Three dishes with Miso mustard vinegar dressing からし酢みそ和え、三種類

I am not sure this is even worth posting. Here are three variations on the theme of "sumiso ae" 酢みそ和え.

1. Squid legs and crab salad イカのゲソとかにのからし酢みそ和え

I made this when I made crab stuffed squid since I had extra squid legs and crab. Squid legs (called "geso" ゲソ) are briefly boiled in salted water with a splash of sake (for 30 seconds). After cooling, I cut them into bite sized pieces. The crab meat was used as is from the container. American mini-cucumber was washed and rolled on the cutting board with salt (called "itazuri" 板ずり) and washed again and dried with a paper towel. Sliced thinly, salted lightly and let stand for 3-4 minutes and extra moisture squeezed out. Sumiso sauce was made in my usual way but this time I used "Saikyou miso" 西京味噌 with Japanese hot mustard, mirin and rice vinegar. Because of the vinegary taste, sake is the best accompaniment for this dish. Unfortunately, the crab was not the best.

2. Crab meat, semi-dried scallop, and sakuraebi カニ、貝柱、桜えびの酢味噌和え

I made this one when I made the California roll since extra lump crab meat was available. I also used steamed and semi-soft scallop from Hokkaido, cucumber which was dressed with sushi vinegar and dried small red shrimp, sakuraebi 桜えび.

3. Baby octopus, snake-belly-cut cucumber and tomato 子鮹と蛇腹切りのキュウリの酢みそ和え

We happened to find fresh baby octopuses (octopi ?). I marinated and grilled the rest of them but I served this as a starter. I just very breifly boiled the baby octopuses in salted water (30 seconds) and stopped the cooking by plunging them in ice water. I was hoping that the brief cooking would make them less chewy. But this strategy apparently did not work. The dish was sent back to the kitchen by my customer (my wife) with the request that it be cut into bite size pieces because it was hard chew. The over all review, however, once the pieces were made manageable was that the octopuses were very good and fresh. The cucumber was cut in a snake belly or jabara 蛇腹 fashion first and then cut into one inch long segments.