Category Archives: Food Writing

How to Make Homemade Vinegar

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Pucker up, puckerpuss! We’re about to get sour. 

I wrote this really in-depth piece on making homemade vinegar for The Blender, the blog of Williams Sonoma, and I just wanted to share.

It starts off like this:

…Starting with good red or white wine is a step in the right direction. My guess is that you already know where to buy quality wine, champagne, sherry, or cider – the best flavored vinegars always start with well-flavored, highly drinkable alcohols that lean a little sweet.

To it, one must add our personal, bacterial friend Mycoderma aceti, better known as a “mother”—the spongy spore that turns all things alcoholic into vinegar. Beyond that, all else that’s needed is a storage vessel, maybe a little water, and weeks or months of patience…

Why not read the whole thing?

 

Korean Spinach with Sesame Banchan Recipe from Asian Pickles Korea

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Spinach with Sesame (Sigeumchi Namul)

Spinach-with-Sesame

(from Asian Pickles Korea)

Is there someone in your house who won’t touch their greens? This pickle-ish, pungent side dish is a way to make them irresistible. The recipe is pretty straightforward, but I must implore you: don’t use the bags of prewashed baby spinach meant for salads. I mean, you can, but you will likely not be as happy with the results; the dish will end up too watery and bland, as it’s very difficult to squeeze those tiny baby leaves dry. Seek out dirty ol’ bunches of grown-up spinach with the roots attached for the best results. Makes 3 cups

TIME: 30 MINUTES

  • 1 pound 6 ounces fresh bunched spinach
  • 2 tablespoons white sesame seeds
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
  • 6 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce
  • 2 teaspoons black sesame oil
  • 2 teaspoons Korean chile flakes
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon unseasoned rice vinegar

Put a large pot of water on to boil. Meanwhile, wash the spinach by soaking it thoroughly in a basin or sink full of water, swirling it with vigor and making sure to leave the root ends attached. Wash thoroughly as needed to ensure that the spinach gets really clean (spinach with the roots attached often hides dirt in the darndest places). Allow the washed spinach to drain in a colander.

In a small skillet over medium-high heat, toast the sesame seeds until fragrant, about 2 to 3 minutes. Pour the seeds immediately into a medium-sized mixing bowl to cool. Add the garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, chile flakes, sugar, and vin­egar, and stir to combine.

Once the water is boiling, add the spinach all at once, using a utensil to submerge it in the water and to stir it for even cooking. Cook for 1 minute, just enough so the spinach wilts but retains its bright green color.

Drain the spinach through a colander and immediately rinse with cold water, stirring it with your hands, to cool the spinach and stop its cooking. Working in 4 batches, gather the spinach into bundles. Holding each bundle by its root ends, squeeze the greens to remove the water, starting from the stems and work­ing your way down to the leaves. Squeeze repeatedly and very firmly, until not a drop more liquid can be released. (Really—get in there and SQUEEZE!) Roll up the spinach tightly inside a clean kitchen towel (or two) and squeeze again to truly extract as much moisture from it as possible.

Lay the spinach flat on a cutting board and cut off and discard the root ends. Chop the spinach into 4 equal lengths. Add it to the marinade and toss well to coat. The spinach is now ready to eat.

Test Kitchen Projects from Asian Pickles India: Mango Pickle, Coconut Coriander Chutney, Pungent Fresh Turmeric Chutney, Onion and Coriander Chutney

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Scratch-and-sniff-avision! Simply take a piece of steel wool to your monitor (oh wait, don’t!) and let these pickles release their aromatic and nutty cumin, fenugreek, coriander, chile, cilantro, and lemon…(all of these are pickle projects in the works from Asian Pickles India):

TumericChutney

This is a fresh chutney of chopped turmeric, ginger, garlic, chiles, and lemon

OnionCoriander

Mellowed red onion, fresh cilantro leaves, lime, and cumin

CocoChutMangoPickle

All that’s needed is rice and a spoon. On the left: cilantro, coconut, mint, lemon, and spices. On the right: a rockin’ mango pickle with raisins, onion, and rich Indian spices.

 

 

Top 5 Tips for Successful Oven Drying: Why You Don’t Need a Dehydrator

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dried_ omatoesMany techniques exist for drying food for storage and snacking. There’s sun drying, but many of us aren’t close enough to the equator for that to be reliable. Mega-gardeners may swear by their giant hot air dehydrators, but the urban kitchen tinkerer need not invest. Die-hard drying enthusiasts, I salute you and your parched practices. But for the rest of us, particularly we city slickers who are storage-challenged, drying can be successfully and easily accomplished with our beloved oven.

Drying food like orange slices, herbs, or fruit leather can happen without a great waste of precious dollars, electricity, or storage space. Here are a few tips to help you successfully oven dry like a champ.

  1. First up: the slice. Sharpen your knife or bust out that mandoline. Thin, thin slices of anything – no more than a quarter of an inch thick, ideally – are going to dry quickly. A mandoline is particularly great for uniformity. If everything is the same thickness, all pieces will dry evenly and simultaneously.
  2. Next, let me introduce you to my best friend: salt. Particularly with meat and seafood (though I also suggest it in small doses on fruits and vegetables), kosher salt is your first plan of attack to pull moisture from food. After slicing thinly, use your fingers to toss a bowl of your to-be-dried food evenly with salt. A vegetable like daikon will immediately begin to leech a large quantity of liquid. Beef will soon get shiny and begin to sweat. It’s a good idea to let the food sit with the salt to penetrate 10-30 minutes (more time for food that’s more dense). This will also add some nice flavor to your finished product. Keep in mind that salt could also mean soy sauce, fish sauce, umezu, or salty brine. All of these will also impart another dimension of flavor.
  3. I hate to pressure you, but exuding pressure on your food will also wring out lots of that liquid we’re trying to rid. Something tough, like turkey for jerky, should be layered between two clean kitchen towels and literally get pounded with a hammer, meat tenderizer, or a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Juicy vegetables, like shucked corn, should be layered between two clean towels, covered with a large board, and then weighted on top to gently press the moisture out. Food that can take it, like kale or radishes, should be rolled up in a clean kitchen towel and squeezed or twisted (without bruising) to blot excess moisture. Muscle power, rather than electricity, is yet another effective way to drain.
  4. Hey! Look over there! In your kitchen! The biggest dehydrator in the world is already running 24 hours a day. Your refrigerator is a master of dehydrating, albeit slowly, and it’s a great resource for sucking out moisture from anything. (Don’t believe me? I double-dog dare you to leave a piece of cheese in there unwrapped.) Your thinly sliced, seasoned, and towel-dried food is now ready to be laid out in a single layer – I suggest laying it flat on a lightly oiled cooling rack set over a baking sheet. Now, place this rack of food in the fridge overnight or up to 24 hours. For something like apple slices that can’t take a lot of salt or twisting, this is an especially great technique to cut down on oven time.
  5. Now that we’ve done all that we can to prepare our food for oven drying, it’s time for the final step: dry it in the oven. For successful oven drying, position a rack on its lowest setting and heat the oven to 200 degrees F. Insert a prepared tray of food and keep the oven door ajar with the handle of a wooden spoon (to promote air circulation). Check your food after 1½ hours, but it usually takes about 2 hours to become completely dry. Your meat, fruit, vegetable, or fish will be dry when the edges are quite firm and the exterior feels dry to the touch. The center should also be checked; you want it tender and pliable, but also not wet and raw. Note that if you’re drying more than one tray at a time you should plan on about 3-3 ½ hours of drying time, and that the trays should be switched halfway.

Dried food travels very well, but it should be stored long-term in the refrigerator in a sealed bag or container. Hint: you can also save small packets of desiccant from store-bought snack seaweed and re-use them for your homemade dried foods.

“Wasabi” Pickled Carrots Recipe – from Asian Pickles Japan

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Wasabi Carrots

Why am I using “quotes?” Because while this is bursting with wasabi flavor, there is no actual wasabi in it. Real wasabi is hard to come by. And the stuff you and I have access to in the grocery store—the green-tinged powder, or that gunk in the tube—is just dreadful; it’s full of artificial color, preservatives, and mysterious chemicals, and the flavor shows it. Instead, I hereby direct you to buy yourself a fresh bottle of prepared horseradish, close your eyes, and tell yourself it’s wasabi for this recipe and for any sushi you make at home. If you must, add a little green food coloring or spirulina powder for color. Leftover horseradish can be smeared on your roast beef sandwich, or saved for the gefilte fish on Passover. Makes about 2¼ cups

Time: about 1 hour

  • 1 pound carrots, preferable a mix of colors, peeled
  • 4 teaspoons prepared horseradish
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 4 teaspoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
  • 1½ teaspoons very finely minced or grated fresh ginger (use a Microplane grater if you have one)

Using a vegetable peeler, peel the carrots into ribbons, getting as much out of each carrot as you can; discard (or eat) the nubs. Combine the carrots with the horseradish, salt, sugar, red pepper flakes, and ginger and toss very well, using a fork (or two, if necessary) to really work the seasoning into the carrot ribbons. Cover with a drop lid and 1 pound of weight and let sit for 30 minutes, retaining any liquid that falls to the bottom of the bowl. After a quick toss, the pickle is ready to eat; covered and refrigerated, it keeps at least 6 weeks.