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Hey - look what I found this morning:
Remember this post? This is the camera I was talking about. Or one very similar. Didn't even realize I still had it. And appropriately enough this morning, I took over 200 pictures (Hi Dad - I'm at it again!). Have to go through them, but I'll probably post a few later today.
From Mexico One Plate at a Time by Rick Bayless. This book is a terrific introduction to Mexican cooking. As the title indicates, the book focuses on a number of classic recipes in great depth, so you, the reader, can understand why the dish is made the way it is, what some of the regional differences are, and so forth.
Chiles Rellenos - which simply means stuffed peppers - are a bit time-consuming, but well worth all the work involved, and rather impressive to serve. This recipe is actually Chiles Rellenos de Picadillo en Caldillo de Jitomate, which translates as Classic Pork Picadillo-Stuffed Chiles in Tomato Broth.
For us, the coolest thing was the fact that we had, in the freezer, PLENTY of poblano peppers from the garden last summer, and we've just been waiting for the right opportunity to make this dish. There's also a version in the book with just a cheese stuffing. I'd like to make those, too, but this pork filling was delicious. I had the last of the leftovers for breakfast yesterday, by the way.
Anyway, on to the cooking. Settle in - it's a long process. But - well worth it!
First up - the ingredients:
3 T rich-tasting pork lard or vegetable oil. (we used the lard - you can get it at most grocery stores, right near the butter.)
2 medium white onions, chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
2 28-oz cans good-quality whole tomatoes in juice, undrained OR 3 lbs ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into large pieces
1 tsp cinnamon, preferably freshly ground Mexican canela. (we used what we had - regular plain ol' cinnamon)
1 tsp black pepper, preferably freshly ground
2 cups chicken or beef broth (we used chicken)
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 1/2 lbs coarsely ground pork shoulder
1/2 cup raisins
1 T cider vinegar
salt
vegetable oil to a depth of 1 inch for frying.
8 medium fresh poblano chiles, not twisted or deeply indented, preferably with long stems (okay, beggars can't be choosers - we used what we had in the freezer. There were more than 8, but some were on the small side)
8 6-inch wooden skewers or 16 toothpicks
6 large eggs, cold
2 T all-purpose flour, plus about a cup for dredging the chiles
Sprigs of fresh cilantro, watercress or flat-leaf parsley for garnish (we didn't garnish; we were too hungry)
Okay, got all that? Let's cook.
1. The broth base and filling. In a medium-large saucepan, heat the lard or oil over medium. Add the onions and cook, stirring regularly, until they are very well browned, about 10 minutes.
(not there yet)
While the onions are cooking, puree the undrained canned tomatoes, or, if using fresh tomatoes, puree them with 2/3 cup water, using a blender of food processor and working in two batches if necessary.
When the onions are well-browned, raise the heat to medium-high and add the pureed tomatoes, cinnamon and pepper. Stir regularly as the mixture boils briskly, reducing until it becomes the consistency of thick tomato sauce, about 25 minutes.
2. The Tomato Broth. Remove 2 cups of the tomato mixture and set aside.
Stir the chicken (or beef) broth into the mixture that remains. Partially cover and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes or so, while you're preparing the filling and chiles.
3. The Pork Picadillo Filling. Set a large skillet (preferably nonstick) over medium-high heat. Add the almonds and stir around until they color to a deep golden, about 2 minutes. Remove.
(keep going - you want them more golden that those above.)
Crumble the pork into the skillet and fry, stirring often,
until thoroughly cooked (some of the edges should be browned and crispy), 10 to 15 minutes. If the pork has rendered a lot of fat, drain it off. Stir in the reserved 2 cups of tomato mixture, the raisins and vinegar. Cook over medium heat, stirring regularly, until the mixture is very thick and homogeneous, about 20 minutes. Stir in the almonds, then taste and season with salt, usually about 1 teaspoon. Cool.
4. Preparing the Chiles. (* This isn't how we did ours. Bill put our chiles under the broiler, which you can read about in the Green Sauce recipe that I posted yesterday. But I'm printing the method from the book, because that's the way Chef Bayless wrote it.)
While the picadillo is cooking, pour 1 inch of oil into a deep heavy skillet or pot - the pot should be 12 inches wide and 3 to 4 inches deep for easiest maneuvering of the chiles - and set over medium to medium-high to heat to 350 degrees F. In two batches, fry the chiles, turning them continually, for about 1 minute, until they are evenly blistered (they'll look uniformly light green, having lightened as they blister). Drain on paper towels. Remove the oil from the heat.
When the chiles are cool enough to handle, rub off the blistered skins, then cut an incision in the side of each one, starting 1/2 inch below the stem end and continuing to within 1/2 inch of the tip. One by one, work your index finger inside each chile and dislodge all the seeds clustered just below the stem. Quickly rinse the seeds from inside the chiles, being careful not to rip or tear the opening any wider; rinse off any stray bits of skin. Drain cut side down on paper towels.
(In this picture below, these are some of the chiles Bill had done under the broiler. The skins have been removed, and the slits cut, but obviously the seeds are still there.)
5. Stuffing the Chiles. Stuff each well-drained chile with about 1/2 cup of the cooled pork filling,
then slightly overlap the two sides of the incision and pin them back together with a skewer or two toothpicks. For the greatest ease in battering and frying, flatten the chiles slightly, place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze for about 1 hour to firm.
(* I had a bit of a challenge working with our chiles. First of all, like I mentioned earlier, some were on the small side, so obviously I used less than a half cup of filling. Second, structurally I think the chiles had been weakened by being in the freezer since summer. They tore easily when Bill was cleaning them out, so some of my stuffed chiles actually had 3 toothpicks (actually I used broken skewers, since I couldn't find our toothpicks until yesterday) in order to hold all the filling in.)
6. Battering and Frying the Chiles. Reheat the oil to 350 degrees F. (Actually, since we hadn't used the frying method to blister the chiles, I just used the pot of oil we had on the stove from a recent deep-frying project.) Set up a try lined with several layers of paper towels. Separate the eggs: whites into the bowl of an electric mixer, yolks into a small bowl. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt to the whites and begin beating them on medium speed. When they are beginning to look dry and hold a stiff peak but are not at all rigid, beat in the yolks two at a time until well incorporated. Lastly, beat in the two tablespoons flour.
(this should be a very light and frothy batter - soft and fluffy.)
Spread the 1 cup of flour on a plate.
One at a time, batter the first four chiles: (we did 3 at a time - whatever fits in your pot of oil) Roll in the flour, shake off the excess, pick up by the stem, dip into the batter and quickly pull straight up out of the batter, then lay into the hot oil. (If your kitchen is very warm, it's best to hold the remaining batter for the second round in the refrigerator.) Once the first four chiles are in the oil, begin gently, gently basting them with spoonfuls of hot oil (this will help set the uncooked batter on top).
When they're richly golden on the bottom, about 4 minutes, use one small metal spatula underneath and another one (or a spoon) on top to gently turn the chiles over. Fry until the other side is richly golden, another 3 to 4 minutes. Using the metal spatula, remove the chiles to the paper towels to drain.
Repeat with the remaining chiles.
7. Serving the Chiles. Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. (Preheat while you're frying the chiles.) Once all the fried chiles have cooled for at least 5 minutes, pick them up by carefully rolling each one onto one hand, then transfer to a baking sheet (lined with parchment if you wish, for extra ease at serving time). Pull out the skewers by twisting them gently (like taking darts from a dart board). Bake for 15 minutes to heat thoroughly, to render some of the absorbed oil and to crisp slightly.
Meanwhile, bring the tomato broth to a boil and check the consistency: It should be similar to a brothy somato soup. If it's too thick, thin with a little water or broth; if too thin, boil rapidly until thickened slightly. Season it with salt, usually about 1/2 teaspoon.
Ladle about 1/2 cup of the broth into each of eight deep serving bowls (large soup bowls or pasta bowls are perfect here). Nestle in one of the chiles, garnish with herb sprigs and get ready for a taste of real Mexico.
(* We didn't serve them in bowls - we just put them out on a tray and let people serve themselves.)
We ladled the sauce onto the chiles instead. But regardless - what an amazing dish! Flavor-wise, it's the small amount of cinnamon that really makes this taste special. And texture-wise, the frothy egg batter gives you a soft, tender coating - it's not crunchy like fish & chips, for instance. You're not making that sort of batter - separating the yolks from the whites and beating the whites first gives you a souffle batter instead - the result is comfort food at its most sublime.
So go on, set aside a chunk of time and make these. You will not be sorry.
This one was for a couple of coworkers who share a Halloween birthday. I wanted to do something in keeping with the spooky them of the holiday, and this is what I came up with.
I could have done a better job of displaying the spiders, I think...but so many of these cakes were just experiments - I made everything up as I went along.
Okay - well, part of the deal in making cakes for people at work was that I needed to have enough cake for everyone. So to solve that issue, the base is a 13 x 9 inch chocolate cake that I covered with fondant. I tinted it green. Why green? Well, it's not JUST green, it's "Juniper Green." So I'm thinking I recently bought some new food coloring shades and I wanted to play with them. Actually, considering that the two loaf-pan shaped layers on top of this first layer were tinted with "Aster Mauve" and "Delphinium Blue" confirms it. Hahaha. No other reason for the colors at all except that they were new.
The other new toy I must have purchased right around this time was a piping tip that had lots of tiny holes in it and could be used to make grass or fur with your icing. So that's how I did the spider bodies. I made two chocolate cupcakes. I wrapped them in brown fondant. I made little fondant spider heads. And I piped brown frosting through that tip to give my spiders furry bodies. The legs were the only inedible parts - I used big brown pipe cleaners.
And the other decorating was Charlotte-inspired - I piped spider webs on the loaf-pan layers and the green layer, and in the webs I did the "Happy Birthday" thing for each of the two people.
I will tell you that when I was making this cake, I'd made my spiders, and had positioned them on the cake, which was on a work stand in my little apartment kitchen. And every so often I would catch one of them looking at me....it was a little creepy until I got used to them.
And here they are:
Kind of cute, aren't they?
I love this sauce. It may have been part of the first meal Bill cooked for me...or maybe the second.
Anyway - it comes from Betty Crocker's Mexican Made Easy - published in 1993, I think it may be out of print now. Bill bought his copy for $2.99 at a Building 19 store an eternity ago.
Anyway, from Chapter 2 in the book - "Sizzling Sauces and Sides" - the description for Green Sauce is as follows:
"This is a suave chile sauce, slightly chunky and rich with cream"
Suave? I don't know about that. There's definitely some heat to it, though. I love it. It's great as a dip, and we also used it in tacos made from a slow-grilled pork tenderloin, and it was fabulous that way.
What you'll need:
1 large onion, finely chopped (about a cup)
4 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded and finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 jalapeno chile, seeded and finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 T vegetable oil
1/2 cup whipping (heavy) cream ( * we only use 1/4 cup)
1/4 tsp salt
Now. If you've never roasted peppers, here's probably the easiest way. Heat up the broiler in your oven, and put one of the oven racks on the highest level possible. Put your peppers on a row in the pan so that when you place the pan in the oven, the peppers will be directly under the broiler flames. Once the broiler is ready, put the pan with the peppers (it's sounding like a tongue twister in the making) on the top rack and broil for a few minutes, until the skin chars. Pull the pan out, flip the peppers over, and char on the other side. They should look like this -
or even more charred. Oh, and all that gunk on the pan? Just soak it for a while, and it'll come right off. Or you could be smarter than we are and cover the pan with foil first. Take your pick.
Anyway, when the peppers are nice and black on the outside, place them in a paper bag, close the top, and let them sweat a bit.
When they've sweated and cooled, you peel the skin off. It's helpful to do this at the sink, so you can rinse the bits of peel away as you work.
Another option, if you've got a gas stove, is just to set the peppers (if they're big enough) on the burner over a flame. Turn them periodically to get a nice even char all over. Then proceed with the sweating and so forth. Just - you know, don't go off and so something else while the peppers are on the fire. It could be bad.
Okay, now, once you've got everything peeled and chopped and ready to go, place the onion, chiles, and garlic in the oil over medium heat in a small pan, stirring occasionally, until the onion is tender - about 8 minutes.
Stir in the cream and salt.
Ta-da! How simple is that? Especially in my house, where Bill does all the work and I just taste the finished product and give my professional opinion.
And my professional opinion is always "You should have doubled the recipe!" (Yield is 1 1/3 cups)
So hey, if you're looking for a change from salsa for your Super Bowl party on Sunday (if you're having one, or going to one. Or if you might be hungry all by your self) - make this instead!
Saturday, when my sister's kids stayed over, this was the menu:
The first meal Bill ever cooked for me was a Mexican dinner. The recipes came from the two cookbooks he had - one was a Betty Crocker publication, and the other was a book of name brand "Mexican" cooking - you know, where all the recipes stipulate that you use Kraft cheese or Philadelphia Cream Cheese - real authentic stuff. Still - it was a start.
I'll be posting them over the next couple of days, for your reading and salivating enjoyment.
Alex was psyched up for his swim class tonight - has been since this morning. Not just because he is ready and willing to jump into the pool, but because AFTER class, as a reward for facing his fears and conquering them, and for doing well on his report card (hee hee hee - his very first report card!), the deal was that we'd go out for dinner at Smokey Bones. It's one of his favorite places to eat. And fortunately, he forgot all about wanting to go out for sushi. We'd need to sell one of the vehicles to support his tuna habit.
Anyway, swim class went great - and at the end, when they lined up along the edge of the pool, Alex was the first one in. His skinny arm shot up and he was wiggling with excitement. And in he went. Second time through, he was smiling huge and pointing to himself and nodding like "Yeah, I want to do that again!" And he did. Bill and I sat there on the bench, grinning and giving him thumbs up signs and nodding like annoying bobble-head dolls. After the class, he came running over to us, beaming with pride.
We got the kids dried off and back in their clothes, and headed up the road to eat.
For dinner? What does the triumphant water boy eat? Ribs. No question. He ate a half rack of ribs, and might have eaten more if he hadn't eaten half his fries, his slice of garlic toast, Bill's garlic toast, and some tortilla chips before the meals came.
I wish I'd brought my camera with me tonight. Not just to take a picture of his jump into the pool, but to capture his rapturous face, dotted with sauce, as he devoured rib after rib. He'd hold the meatless bone up to Bill and laugh as Bill gave him a look of shock and amazement.
Lots of the time, I just go on with things, you know? Don't we all? Get up, go about our days, do our things, eat, work, shop, relax, go to bed, etc. Get the kids dressed and ready for school and daycare, shuttle them back and forth, do laundry, plan meals, help with homework, mediate squabbles, direct traffic, wash faces, tuck blankets under chins, hugs and kisses and off go the lights.
But I try to be aware now and then. I try to pay close attention to the smaller picture. A week ago, Alex was afraid to jump into the pool. Yesterday Bill worked with him in the pool, helped him work through the fear and get past it and discover that it's actually fun when the water goes over your head. And tonight - he did it himself. Twice.
So the four of us, our little family, went out to celebrate. We relaxed, we had good food, and we had fun. No tears, no tension. Just...comfortableness.
A peek into the window of my own life...tonight glowed warmly, gentle laughter and random giggles dancing from room to room.
They're downstairs right now, watching a Dora and Diego DVD ("The Great Dinosaur Rescue" or something like that. Featuring Dora and her football head, and her normal-looking cousins, Diego and Alicia.) Julia got to pick this morning, and Alex was just trying to convince Julia that she's not really interested in this movie.
"Hey," he hisses with fake excitement, "I've got a better idea! Let's watch...(dramatic pause) cartoons!"
Cartoons, as in something on TV, rather than a DVD.
Sometimes he can sway her, but not this morning.
"No! I'm watching THIS!"
They are quiet now.
Alex, resigned.
Julia, triumphant.
~~~~~
Yesterday Bill took Alex over to the Y during "Family Swim" time at the pool so he could coach Alex in jumping into the water. At swim class, for some reason, Alex has developed a fear about jumping off the edge of the pool. He used to be fine, but something changed at the end of his last swim class, and in order for him to move up, he needs to get over this.
So for half an hour, Bill worked with Alex, having him jump in holding Bill's hands, and then one hand, and finally no hands...jumping in and giving Bill a high five in passing...and it worked. Yay!
Swim class is tonight, and hopefully Alex's confidence won't suddenly disappear.
~~~~~
My sister's kids spent the weekend. It's always nice when they visit - my kids love their big cousins, and I think the big cousins get a kick out of the little cousins. Best of all, they all keep each other occupied, which gives Bill and me a bit of a break.
Of course, there was cooking. We cooked Mexican for the weekend, and I also gave everyone samples of some of the desserts I've been working on for some of next month's posts.
So it was a weekend of eating. Especially Saturday. I'll post recipes and pictures later.
In a few minutes, I've got to get the kids moving, brush teeth, get dressed, bring Alex to kindergarten and run a few errands with Julia in tow.
It's cold out this morning, and we had a little snow yesterday, so everything looks clean and wintery.
That's it for now. I'll be back later.
This recipe comes from a Time Life-Books series - "Foods of the World" - published in 1968. I think my mother had (or maybe still has) all of them. They came two books per part of the world - one large hardbound book that had a lot of historical and cultural information and recipes, and then the smaller wire ring-bound volume that just had the recipes. Bill's mother had the two volumes for Chinese Cooking, and now we have them on our shelf.
Bill had picked up a can of fresh crabmeat when he was shopping for the Soft Shell Crab Roll and other things we made a couple weekends ago. The grocery store he was in didn't have soft shell crabs, so he figured any crabmeat would do. Then I mentioned where we could get frozen soft shell crabs (at Dave's Marketplace - their East Greenwich location is the one I use most) and so we didn't end up using the crabmeat for the rolls.
So. Bill thought we could make these dumplings with the crabmeat at some point. It took a while to get done - there's a bit of a time committment, and for one reason and another, it didn't get done.
At last, I made them Friday night. Actually, I started things on Thursday - I was going to include them as part of our dinner - but I didn't have time to put them together, so into the fridge went the filling and the dough.
Oh - and another thing - I changed the recipe. Or, rather, I used a different dough than the one called for, mainly because I didn't have tapioca flour. So I found another dough recipe - a yeasted bread dough, actually, that was used in other recipes (same book) for other steamed dumplings. So you're getting my rendition of the recipe, actually, and not the exact on in the book.
Is that enough of a back story?
Here's the recipe. You'll have approximately 4 dozen dumplings, and because I used a different dough recipe, you will have some left over. Freeze it, or get creative.
Steamed Bread Dough:
1 pkg dry active yeast - I had a jar on hand - a package is about a tablespoon.
1 T sugar
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 cup milk, heated to lukewarm
4 cups all purpose flour.
Very simple - sprinkle the yeast and the sugar in the 1/4 cup of water and blend. Set aside to allow the yeast to become active. Then combine with the milk, and add the flour. If you're doing it by hand, add the flour a cup or so at a time, stirring well to incorporate. Once the dough is too stiff and sticky to stir, pour it out onto a board and knead in the rest of the flour. Continue to knead until you've got a nice, firm ball of dough.
Place the dough in a very lightly greased bowl and cover with a damp towel. Set in a warm place and allow to double in bulk - about 1-2 hours, depending on the environment. Punch the dough down, and allow to rise again for 20-30 minutes.
While the dough is rising, you can put the filling together. Here's what you need:
2 dried chinese mushrooms, an inch to an inch and a half in diameter.
1/2 lb fresh crabmeat or a 7 1/2 ounce can of crabmeat
3 tablespoons peanut oil or other flavorless oil
1 tablespoon finely chopped, peeled fresh ginger root
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper (I used black.)
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1. In a small bowl, cover the mushrooms with some warm water and let them soak for 30 minutes to rehydrate. (It helps to place another bowl or something on top of the mushrooms, to help keep them submerged at first.) Then, remove the mushrooms, discard the water, and remove the stems. Chop up the caps as fine as possible. Set aside.
2. Pick through the crabmeat to remove any bits of shell or cartilage. Shred it and set aside.
3. Place the oil, ginger, salt, pepper and sugar within easy reach.
4. Set a wok or skillet over high heat for about 30 seconds. Pour in the oil, swirl it about and heat for another 30 seconds, reducing the heat to moderate if the oil begins to smoke. Add the ginger, then the mushrooms and crabmeat and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Then stir in the salt, pepper and sugar, stirring for 30 seconds longer, and transfer the entire contents of the pan to a bowl. Cool to room temperature.
To Assemble:
Cut the dough into quarters. Cover three sections while you work with the first one. Lightly oil your work surface and roll the first piece of dough into a log about an inch in diameter.
Next, take a knife or bench scraper and cut the log into pieces half an inch or so wide.
Next, the directions say to "lightly oil one side of the cleaver blade and, with the palm of your hand, firmly press the blade down on each slice of dough, flattening it into a 2 1/2 inch round." So I did that.
(My hand looks freakishly wide and the freckles on my arm somehow seem to my paranoid eyes like liver spots. Just so you know.)
Anyway, that worked, but it was just as easy to flatten the dough with my fingers, and faster.
Whatever method you choose, after you get them all flattened, take one in the palm of your hand and place a teaspoon of the filling in the center.
Fold the circle of dough in half and press the edges together...
And as you're sealing the edges, you want to sort of pleat the seam edge by making little folds as you go along.
This particular dough seemed rather soft and floppy while I was doing it, so the pleats weren't very sharp. And I'm also not a professional. The main thing is, seal them up so nothing pops out while they're cooking.
After you've pleated the edge, set the dumpling down on a lightly oiled platter or plate while you make the rest of them. Press the dumpling down a bit so it's "sitting" with the pleated edge up.
To cook:
If you've got a bamboo steamer, you want to get a shallow pan wider than the steamer and pour in enough boiling water to come up about an inch on the side of the steamer. (Sorry - I didn't take pictures at this point.) Place the dumplings in the racks of the steamer - not too close together, as they expand somewhat while they cook. Set the entire bamboo steamer and lid on the water in the pan and let steam (water still boiling) for 5 minutes. Keep a kettle of boiling water handy, in case you need more during the cooking process. We have two steamers, with two racks each, and that worked perfectly for the 46 dumplings I made. You can keep the first batch warm by just keeping the lid on the steamer while you cook the other batch.
Bill made a little dipping sauce for them, too. He used soy sauce, sesame oil, fresh ginger and garlic, and rice vinegar, and maybe some sugar.
I love soft shell crabs. Fried, so the legs are crunchy and the body is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. They're seasonal items - you can only get them fresh some time in the spring, but one of our local grocery stores has them flash frozen year 'round, so every once in a while I get some and make sandwiches. Usually with some arugula and a spicy mayo on a soft roll. Aahhhh. Good stuff.
Another favorite of mine is any sort of maki roll made with soft shell crab. You can get them at just about any sushi bar, I think. I can get them at a couple of local grocery stores that have mini sushi stations near the seafood counter.
Or, we can make them at home. Which, if you saw this post a few days ago, you already know. I just figured I'd discuss the preparations in a bit more detail today.
My husband is usually the sushi maker in our house. We both can do it, but for whatever reason, he has taken it on as his job. I'm the fry cook. So anyway, we wanted to do an all-Japanese meal over the weekend, and Bill was looking through the gorgeous Nobu: The Cookbook, by Nobuyuki Matsuhisa.
What a beautiful book. And it's well written, and well illustrated, with plenty of step-by-step photos to show how to, for example, assemble a maki roll. The autobiographical section of the book is quite detailed as well. He's had quite a life thus far.
But anyway - on to the crab roll.
The most interesting thing about this one to us was the use of a very thin sheet of daikon radish as the outer layer of the roll. Typically it's nori, or rice, in the case of an inside-out roll. But we haven't seen daikon used before. (Which means nothing - we're certainly not sushi experts over here.)
Here are the directions for Nobu's Soft Shell Crab Roll:
Ingredients:
1 cup vinegared rice
1 sheet dried nori, toasted
grated wasabi to taste (we use a paste, since we don't have fresh here)
1 T asatsuki chives, chopped into fine rounds. (we used the chives from our garden)
1 T flying fish roe (we didn't have that available; we used whitefish roe)
1/12 avocado
vegetable oil (for deep frying)
1 soft shell crab, cleaned (we made two rolls, so we have two crabs.)
potato flour (I used regular flour - it's what I had in the house)
1 straight and uniform daikon radish, with ends trimmed, peeled.
Method:
1. Spreading the rice. Spread the vinegared rice on the sheet of nori. Using your left hand to make sure the rice doesn't spill over the left side of the nori sheet, spread the rice out evenly toward the left by pressing - but not squashing - the rice with the fingertips of your right hand. Repeat, using opposite hands, for the other side. You should make the rice a little thicker at each end of the nori in order to form a "bank." Leave about 3/8 inch of the nori sheet free of rice at the side furthest from you.
2. Adding the wasabi and filling. When the rice is thoroughly and evenly spread over the nori, apply an unbroken streak of wasabi across the middle with one finger. Then, using a spoon, spread the chives and the fish roe evenly over the wasabi and across the rice. Add the avocado on top.
3. Bring about 3 inches of oil in a small saucepan to 355 degrees F. Dust the soft shell crab with flour
and deep fry for 3 to 4 minutes.
Drain.
Cut the crab in half and add it to the roll while the crab is still hot. Because the crab is the bulky part of the filling it should be firmly compressed before rolling. This will make rolling easier.
4. Rolling with nori. Lift the end of the nori nearest you and carefully roll it over the filling, pressing down as you go.
(Bill is using a makisu, a bamboo mat, to roll it. He covers it in plastic wrap to prevent food from sticking when he's making multiple rolls.)
5. Making the daikon peel. Holding an 8-inch knife firmly, move the daikon against the knife, turning the daikon gradually to cut the flesh into a paper-thin ribbon.
This is called katsura-muki. You should end up with a strip 4 inches by 12 inches.
* Much easier said than done. But Bill did really well considering he's never done it before. And when he'd cut the two sheets, he just trimmed the thicker sections with a vegetable peeler, to give it a uniform thinness. It wasn't paper thin, but it was still pretty damn thin:
6. Rolling with the daikon peel. Place the nori on top of the strip of daikon and roll away from you.
7. Cutting. Press down on the roll again at both ends to settle the filling, and trim the ends with a knife to tidy the shape. Starting from the middle, cut the roll into 6 pieces of equal size.
(And you'll probably notice that the ends of the roll weren't trimmed - we kind of like the extra bits of crab and so forth sticking out of the ends.)
Like I said, Bill made two crab rolls, and truthfully, I could have eaten both of them by myself (hidden in a corner of the kitchen so no one would see me until it was too late). The daikon gave them an extra level of crunch, along with the crispy portions of crab. In contrast, you have the creamy texture of the avocado, the pop of the fish roe, and tangy thin bite of the chives. All of this wrapped in perfectly cooked morsels of rice and the sea-salty sheet of nori.
Actually, I could probably eat three of these rolls, if I was really hungry.
