Aji Issue 2 - December 2021 by Sydney Kimiko

Aji

Issue 2 12.21

Regardless of what you do or don’t celebrate, I wish you magic, healing, and wonder. It’s been a weird year. (Again.)

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 2. What Issue 3 through Issue Infinity will look like is as blurry as this photo of tiny Sydney. 2

This isn’t a movie

To that human from high school who missed the opportunity for a pre-drinking-age hookup who is texting for the first time in forever while I’m in town. You weren’t entitled to my time then or now. I’m not going to spend my break doing your belated emotional work in a bar. Best wishes to you, though.

Prep Wash 2 pounds of potatoes Cut a head of garlic in half Pour 2 cups whole milk, a handful of fresh thyme sprigs, a smaller handful of black peppercorns, ¾ of a stick of butter, some salt, and a few strips of lemon peel into a saucepan

Cooking Roast the potatoes at 400 F for at least 45 minutes. (The longer you go, the easier mashing will be.) While the potatoes are roasting, gently bring the milk mixture to a simmer. BE CAREFUL – YOU’VE GOT LEMON IN THERE. DON’T MAKE CHEESE BY ACCIDENT. THIS IS AN ACTUAL RISK WHEN ADDING ACID TO DAIRY. Once the milk mixture has simmered, remove the saucepan from the heat until you need it again. Peel the potatoes and put into a large pot. (You can do this under cold water. I have honestly never noticed a difference when peeling potatoes while they’re hot.) Re-warm the milk mixture and strain it into the pot with the potatoes. Turn heat to medium and alternate mashing and adding tablespoons of room temperature butter until they’re a texture you like. Retire to the couch with a vat of mashed potatoes and whatever gravy you have the patience to make. (There’s an excellent recipe in Aji Issue 1, but it’s admittedly time-intensive.)

There are a lot of people who have made mashed potatoes before, but I took one specific approach to this one: The methodology here comes from the Golden Age of the Bon Appetit YouTube channel, in which Carla Lalli Music and Molly Baz attempted to make the perfect mashed potatoes for the, “Making Perfect: Thanksgiving,” series. Although I love a pommes puree (which is ultimately what they did), I don’t think a food mill or crunchy topping is necessary to get great flavor. My proportions are slightly different from theirs, but use the same ingredients. I also don’t use a food mill, because I come from a family that embraces some creamy bits and some lumpy bits. Oh. This is also the only time I will tell you to not use an immersion blender. Too much starch will release from the potatoes, and you’ll wind up with glue. Don’t make that mistake. All coffee stains in this issue come from graptailstudio

I don’t need to play your reindeer games to be festive.

This still isn’t a movie

Don’t stand in front of a married person’s house with fake carol singers and signs professing your love. Respect and set boundaries. Including the ones only you know about. 7

Credit Where Credit is Due I grew up with Mom’s faded yellow Pillsbury Cookbook on the counter. It served exactly two purposes: (1) instructions for waffles; (2) instructions for biscuits. The edition she keeps wasn’t available when I was old enough to be gifted it for my first kitchen, but I still refer to the blue binder of recipes regularly. The only thing I don’t listen to is that a lot of their recipes call for shortening, and....I just prefer butter.

Thanks to Mama for always making fresh biscuits to go with canned Dinty Moore Beef Stew. Nothing like coming home from soccer practice in the rain to that. Truly.

Over the years, I’ve taken their ratios and incorporated methodologies that I’ve learned from a few chefs. Shout out to Claire Saffitz for putting so many of these online, The Hart and the Hunter squad once upon a time, and Cadet on Wilshire squad once upon another time for listening to my irritable biscuit complaints.

This is her and I at some ice skating competition.

“Would Absolutely Be Sponsored by Pillsbury If They’re Open To It” Biscuits Pre-heat oven to 450 F and spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray.

(Mom doesn’t do this, she’s a risk-taker.)

In a large mixing bowl, mix together 1 cup of AP flour, ½ tablespoon baking powder, a pinch of salt, ¼ cup COLD BUTTER that you’ve sliced into small cubes (think every tablespoon is 4 little baby cubes). Mix everything together with your hands (you heard me) until the butter is in long, flaky strips and everything feels a bit coarse. Slowly pour ½ cup of milk into the flour mixture and mix with a fork. The dough will be wet. Please don’t freak out. You’re going to use a lot of bench flour and not be afraid. Dust a silpat or sheet of parchment paper (easy clean-up) with flour. Dust your hands with flour (fellow goths, please be careful of your black clothing). Dust the dough with flour. All the flour. Pat the dough into a ball and wrap with plastic wrap. Chill in the freezer for about 8 minutes to ensure that the butter gets cold enough to work with again (cold butter will melt in the oven and create a lovely flaky texture). Once the dough has chilled, turn onto your floured work surface, re-flour your hands if necessary, and press / pat into a large rectangle that’s decently thick. Fold the dough in half / on top of itself and repeat this process (this is similar to how croissants get so flaky). Do it again until you’ve done the thing five times. (No more than that, though. You’ll overwork the dough.) Cut into large rectangles or squares and put on a baking sheet. Before you come at me, cutting biscuits into rounds tends to waste dough. Re-kneading it risks overworking the dough and you always end up with weird scraps that you can’t use. Just cut the things into squares or rectangles. Bake 8 to 14 minutes, depending on how hot your oven tends to run. I realize that’s a wide range, but just make sure they’re golden brown on top. Serve with jam and butter. 9

The last time I was visiting our family farm, I asked my cousins about udon (cover recipe) I wish I’d paid more attention to how my late grandmother cooked when I was growing up. Then again, she didn’t do anything the same way twice. Maybe that was the point. My Japanese Farm Food core reference manual is called just that: Japanese Farm Food. Nancy Singleton Hachisu, an American lady who moved to Japan after marrying a Japanese egg farmer. Buy it, read it, observe her wonderful ability to respect and appreciate a culture of food that isn’t the one she was born to without appropriating it. I use her recipe for kaeshi and supplement the instant dashi that my late grandmother liked to use.

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Components The Japanese Farm Food recommended ratio for udon broth is 1.5 cups dashi and 6 tablespoons of kaeshi. Dashi is Japanese soup stock. Kaeshi is a salty / sweet, “What’s the secret?” noodle sauce base. My partner and I go through dashi as frequently as we go through chicken broth, because it’s so easy to make. Kaeshi stays good in the fridge for about a year (per Japanese Farm Food), so use it for fantastic tasting noodle dipping sauces and soup on an ongoing basis.

Cooking Dissolve 1 stick of iriko dashi in 3 cups of water, then throw in a few pieces of konbu, a large handful of bonito, and a small package of dried shiitake mushrooms. Bring everything to a boil, then let it hang out for 8 minutes before straining. Make kaeshi by combining ½ cup mirin, 1 ¼ cups sugar, and 2 cups of shoyu in a pot over medium heat. Stir it a lot, so that the sugar dissolves. Japanese Farm Food is highly accurate in saying that you know it’s done, “as soon as the entire surface of the kaeshi becomes a creamy tan.” Cook udon noodles according to package directions and put into broth. Use scissors to cut some green onions on top.

‘It was fun when we were young, and now we’re older – those days when we were broke in California… We were upand-down and barely made it over, but I’d go back and ride that roller coaster’ From Rollercoaster on the Jonas Brothers Happiness Begins album Written by Ryan Tedder, Zach Skelton, Casey Smith, Jonas Jeberg, and Michael Pollack

A lot of holiday movies talk about using this time of year to pursue your dreams, move back to a hometown you worked hard to get out of, and get into some type of romantic relationship. Then I think about that time my favorite Peloton instructor told me that I’d get empowered enough to, “break up with your partner, hire a publicist, and start an LLC.”

Making affogato is easy – espresso or strong coffee, ice cream, and some chocolate shavings on top if you’re feeling fancy. Decided to change the ice cream to Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Half Baked and fling some Reese’s on top. Divine.

This is, for sure, not a movie Don’t spend December figuring out whether the version of you that others have in their heads is accurate. Didn’t know her then, really don’t know her now.

I will always be an advocate for making popcorn on the stove instead of the microwave, but I’m not going to judge you for getting your Olivia Pope from Scandal on. Pour a boatload of melted butter over the top of a freshly popped bowl, then toss with nutritional yeast, red pepper flakes, and salt to taste. Bon Appetit magazine gave me this combination in 2015, but they pre-grind the spices and use ratios and all that. Honestly? I don’t have the patience.

There’s always a moment – in movies and in real life – when everything seems to get quiet suddenly. You can smell the cold in the air, and decide to inhale deeply. When you sigh and stare at the holiday lights, you can see your breath. It’s still and peaceful. It’s also the only classic seasonal trope that holds magic for me.

It’s easy to focus on all the things that went wrong, forgotten, or lazily at this time of year. Sometimes that leads to saying hurtful things to yourself or others.

The Most Consistently Stunning Pork Dish I’ve Ever Made

Before the biggest apartment holiday dinner I ever hosted, (36 people in a two-bedroom – and we didn’t run out of either food or wine), I watched a Jamie Oliver YouTube video that instructed me to dump a bottle of vinegar onto a great cut of pork before roasting it in the oven. I took that idea, the cooking temperature and methodology, and added my favorite spice blend. It’s never failed me, is relatively low-maintenance, and looks more impressive than it actually is.

Prep

Cooking

Take a pork shoulder, belly, or tenderloin with a lot of fat on it (honestly any pork roast type of situation besides a chop will do) and use a knife to score the fattier side diagonally in both directions (make a diamond pattern).

Preheat an oven to 350 F

Pour a small stream of EVOO onto the pork and rub it in with one hand (leave your other hand free to season). Season the pork thoroughly with salt, (especially if it’s super thick) and as many cracks of black pepper as you’re comfortable with. Cover the pork in garam masala (like assertively, all over) and tear off a copious amount of chopped rosemary and thyme leaves.

While the oven is warming up, heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat and sear the pork for up to 10 minutes on both sides (hot enough to brown it nicely, not scorching enough where the crust completely hardens like on a steak). Depending on the size of your pork, pour either half or all of a 250ml bottle of balsamic vinegar into the pan and reduce for a couple of minutes.

Transition the pork into a baking dish (not sheet) and pour the remaining balsamic over it. Smash a mildly excessive amount of garlic (like 12 cloves) and scatter them around the pork. Cook the pork for about 70 minutes – turn it and baste it every 20 minutes or so. After the first 40 minutes, start looking for an internal temperature of 145 F for tenderloin, 165 F for belly, or 195 F for shoulder. After pulling the pork out of the oven, let it rest for around 8 minutes. Strain the remaining balsamic from the baking dish to serve as a sauce.

I started enjoying training, because it reminded me of how I feel when I eat dinner by myself.

Julia Child’s French Onion Soup with some substitutions narrated in my voice from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1

Look, I couldn’t be in that Julie and Julia movie, so this will have to suffice. Prep Chop 2.5 cups / half a pound of yellow onions. Save a teaspoon for later. (Yes, it’s that minimal.) Cooking Heat butter and olive oil in a large pot over medium heat and throw in the onions. Cook until tender, then stir in a pinch of salt and sugar to help the onions caramelize. Keep cooking and stirring until the onions are lusciously golden. Add a tablespoon of AP flour and stir to incorporate. Once the flour is fully incorporated, pour in 2 ½ cups of beef stock and 1/8 cup white wine vinegar. Let everything simmer together for at least 30 minutes. While the soup is cooking, slice up a couple of tablespoons of Swiss cheese, grate ½ cup of parmesan cheese, and toast a chunk of French bread. Set the oven to Broil and set ramekins onto a baking sheet. Stir a teaspoon of Worcestershire into the soup, then distribute into the ramekins. Put the sliced Swiss cheese and leftover raw onions from prep into the soup, cover with the toasted French bread chunk, then top with grated parmesan. Broil until the cheese is brown and delicious looking. Let the French bread soak a bit before breaking it apart to eat the soup.

This One

Almost Pâté and Jam Situation

I saw on the internet and tried to recreate

Another video I enjoy from the Golden Age of Bon Appetit’s YouTube channel is when the chefs partner up and cook the other’s most disliked food. Sohla El-Waylly makes Alex Delany a liver sandwich that looked delicious. I watched her cook and list ingredients without proportions, then decided to figure it out.

I realize that I’m not doing myself any favors by trying to get you to eat liver. I can only say that this flavor combination slaps and hope that you’re up for trying it.

Pour cold brew coffee over frozen dark sweet cherries (the kind without a pit) and let them hang out for a bit. Melt two tablespoons of ghee in a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Sear off sliced liver pieces in ghee until thoroughly browned on both sides and medium-rare texture in the middle. (I made this with beef liver, but in an ideal world, this would be made with chicken liver. Please note that beef liver tastes the most liver-y out of all the livers.) Add some more ghee to the pan and fling in a chopped yellow sweet onion. Once the onions are browned off, deglaze the pan with half of the cold brew from the cherries. After all the brown bits have been scraped up and are moving around again, spoon in the cherries and let reduce and soften for a couple of minutes. Slice the cooked liver into smaller pieces and pour into a Vitamix (if you use a regular blender, push through a mesh strainer for texture). Puree until everything is a creamy, dippable, spreadable texture. If the mixture is too thick, add in heavy whipping cream to thin out. If the mixture is too thin, add in cream cheese to thicken.

Let the liver mixture sit in the fridge overnight and spread on pieces of toasted white bread (yes, the white sandwich bread with sugar in it) that are spread with fruity jam. Sprinkle some rosemary on top to brighten it up a bit more, if necessary.

This is whatever movie I want it to be

I don’t need someone to chase me through an airport, make a grand gesture at a town event, or show up at my door. I need to need myself.

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

Blooper Reel

I’m not from New York, but once I was sitting on the Met steps waiting for someone who I wasn’t romantically interested in and hoping that we wouldn’t get caught in the snow. I was already cold and irritable – winter clothing is incredibly cute until it gets bulky. The human I was waiting for approached me, carrying two coffees, and laughed when I made a big show of taking off my aviators to say good morning. After passing me one of the coffees, they said, “Come on. Let’s walk.” We ended up talking until it started to snow. Eight years have passed since that moment, and I’ve often thought about how much we must have looked like a romantic comedy during that conversation. Here’s the thing though, it wasn’t romantic or comedic. The bulk of things that lead to memorable moments aren’t. They’re genuine, fully present, lost-inthe-moment, allowing the full depth and breadth of thought and emotion to occur. I’m grateful that memories aren’t as fleeting as the moments that create them. Happy Holidays if you celebrate, Happy December if you don’t. See you in 2022.