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Rafute: Melts in your mouth, not on your hashi

mail@threetastes.com — 2008-06-25T13:19:24-10:00

There are few things that bring home Okinawan cooking to me more than Rafute, a meltingly tender and succulent braised pork belly that my dad calls “Okinawan bacon” (he’s Filipino, mom’s from Okinawa). He calls it that because 40-odd years ago his mother-in-law — unsure what to feed the new “foreign” son-in-law living in her tiny house in Shuri — used to make it for him for breakfast. With eggs and rice, of course.

Now, the uninitiated may look at pork belly and think, “I can’t eat that, it’s nothing but fat!” Aahh, but looks can be deceiving. In the case of rafute, the pork belly is first simmered for a long while in a seasoned bath of ginger, awamori or other alcohol, and water. The bath serves a dual purpose. First, to par-cook and remove the strong flavors of raw pork, thanks to the ginger and alcohol. Second, to remove a lot of the fat, which melts into the liquid and out of the pork. The pork can then be sliced and simmered again in a savory braising liquid that infuses flavor into the meat, and in the end glazes it and brings it to quivering tenderness. You think I exaggerate, but that’s only because you haven’t tried this yet.

Once fullly cooked and seasoned, rafute is a handy thing to have in the fridge to top those wonderful Okinawan soba noodles (photo bottom) you can find in Hawaii (or Okinawa, lucky you!), for yakisoba, as a side dish with tofu champuru — or yes, you can eat them for breakfast! (Uwajimaya in WA/OR carries Hawaiian-made Okinawan style soba the last time we were in that area.) I also use rafute when making abura-miso, but that’s a story for another day...

Rafute freezes well, too, if you can vacuum seal it somehow. Then you can whip up an Okinawan-style soba/ramen any time! After the pork belly is removed from the first simmering broth, chilling the broth will make it easier to discard the layer of lard that forms on the surface. (If you are more enterprising than I, you can put this pure pork lard aside for other cooking purposes, too.)

From “Okinawan Cookery and Culture” (1984), a wondertful spiral-bound collection of recipes and cultural anecdotes from members of Hawaii’s large Okinawan community, there are notes to several recipes that it’s the large proportion of alcohol that gives rafute its distinctive melting quality. I never had awamori, an Okinawan distilled spirit made from Thai-style long grain rice, to play with until we came to Oahu. Growing up, my mother used sake. Until now, I used whiskey or bourbon. But Don Quijote on Oahu carries small bottles of awamori that are cheap enough ($5 for 375ml) that we can cook with it quite liberally for now.

BTW, hashi are chopsticks.

RAFUTE
To Par-boil:
3 lb. not too lean pork belly
2-inch length of ginger, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup (120ml) awamori or whiskey or sake

Gently bruise sliced ginger with the heel of your knife. Place pork belly and ginger in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add awamori or other alcohol, then cover meat with water by at least 1 inch. Over medium heat, bring just to a boil, then cover and immediately reduce heat to a simmer. (Don’t let the pot stay at a hard boil or the pork will “seize” and toughen the lean parts of the meat.) Simmer for 1 hour, checking occasionally to make sure water hasn’t boiled and left meat dry, and topping off with hot water to keep meat covered.

Remove pork from liquid. Chill broth and remove layer of lard on surface. When just cool enough to handle, slice pork 2-1/2 inches across and about 1/2 inch thick.

Initial Braising Liquid:
1 cup (240ml) broth from Par-cooking stage, or plain water
1 cup (240ml) awamori or sake
3/4 cup (160g) raw sugar
1 slice of ginger (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium, and add sliced pork. When heat returns to bubbling, reduce to barely a simmer, cover and cook for about 25 minutes.

Turn slices over, cover again and simmer another 20 minutes.

Add 1/4 cup shoyu and stir through to combine evenly with rest of braising liquid. Cook 15 minutes at the lowest simmer with no cover to allow the liquid to start evaporating. Turn slices over and continue cooking without a cover for another 15 minutes or so. Check texture, you should be able to cut through the meat, “fat,” and skin with a spoon. It should be akin to room temperature butter. If everything except the meat part is soft, it probably means the meat remained at a boil too long in the par-cooking stage and toughened — just continue on to the next step. If even the “fat” and skin give resistance, add 1/4 cup mirin-water mix, cover again and let simmer for 15-20 minutes, then check again.

Now the braising liquid is turning into a sticky glaze. Continue cooking without a cover for another 20-30 minutes, turning meat over every 5-7 minutes, depending on how quickly the glaze is forming. Before the glaze dries off completely, turn heat off, cover pan and let meat cool in glaze. Will keep in fridge for at least a week, months in the freezer if you can protect it from freezer burn.

To re-heat rafute, heat in an oiled skillet over medium heat until hot. Microwave re-heating can be tricky, and cause “burned” spots where the skin or areas near the skin turn into chicharrone (aka crackling) — a lesson learned the hard way. After spending such a long time to make these beauties, I prefer the pan for re-heating.

Our favorite way to use rafute — with Okinawan soba noodles and broth, and garnished with ginger, pre-cooked watercress, gai choy or choi sum, and way too many braised shiitake.

Kasu-Marinated Butterfish

mail@threetastes.com — 2008-06-20T05:18:32-10:00

No arm-twisting was required to convince us to try this different take on the Miso Butterfish we love so much — Butterfish marinated with Kasu, or sake lees. Happily, butterfish (a.k.a. sablefish or black cod) is a “Best” (from Alaska) or “Good” (from U.S. West Coast) choice on the Seafood Watch list. (Read more about choosing safe fish and shellfish for Hawaii, the US, and around the world.)

I’ve had kasu on my list of things to try for well over a year now, but with no luck finding it in the shops. A month or so ago, I spotted a new package on the top shelf of the Japanese refrigerated goods section at DQ (not the ice cream place, the former Daiei). I recognized the brand symbol on the cover as a sake brand, so that bode well. Sure enough, it contained sheets of sake lees. Yes, sheets — flat, compressed and heavenly-scented sheets. Not what I was expecting either — I had been looking for a paste-like product resembling packaged miso.

As soon as I could get my hands on a few butterfish fillets, we’d be set. The store I was in does not usually carry fresh butterfish so I made a mental note to look in Chinatown on our next visit. But when I wandered over to the fresh fish displays, there they were — butterfish steaks! And they were on sale that week. It was definitely a sign. Fillets would have been nice, but butterfish does not have many small pins or bones, so I left the steaks whole.

What exactly are sake lees? “Lees” is a nice word for the silty precipitate of dead yeast — and, in the case of sake, rice — that settles out from wine in the production process. It sounds much more palatable than “dregs,” doesn’t it? Sake lees, or kasu, have an incredibly intoxicating aroma. It is easy to see why sake vintners would be loath to simply discard the fragrant paste. Besides its use as a culinary ingredient, kasu can be further commercially processed to make a distilled liquor and a vinegar.

We have now tried both the marinated fish and a heady soup in which kasu was the star ingredient. Both were delicious and thoroughly addictive. (We’ll share more about the soup during soup season.) You can also try your hand at making pickled vegetables with kasu at home, but the most intriguing home use for kasu I found is as a moisturizing face masque! It is supposed to leave your skin baby-soft. And delicious smelling, too, no doubt! Kasu keeps for a long time, so buy it when you see it and tuck it away in the fridge until you need it.

This particular recipe requires long planning — 10 days of marination. There are a slew of recipes with much shorter marinating times, but most of them also include miso paste, sake or mirin, shoyu and other ingredients. I wanted to let the pure kasu flavor through so I devised this one after much reading. If you’d like a more subtle kasu flavor, I’ve had this recipe from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin bookmarked for months to try in future.

You can cook this after 4 days, but patience will be rewarded (here’s looking at you, Italy).

KASU-MARINATED BUTTERFISH
(inspired by an artice on esake.com)
1 TBL. sea salt
1/2 cup kasu paste, about 2 sheets
3 TBL. raw sugar
1/3 cup water
2 butterfish steaks or fillets with skin on, about 6-8oz. each

Combine kasu, salt, sugar and water, and stir to make a thick paste. Place half of paste in the bottom of a glass or other non-reactive pan.

Wash and pat dry the butterfish, and place on the kasu mixture. Cover fish with remaining kasu mixture. Cover tightly and put away in a corner of the fridge for 10 days.

When ready to cook, remove fish from refrigerator and bring to room temperature. Remove fish from kasu, and with a paper towel, gently wipe away most of the paste.

Pre-heat skillet over medium heat. Add 2 TBL. oil to pan. Season fish with salt (I used alaea salt, that’s the pink grains you can see past the water drop on my lens), then add to skillet, salted side down. Season the second side of the fish. Cook, uncovered, for 4-5 minutes — fillets will cook quicker than steaks. Turn over and cook another 5-6 minutes, or until fish is cooked through (will flake with a fork).

Serve with rice, pickled ginger, and flash-cooked greens dressed with sesame or ponzu dressing.

Piri-piri Chicken

mail@threetastes.com — 2008-06-18T06:55:19-10:00

Have you tried Piri-piri Chicken? If not, you’re in for a treat. There is a chicken franchise in the U.S. called El Pollo Loco that prepares chicken in a similar way — marinaded in citrus and spices for a few days, then grilled low and slow, and basted with more flavor. I was a big fan. Then we moved overseas, and I tried to duplicate the flavors of EPL chicken at home, but with no luck.

One day I happened upon a Nando’s chicken restaurant in London (at Earl’s Court) and fell in love all over again. Nando’s is a South African restaurant franchise that serves a Portuguese-style piri-piri chicken BBQ (I know, it’s confusing — it has to do with historical migration patterns but never mind that now). Piri-piri (Nando’s spells it differently) is a zestier, tastier and more succulent BBQ chicken than even EPL, so the urgency to grill chicken at home was temporarily quashed — I could just nip over to Nando’s for a grilled chicken fix! When we later moved to Boston, we were treated to even better home-style piri-piri chicken in some of the small Portuguese-run eateries around Cambridge, the best was at a tiny 6-table cafe in Inman Square.

Since that long ago time we’ve found a primo marinade recipe to make at home because we’ve lived the last 6 years out of reach of ready-made piri-piri chicken. The name piri-piri comes from the sauce made with small red chile peppers, called malagueta, that are the key flavor ingredient in the marinade. Finding the right pepper sauce, also called molho de malagueta, is the first and hardest part of making this recipe. Look for it in Brazilian or Portuguese markets in your area — it is a thick, deep red sauce usually sold in a tapered bottle. There is also a clear vinegar sauce with whole peppers floating in the bottle that is also labelled molha de malagueta or piri-piri sauce, but that’s not what we use.

Also, the malagueta chile pepper used in this sauce is not the same as the melegueta pepper, also known as “grains of paradise.”

The original recipe from which this is adapted says you can substitute Tabasco (brand) sauce for the real thing, but the chicken will taste very different when made with Tabasco (and by different, I mean “wrong”). The Portuguese sauce is much thicker than Tabasco, and has a wholly different flavor. If you don’t care for very “hot” foods, don’t worry. The cooked chicken does not enflame your mouth with pepper-heat — the piri-piri sauce is primarily a flavoring agent. You can, of course, increase the heat by adding larger amounts of piri-piri sauce to the marinade.

This recipe is more like the home-spun piri-piri chickens we enjoyed around Cambridge than the commercial versions. Plan to prepare the marinade at least 24 hours before you intend to start grilling. If you can give it a 2-day headstart, you will be richly rewarded.

Warning: once you do try this chicken, you may become as obsessed with its addictive flavor as we have!

PIRI-PIRI CHICKEN
Adapted from The Barbecue! Bible (1998) by Steven Raichlen

For the Marinade:
1/4 cup olive oil
4 TBL. unsalted butter
1 whole lemon, juiced and rind cut into 10 pieces
1 TBL. red wine vinegar
2-3 TBL. Piri-piri sauce (use minimum 2 TBL. to get the piri-piri flavor)
2 tsp. sweet paprika
3/4 tsp. ground coriander seed
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 scallions, washed and thinly sliced
3 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, washed and leaves separated from stems
1” piece of ginger, peeled and slivered
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Place all marinade ingredients except lemon rinds into a blender or food processor. Puree until smooth. Taste and correct for salt, especially if using larger quantity of piri-piri sauce. Put half of marinade and the lemon rinds into a non-reactive bowl, or a large plastic zipper bag.

1 whole chicken (3.5-4lbs/1.5-1.8kg), cleaned, backbone removed, and cut into quarters

Cut partially through the leg joints where the the drum and thigh meet. Carefully slide a finger under the skin and loosen skin from flesh. Add leg portions to marinade, and insinuate some marinade between skin and flesh.

Cut partially through the joint between wing and breast. Carefully separate skin and flesh around the breast, and make a pocket between the tenderloin and the top of breast. Add to marinade, and also incorporate marinade under skin and next to tenderloin. Add remaining marinade, cover and let marinate in fridge for at leat 24 hours. 48 is better. The best we’ve made at home was marinated for 60.

Prepare your BBQ or grill for cooking with indirect heat. (Learn how from the master himself at Steve Raichlen’s site)

Oil your grate well. Add chicken pieces to the grill, skin-side up. Baste with remaining marinade, cover grill and cook for 30 minutes. Uncover and baste again with marinade. Discard any remaining marinade. (Do not use marinade to baste in the last 10 minutes of grilling.) Cover grill and cook another 20-40 minutes, or until the juices run clear in the thickest part of the thigh and breast (instant-read thrermometer will show 180F). Leg joints may cook faster than breast quarters, so start checking them first.

If you want to crisp up the skin, cook over direct heat for the last 5-8 minutes of grilling time.

Cut into serving pieces. In every restaurant we’ve ever had piri-piri chicken, it is served with fried or roasted potatoes, but at home we prefer rice! Offer extra piri-piri sauce and lemon wedges on the side.

Baked Monchong with Hummous Crust

mail@threetastes.com — 2008-06-16T07:47:15-10:00

When it comes to food from the deep and the reef, the waters have gotten very murky lately, literally and figuratively. Literally, since it seems every week there is a report identifying another fish species as having dangerously high levels of mercury, PCBs, and other toxins from fertilizer run-offs and other pollutants in the nation’s oceans and rivers; and figuratively when, along with the warnings, health advocates encourage consumers to incorporate more fish — rich in omega-3 fatty acids and lean protein — into their diet. And as if this weren’t confusing enough, environmentalists want consumers to be aware of the dangers of over-fishing and poor fisheries management both at home and abroad, too! It’s enough to paralyze even the most want-to-be-informed consumer.

Finally, there’s help. A pocket-sized take-along guide for your wallet or purse identifying safe fish choices for both you and the environment from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch website. Separate guides are available for each region in the U.S. (West Coast, Northeast, Hawaii, Southeast, Central, and Southwest) and they are color-coded to red-flag fish species that are currently found to carry unacceptably high toxin levels, and to highlight non-toxic species that are sustainably managed. The charts are available in English or Spanish for the U.S. There is also a searchable on-line database for different fish varieties that provides all the necessary information to assist you in making an informed choice about your seafood, and also offers alternatives if your first choice is either unhealthy or unsustainable.

Seafood Watch (SFW) also provides links to similar charts prepared by the World Wildlife Fund or an environmental organization in the respective country for Italy, Germany, Canada, the UK, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia, France, South Africa, and New Zealand. From similar sites, here are also links to fish guides for Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Norway, and Switzerland (available in 3 languages). (The guides for Spain seem to have been removed from that country’s WWF website.) Most of these sites have a printable color guide that you can carry in your purse or wallet that make it easy to find non-toxic, sustainable choices in seafood; most also have a searchable database of fish varieties; some however, provide only an on-line database but no take-along guide.

Lastly, SFW has also teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund in producing a searchable national database and take-along guide for your mobile phone! Check it out on the EDF’s site here.

So whether you live in the US or one of these llisted countries, or are planning a visit to them, take along a portable guide to help you make wise choices for your health and the health of the environment.

And if all this reading has made you hungry, here’s an exceptionally flavorful and easy way to bake fish that will help keep it moist and infuse flavor. Monchong, or sickle pomfret, (see top photo and left) is listed as a “Good Alternative” in the SFW database, and it is a meaty, mild-tasting fish that readily compliments strong flavors. We all know hummous (bottom, right in photo) as a thick, savory dip of pureed chickpeas, sesame paste (tahini), lemon juice, olive oil and salt.

Usually eaten with pita or vegetables as part of a Middle Eastern mezze table, here hummous pulls double-duty as a crust for the baked fish. You can use a commercially prepared dip, but hummous, like the preserved lemons, costs a mere fraction of the commercial product AND is so easy to make at home. Try this recipe and you’ll never want to buy a pre-made product again. It’s worth the effort to boil your chickpeas from dried beans, and keep them frozen with some of the cooking liquid until you need them. But canned low-salt chickpeas are a good pantry staple for whipping up quick weeknight meals like this or when you’re asked to bring a dip to tomorrow’s function at work, and you don’t have time to soak beans overnight. Of course, you can substitute any of the other firm, white or oily flesh fish in the SFW “Best” or “Good Alternative” list for the monchong — the first time we tried this hummous crust on fish 9 years ago, it was with salmon and that was especially ono.

BAKED MONCHONG WITH HUMMOUS CRUST

For the Hummous:
1 cup of dried chickpeas, soaked in water to cover at least 8 hours

Drain chickpeas, place in 4-quart or larger saucepan, and cover with by the least 2” of clean water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer and cook for 1 hour. Add 1/2 tsp. of sea salt, and cook for another 30 minutes or until beans are easily pierced with a toothpick but not mushy (cooking time will depend on the hardness of your water). Turn off heat, cover and let cool in pan.

2 TBL. liquid reserved from cooking chickpeas (if using canned chickpeas, use plain water, not the liquid in the cans)
1/2 tsp. sea salt
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
5 TBL lemon juice
4 TBL olive oil
1/3 cup tahini, a.k.a. sesame butter/paste, stirred well before measuring

Place ingredients in the order listed above into food processor or blender. Last, add drained cooked chickpeas or 2 15 oz. canned low-salt chickpeas. If you prefer your hummous with a little texture, reserve a 1/4 cup of chickpeas. Puree the mix until smooth. If using a blender and the mixture is too thick, taste a little and see if it needs more lemon juice or water, and add accordingly. If you’ve reserved some chickpeas, add them in and pulse briefly to break them up a bit. Taste again and correct for salt, lemon juice or olive oil. Set aside for at least an hour if using as a dip.

For the Fish:
2 6 oz. filets of monchong, cleaned and patted dry
sea salt
ground black pepper

To coat fish, season fish fillet with sea salt and ground black pepper. Layer a generous amount of hummous to one side of the fish. Measure the thickness of the fillets at the thickest point. Set aside for at least 30 minutes while oven and pan pre-heat.

Pre-heat oven and oven-proof skillet or baking dish to 450F/230C.

Add 2 TBL. olive oil to heated skillet or baking dish, and place fillets, hummous-side up, on the skillet or dish. Place in pre-heated oven and bake for 10 minutes for every 1” of fish. If top crust has not sufficiently browned by the time fish is cooked, set oven to broil for a minute to brown the hummous crust. Garnish with a pinch of paprika or chili (red pepper) powder, if desired. Serve with your choice of starch and vegetable.

Download and print a seafood guide for your region here.

Other “Good” or “Best” Fish Choices for Hawaii (according to the SWF) that have been featured on this site:
Surimi (surprise!): Crustless Quiche with Asparagus, Cress & Surimi
Clams: Linguine with Clams, Pork, Clam & Periwinkle Stew
Alaskan Cod: Curry-glazed Cod w/ Wasabi-Sesame Soba Salad
Opakapaka: Pan-Fried Opakapaka with Warm Spiced Cabbage Salad
Ehu: Grilled Ehu in Banana Leaf
Kajiki: Kajiki with Pomegranate-Ogo
Wild Alaskan Salmon: Alaskan Salmon with Pomegranate Sauce
Butterfish/Sablefish/Black Cod: Miso Butterfish, Kasu-Marinated Butterfish
Dungeness Crab: Crab Cioppino
Mahimahi: Fish Tacos, Mahimahi Patties w/Lemongrass & Lime Leaf

To learn more about other nutrition issues for Hawaii and Asian diets,
see If you are what you eat ...