If this isn’t a refreshing way to enter winter eating, I don’t know what is. I’m talking about the leanest, meanest days for finding fresh produce, the doldrums of harvesting. Yeah, we’ll be here for a while longer. Luckily, there are always some dried fruits, nuts and grains that have been stored away for safekeeping — and only the toughest of the fresh root vegetables survive, like beets.
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This past Sunday marked a collision of occasions, not the least of which being the eve of Chinese New Year. But it was also the day of a major football game, a pre-Superbowl Sunday, you might say. Most important, and the one I chose to celebrate: it was Karol’s finger-food potluck birthday party. I think this dish could have satisfied the crowds at gatherings for all three.
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Chinese New Year is coming up this weekend — the Year of the Dragon is just upon us. Remembering a few good-luck foods for the holiday can be simple: anything long suffices for promoting “long life.” That includes noodles, which are traditionally served on New Year’s, often pan-fried. Make it as fancy as you want with additional ingredients, or as down-home and cheap as this one. With an assortment of healthy winter vegetables, it’s life-lengthening, in more ways than one.
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Rutabagas might not look like much — a discolored turnip, a rounded daikon — but they have a fierce flavor that certainly sets them apart from the rest of the root vegetable pack. Pungently bitter when raw, their tight-walled, yellow flesh dissolves after long simmering, releasing earthy aromas and a subtly sweet taste. It pairs perfectly with cream, butter and leeks, I think, and your kitchen will never have smelled better from the combination.
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Not exactly the same thing as shrimp ‘n grits, but then, these little carrots might just fool you upon first glance. Talk about making something exciting out of two not very exciting, (laughably) non-exotic, and non-expensive ingredients. Hey, you gotta start somewhere.
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Winter is a time to get back to your roots. I’m not talking about taking up knitting or studying Yiddish or something else important and having to do with your heritage. I’m talking about root vegetables. They’re abundant — probably the only produce that’s abundant — when the ground is frozen, and they’re widely adaptable to many cooking techniques. They also claim a wide range of flavors from spicy (horseradish) to sweet (parsnip), bitter (turnip), zesty (ginger), fresh (celeriac) and earthy (beet). One root you might have not tried, but certainly should this winter, is burdock — also known as gobo in Japan, where it is savored in this easy and pleasing snack-like dish.
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Vegetarian dumplings were once a strict equation to me: finely shredded cabbage, minced five-spice tofu, chopped scallions, and maybe some shiitake mushrooms, or clear strands of bean starch noodles. This simple formula I had been raised to identify as the proper filling for a meat-free (and admittedly inferior) version of the favorite comfort food. It wasn’t until more recent years that I realized this colorless, choppy mixture didn’t need to be just so… or just so inferior.
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I made unagi recently. And I didn’t produce the Japanese specialty by unwrapping a vacuum-packed fillet of fully prepared, barbecued eel — I went to a seafood market after having dim sum with friends in Chinatown, took home a sack of fresh eel, and prepared it from that. This was a huge step for me, because I love the taste of eel in sushi or with rice, but am terrified by the appearance of a fresh, uncooked eel.
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No doubt, it’s been a great year for food. One thing that I’ll remember 2011 for is that it marked a time when fusing “Asian” food with Western finally became became okay. I mean that it became more widely accepted, and for the most part, was done with more thoughtfulness and sophistication than in the past. It was a year when restaurants of other cuisines began using Asian ingredients with more dexterity; mixing distinct Asian cuisines amongst one another was done with abandon; food trucks and eateries were spawned in the tradition, yet under more clever guises than the trite “Asian fusion” moniker (a term which makes nearly every Asian American I know bristle); Korean barbecue became a taco filling; banh mi a regular sandwich option; rice cakes might as well be gnocchi and yuzu, a lemon.
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If there’s one thing I love, it’s seeing an entire community of chefs, food writers, and the ecstatic eating public go bonkers over one single dish. Last night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), it was latkes. And it was a madhouse. I’ve finally recovered enough from serving as one of nine judges in the Third Annual Latke Festival sponsored by Edible Brooklyn and Great Performances to post a recap, along with a coveted recipe by one of the night’s top winning contestants.
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