Stomachs on legs are proud to present

All noodle stands close on Mondays in Bangkok for the purpose of street cleaning and repairs which often leaves me in a dilemma. What to eat? I love noodles and can eat them happily everyday and I usually do. But on Mondays I am left to my own devices. It was on Monday the 11th of August that I devised this exceptionally yummy bastardisation of tom kha hed and kanom jeen. Usually served cold or rather at room temperature I had mine hot because I couldn't be bother waiting for them to cool down.

I took one packet of tom yum ingredients available at all Thai food supermarkets. It contains a knob of galangal, 3 stalks of young tender lemon grass, saw tooth corriander, chilis, lime, kaffir lime leaves and shallots. Slice and tear as appropriate and add chilis as desired



One pack of tom ka paste.


I used lobo

Cup of coconut milk (canned, the way it was meant to be)

Water

Fish Sauce (optional)

Rice noodles dried or fresh, (not vermicelli made from bean starch)

Assortment of herbs including dill, mint, thai basil

Mushrooms, oyster, shitake, black cloud, etc


tablespoon of sugar

Bring noodle water to the boil and cook rice noodles

In a small-ish sauce pan bring can of coconut milk to the boil with tom yum fresh ingredients and packet. Add water if needed. I added about a cup. Add mushrooms. Season with sugar and fish sauce to taste. Cool (or not)

Ladle soup over noodles.

Serve with the following condiments fish sauce, fresh herbs, pickled chinese vegetable (optional), green beans, boiled eggs, bitter melon sliced and raw green beans and bean sprouts.

It was yummy, and I later emailed Hock about it to tell him to make this bastardisation for his menu...turns out he had already thought of the same thing and was writing a more funked up recipe for it......he's my twin food soul and together we signfy the death of all that is good and "authentic" in Thai food...he he he he he

So, before the Olympics ends, I thought I'd slide in a more than predictable restaurant recommendation for Beijing, to add to your Steingarten recommendations

It was nearly five years ago that I was in Beijing (on my honeymoon after being married in Yokohama with Kjam in attendance), but the memory of this meal still lingers

After a tough day climbing, around 36 turrets of the great wall.....(things to do before you die: climb great wall - tick) we managed to drag our sorry tired legs out for the evening and headed to South Beauty inside the World Trade Centre for dinner

South Beauty is an upmarket chain restaurant serving Sichuan food. And though I've never been to Sichuan and cannot therefore attest to its "authenticity", it was by my humble standards, a damn good meal.

We ordered the selection of cold appetisers, the spicy crab, the south beauty tofu and the Number One South Beauty Dish

The appetisers and crab were good, but not mind blowing.



The tofu, on the other hand, was amazing. A chef appeared at our table and made fresh tofu, then a waitress doled it into little bowls and added savoury toppings. It was warm and creamy, and although memory fails me as to what exactly the toppings were I remember they were salty and sharp and balanced with the tofu perfectly.







The number one dish emerged as a bowl of seasoned oil into which a piping hot mineral stone is placed

This sends hot oil spitting all over the place....which is where the table cloth comes in handy



Then thinly sliced veal is added and cooked briefly, fished out once the oil splatter dies down. Yes it is oily, but not in an over bearing way and when eaten with the tofu, balanced things out well again.



although there are many places on my "to go and eat list" in the world, Beijing eats are hard to beat in my book.

While browsing through this site's tracked google referrals for the first time, I came across this essay on the bubbling resentment of straight-up Korean kimchi makers towards Japanese manufacturers, who apparently now dominate global kimchi exports.

I became quite taken with the Japanese version of kimchi when I lived there – it's very easy to eat, very more-ish. It is more likely to resemble the milder forms of Korean kimchi, and often has a slight sweetness, which seems to be taken as an affront to Kimchi purists. Now I discover from the above article that Japanese kimchi is often (shock) not fermented!

Koreans want to impose an international Kimchi standard, which in line with the national Korean saying, should perhaps entail stickers saying "tastes like your mother's fingertips".

Explosive Attributes

Exporting large volumes of such a volatile substance as Kimchi must be dangerous though: we sometimes buy aluminium bags of white kimchi from a korean/Japanese market in Duesseldorf, which contain sachets of a fume-absorbing substance. Once one of these sachets malfunctioned and with trepidation we decided to pierce the dangerously ballooning aluminium bag, taut from all those fermentation gases. Luckily the bag did not explode all over the kitchen, but you can imagine the wonderful odor that clung to us for the rest of the day: "she must be wearing Impulse". Inner energy aptly describes a contained kimchi gaseous cloud.

Like other pickles/preserves, Korean-style Kimchi can be eaten at varying degrees of fermentation (for example, it can be eaten within hours or even seconds after first salting it). However, the longer you leave it alone, the more it is going to ferment – which means that any contained vessel of true Kimchi will attain explosive attributes if it sits on the shelf for long enough.

Recently I've been experimenting with making my own Kimchi - it's quite miraculous how such a simple preparation can yield such complex flavours. I've found that I enjoy quite a mild preparation with a shitload of garlic and spring onions, eaten while still at the crunchier end of the sliminess spectrum.

You can make kimchi with all kinds of vegetables, from cucumbers to soy bean sprouts to radish, turnip etc.

Kimchi Lineage

The fermentation process is important though, to produce the probiotic qualities of true kimchi. Kimchi, like German sauerkraut, is descended from Chinese kimchi, which was cabbage fermented in rice wine. According to one site, it was eaten about 2000 years ago by the men who were building the Great Wall of China.

According to some sources, sauerkraut owes its origins to Genghis Kahn, who after plundering the Chinese brought the recipe for Ji or Kimchi to Eastern Europe. The Europeans eliminated the rice wine and used salt to ferment. A century or two later, the introduction of red pepper to Korea by Spanish and Portuguese traders (at roughly the same time it was introduced to China and Japan), in the 17th century, brought a major innovation to kimchi and to the Korean diet in general. Maybe we should put down our weapons and accept that it's one big global kimchi party.

Rotten Probiotics

Most store-bought sauerkraut I've eaten in Germany does not have the riper fermented attributes of store-bought korean kimchi, so one would assume, it contains less probiotic substances.

Of course, one could make kimchi at home and eat it before it ferments. In general though, korean kimchi made from cabbage seems to be more volatile than Sauerkraut when packaged on the supermarket shelves.

Here's what thenibble.com says about the probiotic qualities of pickled cabbage – as you'll see, there's also some controversy over what consitutes real sauerkraut:

"Whether it’s sauerkraut in Germany, kimchi in Asia (especially Korea), cortido or curtido in Central America, or choucroute in France, fermented cabbage is consumed wherever cabbage itself can be grown. A head of cabbage can be sliced before fermentation, but it may also be left whole. Unlike probiotic-containing foods that start from a dairy base, cabbage does not need bacteria added to it to begin the fermentation process. All you need to add, in fact, is salt (the addition of vinegar is looked upon with contempt by makers of “true” sauerkraut, who declare that it’s used only by those who don’t take the time to go through a full fermentation process and want a cheap and quick way to achieve acidity). With the correct level of salinity (about 1.5%) and at a proper temperature (temperature is important to every fermentation process–just ask your local brewer!), the cabbage will ferment. Several different bacteria will be at work during this process, as you might expect, and those bacteria change as the acidity of the brine surrounding the cabbage increases. The most commonly cited probiotic associated with sauerkraut is Lactobacillus plantarum. Many fermented cabbage products commercially available have been pasteurized; such treatment with heat will destroy any friendly bacteria.

If fermentation was not halted, the sauerkraut containers would swell or explode; (...) any active fermentation process will produce gases. The preservative sodium benzoate, often added to sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables, will also kill friendly bacteria. Any of these brands (or any others) must be in refrigerated form if you’re looking for live cultures, and check the label to make sure no sodium benzoate has been added."

I have checked out the supermarket-available brands of sauerkraut here in Germany and most do contain additives. We have had a foil package of sauerkraut (the own-brand from the organic store Biomarkt) in the bottom of our fridge - and the ingredients are listed as only white cabbage and salt. But that packet has been sitting in our fridge forever and it has not swollen, even a little bit. In fact the date stamp says it will be good until March 2009...which means a shelf life of approximately 2 years?? That organic sauerkraut simply must've been pasteurised in some way shape or form...

Sleeping with the enemy

Getting back to the taste of kimchi, rather than the funkiness- or healthiness-quotient: when a trip to Duesseldorf for a dangerous, smelly pottle of store-bought fermented kimchi is not possible, and I haven't had the time to chop up soya sprouts, daikon, cabbage leaves and salt them and mix them with chilli powder and garlic, we rely on a gas-free Japanese brand of 'kimchi base' sauce. Rather like the 'Heinz ketchup' variety of kimchi, it keeps well in the fridge and can be utilised to make instant kimchi-flavoured chopped cucumbers, crunchy but pungent and delicious when eaten with good short grain rice. A very satisfying meal in itself, and also excellent with Japanese-style burgers. The base of course is also great added to hot pots and so on.

Turns out I quite like the flavour of artificial food additives, citric acid and xanthan gum.

When we go out to the Kushitei izakaya in Duesseldorf, I always get a nantoka-itame (something-or-other stirfry) from the special menu. They usually have a really yummy one made from veges and pork with chopped spicy 'zasai' pickles, which are the slightly milder but still hot Japanese version of Sichuanese zha cai, crunchy pickled mustard stem.

Itameru is the Japanese verb, which the Japanese wikipedia page likens to sautéing. However, the origins of '炒め物' (stir-fried dishes) in Japan, are obviously Chinese, and according to oh-so reliable wikipedia on their Japanese cuisine page, these "mock-Chinese stirfries" (?) have been a staple in Japanese homes and canteens since the '50s.

Somehow when I think of the western version of the Chinese stirfry, I think of a very hot, very energetic frying method with plenty of oil. Clearly in China there are many different ways to fry and braise food in a pan, and the Japanese itameru method derives from the slower end of that scale, which might be why the web page compares it to sautéing.

However apparently elements of a good French sauté are that the food is not crowded into the pan, without absorbing the fat or stewing in its own juices, and at no cost must moisture steam or stew the food.
On the other hand making itamemono usually does involve a big mess of food and flavours, and although the end result is usually not mushy, it is quite common to pour a little stock or sweetened soy sauce in at the end to braise/coat the food, and to jumble/marinate the flavours together a little more.

When I think of a nice itameta dish I think of a casual, homey dish, at least 2 ingredients cut up in in small pieces, still a bit crunchy and not too oily, flavoursome with an ingredient like garlic chives or small pieces of pork, or sesame seeds, or sugar and soy. And of course, perfect with rice.

The following dish is quite mild so I recommend to serve it with some really good kimchi cabbage and crunchy kimchi cucumbers. To really get your pan-asian (con)fusion going on.

肉にら炒め
Nikunira-Itame (meat & chinese chives stirfry)
(adapted from the cookbook '15分ラクうまおかず by Shufunotomo (housewife's friend) press)

150 g thinly sliced pork (as you would use for shabushabu or such)
One packet of Nira (chinese garlic chives) (about 30g?), cut into 4 cm lengths (substitute with bärlauch if unavailable)
Half a smallish bag of moyashi/bean sprouts
25 g carrot, peeled and cut into 4 cm long, 3 mm thin juliennes

A [salt, pepper, 2 tsp flour, 1 tsp olive oil]
2 tbsp sesame oil
1/3 tsp organic vege stock powder or kombu kelp stock powder
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp soy sauce

Roughly chop the pork into 4-5 cm lengths and mix it with A using your hands.



Heat the frying pan, warm the sesame oil and stir fry the pork at a high heat. When it begins to colour, add the carrots. You might like to move the pork to one side of the pan and move that side of the pan off the heat, so that the carrots can absorb the juices and cook, but the pork doesn't get overcooked. When the carrots begin to soften add the beansprouts and nira/chinese garlic chives and stir fry it all about.

When it all seems pretty much cooked to your preference, add the soup stock, oyster sauce and soy, turn off the heat and mix it all about until well coated, then add salt & pepper to taste. Serve with hot rice and plenty of funky kimchi.