vegan kimchi stew: or my german korean thanksgiving 2013

Me and Jessie pre-German Korean Thanksgiving.

A few months ago I booked a flight to Düsseldorf.  I never really had Germany on my radar as a place to visit, but when my bestest friend Jessica asked me if I wanted to come and stay with her in Dortmund, how could I not?  She teaches English to middle and high school students, so we picked two weeks at the end of her semester so that she'd be free to traipse around Deutschland.  It wasn't until days before I was leaving that I realized Thanksgiving was right smack in the middle of my German excursion.  I wasn't too troubled.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I love me some stuffing and canned cranberry sauce, but it's not like I'm never going to have another Thanksgiving again (knock on wood).  Forgoing one Thanksgiving dinner seemed like a fair trade off for two weeks in Europe.

Fortunately, I didn't have to forgo the holiday at all.  This year I had three, yes three, Thanksgiving dinners.  Albeit they were all terribly unconventional, delicious dinners spent with strange, but friendly and welcoming faces.  The first was the night I arrived in Dortmund (a week before the actual holiday), hosted by another teacher at Jessie's school, a German who spent time in America over a decade ago, fell in love with the Thanksgiving tradition, and hosts the dinner every year to show her appreciation for her family and friends.  Our host's "American Thanksgiving" staples were meatloaf and a roasted-tomato and fresh corn cornbread that, while non-traditional, was probably the best cornbread I've ever had.  Jessie and I made a turkey (her first Americans and turkey at her Thanksgiving dinner table), stuffing, Brussels sprouts with chili peppers (my addition to the meal), and fresh-pumpkin pie (which totally freaked all the Germans out.  The idea of pumpkin pie completely disgusts them, which was hard to believe, but I didn't mind, because it meant more for me).

Dinner 1 & 2.

The second dinner was at Jessie's fiance's parents' house in London.  They were worried that we would be missing America terribly during the holiday season (we weren't), so made a huge meal with turkey and gravy, mashed sweet potatoes topped with roasted butternut squash, homemade cranberry sauce with scallions and brandy, pecan pie, and my favorite dish, "roasties" - crispy, crunchy baked potatoes cooked in goose fat reserved from last year's Christmas goose.  Goose fat is vegan, right?

Kimchi stew in the foreground with our ridiculous seafood platter behind.

My Thanksgiving day dinner this year was shared with Jessica at Namu, a cozy little Korean restaurant on the cobblestone streets of Dortmund, Germany.  Stuffing and mashed potatoes were replaced with bowls of bibimbap and udon noodles.  One of the most difficult and exciting aspects of the trip was not being able to speak the language (I know, I know, I'm a jerk and an ugly American, and I really should have at least attempted to learn a little conversational German, but being thrown into a foreign country without the ability to communicate gave everything an edge and air of spontaneity and possibility.  There's something freeing about it).  Not only did this make asking for directions and chatting up the cute guy sitting at the bar next you a struggle, but it made eating out down-right impossible.  Thank God I had my fluent friend with me, so she usually took control and ordered for us, or tried her best to translate.  However, trying to decipher the Korean menu written in German had us both lost.  Thankfully, we had a very nice waitress who set us up with the most traditional dishes - my favorite of which, was a kimchi stew. Kimchi is a combination of veggies fermented using a variety of spices - it sounds scary, but the sour and slightly sweet flavor was something I had never encountered before and its delightful. 

Which is why, while perusing the Vedge cookbook I got from Santa (more on that in a later post), and I found a recipe for a vegan kimchi stew, I knew needed to make it.  While it didn't quite reach the level of the German version I had (it had big chunks of beef in it, so already, the meat-less version was going to different), it totally brought me back to Dortmund.  Its a new favorite comfort food, reminding me of a time when I was cozy and happy, sharing a phenomenal meal with a true loved one...and isn't that what Thanksgiving is all about?

My vegan kimchi stew.

Vegan Kimchi Stew - from Vedge

2 tbs toasted sesame oil

½ cup diced onions

1 tbs minced garlic

4 cups chopped napa cabbage

8 cups vegetable stock

2 cups vegan kimchi

¼ cup tamari

2 tbs gochujang 

2 tsp sugar

½ cup finely chopped scallions, white and light green parts only
1 cup peeled, shredded daikon radish

+ Heat the sesame oil in a large pot over high heat until it ripples.  Add the onions and garlic, cooking until brown, about 3 to 5 minutes.
+ Add the cabbage and continue to brown for an additional 3 to 5 minutes.
+ Add the stock, kimchi with its juice, tamari, gochujang, and sugar.  Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring often.
+ Serve in big bowls, garnished with daikon and scallions.

Note - if you can't find gochujang (because I couldn't), you can mix equal parts curry paste and miso to get the same effect.

Oh, also, I allowed the stew to simmer for about an hour, since I find that the flavors develop more the longer you stew a stew.  I might have liked to even cook it down more to thicken it up.  Though I do have very high hopes for tomorrows leftovers, since a night in the fridge seems to have the same effect as hours simmering on the stove.

a year in review: or i'm baaaack!

One year.  One whole year.  To the goddamn day.

The unexpected and unplanned twelve month hiatus from blogging has proved to be terribly enlightening.  This past year has exposed me to new, exciting, and mainly uncomfortable and anxiet-inducing experiences, that have sparked personal growth and change, which has spilled over into my cooking.  I started working as a server at brewpub, a job which requires you to be social and interact with strangers, putting a fairly substantial crack in the shell of social anxiety I had been retreating into.  It also revealed the back of house world and gave me the opportunity to learn from real chefs...mainly by skulking around the kitchen and bugging them about how certain things were made.

On top of working a full-time job, I also became primary cook at home.  Instead of making the occasional elaborate dinner with homemade pastas and port-wine reductions, my dishes became simpler and more efficient time and money wise, but I still strove to keep them healthy, fresh, and full of flavor.  I got to the point where when I ate something at a restaurant or saw a recipe or technique used on one of the many cooking reality shows I watch regularly, I could take it, put a little spin on it or tweak it in a way that I could use it in my weeknight dinners.  I'm always looking for something in others' food that will spark the excitement in me, which I then translate into creation and experimentation tested on the very brave and willing members of my family.  Even though I wasn't writing about my food this year, I became a bit of an Instagram-whore, posting pictures of almost every dinner plate and breakfast smoothie.  While the amount of photos might be on the verge of obnoxious, it helped me hone my food photography skills, especially in terms of plating - I can thank the chefs at my restaurant for that, too.  My family has even become experts, knowing which plates look best with which foods and that they can't start eating until I'm sure I got the best picture with the best plate.

This year, much of my inspiration came from travel.  In May, I was in New Orleans with my family and a few weeks ago spent two weeks in Germany and a little bit of that time in London - the latter trip was personally incredibly challenging, but an experience that I wouldn't do any differently looking back.  Both trips were spent mainly eating and drinking, taking in the flavors and soul of the respective cultures (I ate blood sausage in both Germany and London, something that honestly freaked me out and thought I would never ever try, but I did and it turned out to be ridiculously delicious, though it probably won't become a regular dish on my table).  My food-spiration came from some pretty surprising places, like being exposed to the best Asian food I've ever encountered in a small Korean restaurant in Dortmund, Germany on Thanksgiving Day.  When I got home from that trip, I told my family I was going to make them a dish that embodied my time spent there, and then served them a big bowl of miso soup with udon noodles, they were quite confused.

My year off provided me quite a bit of time for self-reflection, in which I realized that cooking is something I want to do.  All the time.  I need cooking and food in my life in some capacity, and at what capacity that'll be I still don't know, but I'm not in too much of a rush to figure my life out at this point.  But I want to make moves, take a leap, put myself out there, and do something.  So here we are.  I'm back, dread&butter has gotten a little update, a fresh start.  I'm just excited to share my food and to see where it takes me.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas...

While it may be after the calendar day, the Christmas Spirit is still a strong presence in the Confoy household - as are the Christmas spirits, if you get my drift.  We still have one side of the family to celebrate with this weekend, and our tree is still up, decorated, and encircled with Santa's bounty.  Speaking of which, I got a camera!  Finally, the days of impatiently waiting for my brother to come home from school with his camera are over!  And its a beaut.  Actually, its the exact same one my brother has, but its shiny and new and pretty and way better than his silly ol' one.  So, from now on, my food-photography should be better...or at least improving.

In my black rice pudding post, I mentioned that my Dad's Christmas cakes are one of favorite foods of the holidays...actually, his cake might be my favorite part of the holiday.  Made with mincemeat (the meatless kind), molasses, and a ton of spices, it's literally Christmas in a bite (well, not literally, but "figuratively Christmas in a bite" doesn't quite sound as nice).  Especially when its swimming in honey whiskey...did you see what I did there?

Craig's Christmas Cake
½ cup sugar
½ cup Crisco
1 egg
1 cup molasses
3 cups of flour
1 jar mincemeat (meatless version)
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 cup boiling water
honey whiskey (or brandy or rum)

+ Preheat the oven at 350 degrees.  Lightly grease two loaf pans.
+ In a large bowl, mix sugar, Crisco, and egg.  Add the molasses and stir well.  
+ Next add the flour and salt.  Stir until just combined.  
+ Add the boiling water.  Then add the spices and mincemeat, stirring well after each addition.
+ Pour the batter into the loaf pans, then bake an hour or until a toothpick comes out cleanly.
+ Let the cakes cool, then begin soaking the cakes.  Slowly pour the liquor over the cakes, focusing on the edges where the cake has pulled away from the pan.  Allow the sit until all the liquid has been absorbed.  Repeat the process until the cake is thoroughly soaked through - you can do this over the course of a few days, if you want it really moist and boozy, which I highly suggest.

On the Sixth Day of Christmas...

Last night marked the return of my little brother and his lady-friend from their first semester of college.  The prodigal son's homecoming was celebrated with some bubbly, baked brie with jam, red wine, eggnog and whiskey, and our tree falling over.  Twice.  Thankfully it hasn't been lit or decorated yet, and by that time we were all pleasantly warmed by the evening's libations and it was more hilarious than upsetting.  After up-righting the tree, we stumbled off to bed and passed out immediately.  I had the morning off (an oddity and a blessing), so I took my time getting out of bed, made a big pot of Winter Blend coffee, and decided to whip of a welcome-home-Christmassy-breakfast-in-bed-special for the kids: eggnog soaked cranberry bread french toast with a fresh cranberry syrup.

French toast seemed to be one of those foods that embodies childhood and warmth and home.  I used a sliced cranberry bread, eggnog in place of milk for the batter, and cranberry syrup to imbue the dish with the holiday spirit.  Not to mention that I think the eggnog fulfills the "geese a'laying" quota nicely.

I woke the kids up with a spread of the french toast, coffee, and OJ set up on my brother's desk, then went out to run some errands.  My brother sent me a text that read, "So.  Effing.  Good."  One of the very few times that my cooking has gotten his stamp of approval.  So I think this dish was a ridiculously delicious, hands-down success.

Homemade Cranberry Syrup
1 cup fresh cranberries
2 tbs honey
½ cup water

+ Cook cranberries and honey in a covered pot over medium-high heat.  Once the berries begin popping, uncover and stir.  Recover and allow to cook until all the berries have burst.  Turn heat to low, stir, and cook until the berries have thickened to a jam-consistency.
+ Add the water, bring the heat back up, and cook uncovered until desired syrupy texture is reached.

Eggnog French Toast
1 cup non-dairy eggnog
3 eggs
pinch of salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cardamom
1 tsp nutmeg
8 slices bread
¼ cup powdered sugar

+ Preheat skillet to medium-high heat.
+ In a medium sized, flat-bottomed or shallow bowl, whisk together eggnog, eggs, salt and spices.
+ Immerse the slices of bread, one at a time, into the egg mixture.  Using a fork to flip, make sure the bread is thoroughly soaked, but not mushy.  
+ Pull the bread out of the mixture, letting any excess egg drip off, and then place on the skillet.  Cook for about 3 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.
+ To serve, lightly butter each slice, dust with powdered sugar, and then drizzle cranberry syrup ontop.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas...

I'm pretty sure you've all guessed what today's recipe is.  I mean, "five golden rings"?  I couldn't help myself, could I?

Now, some of you might think, "Wow, way to phone on in, Claudia."  And to that I say, you try coming up with 12 original and innovative recipes in 25 days.  Speaking of which, since Christmas is technically 5 days away and I still have, oh, 7 more recipes, I think I'm going to extend my deadline until New Years.  But its not a cop out!  Part of the reason is that half of my holiday parties are the week after Christmas, and I want to be able to feature some recipes I use for them on the blog.  The other part of the reason is that I don't like rushing through the holidays, I prefer to drag them out for as long as physically possible - last year we had our tree up until February.  And hey, you get to enjoy Christmas and yummy food even longer now! Isn't that exciting?  I know, you can't handle your own happiness.  It might even scare you a little.  It's okay, accept your feelings, and express them appropriately.  Go ahead, do a happy dance.  I won't judge.

...finished your happy dance?  Good.  I used Not Without Salt's oven-fried onion ring recipe.  While a little on the messy side to assemble, they are otherwise super simple, healthier since they bake in a few tablespoons of oil, and are coated in crushed potato chips - yeah I said it, potato chip covered onion rings.  It's just crazy enough to be insanely delicious.  I used black pepper and salt potato chips and served them with a homemade curried honey mustard (curry strikes again!), which along with the cayenne pepper in the batter gave these little guys a surprising kick.

Curried Honey Mustard
2 tbs spicy mustard
1 tbs honey
2 tsp Vindaloo curry powder
1 tsp red curry powder

+ Combine ingredients in a small bowl.  Mix well.  Adjust amount of each ingredient based on taste.

On the Fourth Day of Christmas...

...my true love gave to me, four colly birds.  That's right - colly birds.  Apparently the version we know featuring "calling birds" is just a horrible bastardization of the original, which isn't really that hard to believe seeing as we live in America and just about all aspects of our culture are distorted, corrupted, twisted hollow shells of what they once were...but I digress.

This revelation was my muse for this recipe.  A colly bird is an English nickname for a blackbird; "colly" being an Old English word meaning "soot" or "coal".  My mind immediately started reeling off all of black foods I could think of...which ended up only being one: blackberries.  I then got the internet to reel off all the black foods it could think of, which ended up being quite a few more, many of which I had never heard of.  One of these was black rice.  My first thought was to do a blackened tofu over black rice with a black bean sauce.  I liked it, I really did, but it didn't feel like a holiday dish to me.  Nothing about it felt special or new or, well, like Christmas.  So, I scrapped the tofu-rice dish.  I started to think of all the foods that embody Christmas for me: the top three dishes being mincemeat cake, waffles and potato soup (both of which may or may not be making an appearance next week), and rice pudding.  Now, I wouldn't consider myself a big rice pudding fan, outside the occasional whipped cream-topped sundae-glass full eaten in a grimy diner booth with a cup of coffee in the middle of the night, of course.  However, every Christmas Day, I partake in the Confoy-Osenlund family tradition of eating rice pudding together with hopes that your bowl will contain the sole almond in the whole batch.  If you get the almond, you are the King/Queen of Christmas and you are forced to wear one of those paper Christmas-cracker crowns.  Its all terribly exciting, and usually results in some fairly embarrassing photos.

So, in honor of the original lyrics and Confoy-Osenlunds, I bring you a black rice pudding topped with blackberries macerated in port and black pepper.

I followed theKitchn's recipe for black rice pudding, minus the coconut.  Also, I highly suggest letting it sit in the fridge over night - it gets thick and creamy and absolutely wonderful.

Port and Black Pepper Macerated Blackberries
½ pint fresh blackberries
1 cup port
1 tbs honey
2 tsp fresh crushed black pepper

+ Place blackberries in a glass measuring cup.  In a small pot, cook port, honey, and 1 tsp of black pepper over medium-high heat.  Once it begins to boil, cook for a moment or two, then pour the hot port over the berries.  Allow to sit and stew for at least 30 minutes - the longer they sit, the more the berries will break down, and the port will infuse in the berries.  
+ After the berries have been sitting, pour the liquid back into the pot.  Add the last tsp of the black pepper. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer.  Cook until the port has reduced into a thick syrup.
+ To serve, top the black rice pudding with a few blackberries, then drizzle a little of the port-black pepper syrup over the top.

On the Third Day of Christmas...

So, if you read last post, you know of my growing anxiety concerning this latest project, especially the bird heavy days ahead.  However, the fear has subsided as many of my friends and fellow-foodies have come to my rescue and suggested some absolutely wonderfully creative ways to interpret the song into food.  In fact, it was my high-school friend, Christina's idea to use Hen-of-the-Woods mushrooms for the third day's recipe.  A spark of culinary genius that would have never crossed my mind.  Brilliant, really, Christina.  

So, for the third day, I give to you a trio of Hen-of-the-Woods mushrooms: a maitake pate, honey-glazed and roasted whole maitake mushroom, and a simple maitake and mixed mushroom soup. While only one can truly be considered French, these three hens are delightfully delicious and a perfect holiday party starter.

I was introduced to the Hen-of-the-Woods, or maitake mushroom at the Stockton Market this past April (and even wrote a post about it), but I wasn't quite sure how to use them.  The only way I'd ever cooked mushrooms was sauteing them in butter with onions as a pizza topping.  It wasn't until I started working at Gravity Hill that I was invited into the magical world of mushrooms.  One of the vendors at the market every Sunday was Shibumi Farm, a local couple who cultivate nearly 30 different types of mushrooms using no pesticides and only plant-based materials to grow the fungi.  Not only did they broaden my horizons to so many different types of mushrooms, but they changed the way I cook mushrooms - the miracle that is the dry saute.  

How To Dry Saute: 

+ Place a large pan over high heat.  Once the pan is hot, add the mushrooms.  Cook while stirring occasionally.  The mushrooms will begin to squeak (or scream, as the seven year old daughter of the mushroom couple put it).  Cook until the mushrooms have released their liquid, shrunk a bit, and begin to brown.  

+ Once the mushrooms are cooked, de-glaze the pan (I usually use a splash of wine), making sure to scrape all the good mushroom bits from the bottom of the pan.  

+ Then, add butter, olive oil, salt, or other seasonings and saute as normal.  

I found the recipe for the pate on the Serious Eats site.  Just a heads up, it's not vegan (but don't worry, the soup is!)  I felt that the use of cheese as the fat was necessary in order to get get the right consistency and to keep it true to a real pate.  However, there are tons of nut-based pate recipes on the web, like this one from C'est La Vegan.  The only change that I made to the Serious Eats recipe was that instead of broiling the mushrooms, I dry sauteed, de-glazed with red wine, and then finished them off with olive oil, a little butter, salt, pepper, and thyme.

The whole roasted maitake mushroom is stupidly simple and quick, but looks beautiful and impressive.  Place a fist-sized cluster of the mushrooms into a small ramekin or other oven-safe dish.  Melt 1 tbs of butter and 2 tbs of honey in the microwave.  Drizzle the honey-butter over the mushroom, making sure to coat all of the little tops.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes, or until the mushroom shrinks and begins to brown.  Sprinkle with sea salt and serve warm.  And make sure you soak up the extra mushroomy honey-butter in the bottom of the ramekin, you don't want that to go to waste.

Maitake Mushroom Soup

2 cups, maitake mushrooms

4 oz package of mixed mushrooms

½ cup dry red wine

1 tbs olive oil

1 tbs butter

1 tbs rosemary leaves, finely chopped

1 tbs thyme leaves

1 tbs sage leaves, finely chopped

1 can full-fat coconut milk

salt and pepper

+ In a medium pot, dry saute the mushrooms.  Once they're cooked, de-glaze with red wine.  Add butter, oil, herbs, and a bit of salt.  Cook until the mushrooms are soft and the liquid had thickened.  

+ Add the coconut milk, stir well.  Using a stick blender, blend until smooth.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

+ Cook until soup is heated through and desired thickness is reached.  Serve hot, garnished with thyme leaves or sprig of rosemary.