Making Crazy Delicious Banh Mi Photos

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« Abandon Your Fears of Frying: Deep-Fry Tips |Main| Japanese Pickled Ginger (Gari) Recipe »

September 10, 2013Making Crazy Delicious Banh Mi Photos

Pictures are an integral part of cookbooks these days andlast week, we shot the photos for The BanhMi Handbook. It was scheduled for only three days but our shot list (anindustry term for a master list of photos) was jammed packed with 8 to 10images per day. The working subtitle of the cookbook is “Recipes forCrazy-Delicious Vietnamese Sandwiches” so our goal was to createcrazy-delicious looking photos.

On the banh mi team were photographer Paige Green and herassistants Tessa and Morgan, stylist Karen Shinto, prop stylist Tess Watson, editorMelissa Moore, and art director Betsy Stromberg. We’d huddled about the shootthe week before but Melissa, Betsy and I had preliminary discussions longbefore that. Last week, it all came together. Here’s a look at what went on duringthe book shoot.

Many people look at the photos in cookbooks and assume that thecompelling images are solely made by the photographer. The truth is that it’s acollaborative effort, the product of a whole lot of people.

For example, there’smy food stylist, Karen, who’s worked with me on all of my books. Thank god we’refriends because I ask a lot of her. She works on many projects but mine are notrun of the mill. The other day she said, “If you wrote about tacos or cupcakes,I’d totally know what to do because it’s routine food for me to style.” Thatis, she wouldn’t need me around to pester her to cut or present things inparticular ways.

Karen loves physical and intellectual challenges but we alwaysdivide up the prep work. I need her to make the food look good on set so Isupport her however I can. For the banh mi book, I made all the pickles,charcuterie, and baked some bread.

Karen prepped a zillion other things, purchased a mountainof bread and drove all the stuff to the studio. We unloaded the day before theshoot started. During the shoot, I prepped and cooked off things, letting Karencompose and craft the finished “star” sandwiches. We shared the clean-up duties.There was no dishwashing machine in the tiny kitchen.

Each shot took about an hour of set-up, fussing andfiddling. Karen often had to go on set to move things around with tweezers,refresh stuff with a mist of water, and readjust the subject for Paige’s angle,etc. It’s precision work that she makes look easy. There’s an art to creatingthe food photos look slightly messy. Really. Drips and crumbs are seriousthings.

We had a small number of props for The Banh Mi Handbook because it’s a sandwich, not fine dining. Tessbrought an array of things that would potentially go with the art directionthat Betsy devised. These items filled up an 8-foot table and some shelf space.

To make a photo, we conferred about the colors and texturesof the composition. Then Paige and her assistant worked with Tess to do aninitial set-up. Karen readied the “star” sandwich and brought it on set. Abunch of photos would then be taken, then we critiqued it on the computerscreen. Adjustments were made multiple times to the various elements in thesandwich, the lighting, angle, props, surface, etc, until we were satisfied.With this photo shoot, it was definitely a group photography effort. We crackeda lot of jokes along the way too so it was more fun than grueling.

If the star sandwiches weren’t spent, Karen cut them up andwe ate them for lunch. It’s always a bit unnerving to see your editor try yourfood – especially when it’s cold and prepped for the camera, not necessarilyfor the pinnacle of flavor. Fortunately Melissa liked what she tasted.

When our energy was low, we snacked. Almonds are my brainfood, so Betsy got her husband to roast some spicy ones for me. Karen bought mea one-pound bag. Like a squirrel, I was kept quite happy with such a nice stashof nuts. There was chocolate and a Nespresso machine too.

What happened to all the leftover food? We put it all out ontables and people took what they wanted. The mountain of bread was left for thefolks who lived in the building where the studio was located.

After a shoot, we typically go out for drinks. Last Friday,we were all so tired by the time we finished cleaning and loading up our cars.It was 7 o’clock and we’d been there since 8 o’clock in the morning. We took a rain check on the celebratory martinis.

When will The Banh MiHandbook be released? Not until July 2014, exactly a year after I sent inthe manuscript. It takes that long so I’m sorry that we can’t get it to youfaster.  I hope you enjoyed this peek into cookbook publishing.

If you have questions, let me know below!

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Comments Making Crazy Delicious Banh Mi Photos

Pictures are an integral part of cookbooks these days andlast week, we shot the photos for The BanhMi Handbook. It was scheduled for only three days but our shot list (anindustry term for a master list of photos) was jammed packed with 8 to 10images per day. The working subtitle of the cookbook is “Recipes forCrazy-Delicious Vietnamese Sandwiches” so our goal was to createcrazy-delicious looking photos.

On the banh mi team were photographer Paige Green and herassistants Tessa and Morgan, stylist Karen Shinto, prop stylist Tess Watson, editorMelissa Moore, and art director Betsy Stromberg. We’d huddled about the shootthe week before but Melissa, Betsy and I had preliminary discussions longbefore that. Last week, it all came together. Here’s a look at what went on duringthe book shoot.

Stay Connected                         Asian Tofu in the News"Informative, engaging, well written and researched, this is also the best book about tofu."
— Winnie Yang, The Art of Eating

"A whole cookbook devoted to tofu? Yes, please."
— Kate Williams, Serious Eats 2012 Favorite Cookbooks

"Cooking with Tofu (Are You Serious?!)"
— Michael Rulhman on his tofu conversion

Book info, reviews, radio & TV . . .Classes & EventsHands-on @loveapplefarms, Santa Cruz
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Making tofu

Perhaps because of their relative isolation, the residents of northern Thailand’s various Chinese communities have been able to lead distinctly Chinese lives for several decades now. This remoteness has also meant that they’ve had to become rather self-sufficient. Even today, the Chinese residents of towns such as Ban Rak Thai and Mae Salong continue to produce their own air-dried ham, sausages, pickled vegetables, noodles, tea and tofu — the same staples their parents and grandparents would have made back in Yunnan.

Ban Thoet Thai, in Chiang Rai, although not exclusively Chinese, is yet another example of this.

Walking past the house above, I noticed blocks of tofu being dried in the sun:

Investigating inside, I discovered a virtual tofu factory:

Although they spoke very little Thai, the folks were kind enough to humour my camera and my questions, and I got to witness the entire process of making tofu, from beginning to end — something I hadn’t seen previously.

It began by grinding re-hydrated soy beans, adding water to facilitate the process:

The thick mush was combined with a bit of hot water, and the mixture was strained through a suspended cheesecloth via some pretty vigorous spinning and shaking (the leftover solids were used for pig feed):

The liquid was poured into large, wok-like vats and simmered for about an hour:

After the liquid had thickened slightly and a skin had formed, it was taken from the vats:

and immediately combined with a coagulant. After about 15 minutes, curds started to form:

The chunky mixture was then poured into permeable plastic sacks that were rolled to combine the solids and extract water:

After manually removing as much water as possible, the bags were formed into rectangles and pressed with heavy wood blocks and the additional force of a car jack:

After about an hour, the bags were removed from the press and set aside:

And after another couple hours of additional draining, the finished tofu was removed from the bags and cut into cubes:

In China, the tofu would probably be finished at this point, but to provide it with a bit more shelf life in Thailand’s hot and humid climate, the cubes were dried in the sun for a day before being sold.

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Japanese Cooking 101, Lesson 1-Addendum: Making Miso Soup and Clear Soup with Dashi

Now that you know how to make a proper dashi, you’re 90% on your way to making delicious miso soup and clear soup. If you have ever wondered why your miso soup doesn’t taste quite right, and you were omitting the dashi part…you’re in for a treat!

For this lesson I will be using one ingredient, potato, that should be familiar to anyone, and another, wakame seaweed, which may be more unusual but is a standby in Japanese kitchen. It also gives me a chance to show you how to handle miso soup additions that have different cooking times.

Wakame (???) is very different from kombu, but is probably the second most used seaweed in Japanese cooking. Unlike kombu wakame doesn’t have a whole lot of umami, although it has a pleasant sea-flavor. It’s enjoyed more for its texture, which can be kind of chewy and squeaky when raw, or soft once you cook it even briefly.

Wakame is available in two forms: fresh (raw) and packed in salt; or dried. I usually have the dried kind around because it’s more convenient (especially when you live far away from a Japanese grocery store like me) and that is what I used here:

Dried wakame expands to 4-5 times its volume when reconstituted, so use sparingly. Dried wakame usually comes already chopped up, so all you need to do is to take out some and reconstitute in cold water is using in salads or side dishes. For soup you can just put it directly into the soup.

Fresh wakame packed in salt should be stored in the refrigerator. Before using, rinse off the salt under running water, then blanch briefly by pouring boiling water over it. If using in a salad, refresh in cold water. Fresh wakame comes in long whole strands, so you need to chop it up before using. It also expands a bit (about 1.5 times or so) so don’t pull out more than you need from that tangle in the packet.

For this miso soup I used a white Shinshuu miso. Shinshuu is the old name of Nagano Prefecture, and is known for its excellent miso. It’s fairly mild on the saltiness scale.

Every miso has a different level of salt, and the worst thing you want to do is to add too much miso to your soup. A general rule of thumb is to use about 1 tablespoon per cup (U.S. measure, 236.5ml) or 1/4 l (250ml) but if you have a very salty red miso for example, you may need less. So when you are trying out a new miso, always add less than you think you need. It’s easy to add more. Since we’ll be using 1000 ml / around 4 cups for this recipe, we’ll start with 3 tablespoons and add more if we think we need it.

(See: Japanese miso primer for more about different types of miso.)

For 3-4 servings

1000ml / 4 U.S. cups dashi1 medium potato, peeled and cut into small pieces2-3 tablespoons of dried wakame, or 4-5 tablespoons (about 2 strands) of fresh wakame 3-4 tablespoons of miso

1. Bring the dashi up to a boil, and add the potato. Lower to a simmer, and cook until the potatoes are soft, around 10 minutes depending on how big the pieces are.

In the meantime, if you’re using fresh wakame, process it as detailed above. Dried wakame can just be thrown in there without reconstituting. When the potato pieces are tender, add the wakame.

Put the miso paste in a bowl and add some of the liquid from the soup.

Mix it around in the liquid until it’s dissolved. Never add miso paste directly to soup: always dissolve it first. Otherwise you run the risk of salty clumps or miso in the soup, or of overcooking it. (Incidentally, I always do this dissolving part in the bowl of the ladle I’m using, as do most Japanese home cooks. Once you get more used to making miso soup you can try that too. Less washing up to do!)

Add the dissolved miso to the soup, then immediately turn off the heat. Miso should not be boiled, or it starts to turn a bit grainy. (Mind you it will still taste fine, so if this happens to you don’t throw away your soup or anything). Taste your soup, and if needed add a bit more dissolved miso.

Serve in a bowl. The combination of potato with soft wakame is really homey and delicious. Take your time to inhale the aroma of the soup. If you serve this to a homesick Japanese person they may cry in gratitude.

Tip: If you can’t get wakame, you can use some shredded spinach (as I used in the clear soup below) instead.

Cook any hard ingredients until tender in the dashi. Add no-cook or almost-no-cook ingredients at the end. Always dissolve the miso before adding to the soup, using some of the dashi in the pot. Add less miso than you think it needs, then add as needed. 1 tablespoon = 1 U.S. cup or around 250ml of dashi is a fairly good baseline, but all misos are different. Never let miso soup boil after adding the miso.

Delicate clear soup or osuimono may seem even easier to make than miso soup on the surface, but getting the flavor balance just right can be a bit tricky. A clear soup really must have a great tasting dashi as a base. Many cooks prefer to use a kombu dashi which is more subtle and refined according to some, but the standard kombu + katsuobushi dashi is fine too.

Here I have used two ingredients that should be easy to get anywhere.

For 3-4 servings

1000ml / 4 U.S. cups dashi1 teaspoon soy sauce (light soy sauce preferred, but dark is ok) 2 teaspoons sake 1 teaspoon mirin Salt to taste 1 chicken tender or supreme (the long, thin, tender part that’s on the underside of a chicken breast), cut into small slivers 3-4 spinach leaves, stalks removed and shredded

I didn’t include any step by step photos here since you’ll just see a pan of clear liquid mostly! But here are the steps.

Bring the dashi to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer. Add the soy sauce, sake and mirin. (Note for people who can’t use these ingredients - just leave them out; the soup will still taste pretty good.) Add the chicken, then add the spinach. Both will cook almost immediately. Taste the soup. Add a pinch of salt if you think it needs it, then taste again, until it has the right amount of saltiness. Serve in a bowl.

So there you have it! You know how to make great miso soup and clear soup!

If you would like to do so, please link to a picture of your results in the commencts right here, via Twitter to @justbento or @makiwi, or on the Facebook page.

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Getting Rear-Ended, Making Tofu with Cooking Light, Visiting Birmingham

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November 02, 2012Getting Rear-Ended, Making Tofu with Cooking Light, Visiting Birmingham

I just got home from an eventful week of travel. I firstheaded to Santa Monica to lead a farmer’s market tour and do a tofu cookingdemo with the Gourmandise School;I also taped a radio segment with Evan Kleinman of KCRW’s Good Food and visited with Bee Yinn Low to prepare her family's laksa noodle soup.

The night that Iarrived in Los Angeles, I got rear-ended coming home from dinner with my friend Victor Fong.No one was hurt but ironically, right before I realized that the carapproaching me was not going to stop, Victor was saying how my 2001 HondaAccord was in such great shape. Then I realized that the vehicle behind us was notslowing down. I took my foot off the brake to absorb the shock of whatever thatwas coming.  

Anna, the young woman driving the Nissan Sentra that hit my carfell apart crying, having had a flashback to a fatal accident involving her littlebrother. She didn’t have her license with her, was driving a borrowed vehicle, didn’thave the car insurance information, AND had just moved to Los Angeles. Shecalled her father in North Carolina and handed me the cell phone to talk tohim. Oye, I felt bad for her fragile state. What an LA story.

Remembering what a kind woman had told me a few weeks earlier when, in aWhole Foods parking lot, my shopping cart rolled away and dinged her car hood,I said to Anna, “Everything will be okay. It’s just a car.”

The next day, I went to a body shop for an estimate and to makesure I could still safely drive the car; eventually, I had to drive back toSanta Cruz. Figuring that I’d get an honest answer, I asked the estimator,“What would you advise me to do if I were your sister or mother?”

He responded with these memorable takeaways:

A car’s actual bumper is an unattractive pieceof rebar (metal). That’s what protects you. What we think of as a bumper isjust decor. Mine looked sad but not bad.There can be hidden/unseen damage so don’trely on a cursory visual estimate. He refused to give me an estimate. However,he did me the favor of looking underneath my car and saw that there was awrinkle in the rail/frame (a costly thing, sign of hidden damage). When you’re far from home, check to make sureyou can drive your damaged vehicle home to get it repaired there. At a stop, look in your rear view mirror.

The car accident has been a minor inconvenience, mostly because Ihave to deal with folks in another time zone and a rattling muffler that lovesto make noise in slow traffic. But I just reminded myself that it’s just a car.A week after the accident, I am home and the insurance process has inchedforward. 

DIY Tofu @ Cooking Light Headquarters

Part of the week’s travel led me to Birmingham, Alabama, where CookingLight magazine headquarters are located. I’d never been to Alabama andfound it to be lovely and low-key; they like to keep it that way, I was told. Theleaves were showing their fall colors.

Executive food editor Ann Pittman invited me to demoand teach her and the staff a few Asian cooking techniques. We came up with alist of things to cover, including homemade tofu. I brought my favorite soybeans andsoaked them overnight in an ice bucket in my hotel room; the next day, Idrained and transported the plump beans in the plastic bag that I found in the ice bucket.

At the Cooking Light testkitchen, I set up 4 stations and had people make soy milk and tofu fromscratch. As editor Phoebe Wu suggested, I had the grouptaste plain soy milk because most of them had never unadulterated, fresh soymilk; they assumed that it was like Silk, the stuff sold in boxes. They drankup nearly all the medium soy milk that was made, deeming it delicious.

When people unmolded their tofu, recipe tester and developerRobin Bashinsky marveled, “I never thought you could make tofu. I assumed itjust came in a tub!” I left a mold and some coagulant and beans for him and Phoebe to tinker with. They both said they wanted to make tofu again.

Ann posted a recap of the DIY tofu session on the magazine’sblog. I loved that she wrote this: “From start tofinish (well, after soaking dried soybeans overnight), it only took about anhour and a half. And it was So. Much. Fun.”

It was. We were like a bunch of kids in thekitchen, exchanging knowledge and trying new things. Their virginal reaction to making tofu was like mine a few years back:It seemed like such a miracle to derive a delicious food from a little bean.

Birmingham Eats, Drinks, and Museum

Cooking Light staffers were new to making tofu as much as I was new to Birmingham. They hosted me with generous southern hospitality. We had tart-sweet Alabama barbecue at Dreamland because their other favorite spot, Saw's was closed on Sundays. The unassuming John's City Diner downtown had well-prepared sandwiches and southern sides; Ann and I went there for lunch.

Birmingham's vibrant food scene is partly led by chef/restaurateurFrank Stitt, and we went to Bottega for dinner one night. Beverage-wise, Good People makes a refreshing cannedIPA. My hotel was fortuitously across from the Red Lion Lounge, the epitome of a cheap dive bar, I was told. Indeed, it was an interesting scene. A Costco-size bottleof Tums sat on the bar for customer’s convenience and my draft Bud Lite was $2 athappy hour.

Birmingham played a pivotal role in the 1960s Civil RightsMovement, and Ann accompanied me to the Civil Rights Institute. It was locatedacross from the historic 16th Street Baptist church that was bombed in 1963. Goif you’re ever nearby or in Birmingham.  

I flew back to Southern California on Tuesday night, and my momhad dinner waiting. On Wednesday, I drove seven hours home. The mufflerrattling wasn’t bad on the highway. I also cranked up the stereo. 

Got tips on dealing with car accidents or good eats/drinks in Alabama? Let us all know.

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I just got home from an eventful week of travel. I firstheaded to Santa Monica to lead a farmer’s market tour and do a tofu cookingdemo with the Gourmandise School;I also taped a radio segment with Evan Kleinman of KCRW’s Good Food and visited with Bee Yinn Low to prepare her family's laksa noodle soup.

The night that Iarrived in Los Angeles, I got rear-ended coming home from dinner with my friend Victor Fong.No one was hurt but ironically, right before I realized that the carapproaching me was not going to stop, Victor was saying how my 2001 HondaAccord was in such great shape. Then I realized that the vehicle behind us was notslowing down. I took my foot off the brake to absorb the shock of whatever thatwas coming.  

Anna, the young woman driving the Nissan Sentra that hit my carfell apart crying, having had a flashback to a fatal accident involving her littlebrother. She didn’t have her license with her, was driving a borrowed vehicle, didn’thave the car insurance information, AND had just moved to Los Angeles. Shecalled her father in North Carolina and handed me the cell phone to talk tohim. Oye, I felt bad for her fragile state. What an LA story.

Remembering what a kind woman had told me a few weeks earlier when, in aWhole Foods parking lot, my shopping cart rolled away and dinged her car hood,I said to Anna, “Everything will be okay. It’s just a car.”

The next day, I went to a body shop for an estimate and to makesure I could still safely drive the car; eventually, I had to drive back toSanta Cruz. Figuring that I’d get an honest answer, I asked the estimator,“What would you advise me to do if I were your sister or mother?”

Stay Connected                    Asian Tofu in the News"Cooking with Tofu (Are You Serious?!)"
— Michael Rulhman on his tofu conversion

"This book should be a priority for anyone with the slightest interest in Asian cuisines."
— Anne Mendelson, Taste & Travel

"The most gratifying part about cooking from Asian Tofu is that all the recipes work the way they’re written."
— T. Susan Chang, Boston Globe

Book info, reviews, radio & TV . . .Events: Demo & classesSat., Nov 10, 2-5pm, @GourmandiseLA, Santa Monica
Asian Tofu, hands-on {SOLD OUT}

Sun., Nov 11, 2-5pm, @GourmandiseLA, Santa Monica
Asian Dumplings, hands-on {SOLD OUT}

More soon on 2013 classes...

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