Being Lazy

Someone gave us a whole kabocha squash. Normally I don’t like using whole kabocha. It’s a pain to breakdown. The skin is so hard, I’m afraid of hacking  of body parts.

This time, I thought I’d try something different. I cut out the stem, poured about a cup of water inside (i didn’t even bother to clean it out, and threw the whole thing in the oven (400 degrees, 60 minutes).

This is what came out.

Steam Baked Kabocha

Not steampunk, steambaked.

From this point, the squash was soft enough  to slice through and clean.

Cooked Kabocha Squash

The method seems to have worked. I’ll find out how it tastes from The Cat later tonight (I packed a wedge for her dinner).

Eat well.

The Mouse

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Dragon Breath

No, I’m not talking about what happens when I eat a lot of garlic, onions, and peppers. I’m talking about the “breath of the wok”. I know I’m not coming close to creating the heat (in temperature) in order to achieve the “breath of the wok” taste and texture. I’m still experimenting, without burning down the house.

Flash Fried Romaine Lettuce

Flash Fried Asparagus

Both were simply seasoned with Kauai sea salt. Both had little burned edges but not quite enough.

Know where I can hire a baby dragon? Maybe that will work for food? Anybody?  :)

Enjoy.

The Mouse

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Making Jai or Lo Han Cai

As mentioned in the previous post, Aunty M asked if I wanted to watch and learn how she makes jai. This is like Obi-Wan Kenobi teaching you the ways of the force. Foolish to say no, one would be.

The Cat jai should be called lo han cai. Lo han (not the “actress”) are Buddhist practitioners (monks) that have achieved a high level of wisdom and skill. Cai are vegetables or vegetable products. So lo han cai is “monk’s vegetarian food”. When I was growing up, I always knew it as jai, for simplicity, I’ll just refer to it as jai.

When I got there, she had already cleaned and soaked the ingredients. She soaks the dry ingredients a couple of days beforehand. She cleaned the fresh ingredients at least a day before. She paced herself so that she isn’t rushed and have to do everything at once. Good thinking.

According to Aunty M, the secret is in the sauce. Her sauce consists of red and white fermented beancurd,

Fermented Beancurd

Chinese oyster sauce, water, and sugar. I didn’t get the proportions (it’s a secret). I’ll experiment later.

The Secret Sauce

Aunty M has about fifteen ingredients that go into her jai, including several different dried and fried beancurd, mushrooms, ginkgo nuts, dried chestnuts, water chestnuts, tree ear fungus, long rice, dried oysters, fa cai (a fungus), etc. She starts off by heating a large pot and pouring enough oil to coat the bottom.

I still remember a lesson from watching Martin Yan (Yan Can Cook). When he had a show on PBS: “Hot pan, cold oil, food don’t stick”.

She then adds the ingredients, in no particular order except sturdy ones first.

Dried Beancurd

More Dried Beancurd

There was another dried beancurd variety that looks like thin sheets of parchment paper (sorry, no picture). Some restaurants that serve dim sum do stuff deep fried beancurd with the thin sheets.

Dried Mushrooms

Aunty M also added canned straw mushrooms.

Deep Fried Doufu

Shi Gu

I’m not sure what shi gu is. Aunty M forgot the English name and The Cat knows what it is but not the English name. I have to go to Chinatown and look for before it’s peeled and cleaned.

Dried Chestnuts

Dried Lilly Flowers

Ginkgo Nuts

Long Rice or Cellophane Noodles

Fa Cai

Last but not least

Dried Oysters

After bring everything to boil and simmering for a bit, gentle stirring, adjusting for taste, all the ingredients blend and you get

Jai!

The taste was very good. Aunty M pointed out that every family makes jai a little differently. There is no correct recipe, but the basics are lots of soybean products, including the fermented soybean.

Thanks Aunty M for another culinary experience (with the grilled cheese sandwich it began, yes, hmm).

Enjoy.

The Mouse

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Pig Feet Soup

I think I’ve posted about pig’s feet soup before, if so, here we go again. Now that the weather’s gotten a bit cooler, it’s soup season again (cold season for us is the lower 70′s F, so sue us). No chicken feet at the market, so The Cat settled for pig feet.

This time the ingredients were pig feet, raw peanuts, turnips, dried red dates, and dried shiitake mushrooms. Ingredients added at the end or when reheating were Napa cabbage and enoki mushrooms.

The results.

Pig Feet Soup, First Night

First night, no Napa cabbage and no enoki mushrooms.

Pig Feet Soup, Second Night

Second Night with Napa Cabbage and enoki mushrooms. Served with mushroom rice and stir-fried Shanghai cabbage.

Mushroom Brown Rice

Shanghai Cabbage

The shiitake dashi is used as cooking liquid for the rice instead of water.

The Cat's Pig Feet Soup Teishoku

The Cat was happy.

Shiitake dashi is just the water that the dried shiitake mushrooms soak in. Additional seasoning is added when used. For the rice, no additional seasoning was added.

Enjoy.

The Mouse

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Black Foil

At the Japanese membership warehouse market, a couple different kinds of black foil was on sale. I picked-up the foil to roast sweet potatoes. The store also had foil to roast corn on the cob and to steam fish and vegetables. I could tell the foil was for sweet potatoes by the picture on the box.

Black Foil for Sweet Potatoes

One side of the foil is black, the other side is regular.

Black Foil

Based on the pictures on the box, the black side of the foil faces out (doesn’t touch the food).

Black Side Out

We usually roast Okinawan sweet potatoes (the purple flesh variety). The Okinawan sweet potato I had was too large to roast whole. I peeled the sweet potato and cut into chunks. Half of the sweet potato was roasted using regular foil (for control purposes), and half with the black foil.

I usually roast sweet potatoes for one hour in our toaster oven.

The sweet potatoes on the left and center were roasted with black foil, the sweet potatoes on the right were roasted with regular foil.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

The sweet potatoes roasted in the black foil seems to be cooked at a higher temperature. There was more caramelization on the surface and the texture was softer on the inside than the sweet potatoes roasted in regular foil. Next time the foils are on sale, we may try the other selections.

Enjoy.

The Mouse

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