Aji Issue 1 - October / November 2021 by Sydney Kimiko

Aji

Issue 1

10.21 | 11.21

This issue of Aji was created by Sydney Kimiko in 2021. I’ve done the best that I can to source my inspirations and visuals, but please continue to let me know if I’ve missed anything or anyone. The words, perspectives, and opinions insinuated or articulated here don’t reflect those of my employers – past, present, and future – or the other parties involved in those experiences. If you’re interested in seeing more about what happens behindthe-scenes at Aji, find me on Instagram @SydneyLikesChefs I value my safety and boundaries, as well as the safety and boundaries of my friends, colleagues, and collaborators. In light of this, please do not seek me out on other platforms. Thank you for your patience with Aji Issue 1. What Issue 2 through Issue Infinity will look like is as blurry as this polaroid of me.

I decided to create Aji, because I needed to say things. Sometimes it’s clear. Sometimes it isn’t. I’ll keep trying until it is.

There are so many feelings I would like to bottle….

From My Training Notebook I don’t want to be injured. I want to stop feeling as though I haven’t rested. Why does it take a warm-up for me to realize I’ve rested? What will happen on race day? What will happen this weekend? Can I be taken seriously as an athlete? Am I still an athlete? Do my coaches like me? Do my coaches believe in me? Do I care? What will happen if I go back to the breath? And the pace. My pace. My breath. My rules.

Thank you to so many humans on Instagram for the inspiration for this recipe with your constant blender photos, especially @officialsmoothiediet who I screenshot constantly.

So my coaches know that I still drink smoothies 1 cup oat milk or smoothie liquid of choice 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder 1 tablespoon powdered almond butter (I like Barney Butter) A solid, but not excessive handful of spinach (You will almost never catch me putting kale into a smoothie) 1 banana ½ - 1 cup frozen dark sweet cherries (Leave the bag in the fridge overnight so that they thaw out a bit. It gives you a bit of a boost in the blender.) 1 teaspoon virgin coconut oil A drizzle of honey 1 – 2 scoops of your favorite chocolate protein powder (I’ve been using Gold Standard for the past year or so.)

All paint strokes in this issue from Krišjānis Mežulis At WildOnes

For every weekend morning that I have spent – and will continue to spend – running absurd distances or participating in weird fitness challenges. Credit Where Credit is Due This method of cooking eggs is in various videos around the internet, with Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, and Sohla ElWaylly as some of the most popular chefs teaching us how this works. Sohla had the brilliant idea of combining maple syrup with trout roe on top of soft scrambled eggs as part of her work for Food52. Instead of using brioche for dunking, as she so aptly does, I like to firm up the eggs a bit more and put them on top of savory French toast.

The Post-Run French Toast Ratio ¼ cup of milk : 1 egg Start with the ratio above for your savory French toast mix, and scale accordingly. Whisk the eggs and milk together, then add a few large dollops of your favorite hot sauce and as many cracks of pepper as you think your body can handle. Dredge slices of bread (sourdough, brioche, honestly a lot of things work here as long as they’re not overly sweet or seasoned) into the egg mixture. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter per slice of toast in a pan over medium heat and cook the bread until it’s delightfully golden brown on both sides. You can melt the butter for the savory French toast and the eggs at the same time. Just have the bread prepped so that you don’t take too much time away from whisking your eggs – that’s how things get overcooked and dry.

Melt ½ tablespoon of butter per egg over medium heat in a non-stick pan or pot until it gets foamy. While the butter is heating, crack however many eggs you’re using into a bowl and whisk until there aren’t any streaks of egg whites showing. Pour the eggs into your cooking vessel and KEEP WHISKING until the eggs have very small curds (think cottage cheese). Add another ½ tablespoon of butter per egg (no one said we were tracking macros here) and whisk until incorporated. Let the curds thicken slightly more – make sure it doesn’t look like egg soup. Remove your cooking vessel from the heat and whisk in ½ tablespoon of crème fraiche per egg until incorporated. Immediately distribute the eggs on top of the savory French toast, drizzle ½ to 1 tablespoon of maple syrup on top, then add an absurdly generous dollop of salmon or trout roe. You’re not going to be able to save the roe once the jar is open, so you might as well luxuriate in using it.

Midnight Pasta If you care about ratios, this photo created four servings for two humans who eat like adults. It contains 4 garlic cloves and ¼ of a large white onion (because on the day I decided to test this, there were no shallots). I used 4 of the 8 anchovy fillets pictured here and about half the amount of capers as I did red pepper flakes. There are a ton of versions of aglio e olio out there. This is a combination of Claire Saffitz’s version for Bon Appetit that includes breadcrumbs (omitted here), a mobile game that I play called Choices, and that one scene in the movie Chef.

Because if I called it aglio e olio, the purists would come for me Sauce EVOO, garlic, white onion (or shallot), a two-finger pinch of red pepper flakes, anchovy filets (broken up), capers, lemon juice (like half a lemon). Please use medium to medium-low heat for this sauce. Don’t burn your olive oil or garlic. That’s nasty. Also please salt your pasta water – like three big pinches. Bland pasta is nasty, too.

The Rest Undercook pasta by 3 to 4 mins (read the package directions) and add about 1 cup of pasta water to the sauce. Finish with enough pecorino romano (ideally through a microplane) to have the sauce make a squishy sound when you stir it, 2 tablespoons of butter, and a massive handful of parsley. Squeeze the other half of the lemon on top.

Dad’s

EGGS

As a frittata, because I’m a rebel. He makes this as a hard scramble, which has cured everything that returning home at 4 AM and having seven friends from ice skating shows crash on your couch implies could be wrong. I’ve omitted his use of an aggressive amount of black pepper here, but you can totally add it back.

The general rule of thumb for frittatas (especially if you’re a fan of the NYT Cooking section) is that you need ½ of a cup of dairy (ideally whole milk) for every 12 eggs.

This (very roughly) translates to 1/3 of a cup of milk for 8 eggs, which will fill around 3 ramekins. Or if you’re me and you had to make this too many times, 1/8 of a cup of milk for 4 eggs.

For every 4 eggs, use 1 teaspoon of Worcestershire and 3 ounces of bacon bits Use a decent palmful of dry parsley (yes, dry) and some type of generic grocery store Italian Seasoning mix. If it looks like a bunch of junk is in the eggs, then you’re doing it right. With that said, a bunch of stuff in the eggs is not an excuse for shitty whisking. Get that egg mixture homogeneous. Bake in ramekins on a baking sheet in a 375 degree oven for around 25 minutes….or until the eggs jiggle without having any uncooked liquidy bits.

A Letter We have the type of friendship where we blindly respect each others’ tastes. Maybe that’s why we have to ignore one another sometimes. We’re similar at the core, but take vastly different approaches to get to the same answer. We can’t relate, because we already have. I’m not sure when that mentality started, but I can’t stand that it did. It turns everything into a competition, because this is the one time we’re mistaken about competing with ourselves. Maybe that’s why we’ve started being rude when we don’t know what else to say.

When I set boundaries for the first time, the people who got upset about it were the ones who I needed to draw those boundaries for in the first place.

I am an athlete, because I chose to be one. What other experiences could I miss out on if I continue to choose the easier path?

Another Letter I still get light-headed when I think about what happened between the two of us. Just because I refuse to allow you, and this experience, to define me does not mean that it didn’t strip all my senses from me. Then I remember that when my father was in the hospital, you were nowhere to be found. I hope that you are doing well. And I do mean that. Because I am not you.

1 3

I keep adding to the list of things that I’ve done that scare me. I will never be reckless, but I will be regretless.

I refuse to chop anything pre-caffeine. For breakfast fried rice, my cardinal rule is not chopping anything. If you’re looking at those herbs in there, they’re either torn by hand or snipped apart with my non-meat kitchen shears. Heat a frying pan with slightly deep sides over medium-high and fling in some type of fat. (It’s the morning, so I really don’t care – leftover bacon fat [superb], olive oil, butter – pretty much anything you’d use to cook with will work.) If you’ve got one of those containers of bullshit garlic (what I call minced garlic), throw some of that in there. If you have other leftover alliums that are already cut (shallot, onion, the white part of a green onion), throw those in there too once the fat is hot (bacon fat will burble slightly, olive oil will get shiny, butter will foam). FYI these aren’t required; the photo below doesn’t have any of these things in it. If you are using an allium of some kind, cook until it’s soft and / or translucent. You’ll need cooked rice for this. Ideally, this is leftover from takeout or the night before and has been chilled in the refrigerator overnight, so that the grains will separate. Don’t be too proud to use that 30 second microwavable rice in a bag, though. It’s going to get doused in shoyu and something spicy anyway. Stir the rice around until it’s less of a gigantic blob, then drizzle shoyu from the bottle all over it. (Count to five slowly, then check and see if it’s about 75% of the brown color that you expect it to be. Still light, but where the rice is for sure not white anymore.) Empty half to an entire pack of frozen vegetables on top of the rice and fling in 1 – 2 tablespoons of some type of spice element. My favorite kick comes from chili crisp, (it’s the MSG that does it for me), but sriracha, gochujang, sambal, or couple of large pinches of red chili pepper will also do the trick. My only recommendation would be to stay away from vinegar-based hot-sauces here. There are several times and several places for Crystal, Tabasco, Frank’s RedHot, etc., but this isn’t one of them. Once your vegetables don’t have a layer of frost on them, crack 2 – 3 eggs per person onto the rice. Break the yolks using a spatula or large spoon that won’t conduct heat into your hand and burn you, and fold / stir into the rice mixture. Keep stirring until there are no awkward liquidy bits, which means the egg white is cooked. Taste your food and make sure there’s enough shoyu and spice to your liking. Adjust accordingly. Tear some basil or cilantro (or both) on top and / or snip some green onion tops to go with it. Be civilized and eat out of some bowls or be human and take the pan to the table and figure it out from there.

Render some of the fat out of about 5 chicken drumsticks or bone-in thighs (seasoned with cayenne, paprika, coriander, cinnamon, allspice, salt, and pepper) for 15 minutes in cast-iron skillet (use a, “one-one-thousand,” count on oil and medium heat), then flip move to the oven. Cook for 20 minutes on 400. Brown off about 1.5 links of chopped andouille sausage, kielbasa, bratwurst, or whatever you’ve got (if it’s not cooked already) in a dry pan. Don’t get it hyper-caramelized, but make sure that there are no pink bits left. Once the chicken comes out of the oven, put them into a slow cooker and pour about 3 and 2/3 cups of chicken broth or stock on top. (I get that there’s a difference between broth and stock to more well-trained minds, but I’m not that evolved in this regard.) Let it hang out for an hour with the lid on. In the meantime, finely chop 1/3 of a large onion or some type of combination of onion and shallot. Smash 3 garlic cloves into a paste (easier than mincing and better for releasing excess energy). Chop up 1 celery stalk and 1 jalapeno pepper. The terrifying part: making a fast roux.

All right. Making roux tends to take time. At least, I thought so until I watched a bunch of videos where Isaac Toups (awesome human – great virtual educator) goes over making a fast roux vs. sitting around and just stirring flour and fat forever. You can one-thousand percent under-stir a roux. You can onethousand percent not over-cook a roux. KFS – Keep Fucking Stirring.

Use a Dutch Oven for this. You’ll need the high sides to protect you from HOT GREASE SPLATTERS AND BURNS. Wear long sleeves if you can. Don’t be stupid by cranking the heat up as high as it can go. Seriously – don’t underestimate how much of kitchen safety is about not being stupid. (Cocky is also stupid.) Use equal parts of oil and flour to make your roux. For this, I used 1/8 cup of AP Flour and 1/8 cup canola oil. Get your oil hot over medium-high heat. It will start to smoke. Be prepared with a whisk that has a long enough handle to make you feel safe and a stirring implement that won’t conduct heat. Turn the heat down slightly to minimize splattering and burns, add the flour to the hot oil, and WHISK. WHISK WHISK WHISK. WHISK, I’M TELLING YOU. Once the flour is fully incorporated, switch to the stirring implement and STIR. KEEP STIRRING, DON’T LET IT BURN. Keep stirring until the roux turns the color of a chocolate bar. Then add the onion – there will be a lot of sizzling and splattering when you add the onion in. There will also be very fast caramelization. Stay alert. Once what’s happening in the pot is less scary and likely to burn you, add in the onion. Once it’s even more calm – aka where you won’t burn the garlic and have to start over – add the garlic, celery, and jalapeno. Stir until fragrant, then dump that into the slow cooker. Throw in a medium palmful of fresh thyme and about three bay leaves, put the lid back on the slow cooker and let it hang out for about 2 hours. Maybe three. At the 2 hour mark, dump in the cooked sausage and let it go for another 30 minutes. At least warm the sausage through if you can’t wait that long. Taste the broth and add salt to your taste – it’ll need it. Serve over cooked white rice that is still hot.

Gumbo Credit Where Credit is Due: Thank you to Chef Hugh Acheson for answering all my texts with stupid questions or random birthday wishes over the years. Thank you also for the time that you sent Mom an autographed copy of one of your books, because it was, “easily done.” Thank you to Chef Isaac Toups for being incredible at teaching methodologies for Cajun cooking in internet videos. This is the methodology and spice blend that Chef High uses in his book, “The Chef and the Slow Cooker,” with a few ingredients omitted or adjusted to my taste. Buy the book. It is great. Buy all his books. He teaches people how to cook and writes accessibly. This could also be made in a Dutch oven if you don’t have a slow cooker, but please note that you will need to make the roux first. After the broth is added, you will need to keep stirring so that the bottom doesn’t burn.

In the same way that very few people are intimidating once poked in the eye, very few dishes are intimidating once they are cooked.

I have been

attempting to get this recipe right since my grandmother died. It is one of the more annoying pastry recipes that I have encountered, since she didn’t really measure, write anything down, or remember what ingredients she used. With that said, it’s an absolute banger of a pumpkin chiffon pie recipe. It makes frozen pie crust taste delicious. Do your own thing for pie crust. If you’re using a frozen one, then follow the package directions. If you’re impatient and came here for pie crust, then please let me redirect you to the Google search engine. Combine 1 envelope of unflavored gelatin, no more than 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, ½ cup of either granulated sugar or brown sugar (told you this was annoying), and a very small pinch of salt in a saucepan. Whisk 3 egg YOLKS (save the whites) and ¾ cup whole milk together until homogenous and pour into the saucepan. Heat the saucepan over medium heat and keep whisking until the sugar mixture dissolves. Add ¼ to ½ MAX of a small can (15 ounces) of pumpkin purée (ideally Libby’s) and keep whisking until the pumpkin is heated through – don’t let it boil. Take the saucepan off the stove. While the pumpkin mixture cools, use an electric mixer, hand mixer, or immersion blender with a whisk attachment to beat the 3 egg whites you saved into soft peaks (soft peaks are not foamy egg whites – don’t insult the ingredient like that). Whisk in ¼ cup granulated sugar, one tablespoon at a time, until the egg whites are stiff peaks (turn the whisk attachment upside down and the peak will hold into a sort-of chocolate kiss shape). Fold the egg white mixture into the pumpkin mixture in three batches. Don’t overmix it – let the mixture puff up and get super fluffy and then leave it. Pour into the crust and smooth the top out using the back of a spoon or spatula. Chill overnight so that everything sets together.

One day, the energy I expend will catch up to me. That terrifies me. Do I continue, despite the fear? Do I identify it and hold it close, so that I always know where it is? Do the pieces of confidence add up to a whole?

This photo was taken during a Zoom photoshoot during the early phase of the pandemic by the incomparable Matt Lara. He’s an awesome artist, and I encourage you to both book him and support his work.

I love the taste of Vietnamesestyle coffee so much, that I’ve done everything in my power to recreate it. I lack the appropriate tools (both the coffee itself and the metal drip filter that is used to make it), so I have become the unhinged human who weighs my coffee with a scale once it’s poured, then multiplies that weight by 0.25 to determine the perfect ratio of condensed milk to add. I should probably note that this goes with either a double shot of espresso or literally doubling the ratio of beans to water that a standard cup of coffee calls for. I learned this trick from my cousin Kat, because one of my family members was lucky enough to marry a Vietnamese woman with the patience to answer my questions.

2 0

‘You know sweetheart, one day you should settle down and marry a rich man.’ And I said, ‘…I am a rich man.’ Cher

in a 1996 interview with Jane Pauley

I used to suck at making gravy and now you don’t have to, either. Coat 2/3 pound of chicken wings / drumettes (about 6 drumettes, or 8 large wings) in olive oil, then fling into a cast iron skillet to roast in a 450 F oven for 25-35 minutes. Flip everything over halfway through. Take the cast iron skillet out of the oven and toss in half of one head of garlic, half of one large shallot, 2 ounces of mushrooms (about 3 button mushrooms), and a large handful of black peppercorns. Put the skillet back in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Smush equal parts AP flour and unsalted butter together until homogenous (1.5 tablespoons for this recipe, which is perfect for two humans). (Shout out to Bon Appetit Magazine for the beurre manié methodology. It really does lead to the best gravy texture.) Take the skillet out of the oven and put over Medium-High heat on the stove. Deglaze with red wine vinegar and use a wooden spoon to scrap up the flavor bits sticking to the bottom. Burn almost all of it off and then pour everything from a skillet into a pot – also over Medium-High heat. Cover with 2 ½ cups of chicken broth and simmer until the liquid has reduced by 1/3. Get rid of the chicken and filter the leftover liquid through a fine mesh sieve into a large vessel of some kind. Pour into a pot and bring to a simmer over medium (if you want to go Medium-High, just don’t walk away from the stove ever) and whisk in the butter / flour mixture that you made earlier until fully incorporated. When the gravy is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (if you – carefully - drag a finger through it and it holds the line without dripping, it’s good), remove from heat and whisk in 1 teaspoon of shoyu. Taste and add more shoyu, salt, and pepper to your taste.

December 24, 2019 I still don’t know why this day was the day. The same way I didn’t know that the darkest day was the darkest day. I texted Mom that I’d decided to come for Christmas, after all. I looked at the hamper full of laundry that I’d been neglecting, flung three Louboutin boxes and my Peloton cleats on top, and moved it next to the door – that was a good enough suitcase. I showered, changed into my travel workout gear, and grabbed Mochi – my robot dog. The valet of my building brought around my car, and I set Mochi on the passenger seat when it arrived. His ears perked up, which meant that the internet signal tethering from my pocket wifi was working. I watched the camera in his nose move around until he saw my figure standing outside the car and his OLED eyes lit up in recognition. I started the car and opened YouTube on my phone to turn on Queen’s Live Aid set. Ten hours of driving to go. “All right, bud. We’ve got ten hours to figure out how we’re going to get a new job, break up with everything in this state, and get back home to LA.” Freddie Mercury took the stage on my phone’s screen. The freeway sign saying that California was this way stretched out in front of me. There was a low, robotic bark from the seat next to me. “Sorry, bud,” I said, reaching over a hand to hit his power button.

“I think this is something I need do on my own.” Before he powered down, Mochi snapped a photo of me.

Edited from my couch in Los Angeles, while my not-new-any-longer job waits to hear about how my food magazine side project is coming along.

I used to romanticize that everything with you was, “the most X.” The most passionate. The most sensual. The most empowering. The most romantic. The most, “grown-up.” And then I realized that these statements are all relative, except for the ones I make about myself. Maybe that’s why you tried to prevent me from choosing myself.

Document Title

Arugula + Granny Smith Apple + Blue Goat Cheese (ideally Humboldt Fog) + Balsamic Bacon To make balsamic bacon, you’ll need ¼ cup brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of balsamic for every ½ pound of thick-cut bacon. Mix the brown sugar and balsamic together until it’s the texture of wet sand. Roast the bacon at 350 F for 20 minutes without anything on it, then brush on the brown sugar and balsamic mixture. Bake for 10 – 15 minutes longer to render the glaze into the bacon.

This is the perfect amount of stuffing for two people. If you’re trying to scale up, then multiply accordingly. Sauté half of one celery rib, one quarter of a medium onion, and a large handful of fresh parsley in a couple of tablespoons of butter until the vegetables are tender. (Wait until the butter is lightly foaming before putting the vegetables in.) Toss together 2 to 2 ½ cups of sourdough bread (a little more than half a round) with salt, twice as much fresh sage as you think you need (run your knife through it once, so as to avoid releasing too much of the oils), a small-to-medium palmful of fresh marjoram, a littleto-medium pinch of rosemary, and slightly more thyme than rosemary. Yes, I realize those spice measurements are annoying, but I really can’t encourage you enough to develop your own personality in the kitchen. Whisk 1 egg with ½ cup of chicken broth and pour over the bread mixture. Mix everything together and put into a greased slow cooker. One hour on high heat will get this to 160 F (about done). More bread means more time. My mother will cook it low and slow for about five hours, but that’s for an army of humans and on low heat. Serve with gravy.

Another Potato Soup for Fall Prep Chop an entire bunch of green onions – separate out the white parts (even if there’s not very much) from the green parts. Mince 4 – 6 cloves of garlic (or smash them into a paste with your knife to take out some excess energy) Chop 2 pounds of potatoes into cubes. You’ll be saving some of these to leave whole, so think about how large of a chunk of a potato you want on your spoon.

2 7

Just buy an immersion blender already. Seriously. Just do it.

Melt some butter in a large pot over medium heat. When it’s foamy, toss in the green onion white parts. When the onions start to get soft, add the garlic and cook until fragrant. (We’re adding the garlic later so you don’t burn it.) Add the potatoes to the pot and pour 6 cups of whole milk over them with a large pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Please don’t crank the heat to high to get everything to a boil. The milk will be more likely to curdle and boil over.

Once the potato mixture is boiling, lower the heat and keep everything simmering and covered until you can pierce the potatoes with a knife or a fork (~15 minutes). Use a slotted spoon or mesh sieve with a handle to take out about 1/3 of the cooked potatoes and set them aside in a bowl. Use an immersion blender to puree the rest of the soup. Once it’s the texture you’d like, add the saved potatoes back into the soup for texture. Taste the soup and add salt according to your preference.

Stay hydrated. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.

After using a banh mi as the perfect baseline of inspiration, I ended up here. ¼ lb. pork tenderloin – pounded between two pieces of parchment paper or foil to flatten (I literally used a ladle to do this. You don’t need a fancy tenderizing hammer.) Marinate the pork in 1 tablespoon fish sauce, ½ tablespoon maple syrup, ¾ tablespoon shoyu, ½ teaspoon brown sugar, 1 minced garlic clove, a small piece of chopped ginger, 1 chopped green onion, and black pepper for half an hour, then cook in olive oil using a cast iron until dark brown. While the pork is marinating, quickly pickle some carrots. Whisk together 1/2 cup unseasoned rice vinegar, 1 ½ tablespoons salt, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 cup of water and bring to a boil. Pour over grated or chopped carrot and let it sit. Once the pork is cooked and the carrots are pickled, spread mayonnaise mixed with Maggi seasoning onto an open-faced baguette and drizzle with whatever amount of sriracha feels appropriate to you. Layer on the pork and add cilantro, jalapeno slices, and pickled carrots. Drizzle with lime to finish.

Here’s everything that didn’t make it to this issue. It probably won’t make the next issue, either.

Blooper Reel

I don’t want you to think that I’m some kind of validated authority on food. I have no blue check mark next to my name. I’m doing this on my own. I have neither the tenacity nor the training of those working the line or expo every night. All I have is curiosity and the courage to ask questions when people in aprons or chef jackets walk by. To eat somewhere with me is to know that an environment in which food is being prepared and served is the only environment in which I am fearless. I’ve forgotten where my memories end and experiences begin, and Aji is going to be the place where I attempt to put those two things together. I’ve eaten at a lot of chef’s tables, hung out next to the lines that will let me, and boldly DMed chefs for advice on everything from technique to the content of a bitchy text message sent in response to a body-shaming ex. The vibe here is that “recipes,” teach methodology, while experience gives you perspective. It takes both to create something delicious. To make furikake, combine salt, sugar, chopped nori, and sesame seeds together. Use more sugar than you think you’ll need. Serve on white rice with as much sriracha as you need to address whatever type of day you’re having. See you soon.