Zesty, Rootsy Winter Pickles

With fresh local vegetables becoming more and more widely available to us year-round, even here in the Frozen North, there’s no reason that pickling season has to end with the first frost.  Co-ops and winter farmers markets are burgeoning these days with locally grown vegetables in great variety.  Yes, they’re mostly roots, but what an abundance and variety of roots, from black, watermelon, beauty heart, and daikon radishes, to turnips in several colors, rutabagas, beets red and golden, celery root, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips.   

What’s great about this is:  Fresh, locally grown produce, in the middle of frikkin’ winter!  What’s less awesome is:  They’re all pretty much radishes and turnips!

Personally, I like radishes and turnips, but a steady diet of them through the long cold months becomes pretty monotonous.  A little pickling is a good way to change up the flavors and textures of these hearty, assertive roots.  And for winter pickling, I tend to lean to the East.  So here are two easy Asian pickles to make in small batches and enjoy alongside a bowl of ramen, a rice bowl meal, or as part of a regular Chinese meal, or just to nosh on at will. 

The first, Sichuan Pao Cai (Pickled Vegetables) is something I’ve made off and on for a long time, and something I would often order at the little restaurants in the alleys outside the university gates when I taught English at Sichuan University in Chengdu, waaayyy back in 1989-90.  A little dish of pao cai would be served bathed in chile oil (hong you) and a dash of soy sauce.  The pickles in Chengdu were always pink, I’m not sure why.  Recently I came across a fabulous recipe for a chile oil scented with wonderful aromatics.  I’m now addicted to it, and here’s the recipe, from Elaine Luo's excellent China Sichuan Food website--you'll find the red oil (hong you) recipe in the larger wonton recipe.

The other is a super quick pickle of thinly sliced radish (but you could sub/add turnip or carrot or what have you) in a simple mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar, with a little ginger and garlic for added depth.  To me, the sweet/sour/salty flavor combination of sugar/vinegar/soy is crazy delicious.  I could drink it like broth, but it would do weird things to the inside of my mouth, I fear, so I enjoy it in moderation and in pickles. 

This can be whipped up at the last minute, or made a day or two ahead.  It loses some freshness if left to sit too long, but it’s not going to go bad.  I often make up a small quantity to liven up rice bowl dinners.  With small radishes I tend to slice them very thin on the Benriner, while with larger radishes like a big daikon, I might shred instead.

Sichuan Pao Cai (Pickled Vegetables)

Makes one quart

You can use pretty much any firm vegetables in this pickle.  In winter it’s going to be mainly roots—red beets are the only one I would probably avoid; they would take over the pickle, both in color and taste, and also, they’re just not very Chinese.  In summer you could use green beans, cucumbers, peeled, diced broccoli stems, the thick white center rib of napa cabbage or bok choi.  My veg mixture for this batch was black radish, daikon, rutabaga, kohlrabi, cabbage core, and another radish, the one that’s pink inside, I don’t know the name, a friend had picked it up for me.  

This recipe is adapted from Mrs Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook, a key book in my cooking history.

4 cups firm vegetables in ½-inch dice, about a pound

6 – ¼-inch slices ginger root

2 or more dried red chiles—I used 2, as these particular chiles are VERY HOT!!!

½ teaspoon whole hua jiao (Sichuan peppercorns)

1 ½ cups water

1 tablespoon salt

2 teaspoons sugar

1 tablespoon rice wine or dry sherry

1 tablespoon cider or rice wine vinegar

Combine everything except the diced vegetables in a small saucepan, and heat just to dissolve the salt and sugar.  In a quart jar, layer ginger slices, chiles, and vegetables.  Pour in the brine, put a lid on it, and allow to ferment at cool room temperature for 3 or 4 days. You’ll see the brine start to become cloudy, and bubbles will rise from the depths when you open the jar.  When they are fermented to your taste, refrigerate.  The pickles will keep indefinitely.

Soy-Pickled Radish Slices

A mild radish, such as daikon or watermelon, is best in this pickle, which can be used almost right away, or refrigerated to mellow for a few days.  I used my Benriner Japanese mandoline to slice the radishes, but you can also slice them very thin with a sharp knife.

About 2/3 cup thinly sliced small radishes, or shredded larger ones

1 teaspoon finely shredded ginger root

1 small clove garlic, crushed, optional

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon water

4 teaspoons cider or rice wine vinegar

2 teaspoons sugar

Combine the radish slices, ginger, and garlic, and place them in a small jar—half-pint will do.  Combine the rest of the ingredients, stirring well to dissolve the sugar.  Pour this mixture into the jar with the radishes, put the lid on, give it a little shake.  Let stand at least 30 minutes before serving, or refrigerate for later use.  Will keep at least a week.

Sichuan Nettles Salad with Charred Ramps Dressing

My ramp explorations this spring have been taking me down Chinese roads. The oily ramp cakes started me thinking that way. For a bachelor dinner the night I whipped up those cakes I marinated some sliced pork shoulder, chopped up a mess of ramps, shredded a bit of cabbage, stir-fried it all up, sauced it with a mix of soy sauce, vinegar, rice wine, sugar, and cornstarch, served it over a bowl of rice. The ramp flavor permeated the dish utterly, and this one-off dish was one of the most Chinese tasting things I've made in a long time--and I know Chinese, having lived, taught, and traveled in Sichuan province for a total of more than a year in the late 80s-early 90s. By Chinese tasting I mean: not like Leeann Chin's.

That ramps convey a Chinese flavor is not really that surprising. Their closest domestic analog, to me, is garlic chives, sometimes called Chinese chives, and often used in Chinese sauces, dumpling fillings, and the like. In this dressing the chopped ramps are lightly charred in oil, bringing out their sweet side, along with a smoky edge. This combination of sweet, sour, salty, hot, and rampy would make your pooch's rawhide chews palatable; on blanched young nettles it's a springtime combination made in heaven...or Chengdu.

This is what I call a nettles "tip""--the top leaves with a couple inches of stem attached.  Tender and delicious, once blanched, on young stinging nettles plants.

Sub other types of salad greens for the nettles, if you like, or use the dressing on blanched green beans, fava beans, or asparagus.

Sichuan Nettles Salad with Charred Ramp Dressing

2 medium ramps, chopped to 1/4-inch pieces, about 1/3 cup
3 cups loosely packed young stinging nettle tips and leaves

1 tablespoon hot chile oil (or add 1 teaspoon of sambal chile paste and a little more oil when you cook the ramps)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil
ground roasted Sichuan pepper, optional

Rinse the nettles very well in several changes of water, especially if they were gathered from a sandy area.  Bring a pot of water to a boil, add the nettles, and cook for 1 minute.  Drain the nettles and shock in cold water.  Drain well--save the cooking water for tea or broth, if you like--or spin in a salad spinner to remove excess water.  Place the nettles in a mixing bowl.

Heat the canola or peanut oil in a small saucepan.  When it is hot add the ramps and cook over high heat for 1 minute, until some of the ramp pieces look a bit charred. Remove from heat.  Add the chile oil, soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar and mix well.  Add this dressing to the nettles and mix well.  Sprinkle with the Sichuan pepper, if you like, and serve.

Text and photos copyright 2012 by Brett Laidlaw

Oily Ramp Cakes

I logged on to the excellent 3 Foragers blog a couple of days ago, and was admiring an appetizing ramp photo collage. As my eyes wandered to the upper right corner I uttered the archetypal "Doh!", and might have even slapped my forehead. The stimulus for this Homeric response was a comely shot of Chinese scallion cakes. Except, of course, they weren't scallion cakes, but ramp cakes. I've been making scallion cakes for, maybe, three decades, gathering ramps for the better part of a score of years. Never did it occur to me to make ramp cakes. Doh.

I call mine Oily Ramp Cakes, which might not sound so appetizing, but I learned my version from the recipe in Mrs Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook, which I've owned since the early 1980s, and she calls them Oily Scallion Cakes. The Chinese name, in pinyin, is cong you bing--cong means scallion, you is oil, bing is a sort of pancake or flatbread.  I imagine the you here might just indicate that it's fried.  But I'll always think of the original as Oily Scallion Cakes, so Oily Ramp Cakes it must be.

They're not that greasy.  They're chewy, savory, very fragrant, a fine vehicle for that pungent springtime flavor.  Make them as an appetizer or cocktail snack, or as part of a dim sum spread.  Or have them, as I did recently, for lunch, along with a wild Sichuan nettles salad with charred ramp dressing (recipe coming soon).

Oily Ramp Cakes (after Mrs Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook, with thanks to The 3 Foragers for the inspiration)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour*
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
1 teaspoon cooking oil (peanut, canola, or the like)
1 cup chopped ramps, white and greens, approx. 1/4 inch chop (the number of ramps required will vary radically depending on size--10 to 12 small ramps, perhaps only 4 or 6 large ones)

Mix the flour and water to make a stiff dough.  Knead briefly, let it rest for 10 minutes, knead again for a minute or two, cover and let rest for 30 minutes.  Divide the dough in two and form into balls.  Roll and stretch each ball out into an 8-inch square.  Spread 1/2 teaspoon each of the sesame and vegetable oils onto each square, then sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt and half the chopped ramps.  Roll the dough up, jelly roll style, and pinch closed the ends.  Cut each roll in half, again pinching the exposed ends closed, and flatten into discs, sort of hockey puck shape.  Let rest 15 minutes.

When you're ready to cook,  roll the cakes out to circles 6 to 7 inches in diameter.  Heat a heavy skillet and add cooking oil to a depth of about 1/8 inch.  Cook each cake for a total of 6 minutes over medium heat,  turning every minute or so.  The first side will brown much more evenly than the second, unless you use quite a bit more oil in the frying.  Drain on paper towels.  Add a bit more oil for each cake.

Eat hot, plain, or with hoisin sauce for dipping, or this honey-soy-chili sauce I concocted because I had just warmed some crystalized honey to empty the jar, and the bowl was sitting near the stove:

1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon sambal

Combine and mix well.

Rolled out and ramped--note that I made rectangles here, not squares as in the recipe; but after making them this way I realized an 8-inch square would work better.  Not that big a deal.

Rolled up, cut and pucked.

Rolled flat pre-frying.

Cooked.

________________________________________

* I like to use something with a little character, like the Gold & White from Natural Way Mills in Minnesota, which is milled with the germ included.  With plain grocery store AP flour, I would add a couple tablespoons of whole wheat flour as part of the one cup.


Text and photos copyright 2012 by Brett Laidlaw

A Good Green Start

That breakfast is the most important meal of the day is an enduring and rarely challenged axiom; as a frequent breakfast skipper, but one who does not like to miss a meal, it raises in me a faint sense of guilt and regret. When I hear or read about the epic morning repasts of farmers of yore, those giants in the earth, who would have one breakfast in the dark before dawn as they prepared to head into the fields, and have another brought to them mid-morning, I feel absolutely puny, and under-nourished.

But I wonder, for how many modern Americans is breakfast actually a "meal," rather than some form of sustenance frequently grabbed on the go, or rapidly ingested in the rush to get out the door? I certainly wouldn't consider a bowl of cold cereal a meal--while I could probably devour an entire box of Cap'n Crunch in one sitting, given the opportunity, store-bought breakfast cereal hasn't been seen in our pantry since I can't remember when. I like a plate of bacon and eggs, but only once and a while, and Mary makes a mean corn-apple pancake, a lovely vehicle for consuming unseemly amounts of maple syrup.

In general my taste in breakfast runs to savory rather than sweet, and to interesting rather than rote. If someone were to show up at my door each morning to wheel a dim sum cart through our sun room, I would be a pretty happy camper. In fact the one period in my life when I ate breakfast regularly was during the trip to China that Mary and I made in 1992 (wow, coming on 20 years ago, more than that since I returned from teaching there). We were traveling by the seat of our pants through western China--Sichuan, Gansu, Xinjiang--staying in far from luxurious accomodations, so we were usually more than eager to get out of the hotel first thing in the morning. Our first stop would be a teahouse or noodle shop, and with our green morning tea we would order up a plate of pork-filled steamed buns--bao-zi--warm, soft, dripping juice when you bit into the center. They often came with a small bowl of broth for dipping, or we would make a more pungent condiment by mixing dark vinegar, soy sauce, and chili oil. I never tired of that morning treat; if we had a noodle shop in our Saint Paul neighborhood, I'd be there most mornings.

Another excellent Asian breakfast is the rice porridge that goes by various names, depending on where you are in China. In Sichuan it's called xi fan, but most people probably know it as congee. And now congee always reminds me of that trip in '92, for an odd reason: We flew into Hong Kong to start our odyssey, just ahead of a typhoon. Storm warnings went out the night we arrived, and while the city was fairly bustling as we found our way to our hotel that night, when we headed out to catch the train to Guangzhou (Canton City) in the morning, the place was deserted, a ghost town. The air was warm, humid, and breezy, the sky soft gray, and the streets of Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated cities on earth, were empty. It felt odd, and we were eager to get to the station, but we were hungry. A small diner-looking restaurant beckoned. We went in and ate congee. I think mine was preserved egg and green onion. I don't remember what Mary had. We each had a fried bread stick--you tiao--traditionally eaten with rice porridge. We felt happy and sustained on the rest of the walk to the station, and we made it to Guangzhou ahead of the storm.

When we go for dim sum we'll sometimes have a bowl of congee, but it's usually disappointing--I mean, that typhoon congee is a tough act to follow. And it's easy enough to make, though I rarely do. For some reason the fancy struck me, out at Bide-A-Wee this week, to cook up a congee chock-a-block with wild greens. And it was so satisfying, even without a tropical storm looming (indeed, snowflakes and a high barely scraping 40!), that it could be my ticket to reforming my morning eating habits.

I know I should take it easy on the resolutions, but along with making a real effort to include wild foods in my diet as often as possible, I'm going to work on being a better breakfast eater. I'm thinking of baking up some nut and fruit breads--which I haven't made since we ceased the market baking last summer. I see it, also, as an opportunity to eat more cheese.

Oh, this morning it was granola--Mary made a fresh batch on Sunday--with raw milk from the Bartz farm in Connorsville, Wisconsin. It seems to have made me rather chatty....

So, I'm curious, what's breakfast in your house like? Is it actually a meal, a grab-and-go, a skip-it-altogether? I'm looking for inspiration here, and a sort of get-back-to-breakfast support group.

Because, have you heard? Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Wild Greens Congee
for one

This rice porridge is usually cooked much longer than mine was, I think. I still had grains of rice apparent, where it's often more of a homogeneous mush. In recipes I've looked at the ratio of rice to water varies a lot, as do cookings times. This is sort of a quick, cheater's congee, made fresh in the morning; the rice-mush base can be made ahead, reheated, and garnished to taste. And as for what to garnish it with, well, what's on your left-overs shelf, in your pickle crock, vegetable crisper, etc. ? Let your pantry and your appetite guide you. The base is pretty bland, so it's all about the garnish--a hard-cooked egg, sliced; some crumbled cooked ground pork or sausage; Chinese sausage; julienne vegetables; shreds of ham or cooked chicken; kimchi or other fermented veg.

In the night markets of Chengdu xi fan stands were popular, and the customer chose garnishes either sweet or savory.

For a richer porridge, use chicken stock in place of the water, or go half-and-half.

Mine was made like this:

1 thick slice bacon, diced
4 or 5 small ramps, chopped
1/3 cup jasmine rice
water
Foraged greens: watercress, stinging nettles, dandelion greens, sheep sorrel (garden greens and herbs, of course, would be just as good)
Soy sauce
Sambal oelek--chili paste
Salt

In a small saucepan cook the bacon over medium heat, and as it starts to brown, add the ramps. When they have taken on a nice bit of color, add the rice and 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, turn down to very low, cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for at least 30 minutes.

For the green garnish: I blanched the nettles and dandelions in boiling water for a minute, drained and chopped them; just rinsed the sorrel and cress.

When the rice is quite soft and porridge-like, stir in the greens--I used a lot, probably two good cups of raw mixed greens, as they really wilt down. You may need to add a little more water at this point. When the greens have wilted into the rice, add water to your preferred consistency. Add a good pinch of salt, and simmer for another 10 minutes. Add a teaspoon or so of soy sauce, sambal to taste, and serve.

Text and photos copyright 2011 by Brett Laidlaw