n Russia, conventional wisdom has it that if you have a craving for salted fish, you must be preggers. I must be permanently knocked up then, because the craving never goes away. If allowed, I could eat a pack an evening. Luckily, it is not that widely available in London because African dried fish that they sell in Brixton needs to be cooked before consumption. Not your beer snack, in other words.
However, God is faithful, God provides. Just when I had run out of cured tyulkathat Victoria brought me from Moscow, most serendipitously, I stumbled upon these beauties called pejines. It took a 4-hour flight from London and a trip to Tenerife's Auchan (called there Alcampo) to get hold of it, but serendipity tends to happen to those on the move.
Much saltier and somewhat leaner than Russian tyulka, pejines should be given out for free in pubs to make people drink inordinate amounts of beer.
yulka is a sprat-like fish in the Black Sea that, when dried, or rather cured in dry air, turns into veritable vials of most fragrant fish oil and delightfully crunchy meat. A perfect companion for cold beer, it is sold all around Southern Russia, although it is harder to find in Moscow. On the Canaries, a saltier and drier version is called pejines.
ere they are in front of me like a pair of gigantic shaven and tanned highlander testicles. Despite the name, the blessed idea to deep-fry boiled eggs covered in sausage mince and breadcrumbs occurred to some English people at London's posh department store Fortnum & Mason. We can only guess what combination of circumstances and train of thought had led to this invention but these days Scotch eggs are a popular party snack from Minnesota to Jaipur and from Inverness to Lagos.
For some unfathomable reason, these days it is widely considered the ultimate picnic food. It is also a permanent fixture on gastropub menus. The picture below by Guardian's David Sillitoe may explain my incredulity about the whole Scotch egg hoopla.
isoni has nothing to do with the fashion house Missoni. It is a Japanese method of cooking in miso paste. Perhaps, the most popular misoni recipe is saba no misoni.
The recipe is simple, inexpensive and healthy. Here how it goes:
De-bone 2 mackerel fillets and cut them in squarish pieces (like in the picture).
Finely slice an inch piece of ginger, mix it with half a cup water, 4 tbsps sake, 4 tbsps mirin(or caster shugar) and 4 tbsps of miso in a pan and put on medium heat.
Add mackerel and simmer for about 10 minutes on low heat. Make sure the fish is submerged in the sauce all the time.
Add 2 tbsps of miso in the sauce at last, stir well and remove from the heat.
Serve as a main dish with steamed rice or to accompany beer.
hen the Japanese go out to drink, it always involves lots of food. That would surprise London's office crowd who customarily guzzle their after-hours beer straight on top of their lunch Prêt-a-Manger sandwiches.
In Japan, you eat and drink. Once again, unlike greasy chips, fatty chicken wings and salty nuts so popular in the West, Japanese beer snacks are the epitome of wholesomeness. In fact, many of them sound like the dream food of some health-obsessed Californian vegan. Take hiyayakko (冷奴), silken tofu with seaweed, or kimpira-gobou (きんぴら牛蒡), stewed burdock and carrots salad.
In the Japanese equivalent of the pub, izakaya, you are also very likely to be served your beer with edamame(枝豆),steamed beans in the pod. They are very easy to prepare: just steam them for a few minutes and sprinkle with sea salt. Some like to boil them in salty water but, in my perception, it leeches out the gentle flavour.
You can also marinate edamame in miso paste. Just cover the beans with miso and leave for about 8 hours without pods or twice that time in pods. Rinse off the miso before consumption. Serve with beer or sake.
hen I was a kid, this was our extended family's pastime: three generations would gather around the table over a huge bowl of steaming Greenland shrimp. The grown-ups would have beer, the children had to do with lemonade.
This kind of shrimp is sold cooked and frozen so you only need to re-heat it. Make sure not to overdo otherwise the meat will become rubbery. Greenland deep-water shrimp is naturally much sweeter yet less chewy than any other kind of shrimp. Just like with lobster, it is paramount not to overpower it with condiments or excessive cooking.
I just squeeze a lemon and add its ground zest as well as a very generous grind of black pepper. Or you can fix it the French way, crevette mayonnaise. And luckily, I can have it with beer now. Adult life does have its advantages!
Met mamuang himmaphan thod (เม็ดมะมวงหิมพานต์ทอด) is a beer snack. I first tried it when I went out with my first boss for the very first time. I did not feel like a virgin but I surely liked this combination a lot. For some reason, it is not awfully common and sometimes you need to explain the waiter or even the cook what you want from them.
It could not be easier:
Chop one red onion and 2-3 chilies.
Heat a wok, add half a tablespoonful of odourless vegetable oil.
Lightly toast cashew nuts. Add salt if you use raw nuts.
Mix with onions and chilies, sprinkled with lime juice.
Quick, tasty, savoury, healthy, very Thai, indeed.
empeh is an Indonesian product made from soya beans. I first encountered it in Jakarta where my friend's cook fixed me a vegan dinner with meat replaced by fried tempeh. When raw, it smells yeasty and mushroomy and tastes bland and doughy. When cooked, it has a lovely meaty texture and a nutty flavour reminiscent of fried bacon. It is delicious with freshly made long-grain rice and sambal manis (mind you, it is NOT the same as sambal kecap manis, which is a sweetish soya sauce!) This is how I had it for the first time in a remote mountain village on a stopover during our 25-hour Trans-Sumatran Death Trip From Hell back in 2001. It took me some time to replicate that taste. There are a lot of tricks of trade that you need to know to fry your tempeh perfectly:
SMALL EVEN PIECES: Cut the tempeh loaf into even 3-4-mm cubes, this way they all will get cooked evenly.
CAST-IRON WOK: Heat very well a thick-bottomed pan/wok before adding oil. Cast-aluminium ware works just fine too. Heat is distributed evenly in cast-metal ware making sure that everything is cooked thoroughly and evenly.
HOT ODOURLESS OIL: Pour about 1.5 cm of non-smoking cooking oil (mustard rapeseed or grape seed oil is good, olive oil will NOT do) and wait until it gets hot. I normally wait until it just starts ever-so-lightly smoking.
AMPLE OIL: Don't save on oil, if you've poured too much you can always strain the tempehand cut the rest with a paper towel. If you don't put enough oil, you'll end up with a soggy, anaemic final product.
EXPOSE ALL PIECES TO OIL: Add the cut tempeh and make sure it gets all covered with hot oil immediately. This will form a crust on top of each tempeh cube that won't allow it to soak in too much oil.
KEEP STIRRING: Make sure the tempeh cubes get evenly fried on all sides.
MODERATE HEAT: The fire should be medium high. If it is too high, tempeh will burn, if it is too low, tempehwill absorb too much oil and end up greasy and soggy. All stoves vary, so experiment a bit to get the temperature just right.
DON'T OVERCOOK: Fry until crisp and dark golden brown, NOT dark brown. See the top picture, that's the colour you should aim for.
ADD FLAVOUR: A dash of fish sauce or shoyu for veg(etari)ans closer to the end adds a depth flavour and saltiness. Plain salt just makes it salty. Meh.
It comes out so good you can have it as a snack in its own right, or use it instead of meat in various dishes. Just remember it does not need any additional cooking. Also don't let it soak in sauces too long, as it will become soggy. Add before serving to already cooked dishes. The quickest yet supremely delicious dish you can make with tempeh is gado-gado.
The right kind of tempeh is hard to come by. A lot of truly weird stuff is marketed under that name. In London, where I live now, I saw what looks more like vacuum-packed goobers. At £4.65 for 100g, twice the price of Select Angus beef, it must be A-list celebrity goobers. The New Loon Moon Supermarket in Chinatown, however, carries the frozen variety of proper tempeh. Close, but no cigar. That's why I always bring back 2 or three fresh loaves from Amsterdam. Thanks to Holland's past colonial connections, even local chain supermarkets carry it there. Your best bet would be to ask around in your local Indonesian restaurants where they get hold of their tempeh. Or if you have a lot of free time on your hands, make it yourself from beans and tempeh starter available to order online.
obou is an edible Japanese root. The English translation - burdock - makes it sound like something out of a witch potion but in fact it tastes delicious. Its earthy flavour blends wonderfully with carrots' natural sweetness. Shoyu, sake, mirin and a soupçon of toasted and seeded chili give this warm salad an amazing flavour with just a wee touch of spiciness.
Now for the recipe:
Julienne one gobou (burdock root) and two carrots.
Heat two tablespoonfuls of sesame oil in a thick-bottomed wok, add first the gobou and one whole chilli pepper.
When the gobou soften somewhat, add the carrots.
Take out the chilli, seed and chop it very finely.
Add equal parts of mirin, shoyu and sake to the vegetables - about two tablespoonfuls each. Add the chopped chilli.
Allow to simmer stirring regularly until the liquid is soaked into the vegetables.
Add a dash of white and a dash of black sesame seeds. Serve hot, warm or cold.
This goes gloriously with ice-cold beer or can be served as a part of Japanese dinner with steamed rice.
"Increasing intercultural understanding through the appreciation of world cuisines." I hope that my blog will inspire people to open their minds and try other people's food where they live or travel.
n Russia, conventional wisdom has it that if you have a craving for salted fish, you must be preggers. I must be permanently knocked up then, because the craving never goes away. If allowed, I could eat a pack an evening. Luckily, it is not that widely available in London because African dried fish that they sell in Brixton needs to be cooked before consumption. Not your beer snack, in other words.
. When raw, it smells yeasty and mushroomy and tastes bland and doughy
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