Bento Lunch salmon with ginger beans

Today's bento is Salted Salmon with Ginger Beans

For the Green Bean recipe, I used a commercial soy-sub made from fermented rice, but it also tastes nice with the fish sauce soy-sub.

The cucumbers in the top are my version of an Indian Pickles and the flower is drawn on with umeboshi paste.  At the bottom of the flower are some tiny anchovies I preserved in soy-sub and honey.  The little fish are very high in calcium and other good things for your body.

An my original sketch:

It never goes exactly to plan, but at least this time, I think it turned out much better.

Soy sauce substitute (Soy-sub) recipes

Read on for a collection of soy-free-soy-sauce (soy-sub) recipes.  Most of them are quick and simple to use and do more than simply imitate the flavour of soy.  This list is constantly growing, so check back from time to time.

I have what is called a latent onset allergy to soy, which means basically one day I couldn't eat soy any more.  I found it literally depressing at the time, especially since Japanese food is my all time favourite, but now a days I've become quite use to it.

Being allergic to soy basically means checking not just the ingredients but the ingredients of the ingredients of everything you eat.  For example, did you know that MSG (monosodium gultimate) is usually derived from soy?  As is most Lethicin used in North America.

When I started reading ingredients, I discovered that cinnamon can often have soy in it as an anti-caking agent.  Raisins are often coated with oil to stop them squashing together, and guess what, 9 time out of 10 the raisins in the local supermarket include soy.  Chocolate is a huge one for containing soy as it stabilizes the chocolate and makes it less subject to changing in warm conditions.

Manufactures of ready made food products often change their recipe and sometimes two packets of the same product on the same grocery store shelf can have surprisingly different ingredients.  When you are cooking for someone with any allergy, read each packets ingredients list CAREFULLY.  In Canada, even the ingredients have ingredients list: flour, raisins, butter, all these things can hide allergens you wouldn't suspect.




Like I said earlier, I adore Japanese food.  Living without soy sauce was really getting me down, so I came up with a few substitutes.

Soy sauce does a lot more in Japanese cooking than just make things taste salty.  It kills bad bacteria, it prevents spoiling, it changes how things cook, it is basically magic sauce.

Here, because the internet is apparently useless in this area, are a few possible...

Soy Free Soy Sauce Substitutes:

Or, as I tend to call them, Soy-Sub.

• Salt and water, about 25% solution
•  this helps to prevent food from spoiling but it is an awfully high amount of salt and I know people worry about their sodium intake these days.
• 1ts fermented fish sauce, 1Tbs water, pinch of salt.
• This was pretty standard for me for a few years.  Make sure you get the real fish sauce and not the stuff with soy in it.  It's really good for cooking vegetables dishes like kimpura.  The fermented fish sauce is super-healthy for you as there is something in the sauce that encourages your body to digest extra nutrition from the food you eat (see Sally Fallon for details on this and Nourishing Traditions for a really nifty recipe on how to ferment your own fish sauce)
• This is not vegan friendly
• Coconut aminos
• A commercial product which is made from fermented coconut.  It's becoming easier to get these days.
• Personally I cannot stand the taste of this as a seasoning sauce.  It tastes a bit oily to my tong.  However, when used to cook, especially when used for cooking something over a long time like this kombu recipe, it's rather pleasant and imparts a nice colour to the dish.  
• I find it's also very nice when cooked with meats.

• Rice-no-soy-soy-sauce
• A friend of mine sent me this sauce from Japan, it's made from fermented rice and tastes like a mild soy sauce.  Although not as salty as I prefer, it acts like a light soy sauce in every way.  It cooks the same, it tastes the same, it keeps food fresh in my bento box lunch the same, it is virtually the same (only without the vomit afterwards).  Sadly, it's not very easy to get your hands on and I'm not sharing mine.  If I can discover more about it and where to get it, I'll let you know.
• I've tried HP sauce watered down with water or sake, but I didn't find it very tasty.  Then again, I don't like HP sauce, so that could be the problem.

A few ideas I've been wanting to try:

• Kombu dashi is something like I remember soy sauce, I wonder if I make a stronger dashi if this would serve as a flavour base?
• Shio-koji.  I've heard hints that this can act as a substitute for soy sauce, but I haven't found any references to how that might happen.  It is salty and it is sweet, just like soy sauces, so I imagine it would be very similar to cook with, only perhaps be extra careful not to burn the shio koji.  It would also have the same preservation qualities as soy.

Common soy substitutes that may actually contain soy

• Bragg is made from soy.
• MSG is usually made from soy
• tamari sauce is made from soy
• oyster sauces often has soy in it and doesn't taste much like soy at all.
• gluten free soy sauce has soy in it (just no wheat)
• Most stock cubes have MSG or Hydrogenated Vegetable whatever, or other potentially soy ingredients, so using this to make a soy-sub is no guarantee to avoiding soy.  Also, I've heard that combining stock cubes with balsamic vinegar can trigger a soy reaction in some people even if the stock actually has no soy in it.   True or not, if you don't know the person you are cooking for intimately, best not risk it.

Please let me know if you find this useful.


ETA Aug 2012 - wanted to share this link with you.  I haven't tried it yet, but probably will later this week if I have time.  It's the first half decent looking recipe for a home made soy-sub that I've found in quite a while.

Making Nukazuke Paste, stage one

Nuka pickles are by far my most favourite way to eat vegetables.  All summer long, the vegi come streaming out of my garden and into my Nuka pot, so much so that by the end of the season, it's a soggy mass.  The water of the vegetables are extracted by the paste while the pickling happen.

Nukazuke or Nuka pickles are made by first creating a fermented paste from rice bran then submerging vegetables in this paste for between 4 hours to 2 days.  This gives the vegetables a refreshing flavour and, like many fermented foods, has a very calming effect on the stomach.

I've never made my own Nuka paste before, my friend usually sends me a ready made bag of the stuff - bless her little cotton socks.  The problem is, you can only fit so many carrots, cucumbers, turnips, &c in it at one time.

Making Nuka is a lot like making a sourdough starter.  If you can get a tsp of Nuka paste from an active batch, it should be a lot easier to get things started.

So here we go, my Nuka pot adventure.  I won't know until the end how successful this is, but going from what little I can make out of the Japanese instructions on the back of the package, plus what the internet says, this is what I figure will work.

How to Make Nukazuke Paste

800g nuka powder
100g sea salt (non iodized)
water
dry kombu (kelp)
dry chilli
(optional) 1 tsp of Nuka paste

• Mix the salt and powder together in a non-reactive container
• Add water, a little at a time, until you have a fairly dry paste.

• Submerge the kelp and chilli in the paste (being careful not to break the chilli and release the seeds), and pat down the surface of the paste until smooth.

Not the most photogenic of foodstuff, is it? But when it comes to Nuka Paste, looks are deceiving.

• IMPORTANT - with a clean damp cloth, wipe the excess paste from around the edge.  This will probably go mouldy if you leave it.
• Cover with a pickle lid or with a clean piece of clingwrap.  Keep in a coolish dark place in the kitchen.  Stir the paste at least twice a day, three times in hot weather.
• After 4 days to a week, the paste should be ready to use and have a slightly sour smell to it like sourdough starter does.  Remove the chilli and kombu.

Now you are ready to use the paste to make Nukazuke.  I'll post more on that later.

Even if you don't use the Nuka paste, you still need to stir it every day.  If you are leaving for a few days, it may keep in the fridge for up to 3 days without being stirred, but, then again, it may not.

As for vegan friendly - I don't know.  I think it might be as long as it is okay for vegans to eat fermented foods like sourdough, then it would be okay to eat this.  Although sometimes, Nukazuke powder does contain eggshells, so you would need to double check.

Turmeric Rice with lentils - cooked in a rice cooker

The turmeric makes this rice bright yellow.  My friend Y taught me how to make it many years ago.  She made it like risotto but I like this no fuss, rice cooker version better.  It tastes almost the same, but is far less effort to make.  Plus, you can prepare the ingredients before hand, then set the timer on your cooker so that it will be ready when you are.

There are basically two kinds of rice cookers, the 'standard North American' style and the 'standard Japanese' style.  (I use quotes because that's how I think of them).  I like the latter better as it has a closer fitting lid and makes a more consistent bowl of rice.  Plus it makes a pleasant tune when the rice is ready.  If you local Japanese food store doesn't have these, you can pick one up at Amazon.

I adore my elephant mark (Zojirushi) make rice cooker.  I can hardly believe how many years I spent agonizing over how to cook my rice before I got this.  Now I take it with me if I have to travel anywhere for more than a day.

I like to use white rice for this as it picks up the colour of the turmeric better.  There are plenty of other things in here like the raisins and lentils to add fibre to your meal, so you needent feel guilty about not using brown rice.  If you do use brown rice, adjust your water accordingly.

VEGANS: this is easy to make vegan friendly.  Either use vegi broth or water for the rice, or you can make your own vegan friendly dashi with a seaweed known as Kombu (kelp).

Turmeric Rice with lentils - cooked in a rice cooker

2 cups short grain rice (Japanese or American cup - pick one and stick with it for the rest of the recipe!)
2 cups dashi, vegi broth or water
1/3 a sweet onion
1 clove garlic
2 table spoons cooked lentils
1/4 cup raisins
1 tsp turmeric
olive oil
salt

• Measure the rice and wash it in cold water at least three times, until the water rinses clear.  Drain the rice and set aside.
• Chop up the onion and garlic really fine, so the pieces are little bigger than a grain of rice.
• In a medium to large pan, slowly fry the garlic and onions with the olive oil, on medium-low heat until they start to go transparent.
• Add the turmeric to the onions and stir well.  Make sure the turmeric doesn't form any lumps

• Add the lentils and raisins, stir well, then add the rice.
• Cook, stirring constantly, for a few minutes until the rice absorbs the oils and flavours.  About two minutes, then poor it all into your rice cooker bowl
• Add the dashi/vegi stock or water (dashi tastes best) and mix well.  Add a few pinches of salt or a tsp of soy sauce (this is important, as it brings all the flavours together, don't omit the salt).
• Set you rice cooker to Mixed Rice setting. 

Note: most rice cookers come with their own rice cup measure.  This is not the same size as 1 cup usually used in cooking.  If you want to use the rice cooker cup to measure the rice, use it to measure the water too.  If you use a regular cup, then use that to measure the water.  But please don't mix them up, this will result in terrible rice.

Raspberry Vinegar

Sadly, it's nearing the end of the raspberry season.  But there is still enough left of the canes for a batch of raspberry Vinegar.

Raspberry vinegar is a deliciously refreshing cordial that is full of antioxidants and is beneficial for the digestion and the heart. My recipe is especially good for you as it doesn't use white sugar. Stir a few tablespoons of this vibrant red liquid into a glass of water for a refreshing summer treat.


Before you can make the Raspberry Vinegar you need to juice the raspberries.  About one gallon of rasberries makes 4 to 5 cups of juice.

I'm lucky because I have this old style, gentle juicer. If you are doing this at home,don't put it through your electric juicer, it will crush the seeds and make a bitter taste. Instead, put it in a bowl and take a potato masher to it. Then strain the juice through two layers of muslin cloth to separate the seeds. Keep the juice, plant the seeds in your neighbour's (or yours) garden to see if it grows into raspberries at some later date. I don't know if it would work as most berry seeds grow better when processed through a digestive track, but it's worth a try.

Raspberry Vinegar

4 cups raspberry juice

4 cups apple cider vinegar

1 cup honey (or for a vegan friendly alternative use 1 and 1/2 cups sugar)

• Stir well and put on the stove at low heat and slowly bring to a simmer (not boil), stirring frequently and skimming off any froth that forms on the top.
• The froth is quite bitter and the taste that is most desirable in raspberry vinegar is a sour and slightly sweet, refreshing taste. It's really worth it to take the time to prevent bitterness from infecting your concoction.
• Once it begins to simmer, turn off heat.  At this stage you can place in sterile canning jars and can it, or  it will keep in the fridge for about a month.

I love this with sparkling water, but one needs to be careful as it can froth something terrible.  Trust me, raspberry stains are quite difficult to get out of your best top.