Viet World Kitchen

Tokyo Travel Tips & Pretty Good Number One eBook Giveaway

Soon after Asian Tofu was released last year, Matthew Amster-Burton tweeted that he’d used the book to make fresh yuba tofu skin. He went a couple of rounds with it and then told me that the DIY yuba experience was good preparation for his trip to Japan. I was both flattered and surprised because there are so many wonderful things to eat in Japan and Matthew, a talented writer based in Seattle, was extra keen on tofu.

As it turned out, Matthew had a purpose. He and his wife, Laurie, and eight-year-old daughter, Iris, spent a month in Tokyo last summer. They rented a one-room apartment about the size of a single-car garage and ventured out on daily eating adventures.

Matthew recounted their experiences in his new book, Pretty Good Number One, a fast-paced, rollicking work that’s chock full of delicious humor and insights. Reading the ebook at bedtime was my way of reliving and deepening my understanding of Tokyo. I’d gone there in 2010 to research tofu and a number of the places I visited and food people I know are part of Matthew’s book. I was honored to be the lead on his tofu chapter.

Matthew’s vivid and spot-on description of Tokyo led me to spend a few hours reviewing photos from my Tokyo trip. They’re part of the collages on this post. The book was such a terrific read that I had to ask Matthew a few questions about his work and of course, what to do and where to eat in Tokyo.

Whet your appetite below and then enter the giveaway. There are three (3) copies of the book available!

Fried Ginger Chicken Recipe per Japanese Farm Food

This year has been fabulous for Asian cookbooks. I am not just talking about Asian Tofu! It’s in fine company with an outstanding group of 2013 publications. While I’ve checked out Tracey Lister and Andreas Pohl’s Vietnamese Street Food and Charles Phan’s Vietnamese Home Cooking, I hadn’t had the chance to dive into the non-Vietnamese ones, until now. This fall, I was out of town for five weeks total. Phew, I’m back home working on the banh mi cookbook. In between, I’m trying out recipes from autumn Asian cookbook releases that caught my eye.

The first one is Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s Japanese Farm Food, a work that takes a non-fussy, matter-of-fact approach to Japanese cooking. Nancy lives in Japan, where she teaches home cooking and is married to an organic farmer. Their life is filled with straightforward food, much of which is detailed in the cookbook. It’s a highly personal work, not meant to be strict and authoritative, but casual and inviting. You can tell that Nancy put a lot of love into her book. Some recipes require a trip to a Japanese market but others, like this fried ginger chicken recipe (tori no kara age) are a doable with supermarket ingredients. Plug in where you want and can. Sometimes the instruction are opaque and a little finesse is required. For example, when the oil temperature for frying the chicken wasn't specified, I clipped on a thermometer. The recipe had charming cues but I wanted a little more accuracy.

I chose this recipe because frankly, I never get enough kara age when I order it at Japanese restaurants. My husband and I politely divide up however much there is on the plate. Making it at home was a fine workaround. We both got our fill.

Okara “Potato” Salad with Fried Shallots Recipe

Yesterday a friend came over and we made tofu together. When I wrung out the soy milk and showed Charlotte the okara (lees), she asked me how to use it. There are savory and sweet uses, I responded, but most often times, a tofu maker has so much that he/she sends the stuff off to a nearby farm for feed livestock. For us home cooks who are into making tofu, we can freeze our small quantities of lees for a while or dig them into the soil as an enrichment. In Asian Tofu, I frame okara as a “tofu byproduct bonus.”

I treat okara like wet wheat germ in baking, bread crumbs for croquettes or soy panko, and well, in this recipe, it is turned into a potato-like salad. Soy disguised as potato? I didn’t come up with the idea on my own. I had it as an appetizer/snack at Ramen Halu in San Jose. It was so good that I dragged my husband back for the okara salad, despite the fact that I’m not keen on the ramen itself.

Rory reacted like I did, that the stuff was like potato salad but without the potatoes. There was mayonnaise, mostly likely Japanese Kewpie which has a touch of MSG, fried shallots and a few cut vegetables and raw onion. The shallots, the same as Vietnamese crispy caramelized hanh phi, functioned like vegetarian bacon bits. That’s to say, they made the okara salad super tasty.

With the leftover okara from yesterday’s tofu, I came up with this recipe today. I figure that the ramen shop was riffing on a traditional Japanese unohana preparation (see the Savory Soy Milk Lees with Vegetables recipe in Asian Tofu, page 142). Unohana is delicious, homey, old-fashioned Japanese fare. It’s a good nibble with sake and beer or if you’re like me, I just eat it as a light meal. It’s filling because of all the soybean protein involved.  

Asian Tofu Adventures on Canadian TV

The past three days of this week in Vancouver have been challenging -- early morning TV show appearances and evening cooking classes. I'm not a morning person so waking up at 6am three days in a row and going to bed soon after I get back from teaching was, frankly weird. But hey, when it rains, it pours and you just shouldn't say "no" to TV exposure. Plus I like the spontaneity of television.

The day before each TV appearance, I prepped the demo and packed up all my stuff -- small wares, equipment, food, and props -- knowing that I'd only be able to somewhat blindly get everything together minutes before my ride arrived. Here's a recap of how things went:

Monday, September 10: City TV's Breakfast Television
My alarm didn't go off and when I woke up, it was 6:43 a.m.! Random House publicist Trish Kells was picking me up at 7:10 a.m. I showered and did my hair very quickly, then grabbed my bus tub (remember how my favorite piece of gear for food gigs is the bus tub?). Trish was outside waiting and we drove to the studio in downtown Vancouver. Breakfast TV had coffee and rolls, and more importantly  -- a make up person. I needed to be camera friendly.  

Udon with Clams and Shiitake Recipe (Vongole Udon)

I loved the rusticity and brilliance of the Fukushima straw-wrapped tofu but after I made it the other day, I thought of this modern Japanese twist on an Italian pasta dish. Vongole udon is something I order at Musha, an izakaya in Santa Monica, California. It’s a boisterous Tokyo-style (read non-traditional) drinking establishment where you can get great bar nibbles and pitchers of beer for about $12.

Musha’s menu is full of crazy concoctions, such as the “Tofu World” menu page, where I discovered the tofu fries that are included in Asian Tofu. There’s a risotto made with medium-grain brown rice and stirred tableside in a giant wheel of Parmesan before it’s served to diners. Their pickled mackerel is torched tableside for a little show.

Along with the fries and fried chicken, we always order the “Vongole udon.” It’s a slightly brothy bowl filled with chewy soft udon, garlic, a hint of butter, fresh mushroom and lots of clams. Instead of parsley, Musha garnishes with cilantro.