Chinese Black Bean Fish with Broccoli

Chinese black beans are fermented soybeans. According to the late Barbara Tropp, an American chef and expert on Chinese cuisine, fermented black beans are the oldest recorded soyfood. It is the ancestor of miso and soy sauce. They are used as a salty seasoning in stir fries or mild steamed dishes, where they add a healthy dose of umami . You can find them at Asian grocery stores. They are not common at supermarkets. I've only found black bean sauce (a garlic and black bean premixed combination) at even well-stocked supermarkets. Chinese black beans keep indefinitely. If you buy a small bag, you won't have to buy them again for a very long time. :-)

This dish can also be made with medium shrimp or bay scallops. I used thawed frozen fish chunks from Trader Joe's. The fish chunks come in 1 pound packages and are usually Pacific Cod. This is a sustainable fish harvested in Alaska. They are very reasonably priced.

Chinese Black Bean Fish with Broccoli 
(serves 4)

½ cup reduced sodium chicken stock
2 Tablespoons Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 ½ teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt plus more for seasoning broccoli
1 pound of broccoli stems, cut into ⅛" thick slices
1 pound fish chunks, patted dry
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1" piece of ginger, grated or minced
1 ½ Tablespoons Chinese fermented black beans, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
½ fresh Jalapeno chile, cut into slices crosswise
1 teaspoon Asian sesame oil

Stir together the chicken stock, rice wine, soy sauce, cornstarch, sugar, and salt in a small bowl.

Steam broccoli stems for 5 minutes until just tender. Drain and pat dry. Place in a warmed serving dish, season with salt, and cover to keep warm.

Heat a wok over high heat, until a drop of water vaporizes instantly. Add the oil and swirl around. Add the ginger and quickly stir around. Add black beans, garlic, and Jalapeno. Stir fry 1 minute. Add fish chunks and spread out in one layer. Cook for 3 minutes without stirring. Continue cooking, now stirring until fish turns translucent, about another minute. Stir the broth mixture to redissolve the cornstarch and pour into the wok. Bring to a boil and stir. When the sauce thickens, remove from the heat, drizzle on sesame oil, and stir. Pour everything over the broccoli stems and serve immediately with rice.

Adapted from a recipe in Gourmet, February 2006.

Kohlrabi with Tofu and Dried Shiitake Mushrooms

Kohlrabi is an uncommon vegetable. My research puts it mostly in the turnip sphere and treats it thusly: saturate in butter and/or cream. That's a very European view of this vegetable. Kohlrabi is also popular in India and China, though you wouldn't know it looking through most vegetable cookbooks.

A kohlrabi along with some Kashmiri saag (probably mustard greens)

I'm here to fix that. Kohlrabi does not need to be cooked to death, then puréed, and finally bathed in butter and cream. It's quite delicious lightly cooked. In texture and flavor, it is similar to broccoli stems, which you could use instead of kohlrabi in this recipe. It has great crunch. It isn't overly cruciferous in flavor. Perfect for a stir fry.

This is a mild flavored dish with a play of textures: crunchy from the kohlrabi, chewy from the mushrooms, and soft from the tofu.

Kohlrabi with Tofu and Dried Shiitake Mushrooms
(serves 6)

8-10 large dried black mushrooms (shiitake)
1 ½ pounds kohlrabi
2 scallions
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 Tablespoon Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 ½ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon Asian roasted sesame oil
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon minced ginger
14-16 oz. tofu, cut into cubes

Soak the black mushrooms in about 2 cups boiling water for at least 30 minutes.

Peel the kohlrabi and cut into thick julienne, like thin French fries. Cut the scallions into 3" lengths, then slice thinly lengthwise. Set aside.

Remove the mushrooms from the water, cut off the woody stems, and slice the caps. Pour off ½ cup of the soaking liquid, being careful to leave the bits at the bottom of the bowl in the bowl.  Mix 4 Tablespoons of the soaking liquid with the cornstarch, rice wine, black pepper, ½ teaspoon salt, sugar, and sesame oil. Set aside. Add ½ teaspoon salt to the remaining ¼ cup of the soaking liquid and set aside.

Heat up oil in a wok or large skillet until nearly smoking. Add the ginger and stir until fragrant, about 10 seconds. Add the kohlrabi, scallions, and mushrooms. Stir fry for one minute. Stir soaking liquid with just the salt added and add to wok. Reduce heat to medium and cook, covered for 4 minutes.

Add the tofu, but do not stir, and sprinkle with remaining ½ teaspoon salt. Cover and cook for 3 minutes. Stir the mix of soaking liquid, etc. to redissolve the cornstarch. Pour over everything. Stir lightly. Bring liquid to a boil to thicken sauce; there isn't a lot of sauce. Serve immediately over rice.

Photo: By Tarunpant (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Experience with Oxtails

Oxtails are one of those cuts that really need a lot of patience. The meat is very tough because it gets a lot of use (watch cattle - they swish their tails all the time) and there is tons of connective tissue holding it all together. That means you will be cooking them for a long, long time.

I tried cooking them in my slow cooker, which I guess would work if you cooked them long enough. I tried about 8 hours. Definitely NOT long enough. Next time, I'll try overnight and through the day.

Why bother with oxtails? They taste so very good, especially when given the Chinese treatment. I adore star anise which is kind of odd since I hate licorice. Some things are unknowable. :-)

Chinese Braised Oxtails

Start with about 1 ½ pounds of oxtails. This is enough to feed 6 if you don't expect to get a lot of meat. The oxtails give up their collagen, making for a very rich broth. So high in collagen, in fact, that the sauce gels when it is chilled. This is good stuff and makes are a delicious sauce.

Place the oxtails in a dutch oven. Add 5 whole star anise pods, 1 4" stick of cinnamon, about a dozen whole black peppercorns, 3 Tablespoons dark or black soy sauce (these are thicker and have some molasses or sugar added), and 2 Tablespoons of sugar. Stir in enough water to nearly cover the oxtails. Heat over medium heat until it starts to boil, then reduce the heat to maintain a simmer, covering partially. Cook for a very long time, like 4 hours until tender. You can't really overcook them. Check the water level and add additional water if most of it cooks off.

You can serve the oxtails whole but I like to remove most of the meat so that it becomes part of the sauce. This is a rather time-consuming process, however. First, take all the oxtails out of the sauce and allow them to cool on a sheet pan until you can handle them.  Pick as much of the meat off the bones as you can and add it back to the sauce. While the oxtails are cooling, strain out the star anise, peppercorns, and cinnamon, then crank up the heat on the sauce. You can reduce it as much as you like, until is quite syrupy (again, have patience). When it starts to get thick, reduce the heat so that it doesn't burn. Adjust the salt after you have reduced it. Add the bones back too because if you love oxtails, you'll want to suck all the goodness off of them. And the sauce adds lots of extra goodness.

The meat and sauce only improve if you chill it all and then reheat it. Great served over noodles.