Vegetables in Cold Broth 冷製のトマトの煮浸し

Cold vegetables soaked in broth is the perfect dish for summer. I have posted cold simmered tomato and sugar snap soaked in salt broth before. I made a tomato dish similar to the one I made before but it differed because I did not simmer the tomato (Picture #1). I skinned the Campari tomato (by briefly blanching) and then soaking (but not cooking) it in the hot broth. I let it cool to room temperature and then refrigerated it. I blanched the Sugar snap then soaked it in the broth. I topped it with very briefly blanched “mitsuba ミツバ”. This preparation allows you to taste a fresher tomato flavor. The broth is also slightly sweet containing mirin and soy sauce in addition to kelp-bonito broth.

A few days later, I added simmered daikon and shiitake mushroom (picture #2, right). I also served salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻き and seasoned egg or “ajitama 味玉” (left). The green is arugula sprouts which were growing in the window pot but needed to be thinned. I dressed with truffle oil.

Directions:

Vegetables I used are simmered daikon and fresh shiitake mushrooms, skinned Campari tomatoes and blanched sugar snaps. The daikon was first simmered in water with added one pinch of raw rice for 30 minutes. The seasoning broth is my usual kelp and bonito broth (I made it stronger with two dashi packs with 500ml of water) which was seasoned with mirin and soy sauce (not too strong to bring out the natural flavor of the vegetable). I did not cook the vegetable further, just placed in hot seasoned both and let it cool down and then refrigerated.

This is a very light refreshing dish to serve on a hot summer evening. The veggies have a very fresh flavor but a slightly cooked texture that make them a bit easier to eat. This is the essence of summer.

Mitsuba ミツバ

Mitsuba 三つ葉 is a sort of Japanese parsley mainly used as a garnish or topping for certain dishes such as soup, katsu-don カツ丼 and chawan-mushi 茶碗蒸し. “Mitsuba” in Japanese means three leaves since it has three leaves. It has a very distinctive and unique flavor. In the past, I rarely got fresh ones at our Japanese grocery store and I could get dried ones which do not have much flavor. I tried to grow it a few times from the seeds (from Kitazawa seeds) which was not a great success for some reason. This time the mitsuba we planted in a pot on the window sill grew quite nicely (picture #1). 

I added this home-grown fresh mitsuba to the usual chawanmushi I make (picture #2). I mixed the stalks which were cut into small pieces into the egg mixture but I added the leaves just 30 seconds before serving. This time I served chawanmush hot just out of the steamer.

Althouhg mitsuba is not a major component of the any dishes incuding the chawanmushi, I really like the unique flavor.