Thursday, February 18, 2010

no trace of Wasabi in Wasabi paste


I was procrastinating in my office when i started reading the INGREDIENTS in the Wasabi paste: Horseradish, lactose, Sorbitol, Soybean oil, Salt, Water, Artificial Flavor, Tumeric, Citric Acid, Xanthan Gum, ARTIFICIAL COLOUR (FD&C YELLOW #5,. FD&C BLUE#1)
Sometimes you would also find: Modified starch,Salt, Dextrin and so on. The artificial color made sense especially, given the bright green color of that stupid paste... Where is Wasabi in the Wasabi paste, and why do not they give Wasabi paste a different name—like Fakeabi—since there is no trace of the original root?

Monday, February 8, 2010

FRESH the movie |  Blog

Check out this independent documentary about the food factory. It is pretty much a lower budget version of Food.inc


FRESH the movie | Blog

Swiss chard and millet rolls

They do not sell cilantro in small quantities. They sell you a bunch of cilantro. Therefore, once I buy cilantro I either freeze the leaves after carefully wash and dry each one of them (clearly, I do no perform this action very often) or I keep the whole thing in the fridge until it sticks to the fridge panel and gets rotten. Well, tonight I decided to break this wasting habit and made myself sick using almost half of it and using it for both, the swiss chard rolls and to make a pesto for the tofu I was broiling. I made it myself but you can find a nice recipe here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Broiled-Tofu-with-Cilantro-Pesto-231002

Servings: 4

Ingredients:
  • 1 cup of millet
  • 4 big red swiss chard leaves
  • 4 carrots
  • 4 celery ribs
  • 1/2 onion
  • 1 cup of chopped cilantro
  • 1/3 cup pine nuts
  • 1/4 lemon juice
  • 1 tsp of salt
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste
Preparation:
  • Bring water to boil in a big pot. Immerge the swiss chard leaves in the boiling water for 1 minute, then set apart. In the same water, boil the millet with the salt until tender (15 min), then strain. Coarsely chop onion, carrots, celery and pine nuts then pan-fry with 1 tbsp of oil on medium-hi until tender, add the millet and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the cilantro; add salt and pepper to taste. Remove the hard part of the ribs from the swiss chard and fill the leaves with the millet. Fold the leaves carefully and close with a toothpick if necessary. Pen-fry the rolls with the remaining oil for about 2-3 minutes.