Meatless (and Vegan) Menudo

Oh yes, this happened! If you are not familiar with the Mexican dish of menudo or pozole, I am sorry to tell you that you're life is still not complete. Menudo and/or pozole are like Mexican icons, based off of different versions of soups that are made using hominy. Menudo was something I grew up on, always picking out the pork meat pieces (menudo is technically the name for the pork meat used), and the dish carries a very emotional meaning for me. Food is way tastier when it has the power to invoke strong positive emotions and memories, and for many Mexicans, a well made bowl of menudo or pozole will do just that. My flight being cancelled and having to go back to a friend's house to cook this dish gave me 2 witnesses who can attest to the scrumptiousness of it all. My friend even said "this dish doesn't even need meat, I can't believe I just said that." I'm beginning to realize I have more than a knack for cooking, maybe one of these days I'll decide to cater and see what happens. Anyway, this dish surprised me in it's tastiness. Funny enough, most of the ingredients I used are basically impossible to get in Japan unless you have connections (someone like me let's say), yet I used fried soft tofu to mimic the chewy pork pieces of menudo, tofu of a quality I have never really found in the U.S. I intend to make this dish for my family when I go back for a visit, and though I didn't make the dish to see how close I could get it to tasting like it had been boiled with pork, I know they won't even be able to tell the difference. They may think that me not using meat is a lie too ha ha. These hands and this soul are getting good at making things of beauty, but that's just me being modest. Reminder, time is essential in letting flavors soak, so start making the sauce a day in advance. You'll notice I included diced onions 3 times, this is for 3 different parts of the process that are done at different times.



Makes about 10 servings

Ingredients:

1 medium to large onion, diced
Olive oil, a good amount for sauteeing
Chipotle powder, 1/2 tablespoon
Habanero chile powder, 1/4 teaspoon
Chile de arbol powder, 1/2 teaspoon
Oregano, a few sprinkles

Dried, deseeded, destemmed, and cleaned chile rojo, about 7
Dried, deseeded, destemmed, and cleaned chile de arbol, about 10
Dried, deseeded, destemmed, and cleaned chile guajillo (or similar red in color pepper, Google image it for the color), about 5 small ones
Rock salt (or regular), 1 to 2 teaspoons
Good quality Vegetable boullion cubes, crushed or cut up, 1 and 1/2 squares. (about a tablespoon and a half worth if it were powder)
Big glass jar, (preferably glass, but I suppose you can use a plastic one if no glass)

Hominy, 1 big ass can (105 ounces or so worth)
Onion, diced, about 1 cups' worth
Fried tofu, diced, the kind with the semi soft skin cover and soft tofu inside, 1 package (about 2 or 3 medium pieces usually)
1 dried guajjillo like chile (Google image it for the color), stem and all so don't cut it open or seeds will spill out during cooking

Oregano, for topping
Freshly diced onion, for topping
Lemon/limes, a squeeze for topping

In a medium pot, sautee the diced up medium to large onion with enough olive oil to cover everything generously. When the onions are soft and semi-translucent, turn the heat down. Add the chipolte, habanero, and chile de arbol powder. Mix everything together frequently so spices don't burn. Add the oregano after about 2 minutes of cooking, and mix and cook for another 5 minutes. You might start coughing from the pungent aromas, but get used to it. Once everything is well integrated, turn off the heat and let the pot sit for about 10 to 20 minutes. Clean your chiles if you haven't done so already.

In the same pot, add the dried chiles and about 1 or 2 cups of water. Bring the water to a boil, lower the heat, cover the pot, and simmer for about 10 minutes or more, until the chiles are soft enough for smooth blending. Mix occasionally to make sure all the chiles get steamed/boil evenly. You will likely be coughing again when you uncover the pot. Let the pot sit for a few minutes with the top on.

Blend all the contents of the pot until you have a smooth sauce, it should look like tomato sauce. It's okay if it's a bit watery.

Empty the blender contents back into the pot. Add the salt and crushed boullion cubes, and stir and simmer for about 5 to 7 minutes until the boullion cubes have mostly dissolved. Pour the warm mixture into a glass jar and let it sit slightly covered on a counter for a few hours as it cools. Once it cools, place in the fridge and let it sit there for at least a day.

The next day you are ready to make the main event. Allow yourself at least two hours to cook before serving. In a large ass pot, add the hominy, the 1 cup of diced onion, the diced tofu, the chile sauce from the jar, and the uncut guajillo chile, stem and all. Add water until everything is covered and the dish looks like a sort of stew. You're making a soup like dish, not a thick chile, so don't add too little water. Mix well, and turn up the heat to medium. Cover the pot.

Once the mixture comes to a boil, lower the heat and let simmer. Simmer for 1 to 2 hours, until the hominy is soft, bite a few to test them. Stir occasinally.

Once ready to serve, pour some soup in a serving bowl, top with fresh diced onion, dried oregano, and a squeeze of lemon/lime juice. Serve with toasted buttered french bread (or tortillas?? some people apparently do that, it can be a heated debate between Mexicans from different regions ha ha). Enjoy! If there's leftovers, good news is it'll taste even better the next day!

Turmeric and Shiitake Rice

I was lucky enough to stumble upon black rice at a smallish shop a friend took me to, so I've been cooking with it quite a bit. I added a few spices and some shiitake to this batch. Simple recipe that came out good, so hopefully you will get ideas for more creative flavor combinations as well. Sometimes simple is also quite delicious.



Makes 2 servings, so multiply quantities if using more rice

Ingredients:

Short grain (or other variety) white rice, 1/2 cup dry
Black rice, 1/4 cup dry
Dried shiitake, 4 to 5
Turmeric, 2 teaspoons
Cumin, 3 teaspoons
Butter, salted, 1/2 tablespoon

Wash the white and black rice and drain the water. Place the rice in the rice cooker pot, add the amount of water you will use for cooking, and add the dried shiitake. Let the rice and shiitake soak for at least one hour.

After at least one hour, remove the shiitake stems if any and slice them up. Place back in the pot. Add the spices and mix well. Add the butter (no need to mix), close the rice cooker, and push the magic cook button.

When the rice cooker beeps and the rice is done, mix the rice well in the cooker to spead the now melted butter. Serve!

Chiles en Nogada

Nogal means walnut in Spanish, and nogada is a sauce made with walnuts. This dish is some very old school ranch style Mexican fare, and there are many variations of this recipe. I didn't actually grow up eating this, but have always wanted to make it, so I did. This dish has quite a history and was also popularized (at least for me) by the movie "Como agua para chocolate." Do some internet research on this dish if you're interested, and I recommend the movie as well, definitely a Mexican classic. Seeing a hanging pomegranate and buying some long chiles at the coop place gave me the inspiration I needed to try out this dish. The concept is relatively simple (it's getting the flavors and spices to mesh that is the trick). Chiles stuffed with a picadillo of meat and fruits and spices, topped with the walnut sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate. Since I did not want to pick the pomegranate I saw and get caught stealing, I used paprika and some homemade habanero hot sauce to add the red to the dish. Obviously, I did not use meat, but using the right kinds of spices made this dish delicious nonetheless. This is definitely a recipe I will make again and again in many variations. It's quite dairy product heavy, so not very vegan friendly, sorry. One last note, the prep for this meal took about day, so read the recipe until its end to allow for prep time. There is just no substitute for time. Although I love cooking for the end product as it were, I am much more about the process as I use cooking to give me time to think and dream while making something creative as well. Always remember to enjoy and love what you cook, you and others will taste the difference, that I can guarantee :)

The "picadillo" before topping with cheese and the chiles:



Topped with the chiles:



Final Chiles en nogada :)



Makes enough picadillo for 2 dishes

Ingredients:

For the nogada (walnut) sauce, made the day before:

3/4 cup walnuts
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup soymilk or milk
Salt, 1 teaspoon
White pepper, 1 teaspoon
Ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon
Oregano, a sprinkle
Basil, a sprinkle

12 long chiles, mild or spicy is fine

For the picadillo:

Olive oil, 2 tablespoons
Fresh diced ginger, 2 tablespoons worth
1 small to medium onion, diced
Chipotle powder, 2 teaspoons
Cardamon seeds, empty one pod of cardamon (don't use the pod case, just the seeds)
Raisins, 1/4 cup
1 carrot, diced
1 small apple, a crisp one (I used a yellow one), diced
Cooked whole kernel sweet corn, 1/4 cup
Butter, 1 tablespoon
Spinach, diced, 1/4 to 1/2 cup's worth
Cheese, to top the picadillo with before the chiles. I used camerbert

For garnish:

Fresh hot sauce, I used a habanero one I made, a few drizzles
Paprika, a few sprinkles
Dried green herbs, i.e. oregano, basil, parsley
Black sesame seeds, a few to sprinkle

The night or day before, make the nogada (walnut sauce). Cut up the walnuts into smaller pieces, and in a large non-stick fry pan, toast the walnuts for a few minutes. Don't burn them, just get them fragrant. Let them sit for a few minutes to cool off. Then in a blender, add the walnuts, the cream, the soy milk, salt, white pepper, cinnamon, oregano, and basil. Blend until smooth. Pour the sauce into a container, and let sit in the fridge overnight or for at least a few hours.

A few hours before you intend to serve the dish, roast the chiles. If you've never done this before, it might be a good idea to Youtube a video or two. Ideally, I would use the long stems of a chile to use my hands to turn the chiles over an open flame. But since the stems were so short on the chiles I had, and since I didn't want to burn my place down, I roasted them in a large non-stick fry pan as follows:

Wash the chiles and place them one layer thick in a large fry pan. Turn the heat to medium and cover the pan (covering is important to retain moisture). Let the skins blacken on one side, and then turn chiles over. Cook until skins blacken on the other side too. This will make your place smell ever so delicious, but open your windows anyway. Once the chiles have blackened skins on both sides, try to get all the sides of the chile skin blackened. This may take a while, but be sure to not burn the chiles. You just want the skins to be charred to peel them off later, not to burn the whole chile. Turn the heat down if need be.

Once the chile skins are pretty black and crispy, cover the pan and let the chiles sweat for about an hour. You can do the prep for the picadillo if you so desire while you wait, or listen to some jams or go eat lunch with your friends like I did.

After allowing them to sweat, deskin and deseed the chiles using a small knife. My chiles were too small to stuff, so I used them as a sort of layer over the picadillo instead. Deskinning and deseeding the roasted chiles will take patience and time, so allow both for this step. Peel the skins off gently, being sure that you just take the skin off, not the juicy fruit of the chile. If you have a few seeds left over, that is okay, but try to get as many out as possible. Again, watching a Youtube video will help greatly if you have never done this. You will get your hands dirty :) Set the chiles aside.

About 30 minutes before you intend to serve, make the picadillo. In a large fry pan, add the olive oil, the onion, and the cardamon seeds. Cook over medium heat until the onions are semi translucent. Lower the heat, add the chipotle powder and cook for about 3 minutes until it smells nice. Add the raisins and cook for another minute or so, being sure not to burn anything. Turn the heat off, cover the pan and let the onions sweat for a few minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.

Turn the heat back on to medium. In the same pan, add the diced carrot, the diced apple, and the corn. Cook for a few minutes, stirring frequently. Add the butter, mix until melted. Add the spinach, but don't mix. Lower the heat, and cover the pan. Let cook on low heat for about 5 minutes. Turn the heat off, then mix all the ingredients in the pan. Keep covered and warm until ready to serve.

Time to get layering. Reheat the chiles so they will be hot. Then place a cup's worth or so of the picadillo mixture onto a plate. Place slices of the cheese on top of this mixture. Top the whole thing with the roasted chiles, being sure to cover as much as possible (see second picture above). You will likely have to get your hands dirty again. Time for the sauce.

Mix the nogada sauce in the container to get the consistency even again. Then using a large spoon, or simply pouring it out of the container, gently and generously pour the nogada sauce all over the chiles evenly. It is okay that the sauce is cold right from the fridge since the rest of the dish should be piping hot. Then drizzle red hot sauce and sprinkle paprika on one side, and dried or fresh green herbs on the other side. I also topped the middle area with black sesame seeds. Serve immediately.

This is some good stuff!

Red Dahl Spicy Coconut Curry

Curry! Dahl! This is one of my more spicy, yet most flavorful concoctions. This recipe takes a lot of TIME to make, so please don't try to cut out the soaking and setting aside time. There is no substitute for time in this recipe, and it is an essential ingredient. If you try and do this slapdash and fast, the flavors will just not be the same, and you will be sorely disappointed. A good flavorful curry is usually made the day before and allowed to sit, so if you're up for a day of cooking, and you like the payoff of a flavorful dish, this is a great recipe to add to your menu. The lentils and coconut milk make this dish extra creamy, perfect for pairing with naan or something bready. As always, feel free to adjust spices and ingredients to this recipe to your liking, except for the time needed of course. Most of all have fun. Sing to your dish, laugh out loud, do a little dance, and cough and laugh when the chile smell takes over your kitchen.



Makes a medium pot's worth

Ingredients:

Time, half a day should suffice.
Red lentils, 1 cup, washed and soaked in water for at least 3 hours
Brown lentils, 1 and 1/2 cup, washed and soaked in water for at least 3 hours
Shiitake mushroom broth, 2 cups. Dried shiitake soaked in 2 cups water for at least 3 hours. I suppose you could use vegetable broth as well, but I like to be able to control my salt intake.

Coconut chile milk, make ahead of time:
Coconut milk, 1 can
Fresh red chile peppers, washed with tops cut off. About 1 to 2 cups worth depending on your spicy preference

For curry stock:
Olive oil, liberal amount, about 7 to 10 tablespoons
Diced onion, 1 cups worth
Fresh diced ginger, 1/2 cups worth
3 cloves garlic, diced
Caraway seeds, 1 teaspoon
Coriander seeds, 1 teaspoon
Anis seeds, 1/2 teaspoon
Fresh mint, about 10 leaves or so

Curry spices:
Curry powder, 2 tablespoons
Red Masala powder, 1 tablespoon
Cinnamon, 3 teaspoons
Garam masala powder, 1/2 tablespoon
Cumin powder, 2 teaspoons
Black pepper, 2 teaspoons
White pepper, 1 teaspoon

Brown rock salt or similar, about 2 to 3 teaspoons
Unsalted butter, 2 tablespoons
Cauliflower, 1 head diced into bite size pieces
More extra diced fresh onion, 1/2 cup
Tofu, 1 cups worth, cubed

If you haven't soaked your lentils, do so now and you will be eating this curry in 3 hours or so, ha ha.

Shake the can of coconut milk before opening to get all of it out. Place the coconut milk and the red chiles in a medium pot. Be sure to scrape out all that coconut milk from the can too. Boil for a good 15 minuted on medium heat, stirring occasionally so nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let sit for at least an hour.

Meanwhile, begin your curry stock. In a large pot, add the onion, ginger, garlic, caraway seeds, coriander seeds, and anis seeds. Turn on the heat to medium, and cook well until the onions are translucent and everything is quite fragrant, 10 to 15 minutes perhaps.

Turn the heat to low, and add the mint. Begin adding all the curry spices, being sure not to clump any spices to the bottom of the pan where they will burn quickly. Once all the spices have been added, mix well with a wooden spoon and continue to cook on low heat for about 5 to 10 minutes. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the pan constantly to prevent burning, but you also want the spices to cook in the oil for a good while. It should all start to smell amazing. Let this sit for 30 minutes or longer so the flavors have time to mesh well.

After some time, add the drained red lentils and the mushroom broth to the pot. Add a TINY bit of water if the broth is not enough to cook the lentils. Turn up the heat to medium and mix well. Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring frequently until the lentils are soft. This should take about 10 to 15 minutes, but taste the lentils just to be sure. Turn off the heat and let the pot sit for 15 to 30 minutes until it cools off. Read a book or listen to your favorite album for a while.

Once everything has cooled, it's time to get to cooking again. Pour the coconut milk chile mixture into a blender. Blend until everything is nice and creamy and red from the peppers. Pour this all back into the same pot. Turn on the heat, and boil the mixture for about 7 to 10 minutes. Turn off heat and let sit while doing the next step.

Rinse out the blender with water just enough to get any remaining chile seeds out. Place the contents of the curry stock from the large pot into the blender. Blend until all is smooth and creamy too. Pour this back into the large pot.

Pour the coconut mixture through a strainer and into the large pot. Using a strainer ensures you don't get all those lovely hard seeds in your meal. Mix the lentil curry and coconut milk mixture well.

Add the drained brown lentils to the large pot. Mix well, and cook over medium heat until the lentils are soft, about 15 minutes. The mixture will be creamy, so be sure to mix frequently and watch over the pot so the lentils don't burn to the pan bottom. Taste a few lentils to make sure they are soft and cooked through.

Once the lentils are soft, add the rock salt and butter and mix in well.

Add the cauliflower, the extra diced onion, and the tofu, mix. Cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat, then 5 minutes on low heat, mixing occasionally.

Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let sit for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.

If you did it right, this dish is spicy and ever so creamy, so serve yourself a small portion and eat it with many other side dishes. If you just eat a big bowl of this stuff, your asshole might pay dearly and it won't be as enjoyable. You can also let the curry sit for a day when everything has time to get acquainted, just be sure to refrigerate it after a few hours. I think curry always tastes better after a few good hour or day long sit. Hope you enjoy this dish!

Marinated Tofu Shiitake and Spinach Stir Fry Sandwich

This is probably one of the best sandwiches I have ever had/made, and I've had/made a ton of delicious sandwiches. I found the idea for marinading the tofu online, and it did not disappoint. Topping the tofu with a mushroom spinach stir fry was also a great idea, as shiitake, ginger, and spinach are all fresh and in season. All the hearty and juicy and savory flavors meshed so well together. It was quite a flavor combination and hit the spot just right.

Sandwich before topping with the last slice of bread:


Sandwich after cutting:


Makes 1 stacked sandwich

Ingredients:

2 slices tofu, marinated overnight or longer in 2 parts balsamic vinegar, 2 parts olive oil, 1 part maple syrup, fresh (or dried) rosemary, salt and pepper

Recently made spinach stir fry: sliced shiitake mushrooms, spinach, onion, garlic, and fresh ginger sauteed in a covered pan with butter, soy sauce, red chile flakes, and black pepper. Add the spinach and black pepper last, and let the spinach wilt with the heat off in the covered pan.

2 slices bread, preferably not white bread
Cheese, the best you can find
Sesame seeds
1/2 Avocado
Chile sauce, I used homemade habanero sauce

In a large frying pan, gently melt some butter. Place bread slice in pan and toast well until the bread is crispy and deliciously buttery. Repeat with all sides and slices of the bread.

Top bread with cheese and sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Place in fish grill or broiler or toaster. Toast for a few minutes until cheese has melted.

Pan fry/grill the marinated tofu, being sure to get all sides as crispy as possible. Place a bit of the liquid you soaked it in into the pan to avoid burning.

Now time to layer. Place one tofu slice on top of a melted cheesy slice of toast. Top with avocado slices one layer thick. Drizzle with chile sauce.

Place the next slice of tofu on top of the avocado. Top with some of the shiitake spinach mushroom stir fry. Place the other cheesy toast slice on top, cheese side down, and press down gently. Cut the sandwich in half with a sharp knife. Enjoy!