On a Foodie high! It must be the Edamame!

Three posts in as many days!

What to do - there are just so many awesome ingredients coming my way!

Vikram dropped off fresh Edamame over the weekend and coincidentally I also found some at the Warden rd. Natures basket.

I loved Edamame (eh-dah-MAH-meh)when I tried them at Origami a while ago. The Japanese have long snacked on edamame, or green soybeans and the same have been quite popular amongst culinary circles since Japanese food became popular in India but it is another thing to find them at your local store! (well almost, it's just a mater of time before they will be). It seems Mumbaikars are tuning into the charms of this super bean...

The Japanese boil the whole pods in salted water and serve them with beer (Asahi) and one simply uses one's teeth to squeeze the beans out of the salted pods. Which is want I did with the fresh lot while I contemplated what to do with the frozen ones. Very addictive and over so soon. ...

But having more of the frozen ones, I did a Sesame Chicken Don with them. Don is the affectionate short name for Donburi which are Japanese one bowl meals of rice topped with a stew of some sort or other.

My husband and I are watching our diet and have found that plating food (or in this case bowling :P) really works. Once we are through our serving, the time it takes to go to the kitchen counter to serve ourselves again allows our tummies time to send the message to our brain advising how much more we want. Most times, we end up with just one more spoonful or veto the second serving completely.

The Soya Chicken for our meal today was a given, it was first a runaway success when I made it to stuff Vietnamese rice paper rolls last summer and has been popular at the Ghildiyal table ever since. It would provide the right slightly saucy, salty - spicy foil for the moist savoury rice.

The rice recipe is a concoction all my own, I wanted a delicate combination reminiscent of Japanese cuisine that would not overwhelm the herby green flavour of the Edamame and yet appeal to the Indian palate of my family. Also having to watch my carbohydrate intake due to gestational diabetes, I wanted to avoid white rice and decided to use red rice.

Which in retrospect was a brilliant choice because in addition to offering just the right nutty foil to the Edamame, it also cooked to a beautifully state of sticky but grainy and al dente and was very like Japanese sticky rice in texture.

For best results start cooking the Chicken when your rice is almost done so everything comes to the table freshly cooked. I followed up with fresh mangoes for dessert.

Don of Soya Chicken over red rice cooked with Edamame and toasted Sesame oil

Prep - 1/2 hour

Cooking 20 minutes if done simultaneously, 1/2 hour if done individually

Yeild - about 5 servings

For the rice

300 g red rice ( this time I used Indrani red rice from concious foods)

8 cups stock

1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds (black/white or a combination - whatever you prefer)

2 cups frozen blanched shelled edamame (green soybeans), thawed

1/2 tsp white pepper

Salt to taste

1/3 cup toasted Sesame oil

Wash rice well and place in a large, deep pan with stock, pepper and salt to taste. Bring to a boil and simmer untill rice is starting to swell (about 10-12 mins). Add edamame, stir well and allow to keep cooking. At this point start cooking your chicken. When stock is almost gone, stir in sesame seed and oil. Stir well, cover and leave to steam untill ready to eat.

For the chicken

250 g Chicken breast pieces cut to bite size

250 g Onion sliced fine lengthwise

1/2 cup Soya sauce (the regular one we get)

Salt to taste (be careful with salt as ther is already Soya sauce in this recipe)

1/2 cup rice wine vinegar (or 2 tbsp of any natural vinegar)

2 tbsp Lee Kum Kee Chui Chow Chilli Oil (optional)

Combine everything and set aside for 1/2 an hour.
Transfer to a saucepan and place on the flame. Cook untill he chicken is done - it should be moist and succulent and the marinade should reduce to a thick sauce

To serve,

Place rice in individual bowl and top with Chicken. I usually serve a light brothy chicken soup on the side to wash things down with and add a few unspiced Sago (Sabudana pappads) on the side for crunch.

Stop Press! Fresh Fish!

Celebrating the twofold joys of living in Mumbai and working from home - in no specific order!

Munna Chauhan, the fish seller proudly displaying his wares.

Is there anywhere else in the world that one can buy fish at one's doorstep?

Every second day or so the watchman will buzz us on the intercom. Machii Chahiye? So, today while I am supposed to be finishing a story on the A-Z of Aphrodisiacs for BTW magazine, I am instead slacking off!

First to buy fish, then to decide how I want to cook it for lunch, then because I realise I need to order some vegetables because I do not have eveything I need to make the recipe I want to cook, and then to actually cook the damn thing.

Why do I need to cook fish now? Well; because there are no leftovers from dinner that I can rework into a meal for lunch, because although my son loves fish, my husband is not very fond of it so fish at dinner means making an entire third so we are all happy, a prospect too challenging with the many things I am already juggling at the moment due to the a new baby in the house, because JUST LOOK AT THE WHOPPER I BOUGHT!

I am pretty new to fish in my kitchen so at the moment I can't tell you more thant the fact that the above is a Halwa fish (I have not been able to figure out what it is called in English yet) and I paid Rs. 550 for it. Cleaned and cut into fillets, it gave me enough for 5 -6 meals.

I had been hankering after a dish I had eaten years on a work trip years ago in Aukland, New Zealand. I know it was a whole steamed fish in a thin watery soya sauce with los of spring onions on it, but I cant recall it's name or the name of the restaurant (this was before I became obsessed with food) but I recall the chinese restaurant we had it at was next door to the Air new Zealand office because they were the ones hosting us at the meal.

Well I googled Stemed fish + Kylie Kwong, figuring if there was any chance of me finding a dish such as this it would be a recipe of hers and right enough google did its thing and threw back -Steamed Fish Fillets with Ginger and Scallions.

I now knew what I wanted to do with my fish for lunch but scanning through the recipe I found I was missing a few ingredients.

The scallions were taken care of with a quick call to the corner vegetable seller, who had them delivered to me in minutes, but i was fresh out of rice vinegar/sherry, chinese cabbage and peanut oil. I only had some grape vinegar mom brought me from Turkey and an iceberg lettuce in the fridge.

I decided to wing it.

Steamed Fish Fillet with Ginger and Scallions

4 servings

I cut down the vinegar to 1 tbsp to be on the safe side and Kylie's technique of first steaming the fillets awhile, then adding the cabbage leaf sections to the same steamer basket actually worked out brilliantly with the iceberg because the outer leaves absorbed some of the juices from the fish and the inner leaves stayed crunchy. I also finished with gingelly, til or cold pressed sesame oil in place of thepeanut oil.

2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
1/3 cup water
2 tablespoons shao hsing wine or dry sherry
Four 3 1/2-ounce firm white-fleshed fish fillets, such as King George whiting, cod, barramundi or mahi-mahi
2-inch piece peeled ginger root, cut into julienne (very thin strips)
1 Chinese cabbage leaf
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup scallions, white and tender green parts only, cut lengthwise into very thin strips
1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil
1/4 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems, for garnish
Pinch white ground pepper, for garnish

Combine the soy sauce and sesame oil in a small bowl; set aside.

Combine the water and wine or sherry in a measuring cup.



Place the fish in a shallow heatproof bowl that will fit inside a steamer basket. Pour the water-wine/sherry mixture over the fish, then sprinkle the fillets with half of the ginger. Place the bowl inside the steamer and position over a deep saucepan or wok containing a few inches of boiling water. Cover and steam for 5 to 6 minutes.



Cut the cabbage leaf crosswise into 4 sections and slip them inside the steamer, around the edges of the bowl containing the fish. Cover and steam for 2 to 3 minutes or until the cabbage has warmed through and the fish is opaque. (If the fish is still translucent, cook for another minute or so.)

Arrange the hot cabbage leaf sections on a platter. Use a wide spatula to carefully place the fish on top of the cabbage. Pour any liquid left in the bowl over the fish, sprinkle with sugar and drizzle with the soy sauce mixture, then sprinkle with the remaining ginger and half the scallions.



Heat the peanut oil in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat until it is moderately hot, then carefully pour over the fish. Sprinkle the fish with the remaining scallions and the cilantro and pepper. Serve immediately.

We had the steamed fish over rice with greens sauteed in Garlic after which I resisted the call of my bed and got back to my computer to finish E - Z of the artile I had left to go. Unfortunately I did not get past F because I then got to writing up this blog entry!