Rice & Pickles October 19 & 20
Rice & Pickles September 28 & 29
Rice & Pickles September 14 & 15
Watermelon Rind with Chile & Anise Hyssop
Rice & Pickles August 31 & September 1
Rice & Pickles August 24 & 25
Rice & Pickles August 3 & 4
Rice & Pickles July 27 & 28
Rice & Pickles July 20 & 21
Butter Lettuce Kimchi: The Preservation of Supple
We can view our work through a number of different lenses, but chief among them is that we are Preservers, and as perservers our job is to preserve flavor, to preserve color, and to preserve texture. As preservers, our work is far more likely to highlight issues with the source produce than it is to mask, resolve, or compensate for them.
Over the last year, Alex has been making kimchi with Baby Romaine lettuce or Little Gems, with great success. If you think about it, it makes total sense. Romaine Lettuce has a very similar structure to Napa Cabbage, a thinner leafier exterior, and a denser core. Because of the delicate nature of lettuce, this seems counterintuitive to people; they assume that it would lose its structural integrity through the fermentation process and become mush, and they are often surprised by the Romaine Kimchi.
A few weeks ago, our Rice & Pickles bowl featured the Baby Romaine Kimchi, and a guest at the bar expressed their surprise at the fact that we successfully created such a product. I explained that Baby Romaine is far less delicate than one imagines and made my usual comparison to Napa Cabbage, conceding that it may not work so well with a more supple green like, say, Butter Lettuce. Alex perked up and said, “Oh no, I disagree entirely.” She pointed out that, really, when it comes to fermenting leafy greens, it is much more of an issue if the greens are tough than if they are supple. Indeed, we have rejected batches of Baby Romaine because, in her estimation, the leaves were too tough to yield a choice product. Remember, we are preservers of texture, and if we have tough greens, then we preserve the tough, and if we have supple greens, we preserve the supple. “ I can make a Butter Lettuce Kimchi,” she said. And she did.
As usual, she was right, and the results are delicious.
Butter Lettuce
We Brine the Butter Lettuce for two days.
We drain the Butter Lettuce without rinsing.
We Ferment the kimchi in our microbatch Mashiko ware crocks.
We ferment the kimchi for just over a week.
Butter Lettuce Kimchi. The supple texture of the lettuce is beautifuylly preserved without becoming mushy.
Rice & Pickles July 13 & 14
Rice & Pickles June 29 & 30
Rice & Pickles June 22 & 23
Rice & Pickles June 15 & 16
Pre-Summer Round-Up
With Summer right around the corner it’s time for the blog to make its way back from an extended Spring Break. Here is a quick look at the bowls we served over the last couple of months.
Rice & Pickles March 23 & 24
Rice & Pickle April 6 & 7
Rice & Pickles April 13 & 14
Rice & Pickles April 19 & 20
Rice & Pickles April 27 & 28
Rice & Pickles May 4 & 5
Rice & Pickles May 18 & 19
Rice & Pickles May 25 & 26
Rice & Pickles June 1 & 2
Rice & Pickles June 8 & 9
Vernal Dispatch: Home
It is undeniably Spring as I write from the work table in our bedroom cottage, nestled in the middle of the back garden at our home in Berkeley. The day is glorious, and I’m a little taken aback by how far into the season we suddenly are. New culms of the timber bamboo, Bambusa oldhamii, now in its 24th year, some over four inches in diameter are coated in a glaucous powder and reach skyward for almost 35 feet. The Tree Dandelion, Sonchus canariensis, has bloomed already, producing plumes of what will be, woefully little viable seed. The branches of the Japanese Maple, Kinran, bend as they adjust to the new weight of new leaves woven with golden thread.
Seeds from the Canary Island Tree Dandelion
Acer palmatum “Kinran” transl.- ”Woven with Golden Thread”
New foliage of Lions Head Maple with Salvia Buccananni in the backround.
Sprays of pink blooms from Salvia buchananii dapple the background of the almost key lime emergence of the Lions Head maple, a specimen of unknown providence but which is certainly older than we are. Lilies- Calla, Canna, and Crinum alike unfurl, and flower, and foliate. Everywhere, Spring consumes the available space, and one has to look to see the last vestiges of winter’s husk sloughing off.
Calla Lilly “Green Goodess”
Canna Lilly
Canna Lilly Seeds
The vegetable garden, in late again, is beginning to take shape and holds some promise in the season's warmer and longer days. We may have a proper showing if we can get some growth in before the summer turns cold and foggy.
The Dogs, now solidly in their fifth year, laze about in the sun, then shade, then again in the shade, then sun- they patrol the paths, vigilantly stand sentry for squirrels, hope, pray, beg for a brief ball interlude-
or they unsettle the ducks.
Sadie
Shio
The ducks, all four of them, two in their second year and two in their sixth, can be heard at this moment furiously flapping in their small pond just around the corner from where I sit and write. After a winter of freeloading, they have all begun laying again- So they may stay.
(from left to right) Ophelia, Frances, Iris, Josephine.
A few days of duck eggs
At The Shop, now entering its 28th year, the era of Rice and Pickles has reigned on for eight years. But here, at home in a 100 year old house and in the gardens 24th year, these years will surley be known as the Dog & Duck years.
Talansias and Finials
I suppose it is in the nature of schedules to be a zero-sum game. Mine certainly is. Spring consumes not just space but time- Energy, to be sure. It is Spring! The Blog is on Spring Break.
Back soon,
Kevin
Rice & Pickles March 16 & 17
You can click on any of components of the bowl above to identify them. Scroll down for more detail.
When you Dine in with us everything from the Dashi to the Sweet Bite is included in the meal. So, the only decisions you’ll need to make are the additions. We have
Goma Dofu, which translates to Sesame Tofu. Goma Dofu is not a true tofu, in that there is no soy in it. It is made entirely out of Sesame Seeds, which are toasted, ground, pureed with some Dashi, and then heated with Kudzu Root. Kudzu Root is a root starch that acts as a binder and lends a texture to the finished product that is similar to a silken tofu, which is where it gets its name. We also have avocado. The avocados this week are Fuertes; we top them with fuyu persimmon puréed with young green Umeboshi. We also offer a cured egg. We make the eggs every Wednesday. They are a six-and-a-half minute egg that we marinate in a mixture of tamari and shiso vinegar, which is a shiso kombucha that has gone to acetic, or vinegary, to use a beverage, but the shiso flavors are still nice and clean, so we long age it into a mild vinegar mix it with the tamari and sake lees from last years Kabocha squash ferment.
Cured Eggs
We always begin the bowl with a 50/50 blend of short-grain brown and sweet brown rice, sticky or glutinous brown rice, grown by the Lundberg Family here in California. We cook our rice in a Donabe. Donabe are a family of Japanese clay cooking vessels. The Donabe we use is called a Kamado-san and is specifically designed as a rice cooker. Our Donabe comes from Iga, Japan, and has been made by the Nagatani-en family for 5 generations. Iga is a great location for Donabe making because the clay body that is found in and around Iga has a high microscopic fossil content, which results in superior heat retention in the clay products that come out of the area; so, not only is the Donabe a beautiful and effective rice cooker but it also acts a warmer as it's very slow to cool once it has come off of the flame. We top the rice with a gomashio or sesame salt. Our take on this traditional Japanese toasted sesame and salt condiment is that instead of using salt, we use either one of our ferments that we have dried and powdered or a seaweed. Today, we have toasted sesame seeds and dried and powdered beet pulp left over from juicing beets for kombucha, which gives it color, and we use Sea Lettuce instead of salt.
Donabe cooked Rice
Beets Pureed with Kasu
The Beets were steamed, pureed and seasoned with Sakle Lees, the solids that are flitered out at the end of the sake making process, a paste of rice & yeast called Kasu or Sake Kasu; that had beets fermenting in it last year.
Beet Puree
Beet Kasuzuke. The lees from this ferment were used to season the steamed beet puree.
Carrots Fermented with Dulse & Green Garlic
The Carrots are cut into ribbons and fermented with Dulse, which is a red Seaweed from the Atlantic, and Green Garlic.
Daikon Bettarazuke
We start by peeling and cutting the daikon into wedges. The peels are dried for kiriboshi and the wedges are dried for few days. Meanwhile, we make a mash made from rice, rice koji, and barley shochu; we put the dried and salted daikon in the mash and let it ferment for about a week.
Beet Green Kimchi
Sea Kraut
A Green Cabbage Sauerkraut made with Gold Beets, Burdock, Ginger and three types Seaweed; Arame, Dulse & Hijiki.
Spinach with Jalapeno Kasuzuke
Spinach was mixed with Jalapenos Fermented in Sake Lees for over a year- Jalapeno Kauzuke . Takara Sake, one of the larger sake producers in our region, is just a few blocks from The Shop. We essentially tap into their waste stream; we get the byproduct from their fermentation, a paste made up of rice, rice koji, and yeast. We take that paste, called kasu or sake kasu, and we add sugar to it to feed the yeast that is still living in it; we add salt to it to moderate the fermentation and for texture preservation, and then we bury vegetables, such as Jalapenos, in it for an average of 12-18 months to make the pickle known as kasuzuke which means pickled in kasu. This week we took the jalapeno Kasuzuke, mincied the jalapenos and mixed them with the spinach.
Red Daikon with Indian Pickled Lime
Red Daikon mixed this week with our Indian Pickled Limes - an 11-month fermentation of limes; they are our version of an Indian achar, like the mango pickle you might get on the side of your dosa. The limes are minced, mixed with the Red Daikon, and left to sit for a few days
Rice & Pickles March 9 & 10
You can click on any of components of the bowl above to identify them. Scroll down for more detail.
When you Dine in with us everything from the Dashi to the Sweet Bite is included in the meal. So, the only decisions you’ll need to make are the additions. We have
Goma Dofu, which translates to Sesame Tofu. Goma Dofu is not a true tofu, in that there is no soy in it. It is made entirely out of Sesame Seeds, which are toasted, ground, pureed with some Dashi, and then heated with Kudzu Root. Kudzu Root is a root starch that acts as a binder and lends a texture to the finished product that is similar to a silken tofu, which is where it gets its name. We also have avocado. The avocados this week are Hass from Brokaw Farm; we top them with Meyer Lemon Kosho and pickled Shiso from our Umeboshi. We also offer a cured egg. We make the eggs every Wednesday. They are a six-and-a-half minute egg that we marinate in a mixture of tamari and shiso vinegar, which is a shiso kombucha that has gone to acetic, or vinegary, to use a beverage, but the shiso flavors are still nice and clean, so we long age it into a mild vinegar mix it with the tamari and sake lees from last years Kabocha squash ferment.
We always begin the bowl with a 50/50 blend of short-grain brown and sweet brown rice, sticky or glutinous brown rice, grown by the Lundberg Family here in California. We cook our rice in a Donabe. Donabe are a family of Japanese clay cooking vessels. The Donabe we use is called a Kamado-san and is specifically designed as a rice cooker. Our Donabe comes from Iga, Japan, and has been made by the Nagatani-en family for 5 generations. Iga is a great location for Donabe making because the clay body that is found in and around Iga has a high microscopic fossil content, which results in superior heat retention in the clay products that come out of the area; so, not only is the Donabe a beautiful and effective rice cooker but it also acts a warmer as it's very slow to cool once it has come off of the flame. We top the rice with a gomashio or sesame salt. Our take on this traditional Japanese toasted sesame and salt condiment is that instead of using salt, we use either one of our ferments that we have dried and powdered or a seaweed. Today, we have toasted sesame seeds and dried and powdered beet pulp left over from juicing beets for kombucha, which gives it color, and we use Sea Lettuce instead of salt.
Parsnip steamed and pureed with a Sweet White Miso that we make at the shop.
Steamed Parsnip
Parsnip Puree seasoned with our Sweet White Miso
Spinach with Jalapeno Kasuzuke
Takara Sake, one of the larger sake producers in our region, is just a few blocks from The Shop. We essentially tap into their waste stream; we get the byproduct from their fermentation, a paste made up of rice, rice koji, and yeast. We take that paste, called kasu or sake kasu, and we add sugar to it to feed the yeast that is still living in it; we add salt to it to moderate the fermentation and for texture preservation, and then we bury vegetables, such as Jalapenos, in it for an average of 12-18 months to make the pickle known as kasuzuke which means pickled in kasu.
Jalapenos fermented in sake lees for 12 months.
prepping jalapeno kasuzuke
Minced Kasuzuke Jalapenos and Spinach
Fennel With Indian Lime Pickle
The fennel bulb was shaved on a mandolin and mixed with our Indian Pickle Lime, which is an 11-month fermentation of limes; they are our version of an Indian achar, like the mango pickle you might get on the side of your dosa. The limes are minced, mixed with the shaved fennel, and left to sit for a few days
Mincing Indian Pickled Limes
Daikon pickled in Umezu
Umezu is the brine from Umeboshi plums also called Ume Vinegar. Daikon is shaved thin on the mandolin and pressed for two days in Umezu.
Pumpkin Kimchi
This has been a favorite Kimchi for us this year. We use a French heirloom pumpkin called a Musquee de Provence or Fairytale, it is a beautiful pumpkin with deep orange color and a subtle melon flavor.
There were two components on this weeks bowl that didn’t make it into the photo above:
Beet Green with Miso Tamari
Blanched & Shocked and mixed with miso tamari, the liquid that rises to the top of the vessel during our Sweet White Miso production
Blanched Beet Greens
Carrot Kiriboshi
Kiriboshi is dried shredded Daikon typically served as a small side dish simmered in dashi. For Kiriboshi at The Shop we use the peels from various vegetables, dry them and simmer them in broth. Last week the puree at the center of the bowl was purple carrot. We peeeled the carrrots before steaming them and reserved the peels. We dried the peels all week and then simmered them on the draining liquid from the purple carrot puree.
Purple carrot puree seasoned with nour sweet white miso. The puree sits in a strainer lined with cheese cloth and we collect any liquid that strains out.
Purple Carrot Peels
liquid collected from straining the puree
Rice & Pickles March 2 & 3
You can click on any of components of the bowl above to identify them. Scroll down for more detail.
We always begin the bowl with a 50/50 blend of short-grain brown and sweet brown rice, sticky or glutinous brown rice, grown by the Lundberg Family here in California. We cook our rice in a Donabe. Donabe are a family of Japanese clay cooking vessels. The Donabe we use is called a Kamado-san and is specifically designed as a rice cooker. Our Donabe comes from Iga, Japan, and has been made by the Nagatani-en family for 5 generations. Iga is a great location for Donabe making because the clay body that is found in and around Iga has a high microscopic fossil content, which results in superior heat retention in the clay products that come out of the area; so, not only is the Donabe a beautiful and effective rice cooker but it also acts a warmer as it's very slow to cool once it has come off of the flame. We top the rice with a gomashio or sesame salt. Our take on this traditional Japanese toasted sesame and salt condiment is that instead of using salt, we use either one of our ferments that we have dried and powdered or a seaweed. Today, we have toasted sesame seeds and dried and powdered beet pulp left over from juicing beets for kombucha, which gives it color, and we use Sea Lettuce instead of salt.
Our Sauerkraut Salad made with green cabbage fermented with Beets, Carrots and Ginger
Spinach mixed with Jalapeno Kasuzuke, a one year fermentation of jalapenos in sake lees.
Kasuzuke Jalapenos
Kohlrabi
Kohlrabi shaved on a mandolin and mixed with our Indian Pickled Limes- an 11-month fermentation of limes; they are our version of an Indian achar, like the mango pickle you might get on the side of your dosa. The limes are minced, mixed with the Kohlrabi, and left to sit for a few days
Indian Pickled Limes
Bettarazuke. A month ago, we made a mash made from rice, rice koji, and barley shochu; we put dried and salted daikon in the mash and let it ferment for about a week. That daikon appeared on the bowl last week. This week we put shaved kabocha squash into that same mash.
Carrots fermented with Dulse and Green Garlic
Daikon pickled in the Brine from our Umeboshi plums, also called Ume Vinegar or Umezu