Tuesday, November 12, 2013

November 12, 2013 Lunch - Noodle Soup; Dinner – Grilled Teriyaki Marinated Salmon and Stir Fried Vegetables and Fried Tofu over rice.

November 12, 2013 Lunch -  Noodle Soup; Dinner – Grilled Teriyaki Marinated Salmon and Stir Fried Vegetables and Fried Tofu over rice.

I got into an elaborate food day today.  I made a pot of three kinds of noodles for lunch, wheat, rice and bean flour noodles in a broth flavored with Pho flavoring and white miso with three oz. of PPI steak, two beef meatballs, ½ of a large shallot, two cloves of garlic, 1 Tbsp. of ginger root, 1 cup of chopped kale, ½ lobster mushroom, 1/3 of the green section of a leek, one portabella mushroom and 2 stalks of garlic greens, and a dash of Chinese cooking wine, sweet soy sauce and sesame oil. As I ate my noodle soup I read the new New Yorker and came upon an obit by Patti Smith for Lou Reed in the Talk of the Town section and discovered to my delight that she had seen Lou Reed for the first time about the same time I saw him in August 1970 at Max’s Kansas City, which was one of the last shows by the Velvet Underground.
I felt very special.

So I decided to make something special for dinner.  I decided to marinate the approximately 2 lb. piece of fresh Atlantic salmon I bought at Costco yesterday ($7.99/lb.) in teriyaki marinade and try to replicate the stir fried fried tofu dish we had had at Asian Street food with the fried tofu we bought at Ta Lin on Sunday.   The recipe for the teriyaki marinade/sauce is 7 Tbsps.  each of Dark (Double Fermented) soy sauce, aji mirin and saki and 1 tsp. of sugar  brought to a boil and then allowed to cool.  I put the salmon in a gallon freezer bag and added the teriyaki sauce when it had cooled and put the bag in the fridge to marinate.

When Suzette arrived at 5:00 p.m. I started cutting up vegetables. I sliced up the remaining ½ of the lobster mushroom and one stalk of garlic greens.  I opened 1 small can of sliced water chestnuts, and chopped up three stalks of Shanghai Bok Choy and separated the white thicker bottom portions from the leafy green top portions.  Suzette suggested using the 4 oz. bag of PPI steamed sugar snap peas, so I fetched them from the fridge along with the two cakes of fried tofu and their accompanying spicy soy and fish sauce dipping sauce.  I then minced 1 Tbsp. of fresh ginger and two small cloves of garlic from our garden and put that all aside.

We discussed what starch we wanted to eat and Suzette suggested rice, so I put a pot on the stove with two cups of water and shook about 1 tsp. of Knorr dehydrated chicken stock into it for flavor and brought it to a boil and added 8 oz. of rice and lowered the heat and put the timer on for 30 minutes.  

When it was ten minutes of cooking time left for the rice, I made a thickening sauce with 1 Tbsp. of Chinese rice cooking wine, 1 Tbsp. of mushroom soy, 1 Tbsp. of Tamari soy 1 Tbsp. of corn starch and 1 tsp. of sesame oil in three or four Tbsps. of water and added the spicy dipping sauce for the tofu.  I began stir frying in my medium wok by adding two to three Tbsp. of peanut oil and a dash of sesame oil to the garlic and ginger and heating that to a medium high heat.  I then added the white portions of the bok choy and stir fried that.  After a few minutes I added the water chestnuts.  Then in a few more minutes I added the fried tofu and green portions of bok choy and the garlic greens.  Then after another minute or two I decided to give the dish a saucier texture, so I made and added about 1 cup of chicken stock with another couple of tsps. of corn starch and added it to the mixture and turned up the heat a bit to get it to a simmer.  The mixture thickened too much, so I had to add more water.  I knew I had more corn starch in the thickening sauce so I added another cup of water and then about ½ of the thickening sauce and more water and more thickening sauce until I had what appeared to me to be a consistently smooth and shiny (the surface of the sauce glistened in the light) brown sauce that liberally covered the vegetables and tofu with sauce.  Over the forty years that I have actively stir fried in my medium wok I have discovered that one of the main concepts in Chinese food is to make the food mixture with a loose sauce so it will mix and emulsify and settle into the rice, because dry rice gets old fast, as those who have eaten a lot of nigiri sushi in one sitting know.  

Suzette complained that the gas grill was not cooking as hot as usual and it would take a few more minutes to cook the salmon, so I added some more water as the brown sauce thickened more and began tasting the vegetable dish.  It was delicious.  Finally in another five minutes Suzette brought the salmon in.  The salmon looked perfectly cooked, dark pink with darkened edges at the perimeter of the cedar board that Suzette had soaked in water in the sink for about twenty minutes before planking the marinated salmon and putting it on the heated grill.  
One way to tell how hot the fire in the grill is, is by how much of the edge of the cedar plank is burned.  If the edge catches on fire and starts burning the grill is very hot.  If the cedar plank is charred but not burned as it was tonight the fire is less hot.  I prefer a less hot fire as tonight because the salmon is tenderer, although it can be a bit red in the center.  Actually Suzette places the board on a cookie sheet to transport from the grill to the kitchen and we leave the salmon on the board, so, ideally, it continues to cook as we plate up the rest of the meal and is perfectly cooked through by the time it arrives at the table, which it was tonight.

Suzette made two vertical cuts across the filet, yielding two approximately 6 oz. pieces salmon and leaving more than ½ of the filet uneaten.  We each took a plate and spooned hot rice and the stir fried vegetables and fried tofu mixture onto the rice and there was just enough room left on the plate to lay a piece of salmon on the plate.  We ate with chop sticks.  I made a cup of Lychee tea with lychee tea I bought in the Muslim market in Xian, China (China’s old capital city, where the army of 7000 ceramic soldiers are located at the original end of the Silk Route) a few years ago.  The black tea had a pleasant, slightly fruity flavor and aroma. 
The food was so delicious and filling that I did not crave any chocolate or dessert and went to bed at 7:30 p.m.

Bon Appétit

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