This is a cassette music magazine published in the UK ca. 1982, which over-promised and under-delivered in terms of content. Somewhere around here I have the cardboard listings of the contents, and will update these posts when I find them.
They used the cheapest cassettes possible, so the sound is variable.
Issue No. 17, July 10-22, 1982
Reflex, Mel Brooks, Laurie Anderson, Becky Bondage, and Elvis Costello:
Side One:
Side Two:
-R
This is a cassette music magazine published in the UK ca. 1982, which over-promised and under-delivered in terms of content. Somewhere around here I have the cardboard listings of the contents, and will update these posts when I find them.
They used the cheapest cassettes possible, so the sound is variable.
ISSUE No. 7. FEB. 20-MARCH 4 ’82.
Side One:
Side Two:
-R
You do know Aspergillum oryzae, don’t you? If not, maybe this picture will jog your memory:
LOL, I had no idea what it was until not too long ago.
It’s a fungus (mold), and a crucial component in Asian food. “Component” rather than “ingredient,” because it’s not used directly as an ingredient, but is critical in making many of the tastes we associate with Asian cooking, such as doubanjiang/Sichuan bean paste ( https://tiabr.com/doubanjiang-build/ ), fermented black beans, miso, sake, and most importantly, soy sauce, about more in six months if things go well.
It requires high humidity and temperatures to grow, on rice, grains or beans, and that’s usually followed by a long (at least six months) fermentation, although not for sake, which since yeast is used in the West for brewing is where “The Yeast from the East” comes from, although that’s pretty much the end of that analogy.
You can get a starter culture of A. oryzae from the usual online sources, also searching on “sake starter” or “koji-kin.” It’s a bit pricey, but you only have to buy it once . . . if you let it go too long, it will sporulate, and then you can just dry the grain (or whatever) and use that for your next batch, or sift the dried grain and save the spores, more about which in painful detail in a future post. I’ve been an abject failure growing it on rice, but had no problems with bulgur, rye, barley, and soy and fava beans.
(Get on with it, Robert.) I wanted to make fermented black beans:
. . . which despite looking like they may have originated in the nether regions of a hamster:
. . . are delicious. Often used in complex sauces like for ma po dofu, but they are excellent in a simple stir fry of greens and a bit of garlic.
It was exceedingly difficult to find out how to do this, on the web. Finally I found a Filipino recipe, so here’s what I did.
Soak the soy beans over night, then cook on a slow boil until done, but not mushy. Stir in 1 gram koji-kin mixed with 1/2 C. flour to coat the beans well:
Cover with a cloth, then keep at 90 degrees and high humidity for three to four days, until the beans are well coated with the mold. I forgot to take a picture, but here are some fava beans that went through the same procedure:
Transfer to a jar and add a 20% brine solution. I did two batches.
This is where the internet instructions I found stopped. I waited for six months, hoping against hope that they would turn black.
Oh dear. Clearly I overcooked the beans in the left jar. I decided to leave t’other one for another six months.
Enough fermentation to have cracked the lid, and at some point juices had escaped and run down the side of the jar:
The fermentation wasn’t done yet. Loosening the ring, then taking it and the cap off, first a release of juice, then it swelled up, which seems the wrong way around:
I rinsed the beans, but one of these things is not like the other one:
But, you ask, how did they taste? Surprisingly, pretty good. Not like black beans, but not unlike them either. Maybe like a cross between black beans and fermented bean curd:
. . . which makes sense.
But the proof is in the pudding:
I added more of the beans, and tasted it before adding the bacon and 1 Tbsp. of oyster sauce so as not to queer my palate. Pretty good, with the fermented goodness and slightly cheesy taste of the beans, but even better with the additions.
Yum!
-R
PS Absent info from the net, I thought maybe I should dry the beans, necessarily since we’re in the July humidity swamp in the oven. After a couple of hours at 170 degrees:
Now they look a lot more like yer classic fermented black beans, but don’t really taste any different. Still, this is pretty yummy, and another welcome addition to my pantry.
-R
(repost from August 2015)
Ingredients:
Method:
1. Heat the oil to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the egg white, salt and cornstarch. Add the frogs’ legs and stir briefly to coat.
3. Deep-fry the frogs’ legs until lightly brown, then remove from the oil and drain on kitchen/paper towels.
4. Heat the 2 Tbsps oil in a pan. Stir-fry the peppers and chilis for two minutes, then add the black beans and stir-fry for an additional minute. Add the frogs’ legs, soy, stock and sugar. Stir briefly until combined.
5. Enjoy!
Cheers,
-R
(repost from August 2015)
Q: What’s the difference between light and dark soy?
A: If you answered “salt,” you’re right, but may be wrong, since light soy is saltier than dark soy. Besides the difference in salt, dark soy makes me think of molasses…it has more richness and depth of flavor. The difference is in the usage: light soy is used for quickly cooked (stir-fried) dishes, and dark soy is used for longer-cooked dishes like stews.
Q: If dark soy has more depth of flavor, why isn’t it used in every dish?
A: Good question! I don’t know. My guess is that someone with more experience with Chinese food than me (e.g., someone who’s Chinese) might say the the complexity of dark soy conflicts with the relatively simple flavors of the meat and (especially) vegetables of a stir-fried dish, but that’s just a guess.
I tried a few varieties of soy sauce, and based on my experience, have settled on Pearl River Bridge as my go-to soy sauce:
This stuff is great, with a real depth of flavor, and it’s reasonably priced.
Occasionally I try a bottle of something else:
…but haven’t found anything I like as good as Pearl River Bridge, so my experiments languish in my fridge for six months, then get thrown out.
You DO keep your soy sauce in the fridge, don’t you? Probably unnecessary, but it might preserve some freshness.
As much as I love soy sauce, it’s very salty, so I generally reduce the amounts in recipes by about 1/3. The “low-sodium” versions that I’ve tried have been woefully bad, and you can always add more at the end of the cooking time, then stir briefly.
The other brand I love is Kikkoman, which I use for Japanese recipes:
It’s the only American-made soy sauce that’s fermented, rather than being manufactured from chemicals (I’m looking at you, La Choy). I was delighted to find out that Kikkoman is made in my home state of Wisconsin, otherwise unknown as a hotbed of Japanese artisanal foodstuffs.
In the end, in a finished dish, I doubt that I could taste the difference between any of these (except nasty La Choy) but my palate is improving, and it’s always fun to try new things.
-R
(repost from August 2015)
Probably not very authentic, but simple, delicious, and very umami-y.
Ingredients:
Method:
1. Mix the soy, hoisin sauce, rice wine, sugar, tomato paste, chili sauce, and 1-1/2 Tbsp of the oil. Pour 1/2 of the mixture into a bowl, add the pork, and marinate for 30 minutes.
2. Heat the remaining oil over high heat. Add the pork and stir-fry for two minutes. Add the mushrooms and remaining marinade and cook for 1-1/2 minutes.
3. Add the cornstarch mixture, and stir for an additional minute.
4. Enjoy!
Cheers,
-R
I love chapattis (aka rotis), which are pretty bland and therefore the perfect foil to highly spiced/hot dishes like curries. And the texture, a mix of crispy and chewy . . . yum! Quick (since they are unleavened) and easy to make, even with minimal rolling pin skills.
. . . and I love methi aka fenugreek. It’s used quite a bit in Indian cooking, but usually in the form of seeds (ground before use):
.It’s my second favorite spice (after nutmeg, of course!), but it’s hard to describe the taste. One site describes it as having a “maple syrup” flavor, which I wouldn’t agree with — maybe more like walnuts, although it does have a definite sweet-ish flavor. It’s also used in the green form, which I’ve only been able to find as frozen:
Since I am “thrifty,” although you can call me cheap, I hate to waste food, or anything that might become food. It was time to feed my sourdough starter, which means removing some of it . . . so I used it to make chapattis.
Remove 1 C. sourdough starter:
Stir in 1 C. flour, plus enough water (~3/4 C.) to make a soft dough. Now you can leave it for a couple of hours, although that’s unnecessary, since again, this isn’t a raised-dough bread:
Stir in 2 C. flour, 1/2 to 1 C. thawed chopped methi greens, and enough water to make a fairly stiff dough:
One nice thing about unleavened breads is that you don’t need to knead them, rather just get them to a nice firm consistency.
Use your hands to roll 1/2 of the dough into a log, then cut it into 8 or 10 pieces, on a floured surface:
Use your hands to roll the slices into approximate discs or balls, then use a floured rolling pin to roll them out into rounds about 8″ in diameter, about 1/8″ thick (don’t worry about getting the measurements exact). Try to make them round, but don’t worry about that too much either:
Heat a large skillet or other cooking surface to medium high heat. DO NOT USE OIL!!! They need to cook on a “dry” surface.
Cook on one side for about 2 – 3 minutes. They will likely puff up a bit, but don’t worry if they don’t. Flip them and cook for another 1 – 2 minutes. Basically, you want some charred (but not burnt) bits, and the rest cooked. Adjust the heat as needed:
They are best hot off the grill, and will soon lose their lovely crispiness, but you can keep them in the fridge, or for much longer frozen — just re-heat them in a hot oven for a few minutes.
Yum!
-R
A handful of leftover rice, a bit of oil to cook it in, an egg, and a bit of soy sauce . . . what could be simpler?
And sadly, that’s sometimes what you get with Chinese delivery. But fried rice can be delicious.
This is another “non-recipe,” in the sense that it’s infinitely variable and you can customize it to however you like it. (But I would REALLY recommend using oyster sauce rather than soy sauce). This recipe is lightly seasoned, in the sense that you can still taste the rice, the egg, and the vegetables.
Ingredients:
I love shrimp in this (and everywhere else!) and would normally have used smaller (=cheaper) ones, but only had the larger ones on hand. I would recommend chopping them no less than 1/2″, or the taste will be lost:
Some on-line recipes recommend using exclusively sesame oil:
. . . which I don’t recommend, because then you end up with fried rice that tastes like sesame oil and nothing else.
Also, Madge left me this 1/2 bag of frozen mixed vegetable. Ordinarily I would even think about using mixed vegetables, but these are perfect in fried rice.
And I’m still working on my big 4.4-pounder of Napa cabbage, so I added 2 leaves, chopped:
. . . and some Sichuan bacon, which I chopped before adding:
Method:
More skilled people than I can make this in one skillet/wok, but it’s easier to cook each ingredient individually and add it to what I affectionately refer to as a “crap bowl,” then combine everything at the end.
Stir the eggs together with 2 tsp. water. Heat 1 Tbsp. oil, and add the eggs:
Stir them, and as soon as they become opaque (they won’t be totally done), add them to the crap bowl:
Clean the pan, more or less. Heat 2 tsp. oil (if using garlic) or 2 Tbsp. oil (if using onions) and cook the garlic for a minute or so; or if using onions, sauté them for a couple of minutes until slightly softened:
Add to the crap bowl. Heat 2 Tbsp. oil, then add the vegetables and cook for 3-4 minutes, or until of desired doneness:
Remove from the pan and add to, yup, you guessed it . . .. If using raw chicken or shrimp, add about 1 tsp. oil and cook for a couple of minutes, or until done:
And . . .
Rice time! Scrape the cooked rice with a spoon or fork to (mostly) separate the grains. Add 4 Tbsp. oil to the pan, and once heated, add the rice and stir, scraping up the bottom (it will stick), for about 5 minutes:
Add the oyster or soy sauce, and stir to incorporate:
Now add everything that’s in the crap bowl, plus the scallions. If the eggs have consolidated, break them up:
Stir it all together for a couple of minutes, and taste and adjust seasoning. Remove from heat, sprinkle over the sesame oil, and stir it in:
Bowl it up:
Looks pretty, tastes even better.
Yum!
-R
I love mashed potatoes and potato salad, which couldn’t be more American, but my favourite potato recipe is this one from Indonesia, delicious with the starchiness of the potatoes contrasted with acidity, heat, and the richness of coconut cream.
Sambals started in Indonesia, but are popular throughout SE Asia. Typically they have very strong flavours and are very spicy (as in hot), meant to be nibbled as a side to main dishes. Two of my faves, much less hot, are one made with chicken livers, and one made with squid, with is absolutely delicious.
This one is only a bit hot, although, of course, you can adjust that to taste:
Ingredients:
Method:
Cut the icky bits off the potatoes, then chop them into about 1″ to 1-1/2″ chunks:
Bring the potatoes, with enough water to cover them, in a saucepan, to the boil. Turn down the heat to a slow boil, and cook until they’re as done as you like them (start checking at 10 minutes).
Drain them:
And mash them to the desired consistency:
Add the rest of the ingredients:
. . . and stir them in to incorporate well. Taste and adjust seasoning (I add more lemon juice and coconut cream).
Bowl it up, top with cilantro, and enjoy!
Yum!
-R
I love mashed potatoes, which couldn’t be more American, but my favourite potato recipe is from Indonesia, which I’ll post about shortly.
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I don’t make mashed potatoes very often, because the way I like them, they are loaded with fat and salt, and pretty unhealthy. This is the basic recipe, which will be followed by comments about how to make them better:
Ingredients:
Method:
Peel the potatoes (I usually don’t peel potatoes, because I like the texture and taste of the skins, but unpeeled potatoes in mash just seems wrong):
Cut into about 1″ pieces, place in a pot and cover with water. Raise the heat to a boil, then lower it and cook, starting to check at about 10 minutes, until done.
Drain the potatoes. Now you have three choices to turn cooked potatoes into mashed potatoes:
Using the disk with the smallest holes, you get a nice blend of smooth and slightly textured:
But this isn’t the best-designed tool and leaves a lot behind:
Heat the milk, butter, salt and pepper in a skillet until the milk is hot and the butter melted:
Pour it into the potatoes, and stir for a couple of minutes:
So now you have bland mashed potatoes. How to make them better?
(1) Double up on the butter.
(2) Add some sour cream, chopped scallions, and of course nutmeg!
Bowl it up, add another grind of black pepper, and a pat of butter for added decadence/deliciousness:
Yum!
-R