[food] culinary notes

[kaberett]

Item the first: I've been having some frustration getting the buttermilk culture to go at room temperature given, well, current ambient room temperature (of about 20°C); in theory it wants ~25°C to do its thing. The Warm Plant Box... is not currently full, and runs between 26°C and 28°C. The jar spent the morning in the Warm Plant Box (while I spent it in bed); when I emerged at lunchtime it had thickened up Correctly. This is Good Knowledge and I shall continue repurposing my tools.

Item the second: oh my goodness I'd gotten out of the habit of putting caraway in things while getting the hang of sourdough but sourdough with caraway is so good. Next loaf: little bit of rye in the with the white flour, which will hopefully usefully recreate The Correct Bread for eating with asparagus. Fingers crossed.

Item the third: partway through dinner prep this evening -- after toasting the cashews and slicing the tofu, before chopping the broccoli -- I remembered that we had (1) aubergine and (2) black bean paste, and abruptly course-corrected to sea-spicy aubergine (approximately). This worked enough better than any of my previous attempts that I'm writing it down.

Alex-style recipe, I'm afraid, because it's bedtime, but if you want me to edit this to something with actual ingredients and quantities and such do by all means ask..

Set the tofu pressing In Advance.

Toast the cashews over medium-low heat, with a token quantity of groundnut oil. Set aside. (Bowl with a sheet of kitchen roll in.)

Cook the tofu. Set aside.

Cut the aubergine into Satisfying Chunks. Chuck into cooking vessel with some hot water and soy sauce. Simmer aggressively until the liquid's evaporated.

(This is a good time to chop up the broccoli and set it steaming over some rice.)

Add a bit more oil to the pan and stir-fry the aubergine for a minute or so.

Add ginger and garlic and five spice (hand slipped and I added about three times as much as I meant to; this was good and correct, do it intentionally next time); cook for 30s; add ~1tbsp black bean sauce; cook for ~30s; add ~100ml water, stir well, simmer. Grinding some palm sugar and Sichuan pepper and adding it at this stage worked well.

Once the water's reduced some more, add ~1tsp cornflour and bring rapidly (and briefly) to the boil to get it to thicken up.

Season with vinegar and sesame oil. Serve.

Comments

[tei]

Caraway! I should try putting that in my sourdough.

(With rye, idk if I needed to adjust my technique for it but I found a little rye flour went a long way in terms of decreasing the elasticity of the dough.)

[kaberett]

The gluten in rye is much weaker than that in wheat (and also it tends to have lots of bran etc fouling up gluten cross-linking) -- this is not a failure of your technique! I'm probably going to start with ~10% rye; I'm fond of the stuff but that's proooobably about right for the specific thing I'm trying to recreate.

[sfred]

Ooh, sounds good. I haven't thought of/come across cooking aubergine in liquid before stir-frying it.

[kaberett]

Could also roast it or similar, but this gets it Good And Silky instead of remaining rubbery.

[sfred]

*nods* When I cook it, it's usually baked or roasted, or reduced to delicious mush in a pan. I will try this way next time! Thank you!

[ewt]

I am one of those people who Just Cannot with caraway, it tastes like soap to me.

[kaberett]

Alas! It is one of the things that Tastes Like Home to me.

[tree_and_leaf]

The sea spicy aubergine sounds great. Perhaps I shall cook that this week...