The traditional presentation includes garnishes of thinly sliced scallions and finely shredded ginger, with soy sauce for dipping.

The word “tataki,” meaning “pounded,” actually refers to the ginger condiment: It was originally pounded with a mortar and pestle. While some still prepare it that way, modern cooks can choose to purée it in a food processor or grate it with a zester or other fine grater.

The port of Nagasaki was the first point of entry for foreigners in feudal Japan. Legend says that tataki was developed by Sakamoto Ryoma, a 19th-century samurai, who picked up the European technique of grilling meat from the foreigners in that city.

In feudal times, bonito (skipjack tuna) was the preferred fish for tataki. Although bonito is still frequently used in Japan, in modern times, ahi tuna and salmon have taken over in popularity. [Source: WiseGeek] Beef, typically filet mignon or sirloin strip, is also be prepared tataki-style.

RECIPE: FISH OR BEEF TATAKI

1. CUT the fish or beef into thick pieces. Marinate in rice vinegar or mirin (a low-alcohol rice wine).

2. SEAR each side for five seconds over an open flame or pan-sear on a stovetop burner. The grill or pan should be very hot, and the meat or fish should be quickly seared on all sides to cook only the outer surface, leaving the flesh raw.

3. COOL the protein in a bowl of ice water; remove, pat dry and thinly slice for serving.
 

Dipping Sauce

1. COMBINE equal amounts of soy sauce and rice vinegar, or to taste. Add finely sliced or minced green onion (scallion).

2. SEASON as desired with grated ginger (you can substitute wasabi).
 
RECIPE: SALMON TATAKI SALAD

You don’t have to go to Nobu in Los Angeles to enjoy this delicious salmon tataki salad. Here’s the recipe, courtesy of Nobu Magazine.

“The Salmon Tataki with Paper Thin Salad is a work of art,” says Nobu. “Incorporating skillfully sliced vegetables and seared salmon, this dish is light and flavorful. With a little help from a mandolin slicer and fresh ingredients, you can impress dinner guests with a beautiful and delicious meal.”

Ingredients For 1 Or 2 Servings

Preparation

1. HEAT a nonstick skillet until medium-hot. Season the salmon fillets with black pepper, then sear them for 5 seconds on each side. Make sure the outside is completely seared and turns white. Immediately plunge the seared slices into ice water to stop the cooking process. Drain and pat dry with paper towels, then cover and refrigerate.

2. PREPARE the salad: Keep the beets to one side. Slice the baby vegetable lengthwise very thinly (about 1/32 inch thick) on a mandolin grater, into a bowl of ice water. Leave them in the ice water for 1 hour; this will cause them to tighten up and become crunchy.

3. REPEAT the same process with the beets, but place the slices in a separate bowl of water, to stop the color from running into other vegetables. Rinse until the water becomes clear; then add some ice to chill. You might want to wear disposable gloves for this, to prevent staining your hands.

4. DRAIN the baby vegetables and the beets separately, then mix them together.

5. POUR some of the dressing on the bottom of a serving dish, so it completely covers the bottom. Cut the chilled seared salmon into slices about 1/4 inch thick and arrange across the middle of the plate, then place the vegetable salad in the middle on top of the salmon.

 
RECIPE: JALAPEÑO DRESSING

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PROCESS the jalapeño, salt, garlic, and vinegar in a food processor until well mixed and the jalapeño is finely chopped. Slowly add the grapeseed oil and process until well blended.
  

Do you like sashimi and steak tartare?

Man has been wandering Earth for some 200,000 years, but the general use of fire began only about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. Until then, man ate his food raw.*

Neanderthals discovered how to deliberately create fire. This led to warmth—the priority in the Ice Age—and to the secondary benefit of cooking meats. Most likely, a piece of mammoth, venison or another flesh that would have been eaten raw, fell in the campfire. It had to be left there until the flames died down, no doubt filling the air with the alluring aroma of roasting meat.

Heat breaks down tough fiber and releases flavor in the process. As a natural next step, meat and tough roots were slower cooked in the embers or on a flat stone by the side of the fire.

 
It was only much later that boiling or stewing was done in small pots placed near the fire, or in cauldrons suspended over a fire. [Source: Food in the Ancient World, Joan P. Alcock [Greenwood Press:Westport CT] 2006 (p. 105-106)]

The use of fire vastly extended man’s diet, enabling tough foods to be palatable. Cereals—barley, millet, rice, rye, and wheat, as well as potatoes, require cooking before they can be consumed by humans. The use of fire doubtless encouraged the domestication of these foods and the end of lives as hunter-gatherers, as man settled into farming communities.

Thanks to FoodTimeline.org for inspiring this article.

 
*Source: Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Ornelas [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000 (p. 1571)
†Source: Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers Press:New York] 1988 (p. 14-16)
 
  

Here’s a fun take for National Rice Pudding Day: rice pudding tartlets. These are made in rustic style by Frog Hollow Farm.

You don’t need tartlet pans that turn out fluted, rigid tart shells. Instead, just roll the dough and fold the edges over the filling—the style known as galette. Rice pudding replaces the traditional fruit filling.

Just make your favorite rice pudding recipe and this galette dough:

RECIPE: GALETTE DOUGH

You can make this dough up to 2 days in advance. Wrapped in plastic, then in foil, it can be frozen for up to a month.

Ingredients

Preparation

1. PLACE 3/4 of the butter on a parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze until hard, 30 minutes or longer. Refrigerate the remaining butter.

2. COMBINE flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor. Add the refrigerated butter and pulse 10 times to combine. Add the frozen butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. There should be some small, pea-size clumps.

3. ADD the ice water and pulse 10 more times until just incorporated. Squeeze a small amount of dough between your fingers to make sure it holds together. If not, pulse a few more times, as necessary.

4. EMPTY the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap. Gather the dough, bringing the edges together and pressing it into a mass. Form the dough into a ball and wrap it in plastic.

5. ROLL out the dough, still wrapped in plastic, into 1/2-inch-thick disks, four inches in diameter (for individual tartlets). Refrigerate for least 45 minutes.

6. Place filling in the center of the circles. Pleat the dough around the filling and bake until the crust is lightly golden, for about 15 minutes in 375°F oven.
 
RICE PUDDING RECIPES

For lunch or a light dinner: antipasto salad.
Photo courtesy Melissas.

Turn your leftover pasta into an antipasto salad.

You can boil the pasta from scratch, but whenever we make short cut pasta for a hot dish, we make extra for a cold pasta salad later in the week.

You can customize the recipe with your favorite ingredients, and use up leftover peas and other veggies. With this recipe from Melissa’s The Great Pepper Cookbook, prep time is 30 minutes, total time 50 minutes.

RECIPE: ANTIPASTO SALAD

Ingredients For 12 Servings (1-1/4 Cups)

For The Salad

Preparation

1. COOK pasta per package directions; drain, rinse with cold water and cool to room temperature.

2. MAKE the vinaigrette. Combine all ingredients, except for the oil. Drizzle in the oil while whisking, and continue to mix until well combined. Set aside.

3. COMBINE the pasta with the remaining salad ingredients except optional garnishes; season with salt and pepper to taste. When ready to serve, toss with dressing and top with the garnishes.

Here’s another antipasto salad recipe with a different set of ingredients.

WHAT IS SHORT CUT PASTA?

Think of Italian pasta in these general categories:

Short form pasta takes several forms:

 
See the different types of pasta in our Pasta Glossary.

A specialty of Spain and Portugal, gazpacho is a cold raw vegetable peasant soup originating in Andalusia, the southernmost region of Spain. Originally made from old bread, olive oil and garlic, the recipe was in use when the Romans conquered the Iberian Peninsula (218-19 B.C.E.).

The name is of Arabic origin, and literally means “soaked bread”; the original recipe came from the Arabs who occupied much of Spain from the 8th through the 13th centuries.

Although gazpacho is traditionally a textured soup—made in the days before food processors—today the term has become generic for any cold vegetable soup. But early on, it was a way for field workers to make lunch from the vegetables at hand, and stale bread was added to the recipes.

Today, an Andalusian recipe typically includes stale bread, bell pepper, garlic, olive oil, onion, tomato, wine vinegar and salt.

This “red gazpacho” is a relatively recent addition: The tomato, a new world fruit originally the size of the cherry tomato, was brought back to Europe from the New World by the Spanish conquistadors as a houseplant. It was not eaten until the 1800s*; the first documented tomato sauce recipe in Italy is from 1839.

There are many variations of gazpacho, depending on local preferences. American recipes tend to leave out the bread, although some may garnish the soup with garlic croutons.

White gazpacho is made with olive oil, sherry vinegar, bread, garlic and salt, and substitutes green grapes and almonds for the vegetables. We’ve included a white gazpacho recipe, ajoblanco, below.

Gazpacho is a warm weather dish. In Spain it can be found in any bar or restaurant from May to September.

[1] Tomato-based gazpacho (photo courtesy Add Some Life | Facebook.

According to Foods From Spain, Empress Eugenia (Eugenie) de Montijo was the first to popularize gazpacho outside of Spain. She insisted on serving it at her wedding banquet when she married Napoleon III in 1853.

While we don’t know which recipe she requested, it was no doubt one of the many evolutions of the original gazpacho recipe.

Flash forward to medieval times: Moor invaders (711 C.E.) added almonds to the recipe, giving birth to ajoblanco, the forerunner of modern gazpacho. Before tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers were brought back from the New World, gazpacho was white. (Ajoblanco means white garlic.)

Spaniards then made that recipe their own by adding grapes, both blended into the soup and as a garnish.

Over the centuries, gazpacho has evolved in many directions. The blender and food processor have enabled versions with creamy textures. The common ingredients remain olive oil, garlic and salt.

You can find gazpacho in shades of green, red, white and yellow. You can find it made thickly, with the texture of a dip rather than a soup. The classic gazpacho of Seville is made with tomato, cucumber, garlic, onion, green pepper, bread, salt, a dash of sherry vinegar and olive oil, and is usually seasoned with cumin.
_________________
*A member of the Nightshade family of plants, the tomato was deemed poisonous until it was eaten out of desperation during a famine in the early 1800s in Italy. The original tomato was the cherry tomato, which made an attractive house plant. History of the tomato.

RECIPE: AJOBLANCO, COLD ALMOND & GARLIC SOUP

In this recipe from Foods From Spain, prep time is 20-30 minutes, plus chilling time. For a wine pairing, consider a dry white Muscatel from Spain.

Ingredients For 4 Servings

1. CRUSH the garlic cloves with the pepper and salt, preferably with a mortar and pestle (you can use a processor).

2. SOAK the breadcrumbs in water, then drain and add with the almonds to the garlic mixture.

3. CONTINUE to crush (or grind) as you gradually pour in the olive oil, working the mixture until it is is fluid and smooth. Gradually add the water until you achieve the desired density.

4. ADD the vinegar and any extra salt if necessary. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve.
 
 
MORE GAZPACHO RECIPES

 
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