Karashi-Mentaiko/Spicy Pollock Roe in cream sauce over angel hair pasta

If the title hasn’t intimidated or scared you away, you’re a special one and we’ll be rockin on. I’m thrilled to share a fabulous dish that takes minutes to cook and costs less than $3 per serving.

Hiroko, the woman I work with, told me she made her daughter’s favorite dish the other night because she won a Naginata championship. Katie is a champion in various Japanese marshal arts but Naginata is her absolute passion.

“So what’s Katie’s favorite dish” “Karashi Mentaiko, it’s spicy codfish roe in a cream sauce over angel hair pasta.” Now I did a full body spin around and said, “Wait, I love that dish. I order something like that at Typhoon, the hugely popular Japanese lounge in the E. Village. (which only recently is no longer)

Hiroko tells me the dish is so easy to make and it takes no time at all.  Inspired by her instructions and her daughter’s taste buds I was determined to make the dish myself. Later that afternoon I joined Hiroko on her weekly grocery-shopping trip to Sunrise Mart, the Japanese specialty Mart in the E.Village, so she could show me exactly which codfish roe to use. It’s called Karashi-mentaiko in Japanese.  For English-speaking-me: spicy Pollock roe. I paid $7.50 for a package with 2 large pieces/sacs of the Karashi-Mentaiko.

I was tripped up by one of the ingredients Hiroko used because I don’t typically cook with cream or milk for that matter. Then I thought to myself, I have fabulous whole milk yogurt from Trader Joes, I’m gonna try and make it with that.

If it weren’t for the somewhat tedious exercise of scraping the roe out of the very thin membrane sacks the roe is in and the 9-10 minutes it takes to cook dried spaghetti or 3-4 minutes for angel hair, this dish would honestly take no more than 5-6 minutes to prepare. A new SpecialD for sure

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WHAT YOU’LL USE

1/4# – Angel hair or spaghetti – Use organic pasta that is made from semolina, whole durum wheat. I suggest no longer using enriched pasta.

2 sacks of spicy Pollack roe, (Karashi mentaiko or non spicy is called tarako)

2 T butter or olive oil

2 t Tamari or soy sauce – optional

2 T – cream or whole milk yogurt

For Garnish:

Dried nori cut into thin strips, scallion slices, chiffonade shisho leaf, an edible leaf in the basil & mint family, alfalfa or radish sprouts

WHAT YOU’LL DO:

Bring 5-6 quarts of salted water to a rolling boil.

While the water is coming to a boil, slit the roe sac length wise and scoop the roe out with a spoon onto a plate. Discard the membrane.

In a saucepan over a medium heat, add the olive oil or melt the butter, add the tamari or soy sauce. Turn the heat off and mix in the roe and whisk to break up any clumping of the roe.

This is where I substituted the yogurt for cream. I used about 2 heaping Tablespoons and whisked everything together, making a lovely sauce.

At about this time the water should have come to a rolling boil. Add the desired amount of pasta and cook until your desired tenderness. If you’re using angel hair 3 minutes is perfect. If you’re using standard spaghetti, 9 – 10 minutes. Reserve at least 1/2 C of the cooking liquid. drain the pasta and add it to the pan of codfish roe sauce immediately – still dripping from the cooking liquid is fine .  Stir in the sauce pan to coat the pasta well.

Place in bowls and garnish with any of the suggested toppings or anything you may choose or have around.

Enjoy. It’s Dlicious, it’s Dlightful, its Delctable.

I was invited to the Harvest Festival at The Sylvester Manor http://sylvestermanor.wordpress.com/on Shelter Island one of the most glorious weekends this year.

About a dozen or so EZ-UP, pop-up tents, manned by local vendors and food artisans offered up various delicacies from smoked turkey or brisket sandwiches, brick oven grilled pizza, all organic – kale, sweet potato & chic pea style soups and coleslaw to local wines, squashes, and Sylvester Manor eggs, husk tomatoes, breads, flower wreaths and cutting boards. The tents lined one edge of the farm’s ‘center field’ where a small stage was platform to a number of folk acts that played the last few hours of the weekend’s festivities.

My friend’s blanket was laid out just to the right of the EZ-UP tent where the ‘sound board’ was in the center of the ‘center field’.  As we were finishing lemonades and kettle chips and getting into our sweatshirts as the warm sun set for the day another friend showed up w/a brown paper bag half full of husk tomatoes, grown on The Sylvester Manor farm. No sooner had he sat down when I had one of these yellow marble sized morsels pinched from it’s husk in my mouth. OOoos, ahas and yums drifted and filled our space as hands of adults and kids dove into that bag with little restraint.

Husk Tomatoes or Ground Cherries look like a mini heirloom tomatoes but taste like a cherry and tomato mixed into one bite. Pretty Dlectable if you ask me. Immediately I thought to myself, “this would make one killer tomato jam.” One of my all time favorite delicacies.

Concerned that the two pint baskets I got would yield very little I thought adding my next favorite delicacy, Peppadews, would bulk up the yield while also adding so much to the flavor and body of the jam on a whole.

After photographing these most gorgeous and interesting husk tomatoes or ground cherries I got that sauce pot out.

What I used:

2-3 T of olive oil – enough to coat the bottom of a pot with a thin coat of oil.

1T of red pepper flakes and 1 T mustard seeds

2-3 good sized garlic dents – minced & sliced

2 baskets of Husk Tomatoes – husked & washed – some cut in half

6-8 Peppadews – sliced and 1/4 C of their liquid

1/2″ ginger root – finely grated

2T tomato paste, 1-2 T sugar and or maple syrup.

What to do:

Add the red pepper flakes, mustard seeds, garlic and ginger to the olive oil heating over a medium to low heat to infuse the oil with these savory flavors. Then I added the washed husk tomatoes and the sliced Peppadews and their liquid. Stir well, lower the heat.

When I tasted the mixture at this point it was really hot, spicy hot, so to take it down a bit I added the juice of a small wedge of lime, about 2T of sugar and a good swirl of Maple syrup.  I also added some freshly ground nutmeg*

Nutmeg is hardly a staple ingredient but I keep it around because a sangha member who’s authored a book on natural healing mentioned my using nutmeg when he noticed I was trying to suppress my cough during a dharma teaching. I also store my mini grater in the bottle I keep the nutmeg in and thought of it when I looked for it to add the ginger – which I think is a must ingredient for this recipe.

This Husk Tomato/Ground Cherry Jam is fabulous as a topping on baked potatoes, scrambled eggs, on buttered toast of any kind, and any protein.

Dear friends, the frenzy to forage for food and running to the market as an emergency situation looms and standing on a line that wraps around the perimeter of a supermarket I think is downright foolish.  If we follow my simple theory about the importance to “maintain basic staples” we’d all be in much better shape even under non emergency conditions. We’ll be proactive and not reactionary.

So lets look at what non perishable foods to keep around. The first item that leaps to my mind is GRANOLA.  I’m also totally into this new food item I just came across called GLAD CORN. It’s over sized half popped corn kernels, all organic of course. Dried fruits and nuts, especially almonds are great to have around. I have two packages of Kame rice crackers and a tin or two of fine fish, sardines in olive oil or mackerel. Certainly beans & grains are important to keep around. Quinoa is my favorite due to it having zero salt and fats while being very high in protein.

I’m gearing up to shoot a Recipe$ 4 $urvival episode during the hurricane.  The dish I’m  going to make is far from seasonal but it will be OH SO GOOD.  I’m going to make sugar plum grape tomato and vidalia onion RISOTTO.  Stay tuned.

Here’s to cooking up a storm.

X OMe, FoodD

When I first made this meal and video I called the piece ‘Colorful Meal’ but as I look at it now and begin to write this piece I’m gonna call it what I have, THE COMPLIMENTING COMPLEMENTARY MEAL.

The dish is complementary because the colors and textures are opposing and harmonizing while also being complimentary because it is flattering and gracious and when I typed the word complementary I spelled it with an I and noticed the synonyms were not the synonyms of the complementary I wanted but now I’m off on the subtle difference in the spelling of the word(s) which compliment each other – Let’s get on with it awreaD.

Clearly it’s the colors of the raw materials that got me going, the red/orange of the salmon, the green of the watercress and pea puree and the yellow of the creamed corn. There are so many ways to take this dish over the top so let’s consider this a strong foundation for always serving and whipping up complementary dishes, I say here’s to juxtaposition on a plate!

At first you would think the watercress & pea puree and creamed corn are complimentary, meaning too much alike but I think the dish works on a whole. I think steamed carrot or a thick slice of a warm, sun-ripened, farm fresh eastern LI tomato off set on the plate would certainly also add to the dish.

The first thing I made was the CREAMED CORN

Dice and sauté an onion. Add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil or the equivalent of butter SIDE NOTE I happen to have butter around, which I RARELY do but I was making and testing recipes for scones like a crazy person for one of my ParTEAS™ which I held and hosted at The Ivy Brown Gallery last month. to the sautéed onions then sprinkle with flour. Now you’re making a roux. Add milk and you’re making a white sauce. Add the corn and some water, mix and let cook. Now you’ve got creamed corn.

If you have cornstarch, you’d make a slurry of cornstarch and water and add this to the corn, onions and milk and again, have yourself creamed corn.

I poured the creamed corn mixture into a blender and gave it a quick blend. If one has a Cuisinart you’d give the creamed corn mixture a quick PULSE.

Next I brought well-salted water to a boil for the WATERCRESS & PEA PUREE

Add Peas to the boiling salted water. I used 1 cup of peas to one bunch of watercress. Recipes I read call for twice this, 2 Cs of Ps and 2 bunches of H2Ocress.
Once the water has come back to a boil and the Peas have floated to the top, turn of the heat and add the watercress. Let the watercress wilt for 5 minutes in the salted boiled water with the Peas.

While the Peas and H2Ocress were cooking I cleaned out the pan I made the creamed corn in and PAN SEARED AND POACHED THE SALMON

Get a nonstick pan hot. Pinch some Salt of D Earth into the hot pan and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan, slices from a good sized garlic clove and a squeeze of 1/2 a juicy lemon. If you have some white wine, black pepper corns, a bay leaf, any of this helps, just COOK YOUR SALMON. I cooked my salmon steak for about 4 minutes on each side with a top on the pan so I was actually also poaching the salmon You may want to cook your salmon in a soy sauce?

Again, pan searing and or poaching?? COMplementary cOMplimentary.

You should be done by now and reaDy to plate.

Get on with it. Dig in. Aren’t you starving?

Much
LO
VE,
FoodD

You can also find Me on youtube via this link: http://www.youtube.com/recipes4survival
or
by clicking the YOUTUBE link on the menu bar.

I look forward to hearing from you.

It’s Friday. I’m hOMe after a late morning yoga class, a few laps in the slow lane of the Chinatown Y swimming pool, a nice shower and sauna.

My mind is clear and reaDy to tackle the list of e-mails to follow up on as long as my arm but of course I was starving.

I could have opted to pour some organic tOMato soup into a pot from out of a cardboard box but something inside said, NO, make yourself a soup. I’ve got a half a head of organic cauliflower, 4 or 5 heads of garlic, 2 small yukon gold potatoes and vegetable broth left over from the tOMato soup I made for Alex last week.

I’ll also highlight the healing aspects of the ingredients in this velvety cauliflower & garlic pureed soup.

What you’ll need:  A head of cauliflower, a head of garlic 2 small yukon gold potatoes, 1 C olive oil, 3 Ts of flour, 4 Cs vegetable broth.

First I cut the head of cauliflower into fist sized chunks that look like individual flowerettes. Short of the very course bottom of the cauliflower’s stem I kept most of the stem on each of the chunks.  Add a good sized pinch of salt to the water you’ll fill a heavy bottomed pot that comes to just below the bottom of the steamer basket. Bring the salted water to a boil and steam the vegetable ingredients, cauliflower & potatoes for a good 20 minutes. I turned the heat off. With the top on the pot the ingredients continue to cook another 10 minutes or so.

While the cauliflower & potatoes were steaming I got to cleaning  and preparing the garlic for roasting.

If you’re new to cooking and not so comfortable with a knife, leaving the inner green ’stem’ in a garlic dent if FINE. Many cooks don’t remove it. One chef I cooked with says the green ’stem’ can heighten a bitter taste in what you’re cooking.

To roast the garlic use the whole cloves that are slightly cracked from the initial smash to get the skin off added to about a 1/2 C of organic, cold pressed olive oil. Cook over a medium heat. You want to see little bubbles. Don’t let the oil get to hot. A gentle simmer is great.

While the garlic was roasting I pureed the steamed cauliflower & potatoes in my ordinary blender, no fancy Cuisinart. I sliced the potatoes into 1/4″ discs when I added them to the blender. I blended these ingredients in two batches adding about a cup of vegetable broth. This and additional organic vegetable broth are what I’ll add to the roasted garlic roux to make the soup. 

With the garlic roasted, garlic infused seasoned oil and the steamed cauliflower & potato puree, I began to make the roux.  This is simply done by mashing the roasted garlic cloves, adding the garlic infused seasoned oil and a small hand-full of unbleached flour.

I added about a 1/2 C of the vegetable broth to the roux to create the creamy stock for the soup, then I began to add the cauliflower & potato puree, alternating between adding stock & puree. Stirring all the while.

MMgOOd and you’ll feel great too and boy oh boy did I have a LOT from just a half a head of cauliflower.

Tags: cauliflower, cold press olive oil, garlic, health supportive, organic, puree, recipe, roux, soup, steamer basket