Untangling My Chopsticks (7 page)

The tour began in the refrigerated section of a modest six
aisle establishment. Instead of metal carts to accommodate jumbo cereal boxes, double-value packets of toilet paper, and super-size bottles of detergent, a tidy stack of green plastic baskets rested on the floor inside the glass doors that automatically split open when Tomiko stepped on the ribbed rubber mat.

Fruit and vegetables filled the right side of the store across from a section of chilled items, including tofu and fresh udon noodles, the only two items I recognized. Tomiko grabbed a basket, slipped it into the crook of her elbow, then picked up a plastic-wrapped square resembling a sage-colored sponge.

“Any idea?” she asked, cocking her head. I took the square, dented with her fingerprints, and studied it for several seconds. I admitted I didn't have the foggiest idea what it was.

Which is basically how the tour went. Tomiko would hold up foods. I would shake my head. Then she would explain what they were and how to cook with them.

The green sponge turned out to be
fu
(wheat gluten), a high-protein Buddhist staple food often flavored with herbs and spices. The pink-and-yellow cigarette lighters turned out to be yogurts. The lime-green yo-yos were rice taffy cakes bulging with sweet white bean paste.

As for the vermilion-colored mollusks, they were a kind of cockle called blood clams (or arc shell) and, according to Tomiko, “delicious as sushi.” The jumbo green sprouts came from the daikon radish and were “tasty in salads.” And the pebbly-skinned yellow fruit was
yuzu,
an aromatic citrus with a lemony pine flavor that was “wonderful in soup.”

Toward the end of the tour, Tomiko stopped in the seaweed aisle and asked if I knew how to make
dashi,
the ubiquitous Japanese stock made from kelp and shaved bonito. Although I had made it several times back in New York, I asked her to explain.

“We have two types, primary and secondary dashi,” said Tomiko. She set her basket on the floor and then went up on tiptoe to pull down a package of dried
konbu
(also spelled
kombu
), or kelp, from the top shelf. For both styles, she explained, a strip of dried konbu is added to a pot of cold water. Just when the liquid comes to a boil, the seaweed is removed to avoid turning the stock bitter. Then dried fish flakes are added to the broth. Tomiko leaned over to retrieve a bag from the lower shelf.

“These are
katsuobushi,
” she said, displaying the flesh-colored curls. The clear plastic bag crinkled in her hands as she described how the flakes are made from bonito, a kind of skipjack tuna, which is cut into chunks, boned, boiled, dried, cured, smoked, and then aged until it becomes as hard as wood. The dried hunks, which resemble fat brown plantains, are then shaved with a special blade held in place in a small wooden box with a drawer to catch the pinkish petals. When the smoky-tasting flakes have come to a boil in the kelp broth, the heat gets turned off immediately, and the liquid rests for a couple of minutes before being strained. The resulting mixture is primary or first dashi, a transparent whiskey-colored stock tinged with a delicate fish flavor used to make elegant clear soups.

For secondary dashi, which forms the base for soups seasoned with miso or other strong ingredients, the original piece of kelp and bonito flakes from the first dashi go back into a pot of water to be simmered until the stock takes on the desired briny flavor. Tomiko grabbed a little brown jar filled with instant dashi granules off the shelf and held it up. “If you're feeling lazy, you can always use this,” she said, sheepishly.

The tour concluded with our buying the ingredients for
shabu-shabu
to enjoy that night with Tomiko and her husband. Sitting around the wooden table in Tomiko's kitchen, we drank
frosty Kirin beers and munched on
edamame,
fresh steamed soybeans, nutty and sweet, that we pulled from their salt-flecked pods with our teeth. Then Tomiko set down a platter resplendent with gossamer slices of raw beef, shiitake mushrooms, cauliflower florets, and loamy-tasting chrysanthemum leaves to dip with long forks into a wide ceramic bowl of bubbling primary dashi. I speared a piece of sirloin. “Wave the beef through the broth,” instructed Tomiko, “then listen.” Everyone fell silent.

As the hot dashi bubbled around the ribbon of meat, it really did sound as though it was whispering “shabu-shabu,” hence the onomatopoeic name of the dish.

I dipped the beef in a sauce of toasted ground sesame and soy and as I chewed, the rich roasted cream mingled with the salty meat juices.

“Try this one,” urged Tomiko, passing another sauce of soy and sesame oil sharpened with lemony yuzu, grated radish, and hot pepper flakes. I tested it on a puffy cube of warm tofu that Tomiko had retrieved from the dashi with a tiny golden wire basket. The pungent sauce invigorated the custardy bean curd.

When we had finished all the meat and vegetables, Tomiko boiled down the cooking juices until they became dark and concentrated. She then added chewy cords of udon noodles to the glaze and turned them with her chopsticks until they became slick and salty. More cold beer provided relaxing liquid refreshment and brewed coffee and chocolate cake capped off what had been an extremely informative afternoon and the most magnificent meal I had eaten thus far in Japan.

If this was home cooking, I could only imagine what lay ahead in the rarefied world of tea kaiseki.

Kabocha squash has a dense, sweet orange flesh, similar to acorn squash, which you can use as a substitute. To turn this salad into a whole meal, try topping it with small squares of pan-sautéed tofu, or chunks of broiled salmon. Instead of croutons, this salad calls for Japanese rice crackers, which add a welcome crunch.

• One 2-pound kabocha squash, halved and seeded
  

• 8 cups spinach leaves, rinsed and patted dry
  

• 1 cup corn kernels
  

• 1 cup diced cucumber (about one third of a medium cucumber)
  

• 2 plum tomatoes, chopped
  

• ⅓ cup mayonnaise
  

• 3 tablespoons dashi (
  page 48
  ), or chicken or vegetable broth
  

• 4 teaspoons soy sauce
  

• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
  

• 1 teaspoon sugar
  

• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
  

• ⅔cup mixed Japanese rice crackers
  

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F. Place the squash, cut side down, in an ovenproof dish coated with nonstick spray. Roast for an hour, or until the squash is tender when pierced with a sharp knife. Let cool.
   

2. Cut the peel off the squash and slice the flesh into bite-size chunks. Mound the spinach in a salad bowl and top with the squash, corn, cucumber, and tomatoes.
   

3. Whisk together the mayonnaise, dashi, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and ginger until the sugar dissolves. Just before serving, spoon the dressing over the salad and toss to combine. Garnish with rice crackers.
   

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Similar to fondue or Mongolian hotpot, this cold weather favorite involves cooking vegetables and thinly sliced beef in a dashi base. As the ingredients cook, the noise they make sounds like “shabu-shabu,” hence the dish's name. The two dipping sauces below are typical accompaniments and are commercially available in most Japanese markets (along with the thinly sliced beef, which is usually in the freezer section). If you do not have a traditional shabu-shabu pot, an electric fondue pot works just as well. A small strainer is handy for cooking the tofu. However, if you don't have one, simply add the tofu to the cooking liquid and after one minute retrieve it with a slotted spoon.

• 6 Chinese cabbage leaves
  

• One 15-ounce can whole bamboo shoots
  

• 1 small head of cauliflower, cut into bite-size florets
  

• 12 shiitake mushroom caps
  

• 3 leeks, white and light green parts only, trimmed, rinsed, and cut into 1-inch pieces
  

• ¾ pound spinach, leaves rinsed and trimmed
  

• 1 pound firm tofu, drained and cut into 1-inch cubes
  

• 1½ pounds well-marbled beef sirloin, cut into very thin ribbons
  

• 8 cups dashi (
  page 48
  )
  

• Two prepared dipping sauces (
  pages 49
  ,
  50
  )
  

• ½ pound fresh (or partially cooked) udon
  

1. Bring a large shallow saucepan of water to a boil for pre-cooking the cabbage, bamboo, and cauliflower. Beginning with the cabbage, add the leaves to the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes, or until crisp-tender. Remove the leaves from the water with kitchen tongs and pat dry. Roll each leaf into a cylinder and cut in half to create two rolls. Set aside.
   

2. Drain and rinse the bamboo. Cut each piece lengthwise in half and then cut each half into ½-inch-thick semicircles. Bring the same large saucepan of water used to cook the cabbage back to a boil. Add the bamboo and cook for 30 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon and rinse under cold water. Set aside.
   

3. Bring the same saucepan of water back to a boil. Add the cauliflower florets. When the water returns to a boil, cover and cook the cauliflower until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Drain and cool on a clean tea towel.
   

4. Arrange the cabbage rolls, bamboo shoots, cauliflower, mushroom caps, leeks, spinach, tofu, and beef on one or two large platters.
   

5. Heat all ofthe dashi in a shabu-shabu pot, or half of it in an electric fondue pot until bubbling. Add several leeks and mushroom caps to the broth to begin softening. Using long forks or chopsticks, pick up the meat and vegetables from the central platter and swish them through the dashi to cook. (For the tofu, place a cube in a small strainer and place the strainer in the broth. After a minute, lift the strainer from the broth to eat the tofu.) Dip the cooked meat and vegetables in either one of the sauces before eating. (If using a fondue pot, add the remaining broth to the pot, as needed.)
   

6. When no more meat or vegetables remain, add the udon to the remaining cooking liquid (adding more if necessary to the fondue pot) and simmer until tender. Divide the noodles and broth among six soup bowls.
   

Makes 6 servings

In Japan, dried kelp and large bonito flakes (not the small thin bonito curls used to garnish dishes) briefly simmer in water to create a delicate amber broth called “first” or “primary” dashi, which is the basis for most clear soups. To make “second” dashi, the kelp and bonito flakes are added to a new pot of water (like a used tea bag) to make a weaker stock for more boldly seasoned dishes, such as miso soup. Although instant dashi granules and bottles of concentrated dashi are terrific timesaving substitutes, their taste is less subtle and refined than dashi made from scratch.

• FOR FIRST
  /
  PRIMARY DASHI
  

• 1½ ounces dried giant kelp (konbu)
  

• 1½ ounces (or approximately 7 cups) large bonito flakes
  

1. Place 6 cups cold water and the kelp in a large saucepan over high heat. When the mixture comes to a boil, immediately remove the kelp (if it boils it can turn the broth bitter) and reserve it for the second dashi.
   

2. Add ½ cup cold water (to cool down the stock) and then the bonito flakes. When the mixture has returned to a boil, immediately turn off the heat (the fish flakes can also turn the broth bitter if boiled). Let the broth rest for 2 minutes, then pour through a cheesecloth-lined sieve, making sure to avoid pressing down on the solids (which will turn the dashi cloudy). Save the fish flakes for second dashi.