asian eggplants for summer hire

summer is most definitely not my favourite seasons of the year -- it's hot, it's humid, and there's half-dressed people almost everywhere.

fortunately, summer lasts only 2 months here, so the wardrobe indecency only seemingly lasts as long. this also means the eggplant season is relatively short, but long enough to produce abundant crops ready early or mid-august*.

as with most chinese foods, there are a gazillamillion overly ornamental names for eggplants (茄 ("keh"), 茄子 ("keh-tsi"), and 矮瓜 ("ngai-kua", or "short melons"), as us new world ch-nks — i shouldn't probably use that word even though I'M ALLOWED TO — call them) and eggplant dishes.

this one i'm calling fragrant third chinese lady president hand-handled sesame eggplant beauty cold dish. i don't even know if chinese people make this but i don't really care cause it tastes good.

sesame eggplant salad
not sure how many people this serves
1 large eggplant (~1.25lb/560g), or 2-3 chinese eggplants
1.5 Tbs (~25 ml) sesame seeds
1.5 Tb (~25 ml) sesame oil
1 tsp (5 ml) garlic, minced
1 tsp (5 ml) ginger, finely chopped
1 Tb (15 ml) light soy sauce
1 Tb (15 ml) vinegar (preferably black, but any will do)
1/4 to 1/2 tsp (1.5 to 2.5 ml) salt
1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) sugar
2 stalks green onions or chives, finely chopped

1. using a fork, pierce eggplant all over. bake or roast it in a 400F oven until soft (~1 regular eggplant, ~45 min for smaller eggplants). let it cool until easy to handle.
2. remove skin from eggplant and discard.
3. shred the eggplant flesh and season with salt. at this point, you can cover the eggplant and chill it for up to 2 days until ready to use.
4. in a frying pan, toast the sesame seeds over low heat until fragrant and golden. add the garlic and ginger and stir until warm (don't cook it, just warm it). remove from heat and let it cool.
5. in a small bowl, combine soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar. add sesame/ginger/garlic mixture. 
6. combine sesame dressing into the shredded eggplant. 
7. serve cold-ish, topped with green onions, as a goopy salad or a topping for bread or crackers!

*eggplants take at least 65 days to mature and need a lot of sun, which doesn't bode well for eggplants grown in basements.

sawadee-ka! i am pad woon-sen

fun-see (粉絲) (literally "noodle thread" or "powder thread") are those teeny bundles of noodles you find in asian markets that are thin and white, and rolled up in mesh bags like small bricks of santa claus beard clippings... see for yourself!


cellophane noodles (aka glass noodles or bean vermicelli) in cantonese cuisine are often used in stewed or braised or soup dishes (like winter melon with cellophane noodles and winter mushrooms, or even chinese hotpot (NOT THE CRAP FROM THE CANS)). either way, they're a great option to wheat- or rice-based noodles, though a bit more delicate.

that said, i don't have a chinese dish explained here, but i do have a thai stir-fry dish with cellophane noodles called pad woon-sen. it's pad-woon-derful! 


pork and shrimp pad woon sen¹
serves about 4 medium-sized eaters, 2 large eaters, or 1 very hungry man-eating plant.

note: the key to proper stir-frying is having all your ingredients ready to go, and also a hot, hot wok. heed my words. 

150g cellophane noodles (aka bean vermicelli, glass noodles, etc).
50g raw shrimp (deveined and shelled)²
50g pork loin or pork chops, sliced thin perpendicular to the grain (against the grain)
4 Tbps (75 ml) vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly or coarsely chopped
2-3 eggs, beaten
3 Tbps (15 ml) +/- fish sauce (nam pla)
1 tsp (5 ml) sugar
1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips.
3 stalks of green onions, sliced into 1-inch (2.5cm) pieces. 
fresh coriander leaves for garnish (optional but highly recommended)
fresh basil leaves for garnish (optional but preferable thai)
fresh bean sprouts for garnish (optional)
crushed peanuts for garnish (optinal)

1. prepare the noodles by soaking them in water until they soften, and then drain them.
2. season the shrimp with a bit of salt and pepper. season the pork with salt and pepper.
3. in a hot wok or frying pan, briefly heat the oil, add the garlic and quickly . quickly add the pork and stir fry. when the pork is nearly done, add shrimp and cook until the shrimp is no longer gross-grey colour, but not longer. DO NOT OVERCOOK THEM. remove the pork and shrimp together from the wok and set aside.
4. if there is none or very little, oil left in the wok, add a bit more and heat it. stir in the eggs and cook them until they are almost fully set. add the noodles to the eggs and stir fry until they are translucent.
5. return the cooked pork and shrimp to the noodles. add the peppers and green onions. stir fry with all your might until everything is hot.
6. mix sugar into fish sauce and then stir mixture into noodles are coated.garnish with the coriander, et al, and serve with dignity.

¹you can use whatever protein you like best, even a can of silkworm larva!
²why removing a vein is called "deveining" (not "veining") and removing the shell is called "shelling", and not "de-shelling" is beyond me. shrimps don't even have real veins! the negative prefix is deceptive!

dragon boat rice

the dragon boat festival, also known as tuen-ng jeet (端午節) in cantonese circles, roughly translates to "double five festival". i don't know what that really means but it sounds like a celebration of your terrible poker hand.

and i don't know what it has to do with dragon boat racing, but either way, there's still some great foodstuffs that goes along with this festival (as it is for every single chinese festival ever). (i just looked it up and the double fives has something to do with a dead poet).

this godforsaken year, tuen-ng jeet fell in mid-june, which means it's rice-wrapping time! gotta love tsoong (or zong zi in hoity-toity pinyin spelling) because they're convenient packets of glutinous rice and a variety of soong (餸 or rice accompaniments) and freeze super awesomely.

they're great mini-meals for days when you're too lazy or drunk to cook something.
 

momma chow is an expert tsoong (粽) wrapper, with over 30 years of experience. see for yourself!


[left: momma chow's display of refined tsoong-wrapping technique. right: my display of refined tsoong-mucking.]

it takes her less than 90 seconds to put one together and tie it up; that's the same amount of time a barista at second cup coffee shops is supposed to be able to make a latte (btw, if you as a barista and can't make a latte in under 90 seconds, you are bad at life).

momma chow usually puts glutinous rice with mung beans, fatty pork, chinese sausage and salted egg yolks in hers. but sometimes you can get it in good asian supermarkets like t&t, where slave grandmas fill them with roast duck, chinese mushrooms, roast pork, and/or all sorts of other goodies.

i'm hungry now.

frozen yogurt made with gold and diamonds

there's got to be a reason that each of these frozen yogurts cost $6.50 CAD, and i am assuming it contains crushed diamond dust and is made of gold-fed cow's milk. maybe it's to pay for the bosses' fancy jeans, their hip runners, their $20k high-falutin' frozen yogurt machine, or its $5k website (not linking to it) but tell me that there's something in it that's worth that much of my buttmoney.

otherwise, it would have been cheaper to pop a yogurt fruit cup in the freezer at home.


[from some [something]berry doppelgänger in downtown tdot.]

make a detour if you feel like you have extra buttmoney that day and you want to bribe your childrens into scrubbing out the caked winter sludge inside your vehicle treat your friends and/or loving family to good homemade-tasting frozen yogurt (in regular, mango or pomegranate flavours, naturally). amore!

can you say quinoa?

i sure can! and how!^*


[quinoa salad with pears, feta and peppers and other stuff (based on the foodland ontario recipe). sweet and tangy, like a disco party in your mouth]

this versatile grain/seed is nutritious, deliciously nutty and an all-round good guy, like the a gay best friend... great sweet or savoury, hot or cold! no wonder the incas were such an innovative and advanced society for their time! smart food for smart people! (though eating smart food won't necessarily make dumbasses any smarter).

here's a cooking tip: use a rice cooker to cook the quinoa, at a 2:1 water to quinoa ratio.

^*that's "keen'-wah" btw.

handsdown banana bread

if you're lazy like my cousin rayray, you will eat bananas, pears and apples for your recommended daily servings of fruit, and avoid oranges, melons and kiwis unless someone peels and/or prepares them for you.

that said, if you forget that you bought bananas and they turned to brown, flaccid unattractiveness, don't throw them out!

instead, transform them from the ugly ducklings they are to the sensuously scented banana bread they deserve to be in!



this is the banana bread recipe i've been using since i was 15 (which was less than 5 years ago)! it's moist, low in fat (though i really don't care about fat content), easier to make than a plutonium bomb -- guaranteed, handsdown, will be one of the best banana breads you'll make in your lifetime.

tips: try varying it by sprinkling brown sugar on top before baking, or adding butterscotch or chocolate chips to the batter. or you can substitute the sugar with applesauce (but reducing the oil when you do).

(low-fat and moist) banana bread
3 ripe mushed bananas (overripe is best)
1/3 cup (~80 ml) buttermilk or soured milk*
1/3 cup ( ~80 ml) vegetable oil
2/3 cup (~160-175ml) packed brown sugar
1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
2 eggs

1 and 2/3 (~400 ml) cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp (1.25 ml) salt
1 tsp (5 ml) baking soda

*if you don't have buttermilk cause you don't live in the deep south where people actually drink the stuff, make soured milk: measure 1 tsp (5 ml) vinegar or lemon juice into a measuring cup and then pour enough milk to top it to the amount of milk required. let it sit for 5 minutes before using.

1. preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). 
2. grease and/or line a loaf pan.
3. combine the first six ingredients in a medium bowl.
4. in a separate bowl, stir together the three remaining dry ingredients.
5. add the dry to the wet ingredients and stir until well-combined.
6. pour into loaf pan and bake for 50-55 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.
7. eat. 

once a tart, always a tart

who doesn't love the sweet tartness and mouth-watering flavour of strawberries (other than those deathly allergic to the fruit and maybe koalas...)?

strawberry season is well under way in this neck of the woods. what better way to celebrate them than to eat them?

bounty and seascape are apparently the most popular variety of strawberry plants grown in quebec (about 90% of the fall crop are of the seascape variety, and the majority of the summer )^a, and are a type of day neutral plant. the ones usually sold in nurseries for home gardens are usually everbearings, sold as "double-bloomers! twice in one season!" but the fruits are often smaller and the plants don't produce as many runners.

i have double-bloomers but i don't remember what variety they are. either way, i had do something with the berries i got. 

on 5 ingredient fix, that nice lady who has a julia roberts-like talking hole made three things using pizza dough (i didn't know this show existed until a month ago). these mini strawberry mascarpone tarts was one.


super simple technique: roll some sugar into prepared pizza dough, cut it out into rounds, then bake. top the cooled rounds with mascarpone, and then some strawberries that have been tossed with a bit of sugar. drizzle with good quality balsamic vinegar. and then eat.

any leftover strawberries should be eaten or cooked down. but anyone with extra strawberries should probably be punched in the nose.

^aaccording to the strawberry and raspberry growers association of quebec.