Meatloaf ミートローフ

While my wife was looking through the trusty old cookbook “Joy of Cooking”, she found a yellow stick’m in her handwriting from many years ago posted on one of the pages. It was a recipe for meatloaf which was a regular in her culinary repertoire long ago . It appears that this recipe is different from any other meatloaf recipe in the book. In general, we are not big fans of meatloaf or hamburger, but since this was my wife’s special recipe, we decided to try it for old times sake. It calls for ground beef, so we got one pound of 20% fat (we thought a bit fatty meat may be better for meatloaf) ground beef from Whole Foods. This was a pretty good meatloaf (#1). It was moist and flavorful. When it just came out of the oven it did not keep it’s shape very well when sliced but after refrigeration it held together better.

I ask my wife to expand on her special recipe. I helped her by chopping up onions and shiitake mushrooms (since we had a few left). I sautéd  them in olive oil (left upper in picture #2).

Ingredients: (Shown in picture #2)
1 lb ground beef
1/½ cups onion, chopped (optional several stems and caps of fresh shiitake mushrooms, chopped)
1 cup bread crumbs
2/3 cup ketchup,
1 tbs Dijon mustard
2/3 cup parsley
3 eggs
1 tsp ground thyme
1 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper or cayenne
1 tbs horseradish (we used yuzukosho hot sauce)
3 tbs chopped garlic
1 cup Parmesan cheese
ketchup on top

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. (It doesn’t get any easier than that). Put in a loaf pan and top with catsup (#3). Cook in a 350 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes (until done).

This meatloaf was a colorful combination of flavors and textures.  The catsup topping caramelized and added a nice sweet/tart touch. This was a very nostalgic dish for my wife. We may have to add it back into the repertoire.

Grilled Beef Tongue 牛タンの焼肉

We like beef tongue which is not always easy to get. We like tongue prepared Pennsylvania Dutch style; boiled with aromatic vegitables which gives it a nice tender texture which is particularly good as  a sandwich meat. Another favorite is tongue stew also made from Pa Dutch style prepared tongue. In Japan, the most common way to prepare beef tongue, either thickly or thinly sliced, is grilling it or “Yaki-niku 焼肉”. The city of Sendai 仙台 in the Northern part of the Japanese mainland is famous for grilled tongue. We tried it some time ago while we were there visiting Japan but we did not like it. It was very tough and too chewy. We recently found that Weee offers two kind of frozen sliced beef tongue. Although details were a bit vague, one kind appears to be thin sliced and the other is a thicker slice judging from the reviews. We got the kind that was very thinly sliced (#2). As per Japanese fashion, we seasoned it with salt and pepper and briefly cooked it in a frying pan and served it with wedges of lemon. Since we had left-over croquettes (potato with ground pork and chicken), we heated them up in the toaster oven and served them as a side. The thinness of the beef tongue slices really helped but they were still a bit on the chewy side.  Nonetheless it had a lot of flavor. This is good but not our favorite way to have beef tongue.

The tongue came frozen and vacuum packed (#2). Skin was removed and the meat sliced very thin. Once thawed, it is relatively easy to separate into separate slices. I salted and peppered only on one side after the slices were in the frying pan.

Knowing that the thinly sliced version of beef tongue from Weee is still a bit chewy, we suspect the thicker slices would be even more so. 

Matsutake and beef cooked in an Aluminum Foil Pouch 松茸と牛肉のフォイル焼き

We got matustake from Weee for the third time this year. Compared to other sources from which we used to get matsutake, Weee provides the best in quality and the amount 0.5lb is just right for us. Our favorite way to eat the mushrooms is “Touban-yaki” 陶盤焼き, but, this time we happened to have thinly sliced beef thawed (also from Weee). In addition I saw a recipe using beef and mastsutake 松茸と牛肉のフォイル焼き (in Japanese) and so I decided to try it. It came out very nicely. The combination of lightly marinated beef and matsutake worked. I modified the marinade just to soy sauce and sake. When the foil pouch was opened the matsutake smell waft out. (One of the great treasures of working with this mushroom).

Ingredients: (made two small servings/pouches)
1 large matsutake (or 2 small ones), cleaned and sliced thin
6-8  pieces of thinly sliced beef (in our case, it was rib eye)
1tsp soy sauce
1tsp sake

Directions:
I spread the beef slices in one layer on a plate and sprinkled the soy sauce and sake on them. 
Let it marinade for 10 minutes.
I placed a rectangular piece of parchment paper on a large enough rectangle piece of aluminum foil. (I placed the rectangular piece of parchment paper just as a precaution to make sure the beef did not stick)
I placed the beef slices and then the sliced matsutake on the prepared aluminum foil. 
I folded and crimped the edges to make a pouch encasing the meat and mushroom with some spaces around (I made two pouches).
I placed the pouches in the preheated toaster oven at 400F, and cooked them for 10-12 minutes.

When we opened the pouches, a nice matsutake smell wafted out and we wrapped the matsutake in the slices of beef and really enjoyed them. The combination worked well.

“Imo-ni” Stew famous in Yamagata 芋煮庄内風

When we had “Hiya-oroshi” 冷やおろしsake this year, one of them was from Yamagata prefecture 山形県 and is called “Shounai-bijin 庄内美人” or Shounai beauty. The name is based on the geography of the area where it is brewed. This sake was  brewed by “Watarai Honten 渡會本店“ which is located in the central plane that extends to the coastal areas of Yamagata called “Shounai flat  庄内平野”, hence the name “Shounai Beauty 庄内美人” (see picture #4 for the sake label and area map). While I was checking the brewery’s website, it states that  the best dish that goes with this sake is “Imo-ni*” 芋煮 a stew characteristic of the area and referred to as “Shounai-style”. It is made from pork and seasoned with miso. Other areas of yamagata make imoni with beef and seasoned with soy sauce.  I had a bag of frozen taro or satoimo from Weee and just thawed thinly sliced beef. So I made “Shounai-style” with miso seasoning and beef.

*Digression alert: You can look up description in Wikipedia for “Imo-ni”. My understanding is that this is a stew in Tohoku 東北 northern main land Japan especially in Yamagata. It has more social aspect than just a dish. In autumn, they have a big social gathering/party often outdoor sometimes making a gigantic “nabe” 鍋 which has to be hoisted using a crane. No matter which variations, the-must-have ingredients are “imo” or “potato” specifically “Satoimo 里芋” or taro and beef or pork.

Besides “satoimo” and beef or pork, “kon-nyaku” こんにゃく, “negi” 葱 Tokyo scallion and “gobo” burdock root are the most common ingredients but it appears one can also use carrots and mushrooms. 
We really liked this dish and it naturally went very well with “Shounan-bijin hiyaoroshi” sake. 

I happened to get a fairly large (especially for us) cast iron pot with a cedar lid (picture #2) which is perfect for this dish. This is the first time we used this pot.

I sort of followed a recipe from a NHK cooking program called “Today’s dish” or  “Kyou-no-ryori 今日の料理” which is also available on-line.

Ingredients: (makes 6-7 servings)
1 lb satoimo 里芋 (I could have used fresh but I happened to have prepared frozen ones)
1/2 lb thinly sliced beef cut into small strips
1 cake of kon-nyaku コンニャク, hand torn into small bite size pieces, parboiled and drained
1/2 gobo burdock root, skin scraped off using the back of a knife and cut into small strips”sasagaki ささがき (you shave off the “gobo” into the small strips as though you are sharpening a pencil with a knife producing thin strips in the shape of small bamboo leaves). Soak in cold water and drain just before putting into the pot.
2 scallions, cut on the bias
2 large fresh shiitake, cut into a bite size (optional)

Seasonings
2 tbs miso
1 cup sake
2 tbs mirin
6 cups Japanese broth of kelp and bonito (or water)
1-2 tbs soy sauce

Directions:
Cook the beef in the pot (I used a small amount of vegetable oil to prevent sticking).
When the beef is cooked add the miso and cook for one minute until fragrant.
Take out the miso and beef and set aside
Add the satoimo, kon-nyaku, gobo, mushroom in the pot and add the sake to remove any fond on the bottom of the pot
Add the water (or broth) and simmer for 20 minutes or until the satoimo is cooked through.
Add back the beef (and miso), scallion, mirin and cook 10 more minutes (picture #3)
Add the soy sauce to adjust the seasoning.

We had Shounai-bijin Hiyaoroshi cold with the imo-ni dish. Among the two hiyaoroshi we tried this year, we like this one best. Just for your information, the pin is in the “shounai” region.

Steak and 2004 Insignia ステーキデｨナーと2004 Joseph Phelps Insignia

This was a sort of cerebration. We did not plan anything ahead of time. So we made a dinner with what we had. We had frozen filet mignon (last two packages from Omaha Steak), gnocchi my wife made some time ago which were cooked and then frozen. I also made a sauce from the pan juice, reduced port wine, butter, and sautéed shiitake mushroom stems and shallot *. My wife’s frozen gnocchi were pan fried without thawing to warm up and came out nicely hot and crispy. For a quick unplanned celebratory dinner, this was not too bad.

*When I get fresh shiitake mushrooms, I remove the stems, tear them into strands and cut into small pieces. I sauté them with finely chopped shallots in olive oil. This is a handy thing to have since it can be used in many ways. The separated caps are then placed in a ziploc bag with paper towel which makes fresh shiitake last longer.  I took the picture before I put on the sauce.

For wine, we decided to open one of the older vintage of Joseph Phelps Insignia that we had. This was 2004 vintage (picture #2). I decanted it about one  hour before serving. It had some sediments which were left in the bottle. The wine had a slight tinge of brown at the edge indicating some age but tasted quite good with a well-controlled classic California cabernet profile upfront dark fruits, a bit of vanilla. and chocolate ending with a firm but mellowed out tannin. Perfect!!

With the steak and reduced port wine sauce, this 2004 vintage  Insignia went so well.

Beef with Kon-nyaku and Vegetable “Kimpira” Stir-fry 牛肉と蒟蒻の金平

We were having some very extremely cold and snowy weather recently. One of the best dishes for this kind of cold weather is sukiyaki すき焼きand similar nabe 鍋 dishes. We recently got thinly sliced (2mm in thickness) beef rib eye for sukiyaki from Weee. This is not top quality beef but it is very reasonably  priced and quite good. So, one very cold evening, we cooked sukiyaki at the table and had it with hot sake 燗酒.  The package included 1lb of beef, which was more than we could eat in one sitting so besides the leftover sukiyaki, we had leftover uncooked beef as well. Thinly sliced beef is used in many Japanese dishes but we usually do not have beef (we usually have chicken or pork and occasionally lamb) so I did not have a favorite “go-to” recipe to use the beef.  I looked through some beef recipes on the web but ended up with my own variation (picture #1). We had a cake of kon-nyaku (konjac) 蒟蒻, and an end piece of daikon 大根. So I included those in this dish. Many Japanese dishes call for small Japanese green pepper called “pea-man” ピーマンwhich is quite different from American green pepper. Instead I used, seeded and deveined Jalapeño pepper.  For the seasonings, I added “Douban-jang”. 豆板醤 to add slight heat. For an impromptu dish, everything came together rather nicely. This is a just note to myself so that I can recreate it in the future.

Ingredients:
150gram thinly sliced beef, cut into thin strips (picture below, this was rib eye) (picture #2)
One cake  of kon-nyaku 板コンニャク, washed, par-boiled
One small carrot
2 inch of daikon
One large Jalapeño pepper, seeded and deveined
1 tbs vegetable oil and 1 tsp dark sesame oil

Seasonings:
1 tsp douban-jang (or more if you like spicy)
2 tbs sake
1 tbs mirin
2 tbs soy sauce (I used x4 Japanese noodle sauce)

Directions:
I tried to cut all the vegetables in the same, thin rectangular pieces. I halved the  kon-nyaku cake in thickness, added shallow criss-cross cuts on both sides and cut into the similar rectangular shape but some came out a bit thicker and larger. (Picture #3 from left to right are kon-nyaku, carrot, Jalapeño pepper and diakon).

I added the oil in a non-stick frying pan on medium flame (vegetable plus sesame oil). I added the beef and cooked until almost done and added the remaining vegetables and the kon-nyaku and stir fried for 2-3 minutes.

I added the sake, mirin, and soy sauce. When coming to the boil I added douban-jang (picture #4) and mixed well. Placed the lid on and let it simmer for 5-7 minutes.

I removed the lid and turned the flame to medium high and stirred until the liquid was almost gone. I tasted and adjusted the seasoning. In this case, it came out slightly sweeter than I intended but it had a nice sweet and salty flavor and a mild spicy kick. Certainly, the beef added more flavor. I could have cut the daikon into thicker pieces since it became very soft. The kon-nyaku absorbed the seasonings and added nice texture. We like this dish. It will go with rice or drinks. In our case, probably the latter.

Beef Barley Soup 牛肉と大麦のスープ

We really like beef tongue which is not popular in general, not widely available in US and requires some “courage” to try it. But we like it very much either boiled and sliced for a sandwich or made into stew.  Recently, we found that our Asian grocery delivery service “Weee” had frozen beef tongue so we got it.  My wife suggested to have it instead of the usual turkey for Thanksgiving. So, we thawed the tongue and cook it up. For the dinner we had thick slices of boiled beef tongue, which were extremely tender and flavorful, with red wine cranberry sauce I made and a side of stuffing balls made by my wife, and blacked Brussel sprouts. This really “hit the spot” and as far as we are concerned is much better than ham or turkey for sure. Using the remaining beef tongue and the liquid in which the tongue was cooked, we made beef tongue stew which we really enjoyed. Still half of the boiling liquid remained which has the nice flavors of the beef and aromatics. So we decided to make “Beef and barley soup” from it. We made this soup/stew with meat from a beef chuck roast. It turned out to be an excellent soup. We looked at a few recipe on line but, at the end, we just made it our own way (not standard way) and this post is just for our own record.

The chunks of the beef were very tender and the barley gave the soup a nice unctuous texture.

We ended up with a quite large amount of soup, probably a bit over 3quarts (or 12 cups).

Ingredients:
2.3 lb package of bone-less chuck roast, seasoned with salt and pepper, seared on both sides and then cut into about 1 inch cubes
4 cups liquid from cooking the beef tongue (the liquid)
3 cups chicken broth
1/2 box (8oz) medium pearled barley, toasted in the toaster oven, rinsed and then cooked in the 4 cups of liquid from cooking beef tongue for 1 hour
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into half inch cubes
2 onions, cut into large dices
3 ribs of celery, cunt into 1/4 inch thick
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 tbs vegetable oil

Directions:
Add one cup of the liquid and cubes of the beef in Instant pot, cook for 25 minutes under high pressure and naturally depressurize (we used 2/3 for the soup and 1/3 was added to the tongue stew to supplement the tongue)*
Add the oil in the dutch oven on medium flame. Add the onion and celery and sauté for 5 minutes, add the carrots. Add the cooked beef and barley with their juice. Add 3 cups of chicken broth, the bay leaves and cook for 30-40 minutes
Season with salt pepper to taste

*We cooked the beef one day prior. Placed the liquid and meat in a plastic container and refrigerated. Next day, we removed layers of congealed fat from the surface before using the meat and juice.

This is a very hearty and filling soup. The barley adds a creamy texture and a slight nuttiness from being toasted. The combination of broth used to cook the tongue and the broth used to cook the supplementary beef adds an unctuous and very meaty flavor. Another great soup for lunch on a cold winter’s day.

Surf-and-turf Valentine’s Day Dinner ロブスターとステーキ（サーフアンドターフ）

We rarely have a surf-and-turf dinner but since it was Valentine’s  day, we decided to have a steak and lobster dinner. The filet mignon came from Omaha steak and we got frozen lobster tail from Whole Food.  I cooked both in sous vide. I also made “Mac-and-cheese”. The temperatures I used in the past for lobster tail and steak were slightly different but this time I used 135F for both so that I could sous vide both in the same setting which worked.  The steaks were cooked for 4 hours and the lobster 45 minutes. I timed it so they both came out around 7pm.

I seasoned the lobster tails with salt and tarragon (I only had dried) and vacuum packed with several pats of cold butter. After it was cooked I removed the lobster from the vacuum pack, and drained the liquid inside and added a squeeze of lemon juice to make a lobster-butter dipping sauce. It was perfectly cooked.

I thawed the previously frozen steak and patted it dry. I then further dried it on sheets of paper towel, uncovered for a few hours in the refrigerator.  I seasoned it with salt and pepper before vacuum packing it for sous vide. After it was cooked I removed the steak from the vacuum bag, and quickly seared both sides in a frying pan with melted butter. I set the steak aside and added the juice accumulated in the vacuum bag to the pan and scraped off the brown bits left from searing the steak. I added 2-3 tbs of red wine and reduce the mixture in half. I finished the pan sauce with pats of butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. The steak was nice medium rare.

I have made and  posted several variations of “Mac and cheese”. This time I went with a classic with Béchamel sauce but I also added finely chopped fresh shiitake mushroom which added nice flavors. The cheeses I used as per my wife’s selection were fresh goat, sharp cheddar and smoke Gouda. The seasonings were salt and freshly grated black pepper and nutmeg. We really liked this version.

We had this with one of our favorites; Caymus Napa valley Cabernet  Sauvignon 2020. We really enjoyed this special dinner and wine.

Sukiyaki Made with Beef and Edible Chrysanthemum from Weee すき焼き

We have not had “sukiyaki” すき焼き for a long time. One of the reasons is that two of the main ingredients “shungiku” 春菊 edible chrysanthemum (edible mum)*  and thinly sliced beef for sukiyaki or sukiyaki-meat すき焼肉 are generally not readily available. Although frozen sukiyaki meat is available at our Japanese grocery store, it is rather expensive and appears to be just thinly sliced rib eye steak. I considered getting a meat slicer which could slice a frozen block of beef so I could make my own sukiyaki beef but decided it was not worth it. Every-now-and-then, our Japanese grocery store has shungiku but it is “ hit or miss” with mostly miss.

Recently, we started getting Asian groceries from Weee, and found a leafy green vegetable called “Tang Ho 茼蒿, chrysanthemum green”. In addition, I also found they had a product called “Little Sheep Marbled Beef Sliced for Hot Pot”. So we got both to try them for sukiyaki. The package indicated the beef was sold by a company called Little Sheep Company (子羊). We learned that this company runs Mongolian hot pot chain restaurants and also sells meat like the one we just got. The Chinese writing on the package indicated the meat was “Wagyu 和牛” or Japanese beef but did not indicate what country the meat actually came from. Nonetheless it was just the right thickness for sukiyaki and had some marbling, (although not as much marbling as shown in the Weee website picture).

*Although spinach can be substituted for edible chrysanthemum it does not have the unique flavor which characterizes shungiku and is such an integral component of the sukiyaki taste experience. Shungiku is relatively easy to grow from seeds and we were able to raise it for some years in our herb garden. Then the rabbits discovered they liked it too. They ate not only all the edible mum out of the herb garden but every other chrysanthemum related plant we had in the yard edible (for us) or not. As a result we have not been able to raise mums of any kind.

The below are the ingredients I prepared for the sukiyaki. From 12 O’Clock clockwise are sliced onion, Tofu, “fu” 麩 gluten cake (flower-shaped), shira-taki*, shimeji and shiitake mushrooms and the center is enoki mushroom, beef and the green is chrysanthemum.

*Thread form of  konnyaku, washed and blanched and cut into shorter segments.

The picture below shows a detail of the meat. It is frozen in rolls. I served half of the package (about half a pound).

For the chrysanthemum green, I removed the leaves from the stem, washed and blanched them. Although the plant looked slightly different it tasted exactly like Japanese “shungiku”.

Using these ingredients we had sukiyaki using a cast-iron sukiyaki pot and our new table-top induction cooker. The seasonings were  my usual sugar, soy sauce, and sake (Kansai style 関西風) as opposed to using the premixed seasoning liquid “warishita” 割下  (Kanto style 関東風).

We really enjoyed this sukiyaki. The meat was not the best but certainly much better than what we had been previously getting. In addition, the price was very reasonable. Although the shungiku looked different, it tasted the same as the Japanese version and was very good. The assorted mushrooms (all came from Weee) are also very good. So, we are happy that the ingredients essential for making good sukiyaki can be bought at Weee.

Octopus leg dressed in salted plum sauce タコの梅肉あえ

I have posted many dishes using octopus which we got from different sources. We like octopus legs (boiled and frozen) from D’artagnan and Great Alaska Seafood. Interestingly, both are “Spanish octopus legs”.  The offer we recently purchased from Great Alaska Seafood included quite a large amount of octopus legs so I have the luxury of using it fairly regularly. The last time I used it, after thawing, I reserved about 2 inches of the octopus leg to eat as “sashimi*” 刺身 and I made the remainder into tender simmered octopus タコの柔らか煮 using an Instant pot. We usually eat octopus sashimi with wasabi and soy sauce or sumiso but this time, I tried a different dressing using salted plum or “Umeboshi” 梅干し (I used some umeboshi we received quite a few years ago from my mother the last time she made it. We kept it in a sealed container in the refrigerator. It looked and tasted good). I also served two small appetizer dishes.

*Most common “sashimi” of octopus is previously boiled legs because raw octopus is extremely perishable. Real “raw” octopus can be had in Japan. The first time we had “raw” octopus sashimi was in Kobe 神戸 many years ago. Because of the location of Kobe, very fresh octopus from the Japanese inland sea 瀬戸内海 was available. Now, because of the advancement in the logistics of transporting fresh seafood in Japan, it is more readily available throughout Japan. As a matter of fact, we had raw octopus sashimi at Tako Grill in Kuroishi 黒石, Aomori prefecture 青森県 in Japan.

The upper left picture above shows the Octopus slices with salted plum sauce: タコの刺身梅肉和え.

Ingredients and directions: (two small serving)

2 inches of boiled octopus leg, sliced thinly into 8 -10 slices

For Umeboshi 梅干し “bainiku” sauce 梅肉ソース

1 “umeboshi” salted plum, meat removed and finely chopped until creamy.

1 tsp mirin, mixed in

For garnish

1 perilla leaf, finely julienned 

1 nyouga, thinly slices

Cucumber slices

I also served tender simmered octopus leg タコの柔らか煮.

Since we had a small portion of filet mignon left over from the day before, I thinly sliced it and dressed it in ponzu sauce ポン酢醤油 with grated ginger. The green is blanched sugar snaps in dashi broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし.

 

These small appetizers were great to start the evening.

Hamburger with home-made buns 自家製バンのハンバーガー

We cannot remember when was the last time we ate a hamburger; probably sometime when we lived in California i.e. many years ago. Since the package we got recently from Omaha steaks included hamburger patties (total of 8), we decided to make hamburgers. Also as we were “taste testing” the burgers, my wife declared there would be no pickles, catchup, mustard or onions (or “special sauce”; this was not Burger King/McDonalds after all) to obscure the taste. But cheese was OK. (Truth-be-told she is a hamburger purist.) So as shown below we had a cheese burger on a homemade hamburger bun (made by my wife just for the occasion, see below) with a side of scalloped potatoes (also from Omaha steak) and caprese salad.

We thought about grilling the burgers on a charcoal fire but decided to cook them in a frying pan with olive oil since it was the easiest. Initially we thought the hamburger patties looked thin but once they were out of the package and cooked they were nicely thick enough. My wife decided to use two cheeses; cheddar and Monterey Jack. After the meat was cooked, we toasted/fried the hamburger buns using the remaining oil and meat juices in the pan which came out rather nicely. As my wife wished, no ketchup, mustard, onion, lettuce, or pickles.  The meat was just cooked right and very juicy and had a nice beefy taste. This is a good way to just taste the meat and of course, the cheeses enhanced the flavors. 

Since we have a basil forest growing in numerous pots on the kitchen window sill, I made caprase salad with skinned Campari tomato, fresh mozzarella cheese and basil. Salt, black pepper, our favorite Spanish olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressed the salad.

My wife made hamburger buns for this occasion. She used a rather basic recipe from King Arthur.  I will ask her to continue.

Ingredients: for the dough
3 1/2 cups (420g) Ap flour
3/4 to 1 cup (170g to 227g) water, lukewarm (she used milk)
2 tablespoons (28g) butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon (9g) instant yeast

For topping the buns.
1-2 Tbs. Butter melted to brush on top of the muffins before baking them.

Directions:
Mix and knead all of the dough ingredients in a stand-up mixer with a dough hook to make a soft, smooth dough. Cover the dough and let it rise until it's nearly doubled in bulk, about 1 to 2 hours. Gently deflate the dough and divide it into eight pieces (about 100g each). Flatten each dough ball with the palm of your hand until it's about 3" across.

Place the buns on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover and let rise until noticeably puffy, about an hour. Toward the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 375°F. Brush the buns with about half of the melted butter. Bake the buns for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden (see below).
Remove them from the oven and brush with the remaining melted butter; this will give the buns a satiny, buttery crust (which she did not do). Cool the buns on a rack before slicing in half, horizontally.

These hamburger buns really added to the overall hamburger experience. The buns in-and-of themselves had a very nice flavor and a soft texture. (We had some later just lightly toasted and buttered and they were quite good served that way.) The hamburger itself was nicely seasoned with a very distinctive beefy taste. Even without all the condiments, the burger and bun were every thing you could possibly want in a hamburger.

Steak dinner with Insignia 2012 ステーキとインシグニア2012

We rarely eat steak. This time, on the strong recommendation from my wife’s sister, we got a “special”package from Omaha Steaks which included, among a lot of other things, filet mignon. (It was called “Butcher’s cut”. We are not sure where this cut ranks on their quality scale of steaks). In any case, an occasion called for a special dinner and wine. So we cooked the steak and opened 2012 Joseph Phelps Insignia. The package from Omaha Steaks also included scalloped potato (shown here lower right) which I served with the steak, caprese salad and sautéed green beans.

The steak was first cooked in sous vide. After thawing, I patted the meat dry, seasoned with salt and pepper and vacuum packed with pats of butter and sprigs of fresh rosemary. I sous vide at 130F for 3 hours (minimum of 1.5 hours) for medium rare. Just before, serving I seared both sides briefly and set aside. I made a quick pan sauce by deglazing the pan with port wine, a dash of balsamic vinegar. I added any meat juice accumulated in the sous vide bags and on the plate on which the steaks were resting. After the liquid reduced in half, I added pats of butter and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Since this was sous vide cooked, the inside of the steaks were uniformly pink (as shown in the following picture). The steak was flavorful but a bit chewy/sinewy especially for filet mignon but we enjoyed it and the scalloped potatoes were great.

 

I checked our wines and decided to go with the oldest Insignia vintage we had which was 2012. I opened the bottle one hour prior to the planned dinner and decanted it. 

The wine was excellent. It was not too aged with nice dark fruit, vanilla and chocolate and well structured but mellowed tannin. In general we are not a great fans of old wines but this was just nicely aged for us to enjoy.

The steak and wine went as well as expected i.e. wonderful. We think we commemorated this special occasion adequately.

As an aside: The “special” we got from Omaha Steaks was quite a “haul” and included a number of items in addition to the steaks and scalloped potatoes. They were: hamburgers, meat balls, hot dogs, chicken fried steak, pork chops, chicken breast and apple pie.  We do not even remember when was the last time we ate hamburger or hotdogs so this should be interesting as we taste these additional items. I may have to commission my wife to bake some hamburger and hotdog buns.

Beef tongue carppaccio 牛タンのカルパッチョ

 My wife loves beef tongue but not the way it’s usually prepared in Japan (thinly sliced and grilled). As a result I usually prepare the tongue by boiling it in water with some aromatics which is how the beef tongue she ate as a child was prepared. (She refers to it as the Pennsylvania Dutch rather than Japanese method of preparation. The Pa Dutch method results in a meat that is extremely tender and melts in the mouth. The Japanese method in contrast results is a fairly tough and chewy meat. As my wife would say, “Which is the best method of preparation? What was the question?”) After removing the skin, I thinly slice it and make sandwiches using pumpernickel bread with mayo and mustard. (Again made to the exacting specifications of the tongue sandwiches my wife used to eat as a child.) Portions are further cooked as a Japanese-Western style beef tongue stew. (Which by-the-way was not something my wife used to eat as a child but likes non-the-less.) 

We have not able to get beef tongue for a while. Although we know one of the grocery stores usually carries it, we have not been there recently since we are getting grocery home delivery. But an unexpected event led us to be at this particular grocery store and since we were there we snagged a rather large beef tongue. We enjoyed the tongue over several days as sandwiches and stew with spaetzle. I finally used the last portion of the tongue to make carpaccio (left in the picture below) and a small salad in Japanese-style (made using the PA. Dutch style prepared tongue, of course) with ponzu, yuzu-kosho, onion, cucumber topped with sesame seeds (right)

I made this carpaccio the same way I usually make it using leftover steaks or octopus. I first make zig-zag lines of olive oil (I used our favorite Spanish olive oil) and balsamic vinegar (this is a quite good one we got as a gift) perpendicular to each other on a plate. Then I scattered Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper over the oil mixture. I then I put on a layer of Videlia onion cut paper thin using a Japanese mandoline  slicer. I then add a layer of thinly sliced beef tongue. I garnish with cucumber (thinly sliced, salted, with the moisture squeezed out and then dressed with sweet vinegar), more onion and concasse of tomato with basil strips. I finished with more olive oil, balsamic vinegar. This was really great with read wine.

For the other salad, I just used the cucumber and onion left over from the previous salad. I arranged it with the onion on the bottom, the tongue (thinly sliced) next and topped with the cucumber. I dressed it with ponzu ポン酢 mixed with Yuzu-kosho 柚子胡椒 and topped with sesame. (The dressing is what made it Japanese style.) We liked the carpaccio better.

Our garden now has azaleas and iris in full bloom. My wife brought some of the more elegant looking    iris inside for us to enjoy. Isn’t spring wonderful!

Sushitaro Osechi 2022 寿司太郎お節 2020

As always, we are so spoiled to have Sushitaro osechi.

This is a picture of the upper box.  I am not going into the details but its all good stuff. Many items are hidden behind and under the items on the top.

This is the lower box.

This was what we ate from the box the evening of January 2. I just served whatever caught my eye. This round was mainly items that go well  with sake.

The next picture shows is an assortment of goodies. I lightly heated (toasted) “Karasumi” 唐墨 mullet roe or botargo, and wagyu roast beef 和牛ローストビーフ, which makes the beef unctuous melting in you mouth and the karasumi soft with enhanced flavor. Of course, “ankimo tofu” あん肝豆腐　or Monkfish liver terrine is one of our favorites.

In this three compartment plate, I served (from left to right) “Mushi uni” 蒸し雲丹 or steamed sea urchin, “Uni shutou with yuzu-chilli” ウニ酒盗 柚子胡椒 from Maruhide 丸秀 and  “ikura shouyu-zuke”  いくら醤油ずけ soy marinated salmon roe.  I added wasabi-soy sauce to the steamed uni and made a cucumber boat to contain the ikura. All perfect for sake.

After these, we had simmered vegetables (again lightly warmed in the microwave) and finished with a mayo-biscuit my wife made that afternoon (subject of another post).

P.S. In the January 1, 2022 post, I mentioned that we thought we had some better zodiac figurines for the year of tiger but the ones we displayed in the blog were the only ones we had. My wife quickly remedied the situation by ordering two figurines from Japan, one (the first picture) perfectly matches the style we have for the other zodiac animals (it is made from earthenware as a bell called "Do-rei" 土鈴).

The fellows below came from the same kiln as the one above. But they have more accoutrements. Aren't they cute?

Hope we can used these figurines again.

Puff pastry loaf with roast beef, cheese and potato salad ローストビーフ、チーズ、ポテトサラダローフ

My wife invented this loaf which is a variation of egg and smoked salmon in puff pastry. She already made one variation using smoked salmon, cheese and mashed potato. This time, we were in cleaning-up-leftovers mode. Although we rarely eat beef, one weekend we made a beef roast on the Weber grill with hot smoke. We used thin slices of the roast beef for sandwiches during the week but still had some left over. In addition, I had made potato salad a few weeks ago and a good amount was still left.  (The potato salad is made with rice vinegar and strained yogurt i.e. Greek yogurt in addition to the usual mayonnaise, and these two ingredients act as a kind of preservative. As a result the potato salad lasts a long time but even so there is a limit so we had to use it up). My wife came to the rescue with this dish using roast beef, potato salad and her variation of cheese stuffing. This is like a "pasty", all inclusive--starch, veggies and proteins from the meat and cheese.

Ingredients:
sheet of puff pastry thawed

for cheese filling:
4 oz. feta cheese
3 oz smoked mozzarella cheese
2 oz. Monterey jack
5 oz. ricotta cheese
2 large eggs
sprinkle of red pepper flakes to taste

Other ingredients
roast beef cut into thin slices.
cup of potato salad (or amount needed to top the cheese filling)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Crumble the feta cheese into small pieces. Grate the mozzarella and Monterey jack cheeses. Mix the crumbled and grated cheeses with the ricotta, egg and red pepper flakes. Roll out the thawed puff pastry on parchment paper. On half of the pastry dough, add layers of thinly sliced roast beef, the cheese mixture and potato salad (shown below).

Fold the other half of the pastry dough over the filling and seal the edges by painting on a mixture of water and flour and pressing the edges using the tines of a fork.  Dock or prick the top of the dough with the fork. (This lets steam escape as the loaf cooks). With the loaf still on the parchment paper place it on a rack and put the rack on a cookie sheet. (This allows the bottom to cook thoroughly). Cook for 25 to 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

Again, you can't go wrong with this combination of pastry, meat, cheese and potatoes--its a meal in itself. The potato salad was an interesting addition. It added a slight vinegar tang and the mayonnaise yogurt blended into the cheese mixture adding a creaminess. The onions and carrots in the potato salad were a nice dimension that was not present in previous versions of this loaf. The smokiness of the barbecued beef also added its "voice" nicely. (Although the roast beef was very nice, we decided that maybe we preferred the saltiness of the smoked salmon used in previous versions a bit better). Slices of the loaf heat up well in the toaster oven. This is nice to have after work with a nice glass of red wine of course.