Comfort me with noodles

If you have been reading along this year, you probably noticed I’ve been making a lot of references to the weather. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider this 2014 winter has been the crappiest I’ve experienced since I lived in Edmonton. And when you consider crappy winters are par for the course there, that has to put this atypically cold and miserable T.O. winter in the running for worst winter ever. It's a miserable state with the small comfort of knowing millions of people here and elsewhere are going through the same thing.

So: how about a nice, belly-warming, tongue-tingling bowl of noodles?

Pan Asian

Last night's supper did double duty: healthy enough to meet the requirements of a new year's resolution with enough heat to banish the winter's cold and darkness. First, crispy sesame-crusted cubes of tofu with a spicy dipping sauce derived from Momofuku's Red Dragon Sauce (recipe here; I used gochujang red pepper paste and rice vinegar), followed up with kimchi fried rice, all topped with a healthy glug of sriracha (hope you've stocked up).

When we make tofu, we usually just marinate it and bake it to crispness in the oven, but this might be my new favourite preparation. Next time, I'll use bigger pieces (the cubes are kind of a pain to dredge) and add a little something extra like shichimi tōgarashi to the breading for a little kick.

Sesame-Crusted Tofu
Serves 2
1 lb. (about) extra-firm tofu
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons panko bread crumbs
2 tablespoons white sesame seeds
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds
canola oil for frying
sliced scallions for garnish)

1. Drain the tofu as much as possible. Beat the egg and a teaspoon of water in a small flat bottomed bowl or dish. Stir together the salt, panko and sesame seeds on a plate.

2. Slice the tofu, then cut into large, but bite-sized cubes. Working with one piece at a time, submerge the tofu into the egg, then dredge in the sesame-panko mix, and set aside.

3. Heat a large nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat. When it’s hot, add about tablespoon of oil. Fry the tofu in batches until crispy and brown on all sides. Garnish with scallions and serve with dipping sauce.

Fish out of water

It's been a flat out crazy couple of months for us here.

Ssäm of these days

It’s probably fair to say to say David Chang, founder of the Momofuku empire, is probably the most influential figure in the food world. When I think about some of the places I’ve eaten at in the last few months (like A-OK foods and OddSeoul here in Toronto or Talde in New York) or big name places I haven’t (Mission Chinese Food, Pok Pok PDX), it is difficult to imagine them even existing if Chang had blazed a trail for hipster takes on Asian fusion cuisine. Heck, you'd certainly have to give Chang a fair amount of credit for the ubiquity of pork over the past few years.

Dan Dan duo

Travel to just about any small town in the praries and chances are you'll find, tucked in among the post office or hardware store, a Chinese restaurant. These usually kitschy, lantern and dragon-festooned little outposts of the exotic are both interesting historical quirk and accidental multicultural success. Many of these small, family run places can trace their roots back to the Chinese labourers who built the Canadian Pacific Railway and subsequently spread out across the country and for whom cooking was one of the few businesses opportunities afforded them.

These places served a mixture of western food -hamburgers, pork chops, french fries and the like-but over the years they began including heavily westernized "Chinese food" (another quirk was calling these places "smorgs" after the Scandinavian "smörgåsbord" buffet.)  For many Canadians, sticky, saucy and sweet dishes like lemon chicken, sweet and sour pork and ginger beef were their first and sometimes only encounter with any form of ethnic cuisine. (This article from the Walrus at explores the history of Chiense food in Caanda and the authenticity debate a bit further.)

The prairie Chinese smorg is slowly vanishing, but you can see a similar process of the cultural exchange that gave us chicken balls at work in the work of places like San Fransisco's Mission Chinese Food (helmed by a Korean-born American who re-interperets Chinese dishes for western palates) and in home kitchens of people like me and the Swedish Chef. Just last week, we both ended up making versions of dandan mian, a classic Chinese Sichuan noodle dish. Two differnt white guys making two different recipes derived from the same dish; what happened?