Southern Biscuits

Make your biscuit dough and shape them and get them in the oven before starting the omlette, assuming you are not world’s slowest prep artist.

4 eggs, whisked with salt & fresh cracked pepper

1/4 small onion, sliced lengthwise thinly

2 small French red fingerling potatoes, about 3-4 oz, diced/small cubes

1/2 T butter

1 inch block of gruyere or other cheese, grated into ribbons

2-3 T raw pumpkin seeds, toasted over medium heat and set aside

Sautee the onions in the butter. When starting to sweat, add the potatoes, about 1 min later. Add a light sprinkling of kosher salt. Cook until potatoes are gaining color, and put into bowl to reserve. Put the pan back on the heat and put to low heat.

Cook the eggs. Let them set once, and then stir them and redistribute while enough uncooked egg remains to create a base layer. Cook another 1-2 minutes and add the potato and onion, and then the cheese.

I also added a green salsa from a local Mexican restaurant at this point. It’s spicy and tangy with lime.

Fold the egg miture over into a half circle and cover lightly with a lid, keeping at low heat to cook through without coloring the eggs or stiffening them.

When done, top with salsa and pumpkin seeds and serve with biscuits and jam. We had apricot rose jam today from Arbo.

Broccoli Slaw Sesame Salad

1 stalk broccoli, stem only
1 small bunch mizuna, about 20 stems of different sizes
2 spring carrots, medium-small
2 radishes
1 1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 tsp seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 tsp gomashi
1tsp black sesame seeds

Wash all vegetables and peel the carrots as well as any easy areas of the broccoli stem. Cut both into julienne as best you’re able.

Wash & pat dry the mizuna, trimming excess stems. Wash & slice radish into even pieces, either julienne or in half rounds.

Whisk the oil, vinegar, and gomashi together. If you don’t have gomashi, crush sesame seeds with the back of a knife or in a mortar & pestal and mix with some salt. Coat the vegetables in the dressing and top with black sesame seeds when serving.

Impatient Pickles (quick Japanese pickle)

1 Japanese cucumber or equivalent other cucumber (seed other types, but not Japanese cucumber)
1 square kombu (1×1 inches or so, can use some you used to make stock, no problem; this is a type of kelp used to make stocks and other dishes in Japanese cuisine)
1/4 small head of Napa, Chinese, or Savoy Cabbage, sliced thinly and washed
Pinch salt

Add a pinch of salt to the cabbage once it’s sliced and let it sit while you chop the cucumber.

Prep your cucumber by slicing off the ends. Use a lot of salt in your hands to rub the cucumber vigorously; the salt will turn green and a bit of foam will appear. This is normal. Supposedly, it removes bitterness from the vegetable. Rinse it and pat it dry, then cut it into julienne by slicing dramatic diagonal ovals and then chopping them longways to have sticks with green tips.

Mix everything together with your hands, using a light and then a firmer touch to squeeze moisture out of the vegetables. Leave the moisture in the bowl, you’ll use it. When the vegetables are flexible and soft, add the kombu. Put it in a jar with a tight fitting lid or otherwise in a ceramic or glass container with a lid and let it sit at room temp for 1 hour or in the fridge for up to 3 days with the kombu. Remove the kombu and store it another 2 weeks if you want to, assuming it doesn’t smell or look funny.

Serve in small clumps in bowls.

You can add radish or carrot or substitute it as well.

Miso Fish (black cod)

Pizza dough

1/4 lb french fingerling (red) potatoes, cut into rounds 1/4 or less thick
1/4 lb butternut squash flesh, cubed or sliced  1/4 inch thick and cut into chunks
olive oil
garlic

Roast garlic cloves in oil in the oven, and remove when soft but not deeply colored or dried out. Puree in small food processor or with mortar & pestle. This will be spread over your pizza skin.

In a nonstick pan, use a bit of oil to cook the potatoes & squash, covering to cook through if necessary. Reserve. I used leftovers from another meal, so it’s fine if they are cold when you use them.

Preheat oven to as hot as it will go and be sure your pizza stone is clean. If you don’t have a pizza stone, place skin on a cookie sheet preferably without edges and “dock” the skin with a fork to allow air to circulate better and crisp it while cooking.

Instead of rolling out your pizza dough, use your fingers to create a thin but mostly even center, leaving an edge that is thicker.

Spread the garlic oil & garlic over the skin evenly and randomly scatter the cooked potatoes & squash. Cook until golden, 3-6 minutes depending on oven temperature. Cut into wedges.

If you’re feeling fancy, throw some fresh chopped herbs on it when it comes out (thyme or basil would be great) of the oven, and dab the edges with a bit of olive oil.

Saikyo Yaki & Konnyaku to Ninjin no Shira ae

I’ve had a fabulous traditional Japanese cookbook for some years now, never really venturing into it. I was interested in it because an old friend used to cook, by nature, a lot of fusion food, and I loved the yuzu citrus so much that I”d go to the Japanese market in Berkeley with some regularity. Now that I live in SF, I have all the expanse of the Nijiya supermarket in Japantown, among other resources.

I’m not inclined to post a lot of the recipes, because they’re complicated, and require making sauces and broths and other things before cooking your actual item, but also because for most people, it will be difficult to find the ingredients.

That said, Japanese food photographs beautifully, and I hope to integrate some of the techniques and ingredients I am learning about into my more improvisational cooking in the near future.

Miso Fish

- Best to use Salmon or Black Cod/other oily fish

- Marinate for 1.5 lbs of fish; I like to do this on Saturdays or Sundays and use it throughout the week; later in the week the flavors are stronger so it’s best to use the cod last as the marinade will remove some of the oily, fishy flavors.

-Marinade must be applied for at least 1 day in fridge or up to 5

Cheesecloth or Japanese cooking cloth
3/4 cup light colored, sweet miso
1-2 T mirin
1 T freeze dried Yuzu peel, zest of 1 fresh yuzu, or zest of 1-2 fresh lemons or limes

Mix all ingredients together thoroughly. Wrap each piece of fish in 1-2 layers of cheesecloth or 1 layer of Saryachi cloth. Paint the marinade on TOP of the cloth, not touching the fish directly. Layer neatly and reasonably tightly (without aggrevating the fish flesh) into a glass, ceramic or plastic container with a lid. Coat each side of the fish and continue layering. It is OK to mix fish types in the same container.

To cook, after marinated at least 1 day in refrigerator, remove cheesecloth and scrape any clumps of marinade off the fish. Put into small foil pan or other pan that is broiler safe with skin side up. Broil for 2-4 minutes, until skin is crisped and blackened. Flip, and cook until colored and cooked through under broiler.

I like to serve this with something acidic, like a simple salad or impatient pickles, and sometimes some miso soup as well.