Week 14 - Seaweed

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I had sushi for lunch yesterday and it got the idea to try and make something with seaweed. While I've had it before in things like, well, sushi, I've never had it as a main part of a dish. There were many different kinds of seaweeds at the store and most of the packages were written entirely in some Asian language that I couldn't identify. I just grabbed a random package of sliced seaweed which may be the wakame variety, but maybe not.

Seaweed is super healthy and cheap. It is used in a large variety of foods, from soups to salads to sushi. It is high in fiber and has one of the highest nutrient to calorie ratios. It is filled with omega 3 fatty acids, calcium, iodine, thiamine and niacin. In the wakame variety, it has a compound called fucoxanthin. This compound has been shown in laboratory studies to increase the amount of the fat burning protein UCP1 in mice and has the potential to do the same in humans (although this hasn't been studies yet). It is also used for blood purification, intestinal strength, skin, hair, reproductive organs and menstrual regularity. To paraphrase, this is really good stuff.

I put the seaweed into a large bowl to rehydrate. Almost immediately it began expanding in volume. I made a dressing by combining 2/3 cup rice vinegar, 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, a little peanut oil, 1 tablespoon of sugar, some salt and some hot pepper flakes and whisking. After about a half hour, I drained the seaweed and squeezed all of the excess water out. I then mixed the dressing in and plated a bit of it. Then I added some shrimp and salmon that I broiled with a little salt, pepper and garlic powder.

The verdict: It was actually really good! I should have cut the seaweed up a little smaller before mixing it with the dressing, but that wasn't a big deal. Plus, one $0.99 package made enough for 4 huge servings. I plan to buy more seaweed of different varieties and figure out new ways to use it. I would recommend you try it too.

Week 13 - Indian Bitter Melon

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I was looking for something sweet, possibly a fruit of some kind, but I wasn't impressed with the selection this week. Instead I saw this package of strange looking spikey green things labeled "White Cucumber" and had to buy it. I did a Google search to find recipes and I didn't find too many sites with white cucumber and the ones that I did, didn't have anything that looked like these. After further searching, I believe that these are Indian bitter melons.

Bitter melons are common in Asian cuisine, but it is also used for its medicinal properties. Apparently they help stimulate digestion, however they are also known to make heartburn and ulcers worse. There is also the promise that compounds found in these melons may help fight HIV.

I sliced the squash up and tried a piece. It was disgustingly bitter. I then soaked it in salt water to help reduce the bitterness like many websites recommended. After a day of soaking I tried a slice and it was still extremely bitter. The soaking did nothing. I fried them with red onion, garlic, soy sauce and hot Thai sesame oil and served them over rice. The verdict: They were still pretty bitter, but as I ate them it became more tolerable. The rice also helped dilute the bitterness somewhat. I probably wouldn't get these again. Try to ignore the dried out piece of chicken that I served next to this dish.

Week 12 - Baked Cuddlefish

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The baked cuddlefish crisps from Thailand looked like they might be tasty. To be classy, I poured a glass of chianti to go with my baked cuddlefish. I like squid and seafood and I like salty snacks so I figured that while a bit odd or different, it couldn't be all that bad. I was wrong. Way wrong. This was the most most god awful thing I think I've ever eaten. It had the flavor of a fish that's been rotting in a landfill on a hot New Jersey day. I had a very hard time even swallowing this. Every ounce of my being told me to spit it out in the trash. I wouldn't give this to the dog. Not all of the wine in California could make the taste go away. I honestly thought it wouldn't taste that bad.

The ingrediants list contains only five items: Cuddlefish 92%, Sugar 4%, Salt 2%, Chili 1% and Soy bean sauce 0.95% (I'm a little worried about the missing 0.05%). I did enjoy the packaging of this product, especially Squidy the mascot.

Week 11 - Peanuts Coffee Flavor Coated

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Again, I grabbed something quick that I didn't have to cook. These looked tasty and could possibly travel with me. Although I did eat them, I didn't get around to photographing them and writing about them here.

The taste of these is different than expected. I was expecting something very sweet. These however tasted more like espresso beans coated in peanut dust than the other way around. They really weren't sweet at all. Everyone else that I had try them thought the same thing. They weren't bad though once you got used to the unexpected flavor. It is actually nice not having everything super sweet. Since trying the ice cream which wasn't very sweet and now these, I'm beginning to wonder if the Asian palette doesn't enjoy things as sweet as the Americans. Perhaps the all the sugar and high fructose corn syrup packed into American foods has altered my perception of sweet. Or maybe I just happened to get some stuff that wasn't so sweet. I'll have to keep investigating.

One of the more interesting things about this product is the list of other flavors on the side of the can. It looks like there is chicken, shish kabob, shrimp, seaweed and some sort of seafood soup. Maybe in a few weeks, who knows.

Week 10 - Hello Panda Strawberry Cream Biscuits

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Sorry about the lack of updates. I've been in cold, far away countries for the last few weeks. Think Hoth, but with better skiing. (Sorry, I had to throw the nerd reference in there.) Anyway, I want to get caught up, so I picked up a few quick items. The first item is "Hello Panda Strawberry Cream Filled Biscuits". I actually bought these a few weeks ago figuring that I could eat them on the plane, but the prospect of eating and photographing Japanese cookies in a stuffed airplane seemed like a bad idea when the time came.

The box claims new sports printing, and they weren't lying. On each cookie was a panda playing some sort of game like tennis or soccer. The box shows a liquidy creamy strawberry center. The centers really not creamy or gooy in the slightest. They did taste pretty good though. These little things do make for a nice snack. Not too bad.

Week 9 - Silk Squash

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This is the first week that I bought something at the Asian market and I don't know what it is. The label at the Asian market said "Water Squash." When I Googled it, I couldn't find anything about it. After Googling around some more, I located sites that listed this as silk squash or Chinese okra. There's another squash that I saw in the market that is apparently the same plant called angled lufa. The angled lufa is long and has much more pronounced ridges. I'm not quite sure I understand what the difference is. I decided to treat whatever this thing is like a zucchini. This website has a lot of info on Asian squashes.

I sliced the squash up and I could smell a strong Earthy scent. I tried one of the raw slices and it tasted very Earthy, actually kind of like dirt. I sauteed the slices with olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Fresh herbs would probably taste good as well, but I didn't have any.

The verdict: The Earthy flavor was still there after cooking, but it mellowed somewhat. The overall flavor was similar to zucchini. The skin was a bit tough, but not too bad. I might consider peeling it next time before cooking. If you want to try a new summer squash, I would recommend this one.

Week 8 - Pickled Green Mango

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Things have been kind of hectic lately and I totally blew it last week. To make up for it, I'm going to get two things this week. The first item bought is pickled green mangos. I love sweet ripe mangos and I like pickles a lot. I'm just not so sure about the combination. Green mangos are also more on the tart side, rather than sweet and are very firm as well.

Normally I would just grab one out of the jar and eat it like an animal, but I decided to be classy and slice one on a plate so it looks pretty for this blog.

The verdict: I'm not entirely sure what I think. It tasted like an unripe mango, with salt and vinegar, ie, exactly what you would expect a pickled green mango to taste like. I think I may have to eat more to acquire a taste for them. I think they would be better in smaller batches, like in a martini or on a sandwich or something rather than an entire slice by itself. I'll have to return to this post in the near future with an update.

Week 7 - Century Eggs

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This week I decided to branch out and try something completely different. Century eggs or 1000 year eggs are duck eggs that are buried in clay, ash, salt, lime and rice straw for about three months. This has the effect of preserving the eggs by raising the pH. It also has the effect of turning the yolks green and the whites a translucent brown color. The eggs can be served with pickled ginger root or tofu or a number of other dishes. The can also be eaten raw as an appetizer, which is what I decided to do.

The verdict: There was an odd smell as I peeled it. I sliced it in half and the yolks smelled strongly of cat urine. The whites were rubbery, like Jello made with too little water, but otherwise tasteless. I popped the half into my mouth and as it turns out, the yolks had lots of flavor. And it wasn't good. As a matter of fact, it was downright awful. It had the taste of what I imagine cat urine tastes like. I'm not sure how I even swallowed it. I pitched the other half into the trash. I just couldn't do it. There is no reason that humans should be eating these.

Week 6 - Bamboo shoots

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After the green tea red bean cake thing last week, I went with something that can't miss. I bought bamboo shoots. Although they sell canned bamboo shoots in the super market and they are often in Chinese take out, the bamboo shoots at the Asian market were fresh and whole. The Asian market has bins with items like tofu in water, bamboo shoots in water and cuddle fish. You can use a slotted spoon to scoop them out and put them into bags. They also sell bamboo shoots in the refrigerated aisle.

I sliced the bamboo shoots and stir fried them in my wok with a whole bunch of veggies and tofu. The verdict: It was good of course and the flavor of bamboo shoots is very unique. The bamboo shoots did have a much stronger flavor than I expected. This is probably because they were fresh and because I probably sliced them a little thicker than I've had them before. If you get a chance, try buying them fresh. They're cheaper than the canned stuff and really delicious.

BTW, as a side note, if anyone knows why all of the carrots in the Asian market are absolutely enormous, let me know.

Week 5 - Green tea ice cream

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It was my birthday earlier this week, so I decided to celebrate with ice cream. I picked up a box 0f red bean / green tea ice cream cakes and a container of something "Happy Mouth," which were sesame cookie chunk things. Similar to fried things, I figured that anything mixed with cream and sugar had to taste good. The verdict: Not so good. The sesame things were tasty, but the green tea things, not so much. The ice cream was flavorless, the crust tasted like a communion wafer (think styro foam) and the nice looking red center on the box is actually just a bunch of actual unsweetened beans. To top it all off, the small box of these things was about $6, far more than a good ice cream product at a super market. Out of all of the things I've tried at the Asian market so far, this was the one thing that I assumed would taste good when I got home and it has been the only thing that has been disappointing.

Week 4 - Kimchi jjigae

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I was randomly surfing around when I came across kimchi on some random website about health food. Kimchi, also spelled kimchee, is a fermented spicy cabbage mixture from Korea. There's other stuff in there like garlic and onions. It is the most popular side dish in Korea. It is eaten as is and often made into other dishes, like kimchi jjigae, which translates to kimchi stew and kimchi fried rice. According to Wikipedia, Koreans say "kimchi" when getting their pictures taken as opposed to "cheese". Kimchi is also known for being very healthy, as it is full of vitamins, fiber and healthy bacteria from the fermenting process.

I found many different recipes for kimchi jjigae on the web so I took elements from a bunch of them and improvised. Traditionally it is made with pork, but according to a few websites, some people use Spam after the American soldiers brought it there after the Korean war. Other people use bacon. I used an Asian brand of Spam like stuff. I also used tofu, zucchini, garlic, ginger, onion, red pepper powder, a splash of soy sauce, a splash of rice wine vinegar and kimchi from a jar.

The verdict: I decided to try the kimchi by itself before making the soup. When I opened the jar, the smell was a little overpowering and the spices cleared my sinuses. After heating it through, it tasted good, albeit spicy as hell. The soup tasted excellent. It was spicy, but not too spicy and the flavors all blended nicely. I added extra red pepper, but if you don't like spice then leave that out and it won't be too spicy. I would make this again and maybe try different recipes.

Week 3 - Udon

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I have a bad cold this week and I'm feeling kind of crumby, so I decided to make some hot udon soup. Udon noodles are a thick wheat noodle popular in Japan. There were a number of different udon soup seasoning packets, but I decided to go with the traditional shrimp. Scallions are also traditional and is referred to as kake udon. The Japanese put a variety of things in the soup like tempora and fish cakes. The broth in eastern Japan is made with dark soy sauce and is darker than the broth in westerern Japan which is made with light soy sauce. The soup I made was more of a western udon soup. I added chopped scallions and a bunch of shrimp. The verdict: It was very soothing and delicious for a sick person on a very cold January day.

Week 2 - Lotus Root

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I decided to get a little more adventuresome this week. I decided to purchase a lotus root. The lotus root is actually a rhizome which is a horizontal stem that is often underground. This starchy veggie is one of the coolest types of produce visually. It contains lots of hollow tubes inside that look a little like worm holes. When you slice it, it looks kind of like a wagon wheel. Immature lotus roots can be eaten raw with a little soy sauce I've been told. I decided to cook mine.

After peeling and slicing, I lightly fried them with minced ginger and minced garlic in peanut oil. Then I added scallions and a splash of soy sauce. Once the onions cooked a little I added hot pepper flakes, sesame seeds and sesame oil. The smell in my kitchen was amazing. I got the recipe from this web site here. Although my photography skills aren't all that good, mine actually looked like the picture on the site.

The verdict: It was really good. The flavors all melded together perfectly. The lotus root wasn't a strong flavor, but it matched perfectly with the sesame oil, ginger, garlic and onions. It also had the perfect amount of heat. I will definitely make this dish again.

Week 1

Technically this is the second week of the year, but I didn't think of this idea until Monday when I drove past the Asian market. I decided to start off simple until I've done more research. I purchased baby bok choy, carrots, tofu, water chestnuts and a jar of something labeled, "preserved peanut." It is basically peanuts in some sort of soy sauce solution I think (hope). At $2.49, it was the most expensive part of this meal.

I busted out the electric wok and stir fried everything together with peanut oil and some soy sauce I had in the fridge. Then I served it over rice. The verdict: Not too shabby for the first meal. I probably could have used regular peanuts from a jar and it would have come out the same.

A few words about the Asian market

The Asian market is a pretty amazing and scary place. Almost all of the foods are different, even the foods that you may know. Chickens and shrimp still have their heads on them. Many of the fish are still alive and swimming around in tanks. Fruit is pickled. A lot of things look interesting, but the label is entirely in Chinese so you can never really be sure until you buy it. Then there are the things that you know what they are, like bull pizzle (penis) and chicken intestines with quail eggs cracked on top for some reason. These are things that most Americans would find repulsive and would never be found in you average grocery store.

The one thing that I immediately noticed about the Asian market are the prices. Everything is far cheaper! Tofu, while $2.50/lb at the grocery store costs $1.29/lb at the Asian market and even less if I scooped it out of the large barrels they have in there. I saw 2 lb bags of frozen shrimp selling for $6. At the grocery store these same bags sell for about $19. Almost everything is cheaper. Hopefully I will inspire more people to visit their local Asian market. If anyone has any ideas for me or wants to share their knowledge of the Asian market with me, feel free to send me an email.