Category Archives: food

August 18, 2013 · 5:22 pm

MSG and flavor

Buzzfeed has a nice article on MSG by John Mahoney.  Emphasis is on umami taste, DIY MSG, and the moral panic associated with the food additive.   It’s worth noting that like many other crucial food flavors, MSG is the product of a bacterial process:

Today, MSG is manufactured commercially by fermentation that is more or less the same as what’s happening in the Momofuku R&D lab. In factories around the world, a bacterium known as Corynebacterium glutamicum (so named for its prized waste products) is fed plant glucose (corn, beets, wheat). As it eats, it releases glutamic acid. The resulting fermented product is filtered and centrifuged to isolate the glutamic acid and remove by-products and impurities, it’s crystallized, and out comes MSG.

via The Notorious MSG’s Unlikely Formula For Success.

 

 

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July 3, 2013 · 5:58 pm

Amazing modernist cuisine videos

I had a sodium alginate olive at Jose Andres’ restaurant in D.C..  It was more than impressive.  Arriving on a spoon and looking like a jiggly dollop of self-contained olive pudding, the olive skin burst in my mouth and it was like eating a dozen olives at once.

Youtube user enthusiochefs has some stunning videos of modernist cuisine.  Lets start by watching someone reconstruct baby corn on the cob?

Or powdered ice cream inside candied strawberries?!?!  (I know the gelatin isn’t vegetarian.  I’m not going to make these, nor do I think that someone should eat animal hooves.   I’m impressed with the videography and the ten billion steps to get this desert right. Yo!  Molecular gastronomists: make more vegetarian science food!)

I might just mess with this clementine sorbet with candied pumpkin seeds:

I’m certainly going to spend more time cooking with tweezers. Salute to the innovators!

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June 30, 2013 · 11:42 pm

Italian seitan links

Seitan take 4.

I’ve documented my seitan adventures in three other posts (sauerkraut and vegetarian barbecue, vegetarian noodle bowl with seitan and seitan refined).   I have a short list of what I want out of this refined seitan project:

– more firm texture

– more italian style seasoning infused into the seitan

– sausage “link” shape

– increased salt flavor in the seitan

With these needs in mind, I added a ton of spices to the dry wheat gluten.  I also ground the spices up in a mortar and pestle.  Oregano, basil, marjoram, salt, pepper, fennel seeds, and chipotle pepper (for smoke and heat) were my spices of choice.  Do your own darn thing.

I was hoping that the small pieces of spice would just absorb into the tissue of the seitan.  And I remembered that the whole fennel seeds in the last seitan experiment seemed to cut up the gluten strands.

I had seen an Australian youtube video where the cook wrapped the seitan loaf in some cloth to help shape it into a particular form.  So I chopped up a couple of old pillow cases (well washed).  I pressed the cut chunks of kneaded seitan into logs and then wrapped them tightly and tied off between each link.

I cooked the wrapped sietan links for about 45 minutes in stock that was just short of boiling.

RESULTS:

The addition of ground up spices seems to have flavored up the seitan.   Kneading the seitan until quite firm seems to have toughened up the dough and the final project.  Within a few seconds I could see that the cloth wrapping was billowing around . . . I think I could have just dumped the links into the broth without bothering to use the cloth.  I also had mild chemical fears about halfway through the process . . . afraid that some dye would get into my food.

Next time I’m going to knead even more and increase the salt in the broth.

But it is pretty dang good.  And nice to have vegetarian Italian sausage hanging around for meal prep.

Keep eating and experimenting party people!

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June 12, 2013 · 1:36 am

Seitan: refined

Swiss chard, mashed potatoes, fried seitan and vegetarian gravy. Everything is Humboldt locally grown except the flour.

 

The life of refinement is about making things better.  It takes practice for most of us to get good at the things we want to do.  It requires that we try and try again in order to achieve our goals.

So I’m back in the flour aisle of the health food store looking for vital wheat gluten to make seitan.  There are thousands of flours that have the gluten removed, but only one brand of wheat gluten.  Casual evidence that the  anti-gluten side is winning in the gluten vs. non-gluten wars.

For the second time around I pick up up some Bob’s Red Mill vital wheat gluten.  I don’t usually promote any brands on this website, but I think Bob’s is a fairly positive corporation, and the dude gave his flour factory to the workers.   Not to mention if you are out in the boonies and don’t have access to a local health food store to buy vital wheat gluten, Bob’s will mail you a bag.

STOCK

The basis of my stock is usually a browned fond — onions, oil and flour.  Cook the three on a lowish heat with regular stirring to ensure that it doesn’t burn.

As I added vegetables for the stock, I cooked it down with a little white wine each time, reducing and then browning each time.

Thinly sliced carrots, cooked down until the pan was browning and then douse with white wine.  Then I added a couple local potatoes (chopped with skins!), browned and then added more wine.  Repeat with chard stalks, and then I added oregano, thyme, salt, pepper, chili powder (personal preference), and some chili flakes.

What you get is a thick goo — a seasoned foundation for a vegetable stock.

I added water to almost an inch of the pot.  Dropped a giant frozen nub of ginger into the soup, and added some soy sauce and a spoon of miso to taste.  I let it sit for a while, just simmering while I made the seitan.

SEITAN

Last time I felt like the dough came together too quickly and not all the flour got moist at the same time.  The seitan was tough, and I knew I wanted a more loose dough.  I wasn’t sure if the broth I added to the seitan was too hot or if didn’t add enough broth at one time.

So this time I put the flour in a wide bowl, added recommended herbs from the package and stirred the whole thing gently with a whisk.   Concerned that the stock might have been too hot last time (potentially cooking the dough strands into seitan before kneading), I chilled two cups of stock.

This time when I added the cool broth, the seitan was a joyous mass of juicy chewy-ness within seconds.  I made sure everything was moist and stirred together and let it rest for ten minutes.

I’ll acknowledge my chief conspirator in this experiment, my sweetie who happens to be an artisan bread baker.  With decades of dough experience, I asked her to knead the seitan.

I strained the stock and after a quick rest (another ten minutes), I chopped up the dough into slices and slipped it into the simmering broth.

I let it cook for an hour or so, and then shut it off.

The result was pretty tasty.  The seitan is tasty by itself, rich with the broth and a little taste of flour.  This seitan is wonderful to fry, staying moist inside while getting a crispy exterior.  Next experiment is to try to bread and deep fry seitan — make a nugget so good that I don’t want to share it with other people.

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May 28, 2013 · 6:45 pm

Vegetarian noodle bowl with home made seitan

Vegetarian noodle bowl OR the seitan chronicles part II.

BROTH: I wanted a beef-like vegetarian broth.  So I started with oil, salt, pepper, and flour in a roux.  I added scorched onions chopped fine and let the whole thing start to brown in the bottom of the pan.  Basically I’m making fond and letting it almost burn, then scraping it up with some more liquid.  Then cook down and repeat.

Along the way I constituted some veggie broth out of some miso and bouillon.  I added soy sauce and hot chili peppers.  Sauté the onions and fond down and then add fluid, then reducing until goo appears.   Repeat to your comfort.  I cooked down the base of the broth three or four times.

By the way, when I say scorched onions, I mean it.  Onions and ginger were burned on the stove burner.

I took the ginger and peeled it then diced it up.  Flame roasted ginger loses a lot of the gingery burn and mellows to a sweet hot flavor.  It’s nice.

I added the ginger and some other veggies (carrots and zuccini) to the broth, lots of fluid, soy and veggie broth into the pot.   I made a spice sack out of the corner of an old pillow case.  (Cinnamon, cardamon seeds, hot chili, a nob of burned ginger, and a little coffee went into the spice sack — basically everything that I worry will overpower the broth).  Test the flavor and remember that when you add noodles it will become 25% less salty and hot, so err on the side of spicy!

Start a pot of water boiling for noodles.   Once it’s going, I blanched some broccoli.  Set aside (broccoli in most soups becomes over-powering.  I just want a little bit as a topping for our noodle bowl).

TOPPINGS:  I chopped up some raw cabbage, raw bean sprouts, and diced up cilantro (from the garden none-the-less).   Stir fried some thinly sliced seitan  to be set into the broth.  Also I bought a pack of corporate vegetarian egg rolls, baked them in the oven, chopped them into quarters and then tossed on top of the noodle bowl.   Don’t forget peanuts, garlic chives and loads of lime to finish.

Once everything is set, cook noodles, strain and then plop into the bottom of the bowl.  Ladle on some broth and top with veggies, egg rolls and seasoning.

Enjoy!

 

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May 27, 2013 · 4:34 pm

Sauerkraut and vegetarian barbecue

Sauerkraut and brio bread.

I got inspired to make my own Sauerkraut and batch one was fantastic.  I simply chopped up an organic cabbage, sprinkled with a little salt (less than a teaspoon), mashed it up and then stuffed it into a breathable jug.   In a little less than a week there were nice bacteria bubbles and a healthy sour smell.  I like my sauerkraut to taste like steamed cabbage sprinkled with fresh lemon — a delicate and sweet flavor.  When it reached critical mass, I jammed the kraut into some jars and put it in the fridge.

The ultimate plan was to make my own vegetarian spicy sausage to go with this finest of condiments.

It has been a long time since I made seitan, but it was exceptionally easy.  I made a nice stock (carrots, onions, garlic, spices, veggie broth and some leftover veggies from old meals), mixed up the vital wheat gluten with chili flakes and fennel seeds, added liquid and then kneaded the seitan.

It came together so fast that some parts of the mix didn’t get hydrated well.  Sliced into slabs and then into the broth.  I’m also realizing that my broth might have been too hot.  But some of the seitan came out firm and some was jiggly perfect.

But it was not, sausage-like.  What I had was a kind of firm beef-like substance, not quite what I was intending.

When life toughens your seitan, you make barbecue!

One thin sliced onion

two garlic cloves, diced

Oil for cooking

salt and pepper

one tablespoon of brown sugar

chili flakes

chili powder

smoked paprika or a drop of liquid smoke

yellow mustard (or any mustard) to taste

ketchup to taste

cider vinegar

Sautee the onions and garlic at a low heat.  Add all the spices and let it all soften.  Add wet ingredients to taste and keep stirring.  Once you have a healthy barbecue sauce going, add in thinly sliced seitan and stir.  I let the whole thing cook for a few minutes to warm the seitan.

Served on thinly sliced bread open face.

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March 26, 2013 · 3:49 am

Tupperware documentary

The PBS documentary series “The American Experience” is top notch.  During dinner tonight we watched the Tupperware documentary.

This film covers the gendered workplace, women’s opportunity after World War II, Brownie Wise (the inventor of the home party model), marketing consumerism, new uses for plastics, sexism, gender norms and so much more.  Get down!

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January 10, 2013 · 6:44 pm

Anonymity: Richard Marx isn’t shameless, and a dinner party with Bill Ayers

Anonymity ain’t what it used to be.

Used to be you could mouth off in the cheap sheets about a mediocre musician who hasn’t had a hit in twenty years.  Not in 2013. Artists have access to the internet too and they will drive their Lexus to your local dive bar and hold you accountable!

Why would someone who sold 30 million records care what a TV station blogger says? Then on Sunday I got this email:

No explanation for why you write that I’m “shameless?” You act pretty tough sitting alone in your little room behind your laptop.

If you’d written you hated my music, that’s cool. Like I could give a shit. But saying I’m “shameless” calls into question my character and integrity.

This is my hometown…where my kids live…where my mother lives…and this will not stand with me.

Would you say that to my face? Let’s find out. I’ll meet you anywhere in the city, any time. I don’t travel again until the end of the week. Let’s hash this out like men.

Never heard of you in my life before, but between various columnist/radio friends and an array of people at NBC, I now know plenty about you. You don’t know anything about me. But you’re about to.

This isn’t going away.

Richard Marx

I called my editor.

“I’ve been getting emails from some guy who says he’s Richard Marx,” I said. “I think it’s an impostor. The only thing that makes me think it might really be Richard Marx is that it’s from an AOL account.”

My editor had been a waiter at a pizzeria in Lake Bluff, where Richard Marx ate with his family.

“He was a terrible tipper and a real douche,” my editor said. “We used to argue about who had to serve him. His wife is taller than he is.”

via Right Here Waiting – The Morning News.

And of course, what happens if Weather Underground organizers offer to cook a dinner for a local charity?  Conservative bloggers buy the seats:

There was a little “Buy Instantly” button on our dinner item that someone could select for $2,500, which seemed absurdly high. But in early December TV celebrity and conservative bad boy Tucker Carlson clicked his mouse, and we were his.

I loved it immediately. Surely he had some frat boy prank up his sleeve—a kind of smug and superior practical joke or an ad hominem put-down—but so what? We’d just raised more for the Public Square in one bid than anyone thought would be raised from the entire auction. We won!

Well, not so fast—this did mean we had to prepare dinner for Carlson plus five, and that could become messy. But, maybe it wouldn’t, and anyway, we argued, it’s just a couple of distasteful hours at most, and, then bingo! Cash the check.

via Boston Review — Bill Ayers: Breaking Bread with Breitbart.

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January 9, 2013 · 1:09 am

Eddie Huang: Fresh off the boat

It was late at night when I stumbled onto Eddie Huang’s new Vice TV show Fresh Off the Boat.  I like food travel shows, and I like degenerates, so this show was already in my wheelhouse.

I’m a vegetarian, and I wouldn’t recommend the first episode of Eddie’s Bay Area show because he spends much of the episode with a Bay Area motorcycle crew killing rabbits.  (Although I’ll note that I enjoyed his ending rant where he suggests to meat eaters who don’t kill their own critters that they imagine the dead bunny every time they take a bite.)

Yeah, there are a bunch of things to discount these Eddie Huang shows: the slang which seems both forced and out-of-date, the relentless sexism (women appear only as sex objects or as servants), and the hipper-than-thou tone which permeates the whole project.

But I’m not going to pretend that I don’t like parts of the show.  Eddie comes across as pretty smart, adding complexity to some of the traditional narratives about food, culture and popularity.  And more than that, he simply shows his foolishness.  He tells self-deprecating stories, snaps on absolutely everyone, sports terrible fashion, and spends more than enough time mired in drugs.  Witness his first episode in Taiwan where he not only explains how to buy Betel nuts, but also how to use them, showcases a juvenile aversion to penis shaped waffles, and spends some time at the late night shrimp pool.  Not your traditional travel food show.

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January 6, 2013 · 7:03 pm

Pepsi panic: Beyonce and Mark Bittman

I’m bored with the moral panic associated with Beyonce’s decision to take a big pile of money from Pepsi.  I’m not sure it is fair to expect political leadership or moral consistency from Beyonce.  She is a staggeringly talented entertainer — and anyone who makes personal decisions based on what Beyonce does has their own problems.

Mark Bittman has a pretty hard-worded critique of Beyonce’s Pepsi contract, mostly from the perspective of health in today’s New York Times.

I think we should criticize Pepsi, not the celebrities that they rent to hock their brand.  In some ways Beyonce is an easy target.  Attacking her might even distract from the substantial conversations we need to have about the health harms of soda.  We could note the historical antecedents of disrespecting and diminishing the power of black women entertainers.

And I can’t help but feel a little sorry for Beyonce, because, as a child of the eighties, the Pepsi sponsorship was a sign that a star had become a mega-star.  It is a sign of the shifting culture that we are now moving soda manufacturers into the category with cigarette companies, and her sponsorship is now *bad press*.

I like Mark Bittman, and he is welcome for dinner at my house any time.  I appreciate that he uses his platform in the New York Times to talk about important cultural and health dynamics of food.  In this essay he reminds us of the pervasive ability of sugary beverage manufacturers to advertise to us.  Product placement for instance:

My friend Laurie David counted 26 on-air shots of Coke during last season’s “American Idol” finale and an incredible 324 shots of Snapple in a June episode of “America’s Got Talent.” (“There are Snapple cups placed in front of each judge,” she wrote me. “I counted every time I saw a Snapple cup.”)

To those jaded enough to ask “So what?” I’d reply that’s a measure of how successful these kinds of campaigns are.

via Why Do Stars Think It’s O.K. To Sell Soda? – NYTimes.com.

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