UnRecipe: Hot Wok Culture Shock - a Tale of Two Noodles

With food, as is with life, it's so much about presentation and context. We all have our set ways and expectations, but we're never beyond making adjustments. I don't mind the idea of both savory and sweet crepes, but I still can't quite wrap my head around the notion of a "dessert pizza," where it's usually smothered in marshmallows, chocolate and a hefty serving of Just Plain Awful. While I'll never be a fan of sugary pizza, I do think there's something to be said for the versatility of ingredients and even the kitchen tools we use to prepare them. For example, take something as simple and homey as a plate of spaghetti and meatballs -- would it totally blow your mindgrape to know it was all cooked in a wok?

Spaghetti cooked in a wok, dogs and cats living together - MASS HYSTERIA - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I think my wok had a Liz Lemon/30 Rock moment of, "What the WHAT?!" when I was simmering an Italian style red sauce in it. I'm certainly no purist, I've thrown Sriracha or Tabasco sauce in pasta sauces if I'm out of red pepper flakes, and nobody died from an acute case of culture shock, but yes, even the Mister, aka the Whitest Kid You Know, had to do a double take to see red sauce with meatballs simmering in a wok. I think he was worried the Asian Police would finally serve out that longstanding bench warrant against me for sucking at math and never learning to play the violin. 

I was inspired by Lorna Yee's new book, The Everyday Wok Cookbook, which the cover alone had me dead-set on making her Spaghetti and Bison Meatball recipe from the get-go. I don't need much arm twisting to make spaghetti and meatballs, but I was intrigued at the thought of using bison meat and even more intrigued at the weird juxtaposition of a marinara sauce throwing my anthropomorphized wok's brain for a loopty-loop.

Wokked spaghetti and meatballs - weirdly wonderful - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Using a wok as an all purpose cooking vessel isn't so crazy. I'm pretty sure billions of Chinese people can attest to its versatility and use. Granted, they're probably not making French toast in it, but really -- why the hell not? It's got a sizeable surface area with varying temperature zones that are fairly predictable (center = screamin' hot, away from the center = less screamin' hot) and the amount it can hold makes it ideal for soups and stews. Many people prefer woks as their stovetop deep fryer, convinced it's better than the typical Dutch oven. I use it as a one-pot wonder when I make things like Pad Thai at home -- it's great for getting the noodles partly cooked, then a quick wipedown and it's ready to cook the rest of the dish. Everything fits back in the wok for when it comes time for the final ingredient combination, and that's kind of how this spaghetti and bison meatball dish worked out.

I thought the bison meat would be tough to find. It's not something I normally shop for, so I immediately assumed I'd have to get it from a specialty grocer. And of course as Murphy's Law would have it -- no fancy butcher seemed to be carrying it. The holiday season doesn't help, as it's all festive meats taking up precious shelf space, and rightly so. I had my sad No Bison Meat face on (it looks much like this) until I happened to be at the grocery store where we live and there was a whole flippin' row of ground bison meat! At the Safeway, of all flippin' places. Apparently, it's not as exotic as one would think, so don't skimp on using bison meat for this dish. It's very tender, has a good flavor and not gamey since most bison are likely farmed/grazed like cows.

Tis the season, and Lorna's cookbook would make for a great holiday gift, especially if you want to up the ante and give the book with a new wok for someone who may not cook a lot, but wishes to learn. The recipes are very user-friendly and the book is beautifully photographed, which inspires you to get into the kitchen. The food is enticing and it covers multicultural menus. There's macaroni and cheese, breakfast omelets and scrambles, paella, several traditional Asian dishes like pockmarked tofu and dumplings, and even a dessert section. It's a nice reminder that just because you have a wok, it doesn't mean you only have to cook Asian-sounding dishes in it. It was a refreshing exercise for me to consider the wok as just another team player in our kitchen full of cooking vessels, and it's as much of an A-Game player as a basic skillet.

Whole wheat spaghetti for dan dan noodles? Fantastic - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Since this post is about multipurpose things, I'd also like to wave the banner of versatility for the simple spaghetti noodle. My wok was back in its Happy Place making a heaping pile of Szechuanese Dan Dan Noodles one night. I had everything I needed from the Asian grocery store -- black vinegar, preserved mustard greens, an industrial sized bottle of sesame oil, sesame paste, and enough Szechuan peppercorns to last me for when the Year of the Dragon gets chased out by the Year of the Snake. Since I live out in BFE-Duvall, I only make periodic trips to a big Asian grocery store in Bellevue to stock up for a few months at a time. Most of the things I get are dried, canned and preserved, so it's got great shelf life, but I always neglect the noodles. Curse my feeble brain! I forgot to get more udon noodles and Chinese style egg noodles, both of which are great for making dan dan, with their thickness and wider surface area to hold more sauce. The local grocery stores have some Asian noodles, but they're typically chow mein style or flat rice noodles which are great for some things, but just mehhhh.... for what I wanted.

Enter the Dragon: whole wheat spaghetti noodles, for the win. I don't typically love whole wheat noodles for traditional pasta dishes. Regardless of the health benefit, I find them tough and depending on the sauce you're making, they can make the finished dish ruddy-looking and less appealing to the eye. But for a noodle dish like dan dan, where it's rich and nutty from the sesame paste and oil, and a mix of textures from the ground, fried meat and freshly sliced scallions, having a hearty noodle works well. You don't want something turning into mush, and that extra toughness of the whole wheat spaghetti has a satisfying mouth feel.

Dan dan noodles is one of those dishes with a million and one ways to make it. I've had versions as a soup and most in this stir-fry method, all flavored with the smokiness of the Szechuan peppercorn and rich sesame taste. The recipe I work from is thanks to Appetite for China's, available here. This recipe's style isn't as oily as some -- the most traditional has the noodles sitting in an orange bath of chili oil, which is plenty good, but if that's not your thing, this less oily version is a great dish. If you love the idea of peanut butter spicy noodles, that's one way of describing dan dan noodles in familiar terms. It's quick, and I've even substituted ground turkey for the ground pork -- the seasonings are strong enough and there's plenty of fat from the sesame paste and cooking oil.

So, cheers to versatility, in both ingredients and cooking vessels. Food and recipes constantly evolve in the way we prepare them, so throw away the rule book now and then and don't be afraid to free your mind and make spaghetti in a wok.

UnRecipe: Meatball Ballad - Meatballad?

There's always food trends and crazes afoot, and I would argue there's a thin strand of logic that connects several of them. I'm somewhat convinced, like some Biblical genealogy, through the massive popularity of St. Cupcake of the Holy Sugar-Sprinkled Spirit, which begat Cake Pops, which through a second cousin once-removed begat the Meatball Craze. I'm pretty sure somewhere between Cupcake and Cake Pop, a litter of Old Fashioned Doughnuts showed up. Amen. I think when the pendulum swings towards the Bizarro World of packing Cake Spam into a sphere, covering it with an inch of frosting and jamming a stick through its bottom, the trend swings back towards more sensible familiarity and we embrace spherical food that's more meatball than goofball.

On top of spa-ghe-tti....all covered with cheeeeese.... I managed to not lose my meatball - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Food trends are as cyclical as the fascination with round balls o' meat that's been going on for over a year, I'd say. But since it's hard to think about making a rich, heavy meal in the heat of summer, I'm definitely seeing more "easy meatball" recipes in all the magazines, to the point where I grow weary and full of Meatball Fury, wanting more challenging things. My recent issue of St. Martha of the Holy Stewart's Everyday Food magazine had a whole section devoted to meatballs -- like, three or four different recipes! When I flipped to that section, even I had to take the name of Martha in vain and say, Martha Focker, what are you thinking?  Initially, I thought, Where's the variety? You can do a million things with ground meat? Why follow such an overdone trend, and so late in the season, at that??  (breeeeathe)

The Hatorade Rant in my braincapsule promptly ended when I looked at my own disaster-area excuse of a weekly planner. Scribbled notes crossed out, then re-circled, as if to signal in some secret code that no, that deadline still stands, and it was due yesterday. Blerg. And lately there's been more than a few days that dragged into 2am nights, finishing a project so that I could save time for an extra project that suddenly popped up unexpectedly, that will be due at 10am the next morning. You know this Freelance Dance that I speak of, and anyone who's juggling work with a family and home life can also shout an, Amen! to that. So when I have the odd moment to peer glassy-eyed at whatever Mr. Postman has delivered to my hobbit-hovel, I may yearn for fancier fare in theory, but simple-to-prepare humble comforts are what I really need.

So in reality, meatballs kind of save the day. You can make them with any type of ground meat -- even no meat! I've done a vegetarian version with smashed beans, cooked quinoa and an egg to bind, but you could probably replace the egg with some sticky, short-grain rice to give it a vegan-friendly binder. They can be baked, pan-seared, fried or boiled. The seasoning can vary -- Italian, Asian, Spanish, Greek, anything your worldly wanderlust appetite desires. One Friday evening, I saw no less than three different mentions over Twitter from people in different states, all making spaghetti and meatballs, I'm assuming for the same reason -- a long week finally come to an end, they wanted something familiar and hearty. It made me think back to the last time I made spaghetti and meatballs, and it was for that same reason. It wasn't fussy, it can be prepared easily from scratch, and there's something about this totally Americanized dish that feels like home.

Giant turkey meatballs, with or without spaghetti, plenty tasty - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I made giant turkey meatballs. I mean, seriously, they were huge, the size that could split a planet in two if Bruce Willis and his team of roughnecks can't land the space ship on it in time to shove a nuke in it. But the benefit of large balls (heh heh) is that it's less time forming them, especially if they're going to finish cooking in a sauce, which will ensure more gentle cooking. I know a mixture of pork, veal and beef are ideal, but I like ground turkey, as it seems to stay tender and I don't get the rubber ball toughness if it's overcooked. In a basic tomato sauce of canned tomatoes with a ton of garlic, oregano and red pepper flakes (I like spicy tomato sauce), the meatballs braise away. I usually like to give the surface an all-around sear, and build the sauce on the pan drippings before the meatballs finish cooking in the sauce. Many people prefer baking, which is great for large batches that won't all fit in a pot. Regardless of method, this is was a good reminder why the meatball craze is not without merit. Even when you're tired, you can mix some ground meat together with seasonings and form a few meteor-sized meat-spheres and let the stove do the work. And the result is nothing less than satisfying.

I turned to The Power of Meatballs when I had a surplus of tomatoes at varying degrees of overripeness. You've run into this before -- everyone brings stuff from their gardens or something wonderful from the farmers market to a barbecue, but then you're stuck with all these leftovers. The tomatoes had beautiful color, but rapidly softening -- into a sauce they went! A grilling surplus of orphan hot dog buns (arrrg, damn you Atkins no-bun hot dog eaters! Oh, who am I kidding, I'm one of those douches too.) resulted in a few days of meatball sandwiches. I don't understand the notion of meatball sliders -- a tall, round burger between a bun just seems like a recipe for lockjaw. But meatball sandwiches done sub/hoagie-style, that's more bite-friendly. Either making smaller meatballs or splitting them before adding them into the bread helps for easier eating and optimal surface area for topping with extra sauce and cheese. See, there's a science to eating meatballs! It was less about epic blog food, and more about making sure random leftovers didn't go to waste, but just like with an overstuffed schedule, Meatballs Are My Hero.

Meatballs saving the day, yet again - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Mixed Plate: Home for the Holidays

There's no season I love more than Christmas. For all the complaints about how early it starts, with a kickoff from the retail industry, decorated trees up as early as September, I still look forward to the time of year. As a child, it was of course about Santa and getting the equivalent of the Red Rider BB gun without shooting my eye out, and then in my late teen/early twenties, I lost sight of the holidays. I would sit staring at the tree and wonder if the day would be any different than the next, disappointed to not easily have that holiday joy again. It felt as though something important was misplaced and you were left frustrated, looking everywhere to find it, feeling even more distressed having known you once had it and now it was lost. It wasn't until being apart from family, losing the things you had begun to take for granted that you realized the holidays were for celebrating the times of togetherness and maybe trying to recapture a little of what was lost. That's when Christmas came back for me, and why it was important to make a big deal out of something, at least once a year.

Tis the Season to Celebrate - Photo by Wasabi Prime

Not to get all maudlin about the holidays, but since Christmas has just passed us by, it feels a little silly to list off holiday food ideas and suggestions. Plus I think everyone's probably sugar plummed out by now. It's more important to see why we make such a fuss over this time, especially since there's so much effort into the lead-up to December 25th. We did our share this year, but with a measured effort. For the first time, I didn't decorate a tree, mostly because my schedule was too stressed and I knew in my mind it would come down to a question of taking time to dress up a tree or use that time for spending with friends, and quite frankly, myself. What they say is true, if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take very good care of others, and the season is all about giving of yourself and your time. And even if we weren't planning anything extraordinary for Christmas, I wanted it to be a good and comfortable one. The Mister and I were long overdue for the recharge.

So our big Christmas feast was shared by a few friends who came over and I made a heaping pile of spaghetti and meatballs. Extravagant, no? Mostly because some of our other friends made the clever suggestion to do a Flying Spaghetti Monster dinner party, a kind of internet meme secular feast. Also, spaghetti and meatballs is a pretty easy dish to make ahead of time, which was a good thing, since our Christmas dinner was a little touch and go -- a sudden windstorm knocked out the power for a short time and we were having flashback fears of a previous holiday when the storm knocked out power for days. Luckily, this was not the case. Power was restored, friends gathered, we drank several bottles of wine and totally carbed-out on pasta, bread and tiramisu for dessert.

Feast of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (with Meatballs!) - Photos by Wasabi Prime

You're seeing an Italian theme, albeit an Americanized variation. Everything revolved around the spaghetti and meatballs. I said that's what I was planning on making and everyone was happy to have it. Regardless of one's background, it's the one dish that evokes a lot of comforting childhood food memories, and maybe that helped make it a good holiday choice. Since neither the Mister nor I are particularly religious, there's no compelling ritual we adhere to outside of the fact that we just want everyone to have a good time and not feel like this was fancy. I was wearing fuzzy PJ pants through dinner! I made a big batch of antipasti, which was like a Kitchen Sink salad of everything -- artichoke hearts, fresh cucumber, roasted bell pepper, garbanzo beans, salami, cheese, all tossed together with some pesto and left to marinate in the fridge. I also made a tapenade to spread on toasted bread, made of sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives, capers and pistachios. I have to say, adding pistachios is fantastic for pesto -- gives it a nice sweetness and a nice alternative to the typical pine nuts.

Dinner was finished off with little tiramisu parfaits. A more personalized and pretty way of presenting dessert. Plus one of the people we had over was having a birthday -- sharing your big b-day with JC, that's a tough room, no? And a little tiramisu parfait looks just dandy with a little birthday candle in it. I used the basics of this tiramisu recipe from Epicurious, swapping out the traditional ladyfingers with sliced chunks of pound cake. Total cheat, yes, but tis the season to take shortcuts. Knowing the cake would be layered in a little glass, the ladyfingers would be too bulky and the smaller bits of cake made for even layering. And for the coffee sugar syrup, I used amaretto instead of marsala, which gave the cake a fragrant almond flavor - definitely doing that again. For as many times as I've eaten this dessert, it was the first time I'd ever made it, and I was really pleased with how it turned out. I could have eaten just the creamy mascarpone layer on its own!

Pesto is made best-o with chopped pistachios, a new tasty addition - Photos by Wasabi Prime

As for our Christmas at home, it was one that was becoming a growing tradition in our small household, since I've stopped spending the holidays with family. Brock and I wake up, we give our dog Indy a Christmas Morning snuggle (no different than other lazy weekend snuggles, but special all the same), and we have a good hearty breakfast. This Christmas breakfast was a taste of Hawaii -- I had made some Spam fried rice earlier and seared up some Portuguese sausage and fried some eggs to go with the rice. Not exactly the same as waking up to a tropical Christmas, but good enough. We stay in our cozy robes, having our very own Forever Lazy/Snuggie morning, opening presents and taking calls from family.


Christmas gifts galore, Indy is the happiest dog in the world - Photos by Wasabi Prime

We always give each other one special Christmas gift -- Brock got a membership to the Rare Beer of the Month club, so weirdo beers are starting to arrive to our house. I got a very special gift from the Mister -- all new cookware. He's a nut for researching products and chose a set of stainless steel, heavy-duty pots and pans. It wasn't the gazillion-piece set, where you wind up with odd-sized cookware you never use; he chose a select few pots and saucepans the size we'd use and not so heavy so that I couldn't easily handle and clean. To some, this may sound like a Bad Husband Gift, the bowling ball with "Homer" engraved on it, but it was really special to me because number one, I really needed new cookware, I've been using pots and pans from college, and number two, he knew I'd never have bought them for myself. He knows how I am -- any spare bit of money goes towards savings or bills; buying something like good quality cookware, despite how much I'd use them, would feel too extravagant. My brain tends to work this way: I have pots and pans, why buy new ones? Even if those ones I have are so old, the bottoms are totally warped to a curve and the handles are plastic, aka, not oven-safe (yet I put 'em in the oven anyways). I'm fairly sure the old nonstick coating flaked off ages ago, and it's just a miracle we haven't been poisoned or gone blind from some weird metal poisoning. Yeah, this new cookware is a total godsend! You totally rock, Mr. Wasabi!

Christmas goodies, including what everyone needs, an inflatable turkey - Photos by Wasabi Prime

And so another Christmas has come and gone. The madness of the holidays can subside for another three hundred and sixty-odd days until the decorated trees get propped up around September, or maybe even earlier next year. We didn't have a big decorated tree this year, but I didn't need to stare at it blankly, trying to find the spirit of Father Christmas somehow nestled in its pine needle-filled boughs. I'm thankful to find the holiday spirit so much easier these days, especially after this year minus the crutch of a big Christmas tree. It was found in the time spent with friends, silly and sweet gifts, food that's more familiar than fancy, and in the appreciation for changing traditions. I hope you all had a good holiday, no matter how you celebrate this season, and I hope you find the spirit of goodwill stays with you throughout the coming year.