Week 32 - 早餐 - China

CONGEE with YOUTIAO

Congee is a food I've been familiar with for a long time.  There are tons of restaurants across the Toronto area named after this dish and I've seen many a co-worker devour a bowlful for lunch.  But I've got to admit, up until now I've never had any inclination to give it a try.

Besides the foreignness of eating limp rice in the morning, consider its appearance.  As a mass of congealed off-white gruel, congee sure isn't winning any beauty pageants.  Creative sprigs of green from assorted toppings do help, until the spoon goes in and finds the often offensive mystery meat!

So imagine my surprise when despite my trepidation, I discover Congee to be.... amazingly delicious.  Comforting even.

Of course, it helps that this particular Congee was made by me with very little in terms of scary ingredients.  And actually, there are very few ingredients at all that go into Congee - something I'm learning is a plus when cooking a tasty breakfast.

Besides being the breakfast of choice for China, variations on Congee are popular all across Asia.  The recipes vary quite a lot but they all centre around rice that has been cooked to the point of disintegration in many times it's volume in water (8:1 is a common ratio).  Congee doubles as a nutritious meal and a great way to use up left-overs.  It is also commonly seen as an excellent pablum for babies and tonic for the sick.

Congee in China is most often served with Youtiao (seen above).  Here's what Wikipedia had to say about this salty doughnut-like pastry:

The Cantonese name yàuhjagwái literally means "oil-fried devil" and, according to folklore, is an act of protest against Song Dynasty official Qin Hui, who is said to have orchestrated the plot to frame the general Yue Fei, an icon of patriotism in Chinese culture. It is said that the food, originally in the shape of two human-shaped pieces of dough but later evolved into two pieces joined in the middle, represents Qin Hui and his wife, both having a hand in collaborating with the enemy to bring about the great general's demise. Thus the youtiao is deep fried and eaten as if done to the traitorous couple. In keeping with the legend, youtiao are often made as two foot-long rolls of dough joined along the middle, with one roll representing the husband and the other the wife.

Saucy!

I had every ambition of making these at home but a little research showed that these are a bread best left to the pros.  (If you're in Toronto stop by King's Noodle where you can buy Youtiao to go).

The Congee variation I made featured a healthy dose of ginger and chicken.  The texture was smooth and far from being exotic, the flavour was rich and familiar.  It had all the goodness of home-made Chicken Soup with the soothing "stick to your ribs" heartiness of Oatmeal.  I liked it so much that I ate it for a good five days afterwards.

The Verdict:

For Ease of Preparation:

At it's easiest, Congee is as simple as boiling together water and rice.  With just a little additional effort it can become worth getting up for.

For Degree of Separation:

For Guestability:

For Sustainability:

For Costability:

Traditionally Congee has also been used to feed many people with little food.

For Overall Appeal:

Congee caught me by surprise and I am delighted.  I guess I should've known that several billion people couldn't be that wrong....

For next week, I leave you with a riddle.  What food is both a vegetable, starch and sandwich casing all at once?

Week 26 - Desayuno - Aruba

PASTECHI

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that before researching this breakfast all I knew about Aruba was that it was in the Caribbean somewhere and featured prominently in the Beach Boy song Kokomo.  I now know that Aruba is off the Venezuelan coast, is part of the kingdom of the Netherlands (sorry no Hagelslag to be found), and has an utterly delicious breakfast treat - the Pastechi.

Pastechi can be found all over Aruba as a roadside breakfast snack (like Canada's Timbits), and have a few variations.  You can enjoy the Pastechi di Keshi (with Cheese), the Pastechi di Pisca (with Seafood) or the Pastechi di Carni (with Beef, spices and often, the dreaded raisin).  I felt like I'd put Jon through quite enough in the last couple of breakfasts, so I settled on the Pastechi di Keshi.

Pastechi are really just another variation on the world's most common handfood - the turnover.  When you think about it everybody has some variation on the handy dough pocket filled with delicious goods:  Eastern Europe has perogies, Asia has Mandu/Gyoza/Dumplings, South America has Empanadas, India has Samosas, etc.  So Aruba and some of the neighbouring islands have Pastechi, a light pie-like pastry that is filled and deep-fried.

And since Aruba has a large Dutch influence, what other cheese is used but Gouda (preferably smoked).  I haven't had a lot of Gouda experience, so was very happy to discover that I loved it.  It was creamy, salty and just perfectly.... cheesy.

The whole Pastechi package together was very satisfying.  I was scared the deepfrying might make the dough stodgy but in fact they were light and delightfully crispy (though the cheese did tend to escape).  And they certainly were "addictive" as I read on other web-sites.

The Verdict:

For Ease of Preparation:

Deep-frying first thing in the morning is always a little scary.

For Degree of Separation:

For Guestability:

I think that I would only make this again for guests.  Too much work for just two people, but they would be a hit with company.  Who doesn't love deep-fried cheese?

For Sustainability:

We certainly were full, in a, "Oh my goodness, did we really just eat that entire tray?" kind of way.

I'd like to take a moment to introduce a new category in The Verdict, "Costability".  This is a simple rating of how pricey the breakfast was to make.  Please keep in mind that this is very subjective to my location and certain ingredients may be cheaper/more expensive where you are.  I've decided to include this because I've found vast differences in the grocery costs and I think it's really interesting.  For example, Japanese breakfast at over $60 (!) was by far one of the most expensive, while Ethiopian at well under $5 was the cheapest.

Costability:

A relatively inexpensive breakfast.  The turnover itself used simple ingredients I had available in my pantry.  Gouda was the only item I needed to purchase.

Overall Appeal:

I'm always super excited when a previously unknown food turns out to be the bee's knees!  Pastechi you were a great find.

For something altogether different, next time we check out breakfast in Iran....

Week 22 - Jamaica

ACKEE and SALTFISH with FRIED PLANTAINS and JOHNNY CAKES

Researching breakfast can sometimes be a difficult task - not a lot is often written on the subject.  Not so for Jamaica where their typical Sunday breakfast is actually the national dish of the country!

I've long been interested in Caribbean cuisine, it has such a great mix of cultures (English, Portuguese, Chinese, Indian, Central American) brought together with each islands' unique style.

Ackee and Saltfish is a dish I'd definitely heard of before, but only really understood in the abstract.  I mean what the heck is an Ackee?  Is it meat, vegetable, mineral?  The little picture on the cans I've seen at the grocery store did nothing to help solve this mystery.  Here's what wikipedia had to say:

It is related to the lychee and the longan, and is an evergreen tree that grows about 10 metres tall, with a short trunk and a dense crown.  The fruit is pear-shaped. When it ripens, it turns from green to a bright red to yellow-orange, and splits open to reveal three large, shiny black seeds, surrounded by soft, creamy or spongy, white to yellow flesh—arilli.

So it's a fruit....that's served with Saltfish....for breakfast. Sounds like a great
Sunday morning adventure.

Making up Ackee and Saltfish was actually quite labour intensive.  The Saltfish had to be boiled and carefully shredded (avoiding any nasty little bones); the myriad of ingredients (ackee, tomato, onion, bell pepper, scotch bonnet pepper, thyme, scallions, garlic) had to be chopped and prepared; and finally everything had to be lovingly stir-fried in an exacting order.  Add to all of this the prep of the side dishes (fried plantains and fried dumplings called Johnny cakes) and you've got quite a lot going on.  But when it was all complete, it created quite the colourful breakfast.

I have a confession - I hate fish.  For my family and friends that's not much of a secret, in fact Jon was astounded when I announced we would be having saltfish for breakfast.  So, I didn't like Ackee and Saltfish at all.  (Fish doesn't get much fishier than saltfish).  But that doesn't mean I couldn't appreciate it.  It was certainly flavourful - spicy, fishy, with that very Caribbean hit of thyme.  And the ackee turns out to be almost like an avocado in taste and texture.  It was creamy and soft and great at taking on the flavours of the rest of the dish.  For all those fish-lovers out there I'd recommend this breakfast - Jon gave it a thumbs up.

The Verdict:

For Ease of Preparation:

Boiling fish first thing in the morning is not so fun.

For Degree of Separation:

It's sort of like eggs and bacon, I guess....

For Guestability:

I'm going to try to put aside my dislike of fish here for breakfast-science.

For Sustainability:

  

For Overall Appeal:

While not my favourite taste-wise, this was a fun breakfast to make and delightful to look at.

For something completely different, next week we'll be heading to Egypt!