813 recipes. Page 7 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
Crosshatched purple eggplant skin looks like a turtle's shell, and ground sesame clouding the broth looks like mud, hence the name mud turtle soup. This summer soup from the Koto region of Shiga gets slight body from finely ground rice porridge, which also keeps the large amount of toasted sesame from sinking straight to the bottom.
Sardines salted in spring sit through the summer, then are cooked down in late autumn into a thick liquid that pickles whole daikon. Spanning two seasons, this Kakudahama, Niigata tradition is closer to a yearly project than a quick pickle. The radish stays firm but takes on the strong salt and smell of fermented fish. It is sliced thin and eaten with rice a little at a time. The makers use shirokubi daikon, and bottled fish sauce does not stand in for the brine the spring cure produces. A ventilated space for handling and cooking fish, a large barrel and heavy weights matter as much as the ingredients.
At midday the alleys of Hanoi's Old Quarter fill with smoke from pork grilling over charcoal, and the grilled meat goes into a bowl of sweet, sour fish sauce, eaten with rice vermicelli and herbs. That sauce is thinner than a dip, closer to a light broth sipped between bites. This version grills both small ground-pork patties and pieces of pork neck, and soaks thin slices of carrot in the sauce.
Blanched wakegi scallions are folded at the white base to form a core, then the green leaves are wound tightly around it into bite-size coils. The thick white base goes into the pot ahead of the faster-cooking thin leaves, and that head start keeps the leaves from going limp. Twisting tears the blanched stalks; they are pressed dry from base to tip instead, because leftover water makes the leaves slip, the coils unwind and the dip turn thin. No toothpick holds them; a little sticky sap from the pinched leaf tip glues the end in place. They are served lined up beside a sweet-tart dip of white miso, sugar, vinegar and mirin.
Pig trotters simmer here until the bones slip out and the broth sets to a jelly once cold. The Okinawan method first blanches them in water spiked with awamori, the island's rice spirit, to strip away odor and excess fat, then adds kombu and daikon radish for the long simmer. Seasoning stays light, just salt and a little soy sauce, and the broth tastes clean. The dish carries on Ryukyu pork cookery, which used every part of the animal and passed from the royal court into ordinary homes.
Two ropes of brioche, one plain and one tinted with matcha, are twisted and tied into knots, so each piece pulls apart in alternating white and green. Toasted sesame seeds pressed on before the surface dries get toasted a second time in the oven.
Like Japanese home curry, this one gets its body from a block of curry roux, with chicken thighs as the meat and enough in one pot for four plates. Only the potato is cut a little larger than the other vegetables, so it still has its shape after simmering.
No champuru goes without firm Okinawan island tofu. Here it is torn into large pieces and browned first; thin slices of goya get a short stir-fry and a coating of egg, and then boiled pork belly and the tofu go back in. It started as summer home cooking and is now on Okinawan tables all year.
Brown sugar water turns this steamed cake dark all the way through, and toasted black sesame covers the top. With baking powder instead of a slow rise, farm households in Miyagi could steam one quickly as a snack for children or a break during field work. One explanation says the dark, fluffy cake reminded people of wild-goose meat, and the brown version is also called kuro-ganzuki.
Whole sea bream, turban shells, squid and shrimp are salted and roasted under a tight lid in a horaku, an earthenware pot lined with heat-proof gravel and pine needles, with no water added. An Imabari specialty in Ehime, it is tied by tradition to the victory feasts of the Murakami naval forces of the Muromachi period and is also called pirate cuisine. Hard-boiled eggs, sweet potato and ginkgo nuts are tucked around the fish, and the whole pot comes to the table for five. If the pine scent turns burnt or the smoke thickens, the heat comes down at once. To keep the cold pot from cracking, it starts on low heat before the covered roast.
Donko, a Miyagi name for ezo isoaine and chigo cod, firms up and develops a rich liver from autumn into winter, and this soup uses the whole fish: flesh, head, bones and liver. The fish's wide mouth and tapering tail made it a lucky symbol, money flowing in and not slipping out, so around Kesennuma families hung donko at the household altar for Ebisu observances before turning it into soup. It is still served to warm winter guests.
Halved eggplants layered with sweetened sticky rice, yellow chrysanthemum petals and sliced red chili show stripes of yellow and red when cut. In southern Akita it has long been set out at New Year and on celebration tables, and it is called sushi because the pickle is built on rice, not fish. Sugar, salt and sake are mixed into the rice, which becomes the pickling bed: the eggplant comes out more sweet than salty, with soft rice clinging to it. Alum, chrysanthemum and bamboo leaves all have to be food-grade, with no decorative flowers or unidentified leaves. The container stays at 4°C the whole time, and any mold or rotten smell means it is not eaten.
Soft crab balls rise through a red, tomato-sour broth in this Vietnamese noodle soup. In northern Vietnam the traditional version pounds whole paddy crabs and strains the liquid, which sets into a custard-like layer as it heats, while this recipe mixes crabmeat, ground pork and egg into a sticky paste instead. Everything rides on the balls holding together: the paste goes by the spoonful into broth that is barely moving and stays unstirred until the pieces firm up. Shrimp paste goes in a little at a time because it is strongly salty.
Soft rehydrated wakame and lightly salted cucumber slices sit in a cold, sweet-sour dressing of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar and sesame oil. The recipe is built around plain dried cut wakame that only needs soaking, so there is no blanching step. Salted wakame or a ready-made seaweed salad from the chiller case will not give the same result, since their texture and seasoning differ.
Cheek meat, fin meat, skin, stomach, liver and roe from one large white-fleshed fish are each blanched or boiled separately, then arranged together on a big platter with seasonal vegetables such as cucumber. This feast dish comes from Taketa in Oita Prefecture, where large sea fish were scarce and nothing from one was wasted. Kabosu, a tart Oita citrus, is squeezed into vinegar-soy sauce for dipping, and each part brings its own texture in turn. Each part needs its own cooking time, which is why nothing shares a pot.
White chocolate melted with butter, rather than dark chocolate or cocoa, makes up the base, and matcha turns the whole pan bright green. The cocoa butter in white chocolate is what gives these a dense, fudgy chew instead of a cakey crumb. Chips stirred into the batter only half melt, leaving small pockets of concentrated sweetness.
This two-serving chirashi-zushi arranges salmon and tuna sashimi, thin egg crepe, cucumber, blanched lotus root, and salmon roe over rice seasoned with sushi vinegar. Fold the seasoning into the warm rice without crushing the grains, spread it out, and let the steam escape before adding raw fish. Cook the egg in a thin sheet and cut it into 3 mm strips. Blanch the sliced lotus root for 1 minute and drain it well so excess water does not collect on the rice. Keep the sashimi refrigerated until assembly, blot only surface moisture with a clean paper towel, and serve the finished bowls immediately.
The name means meat returned to the pot: pork belly is simmered whole, cooled, sliced thin, then fried again in the wok. That second round crisps the edges while the fat turns pleasantly chewy, and doubanjiang (chili bean paste) with fermented black beans coats it in a salty, spicy sauce. Leek and green pepper go in at the end and stay crunchy. How much soy sauce to add depends on the doubanjiang, as brands vary a lot in saltiness.
Three grain flours, takakibi sorghum, glutinous foxtail millet, and inakibi millet, are mixed into separate doughs, and every dumpling gets a fingertip pressed into its center for a navel-like hollow. They cook in sweet azuki soup until they float, which is where the other name, ukiuki dango, comes from. In northern Iwate they were offered to deities and served to guests after the harvest.
A whole char of about 25 cm is threaded onto a long bamboo skewer in a gentle wave, salted and nothing else, and grilled slowly by the radiant heat of charcoal embers until the skin is dry and the flesh still moist. Char live in clear mountain headwaters and were hard to catch until Miyagi Prefecture became the first in Japan to farm them, which made the fish a familiar taste around Kurihara.
Pacific saury is pounded in a mortar until sticky, mixed with miso, egg and sake, and shaped into balls that go into plain water first. The miso and fish in the balls turn that water into broth, and daikon, carrot and tofu follow.
Daikon split at an angle into thick, rough chunks soaks up sweet amazake, a thick, lightly fermented rice drink, while the center stays crunchy. Everything stays at 4°C or below from the first salting through storage. Mold, an off smell or unusual sliminess means the batch is discarded without tasting.
Pork marinated in fish sauce, sugar, and garlic and seared over high heat develops a caramelized brown edge while the inside stays juicy. In this southern Vietnamese bowl it goes, still warm, over chilled rice vermicelli and raw greens, and that hot-cold contrast is much of the pleasure. A sweet-sour dressing of lime juice and fish sauce ties meat, noodles, and vegetables together with no broth at all.
Tomato, cucumber and red onion are diced to half a centimeter or smaller, so a single spoonful carries juice, crunch and bite in equal measure. With only lemon juice, olive oil and salt as dressing, the ripeness of the tomatoes decides almost everything.