mystery meat - but of course!

Quiz time! Here's some mystery meat for you - something I'm guessing not all of you have given a try yet. Or seen sold as food.

Ok ok, here's a hint - what's four-legged, hangs out in the desert, and has one or two humps on its back, varying by region?

If you answered anything other than camel, you were totally wrong! It's totally camel.

double the hump for double the flavor!

I got this in a seal-pack from a friend who claims it's common eating back home. It was heavily salted, but rather palatable. I would say it tastes a lot like kangaroo, but since that may not be very helpful to some of you as a description, I will say it was similar to a fat-free and somewhat coarser lamb shank.

We had it pan fried with a simple stir-fry that utilized the vegetables around the house at the time. By the way, back home for my Uighur friend is a city in the Xinjiang region of China, an area of what used to be the Silk Road. Apparently camels are used not only for packing, but raised as we raise cattle as a source of food.

It was a first for me, and I'll be sure to ask what kinds of recipes camel tends to be used in!

chorizo sausage - not for desayuno today

X marks the spot?

Sausage often is mistaken solely as a breakfast food – and let’s admit it, it works well with eggs. It doesn’t feel fancy enough for dinner, or quite solid enough for lunch. I decided to see if something couldn’t be done about that.

So the goal was a solid, tasty, fine-looking meal. I didn't quite end up with that, but something interesting came of it.

In Japan, there’re all these different ways to cut up mini sausages for bento box lunches, so I figured that was a good starting point. The octopus cut gives the wiener its eight legs, and I used this to make flowers. As you can see though I only managed four legs because of the meat density difference between mini wieners and chorizo.

Since they were top heavy, I needed something that they could stick in like a mashed potato or a pâté. I decided to go with a purée when I discovered that I was out of potatos.

Because I used spicy chorizo, I went with a fresh apple purée – reminiscent of applesauce - to mellow things down. After all, sausage is pork right? The flavors do go well together.

This wouldn’t be enough on its own, but it could work if accompanied by a starch. I don't think it's perfected, but it was good. A work in progress!

pottery continued - and to be continued

my first attempt here at making a bowl on the wheel

As promised I have to update you on my newest endeavor - Japanese pottery making. Mr. Sano runs a small workshop out in the foothills on the outskirts of Takamatsu, and he kindly agreed to teach me some of his methods.

Since food and plateware share an obviously integral connection, I thought it'd be nice to learn some techniques while thinking about what could be plated on them.

One thing that I always notice about Japanese earthenware like pottery is that it tends to be more natural in shape - rougher and more reliant on it's materials. The potters are clearly not always aiming for that perfect round shape; plates that look like torn sheets of paper and unspun handmade cups with thick one-sided glazes. Mr. Sano's pottery is a prime example of this, pottery that doesn't deny what it is - dirt and clay.

This time around managed to finish up some bowls, sauce dishes and little things but they still need to be glazed. Update and finished pottery after they get fired.

food graffiti on the bottom of a sauce dish

warabi hunting

up in the hills over the Seto Inland Sea - a good place for warabi hunting

This weekend I was out rooting for warabi - edible bracken fern sprouts -  in the mountains above the Seto Inland Sea. You have to pick them while they're young, before the leaves unfurl and open up and they apparently become inedible. They sort of bury themselves under the dried leaves of the previous year's fern fronds, so you have to search them out.
 

warabi growing in the mountains

To prepare warabi for eating, you first boil up a big pot of water. Keep the sprouts in another bowl. When the water boils up, add a little baking soda to it.

Pour the boiling water over the sproutlings and leave them to soak overnight. Wash them again in cool water, and they're ready to go.

You can also then leave them in a mixture of water, soy sauce, mirin, and rice vinegar for a few hours if you want an authentic Japanese flavor to it.

Warabi sprouts are filled with a sticky, okra-ish fluid and might be considered an acquired taste, although the flavor isn't very strong in any particular direction.

In Japanese cooking, warabi generally plays the part of small side dishes served with rice and fish. I'm also planning on coming up with some original dishes for this unique ingredient, but I'll get back to you on that later. For now, good hunting!

sudden whim or pottery barn?

So, I decided to take up pottery. I figured, I spend all this time plating food, right. How far back can you take that? Well, I guess it doesn't get much further back than making the plates. The last time I tried this out though was as a student in high school, so I knew I'd need some help.

Fortunately that's where living in rural Japan comes in handy. I have found a teacher, now I just need to get my hands dirty. I'll shoot out another update on this when I have some work to show.

simple is most probably best

yeah, it turns out they're not

The old adage “simple is best” is one that chefs and cooks - as well as designers - can often be heard saying, but follow irregularly. I remember many instances of falling into this trap myself. Once I spent all this time working out a new steak sauce, and I was so excited about it that I ended up putting it on thick on some burgers I had just made for some friends. To my horror (although in hindsight, not surprisingly) the reaction ended up being a lackluster, “it’s ok, but I wish I could taste the meat more”. Covering up the main ingredient in the burger – the patty – I’d sort of killed the part that should have been speaking for itself.

Ken over at www.onlyknives.com made this travesty

It’s important to let ingredients that can already talk say their part, and pick out things that help flavors along rather than smothering them out. I think in the current generation we’re all working to get better about this. Fancy techniques and special effects have never been able to beat good solid basics, but it seems like everyone's been realizing that in a big way lately.

Photoshop filters proved this one a long time ago. I’m also pretty sure the Star Wars movies proved it (and a lot of recent movies besides); layer after layer of special effects with less and less meaning behind each one. We all have to ask ourselves – is what I’m doing adding to the situation? Whoa, sounds like one of those motivational speeches.