New Year's day evening with Sushi Taro Osechi 元旦の夕, すし太郎のおせち

We were wondering how long we have been getting Sushi Taro's Osechi box to celebrate New Year. We went back to our blog and it appears we started getting Sushi Taro Osechi on 2012.  In any case, we got the box on the afternoon of New Year's eve and started indulging in its contents the evening of the New Year's day.

We were delighted to see our favorite "karasumi" 唐墨 or "bottarga" or sun-dried mullet roe this year as well (right upper corner) along with the other usual goodies.

This is the second layer. Miso-marinated beef tongue  (right upper corner) is new this year. We like beef tongue but this is quite different from how we prepare it. Another one of our favorites "Monkfish liver terrine" or "ankimo tofu" あん肝豆腐 is peaking out on the right upper corner of the third (bottom) row.

Since I got frozen bluefin tuna sashimi block form Catalina Offshore products last December in preparation for the coming new year, we had some on New Year's eve and finished it New Year's day evening.  The tuna was very good and it was between chu-toro 中とろand ko-toro 小とろ.

On the sashimi plate, we had tuna, steamed sea urchin, karasumi, boiled shrimp (leftover from making ozouni), white and red fish cake, salmon Russian marinade, marinated herring roe (this is one I prepared) and burdock root stuffed with mustard. This year, karasumi was sliced a bit thicker than usual so I grilled it lightly in the toaster oven before enjoying it.

The second small plate had my "Chicken matsu-kaze yaki" 松風焼 (left in the picture below, I used toasted walnuts instead of pine nuts so it is not really "matsu-kaze" or "wind over the pine"). The green vegetable is from the osechi box called "pickled Chishatou" ちしゃとう or celtuce. This is a food item I am not familiar with but it is a stalk of a type of special lettuce. It has a nice crunchy texture. This "Date-maki" egg roll is from the osechi box and the meat behind it is miso marinated beef tongue. It is firmer than I make it but it had a nice beef flavor.

The third small plate had "renkon" lotus root cut in flower-shape dressed in vinegar, marinated (I assume in miso) egg yolk with walnut (another of our favorites), smoke salmon rolled in thinly peeled radish and cumquat in syrup. Behind the renkon is steamed fish cake with matsu-take mushroom or "matsutake shinjou"松茸しんじょう(cut in half).

This is an octopus leg I dressed in mustard miso vinegar タコ足のぶつ切りの芥子酢味噌和え.

We had the same sake (the last bottle) as last year which we brought from Japan two years ago. Jurakudai daiginjou from Kyoto.

We thought these are the starter but after eating these and drinking, both of us were quite full and called it quits. It was a nice evening to start 2019.

Sake lee and miso marinated grilled salmon 鮭のハラスの粕味噌焼

This is a variation of sake lee marinated grilled fish. The usual marinade for this kind of dish is made of mostly sake lee with  a small  amount of miso. This past new year, however, I made two kinds of herring roe; one of which was marinated in the mixture of sake lee and miso. Although this marinade is a mixture of miso, sake lee and sake, it differs from the one described above in that it has much more miso. After I removed the herring roe from this marinade, I used it for fish and vegetables. I realized I have not posted it, so I used it again for my usual filet of salmon, belly portion (or "harasu" ハラス) . I served the marinated salmon belly with my cucumber onion salad as a first small dish for the evening.

1. I scaled the skin (I always have to do this since it is usually not properly scaled at the store. We suspect this is because not many people enjoy the skin as we do so the fish mongers don't "waste their time" carefully scaling it since the skin will generally be discarded). I then separated the belly portion.
2. In a small ziploc bag, I put a small amount of the sake lee miso marinade and pressed to spread making a thin layer. I then put in the salmon, and added more marinade on the side which did not already have the marinade. I pressed and spread the marinade to cover the fish.
3. After sealing the bag, I kept it in the refrigerator for a few days to a max of 1 week.
4. Just before grilling, I took the fish out and washed it in cold running water to remove the marinade and patted it dry using sheets of paper towel.
5. I grilled this in the toaster oven but I had be very careful not to burn the skin too much. I also moved the toaster oven under the hood of the stove since it creates some smoke. I started from the meat side and them cooked the skin side so that when finished, the skin was crispy.

Although we like salmon belly just salted and grilled, the marination adds subtle flavors and a different texture which is very nice for a change.

Good sake from Niigata and drinking snacks 越の誉 純米大吟醸 槽搾り

Somehow I forgot to post this.  One evening in the first week of the new year (which is called "Matsu-no-uchi" 松の内 and considered to be still within a period of official New Year's cerebration in Japan) we still had some good stuff from the New Year's Osechi Box and other New Year items I made and I opened a special sake which was kept in the back of the refrigerator and I almost forgot that we had. This sake is called  "Koshi no Homare" (Pride of Niigata) Junmai daiginjo, funa-shibori 越の誉 純米大吟醸 槽搾りfrom Hara Brewery in Niigata 新潟原酒造.

I don't recall how I happen to have this sake. In any case, this was a good "daigin" with nice fruity and clean daigin flavors plus more depth to it from (?) a pleasant "umami" component. According to the brewery, this was pressed in the old traditional way in which fermented rice or "moromi" もろみ is put into cloth bags and pressed in a wooden vessel called "fune" 槽. The first sake that comes out without pressure is called "arabashiri" 荒走り. This sake is made from the middle of pressing called "nakabashiri" 中走りwhich is supposedly the best balanced sake you can have.

Anyway, good sake deserves good drinking snacks. The below was the first appetizers or otoshi I served. The left is a combination of daikon namasu (bottom), ikura salmon roe, Russian marinated salmon, boiled octopus leg, and kazunoko herring roe.

I also broiled tarako cod roe 焼きたらこ (only surface is cooked).

With these, we could have had quite a good amount of sake but since we had so much good food, I served this "Hassun" 八寸 assorted appetizers from the Osechi box. The marinated and grilled fish pieces were warmed up in a toaster oven which made them 100% better than stone-cold.

In this assortment, there are so many good snacks and everything went so well with the sake. Enjoying small morsels of different flavors and textures with good sake is by far our most favorite way of enjoying food and sake. We thought we were not a great fan of Niigata sake but this one was excellent and we really liked it.

Vinegard sanma sashimi 〆さんま

When I pontificated about sanma  さんまor pacific saury, I mentioned that "sashimi" of sanma is not unusual now.  (This is because of the improvements in distribution that get these perishable "blue" fish quickly to the market.  One aspect of this improvement is that this formerly lowely  fish has been “up-graded” in status and has become much more expensive in many sushi bars). I was surprised to see frozen and vinegared sanma or shime-sanma 〆さんま in the freezer case of our Japanese grocery store. Although vinegared mackerel or シメサバ is very common, I have never seen sanma sold this way and promptly bought it.

I served it with two kinds of cucumber salad (one with thinly sliced myoga and one with thinly sliced red onion, both salted, washed and then excess moisture wrung out and dressed in vinegar dressing). I also put both grated ginger and wasabi.



As you can see below, this is very well vinegared and the meat is all opaque (i.e. chemically cooked) which is the same in packaged frozen vinegared Mackerel.



The below was how it came. One package had three filets of sanma.



After thawing, I blotted excess moisture and sliced it slightly obliquely.



The shime sanma tasted very similar to shime saba or mackerel. The vinegar was a bit sweeter than I would like but my wife thought it was fine. As I mentioned, the meat was throughly vinegared and opaque. If the center was a bit closer to raw would have been better but I am asking too much.

The only drink  that goes with this is sake. This sake called "Tozai Living Jewel" is widely available in US and appears to be an export only brand from Kizakura brewery 黄桜酒造 in Kyoto, Japan. We have tasted turbid sake from them before called “snow maiden” “Tozai Yuki musume” 東西雪娘.

The current one is "junmai shu" 純米酒  and it is not too yeasty, Although it does not have depth or complex flavors or fruity note (which is more from ginjo and daiginjo flavors) and the taste disappears quickly in the palate (i.e. short finish),  it is quite a drinkable sake. This one went particularly well with a strong oily fish with vinegar and sweet taste of vinegared sanma we were having.

So, we enjoyed this dish and sake.

G Sake on the rocks G 酒 オンザロック

When we were at Izakaya Kurakura 蔵倉 in Kyoto recently, we had "Icebreaker" summer sake on the rocks which gave us the idea to taste G sake on the rocks. We posted G sake Joy and G sake Fifty in 2013. While they were good, we were not wild about these sakes (we liked the original G sake) and thought they were a bit too assertive/savory in taste with cloying sweetness (this tendency was more pronounced in "Fifty"). As a result several bottles of G sake have stayed in the refrigerator untouched. Since they were a rather assertive undiluted genshu with higher alcohol content (18% alcohol), we thought they may taste better on the rocks like Icebreaker sake.

We first tried G sake (2013 version) on the rocks.



The glass came from Kitaichi glass 北市グラス in Otaru 小樽. While we were in Japan, we noticed some of the Japanese tumblers were made of incredibly thin glass. We learned that since incandescent light bulbs are becoming a thing of the past in Japan, the same technology used to make light bulbs is being used to make very thin-walled glass tumblers. The ones we bought have little dimples on the sides making them easier to grasp. We tasted G sake "Joy" on the rocks in these tumblers accompanied with deep fried small sweet fish or "ayu".



A few days later, we tried G sake "Fifty" (2013 version) on the rocks. The major difference between "Joy" and "Fifty" is the degree to which the rice has been polished; 40 and 50% (of outer kernel removed), respectively.



This time we had octopus sashimi and raw ocutopus in wasabi yuzu dressing (in the square container,  from a frozen package). I also served matchsticks of nagaimo in vinegar dressing garnished with dried "aonori".



We liked G sake "Joy" on the rocks. The cloying sweetness was much less and the slight dilution and icy temperature made the G sake taste crisp and better.  G sake "Fifty" got much better than tasting it straight but the cloying sweetness broke through even on the rocks. Certainly, we can drink it much more easily on the rocks than straight. In conclusion, it is a good idea to have G sake on the rocks in hot summer. The assertive tastes of G sakes are actually perfect for on the rocks. We much prefer G sake "joy" over "fifty". We have not tried the most recent brews, however.

“Cup” sake Funagichi Kikusui ふなぐち菊水生原酒

There is a class of sake called "Cup-sake" which comes in either a glass or aluminum "cup" (about 1 go size 一合 or 180-200ml) with a pull top. These are widely available in convenience stores and vending machines in Japan. This type of sake is usually not high quality but it is easy to get and you can consume it anytime anywhere which appeals to certain clientele. Ozeki 大関 sake brewery is credited for inventing this type of sake  (called "One cup Ozeki" ワンカップ大関) in 1964. More recently, better quality sake, even daiginjou 大吟醸 class is being sold in this format but when I lived in Japan, "cup sake" had some negative stigma attached to the extent that even in my youth I did not partake.

Interestingly, when we went to Sakamai 酒舞 in New York some years ago, one of the "genshu" 原酒 tasting included this "Funaguchi Kikusui" ふなぐち菊水生原酒. We did not think it was a particularly great sake but not bad either. We were a bit surprised that this came in an aluminum cup and was included in the "genshu" tasting at this “fancy” sake bar. Later, I learned that Kikusui sake brewery 菊水酒造 was in Niigata 新潟 and there were four different kinds of cup sake including "ginjo" class but this particular one is "hon jouzou" 本醸造 made of rice polished to 70%. "Nama genshu" 生原酒 implies non-pasteurized and non-diluted sake but I am not sure if it was pasteurized after placing it in the can.

In any case, when we had this at Yuzu restaurant the other evening.  Few days later, I happened to spot this sake-in-a-can at the Japanese grocery store.  I had to buy it to taste it. I served this cold.



It is always important to me that we taste sake with the appropriate food. I served daikon namasu 大根なます garnished with ikura いくら salmon roe, boiled octopus leg with karashi sumiso 芥子酢味噌and my pickled myouga 茗荷の酢漬.



The taste of the sake was totally different from what we had at Yuzu. It has some yeasty flavor of honjouzou but had a nice "umami" flavor and not extremely dry.  Although this is not one of our favorites, it is certainly a drinkable sake.

Warm sake 燗酒

We rarely drink warm sake but we are in the middle of a very cold spell and the temperature did not go above freezing for almost a week. For a few days, the temperature was in the single digits (Fahrenheit). So, in these frigid conditions, a cold drink was not particularly attractive. We made a nice fire in the fireplace and decided to go with warm sake. My wife found some long forgotten Hagi-ware 萩焼き sake bottles (ochoushi お銚子) . I warmed up the sake the traditional way as seen below.

 

The sake we had was "Gekeikan Black and Gold" 月桂冠 ブッラクアンドゴールド. This is a U.S. brewed sake. Although the details are difficult to come by, the sake was a mixture of sake brewed from rice milled to 60 and 70%. The exact kind of sake rice is not clear. By the degree of milling, this sake would be "Ginjou 吟醸酒" class but they classify this as "Junmai 純米酒" class.


How much to heat up the sake depends on the kind of sake and your preferences but, in general, “Honjouzou  本醸造” and “Junmai” 純米酒 are best suited for drinking warm. I think among the U.S. brewed sake, this one is best for drinking warm. The list below shows the different temperatures and corresponding names for various sakes.

“Jouon” 常温, room temperature 20℃ (68F)
”Hinata kan” 日向燗 sunny side 30℃ (86F)
”Hitohada kan” 人肌燗 skin temperature 35℃ (95F)
”Nuru kan” ぬる燗 luke warm 40℃ (104F)
”Jou kan” 上燗 warm 45℃ (113F)
”Atsu kan” 熱燗 hot 50℃ (122F)

I went for “Atsu kan” at 50C (using a instant read digital thermometer). Since the temperature drops quite quickly, I used a soup bowl filled with boiling water to maintain the temperature which worked well.


These were all leftover from the new year’s dishes I made. I stuffed white and red fish cakes 紅白かまぼこ with tobiko and ikura salmon roe and poured on some wasabi soy sauce. Below the fish cake are kelp salmon rolls, to the right are chicken squares with pine nuts and walnuts. Below that are simmered kabocha pumpkin, in the front on the left is Kimpira burdock root and boiled octopus leg seasoned with wasabi soy sauce.

Warm sake was really nice on this bitter cold evening and warmed us up quickly. The black and gold is a nice gentle sake and perfect for drinking warm.

Of course “Oden” is perfect for warm sake and cold night.

This night, we had an egg, kon-nyaku コンニャク, mochi in a pouch (mochi-kin 餅巾着), carrot 人参, daikon 大根, gobo-ten*ゴボテン and tofu 豆腐 garnished with chopped chives with Japanese hot mustard. All went well with warm sake.

* deep fried fish cake with center of burdock root or "satsuma"age with burdock root ゴボウ入りさつま揚げ.

Sparkling Sake スパークリング清酒

We have tried a few sparkling sakes in the past. We were not particularly fond of these sparkling sakes. Since we have not tried more recent versions of sparkling sake and saw one in the nearby liquor store, I decided to try it.

This is called "Zipang" from Gekkeikan 月桂冠 (imported from Japan). My understanding is that, "Zipang" is one of the oldest names referring to Japan which was supposedly mentioned by Marco Polo as a country of pearls and gold. This particular sake came in a 250ml bottle. The alcohol content is low at 7%. According to the website of "Gekkeikan sake" 月桂冠酒 (In Japanese), the carbonation is from the secondary fermentation in a tank in low temperature (with sugar, I assume like the beer/ale I used to make) rather than injected carbon dioxide.  The carbonation pressure is between beer and champagne using the innovative technique of filtering out spent yeast without losing the carbonation. It appears to be especially aimed at the American market and started exporting to US in 2005.

When poured, it is clear with a rather gentle effervescence. No particular aroma can be detected. The taste is very subtle, clean with very slight sweetness but not much else. I am sure, as their web site states, this will be very acceptable to the Western palate and, if you were not told this is sparkling sake, you certainly could not tell this is sake. It almost tastes like Sprite without the citrus flavor and less sweetness. It is food neutral as are other sparkling wines and is refreshing especially in warm weather but we were not sure this is anything we would like to try again. It should have some more taste/favor to distinguish this as a type of sake. I have to admit, though, this is much better than sparkling turbid sake we tried many years ago in a Japanese restaurant in Napa.

We had this sparkling sake with cold simmered vegetables (this time instead of daikon 大根, I used nagaimo 長芋) in addition to carrot and blanched broccolini (left).  I also served Japanese cucumber sunomono with semi-dried scallop 胡瓜と貝柱の酢の物, daikon namasu 大根ナマス garnished with salmon roe and few slices of octopus leg. This time, I used sweet vinegar I made few days ago as a dressing.



Like sake, this sparkling wine did not complete with the vinegar in these dishes. However, we would rather have regular sparkling wine and/or champagne.

Shouchikubai Daiginjou Sake from California grown Yamdanishi 松竹梅大吟醸，米国産山田錦

Last time I posted G-sake and G-sake Fifty from SakeOne, Gordon kindly let me know that Takara Sake Co. 宝酒造 in Berkley were finally growing Yamada-nishiki 山田錦  in the Sacramento valley and were producing Junmai Daiginjo 純米大吟醸 . After some effort we finally got a few bottles directly from Takara. After I received my shipment, they restricted purchases to one bottle per order and then finally indicated they were out of stock. So, I guess, I was lucky.



The label reads, "Sho Chiku Bai*" Junmai Daiginjo 松竹梅純米大吟醸 brewed exclusively from California-grown Yamada-nishi 米国産山田錦全量 (polished to 45%). It is "unfiltered" Genshu 無濾過原酒 (i.e., undiluted with alcohol content of 16%) and is limited release 限定品. It had handwritten numbers and batch code(?) on the label.

*"Sho Chiku Bai" means Pine-Bamboo-Plum．This combination is considered a very auspicious in Japanese culture.



It happened that I received the sake just before a long holiday weekend and marked by some exquisitely pleasant sunny days. Consequently we had this tasting outside. As usual, we needed "otoshi" drinking snacks to enjoy this sake. I prepared a trio. From left to right; green asparagus (blanched) and chicken breast (barbecued in Weber, hand shredded) with "kimisu" 黄身酢 (egg yolk vinegar dressing), sashimi squid (frozen package) dressed with soy sauce, real wasabi and tobiko roe, and finally white asparagus with cream sauce (cream and reduced asparagus cooking liquid and butter).



This time, the  "kimisu" I made is a bit thicker and richer than before.



For frozen, the squid was not too bad and tobiko roe added an interesting texture.



The white asparagus requires a bit more preparation and cooking but the end result is sublime. The sauce really makes it…we didn’t leave any behind.


Now we were ready for sake tasting. We served this sake chilled. The color was clear. The sake had some floral aroma (Daiginjo smell), was nice and subtle with no distracting yeastiness. The palate was very clean with some subtle melon/apple and a hint of "umami" savory taste finishing with a slight sweet note.  It had a classic Yamada-nishiki daiginjo taste; clear and elegant. This one, I sensed, had a slightly bit more savory component than other daiginjo brewed from Yamada-nishiki such as our house sake "Mu" 無from Yaegaki 八重垣.

Albeit that this sake represented a very different price point, compared to recent batches of G-sake and G-sake fifty, this Sho Chiku Bai has a definitely more authentic daiginjo flavor profile and we like it much better. It is so smooth and easy to drink. Although we do not know what kind of California rice G-Sake is brewed from, I surmise that the sake rice they may be using must have more protein content since it has a strong savory taste. Yamada-nishiki, on the other hand, is known for its low protein content, thus, producing a cleaner and crisper taste in the resulting sake especially in the Daiginjo class. We also remembered that we tasted another daiginjo "Sho chiku bai" imported from Japan sometime ago and we were not as impressed with that as we are with the current sake. Compared to that daiginjo from Japan (which was more expensive), the all-American-daiginjo "Sho Chiku Bai" (may be except for the sake yeast) is indeed superior (and cheaper by $20).

All three otoshi appetizers went extremely well with this genuine American Daiginjo sake.  Hope we can “snag” several more bottles from next year's batch when they are released…BTW the line forms to the rear.

Cherry blossom gazing Part 1 花見

Finally, spring has sprung. This winter was one of the coldest we can remember. To add “insult to injury” we even had snow in late March. As a result, spring is “late” this year and is very compressed--all the flowering trees are blooming at once. The picture below is of magnolia in full bloom which usually occurs much earlier than cherry blossom but this year both are in bloom at the same time.



Usually the cherry trees in our back yard bloom about one to two weeks later than the ones at the Tidal Basin. This year, however, ours came out around the same time as the ones in the Tidal Basin. The buds started to ripen on Wednesday and by Saturday, they were in full bloom.



So, we had to have hanami 花見 cherry blossom gazing.



Since I did not have time to order any good sashimi items, I had to make something from what I had at hand--frozen yellow fin tuna from our freezer.  This seems to happen often for hanami.



I made this "zuke" of tuna.マグロの漬け. To make it interesting, I layered it with thin half moon slices of daikon which were salted, washed and dressed with sushi vinegar. I also made a "scallion"sauce with coarsely ground roasted sesame.



The sake glasses came from Asakusa craft center 江戸下町伝統工芸館. It has etched plum flowers on it.



Here is a close up of the zuke of tuna sashimi. I made a slightly different marinade with sake, mirin, soy sauce in 1:1:2 ratio and heated it up to remove the alcohol and then cooled it down. I added the juice of grated ginger (to taste) after it cooled to room temperature. I did “yubiki” 湯引き to the block of tuna and made rather thick slices and marinated them for several hours in the refrigerator. Just before serving, I made “negi” sauce which is a mixture of finely chopped scallion (soaked in water with the moisture then squeezed out using paper towels) and the marinade. I added coarsely ground roasted white sesame to the sauce as well as used for garnished on the top.  Considering the quality of original frozen tuna, this treatment really made this tuna palatable. Of course, this is the first dish and hanami went on (to be continued).

Grilled miso marinated yellowtail ハマチの味噌漬け焼き

This is a continuation of our weekend indulgence which started with enjoying our egg custard "chawanmushi". Since I ordered a fairly large amount of yellow tail or hamachi sashimi from Catalina I discovered that there is such a thing as too much good sashimi. I decided to make miso-marinated and grilled Hamachi from one of the fillets. As a accompaniment, I also made simmered daikon, baby red potato and carrot.



After marinading the piece of fish for 10 hours in the refrigerator, I grilled it over a charcoal fire. The surface was nicely charred but the meat was just cooked (I could have under cooked it a bit since this was originally for sashimi).



Initially, I planned to broil this inside in the toaster oven. At my wife's objection (saying even if the kitchen remained odor free, the toaster oven would smell like fish afterwards), however, we decided to cook it outside using a Weber grill and a charcoal fire. By the time I was ready to grill, it had started snowing (this was the start of a large late season nasty snow storm which resulted in significant accumulations by the next day). In any case, rather than placing the fish directly on the grill (risking its sticking and losing the crispy skin) I used two long metal skewers so that the fish filet was suspended over the fire and grill without touching anything. I cooked it less than 3-4 minutes on each side (about 7-8 inch above the hot charcoal fire).



Miso marinade: Since I was out of sweet "Saikyo" miso 西京味噌, I used regular miso (3 tbs), sugar (2 tbs) and mirin (just to loosen the mixture to the right consistency). I also added splashes of Yuzu juice (from the bottle).

I wrapped the hamachi filet in one layer of moistened cheese cloth and placed it in a Ziploc bag and spooned in the miso marinade. I massaged it to make sure all the sides of the fish fillet were covered with the miso. I pressed out any air and sealed the bag. I placed it in the refrigerator for 10 hours before cooking.



Of course, we also had tuna and hamachi sashimi. Since the "Premium" uni was a bit soft, I placed it in a tiny bowl garnished with nori and chopped perilla aojiso 青じそ and splashed on some Yuzu juice (from the bottle).



Everything was quite good. The simmered daikon was very soft and flavorful (I cooked it first in water with several raw rice grains for 30 minutes and then simmered it in kelp dashi seasoned with salt, light colored soy sauce and mirin for another 30 minutes). The grilled miso-marinated hamachi was moist with a lovely oiliness. The miso marinade added a nutty sweetness. We started with our house sake "Mu" 無 and switched to "Dassai 50" 獺祭５０. Both sakes were good but we still like "Mu" best.