Farmer's Market Find: Kohlrabi

In an attempt to 1) be healthier, 2) be more frugal, 3) support local agriculture, and 4) be more adventurous in my cooking and eating, I decided that every time I go to the Farmer's Market, I will buy one type of produce that I have little to no experience with. One of the first things that I tackled was kohlrabi., whose name comes from the German words kohl - meaning "cabbage" - and rabi meaning "turnip."  Around here, its peak season is late spring to early summer, and it comes in both green and purple varieties. If you've ever seen this at all (I hadn't before this summer), you might be used to seeing this cousin of the cabbage without its green leaves, leaving behind a sputnik-shaped root. 

If you are like me, it's always exciting when you can get more bang for your buck with two or more preparations out of a single item. Try to find kohlrabi with unwilted green leaves intact (same goes for beets, to be profiled soon). The leaves can be prepared just as you would any leafy greens such as swiss chard or kale.  I thought that I'd do some thing a little different than a plain braise or sautee, and I was looking to use up some miscellaneous veggies I had in the fridge. I was inspired by kohlrabi's cabbage roots (get it, like origins...except it is a root...hmm, maybe not such a good pun) and decided to use the kohlrabi greens as a substitute for cabbage in pancit guisado  (Filipino pan-fried noodles). This is a pretty easy dish to throw together with whatever veggies you have on hand that will give some texture and color appeal. Traditionally, it's got cabbage, carrots, beans or snow peas. My measurements are inexact because I literally threw this together. But I'll do my best to give you a ballpark recipe (see the end of this post).

 

As for the kohlrabi bulb, this can be eaten and prepared as you would broccoli stems or radishes. The crisp texture and flavor is similar, even a bit sweeter. Recipes I came across suggested eating them raw in salads or slaws, steamed, pickled, or boiled. I decided to improvise a curry flavored slaw, adapting a recipe for a yogurt-based slaw.  In the interest of trying to be healthy, I used lowfat yogurt as a dressing. But I'm sure you could use full-fat yogurt or mayonnaise and it'd probably be a tad more tasty.

Overall, I'd say that despite lacking robust flavor, I do quite enjoy the crisp, clean texture of raw kohlrabi root. It's something I could snack on by itself. Save for the fiber in the root, the leafy greens seem to be where the nutrition is at. The kohlrabi was pretty cheap at the Market ($1 for a bunch of 3) and generated quite a quantity of food, so it is a good bargain. I just might buy some again in the future. At the very least, I would be able to introduce some friends to a new veggie!

Pancit Guisado

Serves 8ish

• 2 chicken breasts, cut into 1-2 inch slices
  
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2-3 carrots, julienned
  
• 2 cups green beans, sliced at an angle in 1/2 inch pieces
  
• 3 stalks celery, sliced at an angle in 1/8 inch pieces
  
• 3 stalks green onion, sliced at an angle in 1-2 inch pieces
• 3 cups kohlrabi greens (or cabbage), sliced at an angle in 1/2 inch pieces 
• 1 package rice stick noodles (Filipinos like the brand called Excellent; try to find the kind that are made from rice flour, not cornstarch...which can get mushy)
  
• 1-2 cans chicken broth (optional)
  
• Soy sauce, oyster sauce to taste
• Salt, pepper, garlic powder
• Olive oil
• Annatto seed powder (optional, I didn't use it in this pic)

1) Soak the rice stick noodles in warm water for about 5 minutes to get them pliable. Drain and set aside.

2) In a large pan (like a wok), saute the garlic, then the onions in 2 T or so oil.

3) Add chicken. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and 1 T. oyster sauce.

4) Saute green beans, carrots, celery, and kohlrabi greens/cabbage. You want the veggies to be crisp and slightly undercooked because they will continue to cook in the next steps. If you feel that they're too done, then remove them from the pan and set aside.

5) Add the rice noodles, which should still be a little tough and cooked more after adding chicken broth (water with chicken boullion will do in a pinch), 1/2-1 cup at a time. You're trying to cook the noodles and get them to a consistency that is pliable but not mushy/overcooked. 

6) If you took out the veggies/chicken mixture, return it to the noodles. Add green onions. Season the mixture with soy sauce and oyster sauce. Annatto seed can be dissolved in some water and added to this to give it a nice pale orange color (more appetizing).

Curry Yogurt Kohlrabi Slaw

Makes about 4 cups slaw

• 3 kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and julienned
  
• 1 large to medium carrot, julienned
  
• 1/2 cup red onion, thinly sliced
  
• 3/4-1 cup plain yogurt
  
• 1 T. curry powder
  
• 1-2 T. cider vinegar
  
• 1/2 T. sugar
  
• 1/4 cup raisins
  
• 1/4 cup chopped walnut
  
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
  
• Salt and pepper

Mix together kohlrabi, carrot, onion. Season with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, mix yogurt with curry powder. Add vinegar and sugar. Taste and adjust accordingly. Add yogurt mixture to veggies. Add raisins, walnuts, and cilantro. Toss until all ingredients are well combined. Warning: yogurt dressings will get watery when left alone. So you might have to drain before serving.

Some blogs for the foodies

I've been quite uninspired as of late, but also feel the urge to blog about *something.* So I'm going to cheat and showcase a few friends who are much more dedicated, awesome food writers/bloggers than I! Prepare to drool...

Amuses Bouche - This is my homegirl Susannah's food blog. She always has a thoughtful, journalistic approach to her posts. Which is apropos because she is a journalist by training and most recently scored her DREAM JOB of food writing for...

YumSugar.com - Yay! Susannah writes for this food-related arm of the Sugar Network under the handle "YumSugar." Check it out, leave comments!

Inuyaki - My buddy Arnold's food blog. There are few people in the world who have the same love of food as Arnold. It shows in his writing about bringing fine dining to home cooking (he's practically a sous vide master), comprehensive and discerning restaurant reviews, and his holy-shit-that's-obsession Ad Hoc archive, which keeps track of every. single. menu. from Thomas Keller's Yountville restaurant since September 2007.  (I've eaten there thrice and still dream of the day I return).

Psych and the Kitchen - A totally awesome and educational blog from my friend, T., who is generous enough with her time to chronicle her experiences as she pursues culinary school (in addition to her full-time job as a school psychologist!). I freely admit that I am JEALOUS. 

. . . 

And a couple of blogs from people I wish were my friends...

Burnt Lumpia - I love, love, love this food blog from a Filipino American dude in LA who is exploring his culinary roots with interpretations and experimentations based on classic Filipino dishes and ingredients (um, Duck Adobo Confit!), plus other yummy musings. 

Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit - Best freakin' cupcake blog out there. Sadly, the author (I think she's in SF and some kind of engineer by training) has decided to stop blogging but will keep the site up. Which is good for us because the woman is talented. Her recipes are creative, sophisticated, and accessible to the home baker. 

Hope you liked some of these links...I'm on a hunt for my camera charger so that I can upload some pictures of my recent beet obsession. Stay tuned!

A taste of Thanksgiving year-round

Stock #1 made from giblets and neck bones

..with some turkey stock!

After reading the advice of many a foodie regarding stocks, I was itching to make one myself. Thanksgiving provided me w/ the perfect opportunity to boil up some bones and make a stock. If you've never made a stock before because it sounds complicated, DO NOT FEAR THE STOCK! It is super easy. Can you boil stuff? Yes? Well, you can make stock.

The gist:
1) Brown your bones before boiling. This will deepen the flavor.
2) Boil your bones and water with some aromatics (saute onions, celery, carrots) and herbs
3) Let it all simmer on low (barely perceptible) for several hours. I did mine for 3 hours and decided that it had reduced enough.
4) Strain and let cool.
5) Skim off the fat that settles on top of your lovely gelatinous creation.

Stock #2 after reducing for ~3 hours on VERY low simmer, then strained

This shizz is LIQUID GOLD! It is packed with flavor and can serve as a base for soups and sauces. Half of this is sitting in my freezer; it comes in handy when I want soup and want to just throw things together. A tip I read on another forum was to freeze your stock individually (e.g., use ice cube trays, zip baggies). That is a great idea that I wish I had known before b/c it's kind of a pain to chip away at the large block that I have.

I actually made two batches of stock (the first from the giblets and neck bones and the second from the carcass). The first batch was used for making the turkey gravy (roux-based). Anyway, if you stick to the general principles, you could concoct any stock of your choosing so long as the ingredients work (e.g., the juniper berries I put in were good, but a little strong). Best of luck in your future stock adventures!

Some Belated Thanks

Well, it's never really too late to give thanks, and we certainly should not wait until an arbitrary national holiday to appreciate the good things in our lives. It's been a few weeks, I know. But it's especially important for me right now to keep the positive vibes going, because I've had a really crappy December. Let me get the pity party out of the way. In the last two weeks, I:

1) was rear-ended during traffic on 35W, one of the busiest freeways in the Twin Cities (the same road where the bridge collapsed).
2) had my car towed due to complicated Mpls Snow Emergency rules.
3) lost my wallet and keys.

Surprisingly, I have not been soured by these recent events. Maybe it was that year in California that mellowed me out. I've recently tried to cope by reframing the situation and thinking about what I am meant to learn from these misfortunes. I also realized that these are all just things, and I have much to still be thankful for. You know, a roof over my head, my health and the health of all my loved ones, harmony within my family, being in a great graduate program, having wonderful classmates and friends, and so on and so on.

Oh, and of course...I am thankful for always having good food to eat. This is obviously very important to me, and I sometimes forget what a privilege it is! My first Thanksgiving in Minneapolis was no exception. As I mentioned in my last blog so-long-ago, my classmates decided to have a little Thanksgiving potluck the week before Thanksgiving. It was a splendid spread with lots of gourmet goodies made with love! Everyone came through with some awesome dishes. We had the turkey and a roux-stock gravy (story of the brining endeavor below), butternut squash and hazelnut lasagna, stuffing, Parmesan mashed potatoes, roasted brussel spouts, pumpkin bread, salad w/ carrot-ginger dressing, cranberries, and cheesecake custard. Not bad for a bunch of starving graduate students. I was very thankful for all this delicious food, and the good cheer shared by the wonderful company. A rousing game of Taboo helped as well!

My few foodie fans out there have been asking me how the brined turkey turned out, and I am proud to say that it was a HIT! I did end up using the Good Eats Roasted Turkey recipe, which called for a 6 hour brine. The brining is quite simple; just boil the ingredients and pour the cooled brine in with the turkey. Some places sell special brining bags; I thought I would be clever and buy a Reynolds Oven bag. That didn't work b/c the bag got a hole in it. Oh well. What's really tricky is figuring out where to let the huge thing soak for that extended period of time. Luckily, my ex-roommate had abandoned a perfectly sized cooler!

After it soaked for 6 hours, you gotta dump out the brine and rinse the chicken well. Doesn't make sense? Read my last blog entry to understand what goes on w/ the brining process. Be sure to pat it dry all over before greasing it up so that your skin will crisp. After that, you "flash roast" the turkey in the oven: 500 degrees for 30 minutes. This will give the skin a golden crisp. Then you lower the temp to 350 and cook for another 2-2.5 hours (depending on the weight of the bird). Ideally, you will possess a meat thermometer that goes up to the requisite 161 degrees, instead of a totally useless thermometer that only goes up to 120. I was very paranoid about infecting everyone with salmonella, so I had it roast an extra 30 minutes or so. Turned out well-done (10 lb bird for about 3 hours total).

The verdict? Well, here are a few comments I received:

Wow, it is so juicy and flavorful.
Gravy is hard to do, and this is very good!
Yum, and I don't even like turkey!
This is the best turkey I have ever had.

*comments may have been slightly altered for effect. Except for the last one; that's a REAL quote!

While it was somewhat time consuming, I am definitely going to try another brined turkey. My parents saw the pictures and want me to try and convert them into being turkey-eaters (instead of turkey-haters) on Christmas. We'll see...greater miracles have been known to happen!

Stay tuned for more Thanksgiving 2007 Frugal Foodie action....Next up, turkey stock!

Frugal Foodie: The Farmer's Market

Welcome to the first in a weekly(cross-my-fingers) installment, I will call "Frugal Foodie Fridays," an attempt at bringing together my need to be more consistent in my blogging and the one thing that I could talk and write about forever and ever - FOOD!

As you know, I'm a full-time graduate student whose financial means are quite limited. Even more challenging is the fact that I really like to eat - and I like to eat well. Not that I seek out foie gras and champagne, but I'd much rather eat things more interesting and more tasty than instant ramen and $0.39 boxes of generic mac n' cheese (though yes, I did eat modified versions of these two things in the last month). I'm going to take this opportunity to share this journey of a Frugal Foodie with you, oh few readers out there...so I hope you find this useful, occasionally funny, and maybe cool. Feel free to chime in with your own thoughts and tips! (p.s. Facebook users, feel free to comment on the main blog itself).

Well, when I first moved to Minneapolis, I was going through major SF withdrawal. One of the things that I loved most about living in SF was the incredible food culture and the segment of that culture devoted to fresh, local food. Unfortunately, some of the SF farmer's markets (i.e., the Ferry Building Farmer's Market) are much too expensive for those with more stringent finances. My advisor here at the U told me about the Minneapolis Farmers Market, and I went w/ one of my classmates to the Lyndale market the first weekend that I arrived. Boy, I was sooo excited! The hustle and bustle, the enormous amounts of produce all in the sunshine (170 vendor spots!!!), the crisp morning air. There are many different things available at the different vendors, ranging from produce to poultry to eggs to cheeses to bread/baked goods to the prepared food vendors (tamales, brats, roasted corn, Chinese food) and miscellaneous furniture/clothing/sunglasses (random, I know). One day I spent almost half an hour tasting a bunch of varieties of local honey!

The Mpls FM is a little bit different from some of the markets in San Francisco. One difference I noticed right away is that while most of the vendors sell local products and produce, there are some vendors who sell products from other parts of the country. Also, not all of the products provided have the organic label (which is controversial anyway). One reason for importing is that Minnesota has a short harvest season due to the weather. Some people might have a problem with this, but there is no shortage of locally grown and/or organic products. Interestingly, the Mpls FM started out as a place for area businesses to sell their products wholesale. Nevertheless, the quality of produce from the vendors is far superior to anything that I have found at the local grocery stores (even at the "fancier" ones which gouge you). Another thing to note is that most of the vendors sell produce by the basket or bushel (rather than by weight). As you can see in the picture above left, the produce is in little baskets which are usually priced at $1-3 each or an even better deal of 3 for $5, where you can mix and match. Awesome for any Frugal Foodie! The amount you get in each basket is HUGE. So I try to hit up the farmer's market with a friend and we split everything. That means that we get a good variety of produce for a cheap price, without having excess which will be wasted!

The selection here can seem repetitive, but it is quite diverse. I love that they have different Asian vegetables (Thai eggplant, bok choy, huge stalks of lemongrass, cilantro, and much more) in addition to the veggies and fruits we're used to seeing. I like to take advantage of the diversity by picking out some food that I've never cooked before to experiment. Picking cost-effective ingredients makes for a bonus! For example, I bought a medium sized spaghetti squash for $2 that I made into two different dishes - roasted spaghetti squash and then a pizza. Many things which are staples in a food lover's fridge are much much cheaper and better quality at the FM than in the regular grocery store. I love to get my fresh herbs at the FM. This one farm sells big bundles of herbs individually or even mixes for as little as $1! About 1/5 of that amount sells at the store for $2.99 and those often go brown fast. Fresh herbs can elevate the most mundane to sublime! I could devote a whole blog to fresh herbs! Perhaps another time.

I am in love with the Farmer's Market and have been there all but three weekends that I've been here, including tomorrow! Sadly, the outdoor market season is winding down, but there are a few more weeks left for you to take advantage of your local land's bounty (and get so much more for much less than at the crappy grocery chain next door). It feels great to eat a little healthier and to help out local family businesses. The Farmer's Market has me looking forward to Spring already!

wontons to wine in a week

(From left: NYC Chinatown for Chinese New Year, fresh snow on Boston College's campus, USF campus just one day later, Sonoma County)

Phew! In 10 days, I went from NYC to Boston to SF to Sonoma County (and next weekend I'll be in Chicago!). I was also supposed to visit Minneapolis this weekend, but that plan was derailed by the snowstorms in the Midwest. Too bad, because then I could have added another picture of snow (despite the mild sarcasm, I really do find snow beautiful). Disappointed as I was to miss that trip to visit the U of Minnesota, I was able to join some friends on my first visit to wine country in Sonoma County!

Being the wine country noob, I was happy that my friends are old pros at this kind of thing and planned out the whole itinerary. We caravanned from SF to Sonoma (about 1.5 hours) and spent the entire day visiting the various wineries in the Russian River Valley region. This weekend was also the first weekend for barrel tasting, when the wineries allow the public to sample the "futures" - the batch of wine that was most recently harvested and put into barrels for fermentation.

Oenology, like any area of expertise, is a culture in itself, complete with a set of terms and norms (i.e., wash out your glass w/ the provided caraffe before a new tasting, esp from red to white) that leave the outsider (read: me) feeling like they stepped into a foreign language film. Sonoma's winery culture tends to be particularly laid back and intimate. From what I hear, Napa wineries are larger and more commercial/touristy, but they also do more in terms of educating visitors. I would have appreciated this more structured education. It's kind of embarassing when you don't even have base knowledge to know what kinds of questions to ask! Perhaps I should take some formal wine-tasting class...that's on the to-do list for some day.

What I realized I enjoy most is the art of wine pairing. It's so delightful how various notes in a cheese or dish can be accentuated by a certain wine. That's what I exactly love about cooking, especially extemporaneous recipe-free cooking. Discovering harmonious permutations of flavors and textures is so exciting! Well, I may never be a true oenophile but I will always strive to be an authentic gourmand.

move over TastiD, Pinkberry is here

TastiD-Lite has just been dethroned as my favorite frozen dessert guilt-free indulgence. After reading this article from the NYTimes about the Pinkberry phenomenon, I HAD to have it. Some might say that comparing Pinkberry is like comparing apples and oranges, but I think of it more like comparing...um, foie gras with liverspread out of a can (sorry to my veggie friends out there). Ok, I still got love for TastiD, especially for the chocolate/peanut butter flavors - Pinkberry only has vanilla and green tea bases - but even I have to admit that TastiD seems strangely unnatural. Excerpted from my Yelp review:

Titillating your taste buds, sour and sweet, in ways never experienced before, Pinkberry is frozen yogurt for foodies. Yogurt perfectly paired with fresh fruit toppings, cereal, or nuts create a harmonic explosion of refreshing flavors and textures. The first bite is curious, but every one thereafter is ecstatic. Upon reaching the last lick of your spoon and facing an empty cup, you feel both sublime gratifcation and yearning for your next tasty tryst. This shizz is not your ordinary soft-serve, it's soft-core gastronomy.

Right now Pinkberry locations are only in LA, NYC, and Las Vegas, but I hear that this frozen yogurt craze is expanding to other chains...so hopefully the tasty, tart goodness will come to your town soon!

the way to a Filipino's heart is through the stomach

kare kare (makeshift recipe below)

Filipino culinary culture follows a rustic, oral tradition. Dishes are comprised of simple ingredients (well, mostly meat) with simple presentation. Recipes are not written down in cookbook for posterity. I have always been amazed at how my mom and my grandma would just "know" how much to include of what. Cooking skills are passed on in an informal apprenticeship, where the child watches on as her parent cooks hearty meals for the whole family.

It wasn't until I moved out and lived on my own (in a situation where I didn't have dining points to live on) that I realized that as much as I grew up watching the women of my house chop, saute, and fry day-in and day-out, I didn't really know how to do it for myself. I was simply a consumer of Filipino food, while my elders happily have been the suppliers. In fact, that was part of the parent-child caretaking role. Food = love. Therefore, to show and receive love, the parent cooks, and the child eats. Food is a source of pride, and it is an act of giving of oneself.

Until recently, I didn't really try to cook Filipino food on my own because the role seemed too foreign to me. I don't cook when I'm at home in Buffalo Grove, my parents cook for me. And when I am on my own, I cook "non-home" food (i.e., non-Filipino) like salads, sandwiches, pasta, random stir fry, and of course ramen. Silly as it may sound, it was as if I had a resistance to bringing such a major part of my life growing up into my present world. Perhaps, if I cooked Filipino food for myself, then I would be denying my parents their God-given role. Plus, there's no such thing as Filipino cooking for one! Food, like love, is best shared with as many people as possible.

Well, I have had the good fortune of finding an amazing group of Filipina women as roommates, and they've helped me to feel like I have an extension of my family here in San Francisco. It's been comforting to simply share meals w/ them and talk about all the amazing Filipino food we grew up eating. Soon enough, I started craving traditional Filipino food, not just eating it but wanting to cook it too.

Finally, I was ready to attempt to replicate my mom's homecooking masterpieces; this would be my latest rite of passage. So I have started calling up Mom and Tatang and asking them a million times, "So, how do you cook [insert dish]?" I realized that my parents delighted in this new role as teacher; they could finally show their love through food once again. It really is amazing how good it makes my parents to feel like they are needed and, more importantly, that they are contributing to my satiety. It was wonderful to find a balance to the parent-child relationship where I could be independent and still rely on my parents (To hell with attachment theory).

My first independently cooked meal was pancit guisado (i.e., stir fried noodles), of my mom's own formulation. That was a hit and I am eager to try it again for my roommate's birthday this month. Tonight, I took on the adventure of cooking kare kare (pictured above). Kare kare is an oxtail stew w/ peanut sauce, easily one of my favorite Filipino homecooked dishes. Like most traditional cooking, it is NOT low-fat, low-calorie, or low-anything. However, unlike many other Filipino dishes, it does include vegetables. No, I do not have a formal recipe and in my attempt to be truly authentic, I avoided using a recipe online. Here is basically what my parents told me to do (it's all trial and error anyway, how spontaneous!):

Ingredients (varying by how much meat you have, should be proportioned so that veggies don't overwhelm)
about 1-1.5 lbs Ox tail, have them chopped if sold whole
1 Onion
chopped Garlic
1/2 -3/4 c. Peanut butter (best to use smooth)
Green beans
1-2 Japanese eggplant
4-5 heads of Bok choy
Napa cabbage (my family doesn't include this so I omitted it)
~ 1 tsp. Annatto seed powder
~ 1 tsp. Cornstarch
Salt or bagoong ( aka, salted shrimp paste)

Boil the ox tail for a very long time until it is tender, but not too soft or it will become mushy and fall apart in the sauce (on low fire anywhere from 2-3 hours depending on how much meat is on the bone). While the meat is boiling, skim off the scum that forms and as much oil as you can. You can also choose to cook the vegetables in this pot and then remove and separate the veggies when they're cooked, to be added at the very end. Separate the stock and the meat. If this is the night before, you can place the stock in the fridge and then scrape off the excess fat in the morning. Saute the onions and garlic in some oil, then add the meat and brown for a bit. Add some of the stock to the pan enough to make a good amount of sauce, but not too much b/c you can always add but not take away (too thin kare kare is a pity). Add peanut butter (no I have no measurement, I just guessed and tasted til it was peanutty enough) and break it down in the liquid. In a separate cup or bowl, dissolve a small amount (about 1 tsp) of the annatto seed and cornstarch in water. The annatto powder will give it a scrumptious orange tint and the cornstarch will help the sauce to thicken. At this point, you can add the veggies and boil til it's all cooked. Otherwise, just add the precooked veggies and that's it. Usually kare kare is served with bagoong (aka, salted shrimp paste, pictured at left) as a condiment. Unfortunately, I mysteriously developed an allergy to it, so I just seasoned the meat w/ salt as it was browning. Serve your kare kare with rice, and then reserve at least an hour to recover from food coma. Enjoy!