saag paneer

saag paneer is my fallback indian restaurant order. it's different at every restaurant, and finding a definitive recipe is almost impossible. i pulled this together from several different recipes. i also wanted to make it without ghee, buttermilk, half&half, or any of the other fatty things that make it really creamy (and delicious). i was actually pretty amazed at how yummy this turned out to be.

2 warnings: (1)this is a pretty time consuming dish--i will definitely make this again, but never again in such a small quantity. (2)you will need to watch the pan. this is not the kind of thing where you can walk out of the room, check your email, have a smoke, and come back to check on things. keep things stirring, and adjust your heat if need be.


ingredients
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 bunches fresh spinach (1)
1 onion, diced
2 cm. ginger, grated (2)
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp ground coriander seeds (3)
2 tsp cumin (4)
1 tsp cayenne pepper (5)
1/2 tsp turmeric (6)
1/2 tsp garam masala (7)
250 mL plain yogurt
100 g paneer

(1)ほうれんそう (2)しょうが (3)コリアンダー (4)クミン (5)チリーペッパー (6)ターメリック (7)ガラムマサラ

i got everything from e-town in kosugi.

i listened to car talk while making this.

let's go!
1. make the paneer. i have read that crumbled tofu or ricotta cheese can be used instead, but i'm skeptical. paneer has a really mild taste, but it still has a taste. i think you'd really be missing that with the tofu. ricotta is not the same thing, but it might work. if you can find it in toyama, let me know. cut the paneer into little pieces and toss in a bit of oil & turmeric. set aside.

2. now, the spinach--baby spinach is too delicate for this dish, so make sure you use grown-up spinach. separate the leaves from the stems and wash them. spinach is notoriously gritty, so do this well. blanch the spinach--bring water to a boil, turn off the heat, and throw in the spinach for about 30 seconds. the spinach will turn a pretty green color. put the spinach in ice cold water. drain. squeeze as much water as possible out of the spinach and set aside for later. the spinach below is pre-squeeze--if yours still looks like this, there's too much water in it. squeeze!!!


3. saute the onion and garlic in vegetable oil until your onions start to caramelize (turn brown).


4. add the lemon juice, spinach, ginger, and all the spices except for the garam masala. stir over medium heat for about 5 minutes.


5. process the spinach in a food processor or blender. don't puree--pulse to make sure it's still a bit chunky. if you don't have a blender, don't worry about this part. really, don't worry. calm down.

6. mix in the yogurt and garam masala stir over medium heat for about 5 minutes.


7. add the paneer. stir (but not too hard) over medium heat for 3 or 4 minutes.


enjoy!
this meal made me moan out loud. truth.

paneer

i was so excited to make this. there's a lot of science in cooking, but i think you have to really know your stuff to make cheese. this is a good starter, i think--nothing really complicated. but it does take some time. i was kind of in a hurry when i did this, so i skipped the last step. still, the texture and flavor were great, and it totally worked. next time i'll do it like this person so i can actually cut it into cubes.

i made this to use in saag paneer, but hopefully i'll be using it in the future to make more indian food. just so you know, this is a really mild cheese that doesn't melt.


ingredients
1 liter whole milk
juice of one lime

i got everything at e-town in kosugi

let's go!
1. bring your milk to a boil. do this slowly, and stir frequently. this is important because you want to avoid two things: 1) forming a skin at the top, and 2) scorching. the proteins will stick to the bottom if the pan, and the sugars will burn. your milk will taste gross, and you will never get that pan clean. just be patient, and it will pay off.

2. when your milk comes to a boil, turn the heat down a little and let it bubble for a couple of minutes. take it off the heat, and immediately stir in the lime juice. wow, science! the milk will separate into white chunks and a clear liquid with a greenish tinge. remember little miss muffett? this is curds and whey.


3. now pour everything into cheesecloth. i was really excited about this part--i've never used cheesecloth to make actual cheese. i doubled up the cloth so i wouldn't squeeze the curds through the holes.


4. now rinse the curds really well in cold water. squeeze the liquid out, but not so hard that the cheese starts squirting through the cheesecloth.

5. hang the cheese up for a couple of hours.


enjoy!

cheeseball!

bubble & squeak with mushroom cheese sauce

i've had niko staying with me for a few days already, and i invited max to stay over friday night for dinner and a movie. i'm not a huge breakfast person, but i thought having two hungry boys at my house in the morning would be the perfect time to make some bubble & squeak. when i worked at the pub, i used to eat it with cheese on top, which was super yummy. i had some mushrooms, so i thought i'd make some mushroom cheese sauce to put on top, too.


ingredients for bubbles
6 potatoes
40g butter
100 mL milk
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper
2 green bell pepper
1 medium yellow onion

ingredients for sauce
2 eringii mushrooms (1)
10 grams butter
250 mL milk
200 g shredded or grated cheese (not mozzarella)
pinch of salt
dash of pepper

(1) エリニギ

i bought all these ingredients at the jusco in takaoka.

for added deliciousness, listen to morcheeba--big calm while cooking.

let's go!
bubble & squeak
1. after doing some googling, i'm fairly certain this is not the traditional way of making bubble & squeak, but this is how i learned to do it, and also it's delicious so let's not argue about it. when we made bubble & squeak at the pub, we used mashed potatoes from the night before. unless you usually have mashed potatoes lying around at breakfast time, you're going to have to think ahead and make some up the night before.

2. peel and quarter the potatoes. boil for about 45 minutes. when the potatoes are done, you should be able to easily crush them with tongs.


3. drain and mash the potatoes. if you don't have a masher, you can use a fork, a whisk, or one of the beaters from an electric mixer. add the milk, butter, salt, pepper and garlic. you can tweak the amounts on these ingredients according to your tastes; however, i would advise you to hold back on the milk and butter as too much of these things will make your bubbles fall apart.

4. chop the bell peppers and the onion. sauté in butter until tender--the onion will start to become translucent.

5. you should let the mashed potatoes and the onion-pepper mixture cool overnight. in the morning, mix these together. use your hands--it feels funny.

6. use the mixture to make patties about 2 or 3 cm thick. i made 6 big ones out of my mixture, but in retrospect, i think i should have made 8 or 9 medium sized patties. you probably don't want the diameter to be bigger than the width of your spatula.


7. it's probably a good idea to go ahead and make your sauce now and then come back to finish up the bubbles.

8. melt about 20g of butter in a heavy skillet. brown bubbles on both sides. ok, so that sounds really easy, but here's the deal--the bubbles are going to stick to your pan. you will have a lot easier time if your bubbles are small enough to fit on the spatula. also a plastic spatula doesn't seem to cut it--use metal. if you have a second spatula, big wooden spoon, a okonomiyaki spatula, or a rice paddle, use that to kind of hold the bubble in place while you scrape from underneath. hopefully, they will stay in one piece with nice brown circles on both sides, but check out this picture.

9. yikes! i mean, the one on the top left isn't too bad, but what happened to the poor little guy on the bottom? yeah, i messed up. i think it was one of these things: i forgot about the butter in the veggie mixture and put too much in my mashed potatoes, i made my patties too big, and i tried to use a plastic spatula. anyway, if your bubbles look like this, don't worry. you'll be covering them with sauce, and the boys both agreed they were very delicious anyway. so, speaking of sauce...

mushroom cheese sauce
1. chop the mushrooms and sauté until tender. turn off the heat.

2. add the milk slowly while stirring quickly. heat up to just before a boil, and then turn off the heat.

3. stir in the cheese. i used a cheddar type mix that had a picture of omurice on the package and a little leftover summer comté, shredded. you could also use parmesan or shred those little baby cheese squares. whatever you do, don't use the ubiquitous pizza cheese. it will clump up and you will be left with hot milk with a ball of gooey cheese.

4. add salt and pepper.

enjoy!
i served the bubbles with scrambled eggs, wilted spinach, and pan fried tomatoes. i just poured the sauce over the whole thing. it was pretty delicious--we ate everything and then laid around in a dazed food coma.

shitake & bell pepper gyoza with chevre cream sauce

goat cheese is so amazingly delicious, but at 800 yen for 110 grams, it's not something i often indulge in these days. i was in e-town the other day and spotted some goat cheese with half-off stickers. score! the limited selection and high price of cheese does suck, but i can't complain about the mushroom situation. the produce section always has a nice selection of mushrooms that are relatively cheap. i went with good old shitake this day. anyway, on with the cooking.

ingredients for gyoza
1 pack (20) big round gyoza wrappers
1 pack (6 or 7) shitake (1)
1/2 red bell pepper
2 tbsp scallions, chopped (2)
50 mL balsamic vinegar
50 mL olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp salt

ingredients for cream sauce
110 g goat cheese
200 mL milk (or cream)
200 mL white wine
2 tsp butter
2 tbsp scallion, chopped fine
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt

日本語：（１）しいたけ、（２）にら

the balsamic vinegar is from marushin in takaoka. the white wine and olive oil are from jusco in takaoka. the red pepper is from from daiso in kosugi. everything else is from e-town in kosugi. just ignore the egg in that picture. i did.

let's go!
gyoza
1. mix olive oil, salt, garlic, and red pepper. when i first came to kosugi, i bought a big bag of dried red pepper rings at the 100 yen store. these pack some serious fire (to sprinkle on ramen, maybe?), so i've barely made a dent. i crushed them with a mortar & pestle, but you could just chop them very finely. using the mortar & pestle makes me feel like a mad scientist, so i try to use it whenever i can. anyway...

2. rub the oil all over the shitake and red pepper. let it marinate for a bit.

3. while that's marinating, you can chop all your scallions. go ahead and put the scallions and balsamic together in a bowl.

4. put the shitake and bell pepper in your fish cooker on low heat. if you don't have a fish cooker, you can wrap them in foil and put them in a toaster oven on low, or cut them into pieces and saute. cook until tender and juicy.


5. cut the shitake and pepper into little pieces and mix together with the balsamic and scallions.

6. take one gyoza wrapper and rub the edge with a wet finger. spoon a bit of mixture in the middle. fold in half and press down on the edges to seal. you should make about 15 gyoza.


7. you will need to have some steamer setup. as you can see below, my setup is a bit ghettto, but it works. you will need a wide pan with a lid to boil water in. you will also need some sort of metal rack that is on legs or has some way to hold the food over the water. those crazy steamer pans that have the folding spiral layers are not good for steaming gyoza, but it is possible. be creative. anyway, get some water boiling in your steamer.

8. now, if you have timing issues when you're cooking, may i suggest that while waiting for your water to boil, you go ahead and knock out the sauce? just skip to the sauce recipe, and come back to the gyoza when you're finished, or if you have the skills (and 2 burners), you can do both at the same time. this will give you maximum warmness and freshness for both parts of your dish.

9. when your water is boiling, place the gyoza in a single layer (not touching) on the wire rack. put the lid on and let them steam for 5 minutes. you might have to do two batches. when you pull the gyoza off the rack, they will be really sticky. if you pull the rack out of the pan and let them cool a minute, it will be much easier.


10. ok, i didn't actually do this step because i like my gyoza just steamed and not browned. but here's how you do it. melt some butter in a skillet on medium heat and place the gyoza in a single layer in the pan. they should take about five minutes to brown on one side; keep an eye on them.

sauce
1. i have electric burners, which suck for making sauces and eggs. i now have a portable gas burner, the kind used for nabe. it rocks. i used a gas burner to make this sauce.

2. melt the butter in a skillet. throw in the scallions and cook until limp.


3. add the wine and reduce until it's kind of thick--it won't get thick like maple syrup, but it will definitely be thicker than wine.

4. add the milk (you really should use cream here, but milk is just easier to find). now here's the deal--the butter/wine mixture can get very hot. make sure that you use low heat, that you add the milk slowly, and that you mix the milk in quickly. if you don't, your sauce will break. it will be edible, but ugly. so just be careful. cook on low heat for a couple of minutes.

5. add the cheese, salt, and pepper. stir until the cheese is mixed in well.

enjoy!
serve gyoza with sauce spooned on top. i sauteed some asparagus and the other half of the bell pepper that had been marinated in the the same oil as the shitake. it went really nicely with the gyoza.