Stomachs on legs are proud to present

On Sunday we cooked my pops a special birthday dinner. He tunred 57 today. Happy Birthday Pops. We were going to take him out to a fancy schmancy hotel restaurant but I then realised that given that I am married to one of Bangkok's finest chefs and master of all things sous vide, we decided to make a little party at home instead.

Its pretty easy to please a baby boomer, you just have to pull out as many old school cordon bleu stops as you can and dose them thoroughly in wine. Set the table properly to add extra atmosphere. I even ironed napkins.



To start Chef prepared a platter of smoked salmon (which Dad had actually bought back from New Zealand...he left all his clothes in New Zealand and arrived back with an entire suitcase of our national bread vogels, fruit and salmon) with accoutrements...it actually goes really well with dill and kewpie BTW


Main course was an enormous wagyu steak with enormous slices of foie gras on top, dosed in tarragon, prune eau de vie and green pepper corns, served with baby potatoes and brocollini. The first time I had ever seen anyone eat such a thing was Christmas in Cambodia, when Chef J.LO smothered his celebratory steak with sous vide foie gras and proceeded to giggle the entire time he ate it. It seemed to have the same effect on my father....I personally couldn't finish mine, as it was far too rich.


Noticeably absent from our dinner was my step mother, who doesn't eat beef due to a long standing Chinese belief that the evil father of Guan Yin (Goddess of Mercy) was supposedly reincarnated as a cow. Like a small number of Chinese she wont eat beef out of respect for the Goddess. She also doesn't drink much or eat a lot of cheese.

I often think food tastes better standing up.

Not sure if the term 立ち食い (Tachigui or standing eating) applies when you are eating at home, I think it is more about fast food, noodle shops on the street and so on. Will have to ask my friend Mami who I know is also a fan of the occasional standing-in-the-kitchen-with-a-glass-of-wine meal.

Here is Great Snack For Eating Standing Up #1 (please do contribute your own)

Shiitake mushrooms grilled in the oven with a few drops of balsamico. Eat while still very hot with a little squirt of Kyupi Japanese mayo while gazing out the window.

Warning: eating standing up is supposedly not good for obtaining full nutrition from food, according to a macrobiotic chef
I once took cooking classes from. But I still like it.

I just made a banh mi from the left over chicken I had in the fridge from noodles the other night...was super yummy

But I forgot to take a photo for y'all to see....so I stole this one off google images



I had my first ever banh mi when I lived in Melbourne, we would hop on a tram down to Victoria St to go here Pho Dzung Tan (aka Chicken and Cow on account of the chicken and cow pictures they have on the front window), afterwards we would wander down Victoria and pick up asian ingredients at the different stores down there are buy a banh mi at one of the Vietnamese bakeries to take home as a snack for later.

The banh mi we had were always pork....and included an array of pork products, first the bagguette was smothered in butter then pork pate, then roast pork and sliced pork sausage. Then they add crunchy pickled veges, scatter through bullet chilis and sprigs of fresh corriander. Lastly it is seasoned with maggi soy sauce (must be maggi), fish sauce and white pepper.
The bullet chilis in the bun add an element of excitement...it's like russian roulette with a baguette....also on account of the fact that some people have been known to have gotten food poisoning from them....so double the roulette factor.

My version is much more simple

sliced cold chicken, preferably chicken that has been cooked asian style or with asian flavours (poached in water flavoured with ginger, fish sauce, garlic cloves, white whole pepper corns, corriander roots, light soy)
fresh baguette,
crunchy carrots and cucumber marinated in rice vinegar, fish sauce, chili, lime and garlic
sliced bullet chilis
sprigs of corriander
mayo (kewpie will do just fine)
maggi soy sauce
fish sauce
ground white pepper

Take baguette smother with mayonnaise, put in chicken and veges, add sliced bullet chilis and whole sprigs of corriander and then season with maggie soy sauce, fish sauce and white pepper

Feel self satisfied

Backing up Maytel's recent post on the topic that we are (as societies) what we eat, so an article by Nicholas Wade in today's NY Times presents findings by scientists that we have also genetically evolved, partly according to what our ancestors have eaten.

"A category of genes under selective pressure covers those involved in metabolism, suggesting that people were responding to changes in diet, perhaps associated with the switch from hunting and gathering to agriculture."

"People have continued to evolve since leaving the ancestral homeland in northeastern Africa some 50,000 years ago, both through the random process known as genetic drift and through natural selection. The genome bears many fingerprints in places where natural selection has recently remolded the human clay, researchers have found, as people in the various continents adapted to new diseases, climates, diets and, perhaps, behavioral demands."

It seems that a historical bovine influence has given an unfair advantage to Northern Europeans and East Africans in the field of lime milkshakes.

"A notable instance of recent natural selection is the emergence of lactose tolerance — the ability to digest lactose in adulthood — among the cattle-herding people of northern Europe some 5,000 years ago. Lactase, the enzyme that digests the principal sugar of milk, is usually switched off after weaning. But because of the great nutritional benefit for cattle herders of being able to digest lactose in adulthood, a genetic change that keeps the lactase gene switched on spread through the population.

Lactose tolerance is not confined to Europeans. Last year, Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Maryland and colleagues tested 43 ethnic groups in East Africa and found three separate mutations, all different from the European one, that keep the lactase gene switched on in adulthood. One of the mutations, found in peoples of Kenya and Tanzania, may have arisen as recently as 3,000 years ago.

That lactose tolerance has evolved independently four times is an instance of convergent evolution. Natural selection has used the different mutations available in European and East African populations to make each develop lactose tolerance. In Africa, those who carried the mutation were able to leave 10 times more progeny, creating a strong selective advantage."

So there you have it. Crusts may not make your hair curly but milk & cookies might have a startling effect on your procreative powers. Well, at least after 7000 years or so.

C.R.E.A.M. get the Money:



However, a Harvard School of Public Health study reported in May that eating low fat yoghurt may actually decrease one's likelihood of conception.

"Recent research has shown that women who eat low-fat dairy products when trying to conceive may be dramatically cutting their chances of pregnancy. Drinking a pint of semi-skimmed or skimmed milk or eating two pots of yoghurt a day almost doubles the risk of anovulatory infertility, in which women stop ovulating."

Horror! And what's more, skim milk can give you zits, also decreasing your ability to procreate I'd say.

"Processing milk to make low-fat versions may raise levels of the hormones, making the situation worse.
The US researchers looked at the teenage diet of more than 47,000 women and then compared dairy product intake with cases of acne. Worst off were those who regularly drank skimmed milk, with two half-pint glasses a day raising the risk of the condition by 44 per cent. Those who drank a pint of whole milk a day were 12 per cent more likely to develop acne, while semi-skimmed milk increased the risk by 16 per cent. Cream and cottage cheeses also raised the risk of the condition, however, chips, chocolate and pizza did not."

Studies are still inconclusive on donuts, frikandel speziaal, pineapple fritters, Kyupi mayo and rhubarb cheesecake.

(or) MAKING A STAR MEATBALL THE MILKY WAY

When is a good burger not a burger?
The recipe I'm gonna share is not really a burger - it's a slightly different animal, better defined as a Japanese-style burger or really good homemade German frikadelle (meatball) perhaps. It is not grilled - but what it lacks in smokey, BBQ vibe it makes up for in juiciness, texture and general meat perfection.



I was reading an article by Matt Lee and Ted Lee in the New York Times (whence the above image came), and after a few drearily fancy descriptions of meatballs made with foie gras or veal and stuffed with ricotta (etc), they wrote about a key burger/meatball truth which I'd inadvertently discovered when experimenting with Japanese-style burgers. It seems to be the key to a dream burger. Quite simply, the wetter the better. This may not be anything new to you chef types, but to me it's like a breakthrough: milky meatballs!

"On the vital issue of meatball texture, all the chefs we interviewed had good tips and pointers, most of which spoke to the same issue: water. For Mr. Campanaro, the key is simple. “Just like in Italian sausage, the filling is very wet when it goes into the casing,” he said. “So when it cooks, it’s juicy. That liquid that comes out when you cut it? That’s pork stock!”"

Another chef interviewed, Mr Psilakis, was fond of the same trick I had discovered in my trusty Orange Page japanese food periodical: using breadcrumbs soaked in milk. Except that in his recipe he squeezes out the excess milk, whilst the Orange Page recipe just dumps the milk in with the mince.

Orange Page took it another wet step further: not only do you include milk but after sealing the big, fat burger balls in the pan you steam them at a low heat for 10 minutes, upping the moisture value and creating an incredible burger! (or however you want to call it).

So I shall now share this recipe with you, dear reader, along with a similarly genius milk-based salad dressing which is SO awesome I urge you to try it today. Milk is the new maldon sea salt.

PS: For the vegetarians, here is a link to a very easy vege burger
demo by the New York Times popular food writer 'The Minimalist' - and here is his good tofu burger recipe
.

(I am curious to read The Minimalist's meat-based burger piece. It's not free to view anymore - only available to purchase... how elitist...but nevermind... I am sure the following recipe easily matches or outdoes his recipe. Yes I am that confident.)

Note: this Japanese-style burger has a very simple yet perfect flavour. That's sort of the point. If you require a more macho burger try Jamie Oliver's milk-free roasted Botham Burger
which can also be successfully grilled if formed in smaller patties.

FUKKURA HAMBURGERS
(serves two)

Beef mince - 300-400g
1/2 an onion diced finely
1 egg
a slice of bread (white or brown)
2-4 generous tablespoons of milk
Salt & pepper

Crumble, finely chop or pulse the bread so that you have 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs. How fine they are is not too important. (I generally just roughly chop some medium-coarse brown bread but most Japanese cooks use fine white panko crumbs).
Cover the breadcrumbs with milk (I don't measure but I think I use a fair bit more than 2 tbsp - really just enough milk so all breadcrumbs are soggy and soaking but not swimming in milk. As we have heard, 'the wetter the better').

Mix all the above ingredients (with about 1/2 tsp salt and as much ground pepper as you like) in a bowl, gently crumbling the mince and blending into a mush so that the white fatty flecks in the mince largely disappear and it is a mostly-uniform pinkish shade.

Make two large patties by dividing the mixture and palming each mass back and forth gently between your hands a few times. If you need to redistribute some meat, glue it onto the other ball as gently as possible. The aim is not to compact the meat too much.

Heat 1 tbsp oil at medium heat and cook the patties for about 1 minute on one side. When superficially browned, flip them over, reduce the heat to low, cover with a well fitting lid and steam the burgers for 10-12 minutes. When you are satisfied the burgers are done (most Japanese cooks wouldn't want them to be pink in the middle) and the juices don't run pink when a fork or chopstick is inserted, remove lid, turn the heat up to high and cook for another 30 seconds to one minute.

Serve topped with one of the following:

- KIMCHEESE: finely chop 40 g white kimchi and mix with 30 g grated cheese and 2 tsp sake. Add a-top the burgers before the final one minute of cooking with lid ON.

- ONE SCRAMBLED EGG AND KETCHUP: just what it says, artfully squiggling the ketchup. Egg should be plain egg, no milk added.

- CLASSIC STYLE: make a glaze using 2 tbsp ketchup and chinese-style sauce (or try Korean BBQ sauce, ketchup, salt, pepper and a tiny bit of powdered vege stock). A mostarda glaze could also be good! Or some kind of premade beef demiglace.

- MILD FRESH SALSA: very finely chop a de-seeded tomato, a quarter cucumber, and a quarter red onion. To let the meat flavour shine you might like to tone down the onion by salting it and letting it sit for a minute or two, and then rinse. Mix together with 1/2 tbsp rice vinegar and generous salt & pepper. This salsa is also improved with some capers and/or chopped anchovy, but again this may overwhelm the burger... try to think in the Japanese way where the dish shouldn't be overwhelmed by crazy sauces. Maybe it's better to just have some nice crunchy cornichon pickles on the side!



Serve with the following kick ass salad (adapted from the recipe book '15分らくうまおかず', or 'easy main dishes to go with rice prepared within 15 minutes'). Original recipe asks for watercress which would be great (watercress rules) but I replaced with rocket and it was also excellent with the soy-ish lime-spiked light creamy dressing.
Who knew a dressing without pepper could be so beguiling?

AVOCADO-EGG-ROCKET SALAD WITH MILK-SOY-KYUPI DRESSING
(serves 2 people) (307 kcal per person)

2 eggs boiled 6-7 minutes, peeled and chopped in large non-uniform chunks.
1 avocado peeled and chopped in chunks (original recipe asks for 2cm cubes but that sounds too fussy)
4 handfuls of rocket/rucola/arugula or watercress
Lime or lemon
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp japanese kyupi mayo

Arrange the greens in 2 bowls and scatter the avocado over top. Squeeze lime or lemon juice generously over the avocado pieces.

Mix together the mayo, milk and soy (we use a handheld milk frothing device to get it blended well and ever-so-slightly foamy, but a fork should be fine!).
Scatter the egg pieces over the salad and pour the milky soy mayo dressing over top of everything.



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MORE ABOUT BURGERS
Typical Japanese-style hamburger presentations:




Burger in a box?




spew-like kinoko sauce (that's kiNOko as in mushroom):




from one extreme:




to the next:




this looks delicious to me - does that make me a pervert?




This Mosburger hybrid also looks damn good:




Horror burger:

Controversial Japanese art director Nagi Noda started my interest in the visceral gothic qualities of food with a shoot she did for LaForet in Harajuku. She imitated a black & white photo by putting flour in the western models' hair and skin, staining their nails and clothes with black squid ink and so on.
She definitely has a knack with making food gothic -

At her Horror Caf exhibition she had Dead Body Cake with Blood. Awwwwesome.

See this album cover art below for which she won an award in '03: the pasta swells to puffy cake-like dimensions because (according to her concept) the spit of the singer lands on it.
(I wonder if Nagi baked the cake herself? silly question... she is a sort of young female Jeff Koons of Japanese advertising ... but supposedly she appropriates a lot of ideas from art students and so on)




Noda's concept for Yuki video clip & posters:

"When Yuki was singing, all of her feelings and prayers started to come out. When she sang some more, a little bit of spit started to come out. As she sang even more, more spit started to come out and when her spit hit withered flowers, the flowers started to move. When it fell onto a plate of dried pasta, it turned it into good tasting pasta. I left some dishes unwashed, but the spit cleaned them up for me. When a bear tried to drink water from a vessel, his mouth couldn't reach the water. The bear stood there helplessly, but Yuki's spit increased the volume of water and he was saved."

Part Two:

A Nagi Noda-esque fish egg photo shoot.
Nothing says 'I care' like wrapping a kewpie doll in fish eggs.

Check out this guy's Calcu-eater
blog.

If you are someone who bothers to click the links, you might have seen those super Kyupi Tarako commercials I linked to from an earlier post (the one about stir-frying with mayo)...

Calcu-eater recreated those kewpie matroushka aliens with fresh Tara-eggs (Tara means cod), then sent postcards to his mates with the photos.

Crab cakes.













Hamburgers (thank you Maytel).













Fried cheese (yummy 2 am snack).







Fried chicken with mayo.











What the fuck!

In the spirit of Kewpie fever, thought I'd contribute a recipe I found on the Kewpie website (thanx for the hook up).
The recipe calls for Kewpie Half (reduced fat Kyupi) and is interesting in that you stir fry with mayo instead of oil.

Since my Japanese reading ability tends to get a bit creative, please take this as a starting point for experimenting with your own mayo-chahan (fried rice)! Normally when adapting Japanese recipes I increase the volume a bit, for example in this recipe 3 pieces of lettuce just seems a bit too Mother Hubbard. Also, the recipe didn't specify what temperature to cook at but I would assume for fried rice it should be quite hot!

When I was googling for the image, I found a LOT of different varieties: umeboshi-mayo chahan, celery+octopus mayo chahan, and the slightly more predictable tuna-mayo, prawn-mayo and crab-mayo varieties.

HAM-LETTUCE-MAYO CHAHAN
Adapted from www.kewpie.co.jp
Serves 2 people
15 min preparation time
646 kcal per person

Ingredients:
400 g cooked rice
3-4 lettuce leaves
4 spring onions or as much as you prefer
４slices of ham
1 egg
4 tablespoons of Kyupi mayo (reduced fat if possible)
salt&Pepper
IMPORTANT: the crispiness or シャキシャキ (shakishaki)-ness of the lettuce is important for the effectiveness of this dish, so don't overheat, over-stir or let the finished dish sit around before eating.

1. Chop the ham and edible parts of the spring onion finely.
2. Add 2 tbsp mayo to the hot pan, then add the spring onion, ham and finally the beaten egg.

3. Add the rice and 2 more tbsp of mayo to the pan and stir-fry it all about; season with salt and pepper.
4. Roughly tear up the lettuce leaves, scatter through the rice and serve immediately.




Other items of interest on the Kewpie home site:

- a selection of quicktime clips from their Kewpie factory
(seems appropriate at easter...all that egg-cracking)

- continuing on the egg theme, now that you mention Tarako (cod roe) spaghetti sauce, check out these awesome CMs (commericals) for Kewpie's heat&eat Tarako Spaghetti
sauce! Great styling and I like the theme song like a crazed Russian folk song ...and the army of kewpie matroushka doll larvae.

If one is feeling lazy, here's the instant version of Mayo-chahan (different brand):