Soba Noodle Salad

This week I realized something: I suck at grocery shopping.

I don’t suck at cooking, but I need something to cook against. I need a constraint—a limit on time or ingredients, or a request to fulfill, or a combination of dietary restrictions to take into account. Otherwise, with no rules and endless possibilities, my response is to give up and eat a cheese sandwich over the sink while swigging milk straight from the carton.

If I just had interesting food, I could cook it! But the malaise starts at the grocery store. No particular item stands out to me. They all look equally attractive; I want all of them; then, ultimately, I want none of them. Many times I’ve left even the farmer’s market empty-handed because I couldn’t decide which thing I wanted over all the others.

That’s why I’m so glad I got my CSA information in the mail this weekend. Soon someone will decide for me! Food will happen to me, I will react to it, and it will be delicious. I’m already daydreaming about the first deliveries: lettuce, radishes, spring onions, maybe some pea pods. And that’s when I realize… hey, I’m actually developing a craving for fresh things, sprouting and green…

I have to go grocery shopping!

Soba Noodle Salad
This recipe (which came off the back of a box) called for edamame, spinach, and red onion. That would be good, too; but I switched some vegetables, fixed the dressing a little, and adjusted the proportions. This will serve four people as a main course or six as a side dish.

Salad parts
1 package extra-firm tofu
A double handful of snow peas
A double handful of bean sprouts
2 scallions, sliced
Peanut or canola oil
A packgage (250g, about 8 or 9 oz) of soba noodles
1 T sesame oil
2 T crushed nori or toasted sesame seeds for garnish

Dressing
3 T sesame oil
2 T rice vinegar
2 T mirin
1 t sugar or agave syrup
3 T soy sauce
½ t minced fresh ginger or 1 t minced pickled ginger

Put the tofu on a plate, put another plate on top, and put a heavy can on top of that. You’ll leave this for 15-20 minutes to press out some extra water.

Meanwhile, clean the snow peas and cut them diagonally into 1” pieces. Slice the scallions and measure out your bean sprouts. Put these all in a big bowl. Mince the ginger and mix it with the other dressing ingredients in a little bowl and set aside.

Put a pot of water on to boil.

Slice the tofu brick into four sheets, then cut the sheets into sixteenths. You’ll end up with domino-shaped pieces about 1" x 1½" x ¼".

If your water is boiling yet, then break the soba noodles in half and pop them in the pot. They will only cook for about six minutes, so watch them!

Brush a baking sheet with peanut oil. Lay each tofu slice on the sheet, then flip it over to coat it. Broil the tofu pieces until golden, about 6-8 minutes. Flip them over with chopsticks and broil until the other side is golden. Allow to cool.

Meanwhile, your noodles will have finished cooking. When they’re ready, drain them in a colander and rinse them with cold water to cool them. Shake them off and toss them with 1T of sesame oil. Set aside to drain some more.

When the tofu is cool, it’s as good a time as any to mix the salad. Put the noodles and tofu in the big bowl with the vegetables and pour the dressing over them. Mix everything up well; your hands work very well. Transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle with the garnish.

Pico de Mango

In case you didn't get the bulletin, it's summer. The days are a grind of punishing sun. The night flows in, sultry, its dark heat draping us with a slick sheen of languor. The dense, humid air trails its heavy fingers across our skin, leaving trickles of sweat to slip down a back or a neck. In my garden, the scents of jasmine and lily hang in voluptuous clouds, nectar oozing to the tips of turgid pistils, pollen sifting off to stain fleshy white petals.

It’s salsa weather. Mangoes are a shudderingly fine balance between acid and sweet. Their lazy, musky nectar and silk-smooth flesh are a perfect complement to the vigorous crunch and zing of onions, chiles, and cilantro. Round it off with the clean finish of lime to cut the lingering sweetness.

Mango Salsa
I have won so many salsa contests with this recipe that people don’t know whether to get mad or hungry when they see me coming.
2 ripe mangoes
5 or 6 scallions or half a small onion
1 or 2 jalapeño chiles
A fistful of cilantro
Juice of one lime
A dash of salt

Chop everything and mix it up. That’s it!

Bonus: How to cut up a mango
There are still people in the world who do not know how to cut up a mango without waste or injury. Not another thumb lost to mangoes!

Anatomy of a mango: The large, flat seed is in the center of the mango. Its fibrous outside is entrenched in the flesh. The trick is to cut away the fruit as close to the seed as possible, then come back for what’s attached to the seed.
























Addressing the mango: Find the stem to tell you where the center is. Hold the mango so the seed is perpendicular to the cutting surface.





















Lop off the cheeks. With practice, you will learn to know how close to the center you can cut.

















Score the flesh. Try to cut as deep as the skin, but not through the skin.



















Now hold the mango slice like a votive offering and push it inside out. The skin will pop from concave to convex, presenting you with many cubes of mango that you can slice or pick off the skin.





Finally, pare the skin off the remaining disc and whittle the flesh off the seed. This is slippery and possibly dangerous. If you don’t want to risk your fingers, and especially if no one is looking, you might just want to gnaw the fruit off the seed.

Hey, cook’s privilege. You earned it.

What the Hell Is Amaranth?

What on earth is this stuff, I wonder. Asking around at my local co-op yields little help. The customer service person checks the Internet and blithely reports, "It's like spinach."

No it ain't, I grumble to myself, as I eye the shock of lurid magenta leaves in my refrigerator.

But I'm not daunted for long. I never met a vegetable I didn't like, and this punk rock spinach impostor is not going to get the best of me. I taste a raw leaf and find it earthy and bitter. Aha. A perfect companion for goat cheese. "I am going to make you into a pizza, little one," I tell the bunch of amaranth.

I'm happy with the result. The taste of amaranth is only vaguely reminiscent of spinach. It's got a bitter undertone, a minerally aftertaste, a flavor that approaches sweetness but shies away at the last minute. I'm hardly doing it justice. It's like if Swiss chard decided to take a Charles Atlas bodybuilding course. Like if spinach and beets finally stopped caring what their parents thought and ran away together to Morocco. Like if kale quit its $300K/yr job and joined an ashram instead.

Do try it.

Amaranth and Chevre Pizza

If you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven while you preheat. If you don't have a pizza stone, then do the first part of the baking on a cookie sheet or pizza pan. Slip the crust off the pan, dress it, and put it right on the rack when you return it to the oven.

The crust:

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 package yeast
1/2 t salt

Mix these together. Add all at once:

2 T olive oil
1 cup tepid water (110 degrees F)

Stir together until it is dough. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let rise 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, assemble these things:

A sprinkling of cornmeal or semolina
1 bunch amaranth leaves
1 clove garlic*
1 scallion
1 small chevre (4 ounces is fine)
1-2 T olive oil
Salt and fresh-ground pepper

*I used mild, sweet uncured garlic because it was in the CSA box from Harmony Valley. If you use cured garlic, make it a small clove.

Wash the amaranth and steam it. I shook the water off and put it in a covered bowl in the microwave for 4 minutes, then let it sit another 4 minutes. Press out the excess liquid and chop roughly.

Slice the garlic as thinly as you can. Do the same for the scallion.

Mess up the cheese a little--just make it into chunks that will look pretty on the pizza crust.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

By now your dough should be ready. With floured hands, turn it out onto a floured surface and give it 6 or 10 quick kneads. Press or roll it about a quarter inch thick.

Sprinkle the cornmeal or semolina on your pizza stone, pan, or cookie sheet. Slip the crust onto the sprinkled sheet and bake 10 minutes. Remove from oven, brush the crust with half the olive oil, and dress it: cheese first, then amaranth, then garlic and scallions, then brush these with the rest of the oil. Sprinkle with salt and a grind or five of fresh black pepper. Return to the oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

Let the pizza rest for a couple of minutes before cutting. Mangiamo!