Gluten Free Food Find of the Week: Korean Rice Cakes or Dduk Noodles

One of our recent food finds at the Asian markets in Albany has been bags of dried rice cakes. No, not those tasteless puffed rice cracker-y things that come dusted with cheese or cinnamon, but a variety of Korean rice noodle, called dduk and spelled about thirty different ways in English.

These gluten-free noodles look like mini tongue-depressors to me, being somewhat elongated ovoids, and are a nice, chewy addition to stir-fries. One can buy fresh or frozen dduk, but so far I have just experimented with the bags of dried dduk. These noodles are made of pounded, steamed and dried sweet rice flour and must be pre-soaked in cold or boiling water to make them ready for cooking. They have a great texture that really stands up to extended cooking, so they are a good choice for any noodle soup or juicy stir-fry dishes in which a more tender noodle would give up and implode into mush.

Korean cooks make many varieties of dduk dishes, both sweet and savory, and a bowl of steaming Dduk Gook soup is a traditional way to ring in the New Year.  I enjoyed reading this blog post from a Korean doctor who relates the many sayings that involve their much beloved rice cakes, like "give your enemy another piece of dduk" (i.e., "turn the other cheek").

I haven't followed any traditional Korean recipes for using this noodle, (but I intend to!) so much as incorporating them in my weekly stir-fries when I have needed something starchy. They do tend to suck up a lot of sauce and flavor, so plan on adding more liquid to your wok when you are adding in your dduk noodles. Above you can see a stir-fry of julienned carrot, cabbage, zucchini and garlic bathed in a sesame-soy-garlic sauce and zapped with a little chili-garlic paste. The dduk noodles add such a nice heft in there!

I have the privilege of hosting Presto Pasta Nights #244 this week. PPN is a popular weekly blog event chronicling the many incarnations of the world's noodles and was started by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast  in 2007. I thought relaying my adventures with this new-dle would fit the bill quite nicely.

I have already received some great pasta recipes from other bloggers and look forward to other pasta creations in my emailbox until the deadline of Thursday, December 15. You can send them to me (with a photo attachment of your creation) at oldsaratogabooks (at) gmail (dot) com and please also cc ruth (at) 4everykitchen (dot) com.  I will post the roundup for this last Presto Pasta Nights of 2011 the day after. Hope you can squeeze in some pasta fun with us during this busy holiday week!

Time to Cook the Books a la Grecque

The latest book pick for Cook the Books, the Internet foodie book club that my friends Johanna of Food Junkie, Not Junk Food and Deb of Kahakai Kitchen started three years ago, is Patricia Volonakis Davis'  Harlot's Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss, and Greece (NY: Harper Davis Publishers 2008).  With Cook the Books, we have read many kinds of foodie non-fiction, novels, children's literature and biographies, and traveled the world reading about different culinary traditions, but we have never examined the wonderful food culture of Greece, so I was excited when Johanna picked this book for our current CTB selection.

Davis tells the story of her courtship and marriage to a Greek immigrant and the cultural clashes between her first generation Italian-American family and his. Eventually, she and Gregori and their son Nick move to Greece and her descriptions of her new life there were the most interesting part of the book for me. I enjoyed the translations of various Greek words and expressions ("She can make a donkey die!" means someone is stubborn beyond words) and loved her prose about about Greek Orthodox rituals, the complex dance of the biscotti and coffee at Greek funerals, and comparisons of American and Greek attitudes towards children, stray dogs, and education.

Though the word "Food" is given preeminence in the title of this book, there is not so much discussion of Greek cuisine as there are descriptions of how Davis' marriage weakens and ultimately unravels. And this is not what I thought the book would be about, so unfortunately, I would find my thoughts drifting away through yet another recitation of a marital argument or fight with a passive-aggressive in-law. I flipped ahead through many pages seeking out the nuggets about Greek culture seen through an American's eyes or about the love-hate relationship that first generation immigrant families have with US pop culture and societal freedoms.

My favorite character in the book is Patricia's mother, a chain-smoking philosopher, whom she unfortunately becomes estranged from after too many Gregori incidents.  I absolutely loved Mama Nancy's theory of comparative religion. When young Patricia came home from Catholic school one day and asked how one knows that their religion is "the right one", Mom replies:

 "All religions are the "right" religion, if they're right for the person following them. They all teach basically the same things: to love one another, be the best people we can be, to never deliberately harm someone else."

When her daughter asks why there are different religions, Mom's educational metaphor comes back: "The best way I can describe it is that it's like decorating a house. Some have furniture that might seem strange to you, but the people who live there are happy with it." (p. 81)


After my reading, I was inspired to filch a Greek cookbook from our bookstore shelves, Perfect Greek (London: Parragon, 2006) and perused many a delicious recipe for various mezze, sweets and salads, but ultimately I settled on a recipe for a tomatoey Greek Fisherman's Soup which I adapted to be much more stew-like and which made for a wonderfully fragrant meal served over rice. I'm glad I made a big pot of rice, because this concoction had terrific juices and we sopped up every bit at dinner.

Here's a Fish Stew fit for a Harlot or Fisherman or whomever shows up at your table:


Greek Fisherman's Stew (adapted from Perfect Greek)

2 frozen fillets of tilapia, thawed and cut into chunks (they will flake off in the cooking)
1 lb. frozen shrimp, thawed and shelled

1 onion, peeled and thinly sliced
4 stalks celery, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

3 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 (14 oz.) can diced tomatoes and their juice
Peel of one orange
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
3 Tbsp. chopped Italian parsley
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
Hot cooked rice

Heat olive oil in large soup pot. Add onion, celery and garlic and cook, stirring often, until softened, about five minutes. Add fish and shrimp and cook, stirring often, another 5-7 minutes, until shrimp are pink

Add white wine and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Add orange peel (I used a tangerine and squeezed in the juice too), thyme, parsley and bay leaves. Cook another 15 minutes at a simmer until seafood is thoroughly cooked and the fish has flaked up and into your wonderful stew juices.  Season with salt and pepper and serve over hot cooked rice. The citrus in the sauce really picks up the sweetness of the fish and shrimp.

Makes 4 dinner servings.

Johanna, our resident Athenian Cook the Book hostess, will be posting a roundup of all the blog entries about Harlot's Sauce after tomorrow's deadline, so hop on over to Cook the Books later this week to see all the posts. Our featured author, Patricia Volonakis Davis, will also be serving as our guest judge to select a winner from the blog entries so that should be entertaining reading as well.

**Next up on the Cook the Books reading list is John and Matt Lewis Thorne's collection of food essays "Outlaw Cook".  It's a fantastic book and I invite you all to join us in reading the book and then blogging up your thoughts and any Outlaw-inspired recipes.

Cinnamon Basil Cupcakes with Fresh Tomato Soup for Novel Food

If you are a gardener, cook or voracious reader of mystery novels, (or all three like me) you will love diving into Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles series. Set in the Texas hill country, China is a former high-powered defense attorney who shifts gears mid-career to open up an herb shop surrounded by gardens in a small town. Her main side kick is a red-haired Amazon, Ruby, who wears flamboyant clothes and shares commercial space with our heroine to run her New Age shop full of crystals, tarot cards and incense.

I had a thoroughly enjoyable time this summer reading through the cozy series, which now numbers 19 books in all.  Albert has a different herbal theme for each book and its title and one can learn a lot about gardening, folklore, the medicinal use of herbs and even try out some delicious recipes from the back of many of the books. I was particularly taken by a scene in Book 2, Witches' Bane, in which China and her mom dine at former nun Maggie's Restaurant and have a lunch of Cinnamon Basil Cupcakes, thick Tomato Soup and Greek Style Broccoli Salad. That sounded like a fantastic combination, so much so, that I ordered cinnamon basil seeds from a catalogue just to try out those cupcakes (which are more like savory muffins).

That's where I was stymied. I had a nice little bunch of Cinnamon Basil plants sprouting up in a clump in the garden when the overzealous weeder, husband Dan, yanked them out by mistake. It was a long interval between reading about this mouthwatering literary feast and actually seeing this project to completion, but it was a worthwhile wait.

A bunch of Cinnamon Basil with gorgeous purple stems

Back to the garden patch I went to plant some more, this time carefully marked with a special stake, and they duly grew into the handsome plants you see above. This basil variety really does have a spicy cinnamon fragrance and taste and are a striking plant with dark purple stems and light purple blossoms. In addition to using them in the following Cinnamon Basil Cupcake recipe, I used the chiffonaded leaves liberally in my tomato and noodle salads all through August.

The Cinnamon Basil Cupcakes come out a pale shade of green, which is not the usual color for a muffin or cupcake, but they are so delectable and they certainly make for a colorful meal paired alongside deep red tomato soup. I will reduce the amount of sugar in this recipe when I make them again, as I felt they were a little too sweet, but they really were a wonderful accompaniment when served warm from the oven and dunked into my soup.

Gluten Free Cinnamon Basil Muffins (or you can call them Cupcakes like China)

1/4 cup cinnamon basil leaves, stripped from stems
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Puree cinnamon basil leaves in a blender with the oil until it is a fine puree. Add sugar and egg and mix well.

Sift together dry ingredients. Add to basil-oil mixture and combine. Add in sour cream, milk and walnuts and mix well.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, or until muffins feel springy.

While muffins are baking, you can whip up a quick tomato soup by sauteeing some onions and garlic in olive oil until golden, adding in a bunch of fresh or canned peeled, pureed tomatoes and then cooking over low heat, stirring often, until desired thickness. Season with a little more fresh cinnamon basil and salt and pepper and you have an awesome, literary-inspired light meal.

I hope this whets your appetite for this excellent herbal mystery series and to plant a patch of cinnamon basil yourself. You'll want to read the China Bayles series in order, as China, Ruby and various family members go through a lot of changes in life. I saved up this tasty post just for the 14th edition of Novel Food, which is hosted quarterly by Briciole. Novel Food invites participants to cook up recipes inspired by a literary work which has been particularly captivating.

If you haven't already discovered this fun blog event, you can check back through the archives to discover novels, plays, short stories and poems which have inspired bloggers to whip up wonderful creations in their kitchens. This round of Novel Food ends this Sunday, so you still have time to join in the fun or wait until after the deadline to see what others have been reading and then eating.

**And now for a bit of Crispy Cook housekeeping. I am pleased to announce the winners of my Lundberg Family Farms and Stonehouse 27 giveaways. The five winners are: Lindsey, John, the Swedenese Family, Simona and Kathleen. Congratulations to all and I will be contacting you to get your mailing address so that you can receive your Lundberg Brown Rice Bowl and Stonehouse 27 Cooking Sauce sent to you.

Stay tuned for another Giveaway post this week to learn how to get a copy of a great new GF cookbook: Laura B. Russell's "The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen". I've made several recipes from this cookbook and all have been terrific.

Cook up a Homemade Life and Some Cabbage with Molly Wizenberg

There are times when you are in the mood for a light read to let you escape into another world; there are times for a chunky doorstop of a novel to distract you from the miseries of a stubborn cold; and then there are those occasions when a great book of essays or short stories is just the thing to see you through bouts of stop-and-start appointments and other life interrupters. Molly Wizenberg's "A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table" (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2009) was the perfect book to tuck into during a busy last few weeks and I thoroughly enjoyed reading and dog-earing the pages of this lovely book of food essays.

The author has chronicled her journey from anthropology grad student to popular food blogger and author on her blog Orangette and expands upon these writings in "A Homemade Life". The pivotal moment that changed her life focus came after the death of her gusto-laden dad, known affectionately as Burg. Burg smacked his lips when cooking and eating; he sometimes laughed so hard that he gagged; he showed his family how to live "wholly, hungrily, loudly" and to appreciate the whole process of cooking and gathering together around the table. The pages of "A Homemade Life" are packed with the author's memories of various members of her family and friends, but Burg is the one that cartwheels out of the pages with his effusiveness and charisma.

I was also tickled by Molly's memories of a first date with a health food aficionado who served her a salad made of seven kinds of sprouts--plus three cherry tomatoes!-- and then serenaded her with some sort of Chinese lute. She lurched home to her peanut butter jar to muffle the roar in her stomach. It reminded me all too vividly of some one and only dates in my past, including one strange encounter on Halloween night (I should have known better) with a cute but twitchy reporter who played opera music at Def Leppard volume while we poked at our bowls of not-quite-defrosted lentil soup with blocks of frozen legumes in the middle.

The book is stuffed with recipes for desserts and sweets, but I was lured in by her recipes for savory delights. Someday I will try her intriguing recipe for Pickled Grapes with Cinnamon and Black Pepper and those Tuna Buchons, but for a recent dinner, I made up a batch of her homey Cream-Braised Green Cabbage. The cabbage sections come out caramelized, yet sweet and this simple, luscious recipe has won a place in my brassica recipe rotation.

Molly's great book is the present selection of the online foodie book club, Cook the Books, that a couple of food blogger colleagues and I started back in 2008. We take turns hosting the bimonthly rounds of Cook the Books and this time round it was my Hawai'ian blogger buddy Deb of Kahakai Kitchens who picked this gem for us to delve into. Today is the deadline to submit a blog post for the roundup that Deb will put up with all the blogger contributions, so be sure to check back in later to see what others thought about the book and what they cooked up. Molly herself will be taking some time out of honing her next book to serve as the guest judge for the CTB submissions.

Gluten Free Chocolate Donuts with Chocolate Glaze: Baked, Beany and Beautiful!

I sit here stunned. Amazed that I baked up something that was not only edible, made with normally infuriating talc-like, slippery, gluten-free flours, but which looked kinda fancy; like something you might buy in a bakery.

I'm talkin' doughnuts, those circular little sweeties that form two-thirds of Homer Simpsons food pyramid; those coffee break staples and snack time scarfables that bring sugar and grease together in one carb-bursting handful of deliciousness. Oh, I tried lightening up my doughnut making foray with some garbanzo bean flour, by baking rather than frying, and by substituting in coconut oil instead of other oil or shortening. But I know doughnuts are lovely indulgences that wreck hell on one's middle-aged metabolism unless you are an annoyingly lean soul such as my Old Man.

Doughnuts and fritters are this month's baking challenge at the Gluten-Free Ratio Rally, hosted this time round by Meg of Gluten Free Boulangerie. Meg has all the other links to the toothsome doughnut varieties that other GF bloggers and awesome bakers have cooked up in their kitchens, so be sure to drop by on your coffee break.... The GF Ratio Rally is built on the premise that using ratios of flour:eggs:fat:liquid and measuring by volume will produce more predictable results in baking and I am sold on the concept after successfully churning out cream puffs and cherry bublanina cake with this group.

I was thinking about maybe sitting out this GF Ratio Rally challenge this month, as my Fear of Frying and visions of ending up with a greasy pan of burnt donut crumbs was scaring me off. But then I had a sign from Saint Honoratus, the patron saint of bakers, while I was making my weekly visit to my favorite charity thrift shop. Ever alert in the housewares section, I spied my Holy Grail: a bag of what I believed to be aluminum doughnut molds (they actually produce a rather skinny, though beautifully round, donut) but which I believe now to be individual jello molds. No matter, St. Honoratus gave me the self-confidence to put these new kitchen treasures to use, and after a thorough cleaning, drying and anointing with holy oil, or rather cooking spray, they were perfect for shaping my sticky and unwieldy donut batter into perfect little cake donuts.

I started with this great recipe for a vegan chocolate donut from this blogger, and then adapted it to be gluten-free and to incorporate the coconut oil for my exploration into the donut zone. I thought that the garbanzo bean flour would work beautifully in a chocolate doughnut, both in terms of taste and texture, and that proved to be the case. The dough was rather sticky, as most GF batters tend to be and really dripped rather slowly and thickly from my wooden spoon into the greased donut molds. It was a messy project, but satisfying, and the gooey batter leveled itself out after a minute or so, so I didn't have to smooth it into position.

These doughnuts are cakey, rather than CRISPY, like fried doughnuts. They had a not too sweet taste and the chocolate, gooey glaze was the perfect counterpoint. With a glass of cold milk or a mug of hot coffee on the side, (and I tried out both options), this made the perfect snack/breakfast/go-to-the-gym-motivator.

Gluten Free Chocolate Doughnuts with Chocolate Glaze


Cooking oil spray

3 oz. coconut oil, (liquified if your coconut oil has gone solid in the jar)

10 oz.  sugar

10 oz. gluten free flour (about 1-1/3 cups - I used a mixture of 1 cup brown rice flour and 1/3 cup garbanzo bean flour, also known as besan)

4 oz. baking cocoa (about 1/2 cup)

1-1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp. xanthan gum

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup milk mixed with 1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar (let sit for 10 minutes to get thick)


3 eggs, lightly beaten

2 tsp. vanilla

Chocolate Glaze:

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 Tbsp. melted coconut oil

Doughnut Toppings of your choice (I used flaked coconut and sprinkles for my resident coconut-phobe)



Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  If you own doughnut molds or donut rings/small jello molds, lightly spray them with cooking spray. If you don't own such things, try a different recipe, because this batter is too oozy for shaping freehand.

Blend together sugar, flours, baking cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum and salt.

Add the  milk and vinegar mixture, coconut oil, eggs and vanilla. Mix just until the ingredients are combined.

Dribble 2 1/2 tablespoons of batter into each prepared doughnut mold. My batter was very thick and I had a lot of drips and drizzles all over the molds until I got the hang of it, so I kept a wet napkin at the ready to wipe things down.

Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool on the racks for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the doughnuts in the molds and invert them onto a baking sheet. Let cool another 10 minutes.

Make chocolate glaze by melted coconut oil over a low flame in a frying pan. Add chocolate chips, and, stirring continuously, let melt into a smooth chocolate glaze.While glaze is still warm, dip half of the doughnut into the chocolate sauce. Allow some to drip off and then dip glaze side down into your coconut or sprinkles. Let dry on a rack for at least another 10 minutes.

Makes 12 doughnuts. GF Ratios: 4:1.5:1.5:2.

These doughnuts are not super-sweet like a coffee-store donut or greasy like the cider donuts you get at an apple orchard. Instead, they are more cake-like and semi-sweet like a great cake donut, but they were a stone cold delight for my family. I am envisioning making spice cake and carrot cake versions in the future, and will certainly be checking out the other GF Ratio Rally recipes that other bloggers have posted over at GF Boulangerie. St. Honoratus would want me to.

Cook the Books: Garden Spells and Bachelors Buttons

With the fruits of our garden labors taking up an increasing amount of real estate on my kitchen counters, it is the perfect time to let you know about an evocative novel, Garden Spells, the debut offering by bestselling author Sarah Addison Allen (NY: Bantam Books, 2007). This is the current book selection for the bimonthly foodie book club, Cook the Books.

Cook the Books features books from all kinds of genres, from chef memoirs to fiction featuring cooking or foodcentric themes, and participants offer up posts that discuss our current selection and their culinary creations inspired by their reading. I will be coordinating the roundup of submissions at the Cook the Books blog after tomorrow's deadline and then our guest judge, Jenna of the wonderfully entertaining blog, Literature and a Lens, will pick a winner.

Garden Spells is a lyrical blend of Southern Gothic and magical realism set in a small North Carolina town, where the Waverley clan has always had a certain reputation for odd powers. Elderly cousin Evanelle is driven to give people gifts which they later find out that they need and want, from Strawberry Pop-Tarts to bed linens, condoms and mango cutters. Caterer and night gardener Claire cooks up magical foods that have various properties, like the snapdragon casserole used to ward off the unwanted admiration of her hunky new neighbor. It would be a plot spoiler to let y'all know about the power that her wayward sister Sydney discovers that she possesses late in the book, but suffice it to say that all of the Waverley women have unusual talents. Even the family apple tree in the backyard has an ominous power: the ability to fling apples around, which, if eaten, will give the bearer a vision of the biggest event in his or her life. And bigger is not always better.

There were so many delicate and intriguing things that Claire cooks up in this book: lavender bread, crystallized pansies, violet white cake, lemon-verbena sorbet, and honeysuckle wine. Herbs and garden vegetables feature prominently in her sensual descriptions and it was a treat to read the excerpts from the Waverley kitchen journal at the rear of this book. Chive Blossoms will ensure you will win an argument and are an antidote for hurt feelings, and Nasturtiums are noted as promoting appetite in men (for sex or food, or both?) and for making women secretive. Very entertaining.

With a swath of long-blooming Bachelors Buttons in my vegetable patch, grown just for attracting pollinating insects (and because they're so easy to grow and are self-sowing), I was delighted to learn from this book that the petals are edible and, according to this book,

"Bachelor's buttons make people see sharper, helpful for finding thing like misplaced keys and hidden agendas"

Well, sez I, I could certainly use help in both these departments, so I plucked a handful of petals, and used them to garnish a salad gleaned right out of the Crispy summer garden: mixed lettuces, radishes soaked in rice vinegar and some sliced asparagus stalks. They really looked lovely as a garnish and I am making a note to remind myself to use them on top of my next Fourth of July dessert. They are so deeply blue.

I'll be posting the roundup of all the Garden Spells submissions over at the Cook the Books blog after tomorrow's deadline and encourage you to drop by and see all the different, creative interpretations of this dreamy novel that we've all cooked up.

Our August/September Cook the Books selection is A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg, a collection of essays and recipes, compiled from her popular blog Orangette. Anyone is welcome to join in the fun for this and all future rounds of CTB by reading the selected book, and then blogging up your book commentary and a dish inspired from its pages.

Off to deliver some garden produce to my friends. Now, where'd I put those keys?

Smoked Paprika Noodles with Butter, Cheese and Garlic Scape and Herb Drizzle

A wonderful bunch of gluten-free bloggers posted a collection of recipes and posts for making fresh pasta a couple of days ago. I was unable to get my own post up in time for the Gluten Free Ratio Rally, a monthly food blog challenge that encourages experimentation in the kitchen with gluten-free flours. Last month, we all played with pate a choux (I made cream puffs filled with coffee cream) and next month we will be trying out cake recipes.

I did make an awesomely good set of gluten-free noodles, gently flavored and colored with smoked paprika, and wanted to share my experiment with you. I started with the Fresh Gluten-Free Pasta recipe from the showcase cookbook, Gluten Free Girl and the Chef by Shauna and Daniel Ahern. I had made their recipe for fresh pasta once before and wanted to switch up some of the flours. Shauna and Daniel's recipe in their cookbook called for corn flour and quinoa flour, which added a nice nubby texture to the fresh pasta, but I was out of quinoa flour, so I subbed in brown rice flour and added in 3 generous tablespoons of smoked paprika. The Aherns have since done some other experimenting with fresh pasta, so you can check out their recipe at the link above and try it for yourself to find out how adding in a boost of extra egg yolks makes the dough more easy to work with.

My dough came out beautifully; just needed a touch more water to make it more pliable. I covered it and let it rest for a while, giving me time to head out to the herb patch to pick some Italian parsley, basil, oregano and garlic scapes. I whizzed them up with some olive oil and kosher salt in my blender to make a garlicky herb drizzle that I scattered over the noodles later on.

I then rolled out my pasta dough between sheets of parchment paper and was able to get it to about 1/4 inch thickness. I would have liked it to be thinner, but I just couldn't seem to get it to stretch as much as I wanted, so my noodles came out on the hearty and thick side. I therefore cut them into short fettuccine lengths.

After a short bath in some salted boiling water, I tossed my noodles with some butter and grated Parmesan, seasoned with salt and pepper and then drizzled on my garlic scape and herb puree. What a toothsome dish! It was a satisfying, yet light supper and we all licked our plates.

I'm sending a batch of these gluten free noodles over to Presto Pasta Nights, a weekly celebration of the world of pasta started by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast. This week's guest host is Lavender and Lime, who will be posting her roundup of carbs next Friday.

Pasta with Broccoli Rabe, Garlic Scapes and Anchovies

It's taken years, but I finally made an anchovy aficionado out of the old husband. Oh, I've tried before, with stealthy insertions of the salty fish into Caesar Salads, minced onto pizza pies and tucked into pastas, but I was always discovered. Not until I melted a tin of anchovies into a luscious and decidedly unsalty base for a supper pasta with Broccoli Rabe and some of our bountiful supply of homegrown garlic scapes did I succeed in winning over my Dan to the anchovy side.

When anchovies are cooked down over a low flame, they lose their super salinity and gain a mellow, earthy flavor that was the perfect foil to the bitter Broccoli Rabe greens. This dish was so successful, I've made it twice since, and Dan has even cleaned out the cupboard of my tinned anchovy stash, so I believe I have an anchovy convert on my hands now.

It's a quick and simple pasta dish and one that I will pass on to you should you covet a hearty pasta dish with once-sharp flavors that are delightfully mellowed after cooking.

Pasta with Broccoli Rabe, Garlic Scapes and Anchovies

1/2 bunch broccoli rabe, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch slices

1 lb. fettuccine

1 tin anchovies

10 garlic scapes, chopped

Olive oil

Pinch of hot pepper flakes

Grated Romano cheese

Salt and Pepper to taste (taste first; you made not need to add any salt with the saltiness of the anchovies)


Cook fettuccine until al dente. Drain and rinse with warm water. Set aside.

Heat a teaspoon or so of olive oil in a medium saucepan. Add chopped garlic scapes and stir over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring. Add anchovies and their oil and break up with a wooden spoon, stirring until they melt and coat the scapes. Add chopped broccoli rabe and stir all around. Cook until leaves are wilted and broccoli rabe is crisp-tender, about 7-8 minutes. Add a little water and cover pan to steam for another minute or two.

Add hot pepper flakes and salt and pepper to taste. Mix with your cooked pasta and toss to coat. Garnish with grated cheese.

Serve hot to 6-8 persons.

I am sending a plate of this toothsome pasta over to Helen of Fuss Free Flavours, who is this week's host for Presto Pasta Nights. This weekly event was started by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast and is a great showcase for noodly dishes. Helen will have the roundup for Presto Pasta Nights #221 posted after the July 7 deadline.

Foraging a Fungus Among Us Which is Now In my Corpus

And what a delicious fungus it was. I don't normally cook dangerously; but having transplanted a patch of lily-of-the-valley at the base of a grand old sugar maple in my backyard the day before, I came out to inspect my flowers the next morning. Right above them was this beautiful shelf of white mushroom that had definitely not been in residence before.

It was a truly lovely 'shroom.

It was a pearly white with a cascading shape and sweet aroma.

And most importantly, it looked delicious.

Now, I'm no foraging expert. I am more in tune with the idea of foraging than successful in its application. I've failed at harvesting stinging nettles (gathered them too late in their development) and at figuring out fiddlehead ferns (gathered them too early in their development). The potential for disaster with harvesting wild mushrooms always steered me clear but this specimen was so tantalizing.  And my husband Dan was so cute when I pointed out this gorgeous fungus and its potential for our dinner. He exclaimed that he had just fallen in love with me all over again.

Out came my field guides, my mushroom books, my Euell Gibbons library, and research on the Internet. After much study, it appears that I had an Oyster Mushroom, a wild edible delight that blooms on decayed and dying maples during the spring and summer in the Northeast. It has no toxic lookalike mushroom cousins on this continent and so it was with only a small amount of trepidation that I cleaned it up, dipped cut up sections in brown rice flour and then dipped them back in some beaten egg. After a final dredging in some gluten-free bread crumbs, I sauteed them briefly in butter and garnished my 'shrooms with some chopped lemon thyme and parsley.

Heeding well-worn foraging advice of the ages to only sample a small amount of this new wild edible, we adults munched on our CRISPY fried oyster mushrooms with moderation on the first night. They were earthy and delicate and had a nice chewy texture. The next day, having noticed that we were still alive and were suffering no ill effects of my foraging adventure, we heated them up and feasted once more on these delicious wild treats.

I noticed one more shelf of oyster mushroom blooming at the base of my tree and decided to come back a few days later to cook it up, but alas, the passage of just a couple of days had made this mushroom dry up quite a bit and turn brown. There were also lots of insects in residence, so it was not the evanescent thing of beauty that its had been.

I am sending this successful mushrooming adventure post over to Healthy Green Kitchen, who is hosting this week's episode of Weekend Herb Blogging. WHB is the popular food blog event centering on edible plants, herbs, flowers and fruits, and is headquartered at Cook Almost Anything. Healthy Green Kitchen will post a roundup of delicious posts from great cooks from all corners of the globe, so tune in after tomorrow's deadline to see what was cooking.

Raspberry Financiers at my Lunch in Paris

Elizabeth Bard has written a book to make me sigh with happiness.  Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes (NY: Little, Brown and Company, 2010),  is a very snappily-written memoir of how this native New Yorker fell in love with her future husband, his family and his country. From the grace with which he dealt with a splat of pigeon poop while on a romantic stroll with our author, to his joie de vivre in cooking for his lady on a cramped apartment hot plate, attending tap dancing camp and film studies conferences, and tenderly caring for his ailing father, I have to say I fell in love with Gwendal too.

Bard writes with plenty of panache about her faux pas and discoveries about her new country. She learns not to use the word "plaisir" interchangeably with "pleasure", as the former has some sexual connotations. She learns how to correctly bargain while shopping in the Parisian food markets. And perhaps most importantly, she learns how to navigate French culture as an ex-pat American. I particularly loved her observations about the snits and spats that she and Gwendal went through in their wedding preparations:

"One of the great gifts of an intercultural relationship is that when you fight, you never quite know if you are mad at the person, or at their culture: Is he really too bum-ass lazy to call back the band at eight p.m. on a Monday evening (are they in the middle of dinner?), or is he just being French? Is she bombarding me with lists and timetables and questions about the color of the wax used to seal the invitations because she is a manic control freak (or General MacArthur's granddaughter), or is she just being American?" (p. 137)

This wonderful book is the current selection of The Cook the Books Club, which is being run this time round by my blogger buddy, Johanna, of Food Junkie, not Junk Food.  At Cook the Books, we read a different foodie novel or non-fiction book every two months and then post a roundup of participant's thoughts about the book and any recipes inspired by our reading. Anyone is welcome to join in the fun (deadline is May 27 to submit a post) and I am delighted to report that our esteemed author, Elizabeth Bard, will be serve as our guest judge to read through the submissions and announce the winner of the much-coveted Cook the Books Winner's badge for his or her blog.

I have a few dog-eared pages in Bard's book for delicious recipes that I will make when various edibles come into season: Goat Cheese Salad with Fresh Figs (p. 100), Zucchini Flowers Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Mint (p. 160) and Melon with Port (p. 290), but I had to run out and splurge on a jewel box of red raspberries to make Raspberry Financiers (p. 87), rich little tea cakes stuffed with butter and ground almonds and topped with a perfect raspberry that melt into your mouth. This recipe was terribly easy to make gluten-free. I substituted brown rice flour for the regular wheat flour called for in Bard's recipe and my family was delighted with the sweet results.

I made one batch in my muffin tins (sprayed with vegetable oil first) and then one batch in my dollar store find of the decade, a madeleine pan. Unfortunately, I thought the madeleine pan was non-stick (it isn't) and didn't use the cooking spray, so I had to dig out these delicate little financiers with a butter knife so they are the crumbled up examples in the photos. (And check out my second example of "upcycling" some of my thrift shop china and glassware into this triple-tiered cake stand.)

I am love with these little French dainties and hope to make some other financiers soon. I may try these other gluten-free examples from some other wonderful bloggers:

Apricot and Lavender Brown Butter Tea Cakes
from Tartelette

Chocolate Financiers
from Gluten Free Girl and the Chef

Blackberry and Vanilla Bean Financiers
from Une-deux Senses

Hope to see you at the Cook the Books roundup after our May 27 deadline. Next up after "Lunch in Paris" is Sarah Addison Allen's magical debut novel "Garden Spells".

Strawberry Cupcakes and a Review of the new Gluten-Free Cupcakes cookbook by Elana Amsterdam

Who can resist a cupcake? They are so darn cute and make delightful little hand held treats. Cupcakes are so prevalent these days throughout the foodie world and Colorado blogger Elana Amsterdam has presented the gluten-free community with a lovely Spring gift with her new cookbook "Gluten-Free Cupcakes: 50 Irresistible Recipes Made with Almond and Coconut Flour" (Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 2011).

The publisher sent me a review copy of this book and it had already been perused by my youngest before I got home from the bookshop. She requested that we go out the next day and get the ingredients for the Strawberry Cupcakes (p. 24 of the book, and there's also a recipe posted on Elana's Pantry here)

We picked up the ingredients and also decided to top these delicate cupcakes with Elana's Strawberry Meringue Frosting (p. 97).

These cupcakes were delectable and even better the next day after the chopped strawberries mixed into the cupcake batter had moistened up the cakes with their juices. Coconut flour provides the base for the cake mixture and has a nice fiber and nutrition boost as well. All of the recipes in Elana's book are chock full of healthy ingredients, so one can feel good about cooking up these sweet treats and serving them to your family. The author does a great job of describing the various ingredients that she uses in a beginning chapter that is really useful. Cooks that are unfamiliar with what they are, where to buy them and how they perform in the baking process (cooks like me!) will refer back to this section many times over.

The Strawberry Meringue Frosting got less favorable reviews. It certainly performed well and made some wonderful curlicues that held their shape well on top of my cupcakes, but half the Crispy Crew complained that the frosting taste and texture was not to their liking (it's a meringue made of whipped egg whites, boiled down agave syrup and chopped strawberries), so I would top these pink beauties with a cream cheese or buttercream frosting next time. And there will be a next time soon. ; )



I am glad that my kid picked the Strawberry Cupcake recipe, because not only was it scrumptious, but it was one of the recipes that didn't call for almond flour. The only almond flour I have found in my area for sale is at a local health food store for $13 for a one-pound bag, and that's just too expensive for me. I see that one can halve this price online, but I wasn't ready to plunk down double digits for a bag of flour.

The book contains a great selection of other interesting flavor combinations to try out (Pecan Pie Cupcakes, Pina Colada Cupcakes, White Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes) as well as some gluten-free recreations of some nostalgic delights, like the Cream-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes which are dead ringers for the Hostess chocolate cupcakes. There are also a few toothsome savory muffin recipes at the back of the book. Kudos also to Annabelle Breakey for the great color cupcake photographs throughout the book that make all of these recipes seem so irresistible.

I enjoyed perusing and test driving this sweet treat of a cookbook and recommend it to other home bakers.

Here are some other favorable reviews of Elana's new cookbook by fellow bloggers:

Gluten-Free at Mother Earth News

Book of Yum

Gluten-Free Easily

Gluten-Free Diva

***As an aside, this book review also gave me the perfect chance to make my own cupcake stand made from vintage plates and candlesticks. I certainly have more than a few orphaned pieces of china in my shelves and will now be keeping an eye out at garage sales and thrift shops for more perfect cupcake stand components.

With inspiration from my Greek blogger buddy Johanna, of Food Junkie, Not Junk Food, I whipped this up craft project up in a few short minutes on one of the few breaks in the Spring precipitation we've been enjoying this past month.  I used a clear all-purpose epoxy to join my pieces together and want to remind those of you who may want to try this cupcake stand project out yourselves to make sure to do so outside or in a very well-ventilated area. Solvent fumes are very hazardous to your health and I want you around to let me know how your cupcakes and cupcake stands turn out!

Roll-Cutting and Dry-Frying some Chinese Eggplants

Second Daughter and I took a shopping trip down to Albany to stock up on pantry provisions and went to the Asian Supermarket at 1245 Central Avenue. This stop proved to be yet another fabulous ethnic market to add to our list of great places to find interesting, exotic and naturally gluten-free foods.

Asian Supermarket had an extensive produce department, where we found everything from banana blossoms to huge piles of durian to dragon fruit.  I didn't buy those three intriguing edibles, but I did buy a huge bag of baby bok choy, packets of chrysanthemum tea, a 20 lb. bag of basmati rice and a wonderful Chinese vegetable from the mustard family, yu choy, which was meltingly soft when braised with garlic and soy sauce.

Some other new items fell into our cart. I fell in love with Thai packages of Crispy Fried Seaweed in regular and Tomato Ketchup flavors (gotta try the Kimchi and Squid flavors next time!), while the young 'un enjoyed scoring a huge bag of Happy (rice) Crackers and some delicious to-go foods from the take-out bar.

Some sensuously-curved, light purple Chinese eggplants called to me and I brought them home to play around with. I have never cooked with any eggplant other than the glossy purple-black aubergines of the Mediterranean variety, but I had read that the slender Chinese and Japanese varieties are less bitter and more tender, which I found to be slightly true. Certainly more experimentation with these gorgeous members of the nightshade family are in order here at Crispy Cook Central.

My first step was to pore through my well-loved copy of the late Barbara Tropp's "China Moon Cookbook" (NY: Workman Press, 1992).  Tropp's blend of traditional Chinese cooking techniques and ingredients, Yiddish-spiced instructions and California pizzazz always wows me, and I love her clear instructions that break down restaurant cooking results into components that a home cook can understand. 

Tropp offered a few recipes for wonderful eggplant-centric dishes (I've made her Strange Flavor Eggplant several times to rave reviews), but her siren song description of "Dry-Fried Chinese Eggplant Nuggets" as her favorite Chinese eggplant dish, bar none, made my decision for me. 

The dish involves a roll-cutting technique which I had never tried.  It's easy to do but hard to describe.  Basically, you make one 45 degree slice at one end of your vegetable and then roll it 180 degrees and make another 45 degree slice at your desired thickness. You end up with chunky, somewhat triangular segments of eggplant, which have a lot of surface area to absorb cooking heat and sauciness, not to mention a whole bunch of visual style. Ming Tsai has a short video segment on roll-cutting carrots and zucchini here which I found helpful before I attempted hacking away at my beautiful lavender-colored eggplants.



Aren't those eggplant slices beautiful?

They lose their gorgeous purple color when they are cooked up, but the resulting mixture of spicy and sweet flavors surrounding these soft hunks of eggplant tantalize the other senses quite nicely.

Sweet and Salty Braised Chinese Eggplant

adapted from Barbara Tropp's "Dry-Fried Chinese Eggplant Nuggets" in her China Moon Cookbook.

1-1/2 lbs. Chinese eggplants (4 slender eggplants)

3 scallions, thinly sliced (reserve some for garnish)
1 Tbsp. finely minced ginger
1 Tbsp. finely minced garlic

2 Tbsp. chili paste with garlic
2 Tbsp. soy sauce (check to make sure it's gluten free)
2 Tbsp. palm sugar (or brown sugar)
1 Tbsp. black rice vinegar (or balsamic vinegar)
2 Tbsp. hot water

3-4 Tbsp. peanut oil

Slice top and tail off your eggplants and then roll cut them into one inch pieces. 

Mix together chili paste, soy sauce, palm sugar, black rice vinegar and hot water and stir until sugar dissolves.

Heat 3 Tbsp. peanut oil in hot wok or large, heavy frying pan over medium-high heat. Add minced ginger, garlic and most of the sliced scallions (reserving some to garnish the dish). Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.

Add eggplant chunks and cook, stirring frequently, until browned on all sides. Add another Tbsp. of peanut oil if the pan gets dry, but no more, because eggplant is like a big sponge when it comes to absorbing cooking oil.

Stir in chili paste sauce mixture and let mixture come to a boil. Lower heat, cover and braise until liquid has mostly been absorbed and eggplant is soft, about 3-5 minutes. Garnish with reserved sliced scallions.

Makes 4 main dish servings. We enjoyed it over hot steamed basmati rice. Delectable!

I am sending this dish using my new found favorite vegetable, the Chinese Eggplant, to Weekend Herb Blogging which is hosted this week by Honest Vanilla. Weekend Herb Blogging is housed over at Cook Almost Anything by awesome food blogger and photographer, Haalo, and you'll find four years of weekly recaps, rules for WHB, and other great recipes and blog posts at this wonderful site.

The Cake Mix Doctor and the Crispy Cook Mix it Up in the Kitchen

I may have mentioned once or twice or seventeen times before on this blog that I am not now nor have I ever been known for my mad baking skills, pre- or post Glutenization. I am more at home with the savory, not the sweet, though I do love to make desserts for my family.

It's that precise, orderly, Zen master state of being that one needs for baking that eludes me. You can't play fast and loose with measurements or mix up baking soda and baking powder with any success. Having to bake without wheat flour is a whole other level of needing to have the various flours and gums in stock and remembering not to flop them into the mixing bowl too vigorously so that the fine particles powder one's face in the blow back. It's like baking needs a classical music soundtrack and I've got bebop and world music playing in my mind. I'd rather make soup.

But take a look at this beautiful cake I made the other day. Me, Rachel, the Crispy Cook, followed a recipe and it not only was pronounced delicious and devoured by the family and one newish boyfriend type (he ate my cake with gusto but is not yet within my Circle of Trust), but it looked really, really beautiful! Feast your peepers on this Bacardi Rum bundt cake which I made from the new cookbook by Anne Byrn "The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten Free (NY: Workman Publishing, 2011).


Fancy schmancy! It was very easy to mix this bad girl up and the texture was springy and not at all dry like so many other gluten-free cakes I've attempted. Byrn relates that she experimented for a couple of years with various gluten-free cake mixes, learning from her experiments that the grittiness of the rice flour in these mixes can be tempered with sugars and instant pudding and playing around with proportions of liquids and baking times.


This is the first recipe I made from this cookbook, but it will not be the last, as there are 75 other recipes for other bundts, traditional layer cakes, cookie bars, brownies and even a classic wedding cake recipe. The Crispy Husband has a birthday next month and even though I traditionally make him a Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing, I think I will surprise him with something different, like the German Chocolate Cake (p. 60) or a Boston Cream Pie (p. 82) and see how he likes it.

Thank you to Workman Publishers for sending me a review copy of this cool new GF cake bible and to Anne Byrn for spending so much time working up these toothsome recipes. With the publisher's permission, I am also happy to share the recipe for the cake I made so that you can test drive this great cookbook out for yourself. Anne's got a few other gluten-free recipes on her website which you can check out as well.

Bacardi Rum Cake with Buttered Rum Glaze -
(reprinted with the publisher's permission from The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free by Anne Byrn, NY: Workman, 2011)

There is nothing better than a good rum Bundt cake, and the classic Bacardi cake is the best of them all. This recipe is much like the original Bacardi cake from my first Cake Mix Doctor book, but made with a gluten-free cake mix, of course. The difference is the glaze, a better glaze with some brown sugar in it. The glaze seeps into the cake, keeping it moist, and full of good rum flavor. The pecans in the bottom of the pan are totally optional, but I love how they get crunchy as the cake bakes.

For the cake

Vegetable oil spray, for misting the pan

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (optional, see Note)

1 package (15 ounces) yellow gluten-free cake mix

1/4 cup (half of a 3.4-ounce package) vanilla instant pudding mix

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/3 cup Bacardi dark rum (The Cake Mix Doctor says it's okay to use light rum too which I did)

1/4 cup water

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the buttered rum glaze

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup lightly packed light brown sugar

3 tablespoons Bacardi dark rum

1. Make the cake: Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Lightly mist a 12-cup Bundt pan with vegetable oil spray. Scatter the pecans evenly in the bottom of the Bundt pan. Set the pan aside.

2. Place the cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, oil, ¹⁄³ cup of rum, and the water, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on low speed until the ingredients are just incorporated, 30 seconds. Stop the machine and scrape down the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat the batter until smooth, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes longer, scraping down the side of the bowl again if needed. Pour the batter over the pecans in the prepared Bundt pan, smoothing the top with the rubber spatula, and place the pan in the oven.

3. Bake the cake until it is golden brown and the top springs back when lightly pressed with a finger, 40 to 45 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, make the buttered rum glaze: Place the butter in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until melted. Add the brown sugar and 3 tablespoons of rum, and stir to combine over low heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture boils and thickens, 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let the glaze cool.

5. Transfer the Bundt pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool for 10 minutes. Run a long, sharp knife around the edges of the cake, shake the pan gently, and invert the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely, 5 to 10 minutes longer.

6. Using a wooden skewer, poke a dozen holes in the top of the cake, being careful not to loosen the pecans. Very slowly spoon the cooled glaze over the warm cake letting it soak into the holes in the cake before adding more. Let the cake cool to room temperature, 20 minutes longer before slicing and serving.

Note: If you have a nut allergy, omit the pecans and dust the pan with cinnamon sugar (see box, page 118). The cake will be just as delicious.

Keep It Fresh! Store the cake in a cake saver at room temperature for up to three days. Freeze the unglazed cake, wrapped in aluminum foil, for up to one month. Let the cake thaw overnight on the kitchen counter before glazing.

Untangling my Chopsticks with Japanese Comfort Food in the New Year

Denizens of some lakeside and seaside communities like to dip into icy waters for a Polar Bear Plunge on New Year's Day, believing that it brings one good luck and fortune in the months ahead. For me, the alternative of a gentler dive into a great book about Japanese culture and cuisine has proven to be just the ticket for starting the New Year in our house.

After the delightful indulgences of the holiday season, I have been ready for some lighter, more delicate fare to balance things out and rereading Victoria Abbott Riccardi's "Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto", (NY: Broadway Books, 2003) has been the perfect cup of (green) tea to start 2011 for the Crispy Cook.


This book is the current book selection for Cook the Books, the bimonthly foodie book club and I have the privilege of hosting the book discussion and roundup for this round, which ends January 28, 2011. We love to have new members join us in reading our selected book and then blogging and cooking up something inspired by our anointed book, so be sure to check the Cook the Books website for more details and to see the cool roundup of posts after our deadline.

I initially read this evocative book a couple of years ago for a Books About Food Reading Challenge, and here's my summary from that first reading:

"Untangling my Chopsticks" recounts the author's year spent in Kyoto, Japan, learning about the art of kaiseki. Kaiseki is the traditional and highly ritualized series of foods to accompany green tea ceremonies and involves a series of small dishes of exquisitely prepared and garnished foods.

Riccardi lands in Kyoto without much knowledge of Japanese culture or language, but is fortunate to have some friends of friends to stay with until she finds other lodging, enrolls in language classes and snags a coveted spot in a prestigious tea kaiseki school where there is an American ex-pat to help her navigate the new culinary and language challenges she faces.

The kaiseki banquets she studies sound exquisite; they evolved from Buddhist monastery traditions into highly formal social dining banquets in which tastings of thick and thin whipped green tea are interspersed with samples of the freshest, seasonal dishes, exquisitely garnished. She also provides interesting glimpses of Japanese home cooking and ordinary restaurant fare, and includes many recipes easily adapted to Western kitchens.

Though this book is but a glimpse into a highly complex Japanese culinary tradition, it was a mouthwatering introduction and I will be referring back to it when attempting my own forays into Japanese cooking."

I enjoyed my reread of Riccardi's book just as much, and found that I was bookmarking different pages the second time round. There is so much that is elegant and seasonal about this refined style of cuisine that I know I will be seeking out many times over.

I am a novice Japanese cook, so I thought I would start with the basics of preparing dashi, the kelp and bonito broth that is a mainstay in many Japanese dishes and then prepare a simple donburi, "Japan's quintessential comfort food", according to Riccardi. Donburi is a bowl of hot cooked rice topped with eggs and other proteins along with vegetables in a salty, sweet broth.


I made dashi according to Riccardi's recipe (page 48) which was very easy, once I had the correct ingredients: konbu, or dried giant kelp, brought just to the boiling point in a pot of water and then removed, and dried bonito flakes. I then used some of my dashi in a Shrimp and Egg Donburi and some as the stock for a slurpy bowl of rice noodles later that same week.

The donburi was a great dish for a wintry, overcast January day, with candles lit on the table and the woodstove crackling away. Our featured book notes that donburi restaurants pepper Japan and describes this dish thus:

"Scrumptious, healthy, and prepared in a flash, it redefined the meaning of fast food" (p. 21)

Certainly seems a better fast food alternative than a "special sauce" burger and fries on so many levels.


Shrimp and Egg Donburi (adapted from Riccardi's Chicken and Egg Rice Bowl recipe in "Untangling my Chopsticks")

4 cups hot cooked rice

1 cup dashi (I made homemade dashi which is super easy, but there are also canned and powdered dashi products available in Asian markets)

1/4 cup soy sauce (check to make sure this is wheat-free)
1-1/2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. mirin (sweet rice wine)

4 eggs

1/2 lb. large shrimp, shelled and deveined (I used frozen shrimp)

3 Tbsp. snipped chives or scallions


Mix dashi, soy sauce, sugar and mirin in medium soup pot. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer two minutes.

Break eggs into mixing bowl. Untangle your chopsticks and use them to beat eggs until blended. Chopsticks work surprisingly well at this.

Add shrimp to simmering broth. Pour eggs over the shrimp and then sprinkle on the chives. Let simmer without stirring , until shrimp turn pink. Gently stir up shrimp and eggs and cook another 1-2 minutes, until shrimp are completely cooked.

Divide hot cooked rice into four medium bowls. Pour shrimp-egg mixture and broth over rice in each bowl.

Slurp away!

This dish really calls for those big porcelain Chinese ladle spoons which I didn't have, so you can slurp up a good portion of rice, broth and egg/shrimp chunks.

Serves Four.

I will be trying this again soon with tofu cubes and sliced raw fish. Truly great fast food!

As hostess of this round of Cook the Books I have already received some great submissions based on "Untangling my Chopsticks" and look forward to seeing what the rest of the batch looks like. Be sure to stop back at the Cook the Books website for the roundup after January 28.