East, West and Rest

Hi all,

We're going to try this as a husband-wife team effort. We both take turns cooking, Sawa takes the photos and I (Pat) write the posts.

The basic flow of our cooking lives is that we take turns cooking two meals a week and make big ones when we do, so the left-overs usually get us through the rest of the week. We generally alternate between and Japanese and non-Japanese cooking. We try to keep Sundays as a kind of Sabbath day free of major obligations, and if we're feeling motivated after catching up on sleep, we often end up making a big brunch or treats like cookies or ice cream.

This week we'll post one Sunday treat (home-made ice cream), one Japanese meal (soba noodle salad), and one non-Japanese (Greek spanakopita). Maybe in future weeks we'll just focus on one dish... let us know what you'd prefer with your comments!

REST - Salted butter caramel ice cream:

Sawa bought us an ice-cream-maker and David Lebovitz's book "The Perfect Scoop" for Christmas, which turned out to be our second-best food-related investment after our espresso machine. So far the tally for actually making ice cream with it is Sawa-6, Pat-0. On the other hand, Pat always wakes up early to make coffee before waking Sawa up. Marriage, like cooking, is about finding ways to complement different strengths, not necessarily splitting everything 50-50.

This ice cream recipe actually isn't from Lebovitz's book, but instead can be found here on his blog.

EAST - Soba noodle salad:

This recipe was taken completely from this blog at the recommendation of my lab-mate Tom, so go there to find all the ingredients. The only differences with mine were that I substituted parsley for cilantro, since Sawa is a cilantrophobe. I also realized after the fact that I should have put in about half the red pepper they called for.

However, while their recipe is an interesting Japanese/Mexican fusion, the photo they had was of a completely unrelated traditional Japanese soba meal. This photo shows what the recipe actually looks like.

WEST - Greek spanakopita:

We've fallen in love with Anne Willan's "The Good Cook", which Aunt Ruthie gave us after we graduated. It's a wonderful cookbook that has not only recipes but conceptual explanations about how to use different types of ingredients and techniques to achieve the results you're after. Among other things, it's been a great way of challenging ourselves to make kinds of food we'd never considered trying to make. We'd never imagined trying to make a phyllo pie, but in her chapter about pastry fundamentals it seemed doable, so we picked up some frozen phyllo at the Hamilton Farmer's Market, some feta at Mickey McGuire's cheese store in next-door Dundas, and gave it a shot.

Unfortunately, it may be the last time we try this because it took a long time, was messy to make, and hard to eat without it collapsing everywhere. However, it felt so cool and empowering to just know that we can make this kind of thing, and may help us feel able to try other challenges in the future.

The recipe comes from p. 291 of "The Good Cook". Here's a simplified version taken word-for-word in many cases:

(serves 8)

The pastry:
12 sheets phyllo dough
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup olive oil

The filling:
2 packages (10 oz each) frozen chopped spinach
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
nutmeg to taste
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 pound ricotta
12 anchovy fillets, finely chopped

11-inch quiche pan or tart pan with removable base

Saute the onions in the oil, then add the spinach and spices, cooking ~2 minutes until liquid has evaporated. Add ricotta and anchovies, then taste and adjust seasoning.

Preheat oven to 350F. Melt the butter with the olive oil. Brush the tart pan with the melted butter and olive oil. Lay a damp dish towel on the work surface and unroll the phyllo on it. Brush the top sheet with butter and oil and transfer it to the pan. Brush the next sheet with butter and oil and lay it on the first sheet at a slight angle. Continue brushing and layering 2 more sheets. Spread half the filling over the phyllo in the tart pan. Continue adding layers of phyllo and the rest of the filling, finishing with layers of phyllo.

Brush the top of the pie with butter and oil. Crumple some more phyllo lightly on top for decoration if desired. Bake 50-60 minutes until lightly puffed, crisp and evenly browned.