Fiori di Zucca Fritti (Fried Zucchini Blossoms)

Zucchini seeds are usually planted in the beginning to the middle of July.  By early August there would be lots of blossoms, male flowers on long stalks and female flowers carrying baby squashes at their ends.  Upscale produce shops usually carry only the female flowers because of the eye-appeal of their cute little zucchinis.  Farmer’s markets also sell the much more inexpensive male flowers.  Mr. A bought a big bundle of them for just a dollar (about 100 Japanese yen).

     

$1 worth of male zucchini flowers

Male zucchini flowers with stems removed

The usual way to cook zucchini blossoms is to fry them after removing the stamens (male) or the pistils (female).  Mr. A followed a Fiori di Zucca Fritti recipe from Cucina Giuseppina, a cooking school in Certaldo that “rarecat” attended during her trip to Tuscany, Italy.  Here is the gist of the recipe:

1.       Crack 3 eggs into a bowl; add 2 heaping tablespoons of flour per egg.   

2.       Add 2 ice cubes into the mix.  Stir to combine.  Add water if necessary till the batter has the consistency of whipping cream.

3.       Heat an inch or less of oil in a frying pan (there is no need to use as much oil as for deep frying).  Test the temperature by dripping a little bit of batter into the oil.  It should cook reasonably fast but should not turn brown right away.

4.       Dip the flowers into the batter one at a time.  Wipe flower along the side of bowl; turn flower 180 degrees and wipe again to remove as much of the batter as possible.  The flower should have a very thin coating of batter.

5.       Fry them in oil till done, cooking time should be 4 or 5 minutes per side.

6.       Salt flowers while they are still hot.

Mr. A followed the recipe with two minor changes.  Instead of getting a smooth consistency, he stirred the ingredients just enough to incorporate them into a lumpy batter.  He did it deliberately to mimic the way chefs at high-end tempura restaurants in Japan made tempura batter.  Mr. A also used much less than an inch of oil so his fried blossoms turned out rather flat instead of fluffy.  Mr. A tasted the batter and salt when he ate the fried plain flowers but not much else.  He found out later that he was supposed to eat the fritto right out of the pan while it was super hot.  Mr. A also used some of the blossoms as a topping for a bowl of Japanese somen noodle. 

Frying male zucchini flowers

Somen noodle with fried zucchini blossoms and pork

A few days later, Mr. A fried some stuffed female zucchini blossoms.  He blended fresh ricotta (about one tablespoon per flower), some fresh Mozzarella and a small amount of Parmigiano-Reggiano in a food processor until they form a smooth paste.  He stuffed the flowers and fried them in a cast iron frying pan with about half an inch of oil.

Fried female zucchini blossoms with cheese stuffing

The fried blossoms looked much better this time.  They also tasted better.  The stuffing was soft and fluffy (ricotta) with some creaminess (Mozzarella) and nutty (Parmigiano).  The baby zucchinis were delicious. 

The flowers themselves were still bland.  Mr. A wondered whether stuffing them with a paste of rock fish and white shrimp would help.  That would be a future project.

Mekong Delta Lunch

After a few hours going up a Mekong tributary on a small boat, we were happy to be walking on land to what looked like a very rustic restaurant in the middle of nowhere.  Of course when we sat down in the open air dining room with a thatched roof, we noticed there were other tourists there and it was obviously a restaurant created for foreigners.  

But still the food served was local and we were pleasantly surprised by the main course - an elephant ear fish that was crunchy through and through.  It's not often that we are able to taste a fish that has been fried and still remain crisp on every side right to the end of the meal.   The way it was served obviously had something to do with that.  The four of us were almost bickering (in a friendly way) over who will have that last crunchy fin!  That's what rational civilized adults were reduced to when it came to good food.

Starter spring rolls with the see-through wrapping - my favourite

The elephant ear fish served on a stand.  I've since noticed other restaurants in town serving fish the same way but it's odd that the first time I'd noticed it was in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere in the Mekong delta.

The server scraped off both sides of the fish which remained crunchy throughout

Other less memorable dishes 

Shrimps were of course very fresh

Part of the restaurant - quite rustic, isn't it?

Hot Summer, Cold Ramen

When the summer heat becomes too much, Mr. A does not want to cook and eat hot meals.  He and Mrs. A would eat cool food like stone fruits, ears of corn, tomatoes, potato salad and cold noodle.  

 

An example of a cold noodle dish is tomato ramen.  The raw ramen noodle (nama ramen) and soup base are from their favorite ramen producer, Amochinmi in the tiny seaport of Tomonoura, Fukuyama.  The ramen noodle has a red tint as it contains tomato.  Tomato puree has also been added to the basic chicken and soy sauce soup base.  

The preparation is simple and quick:

1.  Cut up some cherry tomatoes (Mr. A used a colorful mix of red, orange and green ones); pick some mint leaves; set them aside.
2. Cut up some meat into slivers (Mr. A happened to have some Canadian bacon on hand; but anything like chashu, chicken or ham would do; clams, shrimps or squids would be even better); set aside.
3. Cook the nama ramen in boiling water for a minute and half; immediately put it in an ice bath; drain when noodle is cold.
4. Mix the soup base with cold water.
5. Assemble the cold ramen bowl by placing the drained ramen into the soup, add meat, tomato halves, mint leaves, and serve. 

Voila!  Here’s a bowl of tasty and refreshing cold tomato ramen.

Mapo Dofu (麻婆豆腐) at Szechwan Restaurant CHEN in Tokyo

In Mr. A’s opinion, the Mapo Dofu (麻婆豆腐) at Szechwan Restaurant CHEN was superb.

The dofu dish came with a bowl of steamed rice and small plates of Szechwan pickle slices and mahogany-colored honey and sesame glazed walnuts.  Captivated by the spicy fragrant aroma and red hot look of the dish, Mr. A sampled it  immediately.  He was pleased with the complex flavor of the sauce, which was made with doubanjiang (豆瓣醬) and small amounts of sweet sauce, chili paste, fermented black beans, red chili oil and Szechwan peppercorn oil.  Fine Szechwan peppercorn flakes were sprinkled over the dish as the final touch.  There was plenty of “ma 麻” (the numbing effect from Szechwan peppercorn) and “la 辣” (spicy heat from doubanjiang and chili) to stimulate his taste buds without overwhelming them.  The mild dofu and sweet minced pork formed a perfect stage for the intense sauce.  Mr. A was hooked by the spicy, salty and umami flavors that filled his mouth.  These flavors came together in harmony and showed off the depth and dimensions of the Mapo Dofu dish.  He ate spoon after spoon until it was all gone.  Indeed, the Mapo Dofu at Szechwan Restaurant CHEN was superb.

 
That the Mapo Dofu is so good at Szechwan Restaurant CHEN is expected as the restaurant is named after the famous Chinese Iron Chef, Chen Kin’ichi (陳建一), whose signature dish is Mapo Dofu.  Chef Chen does not cook at the restaurant.  The executive chef is Komoda Kinya (菰田欣也) who began his career in 1988 in another Chen restaurant.  Szechwan Restaurant CHEN is at the Cerulean Tower in Shibuya, Tokyo.  It also has branches in Nagoya and Takamatsu.

    

Hoi An Street Food Tour

Our last morning in Hoi An, the tour company surprised us with a food tour of Hoi An with Australian food "guru" Neville Dean.  Neville had retired to Vietnam and learned the good stuff about Vietnamese food in the years that he had been there.  He had made friends with the locals and provided us tourists with an "insider" view of street food.  

How do I rate his tour?  The tour was a lot of fun and Neville Dean was a good presenter although it felt a little weird listening to an Australian accent give us the lowdown on Vietnamese food.  He had an excellent rapport with the vendors and definitely showed us some excellent sources, including the best Pho we have ever had.  He guaranteed that he had checked all his vendors, that the food we ate was "safe".  In a way, he enabled us to try street food without having to run the risk of getting bad food, so for that we were thankful.   What I'd found missing was the inherent cultural background behind some of the foods and customs - not something a foreigner could learn in a few years even if he could learn the names of all the foods and dishes.   In North America, there would have been protests of cultural misappropriation...

It was an early start to the day with a breakfast drink at this roadside stall, loaded with fresh fruit and in a non-tourist area of Hoi An. 

Fruit shake with crispy coconut in side to give the shake a distinct crunch.

Tofu dessert, basically Chinese origin

According to Neville, the white bits of paper under the tables would tell how popular the place was - the more there were, the better the food because the bits of paper were actually the bills.

The best black sesame paste dessert (also Chinese in origin)

The best coconut and coffee ice cream - and no, you are not supposed to be eating ice on the street but if you were with Neville Dean, it was okay because he guaranteed the cleanliness of his vendors.

The vendor showing us the bottom of the ice maker

Snails - no no's, because of possible parasites - Neville Dean would not recommend us even trying it

BBQ pork - apparently there was milk in the marinade

The best Pho ever at this restaurant

 The best Banh Mi prepared by Banh Mi Queen - crunchy baguette with Vietnamese mint

We had what looked very much like a tasting menu at a restaurant - this was still breakfast, slowly turning into lunch

Most of these looked quite familiar since we had been eating our way down the country.

Vegan too - although we didn't try anything here

The street food tour finally wound up in a touristy family restaurant in old town - and we were served another tasting menu, with Neville Dean explaining every little bite on each of the dishes.  By this time, we had been on the street for over 4 hours, our focus was waning as was our attention span...

Vietnamese new year treats

The only thing I remembered was this most memorable spring roll, made with an unusual rice paper that looked like it was doillie - the holes made the texture crunchy but soft

Iced Vietnamese coffee - just what we needed

tequila?

You would notice by now how we had started from eating standing beside a street vendor to gradually moving into a gentrified restaurant with a table cloth, and finishing with a drink that tasted like tequila...