Friday, October 25, 2024
Black Cod Marinated in Saikyo miso 銀鱈の西京(味噌)焼き
Since my wife made corn broth, we used it to make corn rice as another side. I also served “asazuke” 浅漬け salted vegetables (daikon, nappa cabbage, carrot and cucumber).
Ingredients: (two small servings)
1 filet of black cod (sable fish) or “gindara” 銀鱈 divided into two portions (for us small eaters)
for marinade
3 tbs Saikyo miso 西京味噌 (kyoto sweet miso)
1 tsp sugar
2 tps mirin
1-2 tbs sake (adjust the amount so that the miso mixture is easily spreadable but not runny)
Directions:
On a piece of plastic wrap large enough to wrap both filets, spread half the marinade in the center in the size of two filets.
Place the filets on the marinade and spread the remaining marinade on the surface of the filets and wrap with the plastic wrap.
Place on a plate and let it marinade overnight in the refrigerator.
Remove as much of the marinade as possible using a silicon spatula.
On the bottom of the stainless steel frying pan on low flame, place the parchment paper
Place the filets skin side down on top of the parchment paper and cook for 4-5 minutes
Flip it over and cook another 4-5 minutes or until done.
The is one of our favorite fish (Chilean sea bass, salmon belong in this group). The corn rice had a very nice corn flavor without any corn kernels in the rice and went well with the fish. The green beans were unusually high quality—very sweet and rounded out a really good meal.
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Matsutake (from Weee) Touban-yaki 松茸の陶盤焼き
This is how it came (picture #2). It is from “Pacific Northwest” (assume to be Oregon and Washington states).
Upon opening, this is so-called “grade 1-2”. Caps are not open or very slightly open and compared to ones we used to get the surface is not all dried out and much cleaner.
These matsutake could be cleaned just using a wet paper towel (picture #4). In the past, I had to use a knife to removed the surface to clean it since dirt was embedded and surface was very dry. So this is much better. The cut surface was clean with no “worm holes”.
We wanted to have this in the simplest way and decided to “tou-ban” grill. We had this served with a “spritz” of Meyer lemon juice. The matsutake had its usual subtle but distinctive smell and the texture was better than others we had before. This was quite a treat. Weee came through again!
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Miso-marinated Firefly Squid ホタルイカの味噌焼き
The reheating process plumps up the squid (picture #2) and miso marinade added nice flavor and some saltiness. This was a very good starter indeed.
I got a hint from “saikyo-miso marinated grilled hotaru-ika recipe I saw on line. Since I did not have “saikyo-miso” 西京味噌, I made with white miso, mirin and sugar. Again, this is not a recipe but a note for myself.
Ingredients:
Firefly squid, eyes and beak removed, if previously frozen, thaw and remove the excess moisture using paper towel.
Marinade
2 tbs miso
1 tbs (or more ro make the miso soft enough) mirin
1tsp sugar
Directions:
Marinade the firefly squid for 1-2 hours
Remove the miso as much as possible using a spatula
“Grill” using dry non-stick (or parchment lined) frying pan on low flame until the squid plumps up and fragrant but burned.
Cooking makes the squid plump and the marinade adds nutty and salty and slightly sweet flavor. I added
cucumber and wakame with sumiso dressing which went well.
Monday, March 4, 2024
Instant Pot BBQ Baby Back Ribs バーベキューベイビーバックリブ
The recipe is an amalgamation from several sources.
Ingredients
1 rack of baby back pork ribs membrane removed
Rub:
2 tbs brown sugar (I should omit this next time)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
Rib Pot:
1 cup Water
1/2 cup rice vinegar vinegar (the usual is to use apple cider vinegar)
1/2 cup BBQ Sauce (recipe below)
Directions:
Combine the Rub ingredients in a small dish. Rub on the front and back of the ribs.
Pour Rib Pot ingredients in the bottom of the Instant pot and then place the trivet in the pot.
Place the ribs inside the pot, standing on their side, wrapping around the inside of the pot.
Choose “Stewed meat” which will set the Instant pot to high pressure and 25 minutes. I turned off “Keep warm”. Release the pressure 10 minutes after the cooking is completed (or let it depressurize naturally)
Remove the ribs from the pressure cooker and set on a foil lined baking sheet. Brush with BBQ sauce (picture #2) and set under the broiler until sauce begins to caramelize, about 5 minutes (picture #3).
BBQ Sauce:
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups brown sugar (319.5 grams) packed 1 1/2 cups ketchup (352.5 grams)
1/2 cup apple rice vinegar (119.29 ml)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons onion powder 1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Directions:
1. Combine all the ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium heat.
2. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
The length of the cooking in the Instant pot determine how tender the meat will be. We cooked it for 25 minutes which appears to be just right. It is tender and bone comes out easily but not too mushy. Next time, I will omit the brow sugar form the dry rub and reduce the brown sugar from the BBQ sauce.
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Miso-marinated Sable Fish 銀鱈の味噌焼き
*Japanese “gas stove” is called “Gasu-konro” ガスコンロ. “Konro” appears to have originated from a Chinese word 火炉. Japanese gasu-konro almost always have a grilling unit which is optimized for grilling fish with minimal smoke and grills both sides of the fish at once.
I served the fish with a Japanese “dashi-maki” だし巻き omelet and stir fried asparagus and shiitake mushroom seasoned with the same marinate I used for the fish. We also had freshly cooked rice. This fish is amazing. So soft, moist, flakey with a lot of oil. The skin did not get crispy like salmon but was quite good.
Saturday, April 1, 2023
Impromptu Cookout 予定してなかった野外の炭焼き
Friday, July 9, 2021
The 4th of July Pacific saury barbecue さんまの塩焼き、焼きおにぎり
This year, instead of celebrating the 4th of July (Independence day) by firing up the Weber grill, we decided to fire up our ”Hibachi*" or "charcoal konro" 炭火コンロ. And, instead of grilling chicken, we decided to grill some pacific sauries or "sanma" さんま which had been hanging out in the freezer for some time. (My wife refers to these as "torpedo fish"). In the past, “sanma” which is a very bony fish was not considered “prime” eating and was very cheap. But in recent years, they are getting scarce and much more expensive. According to the label on the package this group of three came from "Taiwan". Traditionally, fresh sanma is cooked with the innards intact but I cleaned these fish after thawing. I had posted and pontificated about sanma previously. I salted them before grilling and served them with grated Daikon 大根おろし. We even found an appropriate long oval dish serving dish which appropriately accommodated this long heads-on fish as shown in the next picture.
*Digression alert: A Japanese style small charcoal-fired grill is called "hibachi" in the U.S. (or may be elsewhere also). But in Japan "hibachi" 火鉢 is not used for cooking but as a source of heat used in winter for warmth in traditional Japanese rooms. (Not in Hokkaido because it is too cold and an hibachi is not an adequate source of heat). The grills used for cooking are traditionally called "shichirin" 七輪. The modern name would be "charcoal or sumibi-konro". In the old days, if grilling fish at home, you would do this outside using a "shichirin" and charcoal fire. More recently, however, most of Japanese cook tops have a built-in fish grill which prevents smoking while grilling fish making "shichirin" obsolete. But, in my opinion, charcoal grilled fish is still the best!
Whenever we fire up the Japanese charcoal grill, my wife asks me to make grilled rice balls. I usually make a simple rice ball without any filling but this time she specifically asked for stuffing- mayo and mustard dressed salmon. So, I obliged. Since grilled rice ball takes much longer to cook than the fish, I started grilling the rice balls first while we enjoyed several small appetizers and cold sake. I posted how to make perfect grilled rice balls before. As far as we are concerned the best way to cook a rice ball is over a charcoal fire. Such perfection is displayed in the next picture. The high heat sears the outer layer into a toasty brown crust enhanced by the taste of the soy sauce mixture brushed on while it is cooking. The inside is soft and moist. The addition of the salmon stuffing further infuses a mayo/mustard/salmon/salty flavor.
Sanma are extremely boney fish and my wife is not as good at spitting out fish bones as I am. (This was demonstrated early in our marriage when I had to remove a fish bone from the back of my wife’s throat using a long nose plier.) But she is much better at deboning a fish with a knife than I am. So although “bone-out” is not quite the traditional way of serving "sanma", in the interest of safety, that is how we served it. Seeing the pile of lovely fish meat next to the pile of recently removed bones somehow reminded me of the "Meguro-no sanma" story 目黒のサンマ which, again, I pontificated on before. In any case, this was very enjoyable holiday celebration; grilled sanma with grated daikon and soy sauce followed by grilled stuffed rice balls (we each finished one. My wife thinks the remaining rice balls will nicely heat up in our toaster oven. We will see).
Sunday, November 29, 2020
Yellowtail marinaded in sake lee ハマチの粕漬け
This was the last of the whole fresh yellowtail. I marinated the filet in sake lee 酒粕 or "Kasu-zuke" 粕漬け. Since I did not have a time to cook this during the week, the fish marinated for a week which was a bit too long. I also made Japanese stewed vegetable "nituske" 煮付け as a side.
Ingredients:
Sake lee 300grams
Red miso 30grams
Sugar 3 tbs
Salt 1/2 tsp
Sake to loosen up the marinade if too stiff,
Directions:
I added half of the sake lee mixture in the bottom of a sealable container and placed cheese cloth (after washing to remove any lint). I put in the filets and then covered them with another layer of cheese cloth. I put the remaining sake lee mixture on top. I let it marinate in the refrigerator (for a week as it turned out).
This was a bit over-marinated. I started broiling on the flesh side first as shown below in the toaster oven.
Thursday, November 26, 2020
Yellowtail burger はまちバーガー
I was trying to use all parts of the whole yellowtail I got from Hmart through Instacart. I scraped off all the meat from the bone as well as the meat close to the end of the tail. I minced it but the amount was not enough to make a substantial dish. So I decided to make a yellowtail burger. As a binder and to make the "meat" go further I added “hanpen ” はんぺん. It is steamed Japanese fish cake made of white fish meat and egg white and came pre-made in a package. I served the resulting burger as a lunch with leftover shiitake mushroom risotto, sautéed pencil asparagus and scrambled egg with tomato.
Ingredients:
Yellowfin meat scraped off from the bone and the end of the tail, finely minced (I am not sure how much this was but probably less than 200 grams)
1/3 hanpen, thawed, cut into small cubes
1/2 egg, beaten
2 shiitake mushroom, both stalks and caps finely chopped
1 tsp of red miso
1/2 tsp mirin
Pinch of salt
Vegetable oil for cooking
Directions:
In a plastic cylinder (which came with the emersion blender), add the hanpen and the egg. Using the emersion blender make a smooth mixture. Add the miso and the seasoning and blend. Add the yellowtail meat and mix with a silicon spatula. Dump the mixture on a lightly oiled plate, divide in half and form two oval disks, half inch thick. In a non-stick fry pan, on medium-low heat add the oil and slide in the disks. I cooked one side about 5 minutes and turned the burger over and cooked another 3-4 minutes until done.
This was rather gentle tasting and tender fish burger. The miso flavor really made it. This was nice light lunch.
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Grilled yellowtail filet ハマチの塩焼き
Choosing among the whole fresh fish available from HMart Korean grocery store, we tried "yellowtail" this time. The Japanese name may be "hamachi" ハマチ but the Japanese name changes as this fish grows. If the fish is over 80 cm, it is called "Buri" ブリ which appears to be the uniform nomenclature throughout Japan. The younger, smaller yellowtail, however, has many different names depending on the locale. The one we got may have qualified as a small "hamachi". Of course, the best way to enjoy hamachi is as sashimi, but this one was not fresh enough for that. So, after I cleaned the fish I made what is known in Japanese as sannmai-oroshi 三枚おろし or “three layers” which consist of two filets and a central layer of bone with bits of meat still attached between the bones. I cut one of the filets into serving size, salted it and let it stand in the refrigerator for several hours. I blotted the surface with paper towel, re-salted and cooked it. It would have been best grilled over a charcoal fire but I simply cooked it in a frying pan with a small amount of olive oil. I served it with salted vegetables 浅漬け (Cucumber, nappa cabbage, thick rectangles of daikon), myoga in sweet vinegar 冥加の甘酢漬け and blanched broccoli. I found that we had a chopstick rest shaped like myoga so in keeping with the theme included it for the chopsticks on the tray. This dish was quite good with cold sake.
I cut the two filets into small serving size. I cooked one of the filets as shown here. I marinated the other filet in sake lee ハマチの酒粕味噌漬け. I simmered the heads as "Kabuto-ni" 兜煮, and the collars or "Kama" カマ were frozen for later. I also scraped off all the meat from the bone and also removed the meat from skin of the tail portions and used it to make a yellowtail burger ハマチバーガー (all the subjects of future posts). So every part of the fish, except the bones and fins was used— nothing was waste. In so doing I hope we did justice to what this lovely fish had to offer.
Friday, October 30, 2020
Grilled bluefish and matsutake lunch
We used to get a whole fresh Spanish mackerel at Whole foods, but it has not been available for a long time. Since we started buying groceries from the Korean grocery store HMart through Instacart, we have found they have more variety of whole fresh fish available. We got whole Spanish mackerel from them a few times. This time, however, mackerel was not available but bluefish was. We have used bluefish* in place of Spanish mackerel in the past and decided to go with it. I am not sure how I ordered it (by weight or by the numbers) but I ended up with two rather large bluefish not cleaned at all. So, I had to scale, gut, remove head and make filets. It was a bit of work but the fish was really fresh. As before, I made bluefish simmered in miso sauce ブルーフィシュの味噌煮 from the filets and "tsumire" fish balls soup つみれ汁 from the fish meat scraped off the bones. I set the fish ball soup and miso simmered fish aside for another meal. The remaining filets, I salted and grilled. We happened to have matsutake 松茸 from Oregon mushroom and matsutake rice 松茸ご飯 rice leftover from dinner the previous night. So I made matsutake soup 松茸のお吸い物, warmed up the rice and served with the bluefish for our lunch on Sunday.
* I am not sure of its Japanese name but it appears to be "Oki-suzuki" オキスズキ. I have not seen or eaten it while I lived in Japan.
I first salted the fillet and let it sit in the refrigerator for a few hours. I cooked the bluefish filet with a small amount of olive oil in a frying pan on low flame with skin side down until the skin got brown (6-7 minutes, I also applied decorative cuts on the skin to prevent the skin breaking during the cooking). I cooked 80% on the skin side, flipped it and completed the cooking. I served this with pickled myoga 冥加の甘酢漬け, salt picked cucumber and nappa cabbage きゅうりと白菜の浅漬け and thinly sliced cucumber dressed in sushi vinegar 胡瓜の酢の物. Since the fish was well-salted, we did not need additional sauce such as soy sauce for this.
For the matsutake soup 松茸のお吸い物, I made bonito "dashi" カツオの出汁 from a dash pack seasoned with mirin and light colored soy sauce and salt, added thinly sliced matsutake, silken tofu, "kyoubu" 京麩 decorative gluten cake (dried, hydrate before adding to the soup), freeze dried "mitsuba" 三つ葉 and yuzu zest ゆず (frozen).
The bluefish prepared this way was very good. The flesh was pleasingly oily, soft and had a nice flavor. The skin did not get crispy but stayed soft. It may have been a bit strong tasting fish to accompany the delicate matsutake but we really enjoyed this lunch.
Saturday, October 10, 2020
Grilled mackerel salad with “Yuzu” mayonnaise 柚子マヨあえ焼き鯖のサラダ
This is a small salad made of leftover salted and grilled mackerel 鯖の塩焼き. I just came up with this and did not have any recipe.
Monday, September 28, 2020
Salted and grilled mackerel 鯖の塩焼き
Come to think of it, I never cooked mackerel this basic way. When I got two whole Spanish mackerels from HMart via Instacart, there was too much to make it all into the miso-simmered dish 鯖の味噌煮 I usually make. So, I took two filets I prepared from the smaller of the two fish and made this salted and grilled mackerel. I filleted the fish and removed the small pin bones. Then I cut one filet into two and salted both sides. I let it stand for 10 minutes and blotted the surfaces using a paper towel. I made shallow cuts on the skin and re-salted it. Since I do not have a Japanese style fish grill and I did not want to cook fish in the toaster oven, I sautéed the fillets in a frying pan with a small amount of olive oil.
This is a basic simple way of cooking mackerel but it was good. On the side, I added sliced mini-cucumber (salted and moisture squeezed out) dressed in sushi vinegar. Since we had just harvested and pickled myoga, I added it too. This could have gone very well with rice. We had it as a drinking snack with cold sake.
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Straw grilled bonito at Tako Grill 藁焼きカツオ
Mr. Segawa placed a small shiny brand-new metal garbage can and filled straw under the restaurant's industrial strength exhaust hood. He told me that he got the straw from a near-by farm. When he lit the straw, the flame flared up bright and strong. As you can see, it made a pretty impressive fire. (From deep inside the restaurant I heard a child's voice pipe up "Daddy, is that a real fire?") I suspect other customers were also taken by the impressive display.
Mr. Segawa skillfully seared the outside of the bonito leaving the inside still raw, i.e. Katsuo tataki カツオのたたき. Not only was the outside seared but it was also washed in the fragrant straw smoke. The result was the dish shown below. It was served with grated ginger, thinly sliced garlic and red onion. Needless to say, the bonito was melt-in-your-mouth tender with a contrasting seared bark texture on the surface and a wonderful straw-grilled flavor. Compared to our usual pre-packaged frozen bonito tataki, this is in a totally different class. This was a wonderful experience without having to go to Kochi ourselves. Thanks, Segawa-san.
Sunday, March 1, 2020
Takoyaki variation with tofu and nagaimo 長芋豆腐たこ焼き
The surface was nicely brown and crunchy.
The inside was soft and hot showing hijiki (black stringy below) and edamame (green).
Ingredients: (I tried to halve the amount of the original recipe. I ended up making some changes inadvertently, since I just did not want to use "half egg" and I did not want to leave a small portion of nagaimo).
The original recipe is as follows;
1 firm silken tofu 12oz (350g)
Handful dried Hijiki seaweed
8 oz (225g) unshelled edamame pods (then, cooked and shelled)
1 egg
4oz (125g) yamaimo
1/2 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp salt
The amount below are what I think I used. It made 6 balls using the Ebelskiver cooker (the balls were larger than regular takoyaki) as below.
1 small package of silken tofu, about 125gram, wrapped in paper towel with a weight (I used wooden cutting board) to drain for 1 hour.
Nagaimo, skin removed and grated, about 120g (I used up what I had left)
1 egg
Hijiki seaweed, hydrated, arbitrary amount
Edamame, frozen, cooked and shelled, arbitrary amount
Pinch of salt and sugar
"Katakuri-ko" potato Starch (because, proportionally I used more nagaimo and egg than the original recipe which made the batter runnier, I added potato starch to adjust the consistency of the batter).
For the dipping sauce; (this is the original, again, I halved the recipe when I made it)
2 tbs potato starch
2 cup (500ml) dashi
1 tbs soy sauce
1/2 sugar
1/2 tbs mirin
1/4 tsp salt
Directions:
Using a small food processor, I mixed the tofu, grated nagaimo, egg, salt and sugar until the batter was smooth. I then added the potato starch in small increments to adjust the consistency (it was the consistency of a bit runny pancake batter).
I added the hijiki, edamame and mixed (#1)
I preheated my electric ebelskiver to medium high (#2)
I poured the batter filling 6 wells (#3)
After the bottom got set and browned (it took a few minutes, I was too inpatient and started flipping too early)
After several flipping, the surface started getting evenly brown (#4)
I kept flipping until the surface is all cooked and browned about 5-6 minutes (#5 and 6).
This version of takoyaki was good and the dipping sauce went well with it but this is not really takoyaki (I am sure people from Osaka would agree). It is a dish in-and-of its own just resembling the shape of takoyaki. Making this requires some steps and effort and I would rather make regular takoyaki which is much easier to make.
Friday, February 21, 2020
Bonito tataki teriyaki カツオたたきの照焼
Teriyaki 照り焼き, "teri" means "glistering" or "shiny" and "yaki" means "grilled". After the marinade is reduced, the coated surface of the fish becomes shiny because of the sugar content of the sauce .
For some reason, I automatically sprinkled on "sansho" powder 山椒. For leftover control, this was quite a good small dish to start the evening.
Thursday, November 28, 2019
Japanese "Yakiyaki-san" smoke-less earthenware grill やきやきさん
Being somewhat of a "gadget" lover, the YouTube discussion convinced me I had to try this and I ordered one. After its arrival, it sat for some time but finally we had a chance to use it. We were not sure how "smoke-less" this was so we tried it on the stove under the exhaust fan. I followed the instructions. First, I filled the moat to 80% with water and preheated it for 5 minutes on high flame and then turned the flame down to medium. I brushed the grill surface with olive oil and started cooking.
The picture below shows the end products. We grilled filet mignon, shiitake mushrooms, onions, small red potatoes and zucchini. (My wife added a pat of butter to the onion and zucchini when I wasn't looking). Since the meat was filet mignon and very tender I didn't want to overcook it so I did not leave it on the grill for long as a result, there were no char marks.
The meat was one medium sized filet mignon cut into 1/4 inch slices and seasoned with salt and pepper. I put a bit of olive oil on the gill sides of the Shiitake mushrooms and seasoned with salt. I sliced the the onion, and zucchini into1/8 inch thick pieces. I secured the sections of the onions with toothpicks and coated the vegetables with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.
I first microwaved the small red potatoes in a silicon container until they were cooked then I cut them in half and seasoned them with salt and pepper.
I started cooking with the vegetables since I figured they would take much longer than the meat to cook. At medium flame, char marks did not develop so I cranked up the heat to high flame and finally the food started cooking with char marks but still there was no discernible smoke .
The picture below shows the nice crust that started forming on the potatoes and onions. When the veggies were cooked I added the meat. The meat took only few a minutes to cook to medium rare but with this short cooking no char developed. The juices from the meat added to the flavor of the veggies.
Certainly this is a good way to grill without decernable smoke. It is possible to use this grill on the table with a portable gas burner but we are not sure if the heat would be high enough. Besides, we just got rid of our aged portable cassette because we were worried about how safe it was given how ancient it was.
The food tasted really good. Although we did not use any sauce, there was enough seasonings on the food. Both the veggies and meat were perfectly cooked. Washing the grill afterward was not too difficult but we have to make sure it is totally dry before using it again.