Feb 09: The Fifth Taste?

When I was in elementary school, we learned that tongue had four taste receptors - sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Well... that was the olden days. Now, there is a belief that we have a fifth taste receptor - Umami.

Uma-what? Umami! Umami is a Japanese term that refers to a flavor that's savory, not just salty, but meaty too. These taste buds respond to glutamates. That's one reason that MSG is a popular seasoning... MSG represents umami.

From Wiki, foods that contain glutamates: soy sauce, fish sauce, kombu, mushrooms, anchioves, parmasean.

There's a Chinese New Year dish, which I haven't had in 20 to 25 years, but I still remember the strong flavors and the crunch of water chestnuts. I think it was the umami of the dish that made this dish stand out.

Here's my attempt at make the dish - Lettuce cups with dried oyster filling.

Oysters (hao si) is a symoblic food since hao sounds like "good" or "good fortune". Lettuce is symbolic of "prosperity".

Lettuce Cups with Dried Oysters
1/3 C (about 5) large dried oysters, soaked a few hours to overnight to rehydrate
1/4 C Water Chestnut, minced
1/2 lb Ground Pork
1/4 C Carrot, minced (for color)
1/4 C Shiitake Mushroom, rehydrated and minced
1 Clove Garlic, minced
1/2 t Ginger, grated
1 Green Onion, chopped
1/4 C Stock
1 T Oyster Sauce
2 t Soy Sauce, Regular
2 t Soy Sauce, Dark

Picture of the rehydrated oyster.


Soaking the oysters made for easier mincing.


The rest of the ingredients.


1. In a hot wok or saute pan, add about 1 T oil and slightly fry the garlic and ginger (30 seconds) add the pork to start cooking... About 1 minute add the oysters.


2. I became impatient and added the rest of the ingredients and seasoning.
Stir to break up the ground pork. Add the broth and cook for about 10 minutes.
The dish did not look as dark as I remembered so I dug around my pantry and found some dark soy sauce.


The finished dish - minced meat and lettuce cups.


Scoop some of the filling into a lettuce cup and fold to eat like a lettuce taco. :-)


The dish turned out very close to what I remember.
Looking at the ingredients, this dish is laden with umami flavors - dried oyster, dried mushrooms and soy sauce (two kinds), oyster sauce and possibly the garlic.

Notes:
Add more water chestnut for more crunch.
Add more oysters or use less ground pork... in order to have a stronger oyster flavor.
Not sure If I really need the ginger or carrots.

Garlic Ginger Oysters

I had some oysters leftover from Mardi Gras.
These were jarred oysters, extra small size.

I decided to sautee the oysters with garlic and ginger.

The fixins'

Oysters - I had about 3/4 of a 10 ounce jar of extra small oysters
2 cloves of garlic chopped
1 green onion - chopped
1/2 tsp ginger chopped

Not shown - a corn starch slurry
1/2 tsp corn starch
1 to 1.5 tsp oyster sauce
1/4 tsp sesame oil
1/4 cup water

I usually don't use corn starch, but I figured the corn starch would thicken the juices which should help the flavors "cling" to the oysters. I believe some Chinese restaurants will lightly coat the oysters and quickly deep fry the oysters before adding to the final sauce. The coating also help the gravy cling to the oysters.



The cooking -
Heat a saute pan and add about 1 tablespoon of oil.
When the oil is hot, add the garlic, ginger and green onions to slightly brown and flavor the oil.
Add the oysters and saute for about 1 to 2 minutes.
Add the corn starch mixture and let it thicken - with corn starch as soon as it comes to boil, that's as thick as he mixture will get.

I had extra gravy and didn't want to waste it so I added white rice and let it soak up the flavors.

Garlicky, slight hot from the ginger, but I added an extra dab of chile paste.
Oysters may look odd, but they oysters are slightly sweet and the flavors are very nice.

Happy Mardi Gras 2008

Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is the day before Lent where devout Catholics give up something for 40 days, as a symbol of devotion. They also start attending services. Fat Tuesday is the day were people splurge, pig out and get it all out of their system for Lent.

I didn't realize today was Mardi Gras until I went downstairs to the cafeteria at work. Of course, they made poor attempts at some Louisiana classics - seafood gumbo, hush puppies and fried okra.

While I was driving home for work, I decided to make a classic poor boy, also known as a po' boy, in celebration of Mardi Gras. However, when I lived in New Orleans, I heard that the locals call the sandwich a poor boy and that tourist called it po' boy. The same with the pronunciation of New Orleans. Tourist will call the city Nawlins' while locals never used 'nawlins.

A poor boy is a submarine sandwich that's typically on soft french bread. Typical fillings vary but of of the popular fillings is deep fried shrimp which is what I'm trying tonight.

The deep fried fillings usually has a corn meal coating, but I believe the corn meal is ground to a fine texture. This is what it looks like in the bag of Louisiana style fish fry. Of course what I have is just a box of regular cornmeal.

I tried pulsing the cornmeal in a coffee grinder. It's hard to tell if it worked or not. There were some fine particles, but not a big difference. I could have used a food processor, but didn't want to lug it out and wash it. Maybe I'll try it next time, but it will be awhile before I try again.

I made 3 batches of fry mix. Actually, I think it was 4.

The fixins
1 cup of corn meal, pulsed through a coffee grinder about 30 to 40 seconds.
Shrimp (31/35), peeled and deveined
1/2 cup of flour
1.5 teaspoons of Lousiana Cajun Seasoning
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Batch 1 - all cornmeal
1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 teaspoon seasoning

Batch 2 - half cornmeal and half flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon seasoning

Batch 3 - half and half plus leavening. Based Paula Deen's Fried Chicken recipe on the Food Network. Her recipes calls for self rising flour. I've tried it and liked the results.

1/2 cup of batch 2
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Batch 4
Dump Batch 1, 2, and 3 into a bowl.


While the shrimp is still damp, dredge though the coating mixture and fry in 350F oil for about 1 minute. The shrimp is thin so it doesn't take a long time to cook.

The results:
Batch 1 is in the 9 o'clock position. Crunchy and kind of course from the corn meal.
Batch 2 is in the 12 o'clock position. Not as crunchy with a light coating.
Batch 3 at 3 o'clock. Coating seemed slightly puffier. My imagination since I'm expecting the leavening to do something?
Batch 4 at 6 o'clock. Not as heavy as batch 1, but can feel the texture of the corn.


A common deep frying techinique, you would use an egg wash before the coating, but I don't remember the poor boy shops using an egg wash. Also, I didn't have any eggs.

However, if I try this again I would try a more traditional deep frying method. Flour the ingredients, egg wash and a final dredge through the corn meal coating.

Oysters too!
Yes, I also bought some oysters and fried a few.


The finished product:
A shrimp and oyster poor boy dressed.
Dressed means that the sandwich includes toppings - mayo, tomatoes, lettuce and pickles.
Actually each poor boy shop had a different definition for dressed. Some would include pickles and others you have to request pickles.

I also like adding a few dashes of Louisiana hot sauce. I like the vinegary-ness of Louisiana hot sauce over Tobasco.



If deep frying wasn't a messy procedure, I'd try different coating recipes more often.
Overall, it was a good sandwich. You can't go wrong with deep frying... lol.