Dried Japanese Bits

Okay, nobody wants to read a post with that title.  And if you do, you've come to the wrong place and will only be disappointed by this family-friendly discussion of spices.  Let's try this again...

Furikake Party

Yes, that's better. 

Many years ago, my friend Brett returned from a semester in Japan bearing gifts, which he presented during a reunion of our high school clique.  Most of our attention was turned toward the bizarre candies, the T-shirts with interesting approaches to grammar, and the comic books ranging in subject matter from quirky to traumatizing, but the item that made the biggest splash for me was an innocuous little packet of mysterious dried flakes.  Its taste eludes my description to this day; the best I can do is relate something one of my friends said upon eating it, which was "It's like soy sauce, only better."

Today, I know that this is called shiso, known to scientists as perilla, and nicknamed "Japanese Basil" or, far less appetizingly, "Beefsteak Plant."  It's a variety of furikake, which is any dried seasoning intended to be put over rice.  But back then, all I knew was what Brett told me: take rice, shape it into a ball, and sprinkle it with whatever this was.  And it was delicious enough that I didn't need to know anything else. 

Until I ran out.  I searched all throughout Cincinnati and Chicago looking for it, but without any real way to describe it to people I couldn't find help.  Brett suggested I try Chinatown, on the grounds that there may be a Japanese influence there. 






There wasn't.  Here's a conversation I recommend you never have:

Me: Hi, do you sell shiso?
Shopkeeper: What's that?
Me: It's some sort of herb that you sprinkle over rice.
Shopkeeper: That sounds Japanese.
Me: Yes, it is.
Shopkeeper: I'm Chinese.
Me: I know that, but do you know where I could find some around here?
Shopkeeper: This is Chinatown.

That day marked my worst flareup of Ignorant White Person Syndrome.  Several people gave me the kind of stare you'd get if you went up to Spike Lee and asked him if he was Tyler Perry. And after all that awkwardness, it turned out there was a Japanese gift shop two blocks north of my apartment that sells shiso.  I even knew the place existed, but never went inside because I didn't think they sold food.  Anyway, if you're in Chicago and you want some shiso, check out J Toguri Mercantile near the Belmont Red Line.  But call them (or me) first to make sure I haven't been there recently*; after all the trouble I went through finding this stuff, I treat it like I'll never see it again.  And by that, I mean I buy every packet I see and eat it so slowly I'm surprised nobody has sent Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle after me.

Right then, tangential backstory's over.  So, you can find sushi rice at pretty much any grocery store with an international section (though not Trader Joe's, for some reason).  Keep in mind that "sushi rice" is actually a blanket term for several varieties of Japanese medium-grain white rice.  Packaging intended to be seen by anglophones often helpfully just says "SUSHI RICE," but it might also be called kokuho, koshihikari, nishiki, or calrose.

Now, you can just sprinkle some shiso over sushi rice and call it a day; I don't expect to get tired of that anytime soon.  But it's not really a full meal.  So the last time I went on a shiso run, I grabbed some other furikake as well:

Trader Joe's sells little packages of seaweed strips for about a dollar apiece.  They're marketed as a light snack, but they work just fine crushed in the hand and sprinkled on as a topping (question everything).  I use the ones that are laced with wasabi flavoring.  Not only does that save me from having to keep perishable wasabi on hand, it solves my two biggest complaints about concentrated wasabi paste: that no matter how well I think I've mixed it around, every bite yields either far too big a mouthful or none at all, and that stinging vapors waft into my eyes when I microwave it.  Be warned, however, that the major appeal of this seaweed comes from its crunch.  Don't microwave it and don't refrigerate it, or it'll turn into an unappetizing mush.  Take anything you don't use and put it in a sealed bag with the dessicant packet that comes included.

Iri goma is roasted sesame seeds.  It's... pretty good, I guess.  I don't know, it's sesame seeds.  Use it if you can find it, don't lose sleep if you can't.

Ume-boshi is pickled plum.  It's normally found in a larger ball form, but because of a combination of its attention-grabbingly tart taste and the relative difficulty of cutting said nuggets into smaller chunks I prefer to work with dried shredded pieces of it when incorporating it into a larger meal.  Sometimes shiso is sold with ume-boshi flakes mixed in; if you find this, buy all of it.  Also, I didn't realize before purchasing this that "chazuke" is actually a seasoning packet meant to be added to boiling water to make a soup, but I found that it's still perfectly good poured over rice (question everything).  Just don't use a whole packet on a dry bowl of rice.  Use a third or half of a packet and seal the rest up with your seaweed.

So, once all of the tasty bits have been haphazardly tossed over the rice, you'll find that a little more substance is necessary.  I like to fry up a little tofu and dice an avocado.  The end result will look a little something like this:

The rice is green because I was feeling particularly fancy and used bamboo rice, which is just sushi rice soaked in bamboo juice.  This is one of my favorite rices (or maybe I just think it tastes better because it's green), but it may be prohibitively expensive (thanks mom!).

So there.  Another perfect meal.  It's cheap, easy, delicious, vegetarian (but still very popular with my omnivorous friends), healthy (or at least low in fat), and its ingredients will keep in your pantry and refrigerator almost indefinitely.  Except for the avocados, but you should always have avocados.  Finding the ingredients is literally 90% of the work.

Happy experimentation!

*Just to be clear, don't ask J Toguri about me.  They have no idea who I am.  Just ask if they have any shiso.  Always focus on the shiso.

Rice Cookers

All right then, my first recipe will showcase the power of my favorite cooking tool.  If you're as clueless about cooking as I was when I was in college, I strongly suggest you go out and get an electric rice cooker.

And in case you're wondering, no, my solution to making cooking easy is not "Go out and buy a different device each week to automate the process."  It's just going to be this one, and even this could probably be skipped; several of my friends have insisted that making rice the old-fashioned way isn't really that difficult.  But I would never have started down this path were it not for my rice cooker, so if I can nudge just one person in the right direction my mission will be an instant success.  There is absolutely no exaggeration when I say that my rice cooker has drastically changed my life.

To use a rice cooker, all you need to do is fill it with rice, then add water.  How much water?  There's a helpful graph carved into the side of the pot that shows how much water is needed to cook the number of cups of rice you are making.  Then you put the lid on, flip the switch, and the pot heats up for about 20-30 minutes until all the water has been absorbed, at which point it automatically switches to stand-by mode and keeps your rice warm indefinitely (it'll stay fresh for at least a few hours).  That's all.  You don't even have to supervise it.  In fact, I once started a pot of rice, left my apartment to go buy a sauce to put on it, and came back to find everything in perfect edible order.
 
I estimate I've made at least 300 pots of rice with this thing, and I've screwed it up three times.  My very first pot, I somehow didn't correctly follow the simple directions I just laid out for you.  Another time, I tried to make five different species of rice in the same pot, only to find that an grainy race riot had erupted in my kitchen.  The third time... well, that's a story for another day, but I got a little too cocky.  Yes, cockier than leaving my apartment while cooking.  Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, a rice cooker will handle all the logistics of food preparation, leaving you to concentrate on experimenting with flavors.  Today's recipe is my pinnacle of the best taste for the least amount of effort.

Start with a bag of white jasmine rice.  Jasmine is a staple of Thai cuisine; it's not much different from the rices we as Americans are used to, but it's a little lighter and more fragrant. 

Now, we hit on the most important rule of being a Bartender of Food: QUESTION EVERYTHING.  For every sensible guideline set forth by generations of chefs for your personal protection, there is a frivolous ultimatum that will do nothing but hold you back.  The only way to know the difference is to break every rule at least once to see what you can get away with.  You're not going to poison yourself or burn your house down, so just take a chance.

The rule we are breaking is a fundamental assumption found in the user manual of every rice cooker: the insistence that the rice must be boiled in water.  Helpful as this suggestion may be, it is unnecessary; water is one of my favorite liquids, but there's no need to use it as a crutch.  In Indonesia, rice is boiled in coconut milk, and this tradition is more than reproducible in a rice cooker.  So just crack open a can of coconut milk and pour it into the pot.  It's okay if the liquid doesn't rise all the way to the desired level; we'll fill it the rest of the way with... okay, maybe water is a crutch here too.  Shut up.

Once your rice is finished cooking, sprinkle on some cashews and dice an avocado.  Then pull out your secret weapon:

There are a lot of peanut sauces used in eastern cooking, but this one is my favorite; it's a little sweeter than the others, and just spicy enough to enhance the taste without overpowering even the most vehement of blanditarians.  It's meant to be used with grilled chicken, either as a marinade or for dipping, but if you QUESTION EVERYTHING, you'll find it does quite well paired up with rice.  Along with coconut milk and jasmine rice, you can find it in just about any grocery store with an international section.  Do note, however, that different brands of satay peanut sauce can sometimes vary wildly in taste.  Taste of Thai is easily my favorite, and it's the closest approximation to what I've had in Thai restaurants.  Thai Kitchen and Trader Joe's are both pretty good but they're a little less sweet and thus strike me more as "just another peanut sauce" than something special.  Another brand, Dynasty, is noticeably spicier but isn't good enough to stand on its own.  It is, however, the cheapest of all of these, and can still be used to good effect in a more complex dish that doesn't focus on it, so it could still be worth a look.

Anyway, I wish I had more fancy cooking instructions and less background information here, but then again, I chose to start with this "recipe" because of how ludicrously easy it is.  Open a can, measure a liquid, flip a switch, and open a jar.  The cashews and avocado aren't exactly high-maintenance either.  So that's five minutes of preparation and less than thirty minutes of unsupervised waiting, to get 4-5 servings of this:

Satay peanut sauce isn't just great here, it's a fantastic thing to keep in your cupboard.  If cooking is a battle, this stuff is a nuclear strike; you don't want to rely on it every time, but having it at as backup will sure help you sleep better at night.  If you're ever trying to cook with limited supplies or you want to salvage an experiment that didn't live up to your expectations, you can just pour satay on it and watch the problem disappear.  In fact, everything I just listed here except for the avocados will survive in a pantry indefinitely, so I am at any given point just one avocado away from making this meal.

All in all, a wonderful tool to have in your repertoire.  Until next time, keep mashing foodstuffs together and eating the result.

Mission Statement

Hello there, and welcome to Bartender of Food!

I created this space because I have eating habits unlike those of most other people.  I cook nearly every meal I eat, sometimes from scratch, but I have next to zero cooking knowledge.

The meals I make are usually delicious, always on the healthier side, incredibly easy to prepare, flexible and adaptable, and the ingredients are most often cheap to acquire.  Also, they're all vegetarian, but that's just because I happen to be one.  I'm not going to push my beliefs on you; if you want to grill up a steak and toss it on one of my creations, more power to you.

They don't come from cookbooks either; I am not blessed with the necessary attention span to sit down, read a book, make a list, go out and buy ingredients, and then follow step-by-step instructions to assemble a carefully-crafted culinary experience honed through generations of refinement.  My meals come from throwing whatever I have on top of whatever else is laying around, and seeing what sticks.

I might not know much about cooking, but I've developed a pretty good instinct for mixing flavors.  And I have an exceedingly high tolerance for questionable meals (provided the base ingredients were respectable), so I try things most people wouldn't with little to no fear of failure.  At best, I'll have a fantastic dish that expresses my individuality, and at worst it'll still be better than instant ramen.

In the weeks to come, I will document some of my prouder accomplishments, usually as a means to illustrate something I've learned or give focus to an ingredient you should know about.  However, my goal is not to get you to cook these exact meals.  Rather, I want to train you in my way of thinking, and show you how easy it is to prepare delicious dishes, on a budget, without having any idea what you're doing.  If this blog is successful, you too will be tossing miscellaneous bits of produce atop a steaming pile of vague carbohydrates, and sprinkling on a ragtag assortment of spices or maybe cracking open a jar of sauce you found laying around, only to wind up with a meal that will impress your friends.

They'll taste your latest invention and say, albeit with a hint of hyperbole, "Wow, you're quite the chef."  And you'll answer with my motto:

I'm not a chef.  I'm a bartender of food.