Non-holiday recipes
Dec. 22nd, 2004 08:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wombat1138Well, I suppose some of them could be adapted to random festivities, but then, so can pretty much everything. All of them are somewhat vague, due to factors of random experimentation and whatever I happen to find first in the cupboard/fridge.
The first one is a just-add-hot-water instant mix for spiced milky chai. It's based on a recipe I found on the web at some point; the original suggested using powdered honey as about 40% of the sweetener component, but I didn't find that it made enough difference to be worth the extra trouble/cost. Presumably artificial sweeteners could also be subbed for part or all of the sugar.
2 c. nonfat dry milk
1 1/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. unsweetened iced-tea powder
1/2 c. nondairy creamer
1/2 - 1 t. random powdered spices/flavorings
Generally I use 3-5 different spices from the general realm of black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, cocoa powder, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla powder, and so on. I also prefer to use nonfat nondairy creamer, despite the inevitable question of "So what the hell *is* nonfat nondairy creamer, anyway?" (it's a starch-based thickener, which translates to carbs for anyone worried about such things).
The main disadvantage of this formula is that if you don't keep stirring as you drink it, you end up with a grainy sediment of spices at the bottom. It also has that inevitable odd dry-mix flavor, although that's not so bad if you're already used to instant hot cocoa and such; it can cake up if stored for a long time; and it still contains lactose.
This second chai recipe is a counterpart to the first one in that it's (in)convenient in different ways. It needs to be stored in the fridge, with milk addition on a per-serving basis. (I suppose it could be tweaked to include evaporated/condensed milk in the initial formulation, but I kinda prefer sticking with Lact-Aid.) A warm cuppa requires a microwave, not just a hot-water dispenser. On the other hand, whereas the powdered mix really isn't happy about going into cold water, this liquid is just fine with cold milk.
1-2 T. each random *non*-powdered spices
8 c. water
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. black tea leaves
If your spices start out as large whole chunks like cinnamon sticks or fresh ginger root, bash them into smaller pieces (~1 cm). Things like peppercorns and cloves are fine as they are, but you can crunch them up with a mortar and pestle if you need to vent some aggro. (If you use red pepper flakes, tone the amount down to <1 t.) Place them in the 8 c. cold water, bring to a boil, and then let them steep overnight. The next day, add the sugar, return to a boil, add the tea leaves, steep for 8 minutes, and then strain into a storage container.
Since I've only made this recipe once so far, it's subject to further tweaking; presumably the procedure could be condensed down to omit the overnight steep by adding the sugar and even the tea leaves to the initial cold water. I've been mixing this into milk at a proportion of anywhere from 20-50% of the final volume, depending on how much caffeination I need and how much milk is still in the carton.
And finally, Serial Experiments Okonomiyaki (sometimes better referred to as Quack Experimental Okonomiyaki Excel Saga). I've been curious about this for rather a while, and I'm sure that I'm still not terribly close to the genuine article. Still, imho I now have a general idea of how it's supposed to turn out, even if it isn't always ending up that way.
Most online recipes for okonomiyaki are inevitably written by people from Japan, who may have certain assumptions which are difficult to decipher. The main one I struggled with was the definition of "yam". The authentic root seems to be nagaimo/yamaimo, which is sometimes translated as "mountain yam" but doesn't seem to be closely related to the American concept of yammage-- it's a long, tubular root (conveniently available in pre-choppped 8" segments at my local Asian megamart) with a smoothish light brown skin, a white interior, and an astonishingly slimy texture when grated. It also doesn't have terribly much flavor that I could tell. As with powdered honey in the chai dry-mix recipe, I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble.
Before I figured out the yamaimo part of the equation, I made several attempts with "Japanese yams". These are closer to the familiar sweet-potato kinda yam, but with a white interior rather than a yellow/orange one. Since it has a very different texture than nagaimo when grated, it can't function as a liquid binder, so water or stock has to be added to the batter as well as extra flour (the yam won't have much starch unless it's very fresh, and even then...). Possibly normal potatoes could also be substituted, but I haven't tried those yet.
Since the sizes of yams and cabbages are subject to wide variation, this is more of a vague guide than an actual recipe. Half the time I still end up with something that resembles a bewildered stir-fry, so don't expect instant or inevitable success if you attempt to follow this.
Take your yamlike object and grate it into a large bowl. Beat in six eggs and 1/2 c flour. If you used a sweet potato instead of a yamaimo, add enough water (~1 c?) and extra flour to reach a thickly soupy consistency like pancake batter. Add various seasonings: chopped green onions, sesame seeds, furikake (prefab rice seasoning mix; generally contains flakes of seaweed, dried fish, etc.), miso paste, and so on.
Depending on how cabbagey you're feeling, take 1/4 - 1/2 of a cabbage, cut out the central core and discard it (or stuff it into the same freezer baggie as all your other veggie trimmings for eventual stockmaking), and slice the remaining truncated wedges into thin strips (~1 cm wide or less). Mix the cabbage into the yam batter with savage determination.
Heat up a nonstick skillet. (So far I've tried it once with a frying pan instead, and was distinctly unhappy with the result, which had more of a steamed texture than a fried one.) If you have "wet" additions like chopped fresh veggies or small chunks of raw meat, put them on the skillet first and let them pre-cook a bit. Glop some of the batter onto the skillet by spooning out the cabbage shreds and carefully adding some of the liquid from the bottom, until you have a rough approximation of a 1-2" cake across the skillet. Don't be afraid to move the cabbage around on top. In fact, keep crushing it down flat with a spatula every few minutes to compact it down and drive the liquid out as it cooks. When it starts to smell toasty, carefully slip a spatula under the bottom to loosen it, and then make a terrible mess when you try to slide the pancake onto a plate. Invert the skillet onto the plate and flip over whatever's left of the pancake. Cook the other side, pressing it flat from the top again until the bottom smells toasty, and then eat the result with okonomiyaki sauce (a wondrous tasty substance from a squeeze bottle which is apparently based on a mixture of tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce; it may sound revolting, but it is amazingly yum).
Generally my okonomiyaki failures fall apart because I didn't have enough flour to bind the cabbage together. The desired result really should be like a browned crispy pancake on both sides, with a soft vegetable interior. But even the failures are pretty tasty, and (attempted) okonomiyaki have become one of our standard low-effort dinners.
The first one is a just-add-hot-water instant mix for spiced milky chai. It's based on a recipe I found on the web at some point; the original suggested using powdered honey as about 40% of the sweetener component, but I didn't find that it made enough difference to be worth the extra trouble/cost. Presumably artificial sweeteners could also be subbed for part or all of the sugar.
2 c. nonfat dry milk
1 1/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. unsweetened iced-tea powder
1/2 c. nondairy creamer
1/2 - 1 t. random powdered spices/flavorings
Generally I use 3-5 different spices from the general realm of black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, cocoa powder, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla powder, and so on. I also prefer to use nonfat nondairy creamer, despite the inevitable question of "So what the hell *is* nonfat nondairy creamer, anyway?" (it's a starch-based thickener, which translates to carbs for anyone worried about such things).
The main disadvantage of this formula is that if you don't keep stirring as you drink it, you end up with a grainy sediment of spices at the bottom. It also has that inevitable odd dry-mix flavor, although that's not so bad if you're already used to instant hot cocoa and such; it can cake up if stored for a long time; and it still contains lactose.
This second chai recipe is a counterpart to the first one in that it's (in)convenient in different ways. It needs to be stored in the fridge, with milk addition on a per-serving basis. (I suppose it could be tweaked to include evaporated/condensed milk in the initial formulation, but I kinda prefer sticking with Lact-Aid.) A warm cuppa requires a microwave, not just a hot-water dispenser. On the other hand, whereas the powdered mix really isn't happy about going into cold water, this liquid is just fine with cold milk.
1-2 T. each random *non*-powdered spices
8 c. water
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. black tea leaves
If your spices start out as large whole chunks like cinnamon sticks or fresh ginger root, bash them into smaller pieces (~1 cm). Things like peppercorns and cloves are fine as they are, but you can crunch them up with a mortar and pestle if you need to vent some aggro. (If you use red pepper flakes, tone the amount down to <1 t.) Place them in the 8 c. cold water, bring to a boil, and then let them steep overnight. The next day, add the sugar, return to a boil, add the tea leaves, steep for 8 minutes, and then strain into a storage container.
Since I've only made this recipe once so far, it's subject to further tweaking; presumably the procedure could be condensed down to omit the overnight steep by adding the sugar and even the tea leaves to the initial cold water. I've been mixing this into milk at a proportion of anywhere from 20-50% of the final volume, depending on how much caffeination I need and how much milk is still in the carton.
And finally, Serial Experiments Okonomiyaki (sometimes better referred to as Quack Experimental Okonomiyaki Excel Saga). I've been curious about this for rather a while, and I'm sure that I'm still not terribly close to the genuine article. Still, imho I now have a general idea of how it's supposed to turn out, even if it isn't always ending up that way.
Most online recipes for okonomiyaki are inevitably written by people from Japan, who may have certain assumptions which are difficult to decipher. The main one I struggled with was the definition of "yam". The authentic root seems to be nagaimo/yamaimo, which is sometimes translated as "mountain yam" but doesn't seem to be closely related to the American concept of yammage-- it's a long, tubular root (conveniently available in pre-choppped 8" segments at my local Asian megamart) with a smoothish light brown skin, a white interior, and an astonishingly slimy texture when grated. It also doesn't have terribly much flavor that I could tell. As with powdered honey in the chai dry-mix recipe, I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble.
Before I figured out the yamaimo part of the equation, I made several attempts with "Japanese yams". These are closer to the familiar sweet-potato kinda yam, but with a white interior rather than a yellow/orange one. Since it has a very different texture than nagaimo when grated, it can't function as a liquid binder, so water or stock has to be added to the batter as well as extra flour (the yam won't have much starch unless it's very fresh, and even then...). Possibly normal potatoes could also be substituted, but I haven't tried those yet.
Since the sizes of yams and cabbages are subject to wide variation, this is more of a vague guide than an actual recipe. Half the time I still end up with something that resembles a bewildered stir-fry, so don't expect instant or inevitable success if you attempt to follow this.
Take your yamlike object and grate it into a large bowl. Beat in six eggs and 1/2 c flour. If you used a sweet potato instead of a yamaimo, add enough water (~1 c?) and extra flour to reach a thickly soupy consistency like pancake batter. Add various seasonings: chopped green onions, sesame seeds, furikake (prefab rice seasoning mix; generally contains flakes of seaweed, dried fish, etc.), miso paste, and so on.
Depending on how cabbagey you're feeling, take 1/4 - 1/2 of a cabbage, cut out the central core and discard it (or stuff it into the same freezer baggie as all your other veggie trimmings for eventual stockmaking), and slice the remaining truncated wedges into thin strips (~1 cm wide or less). Mix the cabbage into the yam batter with savage determination.
Heat up a nonstick skillet. (So far I've tried it once with a frying pan instead, and was distinctly unhappy with the result, which had more of a steamed texture than a fried one.) If you have "wet" additions like chopped fresh veggies or small chunks of raw meat, put them on the skillet first and let them pre-cook a bit. Glop some of the batter onto the skillet by spooning out the cabbage shreds and carefully adding some of the liquid from the bottom, until you have a rough approximation of a 1-2" cake across the skillet. Don't be afraid to move the cabbage around on top. In fact, keep crushing it down flat with a spatula every few minutes to compact it down and drive the liquid out as it cooks. When it starts to smell toasty, carefully slip a spatula under the bottom to loosen it, and then make a terrible mess when you try to slide the pancake onto a plate. Invert the skillet onto the plate and flip over whatever's left of the pancake. Cook the other side, pressing it flat from the top again until the bottom smells toasty, and then eat the result with okonomiyaki sauce (a wondrous tasty substance from a squeeze bottle which is apparently based on a mixture of tomato ketchup and Worcestershire sauce; it may sound revolting, but it is amazingly yum).
Generally my okonomiyaki failures fall apart because I didn't have enough flour to bind the cabbage together. The desired result really should be like a browned crispy pancake on both sides, with a soft vegetable interior. But even the failures are pretty tasty, and (attempted) okonomiyaki have become one of our standard low-effort dinners.