Adventures in Saucery

Before I get started, I want to say something. In case you haven't heard, the Supreme Court decided that, for security reasons, it would shut down the main entrance. The commentary I've read or heard on the issue, so far, has unanimously lamented the closure - I've heard the phrase "forty-four marble steps" about ten times in the last two days, and more people lament the fact that people will no longer walk into the courtroom past the marble busts of the Chief Justices.

You know what? The only thing that would make me happier than closing the main entrance to the Court would be if they dynamited the building entirely. The Supreme Court - the building, not the institution - is an affront to any decent American aesthetic.

Where to start? The fact that a building designed to house America's most important court is made to look like a Greek temple? (Cass Gilbert, the architect, was ironically enough one of the pioneers of that most American of buildings, the skyscraper. Why couldn't you have given the Supreme Court a skyscraper?) How about the feeling that one gets when walking in - that you are an insignificant supplicant, dwarfed by this gigantic building? Or maybe just that the busts of the Chiefs are clad in togas, rather than robes or suits. (Of course, it could also be the fact that the building is totally unsuitable for its job - it doesn't have enough viewing space, a decent coatroom, or, as this decision highlights, the ability to be made secure.)

More than anything else, the one that has always steamed me is the feeling of insignificance. Someone walking into the Court isn't a beggar, come for handouts from the justices. Justice is our right as Americans. The building should make us feel welcome. It should show us how awesome and unique the role of the Court is, yes, but it should make us feel like we are a part of that. All Americans are.

You know what? I like the side door. It's small. It's workmanlike; visitors and lawyers go in the same way. It leads, not into some Grand Hall with Statues of the Lords of Justice, but a museum - a place that can teach the visitor about the Court's role and history. (Also, a fairly awesome statue of Oliver Wendell Holmes, if I remember correctly.) Sure, it doesn't have the grandeur and majesty of the forty-four foot high ceiling of the main entry hall. It doesn't have the statues of Roman praetors or of "Lord Coke barring King James from sitting as judge." Just all this stupid stuff that's actually relevant to the lives of the people who walk through the door every day, to visit their highest court.

So - for security? Sure. I don't care why the front entrance is being closed. All I can say is, good riddance - I'll never be happier to go in through the servant's entrance.


Back to the topic at hand.

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the yogurt wasabi sauce that I made the other night. I have a few last things about wasabi in general that I had wanted to finish up today, but I'll push that back until Friday. Today, let's talk about two delicious things to do with leftovers.

Leftover Sauce Shrimp Salad

1/2 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
Leftover Wasabi Yogurt Sauce
Uhhhhh.... salad.

The salad, in this case, was a fairly simple green salad - some spinach, some lettuce, and some chopped-up green pepper. I think you don't want the salad to get too complex, but I could definitely see some cucumber or cherry tomatoes, sort of thing, getting added.

The wasabi yogurt sauce servers triple duty in this dish. First, when the shrimp are peeled, toss them into a bowl (or zip-lock bag) with about half of the sauce and let them marinate for about a half an hour. Then, pour the whole mess into a pot, and simmer for about five minutes, or until all the shrimp have changed color. Drain the shrimp. (I was using fairly tiny shrimp - if you're using larger ones, you may want to cut them down to bite-sized, either before or after cooking.) Toss the shrimp with the salad, then dress the salad with the remaining half of the sauce.

The shrimp themselves, as hopefully we've learned by this point, don't have any heat at all. However, the reserved sauce - the part we're using as a dressing - still does have a bit of zing. Not enough that my spice-phobic wife had any problem with; just a little bit of bite on the back end. Definitely not something you would expect out of a salad, which is part of what made it taste so good; the sauce was cool and refreshing on the shrimp, and ever-so-slightly piquant on the greens. A nice lunch, or salad course to a dinner.


Breaded Tilapia with Leftover Wasabi Yogurt Sauce

Hmm.

Actually, I think I'm going to save the fish recipe for next week. It's not really relevant here, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to use the main ingredient as next week's spice, so I'm going to go with the path of least resistance and save myself a post.

Really, though, the relevance here is this - after making the shrimp salad the night before, I still had a few tablespoons of the sauce left. The plan was tilapia; I puttered for a while, and came up with a recipe that sounded fun. I'd like to say that I was thinking about compatibility with the yogurt sauce beforehand, but I'm not that clever; as I was frying it up, I realized that I still had the leftover sauce. It was a perfect match; the fish came out a little dry, and the sauce solved that problem while, once again, adding a little bit of zing.


I keep wanting to say something like "I'm amazed at how versatile this sauce has been." The reality is, I've used it on two fish dishes and a shrimp dish. Not exactly a showcase of versatility, to be honest. Still, it was spectacular every time we used it; the combination of cool and spicy at the same time is unusual and enjoyably surprising. Definitely something I'll make again.

On Friday, I'll give some final thoughts on wasabi, including a report on the differences between the horseradish-based wasabi powder and real wasabi. (I broke down and bought some) Also, some more ruminations on wasabi butter, and anything else I can think of that I've thrown wasabi in over the last few weeks.

Still Life With Wasabi and Mayonnaise

I'm changing my posting schedule slightly. Check out the entry below this one for details.


Mayonnaise is not something that I often find myself using. My mom never really used it when we were kids - I can't remember her ever making tuna salad and it certainly never got used as a sandwich spread. Truth be told, I've always found mayo to be a fairly revolting substance. I don't know why; I think it's partially because I have no idea what it is. (So I just looked it up - at its simplest, it's an egg yolk with olive oil added in, trivial to make at home. Doesn't make it any more appetizing.) I love emulsions, in general; I love drinking them, putting them on my salads, and smothering foods in them.

Here's the thing, though. You ever have one of those days, where you're all like "I've got a substance I'd like to coat another substance with. But my first substance simply does not take a form which makes spreading convenient!" Of course you have. We all have! And, if you're anything like me - and I'm sure that you are - you then thought, "Aha! What I need is some sort of neutral-tasting organic emulsion - something which will be viscous enough to trap and contain whatever it is that I want spread, yet won't change its flavor significantly."

That was pretty clever of you.

So, despite my distaste for it, I will generally keep a small jar of it around the house. It's good if I want to make a creamy honey mustard sauce, or... Or. Oh! Or if someone comes to my house who... wants... a fairly lousy spread... on a sandwich? Hmm.

Anyway, I've got some mayo in my fridge.


So we had Yousef and Sarah over for fondue.

(Wait, before I go any further, let me spoil the ending. Two days after this, I was in the supermarket, and saw wasabi mayo for sale on the shelf. I was all like, "Huh.")

Fondue. I'm a big fan - a big enough fan that I own three fondue pots. (You really need three - one for cheese, one for broth or oil, one for dessert. A second one for the main course isn't terrible either.) For the main course, I had lamb, steak, chorizo, shrimp, and some mushrooms.

A big part of the fun of fondue - and a part that, I am ashamed to admit, I rarely give the attention it deserves - is the sauce. You're eating twenty or thirty single-bite portions of various different items, with a three or four minute interval between each piece. Time and wine do their job cleaning your palate; there's no overarching theme that needs to be obeyed. A perfect opportunity to set out a cornucopia of different sauces, and let each bite be its own combination of flavors.

But as I said, this is a part of the meal that I often neglect - and lamb is not something that we eat frequently. (I do, however, frequently remark that I wished I thought to get lamb more often.) So when I was looking for sauces that I thought would go well with it, I came up nearly empty - a can of mango chutney was about it. Then I thought... what about some kind of wasabi sauce? We have the technology! Plus, I'll get a blog post out of it.

Here's the embarrassing part - remember when I was all like, "all these wasabi things are actually really easy?" Yeah. Wasabi mayo. Make up some wasabi paste. Mix it with the mayo to taste. Make sure to give it a few minutes to develop its flavor.

Oh, you can do other stuff with it - I added some rice vinegar and a tiny bit of soy sauce. But basically, the equation is wasabi + mayonnaise = wasabi mayonnaise.

It was simple - but it was also stellar. The bowl with it in was practically licked clean by the end of the night. The mayo smoothed out the heat of the wasabi enough that it had a little kick, but no harsh bite. The rice vinegar thinned it enough that just the right amount stuck to each bite. And the soy sauce gave the whole concoction just enough of a twang to stay interesting bite after bite. It went great on both the lamb and the shrimp - although I'd be lying if I didn't I also tried it on the mushrooms, steak, and chorizo. The chorizo, not so much, but everything else? Pure yum. (Is "pure yum" some product's slogan?)


A few days later, I had a piece of salmon sitting around waiting to become dinner, and no particular brainstorms about how that process should go. I had kept the wasabi mayo in the back of my head, though, and this seemed like a perfect time to give it another go.

It would require some slight adaptation, though. First, I wanted something that was a bit runnier - something that I could drizzle over the salmon after I cooked it. Second, I was planning on doing something fairly simple with the fish - poaching or baking - so I wanted something a little bit more complex than the two-note sauce that I had made for the fondue. I just wasn't sure, though, exactly how to change it.

As always, she saved me. No, not my wife. What were you thinking? Martha Stewart, of course. Riding across the fens on a white charger, the leatherwork on her saddle resplendent in its handcrafted beauty. Riding crop held high, her mouth an angry line, used to obedience and control... but could that anger be, perhaps, turned to love?

I'm getting off track. I got a recipe from her website.

It sounded like just what the doctor ordered, throwing some ginger and lime juice into the mix. However, there was still one thing that I couldn't get over - the simple fact that I was still using, as my base, mayonnaise. Why? I don't like mayo! It's boring! It doesn't add much! And when I opened the fridge, there, right in front, was the Greek yogurt.

Greek yogurt is strained yogurt - yogurt with the whey removed, so it's a lot thicker and tangier. As I've mentioned previously, Yousef once used it instead of sour cream when cooking for us, and since then I've been a fan of replacing sour cream with it. Would it work in place of mayo?

Here is the sauce I wound up making:

1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/4 cup cilantro leaves
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 1/2 inches of fresh ginger, chopped fine
Salt and pepper to taste
3 teaspoons wasabi paste

Now, we're going to make the wasabi paste a little bit differently here. Usually, it's equal volumes powder and water, going a little bit light on the water and adding more slowly until all the powder is mixed into paste. The problem with that is that it leaves a lot of little scraps of paste all over the vessel you're mixing in. And, since this recipe calls for a bit of extra water anyway, we're going to just toss it straight into the wasabi. Mix an extra teaspoon of water into the wasabi, and you should have a fairly liquid mess - more than enough water to dissolve all the wasabi fully.

Toss everything into the blender, and pulse once or twice. Seriously; that's it. The mayo version of the sauce suggests keeping an extra tablespoon or two of water handy, in case you need it. My yogurt-based version came out a bit more watery than I'd like - I added more water to the wasabi than I suggested above - so I doubt you'll need anything extra.

More than anything else, this sauce tasted like a wasabi-flavored tzadziki sauce - the Greek sauce that goes on gyros. Lo and behold, when I looked up strained yogurt to find out what it was, I found that it is the main component of tzadziki. The spicing is different, of course, but anyone who eats a lot of Greek food will definitely taste the similarities. I thought it was a spectacular compliment to the fish, and it looked pretty nice, too:

The mushrooms are, of course, wasabi stuffed mushrooms - I'll get to them tomorrow on Wednesday.

One last thing, and I'll call it a day. I should have gotten the message by now, but I keep getting reminded just how fragile wasabi is. I pulled the fish out of the oven, put it on our plates, and poured the sauce over it. It was delicious, but with just a bare hint of the wasabi - a tiny bit of bite at the back end, and that's it. That's okay; it's a fairly large amount of sauce, compared to the volume of the wasabi, and yogurt is used in Indian food to cut down on spiciness, isn't it? (I should have thought about that earlier.)

After the fish was gone, I still had a taste for the sauce. I pulled out some carrots and used it as a dip - and was floored at how spicy the sauce was. It didn't taste precisely like wasabi - something was spreading it out more, turning that flashpaper burn into something a bit slower, a bit more mild and tangy - but the sauce that had rested on the hot fish was barely spicy at all. A little heat, and the sauce turned into something else. Startling and quite fun.

I wonder if that's an effect that you could use? It would be neat to find a way to make a meal whose flavor changed as it cooled.