Shiitake Part 2: Hot Cucumber Salad

As the last post discussed, we returned from Tuesday farmer's market with a pint of fresh, local shiitake mushrooms and were determined to make them shine in simple dishes.

Two days later, a friend of ours showed up for dinner with a flat of fresh veg. from the farm where he's been living. He turns up occasionally with interesting selections of ingredients in search of a good home. Friends like this are good friends to have. This haul included a few pints of different tomato varieties, several colors of summer squash, a half-dozen cucumbers, some mismatched eggplants and a tiny, heart-sized watermelon. While compulsively munching little, orange, crack-laced tomatoes, we described a dish another recent dinner guest had shared with us that we found astonishing: hot cucumber salad. Something she had picked up in her travels in Western China, primarily Gansu province, the dish is hot in both senses of the word: served hot from the wok and liberally dosed with chili and garlic.

Up until then, it hadn't occurred to me to do a cooked dish composed primarily of cucumber; it seemed anathema to the vision of cucumber as cool, crisp crunch. Most of the hot cucumber I'd eaten involved throwing some into a fried rice in its very last moments on the stove, or including it al minuto in a brothy soup. This dish totally sold me on the idea, though. Remembering a languishing, slightly wilted half-head of greenleaf lettuce, we decided to add that, making it somewhat of a hot reimagining of a green salad. Also, it seemed a perfect foil to our plan for the second half of the fresh shiitakes, cooking them with Korean rice cake.

Korean rice cake (dduk) is a little like a giant, glutinous rice noodle (which, despite the name, is gluten-free), which we buy sliced on the bias into rounds. It has a thick, chewy texture and pairs well with all kinds of things. In fact, between that and gochujang, a thick, chili-based condiment that has been near indispensable in Korean cuisine since the introduction of chili in the 18th century, you have a kick-ass base for a stir fry which you can plug almost anything into. But that's a story for another day: gochujang would have overwhelmed the delicate little mushrooms.

Instead, we cooked the rice cake with a little bit of onion, oil and salt over high heat to get a little bit of toasty char flavor (contrary to what some may say, burnt is a flavor; you just probably don't want it to be the dominant flavor of your dish), took it out, cooked the mushroom similarly, and then tossed them together. And we saw that it was good. It's so simple, it's almost redundant to write a formal recipe to follow that.

Hot Cucumber Salad

vegan, gluten-free
Serves 2-3
• 2 med-large cucumbers, halved, seeded and bias-sliced med. thick
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 whole, dried red chilis, broken loosely
OR
• 1 tsp. red pepper flake
• 2 tsp. peanut or neutral oil
• ½-1 tsp. salt

Optional:
• 1 small head leafy lettuce, sliced into 1" strips
• 1 Tblsp. rice vinegar

Prep vegetables. Heat wok over high heat. Swirl in oil. Add red pepper and about half the garlic. Tossing until the garlic smells toasty, about 10 seconds. Add cucumbers and toss. Sprinkle with about half the salt. and toss occasionally until cumbers start to get slightly soft, about 2-3 minutes. Add lettuce and vinegar, sprinkle with remaining salt and garlic. Toss to combine and cook until lettuce is somewhat wilted, 1-2 minutes.

Shiitake & Rice Cake Stir Fry

Vegan, gluten-free
Serves 2, unless you've been sitting around eating too many little tomatoes, in which case it may serve 3
• ~1 lb sliced rice cake (½ the bag)
• ½ med. sweet white onion, med. dice
• 4 tsp. peanut or neutral oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 c. fresh shiitake, sliced
• ½ c. baby bella/crimini mushrooms, sliced

Heat wok over high heat. Swirl in 2 tsp. of the oil and add half the onion. Toss and add the rice cake. Sprinkle with half the salt. Toss/stir occasonally, letting the rice cake get a few charry speckles and the onion get a little soft, about 5 minutes. Remove to serving bowl.

Swirl in the other 2 tsp, of oil, add mushrooms and remaining onion. Sprinkle with remaining salt. Stir/toss until mushrooms & onions start getting soft, 3-5 minutes. Turn off heat, add rice cake back to wok and toss until combined.

Do You Know the Mushroom Man?

With the farmshare, we don't end up at the local farmer's markets that often. It's always an eye-opener as to how much more than staple veggies is available! When we went this week, among the treasures that followed us home were some pre-Prohibition style ginger ale from Green River Ambrosia, red currant-topped shaved ice (which didn't make it home, let's be honest), and some fresh shiitake mushrooms. These were particularly exciting. I play with dried shiitake all the time, but the fresh deal has a more interesting, subtle flavor and less toothy texture. We got there late enough in the day that it was the only variety the Mushroom Guy had for sale (it's his display above with lobster mushroom, coral mushroom, vampire squid edible bolete, etc.).

We decided we needed to really make the most of the pint of fresh shiitake, and it ended up becoming two very simple East Asian-style meals, leaving very little to get in the way of the fungus.

Day 1: Shiitake Rice Bowl

The other thing that's been a big influence on our cooking this week was the appearance in the mailbox of vol. 1 of Lucky Peach magazine, the inaugural issue of a gonzo gourmet magazine ring-led by Momofuku executor David Chang. The whole issue is nominally dedicated to ramen, and, to be sure, there's enough ramen-related content in there to fuel both a dissertation and a serious noodle-jones. It also takes time to wander off topic long enough to document a shared drunken rant on mediocrity between Chang, Anthony Bourdain and Wylie Dufresne, ruminate on the nature and relevance of authenticity in food, and dedicate the final quarter of the issue just to eggs.

The egg section not only describes several out-there egg recipes, but dedicates several pages just to examining about 12 different stages of boiled egg. This seemed to feed into our collective vision of a simple mushroom dish. Chang let slip that his preferred egg cooking time is 5 min. 10 sec., just enough to set the white and thicken the yolk slightly into a silky, unctuous texture. The dish was as simple as this: fresh shiitake sauteed with a little salt and a soft-boiled egg over rice, topped off with a lightly sweet shoyu broth and slivered scallion. That's all.

And really, that's all it needed.

Shiitake Rice Bowl

vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free
• 1 c. fresh shiitake mushroom (or dried shiitake, soaked), sliced
• 1-2 tsp. neutral oil
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 c. cooked rice
• 1 scallion, sliced thin according to preference
• 2 eggs, boiled for 5 min, 10 sec, peeled

The broth
• 3/4 c warm water
• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1 Tblsp. sugar

Heat wok or other wide pan over high heat. Swirl with oil and add mushrooms. Sprinkle with salt and toss. Cook, stirring/tossing frequently until mushrooms are cooked soft, 3-5 min. Remove from heat.

Divide rice into two bowls and put half the mushrooms on top of each, along with one egg. Pour half the broth over each and top with a healthy pinch of scallion.

Okra Gumbo: My God, It's Full of Stars!

Four Interesting Facts:

1. Okra, Abelmoschus esculentus, is a member of the hibiscus family, and, as such, has astonishingly beautiful blossoms.
2. For some people, "okra gumbo" is redundant; gumbo is based on a Bantu name for the vegetable, okra comes from an Igbo word for it. Notwithstanding, gumbo the dish can be made without okra the pod, thickened just with roux/filé powder (dried, powdered sassafras).
3. The phrase, "My god, it's full of stars!" doesn't actually appear in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, but does appear in the Arthur C. Clarke book. Interestingly, both book and movie were conceived in parallel to each other, as collaborations between Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick.
4. Okra will grow in Massachusetts.

I was surprised by this last point as well, when I heard from the farm last year that the pick-yer-own okra crop was coming in. I wasn't quite sure what to expect of the plant, and found myself hunting close to the ground (it doesn't grow tall in MA) for the pods growing bottom up from the stalk and watching beautiful, delicate hibiscus like flowers closing demurely against the afternoon sun. I was intrigued by the shapes of the plant, taken by the star-shaped cross sections of the gently curved pentagonal cones. Some of the pods too large and woody to eat I used to stamp stars on paper. The universe wanted us to make gumbo last week: in the space of days, pick-yer-own okra came in at the farm, I found a bag of frozen shrimp languishing in the freezer, and I found the spicy sausage I like on sale. There really was no way out of it.

Living in the Northeast for basically my whole life, I can't really claim any Southern authenticity in my cooking. The closest I come is a relationship I had in college with someone whose mother was New Orleans born and bred. For better or worse, the most consistently functional part of the whole deal was the way we cooked together; we worked at the same restaurant and lived in the same co-op, centered around the kitchen, and often cooked together in our off time as well. I can't really credit his mother's legacy here, as much as I'd like to. Except maybe in the roux.

Broadly speaking, a roux is a combination of roughly equal parts flour and fat cooked together as a thickener for sauces, stews, gravies etc. The classical French roux utilizes butter, while a Cajun roux, like that used here, uses neutral-flavored oil. The fat and flour are cooked together until they reach a desired level of browning. The darker a roux is cooked, the more it gains depth in flavor, but this also lessens its thickening power.

Ultimately, I couldn't help being a godforsaken Northerner and throwing a whole bunch of swiss chard in the pot. Also, I used some leftover rotisserie chicken instead of some kind of fresh chicken. In the end, though, it turned out pretty tasty.

Okra Gumbo, redundant or no

Dairy-free, gluten-free modification included

The (modified) trinity:
• 1 med.-large onion, medium dice
• 1 green bell pepper, medium dice
• 2-3 carrots, smaller dice
• fresh hot pepper (I used 1 serrano pepper, seeded and minced)

The roux:
• 3 Tblsp. veg. oil
• 3 Tblsp. AP flour (for gluten-free, sub 1½ Tblsp each of cornstarch & rice flour)

The rest:
• 2 spicy sausages (~3 oz. each), precooked ←spicy, smoked andouille sausage is traditional here, but substitute at your discretion
• ½ lb. raw shrimp, deveined
• 1½-2 c. chicken, raw and cut into chunks, or cooked and pulled (I used leftover rotisserie chicken)
• 3 Tblsp. Magical Spice Blend, which gets back to its roots as a Cajun spice blend
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 10-15 okra pods, sliced into ¼" rounds
• 1-2 tsp salt
• 3-4 c. chicken stock (Ok, so I didn't actually measure this, and I used my own super-concentrated stock mixed with an indeterminate amount of water)
• 6-7 stems swiss chard, cut into thick ribbons (optional, for silly Northerners like us)

Serve with:
• 4½ c. cooked white rice (1½ c. dry)
• Vinegar-based LA hot sauce, such as Crystal or Tabasco

In a dutch oven or other large, deep, heavy bottomed pan over med-high heat, start cooking the roux. Whisk together the oil and flour, then stir occasionally as it browns. Meanwhile, prep the onion, carrot and peppers. The classic Cajun trinity includes celery instead of carrot, but we had carrot and not celery. Swap as you see fit.

Once the roux has reached a warm chestnut brown, about 10-15 minutes, add the prepped carrot, onion and peppers. Add Magical Spice Blend and a teaspoon of salt. Slice the sausages into rounds and prep chicken. After the veggies have started to soften, add sausage and, if using raw chicken, chicken (cooked chicken should go in at the end). Once meat has started to brown, add chicken stock. Slice okra and add (see, it's full of stars!). Gumbo should start to thicken almost immediately. Turn heat down to medium. Stir in chard, garlic, shrimp and cooked chicken, if using. Cover for 3-5 min. or until shrimp are cooked through. Adjust salt/spicy and serve over rice with hot sauce.

Magenta Lentil Salad OR A Love Note to Slow Absorption Cooking

I have a beet problem. I have trouble resisting the urge to sneak them into all sorts of dishes for the sheer glee of turning them magenta. As far as childish impulses go, you could really do much worse. I love their sweet, earthy flavor, and, in addition to a crazy magenta hue, beets are loaded with nutrients: all kinds of antioxidants, detoxifiers, and anti-inflammatory compounds, not to mention sizeable helpings of folate, potassium and fiber (see here for more on beet nutrition). Also, many of them break down in heat or are in the skin, so my silly, lazy addition of raw, unpeeled, crazy purple beet looks like a solid decision rather than a fun one. You still get crazy fun magenta salad, though.

I've been making it with honey and topping it with chevre, but that's easily changed to make it vegan.

Magenta Lentil Salad
Grain/Gluten-Free, Optionally Vegan

Biomass:
• 1 c. brown lentils
• 1 c. urad dal (whole) ← you can sub green/French lentils for either or both of these
• 1 small/med. beet, grated
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 5-6 leaves kale, stemmed and cut into thin ribbons
• 1 smallish cucumber (5-6"), seeded and cut into ½” cubes
• 1 scallion, sliced
• 3-4 sprigs mint (10-15 leaves), minced
• 1 tsp. salt

Dressing:
• 1-2 Tblsp. honey/agave syrup
• 2 Tblsp. olive oil
• zest & juice of one lemon
• ½ jalapeño pepper, seeded & minced (optional)
• 2-3 tsp. ground cumin
• 1 tsp. ground black pepper

Cook lentils in separate pots: for each, rinse and add water to cover plus enough to reach to the first knuckle on your index finger for brown, to second knuckle for urad. Cover and bring to a boil. Let the brown lentils boil for about 5 minutes, add ½ tsp salt, then remove from heat. Let the urad dal boil about 15 minutes, add ½ tsp salt then remove from heat. Let sit for at least 45 min. to an hour (you can do this overnight!). You can cook them however you like, but this cooking method helps keep the lentils from over-cooking. In winter dishes, I like cooking my lentils to mush (and usually prefer mushier red lentil or split mung bean), but in summer dishes I like a toothier bean.

Prep veggies and herbs and mix together in a 3 qt or larger bowl. Mix together dressing ingredients in a small bowl. Add dressing and lentils to bowl and toss.

Crumbling in some plain chevre takes it up another level, but it's pretty good without, too.

A little more about Slow Absorption Cooking

I don't know if there's a more official appellation for this cooking method, but "slow absorption" seems to cover it pretty well. The basic principle of it is that you bring a grain or legume to a boil in a covered pot of water, let it boil for a short while, then remove it from the heat and let it coast. It's a fabulous strategy when you're trying to minimize the amount of time the stove is on, but it does require a little more forethought. On the other hand, it requires direct attention for less time. I often set up a pot of lentils or rice right before I go to bed. It's great: I bring it to a boil, turn it off, go to bed and wake up to it perfectly cooked. Sometimes I don't quite know what I'm going to do with it when I start, but there's roughly 2¹⁰ things to do with a pot of cooked rice, so I don't worry about finding a use for it. You can even make a whole meal this way, but that's a story for another day.

(Almost) Instant Gratification Lettuce Wrap Burrito

At Amundsen-Scott Station in Antarctica, it's -80°F. They expect a high of -53° today. Almost sounds nice; it's 98° in the shade today, here. This means a lot more when you live in a second-floor apartment and are too stubborn to get an AC unit. I realize the price of my stubbornness is that I don't get to whine about it, so here's a short list of what I'm doing instead:

1. Flauting common modesty conventions
2. Drinking electric blue lemonade
3. Star-shaped ice cubes: they make every cold thing better
4. Wading with the dog (I have yet to resort to her strategy of digging up some cool dirt in a shady spot)
5. Going to visit air-conditioning
6. Breaking out the ice-cream maker
7. Eating food that requires the stove being on as little as possible

It's on this last point that we dwell for now. Summer food for me rotates around my half of CSA share at Mountainview Farm, exactly a mile from my house. Not only am I supporting a local farm and visiting my growing food, but makes really good economical sense. I teach, so I don't get paid in the summer. Paying a nominal amount up front means I don't have to hang around the grocery store or farmers market in August deciding I can't afford fresh vegetables, much less fresh, local ones. The fee amounts to roughly $12/week for the 22 weeks from the beginning of June through the beginning of October, for a crazy quantity of tasty veggies, responsibly grown locally. It does behoove me to get creative in order to make the most of what's there, though.
The good news is that vegetables like this like to speak for themselves. Lightly sauteed summer squash and sweet onion mixed with black beans, rice and umami-rich yeast spread wrapped in fresh lettuce leaves.

(Almost) Instant Gratification Lettuce Wrap Burrito
(vegan, gluten-free)

Serves 2 hungry people or 3-4 not so hungry folks

Biomass:
• 1 med. or 1/2 large zucchini (normal large, not New England large)
• 1 med. or 1/2 large fresh onion
• 1-2 tsp olive oil
• 1 Tblsp Magical Spice Blend
• 1 tsp salt
• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed


• 1½ c. cooked rice (1/2 c. dry), cold, leftover rice is fine, if not better


• 10-15 lettuce leaves

Slice onion into moderate julienne (¼" thick). Cut zucchini into sticks about ¼" thick and 2" long. Heat a heavy skillet on high almost to smoking. Add olive oil, then onion. Keep it moving for 5-10 sec. then stir/toss occasionally over the next minute or so. Add about half the garlic and the zucchini. Sprinkle with salt and spice blend. Stir/toss occasionally for the next minute or two. Add the rinsed beans and the rest of the garlic. Stir it up, then turn it off. I mixed up about ¾ c. each of rice and the veggies & beans and a big spoonful (maybe a tablespoon) of tasty yeasty goo (see below), and sat down with that and a head of lettuce. I ripped the leaves right off, spooned a generous helping of filling on and wrapped it like a burrito: folded up the top of the leaf, then the sides and ate it stem first without dumping its cargo all over the plate. So simple, so summery and so satisfying. And the damn stove didn't have to be on for more than five minutes. I also made a version of this with leftover rotisserie chicken in place of the beans which I can also heartily recommend.

Tasty Yeasty Goo

The savory flavor of nutritional yeast, believe it or not, reminds me of being a little kid and dumping it on all sorts of things: popcorn, broccoli, pasta. To this day, a plate of spaghetti with nutritional yeast, butter and soy sauce is enough to send my inner 8 year old into joyous rapture and popcorn isn't popcorn without it. Later on, I found I wasn't the only person who flipped out over the stuff that way. A sauce similar to this one forms the basis of many good vegan mac n' cheese recipes, and like many good alternatives to something else, it's disappointing if you expect it to taste exactly the same, but pretty damn tasty in its own right. Also, it'll keep well in the fridge for at least a week, maybe more. A batch has yet to last long enough to find out.

Mix together until smooth:
• 1/4 c. nutritional yeast
• 1 Tblsp soy sauce
• 1½ tsp. Mustard (I used Trader Joe's yellow mustard - you may want to adjust this if you're using a stronger-tasting mustard)
• 1 Tblsp tahini
• 1 Tblsp water

Magical Spice Blend

I decided this needed its own post, as it will come up over and over again. It has its origins in a "Cajun" blend I ground up at one point to use with some catfish. I had leftover and found myself throwing it onto damn near everything**, partially because I liked it, but also because it conveniently contained many of the spices I find myself reaching for all the time. So when I ran out, I made more. It's evolved somewhat since then, and changes occasionally due to lack of ingredient, but it continues to have a combination of cumin, fennel, thyme, and black and red pepper at its core, with some kind of smoky-flavored element.

As I mentioned, I use it all over the place, but it's particularly good on anything that would go in a burrito, though that may not be very descriptive coming from me: I'll stick just about anything in a burrito.

Grind together in a spice grinder***:
• 1 Tblsp whole cumin seed
• 1 Tblsp whole fennel seed
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp whole black pepper
• 1 tsp red pepper flake OR 1 dry chipotle (not the kind that comes in sauce)
• 1 tsp smoked paprika*
• 1 large or 2 small dried shiitake mushroom*

*I know not everyone keeps these around, and I've put this together without them, but each adds a lot, and are worth digging up. Smoked paprika, which adds a richly smoky, lightly sweet flavor that I'm in love with, can be found at reasonable prices online if you can't find it locally. Dried shiitake mushrooms are a stellar source of natural glutamates, bringing out the savory flavors in even the simplest ingredients. If you have an Asian grocery nearby, you can pick them up there, but otherwise, check online.

**I once had a student who decided to sprinkle some on each and every element of his lunch one day. He declared it particularly good on the apple.

***We keep two separate coffee grinders: one for coffee and one for spices. When I was living on my own, I used the same grinder for coffee and spices, rarely minding a little bleed-over between the two. For those who want their coffee to taste like coffee and their spices to taste like spices, though, you can try a quick wipe with a dry towel or grinding a small amount of something cheap and neutral-flavored (I use a tablespoon or two of oats when I need to do this) to clear the grinder's palette.

The Extra Happy Theory

Once upon a time there was a bowl of noodles. The bowl of noodles was as sad as noodles could be, because it was very plain. Two giants (at least, giants by a noodle's standard) came and decided to lift the noodles out of their sad, plain existence. The two giants promised to transform the noodles into richly dressed sesame noodles. However, the giants could not agree upon how the sauce should be made. The mountains vibrated with their ongoing discourse, the noodles jiggled with the vibration. Eventually the two giants, who were sisters, agreed that each should make her own version of the dish and that they would compare afterwards to decide whose version was better. Each set to work, collecting a little bit of this and a little bit of that (and some of that other thing). They mixed their sauces. They ran out to the garden to get a little more of this herb or that. And then, each had her own bowl of fragrant, glistening noodles. They each tried some of their own bowl, then some of the other's. In the other's version, each found it lacking in some flavor, but also containing some note their own had missed. Eventually, they gave up and mixed the two separately-conceived versions together. There was a flash of opalescent aquamarine light and a sound of chimes and squishy noodle-mixing. Both found this combined version to be greater than the sum of its parts.

And so was born the Extra Happy Theory.

The Extra Happy Theory: We balance each other pretty well. In fact, whatever we make, chances are it'll be better if you mix our two ideas together, before or after it's made.