Hola from Costa Rica!

For those of you who don't know . . . I'm currently living in Cartago, Costa Rica (4 weeks down, 2 to go), participating in an international volunteer program. I'll begin posting regularly again as soon as I return to the States on May 23rd. Stay tuned for reviews on Costa Rican cuisine, recipes, and lots of pictures. Pura Vida!

Sushi Says I'm Sorry

Dear Readers,

I apologize. It's been too long since my last post. I assure you that I've been cooking (and eating!) . . . I just haven't been taking very many pictures or setting aside the time to write. But just to prove to you that I've been busy in the kitchen, I'm posting pictures of some futomaki sushi that I made a couple of weeks ago:

1) The "guts" of my sushi: cucumber sticks, simmered (dried then revived) shiitake mushrooms, imitation crab, blanched spinach, fried egg, avocado, and blanched carrots. I also used some anago kabayaki (barbequed salt-water eel).

2) My work station, all set up with a pan of sushi rice, toasted sheets of nori (dried seaweed), and my plate of goodies.

3) A work in progress.

4) A plate of finished futomaki sushi. I made different kinds using different combinations of ingredients.

When I was a kid, my mom would often let me help when she made sushi. The two of us would sit next to the open sliding glass door at my grandparents' house in Makiki, fanning a steaming pan of sushi rice. My favorite part of sushi-making with my mom was that she always let me eat the rejects and the end pieces when she sliced the rolls. I used to stand over her like a little vulture, praying that she'd make a mistake so I could have another piece.

My solo sushi-making adventure was a totally exhausting, time-consuming and fun experience. My recipe for the rice is still a work in progress--I struggled with the texture (too sticky!) and balance of flavor. I also had trouble with the egg, which is supposed to be delicately and evenly fried.

Last, I think I need a sharper knife, because slicing the sushi without smushing or bursting or disfiguring it was a real challenge. Or maybe I was sabotaged by my subconscious . . . Did I secretly want all of those delicious rejected pieces to myself?

Ground Turkey Gyoza

I thought that after I got the Seigen restaurant review off of my chest I would give you the first recipe in the "Cats-up" series. But here I am, sidetracked yet again.

This week I received the following request from my childhood friend Michele: "I need new inspirations for chicken dishes and asian noodle dishes that aren't ramen." So Michele, this one is for you. I'm not sure if you've tried it yet, but I recently made wildly successful gyoza (pot stickers) using ground turkey (you can use ground chicken, too). This recipe is perfect for those of you like Michele who don't eat four-legged animals. They were as good as, if not better than, the traditional kind made with pork.

Ingredients: (This recipe makes at least 50 pot stickers, probably more)

• 1-1/4 lb. ground turkey
• gyoza wrappers (make sure they're not previously frozen, they'll stick together)
  
• green onions, chopped
• chives, chopped
• cabbage, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 egg
• a splash of shoyu
• a splash of water
  
• a tiny drizzle of sesame seed oil (be careful, its flavor is very strong)
• salt, pepper, and garlic powder

Just mix up all of the ingredients except the wrappers in a big bowl. Then spoon a little bit of the filling (don't over-fill because your gyoza will burst when you cook them) onto the wrapper. Wet the edge of one half of the wrapper with water, then fold it over the filling and pinch it closed.

To cook them, heat a little bit of canola oil in a frying pan or a high-sided skillet on medium high heat. Place the gyoza in the pan in a single layer. Add some water (1/2-2/3 cup should be enough) and cover the pan. Cook until the water has evaporated (if you're not sure about the cooking time, cooking longer won't hurt . . . it's better to err on the side of caution when cooking raw poultry. And there's no such thing as over-cooking ground turkey. The texture holds). Last, take the cover off and let the gyoza fry, flipping once. They should be golden brown.



What to do if you make more than you can eat in one sitting (and you probably will):

• Gyoza freezes well. Just lay the raw gyoza in a single layer on a baking sheet and stick it in the freezer for about 45 minutes. This step is necesary because if you dump them all in a bag when they're fresh, they'll get stuck together. After that, you can put them in a ziploc freezer bag and keep them in the freezer for up to three months.

• Leftovers are best in soup. This last picture shows what I did with my frozen gyoza two weeks after I made them. I made a quick soup of boxed chicken stock, water, shoyu, salt, pepper, and a drop of sesame oil. I dropped the gyoza in, then let the soup come to a boil. I let it continue to boil until the gyoza float to the top--that's when you know they're done. You can also add noodles or veggies to this to make it a hearty meal.

Seigen: Kyoto, Japan

There's a tiny restaurant in Kyoto that I keep meaning to tell you about. It's called Seigen, and it's an authentic washoku restaurant run by a husband and wife. I dined there last October when I was on vacation with my family in Japan. I didn't write about it earlier because I don't quite know how to describe the food and the flavors at Seigen. Even now, as a write this entry, I can't decide what words to use.

Maybe it's because traditional Japanese food, unlike any other kind of cuisine I've experienced, is so perfectly subtle. The flavors are bold only in their simplicity. The textures and aromas are at once distinctive and harmonious. There are layers of delicate bitterness and umami and understated tang--tastes you wouldn't recognize or even notice unless you really tried. Washoku makes me think of the scene in Disney's Ratatouille when Remy the rat eats the cooked mushroom with the cheese for the first time. Each flavor has its own shimmering note and color.

That's what the food was like at Seigen. We enjoyed an exquisite seven-course meal (I forgot to take a photo of steamed fish and scallions in soy-citrus broth) prepared by the restaurant's proprietors. The dishes were beautiful. The ingredients were fresh and seasonal. The chef used persimmons and yuzu and chestnuts and little citrus-y, edible flower petals in ways I could never have imagined.

I'm certain that this blog post doesn't adequately describe the cuisine at Seigen. So if you're ever in Kyoto, please go there and have a meal. Then you'll know what I mean.

"Cats-up!"

My dear friend Julia's father tells a story about ketchup (catsup) and how it's made. It goes like this: "When making catsup, you have to put all of the tomatoes, spices and other ingredients into a large pot to simmer. Then you add several cats to the pot--yes, cats. When the cats float to the top, you say, 'CATS-UP!' That's how you can tell when the catsup is ready."

Neither Julia nor her father is an animal-hater (so PETA, stand down). But I thought the story would be a good segue into a new series of recipes I'll be presenting here on Mama-ghetti: recipes that use ketchup.

You might be surprised to hear this, but many contemporary Japanese recipes incorporate ketchup as a main ingredient. Ketchup is also a great shortcut in other recipes that require a tart, sweet, tomato-ey kick.

And if you haven't already figured this out . . . I'm a huge fan of ketchup. It could possibly be my favorite condiment. So if you're a ketchup-lover like me, but you think that ketchup's only good for dipping your french fries, I'll prove you wrong--just stay tuned.

Thank you to Julia and her dad for the funny story and to "A Cat a Day" for the photo!

Char Siu Chow Fun

Just in case you were wondering about the chow fun I mentioned in my previous post--here are some pictures.

1) Char siu (Chinese barbequed pork), onions, celery, and scallions, chopped up and ready to go. (I wish I had had some bean sprouts on hand . . . I would've used those, too.)

2) Into the hot wok they go, accompanied by some oyster sauce, soy sauce, a whole garlic clove, and a couple of slices of ginger. I removed the garlic and ginger after this step--I just wanted them to lend their flavor and aroma.

3) Then I added the rice noodles, and some salt and pepper.

4) All done! The whole dish, including prep time, only took 20 minutes. It was delicious (am I allowed to say that about my own cooking?).

Tip #2: Freeze Your Scallions

I'm making chow fun (wide Chinese rice noodles) for dinner tonight. My hands are actually a bit sticky with char siu glaze and onion juice as I type this entry--but I wanted to post the following tip before I forgot: FREEZE YOUR CHOPPED SCALLIONS!

I cook a lot of Asian dishes so I use scallions (or green onions) in my cooking all the time. But they tend to wilt and lose their crisp texture after just 24 hours in the fridge. I've tried wrapping them in damp paper towel, putting them in ziploc baggies, making sure they're in the crisper drawer--but none of those solutions seem to work for me. I always end up with floppy scallions, which are not only ugly and unappetizing, but also really difficult to chop.

So now I do what my mom and my grandmother do: I chop them all up while they're still fresh, put them into a freezer safe bag or container, and freeze them. Then when it's time to use them again, I only remove the quantity I need. Genius, aint it?

All Blues: Food, Family and Hawaii

I had the privilege of spending the holidays in Hawaii again this year. And as usual, I ate my way across the island of O'ahu with great enthusiasm. There is something about food and flavors and the experience of eating that lies at the very heart of Hawaii's culture.

For me, the sugary outside and doughy inside of a hot Leonard's malasada is a Sunday visit with my grandmother. The savory, greasy, crispy skin of huli-huli chicken is a warm Saturday at a North Shore beach with my dad. My mother's home-made osechi is a busy New Year's Eve in our small kitchen and the whole family gathered around the table at lunch on New Year's Day. Food, family and the salty scent of sea breeze are inseparable in my memories of Hawaii.

Do you know that Miles Davis song, "All Blues?" It goes--"the sea/the sky/and you and I . . . " Well when I think of Hawaii, I sing to myself: "the sea/the sky/chocolate haupia pie . . ."