The CookingBites recipe challenge: root vegetables

K~Girl's Namasu

In Hawaii, we have a type of delicatessen called Okazu-Ya. It is Japanese in origin, Okazu meaning side dish and Ya meaning shop. These delis are take-out joints only; you won’t find a place to sit and devour your booty, it’s best to head to the beach or a park.
The glass front cases in these shops are chock-full of big bowls and restaurant pans overflowing with delicious things. On any given lunch hour, you’ll find folks lined up waiting their turn to drool and point as the shop keeper ladles your choices into a container.
One dish will always be found in the Okazu-Ya and that’s Namasu. Think of a cold pickled vegetable salad. This plays nicely off of unctuous pieces of Garlic and Mochi flour battered Fried Chicken or any of the other hundreds of choices you’ll find.

namasu.jpeg


This lovely side dish pairs well with meats or not-other veggies and Rice is nice too!

shoyu chicken with namasu.jpg
 
kaneohegirlinaz said:
K~Girl's Namasu

In Hawaii, we have a type of delicatessen called Okazu-Ya. It is Japanese in origin, Okazu meaning side dish and Ya meaning shop. These delis are take-out joints only; you won’t find a place to sit and devour your booty, it’s best to head to the beach or a park.
The glass front cases in these shops are chock-full of big bowls and restaurant pans overflowing with delicious things. On any given lunch hour, you’ll find folks lined up waiting their turn to drool and point as the shop keeper ladles your choices into a container.
One dish will always be found in the Okazu-Ya and that’s Namasu. Think of a cold pickled vegetable salad. This plays nicely off of unctuous pieces of Garlic and Mochi flour battered Fried Chicken or any of the other hundreds of choices you’ll find.

View attachment 79052

This lovely side dish pairs well with meats or not-other veggies and Rice is nice too!

View attachment 79053
Click to expand...

I really like the idea of pickled roots. Comments I'll post in the recipe thread. 3 extra points for using 3 roots. :okay:
 
M
caseydog said:
Maybe with this challenge thread, I will get over my aversion to the word "beetroot." I don't understand, and can't explain why it grates on my nerves, but it does. I think I'm going to see the word a lot in this thread -- it'll be kind of like Clockwork Orange therapy.

At the center of my mental glitch with beetroot is that nobody calls carrots "carrotroot," or parsnips "pasniproot." Why beets? :scratchhead:

CD
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My nana called beetroot police mans delight.

Russ
 
JAS_OH1
1. Google Ohio Department of Agriculture. You should find a link for your County Agent. Call or email your questions about growing culinary ginger.
2. Culinary ginger is not the same as ornamental ginger.
3. All ginger is very invasive. Unless you have acreage don't plant in the ground.
4. Ginger is a tropical plant. In the south the soil never freezes. The tops will brown and need to be cut back in the spring, but the ginger does not freeze.
5. You could try growing Culinary Ginger in a container - a very large container. I have grown Culinary Ginger in a container - the base was 19" in diameter, 20" tall. 4 1" holes drilled in the side 2" above the bottom and a 1" hole drilled in the center of the base. Lined with heavy duty landscape cloth to keep soil from spilling out. Set on 4 bricks. I used Miracle Grow Garden soil not potting soil. Soil in a pot will freeze when the ground does not. Before the first freeze we moved the pot to G's shop for the winter. After the last spring frost, we moved it out and watered well with an 8-8-8 fertilizer. Harvest the ginger root leaving some behind for new production.
6. There is a difference between culinary ginger an ornamental ginger. You can use store bought ginger as long as it is organically grown. Each nodule will produce a new plant. Cut the root into pieces with a nodule on each piece.

Good luck.
 
If I could add my 2¢ about culinary Ginger Root.
I buy fresh Ginger at the green grocery, put it into a zip-top freezer bag and store it, you guessed it, in the freezer, forever.
When I need a bit, I use a spoon to peel the skin and chop or grate as needed, then pop the rest back into the deep freeze.
 
ElizabethB said:
JAS_OH1
1. Google Ohio Department of Agriculture. You should find a link for your County Agent. Call or email your questions about growing culinary ginger.
2. Culinary ginger is not the same as ornamental ginger.
3. All ginger is very invasive. Unless you have acreage don't plant in the ground.
4. Ginger is a tropical plant. In the south the soil never freezes. The tops will brown and need to be cut back in the spring, but the ginger does not freeze.
5. You could try growing Culinary Ginger in a container - a very large container. I have grown Culinary Ginger in a container - the base was 19" in diameter, 20" tall. 4 1" holes drilled in the side 2" above the bottom and a 1" hole drilled in the center of the base. Lined with heavy duty landscape cloth to keep soil from spilling out. Set on 4 bricks. I used Miracle Grow Garden soil not potting soil. Soil in a pot will freeze when the ground does not. Before the first freeze we moved the pot to G's shop for the winter. After the last spring frost, we moved it out and watered well with an 8-8-8 fertilizer. Harvest the ginger root leaving some behind for new production.
6. There is a difference between culinary ginger an ornamental ginger. You can use store bought ginger as long as it is organically grown. Each nodule will produce a new plant. Cut the root into pieces with a nodule on each piece.

Good luck.
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Thanks, Elizabeth, I was mostly suggesting to TR (who had an abundance of ginger he was considering tossing out if he couldn't use it at the time) to see if he could plant some. I do think it's pretty (from photos I have seen), but I don't care for ginger in my food. I don't like gingerbread, I don't like pickled ginger on my sushi platter (I always insist they leave it of the plate so no juice taints the sushi), I don't like ginger in soups, stews, sauces, etc. so I have no interest in cultivating it. I do appreciate you taking the time to provide the information, however. Thanks!
 
The photos karadekoolaid posted looks like ornamental ginger not culinary ginger. If TR's culinary ginger is old, it is probably not a good candidate for planting.
kaneohegirlinaz said:
If I could add my 2¢ about culinary Ginger Root.
I buy fresh Ginger at the green grocery, put it into a zip-top freezer bag and store it, you guessed it, in the freezer, forever.
When I need a bit, I use a spoon to peel the skin and chop or grate as needed, then pop the rest back into the deep freeze.
Click to expand...
DITTO
The bottom freezer on my refrigerator is self-defrosting. I find that ginger does not keep as long in that freezer as it does in the manual defrost freezer in George's shop.
 
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My second entry:

Recipe - Root Vegetable Minestrone

I really like this soup. I mean, I really, really like this soup! Have I mentioned that I really like this soup? I do!

The biggest thing that wowed me is how rich the broth is. I don't usually think of chicken broth-based soups as particularly decadent; I usually reserve that for heavier cream-based soups. This soup, though...it's rich and then some. It's Thurston Howell III rich. Bill Gates looks at this soup and says, "I wish I were that rich." Richie Rich eats this soup and says, "I'm rich, in name and financial resources, and this soup is richer than I." It's riiiiiich.

It's the stirring in of the cheese near the end that elevates it, as I was tasting this while cooking, and thinking it was just fine, but then...POW!...I added that cheese, and it became a whole different thing. It went from Diana Prince to Wonder Woman, just like that.

One of the small changes I made, especially in light of the current challenge, was to swap out butternut squash for sweet potato. Hey, same color, so no big deal, and I just cannot learn to love, like, or even mildly tolerate butternut squash.

I did take a couple of shots while actually doing the cooking (something I frequently chide others for not doing, though I'm usually remiss myself), so here goes:

Sweet potato, parsnip, carrot, and broccoli stem:
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Toasting the pasta:
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And then, the finished dish:

Root Veg Minestrone

Root Veg Minestrone


Root Veg Minestrone

Root Veg Minestrone

 
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