Tokyo Tempura Bar

11 Jan 2011 4 Comments

by scolgin in Recipes, Video Tags: , , ,

I was in Tokyo for business on my thirty-somethingth birthday, and my friend Joe who was traveling with me took me out to dinner to celebrate. We went to the tempura bar in the lobby of our fancy hotel. I had never been to a tempura bar before. Have you?

I’d always loved tempura, ever since I was a kid and we’ d go to the Tempura House. Over the years I’d grown used to the Big Five of tempura – shrimp, broccoli, sweet potato, green pepper and carrot. Supplemented if the tempura cook really wanted to go out on a limb with perhaps an onion ring or spear of asparagus. And I was perfectly happy with those. But the tempura bar in Tokyo was a revelation. I ordered nothing. The chef simply presented things before me — a tiny shrimp, a small butterflied fish, a leaf as light as air, a chili pepper, a piece of eel squeezed with lemon, sea urchin wrapped in shiso leaf. One after another, bites of tempura emerged from the hot oil encased in a delicate, crisp shell of batter you could see right through. No green bell pepper, no onion rings.

I like to impress my friends at home by doing tempura bar. It’s surprisingly easy and makes an even funner evening than fondue! I like to discover my own favorite things I can batter and drop into the oil — whole soft shell crabs, small bundles of snow white enoki mushrooms, chunks of king crab. And I like to offer up different dipping sauces for the different types of tempura.

You can do tempura bar at home like me! I’ll teach you. It’s best done with a small group of friends — maybe you, your spouse and your favorite other couple. And it’s the most fun if your kitchen has a bar like ours. But if not, a table will do, so long as you’re close to the kitchen. Pick up a nice cold saké and have some Sapporo on hand. Here’s how, knock yourself out:

Tempura
for batter:
6 oz ice cold water
4 oz. flour
1 egg yolk

Set mixing bowl in larger bowl filled with ice. Mix together ice water and egg yolk. And flour and stir until mixed.

for tempura:
(note: you can improvise and fry almost any seafood or vegetable)
3 cups canola or peanut oil
1 cup flour, spread out on a large dinner plate
4 shrimp, cleaned with tail left on, and flattened with the flat side of a large knife
1/2 lb king crab legs, meat removed in large chunks from shells
1/2 lb boneless black cod or other whitefish fillet, cut into quarters
1 Japanese eggplant, cut into four pieces
1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into four pieces
4 shiso leaves (or substitute spinach leaves)
1 bunch enoki mushrooms, cut into four small bundles
4 green onions, trimmed of dark green ends

Have your guests sit wherever you’re going to serve them, with plates and dipping sauces ready. You will serve each guest immediately as the tempura emerges from the oil. Give each guest a bowl of steamed rice, and have soy sauce on the table too.

Heat oil in a large wok over medium high heat until a drop of batter sizzles and floats. Cook tempura a few pieces at a time — you’ll probably want to do your tempura in stages, cooking all of one item before moving on. (i.e. start with mushrooms and shiso, move on to shrimp and crab, then eggplant and onion, etc.) Quickly dip each piece first in flour, then in the batter. Then drop in the oil. Cook for about 3-4 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels, and serve to your guests while hot. Continue until all the tempura is cooked.

You will want to have a skimmer on hand to skim out bits of tempura batter from time to time as you go, as they will burn and lend an unpleasant taste to your tempura.

Dipping sauces:
Dashi Soy
Mix 1/2 cup water with powdered dashi stock to taste. Add 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce and 1/4 cup mirin cooking wine. Heat until warm. Serve with vegetables, shrimp.

Ponzu Butter
Heat 2/3 cup ponzu and juice from one lemon until warm. Remove from heat and stir in 1 tbsp. butter. Serve with crab, shrimp and other seafood.

Spicy Dipping Sauce
Heat 1/4 cup soy sauce and 1/3 cup sweetened rice wine vinegar. Remove from heat and stir in 1 tbsp. Srirachi or other chili pepper sauce, 1 tbsp. sesame oil and 1 tbsp. minced green onion. Serve with vegetables and seafood.

The Wonders of the Woods

26 Dec 2010 6 Comments

by scolgin in On the Road, Recipes, Video Tags: , , , ,

Clockwise from top: Blewits, matsutakes, white chanterelles, porcini

Every year, somewhere around the holidays, we load up the car with kids and kid paraphernalia and head north. Our destination? Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house — my mom’s place — in the forest of western Sonoma County. We get settled, my kids go for the cookies, and then Dad disappears. Into the wet woods, eyes scanning the shadowy duff for signs of life. Fungal life.

I first got interested in foraging for mushrooms two decades ago, while up at my aunt and uncle’s place in Mendocino. It took five years of identification before I became comfortable eating a mushroom, another five before anyone in my family would trust me enough to eat one. Now, 20 years out, I’m something of an expert. In that time, I’ve only gotten sick once. And that from an edible variety. I’ve never eaten a poisonous mushroom. I find mushrooms people pay top dollar for at fancy food boutiques and farmers markets — matsutake, oyster, porcini, black trumpets… And soon, after the torrential rains we’ve been having in L.A., I’ll see chanterelles the size of baseball gloves popping up in the usually dry woods around my own house.

My kids seem to like my hobby. It combines getting dirty and exploring, two of the best kid things:

Do I advise you take up this pastime? No. And if you must, come out with me and I’ll share my knowledge. I’ve had two people send me emails in the past week with photos of the “chanterelles” they’d found, eagerly waiting confirmation to eat their bounty. My reply in both cases was the same. “Those are NOT chanterelles.”

Once initiated, you may find yourself obsessed. For some, like my wife, it is the thrill of the hunt. She compares it to going to garage sales looking for that one great find. For others, it is the awesome diversity of edible wild mushrooms — some that have the texture and taste of fried chicken, others that smell of maple syrup; some that can substitute for lobster in a bisque, and still others that resemble the mane of a lion. I like the hunt, and I like the cooking. And when it’s dry at home and I can’t get north, I suck it up and buy them from my friends at the farmers market who do the work for me. (Sources for wild mushrooms below)

If you like regular mushrooms,  you’ll love wild mushrooms. Even cultivated varieties such as shitake, oyster or shimeji offer an adventure from the ordinary button. But look for some of the varieties I’ve mentioned above, as well as morels, yellow foot, blewits, cauliflower mushrooms and other varieties, at your farmers markets and fancy food boutiques. And when you find them, use them wherever you would regular mushrooms. In a pasta, on a pizza, folded into omelets… If it’s a cold night and you’re wet from the hunt, here’s a nice soup to warm your soul:

Wild Mushroom Bisque

1 lb wild mushrooms (or regular button mushrooms, if you must), sliced thin
2 quarts chicken stock (canned is fine — in fact, water a bouillon cube is fine)
1 onion, chopped
2 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
salt & pepper

Melt the butter over medium heat in a large saucepan. Add the onions and sweat, cooking until they begin to brown slightly. Add mushrooms and turn heat to high. Cook, stirring frequently, until mushrooms release most of their moisture and begin to brown. Add chicken stock, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 30 minutes uncovered.

Transfer soup to a blender. (If there’s too much liquid for your blender, transfer all the solids and half the broth.) Puree on high for a minute, until soup is thoroughly pureed. Return to saucepan, heat over medium until soup begins to simmer. Turn off heat and stir in cream, plus salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a loaf of crusty bread and some sweet butter, maybe a sweetish white wine like viogner, a fruity zinfandel or a bottle of hoppy beer such as Sierra Nevada or Anchor Steam.

Wild mushroom sources:

Far West Fungi
The Ferry Building
San Francisco
www.farwestfungi.com

David West/Clearwater Farms
Downtown Santa Monica Farmer’s Market
Wednesdays & Saturdays

Online:
http://oregonmushrooms.com

Or if you wanna get in touch with me in mid-January, I should have more chanterelles than I know what to do with.  : )   –S

Harvey’s Guss Meat Co.

06 Dec 2010 4 Comments

by scolgin in Markets & Stores, Observations, Video Tags: , , , , ,

Is it possible for four people to eat six pounds of porterhouse steak? When my friend, Greg, brought over said meat (handsomely profiled in a previous post, “The Emperor of Steaks”), we figured there was going to be a LOT of leftovers. There was not. Usually my wife and I eat half a pound between us. But this was some seriously good dry-aged meat. We had a first serving. Then a second… None of us could stop. This was dry-aged nirvana from the hallowed coolers of Harvey’s Guss Meat Co. in Mid City L.A.

Meat mural

Our bookkeeper, Joe Gussman, had been telling us for years to come visit his dad’s butcher shop sometime when he was working. I made a mental note but never got around to following up. But one day friend Greg asked me whether I knew of Harvey’s Guss, the fabled L.A. butcher. I connected the dots but had my wife give Joe a ring just to confirm.

Fast forward a couple months after the porterhouse, and I decided to visit Harvey’s Guss myself. I ordered two 2-inch thick rib steaks on the bone — my favorite cut. Just by chance, Harvey was out of town so Joe was in charge when I went to pick up my steaks. The place is located in a strange confluence of streets and cultures — where the Fairfax Ethiopian neighborhood abuts the old Jewish Mid City abuts mini-Tijuanas all around. If you were driving along looking for it you’d probably miss it. Was it in that apartment building I just passed, or was that a warehouse? And you can’t turn on the street where it sits, like water for thirsty Tantalus, just out of reach. So you must drive around and around until you figure your way through the labyrinth. There’s no open sign, no helpful customer service associate to assist you, you enter through a metal security door into a space where white-frocked workers are busy. They wave you in, point you to the office. That’s where Joe (or probably Harvey when he’s around) sits, sorting orders, answering the phone. This is meat at its most glorious, and meat sales at its most elementary. If you want a nice gift box, go to an Omaha Steaks boutique. If you want a bag to put your meat in, bring one.

I got a tour of the dry aging cooler, which maybe all customers get if they ask. I prefer to think it was a privilege of knowing Harvey’s son. Joe graciously consented to my filming his explanation of what I was seeing to share with you. Here it is:

Funny to think when I was younger I didn’t like steak.

In case you don’t feel like clicking over to the links page to find your own way to Harvey’s Guss, here’s the info you need: (And don’t forget, call a day ahead. The Gussmen are busy and have meat to sell…)

Harvey’s Guss Meat Co.
949 S. Ogden Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 937- 4622

http://www.harveysgussmeat.com/home.html

A New Installment of the World’s Best Ribs

02 Dec 2010 11 Comments

by scolgin in Pork, Recipes, Video Tags: , , , ,

I’m a little bit fickle, I’ll admit, with my continuing declarations about the world’s best ribs. That’s because almost every good rack of ribs is the best ribs I’ve ever tasted. You could rub motor oil on a rack of ribs, grill them, and they’d make my blog. I’m quite sure I’ve declared one rib preparation or another “The World’s Best Ribs” on several occasions in this forum alone. But this time I’m pretty sure I’m sharing the world’s best ribs recipe with you. Well, that is, at least until next time.

Hawaiian preparations are always some of the best with ribs — the smoky, fatty richness of the ribs blending perfectly with the sweetness and complex flavors of tropical fruits. One of the best racks I cook includes a marinade/glaze of coconut syrup, pineapple juice and fermented Chinese black beans. The particular recipe below, prepared in the video above, takes its cue from Korean kalbi. Serve it with the monster good Asian red cabbage slaw to win friends and influence people. For four people:

Hawaiian Soy Glazed Ribs

1 large rack baby back ribs
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 garlic cloves, peeled and grated on a Microplane grater (or minced)
1-inch piece of ginger, grated on a Microplane grater (or minced)
1 tsp sesame oil
a few shakes crushed red pepper
1 tbsp butter

Peel membrane off the back of the rib rack (use a flat head screwdriver to get started). Cut rack into two or three sections. Salt and pepper the ribs while you make the marinade.

Put brown sugar and soy sauce in a small saucepan with a little water. Add garlic and ginger over medium heat, and simmer until the sauce is thickened. Remove from heat, stir in sesame oil and red pepper, then fold in 1 tbsp butter.

When sauce cools, use half to baste the ribs and marinate an hour at room temperature or overnight in the fridge. Heat a gas grill to medium. Put the ribs on the grill and cook for about 20 minutes on each side, basting frequently with the reserved marinade to create a nice glaze. Cut mini-racks into individual ribs and serve with monster good Asian slaw.

*   *   *

Monster Good Asian Slaw

1/2 small head red cabbage, grated or finely shredded
3 scallions, sliced into 1-inch segments and then slivered lengthwise
1 small carrot, peeled and grated
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp grapeseed oil
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp mayonnaise
salt & pepper

In a large bowl, toss the cabbage, scallions and carrot. Add remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

Beverage suggestion: Kona Brewing Company Longboard Island Lager, a nice fruity viognier from California’s Central Coast (I like Andrew Murray), mai tai, Anchor Steam

What Do Chickens Fear?

21 Nov 2010 5 Comments

by scolgin in Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories), Video Tags:

I often have to suffer the suspicious stares of my chickens when I grill.

For your information, our girls are pets and egg layers only. But I’m not sure they’re so sure.

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