The Best I Can Do

This is the sandwich I packed for my work lunch. It wasn't pretty, nor was it ideal. Then again, few things in this world are ever perfect, especially when you’re racing to pack a lunch (a thrift born of necessity) and simultaneously getting your five-year-old ready for school. So this is not food porn, but food reality. I used a leftover baguette from the previous day, and it was pretty stale. However, I slathered mayonnaise mixed with chili garlic sauce on it, which softened it up a little bit. I was attempting a vegetarian version of a banh mi, which is a French-influenced Vietnamese sandwich that I used to be able to buy for $2.00 when I went to school at the University of Washington in Seattle. (The Vietnamese baguette is made from a mixture of rice and wheat flours, which makes it lighter and not as chewy as the French version. But since I wasn't aiming for perfection, the French baguette worked fine. Plus I prefer my bread to be chewy.)

I now work on a college campus in Atlanta, and am married to a graduate student (ie: still poor), and you can’t get anything here for two bucks unless it's fast food, and there are definitely no banh mi. What good is working at a college, I ask, if it doesn’t provide you access to cheap, delicious sandwiches? What student can afford to pay $7.00 for a mediocre sandwich? People, this is what is wrong with the world today. Or, maybe not the world, just Atlanta.

Anyhow, I did my best to re-create a banh mi with the meager resources at hand, meaning leftovers in my fridge. I had sliced tempeh that I had baked in a mixture of water, salt and soy sauce. That went on after the chili-garlic/mayo mixture. Sliced cucumber, several sprigs of cilantro. I wanted some sliced jalapeno, but didn’t have one, and I wanted some sliced onion, but didn’t have time for that. I also wanted some pickled carrots and daikon radish, but didn’t have that either. So this was my sandwich, imperfect but respectable nonetheless. And it tasted really, really good. In fact, it was the best work lunch I’ve had in months. But I know it could be even better. So can someone please open a utilitarian Vietnamese restaurant with low overhead cost within walking distance of my office, and charge $2.00 per sandwich? Five dollar bowls of pho and complimentary cream puffs would also be appreciated.

Cabbage-Eaters of the World, Unite!

I come from a long line of cabbage-eaters. While I’m only half German, and therefore technically only half cabbage-eater according to the official definition (as defined by Cassell's Dictionary of Slang), I’m pretty sure the Finnish side has eaten more than its fair share of cabbage through the ages. The sad thing is, I can’t remember once in my life being served cabbage by any of my blood relatives. In fact, the only time I’ve ever been served cabbage (by someone other than myself) has been in the form of curry cooked by my Indian mother-in-law. Well, unless you count coleslaw. Which doesn’t really count, as it’s not cooked and therefore doesn’t carry the same baggage (ie: smell, much associated in times past with working class immigrant homes).

I’m not sure why it took me so long to be exposed to the wonders of cooked cabbage – maybe my relatives wanted to distance themselves from its pejorative connotations. Or maybe I just grew up in a time and place when all vegetables came from a can, and as far as I know, they don’t sell canned cabbage. (Very fortunate.) I think I was finally in my early to mid-twenties before I gave it a try and cooked some for myself.

As a side note, as I write this, I have in the back of my mind an M.F.K. Fisher essay from 1937 – “The Social Status of a Vegetable.”

    At the word spinach her face clouded, but when I mentioned cabbage a look of complete and horrified disgust settled like a cloud. She pushed back her chair.
     "Cabbage!" Her tone was incredulous.
     "Why not?" James asked, mildly. "Cabbage is the staff of life in many countries. You ought to know, Mrs Davidson. Weren't you raised on a farm?"
     Her mouth settled grimly.
     "As you know, she remarked in any icy voice, with her face gradually looking very old and discontented again, "there are many kinds of farms. My home was not a collection of peasants. Nor did we eat such – such peasant things as this."

At the end of the essay, Ms. Fisher asks, "Who determines, and for what strange reasons, the social status of a vegetable?" I really don't know, but I bet someone somewhere has written a Ph.D. dissertation on the subject since then. The question that's been troubling me is this: If cabbage is the low-brow vegetable, then what is its opposite? What is the high-brow elitist vegetable of our time? One that immediately sprang to my mind was arugula. And then I laughed, because arugula is actually in the same plant family as cabbage (Brassicaceae), so they're related! Poor country bumpkin cousin cabbage.

At any rate, I love cabbage and I'm not afraid to admit it. And while cabbage curry is delightful, sometimes I don't want too many extra ingredients coming between my taste buds and the sweet taste of the cabbage. So I was browsing my usual internet haunts, and came across this lovely recipe for Noodles and Fried Cabbage on Salon. It calls for nothing more than cooked noodles, cabbage, salt, pepper, and a truly ridiculous amount of butter (which believe it or not I actually reduced by more than half in my own version below). The author claims a Hungarian origin for this recipe, but I found that it's also considered to be German and Polish (the Polish name for it being haluski, and apparently it's hugely popular in Pittsburgh). Some people also fry onions along with the cabbage, and I briefly considered doing so myself, but swiftly decided against it, as I think for this dish it should be all about the cabbage. It might seem crazy, but it really worked for me. Really. And don't be scared of the butter. We peasants need it, to keep our backs strong. Well, I don't know if it will keep your back strong, but it will keep you pleasantly full figured. As my great-grandmother always said, and I really do believe this is true, "You need a little bit extra on you, in case you get sick."

Here's the version I came up with:
Fried Cabbage and Noodles
Adapted from Ann Nichols on Salon.com
Ingredients
1 large head of cabbage, thinly sliced in two-inch long pieces
1 and a half sticks of salted butter
1 pound of egg fettucine, cooked (You need egg noodles, it's just not the same without it. You could use the regular wide egg noodles, but I thought the egg fettucine had a nice toothsome thickness to it which worked well with the tender cabbage.)
salt to taste
freshly ground black pepper

Cook the noodles and drain according to package directions. Melt the butter in a pot large enough to hold all the cabbage. Throw in the cabbage and some salt and cook on medium to medium-high heat until the cabbage is very tender, and a bit brown in spots. Throw the drained noodles into the pot with the cabbage and mix thoroughly. Add more salt if needed. Serve with freshly ground black pepper on top. Don't skip the pepper – seriously, it's really important.

Non-Instant Breakfast

I have some strong opinions about food (and about many other things, beyond the scope of this blog). For example, oatmeal that comes in a little packet should be banned. It is vile sugar glue. Non-instant rolled oats are all right, and only take a few minutes longer than instant. The best, however, is steel-cut oats. It takes a little while to cook them, but the wait is well worth it. No gluey texture whatsoever, and the most oaty flavor. I say it's worth the wait, because what's the point of cooking oats without oaty flavor? Better half an hour well spent than two minutes wasted. Anyway, if you make extra, you can always reheat it within a few minutes the following morning, if you are in a rush.

Cooking steel-cut oats is easy, as long as you can wait. Just add three parts water to one part oats, bring to a boil in a heavy saucepan, then lower heat and simmer, stirring fairly often for about 25 minutes, or until the desired consistency is reached. One thing I like to do is add some chopped apples and a little cinammon about halfway into the cooking process. By the time the oatmeal is done, the apples are nice and soft. And the cinammon smell makes my children actually want to stop what they're doing and eat. Then serve the oatmeal in a bowl, add a little whole milk and honey, maybe some chopped walnuts, and enjoy your breakfast.

This morning, I had some extra chopped apples so I added a little chaat masala to them, and we had instant Indian street food alongside our non-instant oatmeal for breakfast. There are some instant foods well worth supporting. Well, I should say my husband and I ate the chaat apples, as my kids wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot pole. Chaat masala has a very strong flavor, and is maybe not your normal breakfast fare, but it did wake up our mouths. (I may do a more thorough post on chaat in the future. Chaat is an entire genre of Indian snacks. For those who are interested, chaat masala is a spice blend you can buy in any Indian store. Or, if motivated, you could make your own, though the stuff from the store is quite good. It's got a sour, spicy, sweet flavor, in addition to a sulfurous flavor from something called black salt, or kala namak. For the uninitiated, the sulfurous flavor takes some getting used to, but once you do, you will find you are addicted to it. It just makes things taste so strange, and yet, so good.)

Oatmeal Update: I just ran across this in the Chow home cooking digest, and it has some great ideas for "instant" non-instant oatmeal.

I Heart Lentil Chutney

I’m finally getting around to posting the recipe for the lentil chutney my mother-in-law mentioned a few weeks ago. We never did get around to making it back then, but I did make a version a few days ago, and I can now confirm that it is excellent. It’s supposed to be served mixed with rice and a little ghee, though I ate several spoonfuls of it all by itself. It’s got a great savory, spicy, nutty flavor, and a slightly crunchy texture which offsets the softness of the rice quite nicely.

I made a carrot curry that night to go along with everything, and the sweetness of the carrots worked well with the chutney. But it would be great with the garlic pepper kozhambu Periamma made before Christmas, or pretty much anything else you can think of. Or just by itself, which though unorthodox, works for me! (As an aside, since I’m not Indian, I find I’m always doing things a little bit wrong. Some might call it “the rape of cuisine,” but I like to think of the cuisine as a willing partner. Have you ever seen the movie “Big Night”? That’s where I picked up the concept of “the rape of cuisine.” I love that movie.)

Lentil Chutney
Parupu Thuvaiyal
Adapted from Dakshin: Vegetarian Cuisine from South India by Chandra Padmanabhan

Note: My mother-in-law’s version does not include coconut, though the recipe below does. I made it with thawed out frozen shredded coconut, and it worked out well. Dried flaked coconut would also be fine. And I think it would also be good without coconut. As an added benefit, it would keep longer, as coconut spoils quickly. Oh, and of course it would have less fat, but honestly, who is keeping track? Hint: not me.

2 tablespoons ghee
1/2 cup uncooked toor dal, picked over and rinsed
2 dried red chilies
1/2 teaspoon asafoetida powder
4 tablespoons grated fresh coconut or 5 1/2 tablespoons flaked coconut
salt to taste

Heat 2 tablespoons ghee in a heavy skillet. Saute the toor dal, red chilies, and asafoetida powder until the toor dal turns golden in color. It should have a roasted, nutty smell, but not smell burnt. When done, remove this mixture from the hot skillet immediately as it can burn quickly. Pour the mixture into a blender. Add the grated coconut and salt to taste. Blend the ingredients into a fine paste, thinning with water a little bit at a time as needed to get the mixture to blend. Serve with hot rice and ghee.

(If you have a regular old blender, and are not fortunate enough to have had an Indian Preethi mixie bequeathed to you, you might have to add a little more water. I burned out two motors on my American blenders before I got the Preethi.)

Comfort Sushi

When I think about comforting post-stomach flu food, sushi is not the first thing that springs to my mind. Apparently it is the first thing that springs to my five-year-old daughter's mind. She hadn't been able to keep anything down for two days, then when she finally could eat, she only wanted sushi. Not sushi with raw fish on it, or any fish at all. Just a small sushi roll (maki) with a little piece of avocado inside, the only kind that she ever eats. A little soy sauce on the side for dipping. No wasabi, of course.

So we decided we'd all have sushi. I bought toasted nori sheets and some baked teriyaki tofu from the store. At home, we already had the sushi rice, avocados and soy sauce (and for the adults we had wasabi, mayonnaise and chili garlic sauce). We also had miso for miso soup, which I thought might also help my girl's stomach.

My husband made the rice while waiting for me to return from the store. Once I was home, I mixed the chili garlic sauce with the mayonnaise so that it was good and spicy, and made the miso soup. Meanwhile, my husband sliced the avocados and tofu. Our unfortunate house guest, who was being a very good sport about being stuck at home with us and our sick kid and one very energetic stir-crazy healthy one, rolled the sushi. (I should add at this point that none of us are expert sushi chefs, and our presentation left much to be desired according to Japanese standards. But I thought our large plate of sushi was beautiful in its imperfection. And it did taste good.)

I brought the first pieces to my daughter. She ravenously crammed the first bite into her mouth. Then she stopped and smiled with her mouth full of food. My husband anxiously asked, "Does it taste like real sushi?" "Yesh." She ate that piece, declared she was finished, and closed her eyes for a nap.

How to Make Sushi
It might seem weird, but I think sushi can be a great comfort food. You can make it comfortingly soft and squishy (like we did with just avocado, and additionally baked tofu for the grown ups), or add crunchy things like cucumber or blanched asparagus for a little more textural interest. It also makes a great kid food, since it looks fun (Hey, little wheels!), is slightly sweet, and you can eat it with your fingers.

First of all, you will need to make sushi rice.

Sushi Rice (adapted from Food Network's Alton Brown)

Ingredients
2 cups sushi or short grain rice
2 cups water, plus extra for rinsing rice
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt (I think it would be fine to use less salt, maybe even just one teaspoon, which is what we did. Most likely you're going to be dipping in soy sauce, which itself is extremely salty.)

Place the rice into a large, heavy bottomed saucepan and cover with cool water. Swirl the rice in the water, pour off and repeat 2 to 3 times or until the water is mostly clear.

Pour 2 cups of water into the drained rice. (At this point, many people recommend soaking the rice in the cooking water for 15-30 minutes. If you don't have time for this, just skip it. The rice will still turn out OK.) Place the uncovered saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat to low and cover. Cook for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand, covered, for 10 minutes.

Combine the rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar dissolves. Do not boil. Transfer the rice into a large wooden or glass mixing bowl and add the vinegar mixture. Mix thoroughly. Cool the rice to room temperature before using. Warm rice will make the seaweed soggy.

Assembling the sushi
You will need a sushi mat (buy at an Asian grocery or order online), your sushi rice, sheets of nori (the dark seaweed "skin" of the sushi), and whatever filling ingredients you desire. For the filling you can use avocado, cucumber, shitake mushrooms, grated carrots, blanched asparagus, tofu, tempeh, or whatever you can think of. Be creative. On this last batch that we made, we also used a mixture of mayonnaise and chili garlic sauce to spread along with our filling ingredients. It worked, kind of like a vegetarian "spicy tuna" roll.

After you've got everything you need, start putting it together. You can find a good tutorial, including very helpful pictures, here. It's not hard. If your roll doesn't seal, wet your fingers slightly and apply moisture to the edge. It will cause the nori to stick to itself.

To make the dipping sauce, mix wasabi paste with soy sauce. Don't use too much wasabi or you will cry tears of true pain. As an aside, most all the wasabi you can get here in America is not wasabi, which is rare and therefore expensive, and grows only in Japan, but a mixture of horseradish and mustard. Here in Decatur, I get most of my Asian ingredients at the Dekalb Farmer's Market, but probably Whole Foods would have them as well. Or of course, any Asian grocery.