Loud vs. quiet food plus an almost no-cook rice bowl
Rice bowls with cucumber, avocado, and smoked fish
Loud food has everything turned up to 11—the salt, fat, acid, heat, and maybe some sweetness, too. Loud food is crispy, crunchy, chewy, garlicky, and maybe cheesy, sometimes all at the same time. More is more with loud food. TikTok is full of loud food.
When done well, loud food will make you clap wildly because of its deliciousness. But it can also leave you scratching your head, and maybe needing a bitter digestivo.
David Chang certainly didn’t invent loud food, but I coined the term in my head at his first iteration of Momofuku Ssäm Bar, the second East Village restaurant he opened in the mid-aughts.
There, he changed the way people thought about Brussels sprouts. He fried them so the edges feathered out and became crispy and tossed them with a rowdy, tangy, fish-saucy dressing with plenty of herbs and some chiles. Then he finished them off with puffed rice.
Fittingly, at Ssäm Bar, he blasted rock music and hip hop while diners teetering on stools yelled at each other to be heard. I distinctly remember one time while sitting at the bar there, I watched a middle-aged couple come in, wrinkle their noses, and say to each other, “This is a kids’ place!”
How far off am I from those people right now? But I digress.
Contrast loud food with quiet food.
A pristine raw scallop, perhaps with a drop of olive oil and a piece of flaky salt, eaten with reverence.
A bronzed roast chicken.
A jiggling piece of fresh silken tofu, drizzled with artisanal soy sauce.
Chef Alice Waters and her restaurant Chez Panisse, in my mind, embody quiet food. Back in the late aughts, food media was atwitter when Chang criticized Waters and the sensibility of the food in Northern California at the time, reducing it all to “figs on a plate.”
“Do something with your food,” he admonished.
Yes, quiet food is often all about a single ingredient, harvested at its peak, with perhaps one or two additions to bring out its best. When done well, it inspires a satisfied smile and maybe a sigh. It’s delightful but more subtle.
Without good ingredients, however, quiet food often falls flat. It can be bland and insipid.
And don’t mistake quiet food for under-seasoned food. In my mind, that’s muffled food, and generally, a darn shame.
Why am I telling you all of this?
Well, this dish is one that I think loud food and quiet food partisans can get behind.
It starts with short-grain white rice, the ultimate quiet food. But that gets topped with richly flavored smoked trout, buttery avocado puckered with lemon juice, and quick-pickled cucumbers. And then finished with toasty sesame seeds.
If you need further proof that both loud and quiet food lovers will enjoy this: I make the cucumber using a technique I learned from Chang. (You toss them with equal parts sugar and salt.) And funny enough, Waters gave her stamp of approval when she featured the technique, with credit to him, in her 2010 book In the Green Kitchen.
Like any good bowl, this one includes a nice mix of flavors and textures, with the right amount of tension between the smoky, salty, and tangy, so you want to keep eating.
While it stops short of being loud, you could certainly pump up the volume with a sauce. My daughter, lately, has been partial to topping everything with a spicy mayo she makes using Hellman’s and Choula.
I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to do the same.
Rice Bowls with Cucumber, Avocado, and Smoked Fish
If you purchase about 4 cups pre-cooked rice, then this will truly be no-cook. :)
Serves 4
1 ½ cups short-grain rice (sometimes sold as sushi rice)
2 medium cucumbers (5 to 6 ounces each
Fine sea salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 Hass avocados, cut into ½-inch dice
1 lemon
One 8-ounce package smoked trout or mackerel
Toasted sesame seeds or furikake seasoning, for serving
Sliced chives or scallion greens (optional), for serving
Wash and cook the rice
Short-grain rice can benefit from a good rinse. You can either put it in a bowl, cover it with water, and wash it in several changes of water, until the water is a bit more clear, or put it in a sieve and rinse it well that way.
Either way, be sure to drain it well.
Transfer the washed rice to a medium heavy saucepan with a lid. Cover with 2 cups water (or whatever is recommended on the package) and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pot tightly, and cook for 10 minutes (or according to the package instructions). Turn off the heat and let stand for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, quick-pickle the cucumbers
Thinly slice the cucumbers into rounds, or if they are thick, cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise, then thinly slice into half moons.
In a bowl, toss the cucumbers with 1 teaspoon salt and the sugar and let stand for 10 minutes.
Prep the avocado
Dice the avocado. To do so: Cut the avocado in half lengthwise, then use a spoon to remove the pit. Use the front part of your knife to cut the avocado flesh into lengthwise slices, then cut the avocado halves in half lengthwise through the skin. Peel off the skin, then cut the avocado flesh crosswise.
Transfer the diced avocado to a bowl and toss with 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
Assemble the rice bowls and serve
Remove the skin from the smoked fish and flake the flesh.
Scoop the rice into bowls. Drain any excess liquid off the cucumbers. Arrange the cucumber, avocado, and smoked fish on top of the rice. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and chives, if using, and serve.
The short version
Cook the rice.
Slice the cucumber and toss with 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon sugar and let stand 10 minutes. (Drain off any excess liquid.)
Dice the avocado and toss with 2 tablespoons lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
Flake the fish. Scoop the rice into bowls and top with the fish, cucumber, and avocado. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and chives, if using.
Fun for kids
Toss the cucumbers with salt and sugar.
Squeeze the lemon.
Toss the lemon with avocado.
Flake the fish.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Swaps
You could swap the smoked trout or mackerel for hot-smoked salmon or try slabs of smoked or braised tofu.
Instead of cucumber, use sliced radishes or baby turnips.
Instead of white rice, use brown rice or any whole grain you like.
Bonus points
If you’ve got a bumper crop of tomatoes, dice them and toss with the avocado or add them in their own pile to the bowl.
If you want to add some heat, serve with chili-garlic sauce.
For more protein, add a jammy-cooked egg. (Boil in the shell for 8 minutes.) Or add shelled edamame.
This sounds delicious! I like both the simplicity of Alice Waters approach to food and the creative approach that is David Changs. There is a time and place for both :) I think I prefer simplicity, as it’s more accessible and efficient, at least when cooking at home. The future of food... Is it on Tiktok I wonder? It seems too trendy for anything to “stick” but I don’t know! I think personally I’m hoping that future of food shifts in the direction of more real, less “convenience”? I hope it shifts in a way that can focus on and support small farmers that value healthy soil, and eating and dining with more awareness and connection.
This recipe sounds like the perfect lunch, and really simple to make. We have a rice cooker and almost always have hot rice going in there. I’ll have to try it 😊
This might be my favorite preceding essay to one of your recipes yet. I lean quiet, especially in the summer when food tastes so achingly good on its own that it’s almost a sin to mess with a good thing. Maybe that’s why Alice Waters is Alice Waters. Her backyard has a Garden of Eden growing season. But come to think of it, for me anyway, anything roasted simply in a properly hot oven (even if you don’t live in CA) in the winter and fall does the trick just fine too.
Wonderful recipe! I’ll try your daughter’s trick.