A Very Congee-nial Soup

Shut up, I know that title sounds weird. This is one of my favorite comfort foods ever, and one of the few things from home I can make with ingredients readily available here in Changwon.

Congee has always been a dish with a very annoying duality for me: my experience eating congee anywhere but home has always been kind of horrid. I know I'm going to catch flak from those who love the canto-sludge, but plain rice soup dressed with stuff like century egg has always grossed me out.

This iteration of congee is Burmese, and like all Burmese cuisine, is anything but subtle in flavour. Although it calls for a ridiculous amount of onion and garlic, the alliums will melt down into a sweet base of pant-creaming goodness (as opposed to pant-soiling pungency).

The King of Congees

-1/2 cup white short grain rice

-1/2 cup weird hippie rice

-12 cups water
(+ more if needed)

-1 whole chicken

-2 tbsp salt
-6-8 black peppercorns

-2 inch knob of ginger

-5 onions, quartered

-2 heads garlic

-4 tbsp oil

-scallions, for garnish

-sesame oil, to taste

-fish sauce, to taste
**see addendum

A quickie about the rice: you'll notice that I do not only use white rice for this congee - you certainly can, however I think that the visual and textural interest benefit from the addition of some kind of weird hippie rice. In Vancouver I usually add 1/4 cup wild rice and 1/4 cup brown rice to the 1/2 cup of white rice, but here I went for a blend which appears to have black rice, brown rice, barley, and millet (among other things). It worked well.

The white rice I use for congee specifically is typically short grain. Short grain rice is much more glutinous and starchy than long grain rice, and it will give your congee a creamier texture. The soup isn't going to be a total loss if you don't use short grain rice, use whatever the hell you want - it just may not taste as rich as its short grain counterpart.

Okay, the actual recipe now. Start the pot off by cutting your ginger lengthwise and splitting it slightly by smashing it with the side of your knife (or whatever's handy). Combine the first 8 ingredients in a large pot, and bring it all to a boil. Once it's boiling, turn the heat way down and keep it at a low simmer. Let your concoction cook for about 90 minutes uncovered. Try to shovel things around every 10 minutes or so to keep any rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. If your chicken isn't totally submerged, be sure to roll it over halfway through the cooking time.

After the 90 minutes you can remove your chicken from the soup and set it aside to cool. While it's cooling, mince your garlic. When you can stand to touch the chicken, strip the meat from the bones and skin, and tear it all into small pieces.

Combine the oil and garlic in a pan, and fry over medium-high heat until the garlic begins to turn a golden brown. At this point you can add in your chicken bits, and mix it all well. Continue cooking it  all over medium high heat until the chicken is well mixed with the garlic and oil - just a couple of minutes. Then dump all this glorious melange into your congee and stir a couple of times to combine it all. If the soup is too thick or not salty enough for your liking, by all means add in some more water and/or salt until it reaches your desired consistency and taste.

Just prior to serving, top each bowl with some fresh scallions, a drizzle of sesame oil, and a few drops (A FEW DROPS! NOT A LOT!) of fish sauce. Congratulations, you now have a metric shit tonne of congee to devour.

Addendum

I'm sure some will cringe at the thought of adding fish sauce to their congee, but trust me on this one: it's imperative. You don't need much, maybe 1/8 of a teaspoon per bowl, but the savory flavor really rounds out the soup well. No, your soup won't taste exclusively of fish sauce, but yes it will be missing a certain je ne sais quoi if you don't add it in. Normally I use nam pla, however I found that Korean anchovy sauce (myeolchi aecjeot) works just as well. Although similar in taste, the Korean fish sauce is definitely stronger in flavor than its Thai counterpart - keep that in mind when adding it to whatever you're making.

Clean the Fridge, Cook Some Chicken.

It's only been about 2 months since I arrived in Changwon, but I've already managed to amass an astounding amount of crap in my fridge. Much of this stems from my crippling inability to cook for just one person - something a lot of you have benefited from in Vancouver. I'm trying to use up the detritus in my kitchen before buying anything else, and in doing so, I made a rustic chicken stew. It is entirely unremarkable to look at, but GOD DAMN is it tasty! This is my attempt at bringing order to my poor fridge by cooking what vaguely resembles dakbokumtang - Korean spicy chicken stew.

Dakbokum ....ish

-1.5 cups cabbage
-2 cups squash
  (I used Kabocha)
-2 onions, diced
-15 cloves of garlic
-2 carrots, diced
-2 cups water
-1 chicken
  (bones in and skin on)
-1/3 cup soy sauce
-3 large green chilis
-3 tbsp Korean red pepper paste
  (gochujang)
-2 tbsp Korean red pepper flakes
 (deol maewon gochu garoo)


Before I start on with the recipe, I will first insist that there is no good substitute for either gochujang (red pepper paste) or deol maewoon gochu garoo (red pepper flakes). I use mild red pepper flakes because I feel that the dish is spicy enough with the paste - the flakes just add to the depth of flavor. If you want hot pepper flakes, look for maewoon gochu garoo. Gochujang (the paste) is thick, slightly sweet, and awweeesomme. You can find both at any Korean mart, they are cooking staples over here. For my Vancouver folks: T&T has them both.

Prep your veg as per the photo below. As you can see, things are cut up pretty roughly. I quartered the onions, diced the squash and carrot, and roughly sliced up the cabbage. I didn't even bother to cut up the garlic, and settled for just smashing each clove open with the side of my knife. If you can stand to cut your carrots and squash into smaller bits, please do, it'll help them disintegrate and add awesomeness to your sauce. You will probably also notice that I have green AND red chilies in the mix, which I did not mention in the ingredients. This is because, in retrospect, I would have liked to omit the red ones as their skins are super waxy. The green chilies are a really mild variety; I'd use poblanos or maybe jalapenos if I couldn't find Korean green chilies.

If you aren't into butchering a whole chicken apart, get an equivalent amount of thighs and or drumsticks instead (8) - be sure to have the bones in! I left the skin on all of my chicken because I think the rendered fat imparts a very pleasant savory richness to this otherwise lean stew, but you can take it off if you are some kind of fat-phobic loser.



Mix the soy sauce, pepper flakes and pepper paste in a small bowl. Then dump it, along with everything else  in a pot, and bring it to a boil. Once it is bubbling, cook it covered over medium-low heat for 40 minutes. You'll want to give it a stir every 10-15 minutes just to be sure that things aren't sticking to the bottom of your pot.

 I put 2 cups of water in, but you can always put more or less in depending on the consistency you prefer. Just make sure there's always some liquid for the goods to cook in. After the first 40 minutes, cook for an additional 20 minutes with the pot uncovered - I did this to thicken up my batch a bit. Because of this last step, I didn't add any salt to the stuff until after I had reduced it to my liking. I would recommend you do the same so as to avoid making a briny pot of inedible shit.

The end result should be sweet from the veg, and savory from the chicken - something great to eat in the company of rice and stupidly cold weather.

Cook Like a Waygook

In case you haven't heard, about 5 weeks ago I packed up two bags of crap and relocated myself to the land of Starcraft and Gangnam Style: South Korea.

I also lost my passport in Japan on the way over here, but that's another story.

Aside from the typhoon which arrived just the day after I did, everything's been pretty fucking peachy. However, there was no real cookery going on for a while - I instead lived off of kimchi and triangular prisms of kimbap. I was pretty thrilled about spending little more than a dollar per meal until inundating my body with starch cost me my ever-enjoyable BM regularity. So I'm cooking again.

I'm determined to eventually get a decent handle on Korean cuisine, so I decided to first try a simple but awesome side dish of fried anchovies: myolchi bokkeum. I found a promising recipe from maangchi.com which is great, albeit a bit too sweet for me. I decided to futz with it because, really, what do I do better than fuck up perfectly acceptable things?

Myeolchi Bokkeum

-1 cup small dried anchovies
- 1 tbsp olive oil
-3/4 tbsp hot pepper paste
-2 tbsp water
-1 tbsp corn syrup
-1 tsp sugar
-1 t tbsp roasted sesame seeds
-1/2 tsp sesame oil

First order of business is figuring out your fish: dried anchovies come in all sorts of sizes, but google tells me that smaller ones are better for this purpose - no need to pick out little bitter spines and guts. I went for the 2 smallest sizes I could find to see which I'd prefer.

Making this dish is ridiculously easy. First put a pan over high heat and roast the fish dry (no oil!) for about 2 minutes. I must now insist that you refrain from trying to determine the palatability of this recipe based on the odors produced in the first minute of cooking. Your kitchen will smell like a barnacle's ass for a short while, but I promise that this is in no way an indication of what your final product will be like.

The fish will go from a gray pallor to more of a toasted hue as you dry roast them. At this point, add in a tablespoon of olive oil and continue to fry for another 30 seconds or so. Then push the fish to one side of the pan, and dump in all of the other ingredients to the de-fishified portion of your cooking vessel. I find it helps to tilt the pan - much easier to keep the sauce isolated as it cooks.

You'll want to cook the sauce until it gets thick and glossy - not much more than a minute. Then just smush the sauce and fish together and glop it all into a bowl. Act quickly, you don't want to burn the sugar. Below you can see how it turned out with both the small and ittty-bitty sized anchovies.

I prefer the smallest of anchovies to their slightly larger kin, however my favorite incarnation of this recipe happens to involve neither option. Instead, I use medium-sized dried shrimp and followed the exact same procedure.

I guess that makes it maleun saewoo bokkeum...er, I think...

Anyways, I would liken the end product to some kind of wonderful savory sea-candy (for lack of a better term). Sounds bad, tastes goooooooood.

Plumble

Well I'm still waiting for the rain to stop in order to take some proper photos of grilling and burger related things, so I thought that in the mean time I'd post something else to keep you lot enthralled. This is a super simple dessert, awesome to throw together for irritatingly unannounced guests and welcome company alike. It works great with most any juicy fruit, however my Polish roots leave me partial to plum which is currently in season.

Easy Plumble

crust:
-1 cup almond flour
-1 1/3 cup 9 grain mix
  (or rolled oats if you can't find any)
-1 cup all-purpose flour
-3/4 cup butter
-3/4 cup sugar
-1 egg
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/4 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp cardamom

filling:
-4 large plums
-3 tbsp sugar
-2 tbsp flour
-1 tsp vanilla



Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees and get going on the crust. Combine all of the flours and 9 grain mix in a large bowl with the baking powder, salt, sugar, and cardamom. Melt the butter and whisk together with the egg. Add the wet stuff into the dry stuff and mush it around until you get a crumbly dough. Set it aside and grab your plums for the filling.

Wash and cut the plums into slices. They can be kind of a pain in the ass to get off of the pit, but it's worth it. Mix the plum slices with the flour, sugar, and vanilla. No, you don't need lemon or anything to enhance it - the tartness of the plums will be enough.

 Next: the assembly. Line a round 9" cake pan (or whatever you have handy) with parchment paper. I'm really lazy and tend to just crunch a big square of parchment down into the circular pan. There's no need for cutting out round shapes to fit or anything. At this point you smush down half of the crust mixture into the pan, leaving a slight lip around the edges which will eventually help keep the plums in place. Then dump in the plums and spread the slices around as evenly as you can manage. Finally, pinch off knobs of remaining crust dough to cover the damn thing.

As you can see, my dumb ass can't differentiate between plum varieties at the grocery store. Meh.

Stick it all in the oven for about 45 minutes (or until the crust has browned a little) and let cool for at least 10 minutes. At this point you can take the plumble out by inverting it onto a plate, and then repeating the practice onto your serving vessel of choice. Mmmm, lethargo-tastic.

Borgasm: part I

No, the title does not refer to a Star Trek porno - this is about burgers. Yesterday was a milestone for me: I hosted my first burger bbq. I know that sounds like an incredibly lame first, but let me explain. I always like doing things like satays, chops, and marinated veg on the grill because you end up feeding your guests things you've made. Something about just buying buns and frozen patties to turn out onto a grill seems like such a cop out to me. I'm not trying to hate on bbqs I've been to in the past, there's a time and a place for everything, but these shortcuts weren't happening at my first goddamn burgerpalooza. I figured that if I was going to do a burger spread, I would do it right. Over the next week I'll be posting tidbits which went into making the thing of beauty posted just above this paragraph. First off, the buns:

 In 2009 the New York Times ran a saliva-inducing article titled "The Perfect Burger and All Its Parts", which included a great recipe for light brioche buns from Comme Ca in Los Angeles. They were surprisingly easy to make despite the fact that I had to triple the recipe for my shindig. Also, I'm a shit baker - did I mention that before? If I can make them, you sure as hell can. They're fluffy, slightly sweet, and rich enough to make it matter but light enough to add cheese without wanting to vomit. In essence, far superior to any store or bakery bought burger bun I've ever tried. My way, exactly the way I did it, is written below and varies a bit from the published recipe in both method and measurement. If you don't trust my shifty eyes the original instructions are here

Light brioche buns
(makes 8 buns)

-1 cup warm water
-3 tablespoons milk
-2 teaspoons active dry yeast
-3 tablespoons raw sugar
-2 large eggs
-3 cups bread flour
-1/3 cup all-purpose flour
-1 1/2 teaspoons salt
-3 tablespoons unsalted butter
-egg wash  
  (1 egg beaten with a couple tablespoons of water)
-seeds to top


First mix the water, milk, sugar, and yeast in a cup and set it aside to foam up - 5 minutes should do it.

 While your yeast is waking up you can mix the two flours and salt together in a large bowl. Next Melt the butter and beat the melty goodness with the two eggs. Add the butter and eggs into the flour along with the contents of your yeasty cup. Mix it all together with your hands/wooden spoon/whatever until a dough forms.

 At this point you want to turn the dough out onto a well floured surface and knead+slap the crap out of it for 8 minutes. Then ball it back up, return it to the bowl, cover the bowl in plastic wrap and place it in a warm spot to double in size (the first rise). The original recipe says two hours, but I got away with it in an hour thanks to a warm July afternoon.

two batches - one before and another after the second rise

  Once the dough has doubled in size, split it apart into 8 equal balls and place them on a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Cover once again with plastic wrap  for another rise; it really helps to lightly oil the plastic to keep it from sticking to the dough. Deja vu: the original calls for a 2 hour wait but I only needed 1.

 Pre-heat an oven to 400 degrees, and place one rack in the middle and another at the very bottom. Place a pan filled with water on the bottom rack. While the oven heats up, brush your buns with egg wash and sprinkle on some seeds if you like. I used poppy and sesame seeds.

Bake the buns until they brown nicely, about 15 minutes. Be sure to turn the pan around half way through baking to ensure even browning. Once baked, cool on a rack and get ready to make some killer condiments.

In the next post I'll follow up with roasted jalapenos, rosemary carmelized onions, and of course: home made BACONNAISE.

Om-nom-nomenclature

Being partially Polish has left me with strong ideas regarding what criteria do and do not constitute "sausage". For much of my life, if you had presented me with a meat patty and called it "country sausage" I probably would have just fixed my stare and slowly turned my head sideways (much like a confused dog). I suppose distinguishing ground meat from tubular ground meat really shouldn't be such a big deal. However, I am weird enough to have gone through a childhood phase of eating sausage casing while discarding the meat filling.

Yup.

Anyways, for the sake of my pointless and discriminatory food compulsions, I'm going to call these seasoned-but-nitrite-and-casing-free sausage meat lumps something else. Err, turkey-maple-something something.....

Squasage
(makes a dozen)

-1lb ground turkey
-1/2 lb ground pork
-2 tbsp caraway seeds
-1 tbsp ground corriander
-1 tsp paprika
-5 cloves of garlic
-1 medium onion
-1/3 cup maple syrup
-8 fresh sage leaves, minced
-1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
-1/2 tsp ground black pepper
-2 tsp salt
-olive oil

Grate the onion and garlic into a large mixing bowl, then add in everything else except the oil. I use a mix of turkey and pork for taste and texture, but I think any white meat would do alright as long as you've got a bit of fat in it. Smush it all around with your hands until the ingredients are decently mixed, then leave for at least an hour for the flavors to properly mingle.
Pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees and shape 1/3 cup portions of meat into patties about an inch thick - keeping them relatively the same size will help them cook evenly. Place a large oven-proof pan over high heat with enough oil to thinly coat the surface. Once the pan is good and hot, go ahead and lay down your meat - it should begin to sizzle immediately. Make sure to not overcrowd the pan as you need ample space to turn the damn things as well as keep the pan from getting too cool. Spend a couple of minutes browning each side (shouldn't take more than 5 minutes total) and then stick the whole pan, uncovered, into the middle rack of the oven for 10 minutes. You may need to cook the entirety of the meat in a couple of batches if your pan isn't large enough, just make sure you wash off the burnt stuff in between batches or transfer your squasage to a baking sheet as the maple in the recipe will burn pretty easily with repeat performances.

After the 10 minutes remove the pan from the oven and serve them up. They're already pretty flavorful, but drizzling them with a concoction of maple syrup and dijon mustard (about equal parts each) makes for a pretty awesome finishing touch.

Banana Cream Yes.

In the world of pies, banana cream is an understated champion. Banana cream pie is pretty weird in that it's a familiar concept but a rather uncommon find. It would seem that everyone has heard of it, but I can literally count the number of times I have encountered it outside of home on one of my hands. This has always puzzled me as it's such a pleasant blend of crunchy crust and creamy filling: not terribly sweet, always cold and satisfying. Essentially, it is the perfect end to a dinner, regardless of the season. I hope you all find this post particularly compelling as I've always been a pretty strong supporter of team cake. Despite this, banana cream pies make me cheer so hard for the other team it hurts. Cake may be my "Mr.Right", but banana cream pie has always been my "Mr.Right Now".


Ok I will stop the dumb analogies, you get the idea.


Banana Cream Pie

-1-2 bananas
(whatever it takes to cover your crust)
-Freshly gound nutmeg

crust
-2 cups almond flour
-4 tbsp sugar
-1/4 tsp baking soda
-pinch of salt
-1/4 cup butter
-1 large egg

custard filling
-2 cups milk
-1/4 cup corn starch
-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
-1/4 cup sugar
-5 large egg yolks
-1/2 tbsp butter
whipped topping
-1 1/2 cups whipping cream
-6 large marshmallows


Pre-heat your oven to 350 F and start by making your crust: combine almond flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda in a large bowl. Melt the butter, beat the egg, and mix both thoroughly into the dry ingredients. Grease a pie plate and smoosh this mixture into a somewhat even layer on the bottom and sides of the plate. Loosely cover the thing with either foil or parchment paper and stick it in the oven for about 30 minutes. After this you can uncover it and continue to bake for another 10-15 minutes. When it is done it will be a golden brown colour - don't worry if the edges are noticeably darker that its middle. Stick it somewhere to cool completely.


Okay, now on to the custard filling: mix the egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar, and vanilla. Whisk until it is visibly lighter in colour. Put the milk in a pot over medium heat - you want it to get very hot, but not quite to a boil. Once the milk is hot, pour about 1/2 cup of it into the egg mixture and whisk quickly to temper the stuff. Make sure you're quick, otherwise you end up with scrambled-shit eggs. Pour the tempered mixture back into the pot with the rest of the milk, and continue to whisk over medium heat. Within a couple of minutes it should form a thick custard. At this point you can take it off the stove, mix in the pat of butter, and set it somewhere to cool.

The whipped topping is pretty standard issue: drain the dairy into a large bowl and beat the crap out of it with an electric mixer or (if you are a skid like me) a whisk and your wanking muscles. For best results, try freezing your bowl for 10 minutes prior to whipping cream in it. When your cream starts to thicken but is not yet forming peaks, microwave the marshmallows for 20 seconds. Dump the marshmallows into the cream and immediately beat it all together until the cream forms soft peaks. Yes, whipped cream alone tastes just fine, but the gelatin in the marshmallows helps stabilize the cream.

Alright, finally: the assembly. Slice your bananas about 1/4" thick and arrange in an even layer at the bottom of your cooled pie crust. Shmear the custard on top of the bananas, then cover it all with large dollops of the whipped cream topping. Don't worry if your custard looks kind of lumpy when it's cooled, i tried both running it through a seive and just leaving it be, and honestly couldn't tell the difference. Grate some nutmeg over top and let the pie set in the fridge for at least an hour.

I've seen other recipes with banana flavouring added into the custard, but have never found it necessary. Given that this is such a remarkably light tasting dessert, the single layer of ripe banana slices imparts just enough flavour on it's own. Plus, you omit that weird artificial-banana aftertaste.