CSA week one - Monlar oo thoke

I know I said I wanted to do something boring with the daikon, but I did a bit of searching for recipes anyway and I found three pretty interesting options so I hope we see more daikon in the shares. I decided to go with this salad first because it's Burmese and I don't think I've ever had Burmese food before. I found this particular recipe in the Burmese collection at recipes.wikia.com but digging a bit deeper reveals that it's from the cookbook The Food of Asia. The only credits on the book say "text by Kong Foong Ling" and I don't know if "text" includes the recipes or just the commentary. I'm going to assume this is traditional.

The recipe calls for a large daikon, but I think the one I got in my share was more of a medium so I cut the other ingredients down by a third.

Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
2/3 Tablespoon sugar
2/3 teaspoon salt
1 medium daikon, thinly sliced
1 medium shallot, thinly sliced [the original recipe calls for a small onion, but I think shallot is much nicer for raw applications.]
peanut oil for frying
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 1/2 Tablespoons peanuts
2/3 Tablespoon sesame seeds
2/3 teaspoon fish sauce
1 1/2 Tablespoons cilantro, chopped

1. Mix the vinegar, sugar and salt in a medium bowl until dissolved. Add daikon, toss to coat and chill for 15 minutes.

2. Soak shallot in cold water for 5 minutes. Drain. [I don't know what this step accomplishes that a rinse wouldn't, but it wasn't any bother so I went along with it.]

3. Meanwhile, heat oil over medium heat in a small pan until shimmery. Add garlic and fry until golden brown. [This doesn't take long so have your draining set up ready, keep a close eye and remove the garlic quickly once it hits the right stage. I was distracted, burnt my garlic and had to resort to the pre-packaged sort.]

4. Drain the oil from the pan and add the peanuts. Toast until they brown and start to smell toasty. Throw in the sesame seeds briefly. Shortly after the seeds start popping remove them and the peanuts to a food processor and grind until fairly fine. [Again keep a close eye or you'll end up making peanut/sesame butter that'll be pretty tasty but won't be of any use for this recipe.]

5. Remove the daikon from the brine and drain well. In a large bowl, mix the daikon and onion. Add garlic, peanuts and sesame seeds, then the fish sauce and cilantro. Toss well and serve with a Burmese curry.


To accomplish that last step, I made a simple Burmese chicken curry I found at asianonlinerecipes.com.

Ingredients:
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, squished
about an equal amount of ginger, chopped [the original recipe called for 5 centimeters of ginger. I don't really know how to interpret a linear measurement for something as irregularly shaped as ginger so I fell back on my default of using the same amount as I used of garlic.]

1 Tablespoon peanut oil
1/4 teaspoon belacan (Burmese shrimp paste) [There are a lot of types of shrimp paste and I only keep Chinese and Filipino on hand. Since belacan is fermented, Chinese is closer so I used that.]
2 chicken thighs, skinned, boned and cut into 1-2-inch pieces [Now that I look at it, this recipe doesn't call for cutting up the chicken thighs. Probably better not to, but I would remove the skin, I think.]
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon tumeric

1. Add onion, garlic and ginger to a food processor (with a little water if necessary) and process until smooth.

2. Heat oil over medium high heat in a medium saucepan until shimmery. Add onion mixture and shrimp paste. Cook 5 minutes until starting to brown.

3. Add chicken, turn heat down to medium and cook a few minutes until the chicken loses its pinkness and the onion starts seriously browning.

4. Add salt, coconut milk and spices. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Stir and scrape the bottom on the pan occasionally.

5. Remove the cover and cook for 15 minutes or so to reduce the sauce by around half.

Serve over vermicelli noodles.

I found the curry's flavor a bit dull so I added traditional Burmese condiments: cilantro, scallion, fresh chili pepper, fried garlic and hard boiled egg.


After its quick pickle, there's little left of the daikon's original mild bite, but it's not entirely lost. It balances against the sweetness of the sugar and the toastiness of the garlic, peanuts and sesame seeds. The salad is a lovely fresh and bright crispness against the heavy richness of the curry.

As this is the first Burmese curry I've made, and as I used the wrong shrimp paste, it's hard for me to judge, but, even heavily condimentated I find it rather flat (to the point where it needs a salad to contrast against, but maybe that's on purpose). The seasoning was rather simple, so maybe I'm missing a bunch of flavors from hard-to-find ingredients that were left out of the recipe. I'll have to do some investigation to learn more about Burmese cuisine. I did like the way the onion/coconut sauce browned as it cooked down. It's an effect I quite like in Indonesian curries I've made and there it's been quite flavorful. Maybe that's down to the galangal and kimiri nuts that usually go into that sort of dish.

Anyway, the salad was nice. It should go well with Thai or Vietnamese dishes too.

CSA week 17 - Hindbeh bil zayt and mooli paratha

No surprise here; This is just what I said I'd make--Lebanese sautéed dandelion greens and Punjabi daikon-stuffed flatbread. To complete the pan-nationality, I ate them with a dollop of Greek yogurt.

Dandelion greens first. If you followed the link I posted in the week start-up post you saw a lot of variations on a simple recipe. What I did fell in that zone.

Ingredients:
100 grams (one share) dandelion greens
1 handful mixed parsley and cilantro leaves, chopped
2 cloves garlic, slivered
1/4 red onion, sliced thin
salt
olive oil
baking soda
lemon juice

1. Wash the dandelion greens and chop however you'd like. Or don't. I chopped them in thirds. Boil water in a medium pot. Add a pinch of baking soda and the dandelion greens. Simmer 5 minutes. Drain, rinse in cold water and squeeze dry.

2. Fry onion and garlic over medium low heat in a judicious amount of olive oil until they just start to turn golden. Remove half. Add dandelion greens, herbs and salt to pan and cook five minutes. [Some recipes call for cooking the dandelion for 15 minutes before adding the herbs, but I found that they were already fully cooked after the simmering so I didn't see any point.] Remove to bowl and keep warm.

3. Return reserved onion and garlic to pan and either turn heat up to get them crisp or turn it down to get them deeply caramelized. Either way, top the dandelion with them and a squeeze of lemon.


As you can probably tell from the picture, this is spectacularly flavorful, but I'm really not sure if the dandelion has anything to do with it. Yes, you can taste greens in the mix, and they're particularly yummy greens, but I don't know if that's natural to the dandelion or due to the cooking method. Only way to tell is to cook up every green in the house this way and compare the results which sounds like a pretty good plan to me.

Fair warning, the dandelion cooks down to not a whole lot and you won't want to share.


And now the daikon.

I used this recipe from recipezaar:

Daikon Radish Stuffed Flatbread/Mooli Paratha Recipe #105155

Delicious stuffed parathas make a wonderful heavy breakfast or brunch. These are good make aheads which you can wrap in some foil wrap and take to a picnic.Good to eat in the car as well no mess. Rather than drink soda or juice with this, you can have lassi which is yogurt thinned with water or milk(blend them well to make thickish smoothie type mix) to which you add sugar or honey to taste. Totally delish.
by ladyinred

55 min | 30 min prep

SERVES 4

* 2 cups wheat flour, add to this
* salt
* 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
* 1/2 teaspoon jeera powder (cuminseed)
* 2 tablespoons oil
* water, from the grated radish,for kneading the dough (will be explained below) [I got about a quarter cup from the daikon and added a bit more than quarter cup more to get a nicely kneadable dough.]

Filling

* 1 medium diakon radish, grated (after grating squeeze out the water/juice, use it for kneading dough)
* 1/2 teaspoon ajwain (available from indian stores) (optional) [This, according to indianfood.about.com, tastes like thyme. I used za'atar instead.]
* 1/4 turmeric powder
* 1/2 teaspoon jeera powder
* 1/2 onion, grated,juice squeezed out discard this [I used the bottom of the spring onion]
* salt
* 1/4 chili powder
* 2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped [I increased the amount and used half parsley]
[ * 1 hot pepper, seeded and finely diced]
* oil (for frying)

1. Make up the dough using the water (as much as you need from the radish) Discard any left over water.
2. Leave the dough covered in a warm place to rest for half an hour.
3. Add salt to the grated radish.
4. After 15 mins squeeze out more water and discard this.
5. Then to the dry grated radish add the rest of the filling mix.
6. now make small balls of the dough a little bigger than an egg.
7. Flatten them out, dip in dry flour and roll them out using a rolling pin to a teacup saucer size.
8. Make smaller balls of the filling mix about the size of an egg yolk and place each filling ball in the center of the dough saucer.
9. Gather the rest of the dough around it so that the dough completely covers the filling.
10. Dip it in dry flour and roll it out again this time bigger than a saucer.
11. Heat a tsp of oil in the frying pan.
12. Add the bread and shallow fry on each side until brown spots appear.


I found the initial rolling and filling rather easy, although the envelope fold I used made the paratha turn out rectangular. Rolling the filled dough out was a little trickier to do without creating small tears and squishing a little filling out. Although the filling when I scooped it was dry, some liquid appeared from nowhere to squirt out onto the cutting board. The final size was a little smaller and a little thicker than I expected.

I fried the bread two minutes on the first side, poured a little olive oil on it before the flip, and then a minute or two on the other. I had some trouble keeping the pan temperature steady as I fried one at a time so I had some mixed results. I think my very first one turned out the best. Probably a good idea to brush off the extra flour better than I did.



As for the flavor, yeah, this tastes like the stuffed bread you get in Indian restaurants so not bad at all. I was afraid that with the chili, cumin and cilantro it would end up tasting Southwestern, but you can kind of get that, but the flavor of the daikon brings it back to Asia. It isn't strong and it isn't readily recognizable, but it's definitely there.

The paratha wasn't a bad match with the dandelion, but that was so good I just wanted to eat it straight. It would be pretty good with the Indian callaloo dish I made last week, I think, or chicken tikka.

CSA week 15 round-up, week 16 start-up

Back to driving to the share pick-up point today. Weather like this always makes my bad knee (from too many crashes while bicycle commuting in Boston) act up so I wasn't sure I could make it all the way there and back on foot. And good thing too as it started pouring again while I would have been still on my way home. Maybe next week.

I've got a couple dishes left to talk about from last share. I did make dim sum-style daikon cakes again, but I a new recipe from the February 2007 issue of Bon Appétit which is posted all over the Web at this point, but I found reposted here. It's a little unusual in that it calls for squeezing all the moisture out of the finely chopped daikon and frying it for 20 minutes with the fillings instead of boiling it. It really condensed and intensified the flavors nicely. Plus the smaller batch of the recipe halved to the one daikon radish I had made the thin cakes I was looking for. A substantial improvement all around. I was hoping to use the mazuna here too, but the cup of cilantro I was going to swap it in for is actually in a dipping sauce which I don't think the recipe needs at all.

I also made the fruit and oat bars again filling them this time with a cup of chopped dried apricots stewed with 1/3 cup sugar and a thick slice of ginger in the juice of my last grapefruit. I accidentally halved the butter in the oat mixture so the texture is rather sandy but the filling is bursting with bright and rich flavor. You can't identify the grapefruit, but the apricot is airbrushed, enhanced and framed and I'm giving the grapefruit credit for that.


Beyond that, I've still got plenty of mazuna, lettuce and chard although they're getting past their prime. And a whole lot new in this week's share too.



Along with what came in my half share I was pleasantly surprised to find a leek in the extras box and I took some red radishes from the event-leftovers pile. Even if I can't find a use for them immediately, they'll keep for a while.

I'd be much happier seeing the callaloo and kale if I hadn't had more than enough of them already. And I've still got half of the previous batch of callaloo still sitting around. I haven't made a proper pepper pot soup yet. Maybe I'll do that. As for the kale, a braise with Portuguese sausage, maybe. I don't really want to do the full caldo verde thing because of how potatoes freeze poorly, but I can use the same flavor profile for something with better leftovers.

The zucchini and squash are enough for a few recipes. I have a zucchini garlic soup I'd like to try and I've got this image of a recipe where you layer long strips of thinly sliced squash in a baking dish. I'm not sure that's real, though. Maybe a risotto instead.

Plenty of radishes, too. The tops I'll likely sauté. At least some of the rest I'd like to roast. I don't think I've tried that before and I'm curious how it'll work out.

The pepper goes into the pepper pot soup if I make that. The cucumber in a salad of some sort, maybe with salmon since I've got some.

I'm not going to plan anything in particular around the herbs or the leek. I'm sure they'll find a place. The Chinese celery saves my chicken soup (that I really ought to get started making if I want it done in time for dinner) from the rubbery browning celery that's been sitting in my produce drawer for a while. That's a good place for the leek too now that I think of it.

CSA week three - Sunomono

Sunomono is a generic term for any vinegary Japanese side-dish salad. I had this with my leftover sukiyaki and I thought the contrast of the astringent salad dressing and the sweet sukiyaki sauce improved both dishes.

I cobbled my version together from several recipes I found on-line, but there's not a huge amount of variety out there.

Ingredients:
1 medium cucumber
1 small daikon
1/2 Tablespoon salt
dressing:
1 fluid oz soy sauce
1/2 fluid oz rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon chili oil
1 pinch sugar

3 oz picked crab meat

0. Don't peel the cucumber or the daikon. OK, you can peel the daikon if you really want to.

1. Thinly slice the cucumber and daikon in similar ways. I used my mandoline to make somewhat larger julienne than I really wanted. I probably should have used my food processor and made shreds instead. Coins would be fine too. I also probably should have scooped out the cucumber seeds but they did no great harm.

2. Toss vegetables with salt and put into a colander. Let them desiccate and drain for 45 minutes. Rinse off the salt and drain/spin/pat dry the vegetables.

3. Mix the dressing ingredients. Put the vegetables and the crab into a bowl, add the dressing, toss, let sit in the refrigerator for 15 minutes before serving.

Those 15 minutes are actually important I found. Not only does that give the vegetables time to soak up some of the dressing, but the flavors are best at just below room temperature.

I know you don't have crab. I wouldn't either if I hadn't bought it for the callaloo last week. The dish is OK without it, but it's really much better and much more Japanese (which was important to me as I was pairing it with the also distinctively Japanese combination of soy, sweet and fishy in the sukiyaki). The slight bite of the daikon and the cool freshness of the cucumber both pair nicely with the crab. Right now, I'm thinking the three, with a little mayo, would work just as well in little crustless sandwiches for afternoon tea. But with soy and vinegar, yeah, very Japanese. Serve with teriyaki, yakitori, anything yaki, really.

CSA week 13 - collard-wrapped pork, shrimp and daikon dumplings

These are not dissimilar to the last collard-wrapped dumplings I made. I started with Chinese flavors because I wanted to use the daikon and as I had a little bit of leftover shiitake mushrooms and scallions left in the fridge it seemed like the way to go. Since joining the CSA, this is the first time I can remember that I've had proper leftovers and haven't had to deliberately buy ingredients for this sort of recipe.

For the meat, I used a typical Chinese dumpling mixture of pork and shrimp. I ground both up in the food processor, and mixed them with the shredded daikon. The shrimp made a good binder so I didn't need to add an egg. I hand chopped the mushrooms, scallions, and some peppers, garlic and ginger to leave a bit of texture. I mixed those in along with some dark soy sauce, a dash of rice wine and a bit of sesame oil. Then I let it all sit for a little while for the flavors to meld and the mushrooms, which were a little dried out, to soak up some of the excess moisture.

I had a little trouble working with the kale this time as it was a bit smaller and a bit crisper than last time and didn't really want to roll up nicely. The presentation ending up a bit sloppy but everything stayed inside. Ten minutes steaming and there you go. Despite all the seasoning the dumpling itself is still rather mild so the kale is able to add a significant greens flavor to the mix. Hints of the daikon show up in the aftertaste, but it mainly they just give the dumplings some texture.

On the whole, it's not something I'll be serving to guests, but not bad for a half-hour's work.

CSA week 13 - miso glazed fish with daikon and yukina savoy

My original plan was to steam the whole lot: a bed of yukina savoy, a mattress of shredded daikon and the fish on top. But I got sidetracked by this recipe. Well, actually, more by that picture which, it turns out, is about as accurate as the pictures in McDonalds commercials. In retrospect, I think I've narrowed down the problem to this sentence: "Remove any excess marinade from the fish, then place on the prepared baking tray," and the fact that I don't know what constitutes "excess" marinade or exactly what a baking tray is. I removed almost all of the marinade and placed the fish in a baking dish and my results looked like this:

I have to admit that the miso sauce glazed beautifully all over my baking dish, though. The 30 minute marination made the surface of my fish mushy so maybe basa was just the wrong choice. Ah well; despite the textural problems is did still taste nice.

The vegetables were nearly as problematic. I laid out the yukina savoy in my steamer, chopped the daikon into half-inch slices, tossed it in soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and sesame and chili oils and dumped them on top. And then I steamed for fifteen, twenty minutes without the daikon getting any closer to being noticeably cooked. Looking on-line I saw recipes that called for three minutes of steaming. Of course, now that I go back and check, they don't specify how thick to cut the daikon. Eventually I gave up, dumped the steamer out into the pot and just boiled it for ten minutes. That did the trick.

I've got to stop trying to use vague recipes. I always pick the wrong way to do things and it just leads to heartbreak and frustration.

CSA week six - turnip cakes

It looks like there won't be many surprises this week as, for once, I'm making exactly what I said I would on Saturday afternoon. I looked around at the selection of recipes available online and settled on this one as it looks like the closest match to the Sunday morning dim sum version I've been craving. Plus, I always appreciate recipes that call for an actual volume of shredded vegetables instead of saying something like "two turnips". Who knows how big their turnips were and how the ones I've got compare, particularly with the much wider variety you get from local organic farms. Anyway, I made a couple small modifications. First, I added a dried shiitake mushroom, soaked, diced small and stir fried with the sausage and shrimp. That's a pretty standard addition. I also used the mushroom and shrimp soaking water in the batter to add a little extra flavor.

I used both daikon and both turnips and barely reached the 2 1/2 cups of shredded turnip needed for the recipe. However, one of my turnips was a tiny little thing so you may have an easier time of it.

Next time I think I'd reduce the water by a quarter or half cup. My batter ended up rather thin and all the good stuff floated to the top during the steaming process. I was rather hungry by the time the turnip cake had cooled so I skipped the final step of pan frying it. I recommend not doing that; the rice flour paste still tastes a bit raw and browning does it a world of good. I'll post a picture of that in a day or two depending on when I end up cooking the Indonesian dishes and when I pull out the leftovers. (There it is, badly lit and blurry but you should get the idea, below.)

I also recommend serving it with oyster sauce. It matches beautifully with the flavors in the dish.

Otherwise, I don't think I have anything more to add to the original blogger's write up; she's got it well covered.