We have been getting keta-slamon roe “Ikura” from Vital Choice. The available packages vary in size; sometimes only a tray of one kilograms is available and other time 6oz jars. In any case, we like keta-salmon roe the best among other trout and salmon roes. Our most common way to serve ikura is on blini with cream cheese and smoked salmon. This time, only small amount of ikura was left, so we made cream cheese wrapped with smoked salmon topped with ikura placed on a slice of cucumber.
These are a great seasonal two bite dessert. The flavor is surprisingly complex. The sharp freshness of the cranberries is followed by a lingering flavor of the figs combined with the yuzu orange rind and triple sec liquor. The pie crust and crumble top add two separate crunch dimensions. The crust is firmer than the crumble with a predominant butter/cream cheese flavor while the crumble is softer and much sweet further offsetting the tartness of the cranberries.
This is another example of a small bite tassie (pie) my wife made. This time it was a type of pumpkin pie (in keeping with the Thanksgiving holiday season) and more of a dessert than an appetizer. She served this two ways. One was topped with cream cheese and toasted (grilled) (left) and the other as is. The pumpkin filling has all the seasoning of pumpkin pie, so this tasted like one bite pumpkin pie. The cream cheese butter crust added a nice crunch. The browned cream cheese topping definitely made it better.
I saw this dish on one of the YouTube episodes by the first Iron chef Japanese Rokusabuto Michiba 道場六三郎. Although he is now 91 he has a YouTube channel. In that episode, he oversaw the production of ultimate sake and, while visiting the brewery, made two dishes that go well with sake. This one is very simple and I had all ingredients so I decided to make it. This is essentially cubes of daikon and cheese dressed in salted “Umeboshi” sauce. I served it with cold sake and it surprisingly went very well.
This is a small finger food based on a recipe from “Frog Commissary Cookbook“. It is phyllo-covered spinach, cheese and pine nuts filling. This is very good with crispy multiple layers of phyllo and cheesy savory center. As good as it is, this was a quite tedious work to make. Unfortunately, even for my wife who patiently makes various baked goods requiring tedious multiple steps, folding the phyllo dough was a bit too time consuming and tedious. I helped toward the end since she was getting very tired. When we finally got them in the oven we concluded that in the future it may be easier to buy this type of appetizer from a holiday season gourmet catalog rather than making it ourselves.
My wife is into panna cotta and aspic. She has been collecting panna cotta recipes and some days ago, she made basil panna cotta based on one of those recipes since we have a small forest of basil on our kitchen window sill. Although she followed the recipe, it called for way too much gelatin. The end result congealed all right—in fact it solidified. It tasted pretty good. The basil flavor really came through. But it was extremely hard in texture and would have bounced like a tennis ball if dropped. After struggling with it for a while we declared it inedible and threw it out. Somewhat in despair over the less than successful basil panna cotta she went back to the collection of recipes and decided her revenge panna cotta would be the one that featured avocado. (Even this recipe called for too much gelatin. After the experience with the basil panna cotta and consulting the panna cotta recipes that were successful, my wife has decided the “rule-of-thumb” she will use is 1 tsp of gelatin for every 2 cups of liquid. So she reduced the amount of gelatin for this dish accordingly.) It came out perfectly. The consistency was very creamy and with a good flavor of avocado. She made this in a small glass jar with cork lid and it was just the right amount. This is a perfect light dessert.
We eat lots of fish. When we lived in California many years ago, we really liked “Chilean sea bass” which is buttery moist yet flakey and very difficult to overcook and make dry. Then we learned the real name of this fish is ‘Patagonian toothfish” and, at that time, that the fish was frequently illegally poached. So we stopped buying it and forgot about it for a long time. Then, my wife found Chilean sea bass available at Vital Choice which came from MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) -certified sustainable fishery. We remembered how wonderful it was and ordered it, although it was a bit on the expensive side.
Digression alert: “Chilean sea bass” is said to be the most popular in US, and EU as well as in Japan. (Although when I was in Japan I did not know about this fish.) In Japan, this imported fish is reportedly called “mero” メロ or “ginmutsu” ギンムツ.
The fish was as wonderful as we remembered. Actually the first time I cooked this fish, I did not take a picture. So, I made the same dish a second time in an identical fashion. This was simply sautéed in butter with a caper lemon butter sauce. The sides were cauliflower purée and haricot vert (pre-blanched) and Campari tomato (skinned) sautéed in butter. Everything went well together but the combination of cauliflower puree and Chilean sea bass was sublime.
Among the Japanese pickles, “Takuan or Takuwan*” 沢庵 is common and traditionally made from “Daikon” 大根. My mother (and many other “mothers’) used to make it at home in the traditional way. First the daikon was hung to dry and then mixed with salt, rice bran and other ingredients in a wooden tub. Weights (often river rocks) were placed on a wooden lid which was slightly smaller than the opening. It was then left to ferment for several months. (In my mother’s case, it was left in the root cellar). In my childhood, it was a common fall scene to see daikon out hanging to dry often on the rack used to dry clothes. Nowadays, the vast majority of takuwan is produced commercially. The takuwan has a characteristic yellow color which traditionally came from a type of fruit called “Kuchinashi” クチナシ or “Gardenia” (this is just for color not for flavor) but commercial products may use other yellow food coloring.
*Growing up in Sapporo, Hokkaido, we always pronounced it “Takuwan” but elsewhere in Japan, it may be pronouced as “Takuan”.
My wife is into making small appetizers. When she saw the recipe called “Tuna-Spinach tortas” at Washington Post on-line, it was a “must-do”. Although she liked the idea of a small tortas, canned tuna does not grace our pantry…ever. (Instead, we keep frozen sashimi-grade tuna in the freezer). We also like salmon and almost every other week we get a half-salmon filet (A special available from the local grocery store only through home delivery). I scale it and using the main portion, make several fillet portions. I then separate the belly portion for an appetizer and use the resulting small irregular trimmings including the tail portion of the filet to make salmon cakes. After we cook the fillets (usually cooked in a frying pan to make crispy skin), I make salmon salad from the leftover portions.
This time my wife used the salmon salad I made from the left over salmon fillets instead of the canned tuna called for in the original recipe. The salmon salad was a bit different from what I usually make since we did not have enough cooked salmon fillets so I oil-poached the irregular bits of fresh salmon to make about 5oz of salmon. The oil poached salmon was much softer and more moist than our usual cooked salmon. In addition, we did not have home-made Greek yogurt. So I used all mayo instead of mixture of mayo and Greek yogurt.
The tortas came out very nice and the salmon filling was moist but made a nice crispy shell. Although we cannot tell how the original canned tuna version would have been, this is pretty good.
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My wife’s sister mentioned that recently she made a great carrot cake and apple pie. She said the recipes came from a cookbook called “Frog Commissary Cookbook” by Steven Poses which was published in 1985 (and presently out of print). While we were talking about the cookbook, I quickly searched for it and found a used one in good condition at Amazon and ordered it.
Digression alert: My wife’s sister originally lived in the Philadelphia area and was familiar with the Frog Commissary when it was in vogue back in the 1980’s. It was an exclusive catering service for the Franklin Institute which is the science museum in Philadelphia. The cookbook is based on Steven Poses former restaurant (called “Frog”) and his catering experience at the Franklin. Although we had never heard of it, back-in-the-day, the Frog Commissary Cookbook” was a “must have” in the Philadelphia area much like San Francisco a la Carte by the Junior League of San Francisco was about the same time while we were living in the San Francisco area.
As my wife and I were browsing through the book we both thought this seafood pate recipe was worthwhile to try. The recipe as shown in the cookbook is of catering proportions and large enough to serve a multitude of people. As a result it required some scaling down. In my scaled down version, however, I was not aggressive enough in the seasoning; more seasoning would have been better. Although nothing was listed as a possible sauce in the original recipe we felt it called for one. After some experimentation I came up with two sauces that worked pretty well. I served it with a side of tomato and cucumber dressed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. In any case, it is rather good looking and subtle flavored pate.
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