardship either in terms of cooking or eating, and almost braise partridge by cooking it in the oven in a little puddle of stock and chopped vegetables. Shred the cooked meat and stir it into some carrot, onion, and garlic-studded lentils. See also the recipe for lacquered quail,
page 389
.

TEMPLE FOOD

Not all the recipes that follow are time-consuming, but I feel they come more into the category of thought-about cooking than the let’s-just-throw-this-into-the-pan mode of food preparation.

AROMATIC CHILI BEEF NOODLE SOUP

This satisfies just about every principle of low-fat cookery, as far as I’m concerned—it’s filling, fragrant, resonant with flavor, and beautiful to look at; it feels like a treat. And there’s a lot of it. Defatted real stock is best, but you can use good bouillon cubes or instant dashi. You can do almost whatever you want to this recipe: cut the steak into strips before marinating it rather than leaving it whole; use duck breast (fat removed and meat sliced before cooking) or venison (sliced after) instead of beef; use any vegetables; use any sort of noodle. See also the recipe for Sunday Night Chicken Noodle (
page 145
), only use ½ teaspoon of oil when you stir-fry the chicken shreds.

I often make this for my supper using thin slices of pork that have been first dunked, then roasted, in a barbecuey marinade. The recipe for these is on
page 399
. For this soup variation I use pork bouillon cubes bought from the Thai shop and use bok choy or choy sum or other leafy, cabbagy greens—watercress is nice, too.

2 ounces dried egg noodles

FOR THE STOCK

2 cups beef stock (see headnote)

½-inch piece fresh ginger

1 dried red chili

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 garlic clove, crushed with the flat of a knife

FOR THE BEEF

2 teaspoons soy sauce

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½-inch piece fresh ginger, chopped or put through a garlic press

1 garlic clove, minced

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon chili sauce

4 ounces sirloin steak

2 ounce sugar-snap peas, cut into 2–3 pieces each

2 ounces (small bunch) bok choy, chopped

2 tablespoons chopped Thai basil or coriander

Cook the noodles as directed on the package, drain, rinse in cold water, and drain again. Reserve.

Bring the stock with its allocated aromatics to the boil, then leave to simmer, covered, while you get on with the beef.

In a bowl combine the beef seasonings and then put the beef in. Wipe the bowl with the beef to cover one of its sides with the chili-cinnamon mixture, then turn the beef over to marinate. Leave for 30 minutes. As you put the beef aside, turn the heat off under the stock, but leave the pan with the lid on to let the flavorings infuse the liquid.

Sear the steak on both sides in a hot, nonstick pan. Cook for 2 minutes more on each side on slightly lower heat, then remove the steak to a board to rest a second while you get on with warming the aromatic soup and noodles.

You can either strain the stock into a new saucepan or leave the bits in to be fished out as you eat. Do whichever you prefer, but bring the stock back to boiling point, cook the sugar-snaps and bok choy in it for a minute or so, and put in the cold noodles to heat. After another minute, or when the noodles are hot, add the Thai basil, if using, and pour into a bowl. Slice the steak into thin slices on the diagonal and lay on top and sprinkle with the coriander, if using. Eat with a spoon and soy sauce.

Serves 1.

MUSHROOM UDON SOUP

This is very plain, very calming—the sort of supper I might make myself to get back on track if I’ve gone out and had duck confit with mashed potatoes for lunch.

Dashi is Japanese stock (what
brodo
is to the Italians) and, although you can make it yourself, I advise buying dashi-no-moto, which is the dashi equivalent of stock cubes. I buy mine in a liquid version, which you mix in the ratio of 1 teaspoon of dashi-no-moto to 1 cup water. If you have problems finding the instant dashi liquid, see
page 462
for a source.

8 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in 1¼ cups hot water for 10 minutes to soften

few drops soy sauce

1 teaspoon liquid instant dashi, plus more, if desired

2 ounces dried udon noodles

few drops sesame oil (optional)

2 tablespoons chopped parsley or coriander

Strain the mushroom water into a saucepan and add the soy sauce and instant dashi. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms, squeeze the caps a little to release excess water, and add the caps to the pan. Bring to a boil and add the noodles. When cooked, pour into a bowl and sprinkle over the merest drop or two of sesame oil, if using, more dashi to taste, and the parsley or coriander.

Serves 1.

The following recipe has almost the same ingredients, but is very different in character: more bolstering, stronger-flavored, and generally just more solid.

BRAISED DRIED SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS WITH SOBA NOODLES

Like the recipe above, once you’ve got yourself organized, this is a good pantry standby. The braised mushrooms come via the
Japanese Vegetarian Cookbook
by Patricia Richfield; I add them to a capacious plateful of cooked and soy-tossed buckwheat soba noodles. The graininess of the buckwheat is just the right foil to the dense-flavored and salty shiitake.

8 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in 1¼ cups hot water for 30 minutes to soften

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon sake

4 tablespoons mirin

3 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce

3 ounces soba noodles

drops sesame oil

2 tablespoons chopped coriander (optional)

Drain the mushrooms, reserving ½ cup of the soaking water and straining it. Remove the stems and discard; squeeze the caps a little to remove excess water.

Heat the oil in a small frying pan, add the mushrooms, and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Mix the sake, mirin, and 2 tablespoons of the soy sauce with the reserved mushroom-soaking water and pour over the mushrooms in the pan. Bring to the boil and simmer over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, cook the noodles according to the package instructions, drain, rinse with cold water, drain again, and toss with the soy sauce, and sprinkle with a drop of sesame oil. Toss again and put on the plate. Pour the mushrooms from the pan on top of the noodles. Sprinkle another drop or two of sesame oil over the noodles; add some coriander if desired.

Serves 1.

SEAWEED AND NOODLE SALAD

This is not an authentic dish, insofar as I didn’t get it from any Japanese source, just from the happy ransacking of my own larder. Don’t worry about which noodles you use. I like the starchy, fresh Japanese ones, but they’re not very easy to find; dried Chinese egg noodles will do fine. Neither of the two seaweeds required—wakame or arame—is very hard to get hold of and, because all you have to do is soak them briefly, they aren’t hard to use. This tastes good, too, just with the fleshy green wakame or without any seaweed at all, just as a plain noodle salad. If you want to forgo the sesame oil, you can; fatless, the dressing is slightly more astringent, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

2 ounces dried soba noodles

¼ ounce wakame

¼ ounce arame

4 teaspoons Japanese soy sauce

1 tablespoon sake

2 teaspoons mirin

2 teaspoons rice vinegar

½ teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon prepared dashi or 1 tablespoon water with a pin-drop of liquid instant dashi

1 teaspoon sesame oil (optional)

1 scallion (white and green parts), minced

Cook the noodles in boiling water for as long as the package directs, then drain, refresh in cold water, and drain again. Set aside. Meanwhile, soak the seaweeds in water, again as the packages direct; about 5 minutes for the wakame and 15 for the arame should do it. Drain well.

Make the dressing by putting the soy, sake, mirin, rice vinegar, sugar, dashi, and sesame oil, if using, in a small jar and shaking, or mix together in a bowl. Combine the noodles, which should be either at room temperature or cold, and seaweeds and toss with the dressing. Put into a serving dish and sprinkle with the scallion.