Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker - Lynn Alley [16]
To serve, spoon a serving of the pudding cake into a bowl, then top with a dollop of softly whipped cream and garnish with grated chocolate.
SUGGESTED BEVERAGE: Cold milk, hot coffee, or a glass of tawny port would be perfect with this pudding cake.
Asia
SOY-BRAISED POTATOES
POTATOES AND PEAS IN RED CURRY SAUCE
MARGARET HUGHES’S GREEN VEGETABLE CURRY
KOREAN-STYLE BLACK BEANS
BUTTERNUT SQUASH IN GREEN CURRY SAUCE
JAPANESE-STYLE BRAISED TOFU
One of the problems with creating Asian-inspired dishes for the slow cooker is that traditionally in Asian cultures, most dishes are cooked quickly on the stove top or over a fire.
Everyone, for instance, is familiar with the Chinese wok and its relatives that appear throughout Asia. Asian culinary traditions in general contain far fewer long, slow-cooked one-pot meals than do those of the Western world.
The Korean-Style Black Beans, Soy-Braised Potatoes, and Potatoes and Peas in Red Curry Sauce could all be considered exceptions to this quick-cooking, stove top tradition. And the Japanese-Style Braised Tofu is so darn good that I just couldn’t leave it out, even if it takes only a couple of hours to cook. It offers the perfect opportunity to put something easy on to cook when you come home from work, so you can put your feet up, savor a glass of wine, and have dinner on the table without much ado an hour or two later. The Butternut Squash in Green Curry Sauce is visually exciting, and the Green Vegetable Curry, though clearly of stove top origins, works well.
In this chapter, I have drawn from a number of very different culinary traditions, from the soy-based sauces often found in Japanese and Korean dishes to the unique seasonings found in Malaysian food and the more Indian-like flavors of Thai cooking.
Thai curries are in some ways similar to those of their Indian neighbors, but with the addition of certain characteristic Thai ingredients, such as lemon grass, galangal (a type of ginger), and coconut milk—ingredients that are not easily found in the United States (unless, of course, you live near a good Asian market). So do what Asian cooks often do: use curry pastes that have been prepared by someone else, someone who specializes in making spice pastes. In Thailand, you can often buy prepared pastes at the local shop or in the market. Here, you can often find different Thai curry pastes on the shelves of Whole Foods or other cosmopolitan supermarket chains.
WINES WITH ASIAN FOOD
Although it may be difficult to try to lump the foods of a region as vast as Asia into one big category for pairing with wines, you can probably make a few assumptions that apply to the interesting flavors many of them share in common.
Many of the flavors we like best in Asian foods, including soy sauce, chiles, ginger, lemon grass, and galangal, can make a serious dent in the flavor profile of a good wine. In general, some of the same principles that apply to pairing wines with Mexican and Indian cuisines apply to pairing them with Asian flavors. Wines to avoid would be heavy, oaky Chardonnays and wines such as Cabernets and Merlots with lots of tannins. And wines that might work well with Asian flavors would be your crisp, clean, acidic wines, such as New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs, Pinot Grigios from Italy, crisp whites from British Columbia, and some northern Italian whites. The same goes for aromatic white wines: Gewürztraminer, Riesling, and Viognier. Fruity red wines (as opposed to the more tannic varietals) like Syrah and Zinfandel might make good matches. And, just as with Indian and Mexican foods, anything with bubbles in it ought to go well.
SOY-BRAISED POTATOES
Serves 4
Wherever they are grown around the world, potatoes fill the belly and warm the heart. Although potato dishes are less common in Asian countries than in Western and Eastern European countries, they can still fill the belly and warm the heart, Asian style. A crisp green salad would make a fine accompaniment to the dish.
2 pounds red or white rose