20051111

udon with edamame pesto

udon with edamame pesto

i first learned about eric gower's "the breakaway japanese kitchen" cookbook from the fandabidozy she who eats, and, although so many recipes were intriguing, i didn't get around to buying it until last week (honestly, i could never remember the name of it--takeaway kitchen? breakdown kitchen? brokedown palace?). now that i have it, i'm probably going to go all 2004 on you, and do a lot of the recipes that chika's already posted; however, we both have a tendency to stray from printed recipes, so hopefully it won't be stale for you.

i haven't been eating much pasta these days, but i've always had a fondness for chewy, springy udon noodles, and i wanted a sauce that was just as chewy and springy as they are, so i modified gower's recipe for edamame (soy bean) mint pesto for the ingredients i had on hand and made a rough pesto of boiled edamame, smoked almonds, garlic, olive oil, and a generous fistful of mint, cilantro, and flat leafed parsley. i just chucked everything into a blender, and the sauce was done by the time the udon had heated through.

as i was eating this, i was marvelling over the recipe and wondering about the inspiration for it. was it the beautiful greeny tones of the soybeans, herbs, and olive oil? was it the smoky richness of the nuts against the fruity richness of the olive oil? personally, i'd like to think mr. gower was inspired by a round of upscale beer snacks: smoked almonds and edamame--hey, they're good with saketinis, they might be good with something else.

now if he could only come up with something with peanuts and pickled onions....

15 comments:

Hi Santos,

I bought that book after reading Chika's blog too. *sigh* I've only made on recipe from it and I thought it was quite good. If you want something similar, you might also want to try Shunju. I like that one too! =)

hi reid--that's funny, i bought shunju at the same time. in fact, it was the book i was flipping through where i found the sesame asparagus recipe. i'll be doing another shunju recipe this weekend.

Thanks for the recommendation, i'm going to pick up that cook book. I'm not eating much pasta either right now but that udon looks yummy.

or pork scratchings. Lovely improv Santos.

Hey, I like your photo better than the one in the book! Thanks for all the kind words.

hi santos,

ugh, that handsome bowl of udon is too much for me for to see at this late in the evening (23:20 my time). I don't like cilantro, but your pesto looks good nevertheless.

I just got my copy of the Dough book this afternoon, and I already know which one of the recipes I want to try first! see how it works... (or, how it doesn't :P)

hi joie! it was. almost all the pasta recipes in the book use udon, so i'm happy, i think you will be as well.

anthony--not so much improv as desperation in the face of an unorganized kitchen.

hi mariko! that's the recipe i earmarked to try out next. i have to go through this one, but i'm looking forward to the next one already :)

hi chef! i don't know if you'll be back but just one question--i couldn't find any mention of ginger in the ingredients list of the marmalade bacon with meyer lemon and ginger recipe. is there really ginger in it?

hallo miss chika! what are we doing on the internet on a very late saturday night?? i can't wait to see what you do from the bertinet book!

this sounds dddddddericious santos! lovely!

p.s. that is I abovr sounding like a cartoon character ;)

holy moly, that looks AWESOME. yum yum. i was thinking of buying that book after reading chika's posts, but this reminds me that christmas is coming and perhaps i can get my family to *cough* buy it for me *cough*. :-)

ah, saffron, if you were a cartoon character, what would you look like now that i know how you'd sound?

foodnerd! if i didn't already own this book, i would love the person who would give this to me for christmas.

hi santos, thanks for reminding me i have that book...edamame pesto was a recipe i'd earmarked to try in the first flush of excitement upon buying the book and then promptly forgot about...your rendition looks utterly scrumptious...his mushroom pesto is just about the only recipe i've tried - good stuff...

hi j--i really like this book. i see it as a good everyday meal thing.

Aaah, I made this edamame pesto too and it's heavenly - just like J, I must dig out my book and try the recipes.

I made mizuna pesto from the yoshuko book and that was heavenly too.

hey this looks really good! thanks for the idea in this post - will hv to try to mimic it!