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EARTH DAY 2020 TILAPIA CEVICHE
It’s Earth Day’s fish because it’s Every Day’s fish.
Snobs sneer at it, accuse it of being boring, flavourless—qualities they know something about. (But these are the same culinary carpenters who’ll angrily blame the mallet for their throbbing thumb.)
I love Tilapia for its Swami Sivananda-like flexibility, its Leonardo DiCaprio-like sustainability, and its Bill and Melinda Gates-like fight against contagious diseases. (The Nile Tilapia has been effective in combatting malaria because of its love of mosquito larvae—how do you say “yummy in my tummy” in Tilapian?) And the sheer range of cooking techniques you can apply to it is nothing to shrug at.
I learned this simple recipe in Chile from an environmentalist friend, Jesus, who had a Tilapia pond in his yard, but preferred frozen over fresh for his ceviche. Frozen Tilapia is ubiquitous in every grocery store or box store here.
(Here’s the first of two Tilapia recipes.)
EARTH DAY RECIPE 1: TILAPIA MANGO CEVICHE
1/2 lb tilapia frozen, thinly sliced (the thicker the cut, the longer it takes to “cook” in the citrus juices)
1 mango, diced very small
1 Tb cilantro (or parsley), chopped
Marinade
1/2 Tb Kosher salt
1/2 cup lime juice, fresh squeezed
1 Tb orange juice, fresh squeezed
1/2 ts lime zest
1/2 red onion, sliced into half-moons
1/4 ts sugar
1 Scotch bonnet chili pepper (or jalapeño if you prefer it mild), seeded and chopped
Method
- Salt the fish, all sides
- In a Ziplock®️ bag, add fish with lime + orange juice, red onion, chili pepper, lime zest and sugar. Make sure juices cover all the fish.
- Chill bag in fridge for 4 hours.
- Remove contents of bag into a glass or ceramic bowl (do not use anything metal, as the acid corrodes), add the mango and cilantro. Mix all together.
- Arrange on a plate (or just dump the contents into a bowl.)
Sanitize your hands, turn off your lights, take off your clothes, say grace to Mother Earth, and eat with tortilla chips or scoop into Tostitos®️
#covid19 #quarantinerecipes #earthday2020 #tilapia #ceviche #chile #sushimakingforthesoul
SEAWEED SOUP
We go through a lot of sushi in our workshops, but this one is not the variety used for making rolls. Of the hundreds of variations of soups, Korean seaweed soup #miyeokguk #미역국 is my favourite, in part because it’s the simplest one to make, and in part because it’s one of the best and most delicious hangover cures.
It is traditionally prepared for mothers who have just given birth. Made from brown seaweed (or Japanese wakame), the nutrients in the seaweed are known to cleanse/replenish the blood, produce breast milk, and generally quicken recovery. It’s also served on your birthday because, frankly, you need to be reminded every year how much your mom had to endure to give birth to you. I use beef because it deepens the umami, but you can use any meat protein.
Or not.
Dried seaweed is so cheap (and lasts longer than any guilt trip) that storing a bag in your pantry is something to deeply consider between binge-watching your favourite Netflix anime for the second time.
SEAWEED SOUP WITH BEEF
(Serves a hungry family of four OR a “mom-it’s-a-weed-for-the-love-of-god-and-I’m-not-really-feeling-it-right-now family of ten.)
Ingredients
1 oz dried seaweed (Miyeok / wakame)
5 oz beef chuck or round, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 ts fine sea salt
1/4 ts black pepper
1 Tb sesame oil
2 Tb soy sauce
1 ts minced garlic
6 cups water
Method
- Cut dried seaweed with scissors, 2” length
- Soak dried seaweed in cold water for 10 min. Drain and rinse the seaweed a few times in running water. Squeeze the water out. Set aside.
- In small bowl, mix beef with salt, black pepper, and garlic.
- Preheat pot on med heat. Add sesame oil, seaweed and beef. Stir well until the beef is lightly brown. Add soy sauce and water.
- Cover the pot and boil over medium heat until the meat is fully cooked (approx. 10 minutes).
- Serve with your children (or anyone else’s for that matter) gathered around the table, periodically reminding them of what you went through.
#covid19 #quarantinerecipes #greatmoms #wakame #seaweedsoup
KINTSUGI
I dropped a salad plate that shattered into a million pieces the other day. It was given to me years ago by a master sushi chef and mentor, Osada-san. He had made the plate himself.
I don’t usually get sentimental about objects, so when the tears came, it surprised me. Yet even in that moment I knew it wasn’t just about a broken plate.
Some of our challenges feel too daunting, our desperation as silent and infectious as the very thing we know caused it. Relationship problems. Financial crises. Mental health issues. Losses—of employment, shelter, personal security, self-esteem, even of loved ones. Heartbreak in its countless guises.
And of the virtues declaring itself today in all its human splendour—kindness, patience, courage, charity, love etc.—the most consequential of all may be: resilience.
Kintsugi is the 400-year-old Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with powdered gold. Every break, whatever its kind or cause, is unique. And rather than concealing it, kintsugi artists incorporate the “scars” as a part of the design solution. The new product becomes stronger, more resilient, than it had been before.
“It’s a beautiful idea, but beautiful ideas don’t shatter. Plates do. So do our lives, our hearts. Reality is what is fragile.”
But we have entirely missed the point of kintsugi. By mending broken plates, these people weren’t trying to construct a metaphor—they weren’t poets.
Their work wasn’t some coded message for “you can achieve if you simply believe”—they weren’t cheerleaders.
The practitioners of kintsugi were scientists, reconstructive surgeons. They aspired to see things clearly.
And this is what they saw: brittle shards of broken pottery that needed fixing, resilience-building. Their solution: copy the ways of the human anatomy, of man’s indomitable spirit.
#covid19 #quarantinestories #kintsugi #resilience
MAKING PERFECT STEAMED RICE
In Korean, “rice” translates into “Ssal”, but once cooked, it takes on new name: “Bap”.
However, the word “Bap” means more than just “cooked rice”. During times of strife, war, dislocation, and quarantine, it symbolized for Koreans the value of life itself. Bap also translates to “meal”, embodying the virtues of social engagement, community, charity. For example, a person extends an invitation to friends or acquaintances by asking them if he can treat them to “Bap”–meaning a shared meal and time together.
We look forward to having Bap with you again soon!
Stay safe.
This is how we’ve been doing it since 2008 (before adding any seasoning—that’s the next video). But if you want to learn how to make fluffy delicious rice, watch this video. Enjoy!