Chestnuts in syrup and sweet potato with green tea お茶請け

The North American chestnuts we got this year were not as good as usual. They were kind of dry and chalky. We made our usual chestnut rice  栗ご飯 using the fragmented ones and made "kanro-ni" 栗の甘露煮 or chestnuts simmered in syrup. Since I also made "sweet" Japanese sweet potato, we had both as a snack with green tea which is called "Ocha-uke" 御茶請け.

The tea was sold by Hibikian 響庵 and came from Uji 宇治 . With green tea, something sweet goes well. Although both the chestnut and sweet potato are not "sweet tea cake", they are sweet enough to be "ocha-uke".

As before I boiled the chestnuts after soaking them for a few hours in water. I removed the outer and inner skins while they were hot. I simmered the peeled chestnuts in a simple syrup (equal amounts of water and sugar) for 30 minutes and cooled in the syrup.

Once in a syrup, the chestnuts will last for a while in the refrigerator. As I said, this year's batch was not the best but still, the chestnuts brought an autumn taste.

Japanese "Satsuma-imo" simmered sweet potato さつま芋の甘煮

Since my wife is a big fan of Japanese "Satsuma-imo" sweet potato 薩摩芋, she got three when we were at our near-by Whole Foods.  We cooked them in our Weber grill when I did my our usual pork roast. My wife put "dibs" on two of them. She made mashed sweet potato with butter and soy sauce and we enjoyed it with the roasted pork. The leftover mashed sweet potato became sweet potato rolls. So, I got one potato to use to my heart's content. I made this simple sweetened simmered sweet potato (making sweet potato even sweeter appears to be common in Japan).

I garnished this dish with black sesame 黒胡麻. For some reason, black sesame is often used with sweet potato. I am just following the tradition.

The sweet potato we got was "organic" and had some (read: a lot of) dirt on them. Maybe a thick coating of mother earth is part of the "organic" appeal. My wife would not allow them anywhere near the refrigerator until I scrubbed them with a brush. (below).

Ingredients:
1 Japanese "Satsuma-imo" sweet potato, scrubbed clean, skin on, cut into 1/4 inch thick rounds and the larger round cut in to two or four.
Water just enough to cover (sweet potato in one layer)
1-2 tbs sugar
A pinch of salt
Black sesame seeds for garnish

Directions:
In a large frying pan (large enough to hold the sweet potato in one layer), add the potato and water to just cover.
Place the pan in medium-low flame.
Simmer for 10-15 minutes with a lid on until a bamboo skewer goes thorough easily.
Sprinkle on the sugar and keep simmering for 1-10 minutes, add a pinch of salt.
Remove the lid and turn up the flame and shake and cook until the liquid is almost all gone.
Sprinkle the black sesame and serve hot or at room temperature.

Japanese almost always add sugar to already sweet Japanese sweet potato. This recipe was no exception. It is a bit sweet as a side dish but it is good as a snack and also surprisingly goes well with a sake or even wine.

Brazilian corn cookie ブラジル風コーンクッキー

Some time ago my wife got corn flour  (instead of cornmeal) for one of her baking projects. I assume that "cornflour" is just more finely milled than "cornmeal". In any case, the one she got was called "Bob's Red Mill" brand. Since she had much more corn flour that she needed for the original project and the package had a recipe for "Brazilian Corn Cookies", she made this cookie.

Ingredients:
1 cup Corn Flour (Bob's red Mill)
1/2 cup White Rice Flour (Bob's red Mill, which is different from Japanese varieties)
1/2 cup Corn Starch 
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Shredded Coconut 

1/2 cup Sugar

1 Egg

1/2 cup Unsalted Butter


Instructions:
Mix dry ingredients together; set aside.
In a separate bowl, cream together the butter, egg and sugar.
Add the dry ingredients and blend until smooth.
Make 1 ½ inch balls with the dough and place on greased baking sheet.
Flatten the balls gently with the palm of your hand.
Bake at 350°F for 12 minutes, or until golden brown.

This is a gluten free cookie. It is a bit on dry side and very crumbly in texture but has a nice corn flavor. (Accompanying liquid is recommended to prevent choking on the crumb dust). My wife asked a Brazilian acquaintance about this (supposed ?) Brazilian cookie but she did not know anything about it?!

Capelin "nanban" シシャモの南蛮漬け

This is another frozen item forgotten in our freezer. My wife drew my attention to a package of frozen capelin or shishamo シシャモ. Although I was not sure how old this was, it did look and smell OK. I usually serve this grilled but I thought "nanban-zuke" 南蛮漬け may be better since deep frying and marinating in sweet vinegar may eliminate any off tastes if they existed.  We tasted just it after it was deep fried and it tasted good but I went ahead and made the nanban.  I served this as a small appetizer with blanched broccoli rabe (rapini).

Along with this dish, I served store-bought "satsuma-age" fish cake 薩摩揚げ, "dashimaki" omelet だし巻き卵, sugar snap スナップ豌豆の塩びたし, simmered kabocha かぼちゃの煮物(center square plate) and boiled octopus leg with rapini. This was quite a big starter.

Ingredients:
One package (10) "shishamo" capelin thawed
2-3 Tbs potato starch "katakuriko" 片栗粉 for dredging
One sweet onion, halved and cut into thin strips
One medium carrot, peeled and cut into small julienne
Few dried Japanese "nanban" togarashi 南蛮唐辛子 red pepper, cut into small rings
One cup sweet vinegar (one cut rice vinegar, 1/2 cup sugar and 1tsp Kosher salt, boiled to dissolve)
1/2 vegetable or peanut oil for "shallow" frying

Direction:
Dredge shishamo with the potato starch (#1)
Add the onion and carrot in a sealable container and pour the hot sweet vinegar and let it cool to the room temperature (#2)
Shallow fry (or deep fry if you so prefer) in 1/4 inch deep oil (#3) for a few minutes and then turn over and cook another minute or two (#4)
Remove half of the vegetables from #2 and add the fried shishamo (#5)
Add back the vegetables to cover the fish (#6)
Put the lid on and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

As a rescue dish for old frozen shishamo, this was quite good. Frying and marinating in sweet vinegar really made it more than edible. Because of the preservative nature of the marinade, we kept enjoying this dish for a week (one small fish at a time). This dish is perfect for cold sake but not great with red wine because of the acidity.

Pork belly chasu and miso ramen 三枚肉チャーシュー と味噌ラーメン

Although we can get ”pork belly” or "Sanmai-niku" 三枚肉 (meaning "three layer meat" referring to alternating layers of fat and red meat) at  specialty grocery stores such as Whole Foods, it has not been available at our usual grocery store. But the other day, I found a large package of pork belly (probably 2-3 lb). I could not resist getting one. It was rather large and I made  "Kakuni" 角煮 from half and made pork belly chasu 三枚肉チャーシュー from the other half.  Since this is usually served as a ramen topping, I made miso ramen with pork belly chasu as a lunch one weekend.

I also made "ajitama" 味玉 or seasoned soft boiled egg. I also opened a jar of store-bought "Menma" メンマ seasoned bamboo shoot. I added nori seaweed and finely chopped chives as toppings.

As before, the ramen noodle is  American-made frozen  ones from "Sun Noodle". I also used "miso" seasoning that came with the noodles but instead of hot water, I used Japanese broth made from a "dashi pack" to make the soup.

Pork Belly chasu

Ingredients:
1 lb pork belly (half of the piece of pork I got), thinner portion (I assume this is  towards the front) which I rolled tightly and trussed.
3 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs mirin
1 tbs sake
1 scallion, bruised with back of the knife
2 cloves garlic, crushed and skin removed
5 black pepper corns
3 star anises (optional)
Water to cover

Directions:
Place the pork in a pot (in which the pork snuggly fits), add the soy sauce, mirin, sake, scallion, garlic, black pepper corns, and star anise. Marinate for a few hours at room temperature turning a few times.
Add water so that the pork is just barely covered. Cover the pork with either a silicon "otoshi buta" 落し蓋 or aluminum foil.
Put on the lid and simmer for several hours turning a few times.
Let it cool in the simmering liquid and then put into the refrigerator for overnight.
Skim off fat.

To serve:
Remove the pork from the now congealed marinade (#1 and #2).
Slice it to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick (#3)
Meanwhile, soft boiled egg was marinated in Japanese concentrated noodle sauce in a Ziploc bag for overnight or longer in the refrigerator (#4).
Cut the egg in half (#5).  After 24 hours, the yolk is still liquid but the more you marinate, the more yolks will jell.
I have "pork belly chasu", "menma" seasoned bamboo shoots, "ajitma" seasoned boiled egg and chopped chives for toppings (#6).

I boiled one serving of the ramen noodle as per the instructions and drained (this is half ramen 半ラーメンfor each of us).
Divide the miso seasoning package into two portions and place it in the bowls. Pour in hot dashi broth and dissolve the miso seasoning.
Add half of the package of noodles into each bowl.
Garnished it with the toppings above and the nori sheet.

This was rather decadent ramen. Compared to pork loin or even shoulder version of chasu, this is much more unctuous.  On other occasion, I made "chasu and egg" チャーシューエッグ using this which was also really good. We have to be careful that all this lovely pork belly will be "too much of a good thing"...Not likely!

Miso soup made with previously frozen Maitake and tobanjan 舞茸のピリ辛味噌汁

This was a lunch one weekend.  Since we still had extra maitake which I bought when I bought the matsutake and I saw this very interesting recipe for maitake miso soup, I  decided to make it. The mushrooms in and of themselves were very filling and combined with the other vegetables in the soup plus the freshly cooked rice and  simmered "kabocha" かぼちゃの煮物 and blanched broccolini I served along side, this turned out to be a very good but very big lunch. (as a result, my wife and I couldn't eat dinner that day.)

The bowls I used were much larger than regular miso soup bowls. The picture doesn't show the ingredients in the soup very well. The unique thing about this recipe, and the thing that caught my attention, was that it called for freezing the maitake (to enhance its flavor) and the addition of tobanjan 豆板醤. This, I just had to try because if it was possible to freeze the mushroom resulting in improved flavor that technique could come in handy for other recipes. I had to make some variations to the recipe, for example, since I did not have Japanese "Kabu" turnip which was suggested in the original recipe, I used daikon, carrot, wakame seaweed, and scallion.

The picture below shows the kabocha and broccolini. To make a typical "teishoku" 定食  i.e. dinner or a lunch set, we would have needed stukemono 漬物 or pickled/salted vegetables which we did not have.

Ingredients:
One package of maitake (1/4 lb), hand torn into bit sized pieces, quickly rinsed in water with the moisture removed using a salad spinner. Place mushrooms in a Ziploc bag and freeze overnight. (the recipe indicates that this process enhances the flavor of the maitake).

Daikon, peeled and sliced  in 1/4 inch thick rounds and cut in half (amount arbitrary)
Carrot, peeled and sliced in 1/4 inch thick diagonally (amount arbitrary)
Salt preserved  (or dry) "wakame" seaweed, salt washed and hydrated, cut into bite sized pieces (amount arbitrary)

Scallion, finely chopped

2 cups dashi broth (I used a dashi pack which included small dried fish called "iriko", which is more appropriate for miso soup)

1 tbs of miso
1/2 tsp of tobanjan (or more if you like it spicy)

Directions:
I added the broth, maitake (not thawed), daikon and carrot into a pan. I simmered it until the vegetables were cooked (for 10-15 minutes).
I added the wakame and dissolved the miso and tobanjan. I tasted and add more miso or tobanjan.
Add the scallion and when it comes back to a boil, shut off the flame and serve.

Although I added just a small amount of tobanjan, the soup was still rather spicy. It was ok with me but my wife thought it was too hot. She added yogurt to the soup. She said it calmed it down and tasted good. We are not sure freezing made any difference. I was afraid ice crystals would form in the maitake and make it spongy when it was frozen but that did not happen. It maintained a nice firm texture. This is a good soup and the freezing technique will be useful for making the maitake last longer. However, my wife said maitake is best if it was cooked with some oil.

Another five "otoshi" appetizers お通し５種類

This is another example of 5 starting appetizers. This time, all five items were made by me--no store bought. Again, I used the long rectangular plates with five depressions.

From left to right; spicy tofu cubes ぴり辛豆腐, chicken square with dried fruit and gorgonzola cheese *ドライフルーツとゴルゴンゾーラチーズ松風焼き topped with figgy cranberry sauce イチジククランベリーソース.

*Instead of the usual dried figs, I used a combination of hydrated dried fruits (peach, pear, apricot and prune)

Sugar snaps blanched and soaked in dashi seasoned with salt スナップ豌豆の塩びたし and Cauliflower Montparnasse モンパルナスのカリフラワー. The next is  blanched  broccoli rabe and dressed with mustard soy sauce and wedge of Campari tomato skinned.

Finally, pork meat ball with ricotta and parmesan cheese  リコッタチーズ入りミートボール with my home made marinara sauce.

I heated up the tofu, chicken squares, and meat balls in the toaster oven. This is a good combination of vegetables and proteins.

Buttermilk muffin バターミルク マフィン

My wife is very fond of buttermilk. Besides using it for baking or other cooking, she sometimes just drinks it. (A vestige of growing up in Pennsylvania Dutch country). Although I do like dishes and breads made with buttermilk, I don't enjoy just drinking it. In addition, she is very particular about the brand of buttermilk. Her favorite is Harrisburg Dairies. Our regular grocery stores do not carry this brand but Whole Foods does, so when we are in near-by Whole Foods, she stocks up by getting multiple containers.  I am not sure if we can get buttermilk in Japan. Several times we looked for it but we could not find it. In any case, she made this buttermilk muffin using the recipe from "Beard on Bread" cookbook. His original recipe was for buttermilk white loaf bread however we find muffins are more convenient to take to work for breakfast. Actually my wife has made this several times but we forgot take pictures and by the time we realized there were no pictures we had finished all the muffins. After making the 1st batch my wife decided to reduce the amount of salt called for in the original recipe. The 1st batch was good but both of us felt the muffins were too salty. She found that the Beard bread recipes in general use a lot more salt than other bread recipes and the end result actually tastes salty to us. Reducing the salt also doesn't seem to make a difference in the bread.  This buttermilk muffin is very similar in appearance and texture to regular white bread but it has a subtle "tanginess" or "sharpness" (in good way) somewhat reminiscent of sour dough bread but not as strong. This muffin can be served as dinner rolls or breakfast bread.

We freeze the muffins and just microwave them for 20 seconds in a silicon container for microwaving and it come back nicely with a soft texture. If you make it to a loaf, toasting it may be better.

The cut surface is that of yeast bread with nice soft texture.

Ingredients:
2 pks. dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar (plus 1/2 tsp additional to proof the yeast)
1/2 cup warm water
4 cups bread flour
2 tsp. salt
3 tbs. melted butter
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Directions:
Proof the yeast in the warm water and 1/2 tsp. sugar. Add the flour, remaining sugar and salt in a stand mixer with a dough hook. Add the proofed yeast, melted butter and buttermilk. Add additional flour as needed to make a smooth dough that sticks to the hook. Knead on speed 2 for 7 to 10 minutes. Place the dough in a bowl with some vegetable oil in it. Turn the dough to coat with oil so it won't dry out while rising. Let rise until doubled in bulk. Punch down and form into rolls weighing 2 1/2 oz. Put the rolls in a heavily buttered large pyrex baking dish. Cover and let rise until double in size (about 1/2 hour). Bake in a 400 degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes. (It can also be made into loaves in which case it is baked for 30 to 40 minutes or until it sounds hollow when tapped.)

My wife commented, "The first time I read the recipe the description said it was made with hard wheat flour. I thought that meant whole wheat flour. So the first few times I made the muffins I used whole wheat flour and the rolls were quite good. Then, sometime later, when I read the recipe I wondered why the title called it white bread when it was made with whole wheat flour which results in a brown colored bread. Then it dawned on me that the hard wheat flour to which they were referring was high protein white wheat flour or in laymen's terms "bread flour". (duh!!) but the recipe  seems to work well with whole wheat flour too."

Squid "somen" イカ素麺

I am rather fond of squid and I posted many dishes. So, when I saw a new squid product in the freezer case at our Japanese store, I naturally bought it. It was called "Squid somen" イカ素麺. "Somen" 素麺 is a type of very thin Japanese noodle indicating this is raw squid cut in very thin strips. I served it dressed in the sauce which was included in the package and also added finely chopped chives.

It came in a bag containing three small cups and sauce. I thawed two cups in the refrigerator.

The amount in a cup was meant to be one serving and it is a small serving.

This was not bad but we prefer our regular squid sashimi package. It appeared that some of the squid strips still had the skin attached which stuck to my teeth. Oh, well. At least we tried it once.

Fennel ricotta muffin フェンネル リコッタチーズ マフィン

This another one of my wife's muffin project.The recipe came from "Pastries from La Brea Bakery". The muffin has fennel flavor and has ricotta cheese stuffing with pecan and walnuts on the top.

This is again quite successful muffin. I will let my wife take over.

Ingredients:

For the batter
1 tsp. fennel seeds toasted and pulverized
3 cups AP flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tbs. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt
3/4 cup vegetable oil

For the filling

1 cup ricotta cheese
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt

For the topping 

walnuts or pecans toasted and chopped

Directions:
Mix the fennel, flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl and combine. In another bowl mix the yogurt and vegetable oil. Combine the dry and liquid ingredients. In a third bowl mix the ingredients for the filling. Place a scoop of the batter in heavily greased muffin tin. Add a scoop of the filling and top with another scoop of the batter. Top with the toasted chopped nuts. Cook in a 400 degree oven for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool slightly then remove from the muffin tin.

These were very good muffins. They had a nice tender texture with a surprise moist layer of ricotta in the center. The fennel gave it a pleasant spicy taste which set these apart from the usual muffin. These were very creative and pleasantly different--characteristic of the muffin recipes presented in the La Brea cookbook. We actually ate them all before we could take all the usual pictures so we couldn't show the nice layer of filling. Also, my wife has made several batches of these muffins all with the same "short-lived" effect so these were the best pictures we could salvage.