Yearly Archives: 2018

Burmese tofu

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slice of burmese tofu

Burmese tofu. Yellow tofu. Chickpea tofu. Call it what you like. It’s made from chickpea flour and is a spectacular alternative to traditional (soybean) tofu.

Dear friends, this will be a quick post. But not an insignificant one if you’ve never had Burmese tofu.

Burmese tofu is made from chickpea flour, water and, traditionally, turmeric. Hence the color.

It can stand in for soybean tofu in just about any recipe because of its neutral flavor and the ability to alter its firmness by using more or less water. That means you can fry firm chunks, as in the photo below, which yields a crispy exterior and creamy interior, or make faux scrambled eggs. Everything in between works, too, like stir-frys (or stir-fries, if you prefer) and salads.

Fried squares of Burmese tofu

Fried Burmese tofu. It can stick, so use a non-stick pan. Leftovers are great on a sandwich the next day.

The basic version is seasoned only with turmeric, but you can add whatever you like by way of flavorings.

Here is the basic recipe for a firm Burmese tofu. If you want it firmer, use less water. If you want it softer, use more water. This is a very economical way to get protein and nutrients.

I’ll be posting recipes using this tofu at some point, but you can start out by frying slices in an oil-butter mix and topping with some sea salt.

Burmese Tofu
 
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Tofu made from chickpea flour that works in almost any recipe calling for tofu.
Author:
Recipe type: Main
Cuisine: Burmese
Serves: Large pan
Ingredients
  • 3 cups fine chickpea flour (garbanzo four; "besan" in Indian grocery stores)
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 9 cups water
  • 9x13 baking dish lightly wiped with vegetable oil (or use any kind of mold you like)
Method
  1. Whisk chickpea flour, turmeric and 3 cups of the water in a bowl until very smooth.
  2. Bring remaining 6 cups of water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan.
  3. Turn down flame to medium.
  4. Whisk chickpea mixture into boiling water and continue whisking until thick. Should take between 4 and 6 minutes. Be sure to keep it from scorching.
  5. Transfer to your mold and smooth top with a spatula. Work as quickly as you can because it sets fast.
  6. Allow to remain on counter until firm and then carefully turn out onto a board.
  7. Cut as desired and use immediately or refrigerate.
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Best Foods/Hellmann’s mayo no longer best

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Jar of the new Best Foods mayonaisse

Hellmann’s mayonnaise has been around since 1913 and my family has been using it since 1952, the year my Grandmother, Mother and Uncle immigrated to the US from Germany.

When we relocated to California in 1995 we continued to enjoy it, though under its West Coast brand, Best Foods.

My Uncle and his malicious wife are still enjoying it on Long Island, no doubt.

The only product in recent times that came close, aside from the old Safeway Select version that no longer exists, is Costco’s Kirkland Signature.

Sadly, things have taken a turn.

Hellmann’s/Best Foods mayo had always been the standard by which all others were judged. Wonderful flavor. Creamy yet dense texture. The last jar I purchased looked different, however. And though there was something on there that said “NEW LOOK SAME GREAT TASTE,” it took only a dip of my spoon to know the texture was NOT THE SAME. It was as if there was more air incorporated into the product. And it follows that more air means less flavor and a deprecated mouthfeel.

Damn, you Best Foods! Oh, sorry. Damn you, Unilever!

There is nothing on the new jars that says “SAME GREAT RECIPE,” and we all know that “TASTE” and “RECIPE” are not equivalent. I don’t know exactly what changed, but I believe the product is lighter, so I’m guessing they’re using air to save money. You know, like overrun in ice cream. Crappy ice creams are high in overrun. Lots of air.

Maybe they’re looking for ways to offset their use of free-range eggs, who knows?

The unsubstantial texture and dumbed-down flavor will force us to purchase Kirkland Signature from here on out. It’s a little saltier, but thick with great depth of flavor. And it’s less expensive.

Greed. It’ll get you in the end. At least I hope so.

 

 

99 Ranch shopping and lunch

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Photo of items purchased at 99 Ranch mega asian grocery store with captions

99 Ranch (Asian supermarket) shopping haul

Dragged Steverino to 99 Ranch today. Well, not exactly dragged. He doesn’t mind going to food stores. Costco is the place he really hates going.

99 Ranch is a semi-national Asian, mostly Chinese, supermarket chain with a heavy presence in Cali. There’s one very close to my home in a mall where Matt and his friends used to hang drinking bubble tea when they were in high school.

This huge market has whatever you might need to cook Chinese food. Their Korean and Indonesian stock have been getting better, too. The Filipino selection is decent, but for that you can go to a Seafood City. For Indian cooking they’re not the best, but they don’t have to be because there are numerous other places that specialize in that.

I’m happy about the Korean stuff being easier to get there because there is no H Mart north of San Jose in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the one comprehensive Korean supermarket in Oakland, Koreana Plaza, is smallish, with a parking lot that is not death proof.

I’m not complaining. Really.

In the SF Bay Area we have it made when it comes to ingredients for Asian cooking.

When I start to carry on about the lack of H Mart action I think back to 2014 and my attempt to make kimchi in Binghamton, New York. There was ONE STORE that supplied what I needed — because it was Korean-owned. When I asked for gachugaru, the distinctive Korean red chili flakes you gotta have for kimchi, and saeujeot (salted shrimp), the owner all but fell down right there in the aisle.

“You don’t live here, right?”

Don’t think I’m being snippy. Binghamton has lots of things I can’t get where I live. A decent chicken parmesan hero, for one. Spiedies, for another. And all the diners! And I mean real diners, not those SF Bay Area posers with their fancy-pants precious portions.

Thanks to that Korean store I was able to make the kimchi, but it wasn’t ready by the time I needed to travel back to Cali and I think I forgot to remind my friends to eat it by a certain date, so there is more than an even chance it overflowed in their fridge. And possibly became viscous. I wasn’t able to get the right kind of rice flour for the porridge, you see, so I improvised with something that does not age as well.

I owe them a good batch of kimchi and a couple of hours of cleaning of their choice.

I digress. I was talking about 99 Ranch. And heading toward the main topic of this essay: what I bought there today.

By the by, did you know that the number 9 is auspicious in China? It represents longevity. 99 is thus “double lucky.”

And lucky for me the store has a BBQ meat counter and a huge array of hot, prepared food to eat there or take home. One can purchase a whole roasted duck for $17, which is chopped while you wait by a cleaver-wielding woman on whom the Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy has nothing.

So of course we had lunch.

Eating there isn’t genteel as the seating area is tight, there is heavy competition for a table and you have to dodge the folks perusing both baked goods and hanging roast fowl. The place is nuts, but I love that kind of energy.

For $10.50, total, you get a mixed hot food or BBQ-over-rice plate. It’s a deal. Steve and I each had duck and roast pork. If you get the mixed hot foods the rule is that the lid on your clamshell container has to close. More or less.

There’s an art to filling up the clamshell.

The first time I went there I didn’t have it down. As I was serving myself eggplant in garlic sauce while trying not to disturb my single piece of fried fish and and lone chicken leg, an older lady grabbed the container from my mitts, transferred the fried fish and chicken to the napkin on the tray, and proceeded to fill the business side of the clamshell to within an inch of its life with eggplant. She then put the fish and chicken on top, went back to where those items were on the steam table and added more of each, creating a tower by using the dividers — which I have to say were almost completely obscured by the eggplant — to stabilize the whole affair. When she was done I had five pieces of fried fish and four large chicken legs. Then she said something to me in Cantonese and motioned to the other side of the container. The dude behind us served as translator, jumping in and telling me that the idea is to “make like you can close it, even though it’s folly.” And to “be confident.”

The check-out person didn’t bat an eye, and the folks I shared my table with nodded approvingly when they took a gander at my fantasmagorical lunch.

That was some 20 years and many visits ago.

Finally, let me tell you what we purchased and why. The photo above shows each item described below.

1). Potato starch noodles for the Korean dish, japchae. This is easy to make and expensive to order.
2). Spring roll wrappers for Vietnamese imperial rolls, filled with a ground pork mixture, and pizza rolls.
3). Mung bean jelly for liangfen, a cold Sichuan dish where the jelly is sliced into strips and mixed with chili oil. It’s shameful that I’m buying this because it’s so inexpensive and easy to make.
4). Pickled mustard greens for mapodofu, spicy tofu and pork. I like to add this sour element to the dish.
5). Spicy tofu snacks for Matthew. These are individually-wrapped squares of pressed, seasoned tofu.
6). Silken tofu for soondooboo — Korean tofu soup.
7). Mustard green pickle instant ramen, because it’s good to have on-hand when you’re in a pinch. Instant ramen can be doctored up in numerous ways.
8). Dried soybeans for natto, Japanese fermented beans. It’s easy to make this once you get the process down. Natto starter and a means of holding at a temperature of between 100 and 115 F. for a day are all you need. An Instant Pot is a popular way to make natto nowadays.
9). Tonkatsu ramen kits from Sun. Sun Noodle produces some of the best ramen in the US. Unfortunately I can usually only find it in kits rather than bulk, but the kits are great. They were a dollar off this week, to boot.
10). Potato starch for certain pancakes and potato kugel. It gives a great texture!
11). Laoganma fried chili in oil with peanuts. The chilies are crispy and the oil has fantastic flavor. I put it on so many things. There’s prickly ash, AKA Sichuan peppercorns, in here, too, so it has that ma la (numbing) heat. Yeah, it has a bit of MSG, but I can deal.

Be adventurous when you’re at markets that specialize in the cuisines of other cultures! Get recipes for your favorite items and then try your hand at making them yourself.

And, if they have prepared foods, eat!

 

 

 

 

I Tried Taco Bell’s Breakfast Crunchwrap

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I don’t eat much fast food, and Taco Bell is my last resort when I do.

I’ve only ever eaten there a few times. Once for a free taco when the San Francisco Giants won the Word Series and everyone in the Bay Area was eligible for a freebie, and a couple times on road trips. It’s not my bag.

OK, before you get all up in my soup, I’m no stranger to fast food. I grew up off of Northern Boulevard in Flushing, Queens, near a Wetson’s (a burger joint), a Burger King, a Dunkin’ Donuts and a Nathan’s. There was also a Kentucky Fried Chicken not far from us. My Dad loved all those places, and we’d stop in now and then as a treat. It’s funny how we considered those things treats, and not what my Mom cooked every day: real food with known, quality ingredients.

So, now as then, we have fast food as an occasional splurge.

Enter the Taco Bell Breakfast Crunchwrap, stage left.

Taco Bell Breakfast Crunchwrap


I was out and about at an unearthly hour the other day and wanted to grab something. I recalled that a friend said the sausage Crunchwraps are quite good. Given that I was near a Taco Bell, and it was on my side of the street, and McDonald’s and BK were far-flung, I figured I’d give it a shot.

I have to admit it was good. Clearly freshly-made. It arrived looking like a pinwheel kind of affair, and was crispy on the griddled side. The thing had some heft, too.

There was scrambled egg, cheese, a hash brown patty (fast food chains love to bulk things up with cheap starches these days), a sausage patty and a couple of other unidentifiable bits. But it was hot, and the cheese was creamy, and that hash brown beast was crispy, and the sausage patty was savory, and I was really hungry. Even the egg part was decent. Soft and not rubbery.

Inside a Taco Bell Sausage Crunchwrap


I enjoyed it greatly. I can see why people love them. It’s like all your breakfast favorites just left a 1980s party after having snorted a couple lines and decided to form a Crunchwrap.

That flavor profile is way too amped up to occur in nature.

You think you’re eating scrambled eggs with salt and maybe a little oil, but here’s what the egg part is made up of, according to the Taco Bell website:  “Cage-free whole eggs, soybean oil, salt, citric acid, pepper, flavor (sunflower oil, flavors), xanthan gum, guar gum. Contains: Egg [certified vegetarian].”

What are “flavors?” I know what “natural flavor” on a label means, and it’s always natural.

Consider the Creamy Jalapeno Sauce that comes standard on this Crunchwrap model: “Soybean oil, water, vinegar, jalapeno peppers, buttermilk, cage-free egg yolk, dextrose, chili pepper, contains 1% or less of spices, onion powder, garlic powder, minced onion, cocoa powder, paprika (VC), sugar, salt, natural flavor, modified food starch, xanthan gum, propylene glycol alginate, lactic acid, disodium inosinate & guanylate, citric acid, sorbic acid, glucono delta-lactone, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate (P), calcium disodium EDTA (PF). Contains: Eggs, Milk. [certified vegetarian].”

It’s sad that mass food operations spend so much time and effort generating flavor compounds. I understand that this level of production requires preservatives and stabilizers, things like that, but all this flavor enhancement to make food addictive and to save money? 
Shameful.

Here’s what I’m thinking now: I enjoy a Whopper at Christmas because it reminds me of when I had them as a kid in Queens. Now I’m afraid to look at the ingredient list. 

OK, I looked. Whew! The Whopper patty is 100% ground beef and the roll is not too bad. It has high fructose corn syrup, sadly, and one or two other oddball things, but it’s no worse than cheap, mass-produced white bread. There’s no proprietary sauce on a Whopper, just mayo and ketchup, so that bullet was dodged. 

I’m happy my tradition does not involve the BK Crispy Chicken Sandwich. Don’t even look.

The Bomb that is Grocery Outlet

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Cheese I found at Grocery Outlet in Richmond, CA


I was at one of my favorite places the other day: Grocery Outlet. Yes, Grocery Outlet.

Why is it a favorite place? Because you never know what you’ll find there. 

Case in point, the cheese in the photo above. 

I was there perusing some crappy cheese when all of a sudden I saw a mess of American cheddar under the Back Roads label peering out of the case. Now, I may not know everything. Heck, I may not know very much. But I know cheddar.

This cheese had the look of quality. And it was from Vermont — a good sign. When I picked it up it was solid and firm. I guessed it had a nice paste. Felt like it was aged enough to have depth of flavor, at worst, and some crystallization, at best. At $5.95 per pound you can’t complain if it’s only very good.

When I saw the words “Grafton Village Cheese Company” in tiny letters at the bottom of the block I was transported into a culinary orgasmitron! Like when I found generic containers of 500 bags of PG Tips for $4.99 in the same store because the manufacturer had just downsized their tea bags and needed to get rid of older stock so their new product would not suffer by comparison. Which it would have, sitting on store shelves next to boxes of the same number of tea bags which weighed more, in total. The jig would be up with the consumer. Greedy SOBs.

Grafton cheddar under a generic name at Grocery Outlet in Richmond, CA


That’s how Grocery Outlet gets some of its stock. It’s how I got numerous bags of Chicken Soup for the Soul brand dry cat food at $15 a pop for a friend’s community cats a few years back — when it went from 18 pounds per bag to 15 pounds. 

If you know your products inside and out and look alive, Grocery Outlet can be a gold mine. Looking alive means checking out odd packaging and getting to know their stock over time. If you see something you love but it goes away, it may show up again.

Back to the cheddar. Which is from one of the top cheddar makers in the US. My guess is it’s overproduction or odd sizes from Grafton’s perfectly-shaped vacuum-packed line. From the flavor, it’s older than a year, for sure, but not yet three. A major, major find.

Did I ever mention that I found bottles of La Tourangelle toasted hazelnut oil at GO for some crazy low price? It was about a month away from expiration. But so what? You store it in the fridge and you’re good for a couple years. That oil, some OJ, onion powder, chopped shallots and a little sugar and salt and you’re in business with roasted Brussels sprouts.

Grocery Outlet is an adventure, I tell you.