Grilled squid, wakame and myouga in vinegar miso sauce イカとワカメ, 茗荷の酢みそ和え

This is a made-from-leftover dish and very similar to  the dish I posted previously but since we harvested the very first myouga 茗荷, this is a preview of the myouga dishes to come. We grilled marinated squid (in lemon zest, olive oil, fresh thyme etc) few days ago but it was not a roaring success. I used this leftover squid, combined with a type of sea vegetable called "wakame" 若布, and cucumber to make this small starter dish. I added the star attraction--a garnish of myouga.

I thinly sliced cucumber (American mini cucumber) and salted the slices. I squeezed out the excess moisture and lightly dressed it with sushi vinegar. For "wakame", after re-hydration, I squeezed out the excess water and also lightly dressed it with sushi vinegar. Before dressing with  a "sumiso" sauce, I again squeezed out excess liquid from both the cucumber and wakame. I sliced the left over grilled squid into thin rings.

Karashi sumiso sauce: This is my regular sumiso sauce with miso (I used red miso this time without any particular reason), sugar and rice vinegar with Japanese hot mustard.

After dressing everything in the sumiso, I garnished with a perilla leaf, sliced Campari tomato, and fresh myouga (just a cameo appearance of myouga here). Because of the karashi sumiso, the squid tasted better and the myouga has such a unique taste it really added to the dish.

We are still waiting for the myouga to get a bit larger.