Why hello there, and welcome to Kitchen Catastrophe, where one man serves up silly dishes for all you little fishes. I’m your Seaside Server, Jon O’Guin, and if you think that riff was weird, I ASSURE you the first pass at it was vastly worse. But today we’re serving up some Charred Cauliflower, and Miso-roasted Asparagus. For those of you how just want to get to the recipe, here’s a link. For everyone else, let’s dig in.

A Quick Bit of House-Keeping

Before we really get into this, I just want to apologize for missing last Thursday’s post, and not reaching out on FB or posting something here about it. The last couple weeks have been…really hard for me, for no really obvious reason. Trouble sleeping, anxiety issues, and other stuff. I mentioned last Monday that I went a little crazy and tried to make myself feel better by reading functionally 2 enormous novels over the weekend. It was the equivalent of reading the first three books in A Song of Ice and Fire in around 36 hours. And…I didn’t get all that much better. And I refused to admit to myself that I HAD missed the post: I woke up Saturday morning thinking “Maybe I can knock that post out this afternoon”, which was the same thought I had Friday, Thursday, and almost the same thought I had Wednesday night.

To take refuge in old, old words: In sooth, I know not why I am so sad: It wearies me; you say it wearies you; But how I caught it, found it, came by it, what stuff ‘tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me that I have much ado to know myself.

Look, I don’t know when I last plugged “Playing Shakespeare”, which you can find a lot of on YouTube, but I highly recommend it.

So…that failure is on me. I should have at least let you know. Especially given that I skipped the previous Thursday. So I thank you for still being here, and for your understanding. I assure you, I like making food, and teaching you guys about it. I just…lost control. And I take full responsibility for that. The only minor excuse I can muster is to try and give the context of my struggle: An informal system I have for how chaotic my internal structures are at a given moment is “the number of YouTube tabs I have open”, because I never turn off my computer, and I always at least have one or two tabs of YouTube open, and couple other mental quirks/issues. Under 5 is “great”, under 10 is “normal”, above 15 is “worrying”. I have spent the last two and a half weeks going over 20 every day, and fighting to get DOWN TO like 16-17. I am in a place where getting down to “worrying” is a SUCCESS.(and yes, there’s certainly something toxic in a mind that KNOWS it measures its own stability by the number of tabs it has to finish, and continues to open new ones, that’s part of the system.) So I apologize for allowing my internal chaos to overcome bringing more content to you all.

Good? Good. So, let’s instead talk about a culinary hero of the last 3-5 years.

Go! Yay! José!

I am CERTAIN I have spoken about José Andrés on the site before, (At least once seconds before insulting the idea of a modern American home not having water, which…given the events in Texas of the last few weeks, is definitely a little bit of a “yikes” moment) but to quickly recap: Chef Andrés is a Michelin starred Chef from Spain, who has been cooking in America for 30 years. He worked at elBulli, a long-standing “Best Restaurant in the World” (though not until years after José’s departure), and for the last 11 years, has been running an NGO called “World Central Kitchen”, which has received a LOT of attention for its humanitarian efforts: following Hurricane Maria, José and the organization served over 2 million meals to those displaced or out of power due to the Hurricane. A couple months later, he started a similar program for those suffering in the wake of Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, a month after THAT he was helping people in California due to the massive wildfires there, and trust me, he only gets MORE active as time goes on. For the last 3ish years, seemingly wherever there has been sudden, immediate need, he has been there to feed.

Sometimes a little weirder than others.

His is a star I have watched rise with no small amount of interest, as I had known of him vaguely for some time, but first saw him on Pati Jinich’s PBS show “Pati’s Mexican Table”, where his seemingly endless energy was on full display, and where he made Fried Egg Tacos. By which I do not mean “A taco with a filling of fried eggs”. I mean ‘a taco whose TORTILLA is a fried egg’.

3 - Look at these weird little suckers.png

I don’t know why there’s a fork here. The intent is specifically to pick it up like a taco shell and eat it in one go.

Which is exactly the kind of insanity that piques my interest. So when I learned that he had recently put out a cookbook highlighting vegetables, I went and picked it up. And reading through it, there are some definite interesting points, which we’ll talk about on Thursday. But for now, I decided to make riffs on two of the recipes in the book: Roast Cauliflower with Barbecue Sauce, and Miso-Roasted Asparagus. Let’s talk through the dishes, and teach you how to ‘make them’.

Chunky Round White Boy

A very weird thing to call cauliflower, Title Jon. Anywho, Cauliflower is BACK, baby. What’s really interesting is that, honestly, until the last couple years, I never cared about cauliflower and broccoli. If you asked me my favorite vegetable, I would almost have certainly answer “carrots”. But over the last couple years, I am slowly being seduced by the brassicas, which fits with my first description of them as an escaped Sex bot, making me retroactively less crazy.

Starring Darryl Hannah as Cauliflower.

So, this specific recipe is of the format that I discussed in our Cauliflower Gyro post: namely, it turns out that you can just roast cauliflower, often covered in a spice paste/mix, and the result will be remarkably filling, especially for the caloric investment: a POUND of cauliflower is under 200 calories.

And despite me putting it first, humorously, I decided to do this recipe to justify the side: I was interested in making the Miso-Roasted Asparagus, but A: it’s a very simple recipe and I didn’t know what I was going to be able to say about it, and B: I knew it would be wonky to tell my family I had a recipe…for a side dish, so you all need to come up with the main course. So I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what the main dish could be, when I realized I had all the tools I needed! Mentally, I was thinking “Alright, so miso-roasted asparagus…I associate Asparagus with like, steak dinners, and miso with Japan…how can I make something like a Japanese steak…” when it hit me: In Jose’s cookbook, there’s a recipe for “Roasted Cauliflower with Barbecue Sauce” (Which I already said, but repetition is key for remembering.), and a couple months ago, I had picked up THIS:

Octopus in a Tube.

That is Bachan’s Barbecue Sauce, which means “Grandma’s Barbecue Sauce”, and it’s a vegan Japanese sauce that’s a lot like a Teriyaki sauce. They have in no way paid me to mention them, It’s one of many smaller producers/online vendors I’ve been checking out over the last year or so, given everything that’s been going on. (That reminds me, I still need to USE some of those things I’ve ordered…) But BOOM: easy money: I needed barbecue sauce, and to connect the recipe with Japan, and I had a Japanese barbecue sauce. I could make the meal entirely vegan, and unify it. So the first thing we had to do was cook José’s…remarkably fiddly recipe for Roasted Cauliflower.

I should note that the recipe is “remarkably fiddly” in that most recipes of “roasted cauliflower with FLAVOR” are just “coat, roast, serve”. Super simple. José’s has like, 3 “real” steps. But first, let’s prep our cauliflower.

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Prep it. Cut it. Core it. Bum bum bumbumbum

Nate took lead on this, cutting the stem out of the cauliflower, prying the leaves off, trimming the inner core a little, stabbing some of the bigger floret stems, and then getting it in a 8 by 8 pan. Our first fuck-ups came SECONDS later: you’re supposed to brush the cauliflower all over with olive oil. We did so, and then, AS Nate rinsed out the excess from the measuring cup, we realized we were supposed to have a fair amount of excess in the pan so we can baste it. So we added a quick glug to the bottom of the pan, hoping it would be enough.

Sprinkle with kosher salt, and roast 15 minutes. Then, pop it out and let it steam on the counter for 15 minutes. Brush with the sauce, and pop back into the oven to roast 10 minutes, then baste it, and BROIL for 10 minutes, to get the barbecue sauce thickened and caramelize the sugars.

This kind of reminds me of Hexxus from Fern Gully

Now, I can’t tell you exactly how this process went, because after we poured over the barbecue sauce…I left, for reasons we’ll touch on later. All I know is that by the time I came back, it was to Nate explaining to me that everything had gone wrong, there was nothing he could do to fix it, and that he had altered the cooking times to compensate. Which I believe him on. I think MAYBE I could have pulled something together to fix the issues, but that’s my fault for vanishing when we were working with new ingredients, new techniques, etc.

The ISSUE is that the Bachan’s is actually remarkably thin for a sauce, so it didn’t coat the outside of the cauliflower very well. Instead, it ran THROUGH the cauliflower, and, according to Nate, thinned as it got hotter. (Which I think might be partially true, and might be a result of easily mixing with exuded cauliflower juices.) Looking at other recipes on the sauce’s website, I think they’re at least partially aware of this, as all the recipes that do use it as a roasting glaze first mix it with things like honey or other sauces. So that’s on me for failing to properly plan, and for being absent so I couldn’t improvise. Meanwhile, as Nate and I discussed this, and worked to prep the asparagus…well, we stumbled into another accidental riff on the original recipe, as I noted the room was beginning to smell a little like something was burning…

Slime Beneath me, Char up above.
Ooh you’ll love my (uh, uh, uh) Toxic love.

Yeah, it turns out the sauce left JUST ENOUGH sugars on top to over-cook. Especially when Nate had moved the rack closer to the broiler than it was supposed to be. But, that’s not too bad: Nate spent 30 seconds or so cleaning out a little of the excess char, as the second recipe cooked. So let’s cover that one fairly quickly!

Oh, Miso Hungry

So, Miso-Roasted Asparagus. A very simple idea, with an equally simple execution, that encountered several glaring issues. Well, really just one. But first, the backdrop:

I wanted to do this one because asparagus holds a somewhat complicated position in my family’s house, as ‘the green vegetable my father was most inclined to eat without copious dressing”. Like, “steamed asparagus” and “Caesar Salad” are the two vegetables I will forever associate with the meals of my youth. Green Beans I feel are a close third, and then a sort of hazy “and other stuff occasionally”. That’s one of the reasons, years ago, that I tried to make Broccogus Soup, which maybe I should revisit one of these days, and see if I can actually make that and serve it to people. Anyway, the process here is very simple. Take some asparagus

Five dollar foot-longs

And trim the bottoms, as is normal. Then, you make a slurry of hot water, sugar, and miso. This is going to be the sauce poured over the asparagus. According to José, the result should taste almost like cheese: a savory, funky, sticky layer. Unfortunately, we immediately ran into a problem. Namely, that the white miso I had intended to use had begun emitting a weird goo, and when checked, had a “best by 2 years ago” label, and then, after I had thrown it away to go get the RED miso I keep downstairs, I discovered that someone else had apparently thrown THAT away (which, in their defense, I’m pretty sure that container was only a year younger than the white miso, so it’s entirely possible it expired 6 months ago.) So we were in the middle of making miso-roasted vegetables…with no miso. Thus, I had to run to the store to buy miso.

Once returned, and apprised of the ongoing issues with the cauliflower, we mixed the sugar and hot water (by which the recipe means “on the hot end of what your faucet can do”: we’re just looking to fully dissolve the sugar) and then stirred in the miso.

Props to Nate, you would have NO idea there was sugar in that water.

Nate and I then had a weirdly quiet but fervent argument on the intent of the recipe: The recipe explicitly calls for the sauce to be “spooned over the asparagus” which you then turn “until each stalk is coated in a thin layer”. A position Nate took to mean “Do NOT use the remaining 1/3rd of the sauce, because it would apply more sauce than you think a “thin layer” should be composed of.” Asserting that he felt the functionally transparent coating he had put on resembled the coating in the recipe (which, again, was described as being something you could confuse with a cheese sauce.) And I felt meant “Use all the sauce, and just make sure the entire thing is coated.” Nate was allowed to prevail in the argument, because honestly, he was being unusually helpful, so if under-saucing the asparagus was the price of his aid, so be it. (Also because I HAD just abandoned him, and we were already running a little late with the recipes, so rather than argue for several minutes, delaying an 8 minute recipe, I felt it was better to just let it go.)

We also charred some parchment paper, but that’s really kind of its job.

The asparagus was broiled for 8 minutes, and then it was time to serve both dishes up. We cut the cauliflower into wedges, 6 chunks in all, flopped them cut side down in the sauce that had gathered at the bottom of the roasting dish, and plated with the asparagus.

See, the Char looks FINE, once it’s scraped off a little.

The results were universally cited as ‘good’. The flavors were nice, and as a completely vegan meal, it was fairly satisfying. I think there were a couple little details that could be addressed: I think we needed a little MORE of the inner core cut out or stabbed, as some of the chunks were notably resilient; and I think the miso roasted asparagus needed…something. Personally, I found the sauce a little too sweet, which might meant it just needed another minute or two of broiling to caramelize, or maybe a little less sugar. Interestingly, José asserts the recipe works with functionally ANY solid vegetable: carrots, parsnips, beets, potatoes, etc, so it’s something I’ll probably revisit a couple times to see how the little fluctuations change things. The Cauliflower was also pretty good, though if we make it again, I’ll definitely be looking at either using a thicker sauce, or mixing something into the Bachan’s to thicken it. (maybe see if it can be reduced down beforehand?)

All in all, the meal was solid and the recipes simple and fast enough that I could easily see them become part of people’s weeknight rotations. If you’re looking for some simple dishes for vegans

THURSDAY: HOPEFULLY WE’LL TALK ABOUT THE COOKBOOK, OR MAYBE MORE ABOUT JOSE HIMSELF, IT’S A LITTLE UP IN THE AIR.

MONDAY: JON TRIES TO CURRY SOME FAVOR, BECAUSE IT’S THE ONLY PUN HE KNOWS FOR MAKING CURRY.

BEGIN THE

Recipes

Roasted Cauliflower with Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients

1 head Cauliflower (roughly 2.25 lbs)

¼ cup extra-virgin Olive oil

Kosher Salt

½ cup Barbecue sauce

Preparation

Preheat your oven to 450 F. Process your cauliflower: remove leaves from the bottom, trim the stem as deeply as you can, carefully cutting out some of the core for even cooking, and pierce thicker stems a few times.
Place in a shallow roasting pan, casserole dish, or gratin dish which fits the cauliflower relatively snugly. Brush all over with olive oil, allowing excess to pool in pan. Season generously with salt. Roast for 35 minutes, basting twice with excess oil, until it is a golden color, and tender when poked with a knife. Remove from the oven, let stand for 15 minutes to release steam.
Brush with 1/3rd cup of barbecue sauce, and roast an additional 10 minutes.
Move the oven rack to 10” from the broiling element, and adjust heat to broil. Brush remaining sauce over cauliflower. Broil another 10 minutes, basting with sauce twice, until very browned (even potentially charred in places) and glazed.
Carve into wedges and serve.

Miso Roasted Asparagus (or other vegetable)

Ingredients

1 large bunch medium-sized Asparagus, roughly 1-2 pounds, tough bottoms removed (or other firm vegetable, cut into wedges or cubed)

¼ cup hot water

2 tablespoons sugar

¼ cup light miso

Preparation

Set oven rack to 6 inches below heating element, and preheat broiler (to high).
Whisk together sugar and water in a small bowl until sugar fully dissolves. Whisk in miso until smooth.
Lay asparagus/other vegetable on a baking sheet, and coat with miso sauce, ensuring entire vegetable is covered.
Broil 8-10 minutes, until vegetables are browned, and miso is bubbling. Remove from oven and serve.