Okra tastes even better with a sauce

It took me a while to realize that okra tastes better with a liquidy sauce - but of course!  With its penne-like cavity, it's the perfect vegetable to go with a sauce that would squirt on your palette when you bit into the okra.  My favourite sauce is curry with coconut milk and tomatoes.  

Cut up your vegetables.  In this case, I used okra, egg plant, zucchini, red pepper, onion and tomatoes.  Slice the okra ~1.5 inch long at an angle.  Do the same with the other vegetables.  Add curry to hot oil in a pan and get ready for the burst of flavour from the heat.  Quickly add chopped onions.   Then add the other vegetables and a cup of broth.  After simmering for 5 minutes, add coconut milk and cook for another 5 minutes or until vegetables are soft.  Add salt or soy sauce to taste.


 


Another sauce I like is tomato sauce with herbs.  In this case, I used okra, green/red pepper, celery and onion.  Again heat oil in pan, add onions then the other vegetables except tomatoes.  Transfer to a cast iron pot.  Heat more oil in pan, add tomatoes, when it's almost soft, add half a can of tomato paste and a cup of broth.  Add herbes de provence (mix of savory, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, oregano) then pour the sauce onto the vegetables in the pot.  Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes and you've got a tasty vegetable stew with the okra soaking up the tomato sauce and the celery adding the crunch!  

Dim Sum Sunday at Hakkasan London

Mr. A’s friends, A&M, sent him food pictures from London.  The two travelers had the “Dim Sum Sunday” at Hakkasan.

The meal started with a cocktail.  A bottle of Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV Champagne was served with food.  The first course was a crispy duck salad:

which was followed by steamed dim sum -- har gau (shrimp dumpling), shumai (pork dumpling) with scallop and fish roe on top, Chinese chive dumpling (the green ones), duck and yam bean dumpling (the orange ones):

and baked dim sum – (from left to right) golden radish crab meat pastry, smoked duck and pumpkin puff, royal king crab and truffle roll, baked venison puff:

Three main dishes - (clockwise from top) XO seafood and water chestnut lettuce wrap, asparagus, stir-fry black pepper rib eye beef with merlot – were accompanied by ginger and spring onion fried rice:

The meal ended with a selection of dessert and an after dinner cocktail.

All for £58 per person, which was surprisingly reasonable for a high-end London restaurant. 

Creative Vegetarian

In my continued attempt to increase the vegetarian portion of my diet, I have been very inventive with my dishes - basically creating a dish out of anything and everything I have available at home.  Our typical meals have been one meat and one veggie dish.  Now I'm trying to make it 2 veggie dishes and one meat with a smaller portion of meat. 

Last week, I created two "new" dishes by combining ingredients that I have never put together before.  The first one - simple roasted red peppers and kale stir fry, nothing exciting but definitely tasted better than plain kale.  

The second - okra, red pepper, king mushrooms, egg tofu - all cubed, stir fried with half a teaspoon of chili bean paste to spice it up, was a success.  I love the combination of flavours, textures and colours.  The slightly chewy king mushroom went well with the crunchy okra and the soft but firm tofu.  In both dishes, the red pepper added sweet flavour and crisp texture, in addition to colour.  Next time, I might add some dried shitake to enhance the flavour even more, but it takes pre-planning to do dried shitake, since they usually require soaking for a few hours at least.  Fresh shitake isn't as flavourful.

Okra, king mushroom, red pepper and egg tofu stir fry

Kale and red pepper

It's amazing how a bit of red added to the colour of the dishes.  Compare these to the one below, which I did a while back.  This is a stir fry of brown beech mushrooms, enoki, tofu and lotus root - tasty, great textures, but dull-looking.  More greens would have brought up the colour and made the dish more enticing - something to remember for next time.

Brown beech mushrooms, enoki, tofu and lotus root with green onions.

I'm also slowly trying to increase my inventory of vegetarian dishes by exploring "new" ingredients - new to me at least.  More later.

Food experience in Costa Rica

The highlight of our Costa Rican food experience was really the freshness and tastiness of the fruits that seemed to be abundant everywhere we went.  The last time I had a mango as sweet was in Vietnam, and it was not nearly as big as this one, which we bought from a fruit stand on the way back to San Jose from the Pacific coast.  It's not so much just the sweetness as the fragrance of the mango that penetrated the senses and left an indelible stamp on my mental palette.

We also tried something we haven't had before - the camito, or star apple, as you can see from the image below.  It's sweet although the texture is more persimmon than apple.

Our first meal was in downtown San Jose, in a 100 year house turned into a cafe restaurant called Chelles. It was recommended as a local food place by the hotel front desk staff and it was within walking distance.  We got our dinner in spite of language barriers and it was a really good deal, our plates heaped with food enough for two meals.  It was plain grilled beef and chicken with fries and a salad plus the wait staff put a bottle of what looked like pickled chopped vegetables in front of us.  We subsequently found out from our guide that this kind of chopped vegetables is very common in Costa Rica.  Since it was our first day in the country, we didn't eat anything uncooked - very good advice that we had learned from our guide in Peru several years ago.  We have to let our system get used to the local water before we start eating raw vegetables - makes perfect sense to me.

Pickled chopped vegetables

We stopped for lunch in a small town on the way to Arenal.  We followed our guide to a "soda", a typical Costa Rican eatery where they serve "casado", a set lunch Costa Rican style.  I ordered a highly recommended "Olle de Carne" - a beef stew with cassava yams, taro, squash and rice (they only had two left!).  I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture before the meal.  But it was delicious!

Seafood was excellent everywhere we went, not surprising given that the country has access to both the Pacific and the Caribbean.  I had "sea bass" many times in the eleven days that I was in the country and it was certainly not the same kind we had in North America or Europe.  I suspect from the thickness of the cut that it is Chilean sea bass - and not at the exorbitant price that we would have been charged had we been in North America.

"Sea bass"

At our last stop in Manuel Antonio, we had a taste of tapas at Lush Tapas & Lounge recommended by our guide.  We sipped our drinks in the open air restaurant atop the hill overlooking the Pacific as everything around us caught the glow from the sunset - what a great way to end our trip.

Chicken and mango tapas/mini tenderloin in red wine with roasted tomatoes

Heartwarming pumpkin soup

I recently brought some pumpkin soup to a friend who was recuperating from surgery at home and got such a rave review for it that I decided to share this with a broader audience.  It's the perfect antidote to winter - I've found that a cup at lunch really warms you through and through.  I think the thick, creamy texture of the pumpkin and the spices all played a role in creating that warm snug feeling. And the wonderful thing is pumpkin is incredibly rich in antioxidants, high in Vitamin A, an excellent source of potassium, and what's more, low in calories.

On top of all the goodness, it's easy to make, especially  if you have a hand-held blender.  The cooking time is an hour and a half but the actual prep time is at most 20 minutes.   Like all good researchers, I used a mix of sources but I would say the basic recipe I used was from taste.com taking great liberty with it.  The soup is so creamy there is no need to add cream or any added starch.  It's a very healthy soup.

This is also a great time of year to make it because pumpkin is cheap after Halloween.  You'll need about 5 pounds or 3 large pieces (it's okay if you use less, it will just be a little more watery). Pumpkin with deep orange flesh tends to be sweeter.  Rub olive oil, rosemary and black pepper on the pumpkin flesh and place skin side up on a roasting pan.  Roast at 350 degrees for about an hour.   When it is ready, sauté two chopped onions and several cloves of garlic in olive oil in a heavy pot until soft.  Add 8 cups of vegetable or chicken stock, 1 tbsp of ground coriander, dash of chilli and simmer for about 20 minutes with the de-skinned roasted pumpkin cut up into large chunks.  Set it aside to cool for about half an hour.  Put your blender into the soup and blend the pumpkin pieces right in the pot.  It only takes a couple of minutes and it's done.

Serve with parsley or a dob of yogurt in the centre.  Great for a first course at a winter dinner.  It tastes best when piping hot.  I once served it at a dinner when it had not been heated through and through, and I regret it with every spoonful that I tasted.  It lost much of its "bang" when it's lukewarm.

Just aim the blender straight down at the chunks and it won't splatter.

If you don't have a hand-blender, go and get one.  I wish I hadn't waited 10 years to get mine.  It is SO handy - you won't regret it. 

Steamed eggs

Thanks to my dear friend MC, I was able to make a three egg combo for lunch today.  I haven't had steamed eggs for a meal for the longest time so this is a real treat.  What started it was the gift of homemade salted eggs from my friend.  She did a really good job - I've never seen such an outstanding salted duck egg.  Take a look at the firm egg yolk below - and the white was not too salty, as commercial ones tend to be.

  

While a three egg combo used to be quite common in Chinese homes, it is becoming increasingly rare because of concerns about cholesterol.   Although let's face it, three or four eggs shared among a few people is really minimal, well within most people's cholesterol allowance.   For people who have never prepared this before, here are a few quick pointers.

Cut up the salted egg yolk so you can spread it around later in the dish

Whisk together three regular eggs.  Add the salted egg and a ladle of soup stock.  Add a "thousand year old egg"(皮疍), chopped up (available in Chinese stores but it is an acquired taste, so skip if you are not a fan)

Traditionally, minced pork was used as a base for steamed egg.  But in the interest of health and not adding to the cholesterol, I just used whatever I have at home.  In this case, a few King mushrooms, also chopped up.  Enoki mushrooms cut up is also good.

Put the mushrooms at the bottom of a metal dish (better heat conduction).  Pour egg mixture into the dish.  Distribute the "black egg" and the salted egg yolk evenly around the dish.  Meanwhile, heat a pot of water to boiling then put the dish on a steamer rack in the pot.  Turn heat down immediately to just warm.  If you are using an electric stove that remains hot for a long time, you may have to turn down the heat before you put the dish in.  If the water continues to boil, the egg mixture would have a lot of bubbles and texture would not be smooth.  Some bubbles around the edges are sometimes unavoidable and don't affect the texture. It takes about 10-15 minutes for the eggs to set over low heat.  

The white of the salted egg is clearly visible here - this is my favourite part.  To ensure a more even distribution of the egg whites, whisk the egg mixture thoroughly.  For those of you who don't have friends who'd give you homemade salted eggs, they are available in Chinese groceries.

A meatless lunch (with quinoa and black beans, spinach)

                                                     

Heceta Head Lighthouse B&B

In early September we stayed for 2 nights at the Heceta Head Lighthouse B&B on the Oregon coast. Aside from its fame as a haunted house (didn't know about that when I booked), it is also famous for its 7 course locally-sourced breakfast. The B&B and the lighthouse were restored not too many years ago, unfortunately because of the large number of visitors, the lighthouse showed some chalky residue during the last inspection and the lighthouse upstairs was closed to the public. The B&B overlooks the beach with easy access to the lighthouse.

View from the LightKeeper's room of the B&B, which is the left window on the second story.

Breakfast started at 8:30 in the morning. As all the rooms were full, there were 6 rooms and 12 guests for breakfast. The chef was setting the table.

The chef ringing the bell for food!

A very moist family recipe orange cake was passed around the table, both days. It was excellent!

Watermelon with rose water and herbs for day 1, Fruit Combo with cream for day 2.

Salmon for bagels, with local preserves and cream cheese for day 1, whipped cream cheese with choice of crackers for day 2.

 Strawberry based palate cleanser and clotted cream, and mango based palate cleanser (don't remember what the other ingredients were, but the mango was particularly good)

Puff pastry omelette with local sausages, and vegetable frittata with clotted cream and sausages. There was a big pile of sausages for passing around, but everybody was getting full at this point. Incidentally the frittata had several bites eaten before I remembered to take the picture (Ooops!)

Coffee cake with berry filling, blintz with cheese filling and berry preserve,

Apple and local cheese, the cheese was siltcoos, an award winning artisan goat cheese from Oregon.

Watched the sunrise from Heceta beach.

The view of the lighthouse lenses at eye-level from the outside.

For more info on the lighthouse, see Friends of Heceta Head Lighthouse. In conclusion this was certainly a unique experience to learn about the history, operation, and life of the lighthouse and its inhabitants from bygone era, not to mention the antique-filled bed and breakfast inn with its resident ghost!

Okinawan food in Toronto

It's pretty unusual to find us in a Japanese restaurant, let alone one with a regional specialty.  My dining partner doesn't eat raw fish so Japanese food is seldom on our list. But I received a voucher for a complimentary meal at Ryoji Ramen and Itzakaya and it opened our palette to an entirely different aspect of Japanese food.

With the help of Akujiki, Food Sparks' resident Japanese food expert, we had picked three representative Okinawan tapas dishes from the online menu since Ryoji's parent restaurant is located in Okinawa.  However, the lunch menu is different from the online one although the braised pork belly and signature deep fried chicken were both there, at half the price and in substantial quantity.  The bitter melon on the dinner menu was not on the lunch menu but when we asked the chef it it would be possible to have it made, he very kindly obliged as the restaurant was not busy.  This is the Labour Day weekend - half the world is out of town and the rest likely at the CNE and Blue Jays game.  Extra star for flexible service.

The pork belly was prepared sous vide.  Have to confess that while I've heard a lot about this method of cooking pork belly, I was a little skeptical until I tasted it here - it was melt-in-your-mouth and full of flavour.  It came with half a piece of dried okra, which I initially thought was just decorative but when I bite into it, it was crisp and crunchy.  You can also see below how fine the pepper was - looked like shrimp whiskers - I could actually taste the flavour.

Okinawan Rafute (braised pork belly)

Kara-age - traditional Japanese deep fried chicken - dipped in sweet and sour soy, nice thin batter, crispy outside, soft and moist inside.  Perfectly done.  The slight tinge of sour in the batter took away any taste of grease.

I love chewy noodles so wanted to try the Okinawan soba noodles, even though this lunch is turning into a gluttonous feast, we ordered it.  It came with tasty pork backribs. seaweed, scallions and ground fish slices which has a crisp chewy consistency, much preferable to the soft ones we're used to in Chinese stores.  The soup was a very tasty, delicately flavoured bonito and pork broth.  

Okinawa So-Ki Soba in bonito and pork broth

The soba was served with a side of "koregosu" vodka infused with chili peppers.  Love it!

The most unique dish was the bitter melon stir fried with scrambled eggs, tofu and pork belly slices and we were glad the chef went out of his way to make it for us.  This Okinawan dish is topped with dried bonito fish flakes that swayed to music like they were still alive.  They were kept moving by steam from the hot stir fry for at least five minutes. (see video below)  What an amazing show dish, if it weren't slightly grisly.  Tastewise, I found this a great mix of textures and flavours.  I like how there was no detectable sugar added to the bitter melon unlike in Chinese cooking.  It tasted suitably bitter, the way it should be.

Okinawan Goya Champru (bitter melon stir fry)

Hope this video works!

Finally, the dessert.  We can't leave our first foray into Okinawan food incomplete!   I seldom go near donuts so was slightly skeptical about these "Okinawan donuts".  But I was pleasantly surprised!  These are not soft and starchy but firm and crunchy - I could taste the egg in them.  Perfectly paired with vanilla ice cream and dark chocolate sauce, strawberries, cream and mint.  A gorgeous ending to a very well-prepared meal.  

Sata Andagi (Okinawan donuts)

Diwan - a gem within a gem

Who would have thought that we would find the best bread pudding ever at a restaurant serving Middle-eastern, North African and Indian food!  But we did - the Egyptian coconut bread pudding at Diwan Restaurant in the Aga Khan Museum was the best we've ever tasted. It was totally unexpected - we were smitten! 

It turns out that Um Ali is a legendary Egyptian dessert with various myths behind its creation, but basically it was something created for a royal feast.  No wonder it's so good.  Beautifully presented and served warm, it was soft and moist but with a crunchy crust.  The contrasting cinnamon ice cream and walnuts, with cooling mint leaves made this a feast for the senses.

We hadn't planned on dessert when we sat down - it was going to be a light lunch to use up the refund the museum gave us for parking.  Of course, the museum administrators are smarter than we were - what a great way of drumming up business for the restaurant.  The appetizer and the entree was so good, we were enticed to try the one item on the dessert menu that caught my eye - the Um Ali.

And now back to the beginning.  We had not expected the appetizer to be anything exciting but the Turkish egg plant dish was excellent with some unique delicate flavours - no ordinary spread.

The chicken entree, tender and moist, was almost a backdrop for the interesting starch and salad.  The mix of soft Israeli couscous and crisp beluga lentils (my second taste in as many days!) provided contrasting textures that made this a winning combination.  The chick peas salad was a complex mix of chopped peppers, onions, radish and corn. Refreshing!

Diwan, both in its food and elegant decor, complete with19th century carved wood panels, complements the exquisite architecture of the Aga Khan Museum and the Ismaili Centre beside it.  Gems, in more ways than one.