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So given that we’re trying new cooking techniques this month, one of the ones that jumped out at me was kinpira, a Japanese technique involving a quick stir-fry followed by a braise, most commonly used on root vegetables. Now, I’ve likely done something like this at some point, but not on purpose as a technique. Since the technique itself seemed pretty simple, I thought I’d amp it up a bit and also find a new-to-me vegetable: enter burdock root.
Burdock root is an odd root to work with, at least in this experience. It’s rather slimy when slicing, so be careful and use a sharp knife. I think that likely explains why you then soak the “matchsticks” (try as I did, my knife skills weren’t quite up to perfect julienne this weekend) before cooking them. In this recipe, the burdock is mixed with carrot, which seems common. The recipe is a quite complex-tasting vegetable side dish, which surprised me given how simple it was. But the seasonings let the vegetable flavors come to the forefront (behind a bit of saltiness from the tamari or faux soy) and they are quite good. And that is generally my experience of Japanese food — all techniques and seasonings seem designed to remind you why the main ingredient is a wonderful flavorful part of the world.
As the technique and root were both knew to me, this is not an original STFAA recipe. It is very slightly modified from a recipe at JustBento.com, a site which is inspiring lunchbox shopping needs like you would not believe. The original kinpira gobo recipe is here.
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Kinpira Gobo
Print Recipe
This is a very slightly modified version of the Kinpira Gobo recipe at JustBento.com. All photos, opinions, and modifications are mine.
1Tablespoonsesame oilif you can’t use sesame, rice bran, canola, or other high temp safe oil is good
1/2-1teaspoonred pepper flake
1Tablespoonsugar
1Tablespoonmirin
2Tablespoonstamarior soy sauce or other soy sauce substitute
2Tablespoons water
Servings: servings
Instructions
Wash, peel, and chop burdock root and carrots into matchsticks or julienne.
Soak the burdock root in cold water for a few minutes, rinsing and changing the water once or twice.
In a cast iron skillet, heat up the sesame oil or other high smoke point oil over medium heat.
When oil is hot, add burdock and stir well. Let cook for 1-2 minutes, then add carrot and stir well.
Add other seasonings. Stir well and cook another 1-2 minutes.
Add water, if needed to coat the bottom of the pan with a shallow layer. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 5-10 minutes, until vegetables are tender.
This recipe is very loosely inspired by northern Chinese Hunan province recipes for spicy potatoes. I think it was end of winter, but I just wanted hot potatoes and cabbage with pork, and this dish definitely fit the bill.
Finding the right meat was harder than I thought it would be — pork was the proper meat for the taste I was going for, but it does need to be a fatty cut. At one of our local grocers, I can get what I call “not bacon” because it looks just like bacon but isn’t. Side pork is the right cut for bacon, but this is unprocessed. It’s just the meat before it is seasoned and brined and aged or smoked or whatever you do for bacon (This. This is how you make bacon.) This cut is fatty, chewy, and with the added saltiness from tamari (the naturally gluten-free soy sauce) or amino acids, it is the perfect contrast to crunchy cabbage and creamy potatoes. Adjust the amount of pepper to suit your tastes, but go as spicy as you’ll eat it, as that’s kind of the point of the dishes that inspired this one. 1 teaspoon is about right for us.
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1lb.marble potatoesor larger potatoes cut into 1/4 inch dice
3cupschopped napa or Chinese cabbage
1bunch scallionschopped, white and greens separated
1teaspoontamarior amino acids
1teaspoonred pepper flakes(or less if you would like it to be not spicy)
1Tablespoonoilmay not need this
Servings: people
Instructions
The meat in this dish is not-bacon. What I mean is that it’s side pork, and where I buy it, it comes sliced like bacon, but it hasn’t been processed into bacon. It’s just thin fatty pork, and that’s what you want for this dish. You’ll use the rendered fat, but the remaining pork is a bit chewy and wonderful.
Pre-cook your potatoes. I did this in the microwave, cooking them on high until they were fork-tender, about 8 minutes. You can also boil and drain them. Be cautious and undercook them slightly if you’re using larger cubed potatoes, as you don’t want them to fall apart as you fry them.
Chop your meat into small bite-sized pieces and cook over medium heat in a skillet or wok. When it is almost done, add the tamari and pepper flakes and stir well.
Remove cooked meat from pan to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Leave the fat in the pan. If needed, add up to another tablespoon of oil to make about 2 Tablespoons total of oil.
Add potatoes to oil — be careful, as they are wet and will splatter a bit if you’re not careful. Stir well and then cook until they brown, 10-15 minutes.
Add cabbage and scallion whites and cook until cabbage starts to wilt.
Add the pork back, along with the scallion tops, and stir until everything is good and hot.
This is one of those areas where Denise and I diverge — neither of us is allergic to fish, but I love tuna, and she hates it. Conversely, she loves haddock, and I, eh, can’t get excited about it. If you’re pro-tuna, this might be your recipe.
The first time I had tuna — and liked it — was when I was in Greece in college. The whole experience was amazing, and so was the food. I had a simple salad one day, when I wasn’t feeling great and wanted something light. It was just lettuce, with canned tuna in oil and a few tomatoes. So simple, but so amazing. It was such a difference from the mayo-covered tuna salads I’d seen growing up, and it opened me up to tuna.
I first tried fresh tuna in sushi, and it’s still one of my favorites. But ordering tuna at a restaurant made me consider making it at home. Once you get more used to not cooking it all the way through (that dries it out!), it is SUPER EASY and seems pretty fancy.
This dish actually came out of leftover seared tuna. Normally, I make tuna for just me, as an occasional indulgence. But my grocery store was having a sale on some great-looking frozen tuna steaks, so I thought I’d give it a whirl as a mid-week dinner for me and my boyfriend. I cooked the fish and served it with steamed asparagus and bamboo rice — it was quick and easy, even though I got home late that night.
I overshot the amount of fish I needed, though. I’ve never had a leftover tuna steak before! Turns out, fresh tuna also makes an amazing salad. THAT is the recipe you’re getting today. But feel free to just buy too much fish for one dinner and make this salad the next day. Just scale the marinade up.
This recipe serves ONE. Scale up appropriately.
Seared Tuna Salad with unmixed dressing
Tuna Steak Salad
1/3 lb. tuna steak, about 1 1/4 inch thick (the exact amount of tuna is up to you! But if your steak is substantially thicker or thinner, adjust your cooking time accordingly)
Marinade
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar (look for unsweetened, unseasoned, for the most flexible version)
If your fish is vacuum-packed, slit the packaging before you defrost it (put it on a plate first, of course) in the fridge. I usually take it out the night before and give it the night and day in the fridge.
Marinate the fish for about 20 minutes, 10 minutes per side. If I’m serving the fish with rice, this is about the perfect cooking time for rice. The fish takes about 5 minutes to cook, so get everything else ready before you start the cooking.
The salad is easy — steam the asparagus, heap it and the greens on a plate. Make the dressing by mixing all the ingredients together with a whisk or fork — taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. If you are using salted pumpkin seeds, you won’t need more salt. If you aren’t, you might want a dash of salt at the end.
Heat a well-seasoned cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until it is good and hot. You are going to sear the fish quickly, so make sure the pan is hot. If it’s a well-seasoned pan, you won’t need to add more oil.
Sear the first side of the fish. For cooking steaks an inch and a quarter thick, 3 minutes the first side and 2 minutes the second should be about perfect. Baste it with the marinade right before you flip it. Because tuna changes color as it cooks, you can watch the fish to get the timing correct — watch the cooking up the side and flip it when it’s cooked about 1/4 of the way through. Then take it off when it’s 1/4 of the way through the other side. The center of your fish should be warm, but pink. That is perfect tuna.
Add the tuna to the salad, sprinkle the salad with pumpkin seeds, and drizzle on the dressing.
I love Vietnamese food. Seriously, I love it. Before the corn allergy, our local Vietnamese joint could recognize my voice before I even finished stating that I wanted to order takeout. The owner knew my name and my husband’s name, and what we generally ordered. If Shawn forgot what I wanted when stopping in to pick up dinner on his way home from work, the owner could reel off my five or so favorite dishes until Shawn heard the one that jogged his memory. I used to get #23 with Beef, i.e. Steamed Vermicelli Patties or Banh Hoi, that you wrap up in rice paper yourself, probably more than fifty percent of the time. So it was inevitable that I figure out how to make it myself in a way that’s safe for me. However, I didn’t actually do the rice paper and make my own fresh/salad rolls, because it’s winter (yes, I know it’s technically spring, but that’s not what’s outside and it snowed yesterday), I just moved, and I’m really tired. It’s all the good stuff without the rice paper wrapper, that’s all.
Rice Vermicelli Salad Bowls with Beef
Serves 4 or 2 really hungry people with maybe enough for a bit of lunch the next day.
Beef and Marinade:
1 and 1/2 pounds of beef sirloin beef tips, sliced across the grain into pieces about 1 1/2 to 2 inches long and 1/4 inch wide
1 garlic clove, minced and crushed to a paste (if you don’t have a garlic crusher, just mince it and smoosh it with a metal spoon)
1 shallot, finely minced, or 1/4 of a small onion, finely minced
1 Tablespoon of brown sugar
2 Tablespoons of oil (make sure it’s safe for you, I used grape seed oil)
1 Tablespoon of soy sauce (I do well with San-J Tamari Gluten Free Soy Sauce, the alcohol is from cane sugar not corn), but if you can’t use soy, try Mary Kate’s recipe for a Soy-Free, gluten-free “Tamari Sauce”
1 Tablespoon of Sriracha (I use my own homemade from this recipe, but I use rice vinegar instead of distilled)
a bit of oil for frying
Salad Fixings:
1 – 8 ounce package of fine rice vermicelli (for reference, this is what I used, no affiliation with Amazon, just ease of linking)
Scallion Oil Garnish (here’s the recipe, although I used grape seed oil)
fresh mint or fresh thai basil or both
Spring Mix lettuce
tomatoes, sliced
cucumbers, sliced
bean sprouts (I didn’t use them, but just because the grocery store didn’t have them today)
Slice your beef to the correct thinness and length if you haven’t already.
Sirloin beef tips, sliced into smaller pieces, cut across the grain
Place garlic, shallot (or onion), brown sugar, oil, soy sauce and Sriracha in a bowl large enough to place the sirloin tips. Mix the ingredients well so that the sugar dissolves.
Marinade, well combined.
Add the beef and stir well. Set the beef aside let it marinate while you work on the rest of the dish.
Beef combined with marinade.
Fill a large pot with 3 quarts of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add your rice vermicelli and let boil for 3 minutes. Drain and place in a bowl to cool.
Rice vermicelli cooling.
In a skillet (I used a cast iron wok, because it’s new and I wanted to play with it, but you can use a cast iron skillet or other skillet), heat a bit of oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, place the beef in the skillet, making sure not to crowd, or have more than one layer.
Beef cooking in cast iron wok
You may (will) need to do it in batches. When you have a nice sear on one side, flip the beef over and sear the other side. Tongs really help for this. Depending on your skillet and your stove, it’ll take 2-4 minutes a side to sear (this make take some experimentation on your part). You might want to put the beef on a plate as you do batches.
Beef on a plate after being cooked in batches
Once you have finished cooking the beef, it’s time to assemble your salad bowl. Place some of the vermicelli in the bowl (you may need to cut it, as the noodles are long). Add the other salad fixings of your choice, and some of the beef. Then add the condiments of your choice and voila!
Before the food allergy apocalypse hit, one of the things I really liked to do was to make my own Peking Ravioli (aka Potsticker, Wonton, Gyoza, etc.) or whatever you want to call your basic Asian style dumpling. Apparently you only call them Peking Ravioli if you live in the Northeast because that was what Joyce Chen called them in her restaurant in Boston in the 1950’s–the things you learn when blogging. But in the before times, in the long, long ago, I liked to make them by buying pre-made wonton wrappers at the grocery store, which, at least for the grocery stores in New Hampshire, all contain egg. So I thought I’d try to come up with a gluten free vegan wrapper so Mary Kate could eat some too. (I can have wheat, at least for now. More food allergy testing later today. Please cross your fingers for me that they don’t find any more food allergies, and if they do, it’s an easy to avoid one like a fruit.) My gluten free vegan dough attempt was pretty much a spectacular failure, and it’s going to take some more research and some more work, but I’ll keep trying. At the same time, I had decided to try an egg free dough that I had found using all purpose flour (warning: I mean a real wheat flour) and boiling water, because I knew I was going to have too much filling, and I like to do a lot of experiments at once because you’re more likely to have at least one success. The egg-free real wheat flour version worked. Again, I promise to keep trying for a gluten free version.
Anyway, the really nice thing about this recipe is that you can make a bunch of them up, put them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet (this is prior to cooking them), making sure they don’t touch and then throw them in your freezer on the cookie sheet until they are frozen solid. Then you can pop them into a ziploc freezer bag, and you can take a few out here and there to use whenever you want, to steam, to pan-fry or to put in soup, because they’re not frozen together in a lump. It’s labor intensive for an afternoon on the weekend, but then you’ll have lots and lots of dumplings for whenever you want!
1 cup of chicken stock (check the label if using store bought)
2-3 tablespoons of sesame oil
First, if you are steaming or pan frying your dumplings and you need dipping sauce, put all the ingredients for the dipping sauce in a small bowl, whisk the ingredients together until they are well combined, and then put it aside until your dumplings are cooked. (I forgot to take a picture, sorry.)
To make the dough for the dumpling wrappers, I used my stand mixer with a dough hook, but you can just use a bowl and a spatula too. Place the flour in the bowl and mix the boiling water in slowly until the dough forms a ball. If using a mixer, continue on low speed to knead it for a few minutes. If using the low tech method, knead it with your hands for a few minutes. Shape it into a smooth ball and place it in a ziploc bag to rest a bit while you make the filling.
To make the filling, prepare all the ingredients if you haven’t already. I grated the carrot as finely as shown below:
Carrots grated with a Microplane fine grater
The Napa cabbage, I sliced very finely with a very sharp knife, aiming for a width of a quarter of an inch or less, and then chopped the slices into smaller pieces:
Shredded Napa cabbage in bowl with other ingredients
Place ground pork, garlic, carrot, ginger, green onions, Nappa cabbage, water chestnuts, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, chili garlic sauce, cornstarch, and salt in a bowl, and mix throughly using your hands. You might want to put it in your refrigerator while you roll out the wrappers.
Pork Dumpling Filling
Now it’s time to make your wrappers. You can roll out your dough on a very clean counter top, a dough rolling mat, or a cutting board. I used a rolling pin and a biscuit cutter which was three inches in diameter to make the wrappers. Spread some flour over the surface of your work area. This dough is very sticky, you’re going to need quite a bit of flour for dusting, and it’s much easier to do it in small pieces. I only rolled out enough dough to cut out 2 or 3 wrappers at a time, as any larger attempts stuck to the mat too easily. Take a piece of the dough about the size of a plum, and using your flour to dust liberally, roll the dough to about an 1/8 of an inch thick and use your biscuit cutter (cookie cutter, or even a water glass in a pinch) to cut out the wrapper. Take your scraps and a bit more of the dough, and knead them together a bit and roll out a couple more wrappers. Keep doing this until all the dough is gone.
Dumpling Wrappers
Again, this dough is very sticky, make sure you dust them liberally before putting them in a pile. I didn’t and I had several wrappers stick together, which I then had to roll out again when I tried to use them.
Now it’s time to make your dumplings. I just want to say that this is a much softer dough that your usual wonton wrapper you get from the grocery store, and it’s harder to get a “pretty” result. And I’m not an expert by any means. So go check out this video by an expert for different shapes and techniques if you need a better explanation than the one I’m about to attempt. Especially once you see the picture of my completed ones below. Take a wrapper, hold it open in the palm of your hand. Place about a teaspoon or so of filling in the center of the dumpling and fold up the sides of the wrapper, pinching it shut, making little pleats if you have that kind of dexterity.
Dumplings on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper
Now you get to choose how to cook them. I provide three methods below, but the first, Pan-frying, is what I used this time:
Pan-frying Dumplings: Place a little sesame seed oil in a skillet (which must have a tight fitting lid) over medium heat. Add dumplings, but so that they do not touch and have enough room to cook separately.
Dumplings properly spaced in skillet
Fry until golden brown, and then turn to fry the other side to the same golden brown color as shown below:
Dumplings fried golden brown
Once both sides are golden brown, add a quarter cup of chicken stock and put the tight fitting lid on the skillet. Continue to cook over medium heat while dumplings steam from chicken broth for another 3 – 7 minutes (depending on whether they were fresh or if they were dumplings you froze to use later) making sure to test one to see if they are done before serving. You may need to adjust your cooking times. Continue to fry and then steam dumplings in batches until you have cooked all the dumplings you intend to serve. Serve with dipping sauce.
Steaming Dumplings: Use a metal steamer basket or a bamboo steamer in an appropriate size pot with a tight fitting lid with enough water so that it will not touch the dumplings. Place the dumplings in a single layer in the steamer. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium and put the lid on the pot. If the dumplings are freshly made, cook for 5 minutes or so, but test one to see if they are done before serving. If you froze your dumplings to use later, don’t thaw them, but cook them for about 15 to 20 minutes, testing to see if they are done before serving. Serve with dipping sauce.
Dumplings In Soup: You can do a quick wonton soup, using some chicken broth, some green onions, some Napa cabbage, thinly sliced carrots and some of your dumplings. Bring the chicken broth to a boil, add the dumplings and carrots, and then reduce the heat to medium. When the dumplings and carrots are cooked, add the green onions, Napa cabbage and cook for a minute or two more. I like to add some white pepper or Chinese Five Spice to season it as well. This is a really quick dinner if you’re using dumplings you froze to use later, and some frozen homemade chicken stock, or a store bought version (checking the labels of course).
Hope you like these, and I will keep trying for a gluten free version I like to share.
Before the food allergy apocalypse hit, one of the things I really liked was Thai food, and one of the dishes I really enjoyed at Siam Orchid, our local Thai place, was Hot & Crazy Noodles, which is a spicy version of Pad Sei Ew (or whatever spelling variant of Thai anglicized you might find). It’s probably a safe-ish dish for me still, but going to Thai places reminds me of all the curry and satay and other yummy dishes that I now cannot eat because of the whole coconut thing, so I just don’t go. But I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately, so I thought I’d try to do my own version.
Hot & Crazy Asian Noodles Apocalypse Style
Makes 4-6 servings (if you are cooking for one or two people and don’t want tons of leftovers, cut the portion amounts in half).
a dash of fresh ground szechuan peppercorns (I took about 4 and ground them in a mortar and pestle)
First, mix the soy sauce and the baking soda for the chicken marinade in a small bowl and then add the sliced chicken, mixing it well. Put it aside.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the rice noodles and cook according to the directions on the package (mine said about 6-8 minutes). When done, drain the noodles using a colander and then place them back in the pot, tossing them with the canola oil so that they are less likely to stick together.
Cooked and Drained Rice Noodles
Using some of the chili oil, coat the bottom of your wok (or skillet in my case, I know I used to have a wok, but I have no idea where it went), turn the heat to medium high and cook the chicken in batches so it fries and doesn’t just steam. Once you have finished one batch, place it aside in a large bowl and cook then next batch, again placing it the large bowl when it’s cooked.
Chicken cooked in batches
Using a bit more of the chili oil if needed, start stir frying the carrot, onion, peas, zucchini, asparagus, green onion, bean sprouts, thai chili, baby bok choi leaves, and thai basil leaves in batches, adding them to the large bowl when cooked.
Stir-fried VeggiesStir-fried VeggiesStir-fried Baby Bok Choi and Basil
To make the sauce for the noodles, whisk the garlic, ginger, soy sauce, Sriracha, Hoisin sauce, rice wine vinegar, corn starch, sugar and szechuan peppercorns together in a little bowl. Using a little of the chili oil, stir fry the cooked noodles in your wok/skillet and add the sauce for the noodles, mixing well, until the noodles are hot and thoroughly coated with the sauce.
Cooked Noodles Coated in Sauce
Once the noodles are coated and nice and hot, place them in the large bowl with the other ingredients and mix all the ingredients in the bowl thoroughly.
All cooked ingredients being mixed in bowl
Once mixed, serve them immediately while they are nice and hot, and have some of the Sriracha and Hoisin available as condiments so your family and/or guests can doctor their portions to their taste. Enjoy!
For the many years where the only allergen I needed to avoid was dairy, Asian restaurants of most types were a saving grace. With the exception of Indian cuisine, which uses cream and butter, most cuisines of the Asian continent use little to no dairy.
Now that there are more allergens in my arsenal, it’s not quite as simple. But what is reasonably simple is learning to adapt recipes at home. I like that stir fry is an excellent way to incorporate a lot of vegetables into one dish, with meat as a flavoring rather than the focus — and you can make a vegan version by either substituting tofu or seitan for the meat. This marinade should work well for either, but I have not tried it since I can’t eat either anymore.
Year of the Snake Stir Fry
For marinade:
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 1/4 teaspoon crushed garlic (2-3 cloves)
1 Tablespoon, rounded, crushed or grated ginger
2 Tablespoons gluten-free tamari (soy sauce)
3 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
4 Tablespoons mirin (Japanese cooking wine) or dry cooking sherry
Add
1/2 to 3/4 of a pound of thin cut pork sirloin, cut into bite-sized chunks
1 cup thinly sliced onions.
Marinate overnight.
Get rice cooking. I can’t give you a recipe or time — read your package or your rice cooker directions. I am generally hopeless at cooking rice. My Chinese ancestors would be less than best pleased.
Stir fry with
1/4 cup yellow bell pepper, sliced thin
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup of sugar snap peas, whole
1 cup of mushroom pieces, broken instead of sliced
1/4 cup of celery leaves, chopped
This makes a lot of stir fry. I tend to stir fry the ingredients in rounds, each ingredient separately — meat first, and then through the veggies. Strain the marinade out — you want to fry the meat, not boil it — and discard. Stir fry until cooked through, and then remove from pan. Cook the peppers. Remove. I stir fry in canola oil, and use it sparingly adding a tiny bit with each ingredient.
Stir Fry Flavor Meld
When all your food is cooked, dump it all back in the wok, turn the burner off, and give it a few minutes to meld.
Serve over rice. Or, you know, dump some rice in to flavor meld, too.
I found this recipe, which I’ve now modified to fit my tastes, on the back of a silken tofu package. I had bought a couple of packages of silken tofu to try as an egg replacement in brownies. Silken tofu might work for others in brownies but not for me, and since I had to now find something else to do with the extra silken tofu, I noticed the recipe on the back of the package and decided to try it. I think I’ve now got it just about where I want it. I know it won’t work for those of you who can’t do soy, but Mary Kate’s going to post an onion dip that’s fabulous and maybe you can throw some spinach in it.
Spinach Dip
1 – 12 ounce package of Mori-Nu Silken Lite Firm Tofu
1 package/envelope of French onion soup mix (check labels for possible dairy, I have better luck with a store brand for dairy free or make your own mix, here’s a recipe)
1 – 10 ounce package of fresh spinach, steamed, cooled and squeezed dry
2-3 medium green onions, about a 1/4 cup when chopped (use green part too)
1 – 8 ounce can water chestnuts, coarsely chopped
4 cloves of garlic minced or just process in food processor
Several splashes of Tabasco sauce to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
Steam spinach in a covered container in the microwave with two tablespoons of water for approximately 5 minutes. Drain and when spinach is cool enough to touch, squeeze spinach dry, and place in fridge until cool.
Drain tofu, and place in a food processor or blender with soup mix. Blend until smooth. Add mayo and garlic and blend, scraping down sides until all ingredients are well blended. Add cooled spinach to blender or food processor and blend with short pulses until spinach is mixed in, but is still a bit chunky. Then add the spring onions and the water chestnuts and do two short pulses just to mix it up, you don’t want the spring onions and water chestnuts obliterated, just mixed in. (You could just put the spinach and tofu mixture, the spring onions and water chestnuts in a bowl and mix up with a spoon, if you want it chunkier).
Remove mixture from food processor or blender and put it into a bowl. Add Tabasco, salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate for at least an hour, but overnight is best to let the spices blend.
