Eat them twice. (KIMCHI PANCAKES, again)

This is my first post about a second time. I was all set up to drop this new recipe for kimchi pancakes on the web when I had this momentary memory of maybe having posted a recipe for kimchi pancakes once before. Thing is, the old post is the same recipe I had set out to improve upon with this new recipe. I’ll skip the part about loving kimchi with my whole heart and the rule of association of awesome things which states that I also love anything made with kimchi.

Normally, and in previous recipe, I make make the pancakes vegetarian but as the old saying goes, ‘when Josh gives you country ham, make country ham and kimchi pancakes’. So I added it in to excellent results. An easy addition, the ham gets fried up in a hot skillet, invoking southern grandmas everywhere, and then it gets a good chop before being added to the pancake batter.

Having kimchi pancakes around is the best thing in the world because they are as good cold as they are hot, even reheated in a pan or the toaster oven. They are good for breakfast with a egg on top, as a side dish for lunch or dinner and they do make a killer late night drunken snack, right out the fridge. Old news.

COUNTRY HAM AND KIMCHI PANCAKES

(makes about 1 dozen 4-inch pancakes)

* for a vegetarian version simply omit the ham and all of its stages.

6 ounces country ham or other ham of ground pork (optional)

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup rice flour

1/2 bunch chives, chopped (about 1/4 cup)

1 egg

1 cup water or kimchi juice, or a mixture of both to equal one cup

2 cups kimchi, chopped

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds, optional

2-3 tablespoons oil

• If using, cook pork in a skillet until cooked thoroughly. Chop into small pieces and set aside.
• Mix flour together in a medium bowl with chives.
• In a small bowl, whisk egg with water and/or kimchi juice and add to flour mixture.
• Stir kimchi, soy sauce and sesame oil into the batter.
• Add pork, if using and let batter stand for 10 minutes, will be quite thick.
• Heat oil in a skillet and drop a (3 tablespoon-sized) mound of batter into the skillet, spreading to make a thin pancake.
• Cooke until lightly browned, about 5 minutes, and flip. Cook other side.
• Taste for seasoning, add a pinch of salt to remaining batter, if needed. Finish cooking pancakes.
• Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.

Balancing it out. (ALKALIZING BROTH)

Remember the science lesson about acids and bases in the form of a number line? Seven is neutral, like water, right in the middle of both states. Anything over 7 is a base (alkaline) and anything under is acidic. Our blood, which our body maintains at a pH of 7.35-7.45, is therefore slightly alkaline. The thing is, many of the foods we eat are acid-causing, even some pretty healthy ones.

Meat, fish, poultry, eggs, most grains and legumes in excess and without balancing are not the only things that have the power to make us acidic. Some of our experiences like stress, lack of activity and poor diet choices in general can also be culprits of this undesirable condition. And though we need both acid and alkaline to be in balance, when too much acid is present, the body works overtime to keep the blood in its proper state. Foods that are alkaline*, most fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs, seaweed, miso, olive oil, for example, are not only important for daily functions, but when ingested regularly will more readily balance out the less than perfect moments in our lives.

All that to say, hey! eat your veggies!

Lately I have been making extra effort to do just that by keeping the fridge stocked with beautiful organic produce and cooking lots of healthy dinners. Also trying to keep my fridge from being a graveyard of dead leftovers or, even worse, perfectly good uncooked stuff going to seed. One of the ways I like to stretch my organic grocery bucks to the fullest is by making stock. All of the lovely and delicately aromatic things that make for a good, clear stock (carrot, celery, onion, leek, fennel, thyme) go into freezer bags until I have stockpiled enough to be dumped into a big pot with some water, simmered until a lightly golden stock is born.

A few months ago, while doing a cleanse, I learned about alkalizing vegetable broth. It broke every classic culinary rule for stock-making which advises no leafy greens, no cabbage, no squash, no root vegetables, no radish. Each one of these things said to make the stock cloudy, sulfuric, bitter, etc. but the recipe included all of these things. The product was delicious, had none of the qualities Escoffier warned about. Now I am happily breaking the rules and adding all of this stuff to the freezer bag to create broths that can double as alkalizing tonic. The broth is dark and rich and can stand alone warmed  with a little extra sea salt (also alkalizing). The recommendation is to drink it several times daily. That is a great theory and I enjoyed it when I was eating strictly, but I am more often using the stuff in soups, stews, curries and risotto in lieu of more boring stocks, giving a nutritional boost and extra flavor.

ALKALIZING BROTH

You can really be creative with the vegetables you put in there, this is just a guideline:

1 onion, quartered

(plus shallot, onion, leek or scallion trimmings)

3 carrots

3 celery stalks

2 fennel tops

4 cloves garlic

2 cups green leafy vegetables (kale, chard, collard, beet greens, etc.)

1/4 head of cabbage + the core

peels, trimmings (no seeds) of one (organic) butternut squash

1 sweet potato, large dice

1/2 cup seaweed (I like kombu)

2 cups mushroom stems (or 1 cup dried mushrooms)

1/2 bunch of parsley or cilantro stems with or without leaves

1 cup of radish (with or without tops) -optional

pinch of salt

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

4-5 quarts of water (enough to cover all of the ingredients by a few inches)

• Place all ingredients in a large pot.
• Cover with water and bring to a boil.
• Immediately turn down to a gentle simmer. Cook about 1.5 hours.
• Strain out the vegetables and save the stock in containers.
• Freeze what you are not using. Defrost as needed.

Scrap bag! Red cabbage, mushroom, leek, scallion, celery, sometimes chicken bones too.

In culinary school after  pastry classes when we were ingesting sugar all day long, we were told to go home and alkalize with a hot miso soup. Yea! I give it to my kid too, after parties and stuff.

*A proper alkalizing food chart lives here. These sistas are serious!

What’s delicious. (FROM COSTA RICA)

In a country where you can buy the above items (pictured: lemongrass, kale/lettuces, avocado, papaya, watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberries, freshly baked bread, oranges, honey, carrots, zucchini, mangos, beets and caimito (or star apples) on a sunny morning at the organic farmers market, the local cuisine cannot possibly be bad. It was my observation in Costa Rica that the more simply a food was prepared, the more impressive it was.

Items just grilled or lightly dressed with lemon or blended into a smoothie/juice were by far the best things we experienced. The produce is so fresh and beautiful, it needs very little assistance to be outstanding. And eating food that is so so simple and clean really makes for an energetic and healthful travel, despite the few sniffles passed around among the babes.

Perfect fish plucked from the sea at arms distance was the second best thing around. It was all one needed to eat in addition to that amazing produce. There were places for unique ceviches and fish grilled over hot coals. There were crispy deep-fried seafood platters and even some raw offerings. All outstanding. The local beverage, young coconut water, could be found everywhere. Sold in the shell under the name agua de pipa (or pipa fria if served cold), the big, green coconuts were hacked open, dressed with nothing but a straw and ready to drink on the side of every road, in every market, on the beach, etc. There was even  a tiny ‘easy open’ variety for convenient transporting.

But what good is a foreign food experience without some splurging? I had never before heard of this cake and have since learned it is a Tico specialty even though it bears another country’s name. The Torta Chilena is a sugar bomb that alternates dulce de leche with a crumbly cake in thin layers of sin. It was so good and terribly decadent. If you see one, run! …about four or five miles per slice eaten.

Happy Birthday Little G! Pura Vida! xoxo

On Harold McGee. (EXCERPT)

It is well documented that On Food and Cooking is an essential resource in any food-curious person’s kitchen. Harold McGee lays down facts in detailed explanations of scientific processes behind the foods we love, their history and a description of every form a particular food can possibly take. A fascinating amount of information. It is slightly less documented how incredibly poetic his exacting writing can be.

This excerpt from the first chapter, 61 pages on milk and dairy products, has always stood out as an example to me. Enjoy!

“The modern imagination holds a very different view of milk! Mass production turned it and its products from precious, marvelous resources into ordinary commodities, and medical science stigmatized them for their fat content. Fortunately a more balanced view of dietary fat is developing; and traditional versions of dairy foods survive. It’s still possible to savor the remarkable foods that millennia of human ingenuity have teased from milk. A sip of milk itself or a scoop of ice cream can be a Proustian draft of youth’s innocence and energy and possibility, while a morsel of fine cheese is a rich meditation on maturity, the fulfillment of possibility, the way of all flesh.”

–Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking

(Pictured above is the cheese plate that never saw 2013. If you think that looks bad, you should have seen the minibar.)

HAPPY AND HEALTHY REMAINING 11 MONTHS OF 2013, EVERYONE!

Strictly speaking. (BAKED SALMON CROQUETTES)

For a couple of weeks MG and I have rid our diets of sugar, caffeine (Coffee, I miss you), wheat (Bread! I didn’t mean it! Please take me back), dairy, booze, etc. As the 14 days of clean eating were coming to a close I was making up stuff to ease us back into our really fun and slightly decadent reality. The key word is ‘ease’ because I didn’t want all of that abstaining to wind up being in vain. So, for these cute little suckers, I allowed for a dredge of breadcrumbs. Without the dip in the crumbs, this version of the recipe would be all-of-those-things free and full of healthy protein, salmon. I used the canned stuff for the sake of speed cooking but using 1 3/4 cups of freshly cooked salmon flaked with a fork would be a million times better.

This recipe can be seasoned in different ways, scallions, soy, ginger, or with mayo or add an egg, some old bay seasoning, cayenne, chopped herbs, etc. Just make a delicious mixture and form into patties. I left it at easy, threw some cooked brown rice (for sticking power), garlic, shallot and rosemary in the mini chop and mixed it with the fish that I seasoned a little. Simple as bonjour.

BAKED SALMON CROQUETTES

(makes 10-12 small croquettes)

1 can of salmon such as Icy Point, about 14 ounces

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

2 tablespoons olive oil

a splash of red wine vinegar

1/3 cup cooked brown rice

1/2 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves, or scant teaspoon dried

3 cloves garlic

1 small shallot

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon herbs or spices of choice*

Cooking oil, preferably in spray form.

• Preheat oven to 400F. Cover a baking sheet in foil and spray (or drizzle) with your favorite cooking oil.
• Flake the salmon thoroughly and mix in a medium-sized bowl with dijon, oil and vinegar.
• Place rice, rosemary, garlic and shallots in a food processor until it forms a paste (or finely chop with a knife).
• Combine the rice mixture with the fish in the bowl. Season well. Set aside.
• Mix the breadcrumbs with the seasonings of your choice*.
• Form the salmon mixture into 1/4 cup patties (not too big or they will be very break-y), dredge patties in the deluxe breadcrumbs and place on the prepared sheet pan.
• After all of the patties are formed and crumbed, spray (or drizzle) the top of each one lightly with oil.
• Place in the oven and cook as close to the heat source as possible until the desired color is achieved and croquettes are heated through. Flip once, about 8 minutes on each side.

* Here you can use dried herbs or any mix of spices to trick out the breadcrumbs. I used this blend from Penzey’s that I got from my rad sister.

Salmon croquettes are also excellent served on tiny bread to tiny people…

And here is something I wrote about Icy Point Salmon back when I used to wear a thumb ring. I really do like this stuff.

‘I think we can consider it a ‘whole food’, so much so that the salmon still has its bones! When you open a can of this stuff you are looking straight into a cross section of a beautiful Alaskan salmon. It is steamed in the can this way, bones and all, so that every part of the fish is edible and needs only to be broken up with a fork and used in your favorite recipe. It is a staple in my pantryXX’

The bones are soft and edible. What that looks like:

That’s healthy but if it freaks you out, just cook up the fresh salmon. Ça va.

Don’t lift a finger. (ROASTED TOMATO RELISH)

Dinner! After a whole day of stuff! Can be a tall order! For this reason I am often trying to create recipes that are quick and healthy and still fun and beautiful to prepare and eat. Like this guy, Roasted Tomato Relish, a dish I kept seeing in my mind and proposing on menus, ladled over baked fish or crostini or pasta what have you, but I had not actually made. I only knew how I wanted it to taste, bold and sweet and savory and tart all at once. I also wanted to use these gorgeous multicolored tomatoes, packing them with as much flavor as possible while they guard their shape and hue.

But let’s not overdo it! This recipe is so easy on purpose, it barely takes any effort at all or maybe it’s so fast that it’s like you don’t even care (but secretly you know that it will turn out awesome). Everything goes on a sheet pan and straight into the oven for 10-15 minutes. The thing is that all of the ingredients let off their juices during the high-heat cooking, co-mingling all by themselves on the tray. You don’t even have to stir. Slide everything into a bowl and done.

ROASTED TOMATO RELISH

2 pints of cherry tomatoes

12 fresh sage leaves, torn

1/3 cup chopped shallots

2 tablespoons flavorless oil (canola, grapeseed, etc.)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1.5 teaspoons sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons lemon juice + 3 sliced rounds

2 cloves garlic, chopped

• Preheat oven to 400F.
• Place tomatoes on a sheet pan and toss with remaining ingredients. 
• Place in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until tomatoes have split and softened.

Good times.

Paired with this. A taste adventure.

Market Sketches. (MEXICAN PRODUCE)

Orange Limes

Spicy Peanut Mix with Crispy Garlic

Mixed Fruit

All drawings made in Oaxaca, México (2008) Watercolor and Ink on Paper