I've been making fried rice ever since I first started living on my own. Mostly it's based on a recipe from chef Stephen Yan (from his Wok With Yan cookbook), but since then I've done a few variants, based on techniques I've seen in other Chinese cookbooks and TV shows.
Personal Trainer: Cooking has a recipe for Yang Zhou fried rice, essentially their version of what's more commonly known in the West as Yeung Chow fried rice. I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it out.
Ingredients: The basics for Yeung Chow fried rice are rice (of course), plus char siu (a sweet-sauce basted, roast pork also known as BBQ porty), and shrimp. PTC lists these ingredients, plus peas, eggs and green onions which are common enough. What isn't common are dried, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, Chinese soup stock and boiled sliced bamboo shoots. Certainly I'd never tried those before, and so I figured this would be interesting.
A note about the rice: because this recipe uses boiled rice, a common enough staple in Japan, PTC also includes a sub-recipe for how to cook rice. Handy for the beginner cook with a minimal kitchen. Since I already have a rice cooker I settled for making 4 cups of Uncle Ben's converted, rather than use the calrose rice that PTC lists as its default.
As for other substitutions, I used ham instead BBQ pork, and low-sodium tetra-packed chicken broth for the Chinese chicken stock. PTC also lists jumbo prawns; as a substitute I used frozen small shrimp that I thawed with running water in a colander.
Techniques: The thing to remember about Chinese cooking is that it's usually characterized by very careful preparation of ingredients followed by a super quick cooking time. In PTC's case, this meant rehydrating the mushrooms, chopping up the bamboo shoots and green onions, chopping up the now-moist mushrooms, cubing the pork and the prawns, simmering the mushrooms, bamboo and prawns in the chicken stock, reserving a bit of the stock to mix with soy sauce and sesame oil, beating the eggs. You then pour the eggs into a hot frying pan or skillet, put the rice in just as the eggs are starting to set, and start stir-frying. During the stir you add the chopped up bamboo, prawn and mushrooms that were used in boiling the stock, then the pork, then the green onions, and then the seasoning. Once the seasoning's been added, stirred in and evaporated, you're good to go on the serving. Nothing really controversial about it or hard, apart from the usual microphone idiosyncracies.
Results: After having tried this, I think I would have left out the boiling stock / mixing seasoning bit. It doesn't really add anything that I can tell, and you have another saucepan to wash up afterwards. (I should say that, after trying out this recipe, I did try a variant, mixing the sesame oil with the eggs and then stirring the raw egg into the rice during the stir-fry phase, as well as tossing the shrimp, mushrooms and bamboo shoots straight in without the boiling in stock. The mushrooms and shoots wound up having a slightly stronger flavour, but it wasn't really overpowering the shrimp or the ham.
Since I have enough experience frying rice that I can pretty much cook it without a recipe, I don't need to cook this one again. And if I were a beginning chef using this recipe, I'd definitely leave out the stock boiling / seasoning steps (you could also leave out the mushrooms and shoots, but that's just a matter of personal preference). Fried rice is a hard dish to make because it's a test of how you master simple techniques; there's no need to complicate things further.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Chili Con Carne (WCJO - DS)
The British, it seems, are just as enthusiastic about chili con carne as America normally is. Why else would Heston Blumenthal include it among his dishes for the second In Search of Perfection series?
So it naturally follows that Jamie Oliver would have a version, which he included in What's Cooking with Jamie Oliver for Nintendo DS. And what's it like? Well . . .
Ingredients. You know that old saw about beans in chili being a hanging offence in Texas? Well, if such people were to see Jamie's recipe, they'd draw and quarter him too.
You see, in addition to red kidney beans, there's sweet potato in Jamie's chili.
Sweet potato?!
I had to check around about this, and yes, there are recipes around for chili with sweet potato. Usually, though, they're for vegetarian versions of chili. And since this one uses ground beef it's definitely one for the unusual, "not quite the done thing" type of dishes.
Variations? Well, the recipe here called for ground cumin. I have cumin seed; if you bruise it with your hands by rubbing vigorously it'll work just fine. Cilantro and green chile pepper are listed for a garnish; I didn't bother with the former but got the latter. I didn't have smoked sweet paprika, but Hungarian hot struck me as being more appropriate for a chili anyway.
Techniques: Well, this is a "cook on the stove-top / bake in the oven" cooking style dish. Meaning the perfect opportunity to try out my new Corningware Stovetop 3-litre casserole dish.
This is the old-fashioned Corningware, the type known as pyroceramic cookware that works on both direct heat (stovetop) and oven without cracking. And, as it turns out, 3 litre is just enough room for everything to go in.
None of the steps are too intricate, and apart from the sweet potato (which go in cubed) none are surprising, with one exception: I had thought the green chile would be going in as part of the cooking process. Turns out it's a garnish. Oh well.
One last thing. Although it's not listed in the ingredients, the recipe calls for the chili to be served on top of rice. (Which leads me to suspect that somehow Mr. Oliver may have confused chili with gumbo.) It probably would have helped matters if Jamie were a bit more specific about the type of rice to be used.
Results: Over calrose rice, with a dollop of sour cream, this chili was -- well, it was okay. Over converted rice, with green onion chopped and sprinkled on top of the sour cream, it was much better. The sweet potato didn't really clash; in fact, it came out with a very nice texture. But I'm still not convinced that it adds anything, any more than adding a regular potato to chili.
So it naturally follows that Jamie Oliver would have a version, which he included in What's Cooking with Jamie Oliver for Nintendo DS. And what's it like? Well . . .
Ingredients. You know that old saw about beans in chili being a hanging offence in Texas? Well, if such people were to see Jamie's recipe, they'd draw and quarter him too.
You see, in addition to red kidney beans, there's sweet potato in Jamie's chili.
Sweet potato?!
I had to check around about this, and yes, there are recipes around for chili with sweet potato. Usually, though, they're for vegetarian versions of chili. And since this one uses ground beef it's definitely one for the unusual, "not quite the done thing" type of dishes.
Variations? Well, the recipe here called for ground cumin. I have cumin seed; if you bruise it with your hands by rubbing vigorously it'll work just fine. Cilantro and green chile pepper are listed for a garnish; I didn't bother with the former but got the latter. I didn't have smoked sweet paprika, but Hungarian hot struck me as being more appropriate for a chili anyway.
Techniques: Well, this is a "cook on the stove-top / bake in the oven" cooking style dish. Meaning the perfect opportunity to try out my new Corningware Stovetop 3-litre casserole dish.
This is the old-fashioned Corningware, the type known as pyroceramic cookware that works on both direct heat (stovetop) and oven without cracking. And, as it turns out, 3 litre is just enough room for everything to go in.
None of the steps are too intricate, and apart from the sweet potato (which go in cubed) none are surprising, with one exception: I had thought the green chile would be going in as part of the cooking process. Turns out it's a garnish. Oh well.
One last thing. Although it's not listed in the ingredients, the recipe calls for the chili to be served on top of rice. (Which leads me to suspect that somehow Mr. Oliver may have confused chili with gumbo.) It probably would have helped matters if Jamie were a bit more specific about the type of rice to be used.
Results: Over calrose rice, with a dollop of sour cream, this chili was -- well, it was okay. Over converted rice, with green onion chopped and sprinkled on top of the sour cream, it was much better. The sweet potato didn't really clash; in fact, it came out with a very nice texture. But I'm still not convinced that it adds anything, any more than adding a regular potato to chili.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Mulligatawny Soup (WCJO - DS)
It's probably oversimplifying matters to suggest that any soup with curry as a predominant flavor could be called mulligatawny. The recipe in What's Cooking with Jamie Oliver is a beef curry-flavoured soup.
And let me say at the outset that this is why DS game users buy WCJO. Not because they want to learn how to cook; WCJO presumes that you already know enough to use a stove, fridge and sink properly. No, you buy WCJO because you're a fan of Jamie Oliver and want a pocket-sized version of one of his cookbooks. (Seriously, I don't think I've ever come across a cookbook of his that isn't smaller than a packaged ream of letter-sized paper.)
Well, let's get on with it then:
Ingredients: And already we see a big difference between WCJO and Personal Trainer: Cooking. Even allowing for the fact that this is a spicy soup, the variety and volume listed ensures that bland, this ain't. Half a dozen garlic cloves, ginger, chili peppers, curry powder and black pepper, in proportions certainly much bigger than what Tsuji Academy would suggest.
As for modifications, the only one I made is a personal one: I'm not a big fan of cilantro, and so I left it out of this one.
Technique: WCJO also enables the microphone function in the Nintendo DS, so you can scroll from screen to screen simply by saying "Next" or "Previous." It's not as sensitive to other sounds as PTC, but it will also scroll automatically, which could be a problem if you're in the middle of a particular cooking step.
Now since this is a soup, preparation isn't all that hard: get a big enough saucepan, put it on heat, put in the solid ingredients, cook, then put in the liquid ingredients and seasonings, cook some more. The one step that surprised me was the one to puree the soup with a stick blender (or a food processor), for a smoother soup. I personally like my soups to be a bit on the chunky side, but to each his own. I have a Braun stick blender, which still works well after ten years; it still does a pretty good job.
Results: The recipe says to use natural yogurt for a garnish. I definitely call this a necessary step, but that could be because I used a bigger chili pepper than was illustrated or available from Jamie's garden. In other words, this is definitely a good-eating winter soup.
Unlike PTC, WCJO doesn't keep track of how many times you made a particular dish. Which is okay, because remember, PTC is more geared towards teaching, while WCJO isn't.
And let me say at the outset that this is why DS game users buy WCJO. Not because they want to learn how to cook; WCJO presumes that you already know enough to use a stove, fridge and sink properly. No, you buy WCJO because you're a fan of Jamie Oliver and want a pocket-sized version of one of his cookbooks. (Seriously, I don't think I've ever come across a cookbook of his that isn't smaller than a packaged ream of letter-sized paper.)
Well, let's get on with it then:
Ingredients: And already we see a big difference between WCJO and Personal Trainer: Cooking. Even allowing for the fact that this is a spicy soup, the variety and volume listed ensures that bland, this ain't. Half a dozen garlic cloves, ginger, chili peppers, curry powder and black pepper, in proportions certainly much bigger than what Tsuji Academy would suggest.
As for modifications, the only one I made is a personal one: I'm not a big fan of cilantro, and so I left it out of this one.
Technique: WCJO also enables the microphone function in the Nintendo DS, so you can scroll from screen to screen simply by saying "Next" or "Previous." It's not as sensitive to other sounds as PTC, but it will also scroll automatically, which could be a problem if you're in the middle of a particular cooking step.
Now since this is a soup, preparation isn't all that hard: get a big enough saucepan, put it on heat, put in the solid ingredients, cook, then put in the liquid ingredients and seasonings, cook some more. The one step that surprised me was the one to puree the soup with a stick blender (or a food processor), for a smoother soup. I personally like my soups to be a bit on the chunky side, but to each his own. I have a Braun stick blender, which still works well after ten years; it still does a pretty good job.
Results: The recipe says to use natural yogurt for a garnish. I definitely call this a necessary step, but that could be because I used a bigger chili pepper than was illustrated or available from Jamie's garden. In other words, this is definitely a good-eating winter soup.
Unlike PTC, WCJO doesn't keep track of how many times you made a particular dish. Which is okay, because remember, PTC is more geared towards teaching, while WCJO isn't.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tagliatelle with Meat Sauce (PTC - DS)
In the Bologne region of Italy, the local pasta dish is known as ragu, cooked chopped meat on pasta. It's the basis for the dish commonly known as spaghetti bolognese, only in Bologne the pasta used isn't spaghetti but tagliatelle, a slightly wider version of fettucine. Personal Trainer: Cooking has tagliatelle with meat sauce listed in its Italian section; I decided it'd be worth a try.
Ingredients: The only real surprise, here, is the use of flour as a thickening agent. Otherwise the ingredient list is pretty familiar: you start with a soffrito of carrot, onion and celery, then add ground beef, wine, canned tomatoes (because it's winter in Canada, fresh ones just don't have the intensity of flavour), some stock and some seasonings.
The major modification I made was using ground lamb as well as beef, mainly because I thought a stronger meat profile would be good. I also left out the called-for broth, because -- well, you'll see when I explain.
Technique: Here, I think PTC made a serious error in its equipment list. For making the sauce, the recipe calls for using a frying pan. Honestly, that's a bad idea, because the recipe requires you to have at least 4 cups of liquid in addition to all the other ingredients. A 4-quart saucepan or Dutch oven would be a far better choice.
Preparing the soffrito went well enough; a little too much noise when I was chopping the carrot (which tended to confuse the DS) but all went well. Ditto with the browning of the ground beef and the ground lamb. About the time when I added the tomatoes and red wine, however, I started worrying about overflow. It became pretty obvious that the 13-inch chef's pan I was using wasn't tall enough to accommodate the stock called for in the recipe.
The recipe called for a simmer for 20 minutes with the lid on. Great, except that there was too much liquid in the sauce as it was. I compromised: 10 minutes with lid on, rest of time with lid off, and I'd let it boil while I made the tagliatelle.
No, PTC doesn't actually have a recipe, at this point, for making fresh pasta; they recommend a package of dried tagliatelle instead. I just figured that, since I have a pasta machine that I don't use as often as I should, and a paper recipe for making egg pasta, I should try it. After all, how hard could it be?
Um -- long story short, I wound up boiling up some dried angel hair pasta. No, it's not the ideal match for this type of meat sauce, but it was what I had in the pantry.
Results: Pasta disasta aside, it wasn't bad. Using lamb as well as beef added a good note, I think.
If you've never made Bolognese sauce before, this is a good basic recipe. However, there is a nicer one from Heston Blumenthal that, while a lot more complicated (and a lot more time-consuming), yields a more flavourful accompaniment to a pasta dish.
Ingredients: The only real surprise, here, is the use of flour as a thickening agent. Otherwise the ingredient list is pretty familiar: you start with a soffrito of carrot, onion and celery, then add ground beef, wine, canned tomatoes (because it's winter in Canada, fresh ones just don't have the intensity of flavour), some stock and some seasonings.
The major modification I made was using ground lamb as well as beef, mainly because I thought a stronger meat profile would be good. I also left out the called-for broth, because -- well, you'll see when I explain.
Technique: Here, I think PTC made a serious error in its equipment list. For making the sauce, the recipe calls for using a frying pan. Honestly, that's a bad idea, because the recipe requires you to have at least 4 cups of liquid in addition to all the other ingredients. A 4-quart saucepan or Dutch oven would be a far better choice.
Preparing the soffrito went well enough; a little too much noise when I was chopping the carrot (which tended to confuse the DS) but all went well. Ditto with the browning of the ground beef and the ground lamb. About the time when I added the tomatoes and red wine, however, I started worrying about overflow. It became pretty obvious that the 13-inch chef's pan I was using wasn't tall enough to accommodate the stock called for in the recipe.
The recipe called for a simmer for 20 minutes with the lid on. Great, except that there was too much liquid in the sauce as it was. I compromised: 10 minutes with lid on, rest of time with lid off, and I'd let it boil while I made the tagliatelle.
No, PTC doesn't actually have a recipe, at this point, for making fresh pasta; they recommend a package of dried tagliatelle instead. I just figured that, since I have a pasta machine that I don't use as often as I should, and a paper recipe for making egg pasta, I should try it. After all, how hard could it be?
Um -- long story short, I wound up boiling up some dried angel hair pasta. No, it's not the ideal match for this type of meat sauce, but it was what I had in the pantry.
Results: Pasta disasta aside, it wasn't bad. Using lamb as well as beef added a good note, I think.
If you've never made Bolognese sauce before, this is a good basic recipe. However, there is a nicer one from Heston Blumenthal that, while a lot more complicated (and a lot more time-consuming), yields a more flavourful accompaniment to a pasta dish.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
New England Clam Chowder (PTC - DS)
The first recipe I'll talk about here is New England Clam Chowder, from Personal Trainer: Cooking. There are tons of recipes and variations for this clam-and-dairy soup, so it's very hard for a nit-picker to point an accusing finger and yell that it's not "authentic" -- whatever that means in this day and age. Which is why it's a natural inclusion for PTC, which is after all aimed at a more generalized audience than WCJO (i.e. an audience that's a bit more timid about actually making stuff in the kitchen).
Ingredients: Now bear in mind that this recipe isn't from some obscure game programmer geek in Japan riffing off of Iron Chef. PTC's recipe database comes directly from the Tsuji Cooking Academy,] which trains both homemakers and professional chefs in the art of cuisine. (One of their principals, Shizuo Tsuji, wrote a classic cookbook called Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, which is enamored by Nigella Lawson, among others.) So the recipe is written up by professionals, but at the same time it's geared towards a Japanese palate -- which tends not to be as appreciative of super-spiced foods as we are in the West.
Anyway, there are no surprises in the ingredient list: clams (of course), onion, potato, carrot, bacon, butter, stock (I used Campbell's Organic Chicken for this review), milk and cream. (Crackers and Italian parsley are listed, but as garnishes at the end.)
PTC illustrates its recipes with photos, so the clams used here were pretty big, even when canned. Canned baby clams are easier to come by than canned surf clams, so I used that.
Here I should say that using the shopping list function in the grocery store works just as well as using the one provided by WCJO. One major difference: there's a function in PTC that lets you look up a recipe based on the shopping list you've just completed. Very handy, if you don't carry your DS with you all the time.
Techniques: One thing PTC does during the step-by-step process is list the equipment used at the start of each step (i.e. a knife and block during the chopping phase, a saucepan during the actual cooking phase). If you've had a lot of experience cooking, you might find that annoying, but for novices I can see that it'd be an important feature.
There is a slight problem that you'll have to get used to: PTC's microphone function may be a little too sensitive, interpreting everything as a voice command -- including the sounds of the knife hitting the chopping block, getting bowls out of the cupboard, and so on. However, unlike WCJO, hands-free use is very easy, so long as you take care to enunciate when speaking to the DS.
As for the techniques themselves, they were pretty much standard: no fancy cutting techniques or equipment required. One step that I never encountered before when making clam chowder was a step to skim off the foam, which appears when adding the stock. (A nice feature of PTC is that, when prompted by voice, you can get more details on a technique or step, such as why it's important to skim the foam off a soup that was meant to be cream-based.)
One step that I think they left out: during the chopping phase (onion, potato, etc.), unless you're dumping the ingredients straight into the saucepan, you're going to want some bowls or containers to put the chopped ingredients in, until you're ready for the actual dumping. This is pure common dog for someone already used to working in the kitchen, but it's still a handy step to remember.
Results: Well, I did say it's a fairly standard recipe. You're not going to blow anyone's taste buds away with this one, but at the same time it's very satisfying. Especially when compared with chowder out of a can, which tends to be sodden with soggy vegs and all too heavy on the salt.
If I wanted to modify it, I might have added chopped celery at the same time as the onion and carrot. I might also add a pinch of something spicy -- curry powder, say, or nutmeg. Not too much, just enough to deliver a hint of a kick. (I did mention that Japanese palate tends to be a bit bland.)
Would I make this recipe again? Easily, with the modifications mentioned above. I'd call it a good beginning.
Ingredients: Now bear in mind that this recipe isn't from some obscure game programmer geek in Japan riffing off of Iron Chef. PTC's recipe database comes directly from the Tsuji Cooking Academy,] which trains both homemakers and professional chefs in the art of cuisine. (One of their principals, Shizuo Tsuji, wrote a classic cookbook called Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, which is enamored by Nigella Lawson, among others.) So the recipe is written up by professionals, but at the same time it's geared towards a Japanese palate -- which tends not to be as appreciative of super-spiced foods as we are in the West.
Anyway, there are no surprises in the ingredient list: clams (of course), onion, potato, carrot, bacon, butter, stock (I used Campbell's Organic Chicken for this review), milk and cream. (Crackers and Italian parsley are listed, but as garnishes at the end.)
PTC illustrates its recipes with photos, so the clams used here were pretty big, even when canned. Canned baby clams are easier to come by than canned surf clams, so I used that.
Here I should say that using the shopping list function in the grocery store works just as well as using the one provided by WCJO. One major difference: there's a function in PTC that lets you look up a recipe based on the shopping list you've just completed. Very handy, if you don't carry your DS with you all the time.
Techniques: One thing PTC does during the step-by-step process is list the equipment used at the start of each step (i.e. a knife and block during the chopping phase, a saucepan during the actual cooking phase). If you've had a lot of experience cooking, you might find that annoying, but for novices I can see that it'd be an important feature.
There is a slight problem that you'll have to get used to: PTC's microphone function may be a little too sensitive, interpreting everything as a voice command -- including the sounds of the knife hitting the chopping block, getting bowls out of the cupboard, and so on. However, unlike WCJO, hands-free use is very easy, so long as you take care to enunciate when speaking to the DS.
As for the techniques themselves, they were pretty much standard: no fancy cutting techniques or equipment required. One step that I never encountered before when making clam chowder was a step to skim off the foam, which appears when adding the stock. (A nice feature of PTC is that, when prompted by voice, you can get more details on a technique or step, such as why it's important to skim the foam off a soup that was meant to be cream-based.)
One step that I think they left out: during the chopping phase (onion, potato, etc.), unless you're dumping the ingredients straight into the saucepan, you're going to want some bowls or containers to put the chopped ingredients in, until you're ready for the actual dumping. This is pure common dog for someone already used to working in the kitchen, but it's still a handy step to remember.
Results: Well, I did say it's a fairly standard recipe. You're not going to blow anyone's taste buds away with this one, but at the same time it's very satisfying. Especially when compared with chowder out of a can, which tends to be sodden with soggy vegs and all too heavy on the salt.
If I wanted to modify it, I might have added chopped celery at the same time as the onion and carrot. I might also add a pinch of something spicy -- curry powder, say, or nutmeg. Not too much, just enough to deliver a hint of a kick. (I did mention that Japanese palate tends to be a bit bland.)
Would I make this recipe again? Easily, with the modifications mentioned above. I'd call it a good beginning.
Welcome to Nintendo Chef!
One of my New Year's resolutions was to make some recipes from Nintendo video games. Right now, I have two of them, both for Nintendo DS: What's Cooking with Jamie Oliver (which I'll refer to from now on as WCJO -- hey, since I'm here, it's a natural that I have this) and Personal Trainer - Cooking (which I'll refer to as PTC).
It occurred to me that some folks might be interested in how these videogame recipes actually turned out. After all, you wouldn't necessarily expect something off a Nintendo DS (which people still perceive to be -- let's be honest -- a school toy) to be as culinarily exciting as something from, say, The Joy of Cooking. But since the purpose of these particular games is to get people cooking who ordinarily wouldn't go near a stove, it would seem a good service to let people know how things turned out -- with much more than a mere videogame review.
Hence, this blog.
I'll be alternating between recipes from WCJO and PTC, and each review will take the following format:
Ingredients. I'll discuss the ingredients from each recipe, with notes on any modifications I've made either due to availability problems or personal preferences.
Techniques. I'll talk about the steps in preparation each recipe requires, and comment on the difficulty (or other problems that crop up) with each recipe.
Results. This is the part that people care about: is the resulting dish any good, or not? I'll let you know.
There are over 200 recipes in PTC, and 100 in WCJO. I suspect this blog won't be lacking in updates for some time to come.
It occurred to me that some folks might be interested in how these videogame recipes actually turned out. After all, you wouldn't necessarily expect something off a Nintendo DS (which people still perceive to be -- let's be honest -- a school toy) to be as culinarily exciting as something from, say, The Joy of Cooking. But since the purpose of these particular games is to get people cooking who ordinarily wouldn't go near a stove, it would seem a good service to let people know how things turned out -- with much more than a mere videogame review.
Hence, this blog.
I'll be alternating between recipes from WCJO and PTC, and each review will take the following format:
Ingredients. I'll discuss the ingredients from each recipe, with notes on any modifications I've made either due to availability problems or personal preferences.
Techniques. I'll talk about the steps in preparation each recipe requires, and comment on the difficulty (or other problems that crop up) with each recipe.
Results. This is the part that people care about: is the resulting dish any good, or not? I'll let you know.
There are over 200 recipes in PTC, and 100 in WCJO. I suspect this blog won't be lacking in updates for some time to come.
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