Adventures in the Asian Food Aisle

—by Anne Holzman

“Korean food requires a lot of preparation; you have to chop everything up.” – Hyun Sook Han

My Asian culinary adventure started with a cousin adopted from Korea, who grew up in Minnesota and had trouble finding family members who would venture into kimchee country with her. We went out to lunch at some Korean spots on Snelling, and I was hooked. Soon I became the mother of a Korean child, who is now nine years old and begs for our milder American-Korean hybrid dishes.

All-purpose soy sauce

To begin with, we keep a bottle of tamari on hand as an all-purpose condiment, usually the San-J glutenfree organic tamari that the co-op offers in bulk (near the bulk oils).

According to chinatownconnection.com, “Soy sauce is made from soybeans, wheat, water and salt. Tamari contains only soybeans, water and salt. Today, tamari is more widely and appropriately used as a dipping sauce rather than a cooking ingredient.” Many grocery-store soy sauces have corn sweeteners and other pervasive no-no ingredients, so this is a good item to buy only at the co-op.

Soy sauce, like wine and olive oil, has attracted connoisseurs in recent years. I find the San-J tamari plenty tasty, but HPC also has a few bottled soy sauces to try.

Versatile chili paste

I keep a small bottle of Thai Kitchen’s Roasted Red Chili Paste in the fridge. For greens that remind me of D.C. soul-food, I slice up collards, kale, or mustard; steam five minutes in the microwave; sauté for five to ten minutes (depends how tough the leaves were to start with) in canola oil, maybe with some sliced onions and a pinch or two of salt; dab it with a half teaspoon of the chili paste and toss thoroughly.

A good stir-fry

Ever since my vegetarian days I’ve been perfecting the art of the stir-fry. Lately it’s my favorite way to use leftover roast chicken, which I shred, freeze by the pint, and defrost when I want a really fast and flavorful stir-fry. Hampden Park Co-op carries cans of interesting things to add texture, such as bamboo shoots and water chestnuts. There are also bags of a dried mushroom mix that can be soaked in hot water for about 20 minutes and added toward the end for flavor and nutrition. Break them up a bit for smaller bites.

Stir-fry is also good with tofu. The co-op carries both shelf-stable varieties (nice to have on hand) and refrigerated (better texture, and it actually HAS a flavor). I use either firm or extra-firm. I cut a one–pound block into a large dice; mix a couple of tablespoons of tamari with a dash each of toasted sesame oil, sugar, and brown rice vinegar; pour that into a flat dish, stir in a tablespoon of grated ginger and a smashed garlic clove, and gently tumble the tofu around in it a few minutes before cooking. The youngest child in the house (or the dog) will usually enjoy a few cubes as a snack before they go into the marinade.

I slice greens crosswise into half-inch ribbons (chopping the really wide leaves in half or thirds the other direction); chunkier vegetables get softened with a little steaming in the microwave before frying. I heat the wok to medium-high, dribble in enough canola oil to make about a three inch-wide puddle in the bottom, and coat the wok with it. Veggies get fried first, then tofu, and it all happens fast, so I make sure everything’s chopped and ready to go before frying. Most of the marinade goes in with the tofu, and after that’s mixed in and warmed up, I sprinkle on a little cornstarch to give it a nice glaze, and call everyone to the table.

Family-friendly spring rolls

We decided to approach spring rolls as a made-to-order supper, working from Secrets of the Red Lantern, by Pauline Nguyen. We boiled half a pound of large shrimp and cut them in half lengthwise; cooked noodles; shredded lettuce, chopped cucumber, and washed leaves of mint and garlic chives; scrambled three eggs into a plain omelet then cooled and sliced it; soaked the spring roll wrappers one at a time in a wide, shallow plate of hot water and rolled them at the table, with each family member choosing ingredients. We used our standard dipping sauce of tamari, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and garlic (check any Korean cookbook). We’ll need more practice to make them a little neater, but they were a big hit with the kids.

Strong wrist, sharp knife

All this chopping of veggies requires more than just a shopping trip; it really has been a change of lifestyle. Not only does it improve my family’s diet, but I’m able to make good use of most of our community supported agriculture (CSA) deliveries by intentionally setting aside the hours needed for vegetable preparation.

Hyun Sook Han, a retired Children’s Home social worker known and loved throughout the Twin Cities as “Mrs. Han,” recounts in her autobiography, Many Lives Intertwined, how too much kitchen work once landed her in the emergency room with a repetitive strain injury. I decided two things after reading that: to make more time in my days for chopping vegetables and to be more careful about the height of my chopping board and the condition of my knives.

Learning to make Chap Chae

After our first experience at Camp Choson Korean culture camp, we learned to make chap chae, a wonderful cold noodle dish that we can’t get through the summer without. And it features zucchini! So before you grate it all and freeze it for endless loaves of winter zucchini bread, do try this:

[Anne Holzman realized while writing this that she’s become a confident Asian cook.]