Qagh

Qagh, also known as Gagh, was the one dish I knew I had to make as soon as I decided to host a dinner part for the premiere of the new Star Trek film. It's a Klingon delicacy that consists of a type of worm. It's best served live.

Now, this did present a challenge for several reasons. Aside from the fact that I was fairly certain a shipment of worms would not survive the trip from Kronos to Earth, I am a vegetarian, and therefore most Klingon foods are off-limits. I was going to have to come up with a creative Earthling improvisation.

The first thing I had to move past was that I actually kind of wanted the Qagh to taste bad. Well, not bad, per se, but... to taste strongly. Klingons are a warrior-race, and I felt that all of their food should have a very distinctive, very assertive taste. Besides the fact that it is supposed to be a plate of worms, after all.

Noodles seemed to fit the bill for the worm-factor, but anything Italian is far too recognizable. And Chinese food, though closer, just didn't say Klingon to me, either. But then I hit on Korean. Of course! Korean food, if you've never had it before, has a very distinct, very strong flavor. It can be spicy, and many people aren't familiar with it, so it would taste decidedly different (one might say, "alien") for my guests. So I found a recipe on epicurious.com and modified it slightly for my own purposes.

For sauce

• 2/3 cup rice wine vinegar
  
• 2/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 1/2 Tbs Korean hot-pepper paste (sometimes labeled "gochujang")
• 2 tablespoon packed brown sugar

For noodles

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus 2 Tbs
  
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped or grated peeled ginger
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
• 1 large onion, cut into 1/4" strips
  
• 1 1/4 pound Napa cabbage, thinly sliced (8 cups)
• 6 scallions, thinly sliced and white ends removed but saved
  
• 12 ounces soba (buckwheat noodles)

First of all I doubled the sauce (the measurements shown above are already doubled, as I used them). Just stire all of the ingredients together until the brown sugar is dissolved (I did this in a saucepan over heat, but I'm sure it would work just fine in a bowl). Set it aside.

Then heat 1/4 cup of the oil in a large pot or wok over medium-high heat. Add the ginger and garlic. (One trick I learned from a friend is to peel and freeze the ginger ahead of time, then use the fine side of a cheese grater to grate it rather than chopping it - it's much faster and easier.) Sauté, stirring until just starting to give off their delicious aromas, about 30 seconds. Reduce the heat to medium and add the cabbage and the scallions, minus their little white tips (those will be used for garnish later). Cook, stirring occasionally, about 6 minutes, until cabbage is "crisp tender." (Sounds strange, but you'll know it when you taste it.)

Then add half of the sauce and simmer 2 minutes longer. While this is cooking, sauté the onion strips in the remaining 2 Tbs of oil until translucent and soft. Then add the rest of the sauce to the onions and let them continue to simmer so they absorb the color of the sauce and turn a nice brown.

When everything else is ready, put the noodles in a pot of boiling, salted water (epicurious suggests 2 Tbs salt for every 6 quarts of water) and boil til just tender, about 6 minutes. Drain them immediately in a colander and rinse with cold water to remove excess starch and stop the cooking. Drain well.

Transfer the noodles to a large bowl and toss with the cabbage mixture. Plate the noodles, and top with the onion strips (the onions really add to the "worm" effect even better than the noodles, as soba noodles are fairly thin). Then stick the white ends of the scallions around the edge of the noodles, protruding out from underneath the pile. (I was hoping these looked like some sort of tentacle or unknown creature extremity.)

Ta-da! You have yourself a vegetarian, Klingon dish. It won't writhe as you eat it, like true Qagh would, but your guests will likely thank you for that.