Chestnut Apple Soup クリとリンゴのスープ

Some years ago, we gave up on preparing fresh chestnuts especially the North American variety. These have a characteristic tough inner membrane that goes deeply into the flesh of the nut and is extremely hard to remove. So we switched to already prepared roasted chestnuts that come in a pouch. These come from France and are infinitely easier to use. The only problem is we bought them last year in bulk (12 packages) and we have quite a few packages left. But this is chestnut season—time to bust into those packages of chestnuts. My wife suggested using them to make chestnut soup which we made before. In addition, we found several Fuji apples in the refrigerator. We bought them sometime ago but totally forgot about them. The surface of the apple was wrinkled and looked dry. When we tasted them after peeling the wrinkled skin and surface dried parts their texture was a bit mushy but sweet, juicy and certainly edible. My wife pointed out that we didn’t have parsnips which we often use in this type of soup and she suggested using the newly recovered apples instead. So, we made chestnut soup from the packaged chestnuts and apples and garnished with some left over sautéed shallot and shiitake mushrooms. Adding the apple made this soup sweet (in a very natural way) and great. We really like this. We had this as a lunch with slices of the baguette I baked sometime ago (frozen).

I essentially winged it although I did see some recipes using chestnuts and apples on the internet

Ingredients: (made a bit over 4 cups of the soup)

100 grams of the prepared chestnuts (we used the brand called Gefen)

2 medium onions, finely chopped

1 large stalk of celery, string removed and chopped fine

2 carrots, peeled and cut into small dice

2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped in small pieces

3 cups or more chicken broth

2 tbs olive oil and 1 tbs butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Garnish: (optional)

1 medium shallot, sliced

3 large cups of fresh shiitake mushrooms, cut into half and sliced

1tbs butter and olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a pan on medium low flame, add the oil and butter. When it is hot and the butter is melted, add the onion and celery and sauté for a few minutes,  Add the carrots and apples and sauté for few more minutes. Add the chestnuts (crumble as you add). Add the chicken broth and simmer for 30 minutes.

Using the immersion blender or mixer, blend the vegetables, add cream (optional).

Garnish

Sauté the shallot until soft and edge is brown, add the mushrooms and cook for a few more minutes and season.

This soup is extremely good. The apple and chestnut are a perfect blend. The apple brings a fresh sweet slightly acidic sharpness while the chestnut is a deep nuttiness. The mushroom garnish is the final touch—bringing a mellow umami to the whole collection. The apple and the mushroom really made this soup special.

Grated Lotus Root and Tofu Ball レンコンと豆腐まんじゅう

This is a variation of “renkon ball” (renkon manju レンコン饅頭) I posted before.  Besides grated renkon lotus root, it also uses tofu. Since I had the last of the lotus root and half of the tofu, this was a perfect dish to make. I got the idea watching one of the YouTube cook shows. This is a basic version but I could add more items to make it more interesting. I could have made some kind of broth or sauce but this was pretty good as is. Picture #1 shows the cut surface with small chunks of tofu. This has nice soft interior and crunchy crust. When I made this dish I also made “nagaimo” fries which turned out really good and will be the subject of separate post (picture #1 right lower).

Ingredients:
200 grams lotus root, peeled and grated, moisture drained out naturally
300 grams tofu, moisture drained
3 tbs Potato starch
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp miso (original recipe calls for 1/2 tbs soy sauce, I used miso since the dough was bit runny)
Flour for dredging.
Oil for deep frying.

Directions:
Add the grated lotus root, tofu, potato starch, ginger and miso and mix well until smooth. Add more starch if too watery/soft.
Using the ice cream scoop, make equal sized balls, dredge in the flour and deep fry at 160-180F oil for 3-4 minutes turning a few times until the outside is nicely brown (picture #2).

Initially, I served these hot but it can be heated up nicely in the toaster oven. It is seasoned but you could add soy sauce with grated ginger or some type of hot broth. If I make this again I could add chopped scallion, cut up shrimp, ginko nuts, mushrooms etc to make it more interesting.

A few days later, I tried to make a dish (soup) with the leftover renkon balls (picture #3). I made this for lunch. I made it a few hours ahead and re-heated just before serving. The idea was good but the execution was not so great. While the renkon balls were sitting in the broth they absorbed the broth and mostly disintegrated as you can see in the picture #3. It still tasted good.

This is mostly leftover control and there is no recipe but this is how I made it.

Ingredients: (for the soup)
4 Renkon balls, cut in half
Half package of brown shimeji mushroom, root end removed and separated
1 inch daikon, peeled and drained
1 spring onion, finely chopped
Cooked udon noodle, amount arbitrary, this was leftover

For broth:
2 cup Japanese broth (from dashi pack)
1 tbs each of  sake and mirin
1/4 cup of x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (or taste)

Directions:
Add the ingredients for the broth in sauce pan and heat to simmer
Add the grated daikon, renkon balls and mushroom and simmer.
Add the noodles and scallion
Serve while hot*

* as I mentioned, I made this ahead of time and reheated before lunch. That was a mistake, the renkon balls absorbed the broth and mostly disintegrated. Nonetheless it tasted good and the addition of grated daikon added flavor and cut the oily taste from the renkon ball.

Happy New Year 2024 明けましておめでとう2024

Like the last year, we put the New Year’s decoration including “Kagami-mochi” 鏡餅 and dragon or “tatsu 辰” zodiac figurines shown in the picture #1 in the room we spend most of our time rather than in the tokonoma 床間 in the “tea-room”.  Upon waking New Year’s day, we learned of the magnitude 7.6 earthquake that hit Ishikwa prefecture 石川県. We hope for the wellbeing of the people affected.

On New Year’s eve, we started the evening with a plate of assorted sashimi, most of the sashimi came from “Riviera Seafood Club”, our most recent favorite source of “home freezer” sashimi or sashimi that we can store in the freezer here at home and thaw at any time we want sashimi. Since the portions are smaller than sashimi we can get from other sources, we can eat more than one kind of sashimi at a time. On the New Year’s plate (picture #2) we had chutoro tuna 中トロ, hamachi はまち, scollop ホタテ, and octopus leg タコの足 (which was from D’artagnan). I added wasabi with chopped wasabi plant stalk (from tube) and yuzu kocho 柚子胡椒 (from tube).

On New Year’s day, we had only coffee (cafe latte and macchiato with a bit of steamed cream) rather than our usual breakfast so we wouldn’t be too full for the large lunch we planned of “Ozhoni” お雑煮 New Year’s soup. As usual, I served the soup in real lacquer ware bowls (gift from my mother many many years ago) with a side of some New Year’s dishes I made (picture #3).

This year, I precooked all the vegetables and proteins that went into the soup. This included “gobo” burdock root 牛蒡, shiitake 椎茸, shimeji しめじ and wood ear 木耳 mushrooms, carrot 人参, daikon 大根, and “kinu-saya” 絹さや snow peas. The protein included sous vide chicken breast (a few slices) and poached shrimp. As usual, I encased the “mochi” 餅 rice cake in “abra-age” 油揚 deep fried tofu pouch (peaking out of the bottom right of the soup bowl). I made the broth from the dashi packs I usually use as well as by poaching the shrimp in the dashi broth. I seasoned it with x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce. By precooking the vegetables and the proteins, I had better control over cooking everything just right. It also made it possible for me to make a better arrangement of the ingredients in the final soup bowl serving. Just before serving, I added frozen yuzu zest which added a nice yuzu 柚子 citrus favor (picture #4).

The side dishes (picture #5) included the usual New Year’s dishes I like to make including: salmon kelp roll 酒の昆布巻き, salmon “Russian” marinade 鮭のロシア漬 garnished with “ikura” イクラsalmon roe, daikon namasu  大根なますand poached shrimp.

We also had a few small glasses of  sake with this as a libation to the New Year. Now, this evening we will be hitting the Sushi Taro Osechi box すし太郎お節箱. The below is a preview (pictures #6 and 7).

We expect some good New Year’s feast to come with the osechi box. Already salivating!!

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.

Sweet Potato and Chestnut Rice サツマイモ、栗ご飯

My wife got three relatively small Japanese sweet potatoes or “Satsuma-imo” さつまいも from Whole Foods.  She was vaguely thinking of making sweet potato muffins but the amount was not really enough. I suggested making sweet potato rice instead (I ended up using all three potatoes for three different dishes). Since we also had prepared chestnuts, I made sweet potato chestnut rice. To extend the autumnal theme, I also made miso soup with mushrooms and lily bulb. Since I also made new batches of pickled daikon and “asazuke” 浅漬け cucumber, I served those on the side.

This is a close-up of sweet potato chestnut rice. I sprinkled “goma-shio” ごま塩, a mixture of black sesame and salt.

For the miso soup, I added shimeji しめじand shiitake mushroom along with lily bulb 百合根 which sank to the bottom. We picked the lily bulb up with the chopsticks so they got their place in the photo op.

Ingredients:
2 cups (using the cup came with out rice cooker) of short grain rice (we used “Yumepirica” ゆめぴりかHokkaido rice we got form NY rice factory).
1 inch square kelp
1 Japanese sweet potato, peeled, diced and soaked in cold water
10 prepared chestnuts
1 tbs x4 concentrated “Mentsuyu” Japanese noodle sauce

Directions:
Wash the rice, place it in the rice cooker, add the specified amount of water, add the seasoning, sweet potato and chestnuts and turn on the switch.
When it is done (see below), remove the kelp and gently mix.

This is a very autumnal and nice rice. Nice sweetness from both the sweet potato and the chestnuts with contrasting texture of soft and somewhat crunchy. I just sprinkled the “goma-shio” and my wife, as usual, added butter and soy sauce. The soup also went very well. The nice sweetness and crunchy texture of the lily bulb and mushrooms worked well together. We were also pleased with the daikon tsukemono.

Chestnut Soup 栗ときのこのスープ

We used to get fresh chestnuts from California every fall. The preparation, especially removing the inner brown membrane is time consuming and difficult. So we decided to try commercially prepared chestnuts sold either in a jar or a plastic pouch. As a test to see if the prepared chestnut tasted any different from the fresh, I made chestnut rice 栗ごはん with it. The final dish came out similar to using fresh chestnuts with the added advantage of much less effort of preparation required. (Since we posted  making chestnut rice with fresh chestnuts and this preparation tasted exactly the same we did not post it again.) But this exercise proved to us that fresh and commercially prepared chestnuts are interchangeable.  After making the rice we were left with one and half bags of prepared/roasted chestnuts (about 7-8 oz or about 200 grams.) My wife came up with this chestnut soup recipe which she found on-line. Again I had to modify the recipe because of the ingredients we had. The original calls for dried porcini and fresh button mushrooms but I only had fresh shiitake mushrooms.

Ingredients
5-6 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps sliced.
2 tbs. unsalted butter and 2 tbs. olive oil
1 large leek, white and tender green parts only, finely chopped
1 carrot, thinly sliced
2 celery stalks finely chopped
1 teaspoon minced rosemary (from our herb garden)
7 oz. (200 grams) peeled roasted vacuum-packed chestnuts (see picture below)
3 cups chicken stock
Salt
Freshly ground pepper

For garnish
1 tbs each of olive oil and unsalted butter
5-6 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stem removed and caps thinly sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh rosemary, finely chopped up

Directions
In a saucepan on medium heat, add the olive oil and butter. Add the sliced shiitake mushrooms, leeks, carrot, celery and rosemary and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are cooked; about 15 minutes. Add the chestnuts and stock, season with salt and pepper. Bring the soup to a boil and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup until smooth.

For garnish
In a frying pan, heat the oil and butter. Add the sliced shiitake mushrooms, cook over moderately high heat until lightly browned (6 minutes). Season with salt and pepper. I served the soup warm and garnished with the sautéed shiitake and the chopped rosemary.

This is an excellent soup/potage. The chestnuts and leeks imparted a nice sweetness and distinctive chestnut flavor. Although the original recipe calls for heavy cream, I served this warm without any cream. It really didn’t need it. We had this as a lunch with slices of my home baked baguette. I am sure certain chestnut dishes cannot be made using these kinds of prepared chestnuts but I will try to use them in more of our favorite chestnut dishes

Eggplant Gratin with Cold Eggplant Soup 茄子のグラタンと冷製スープ

These are other eggplant dishes I made from Asian eggplant from Wee. Each dish used one eggplant so in total I used two of the 4 eggplants I bought. The first dish which is “eggplant au-gratin with meat sauce”  was perfect since it would use up a number of ingredients I had on hand. I had the marinara sauce I made some time ago but kept from going bad by reheating it. I also had 1/4 lb of ground chicken to use. I also had some skinned Campari tomatoes which were getting old. All these would be used in this dish (shown in the picture below on the left). Under the melting cheese and the meat sauce are the chunks of eggplant. This was a really good combination.  The second dish was cold eggplant soup which again was perfect since we like cold soup for lunch (shown in the picture on the right). So this was a lunch we had one day.

The hot eggplant au-gratin went well with the cold eggplant soup. There is not really a recipe since it was mostly left-over control.

Directions for the eggplant au-gratin:
I cut up the skinned Campari tomatoes (3 or 4) cooked with minced garlic in olive oil and seasoned it with salt, pepper, dried oregano and basil. I then added the ground chicken and cooked it completely. Finally, I added the left-over marinara sauce to heat through.

I used one Asian eggplant. I peeled off stripes of the skin, (so the eggplant wouldn’t explode while being cooked in the microwave), placed it in a silicon container and microwaved it for 2-3 minutes or until it became soft and cooked through. I cut it into bit-size chunks (#1), layered it with the meat sauce (#2), put the grated cheeses on top (we used sharp cheddar and smoked gouda) and baked at 350F toaster oven for 30 minutes (#4).

Directions for cold eggplant soup is also not really a recipe (made two small servings)
One Asian eggplant, stem end removed and peeled. Cut in half lengthwise and then cut into thin half moon. I placed the eggplant and chicken broth (I used Swanson brand low salt low fat) in a pan just enough to completely cover the eggplant then cooked it for 10-15 minutes. I added salt and pureed it using the immersion blender.

I served it chilled and diluted slightly with cold milk (or cream to your liking).

Both are pretty simple and good dishes. The eggplant added a meat-like texture and umami taste to the au-gratin that blended with the ground chicken in the tomato meat sauce. And what wouldn’t taste good topped with a mixture of toasted cheese? The soup was very subtle but went well with its cousin eggplant in the au-gratin. This was a perfect combo for our lunch.

Matsutake 松茸

This year, we were fortunate enough not to miss having some fresh matsutake 松茸 offered by Oregon mushrooms to celebrate the start of the fall season. In the past we have tried several other sources but the #1 grade matsutake from the Oregon mushrooms is our favorite choice. In any case we received 1lb. I have tried many matsutake dishes but I think the simpler the better.  Three dishes I make are Toubanyaki 陶版焼き, chawan-mushi 茶碗蒸し and matsutake rice. 松茸ご飯. Another dish I usually make is clear soup with matustake; either matsutake “osuimono” 松茸のお吸い物 clear soup or dobin-mushi 土瓶蒸し. This time, I made Touban-yaki for the evening we received Matsutake. The next evening I made another touban-yaki, chawan-mushi and Matsutake-rice.  The day following that I made Matsutake clear soup and served it with left-over matsutake rice.

Classically, the soup contains a small filet of conger eel or “hamo” 鱧 or other white fish filet but, since we did not have any, I used “Hanpen“ ハンペン fish cake. Other items included tofu, carrot, “Hana-fu” 花麩 gluten cake shaped like a flower. Since I wanted a bit of green, I added small florets of blanched broccoli. I also topped this with frozen “yuzu” 柚子 Japanese citrus rind. I only cooked the soup a few minutes after I added the matsutake. The broth was made from my usual dashi packets, seasoned with mirin, salt and soy sauce.

Since I had old asazuke 浅漬け (3-4 week old) and one I just made the previous day, I served both side-by-side for comparison (the one on the left is 1 day old the one on the right is 1 month old).  The old asazuke developed slightly sour but more complex flavors and the young asazuke is fresh tasting but a bit simpler taste. I adjusted the original recipe by adding a bit more salt (instead of standard 3% I add 5% salt) as well as a small amount of Vodka. This makes the asazuke last much longer so 1 month old asazuke is even possible.

We are glad we had matsutake to commemorate the start of the fall.

Rescued green bean soup グリーンビーンズスープ

We like green beans but only when they are good i.e. crunchy but not fibrous with an almost sweet fresh flavor. Good green beans either steamed or boiled a short period of time can be crunchy but not fibrous and they are wonderful. But some green beans no matter how long you cook them remain so fibrous no amount of chewing will get through them. There is no way of knowing ahead of time (before you buy them) which category the green beans belong to. We mostly gave up getting green beans and sugar snap beans from our regular grocery store for this reason. We have had a much better chance of getting good ones from our gourmet grocery stores. But even that fails sometimes. This was such an occasion. The green beans were still unpleasantly fibrous after they were cooked. Since we had our Vita-mix out for another reason, we decided to give the beans a whir in the Vita-mix to see what would happen. It turned out the resulting paste/puree no longer classified as fibrous and it had a very nice green bean flavor. We kept the puree in a plastic container in the fridge but did not quite know how to use it. My wife suggested making a soup/potage. I obliged. We ate it for lunch one day. It turned out it was quite a decent soup. We will call it “green bean rescued soup”

My wife had just baked some muffins as an “apricot muffins rescue”; the fresh apricots were too mushy to eat. As part of what is turning out to be standard food rescue protocal she introduced the offending apricots to the Vita-mix and viola, she had apricot puree which she added to the muffin batter. So we had a lunch of the apricot muffin, green bean soup, sous vide chicken salad with mango, sugar snap in salt broth, corn, roasted pepper, edamame and bacon salad.

There is no recipe for green bean soup but just for the record.

Ingredients:
1 bag (32oz) fresh green beans, boiled for few minutes  in salted  water
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs butter
1 cup whey (since we had it after my wife made cheese curd) (or chicken broth)
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Puree the green beans in the Vita-mix or other high-power blender adding a small mount of liquid and puree until smooth
Sauté the onion in the oil and butter on medium flame until cooked but not browned
Add the green bean puree and the whey and cook for 20-30 minutes.
Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth and no onion bits remain.
Season with salt and pepper

I served this hot initially but for the left overs, I diluted it with milk and served cold which was also quite nice. This is a great way to salvage green beans that otherwise because they are too fibrous would have been thrown out.

Lotus Root Ball Soup 蓮根団子スープ

When I get fresh “renkon” 蓮根 lotus root, I have more choices as to what kind of different dishes I can make than when I just have boiled packaged renkon. Fresh renkon is usually available during the winter months. We can now get fresh renkon from Weee but the amount is rather large. So I have to come up with different ways to use it before it goes bad. Unlike boiled renkon, fresh renkon can be grated producing a starchy puree which  makes a good base for dumpling-type dishes, either boiled or fried. This dish is one of those grated/starchy/puree dishes and can be done only with fresh renkon. Actually, this is the second time I made this dish. The first time, I followed the recipe but the renkon balls did not hold together especially when I put them in the soup. So this time, I made it following my own (culinary) instinct which included using more ground chicken than what the original recipe called for. The renkon balls formed nicely and were very tender.  I made the rest of the soup with ingredients I had on hand. We had this as a lunch and it was rather filling and great.

Ingredients:

For renkon balls (made 8 small balls)
One segment of fresh renkon, peeled and grated, extra-moisture squeezed out (about 200 grams)
200 grams of ground chicken
2 tbs chopped scallion (3-4 stalks)
2 tbs potato starch
1 tsp soy sauce


For soup
300 ml Japanese dashi broth (I used two kinds of dashi packs, one was kelp and shiitake mushroom, the other with bonito for this)
3 tbs or more x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (or soy sauce and mirin) to taste
1/2 package of shimeji mushroom, root end removed and separated (any mushroom will work)
5-6 blanched green beans, cut on the bias
2-3 tbs dried wakame seaweed,
(optional) (freeze dried)mistuba and (frozen) zest of Yuzu citrus.

Directions:
Mix all renkon ball ingredients in a bowl and mix well until it sticks together. Using a small ice cream scope, make small balls. Heat up the broth, put in the renkon balls and simmer for 5 minutes or until done. Take out the cooked renkon balls and set aside.
Meanwhile, add the mushrooms to the remaining broth and simmer for 4-5 minutes, add the renkon balls (I added 4 for 2 servings), the green beans and season with the noodle sauce to taste. I added the wakame, some yuzu zest and mitusba to the bowls. Place two renkon balls in each bowl and distribute the soup and remaining ingredients.

This was a really good soup. I think the amount of ground chicken the original recipe calls for too little. I made the balls with about the same amount of ground chicken as grated renkon which worked much better. Anything can be put into the soup but the mushroom and wakame seaweed worked well.

Creamy Tomato Soup クリーミィトマトスープ

I get Campari tomatoes almost every week and prepare them by removing the skin. Then I keep them in the refrigerator which is very convenient to make a quick cucumber tomato salad or just add as a side. Often, we can’t use up all the tomatoes and my default is to make them into marinara sauce. This time since we already had a batch of marinara sauce which had been re-heated several times, I decided to make the excess tomatoes into a creamy tomato soup. I served the soup with macaroni salad (for the salad dressing I used mayo, Greek yogurt, Dijon mustard) and couscous salad, Campari tomato and a slice of baguette I made few days ago. I made this bread using biga made of rye flour and buttermilk (My wife prepared this for me). As a result, this baguette had a slightly different flavor which we really liked.

Ingredients:
5 Campari tomatoes, skinned, cut into small chunks
1 small onion, finely diced
1 small stalk of celery, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp tomato paste
1 cup water/chicken broth (I used whey from the cheese curd my wife made recently)
1 tsp butter
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) (to reduce the acidity of the soup, optional*)
1/2 c heavy cream

*Digression alert: If tomato sauce or soup is too acidic, the most common suggestion is to add a small amount of sugar. This may mask the acidic taste but does not reduce the acidity (or does not raise pH). Adding sodium bicarbonate does reduce the acidity. My understanding is that tomato’s acidity mainly come from oxalic acid. So, the addition of bi-carbonate will produce carbon dioxide (CO2 gas), water (H20) and sodium carbonate (Na2CO3). Reportedly, the resulting sodium carbonate may give rise to a “bitter” and “soapy” taste but I have not experienced this. I have found that adding a small amount of sodium bicarbonate definitely makes these tomato containing dishes less acidic without negative effects in taste. The sodium ion from sodium carbonate in water may add some “saltiness” so the salt seasoning may have to be adjusted. It should be noted that when you add bicarbonate, the soup bubbles up for several minutes.

Directions:
Add the olive oil in a pan on medium heat. Add the butter and sauté the onion, celery, and garlic for a few minutes. Set the vegetables aside and add the tomato paste and sauté for 30 seconds (I use the type of tomato paste that comes in a tube, Cento tomato paste. It is much easier to use tomato paste from a tube when a small amount is needed compared to opening a whole can). Add the tomato and the liquid (I used whey). Cook 10-15 minutes until all the vegetables are cooked and soft. Using an immersion blender, make smooth soup. Season with salt and pepper.

(Optional) This process is to reduce the acidity. While it is simmering, add the sodium bicarbonate and mix (lots of bubbles come out, keep stirring for serval minutes until the bubbles subside.) I tasted the soup at this stage and it was very good without cream.

Since I was not planning to serve this immediately, I quickly chilled the soup by putting the pan in a large bowl with running water while stirring. Then I put it in sealable container in the refrigerator.

The next day, I served this for lunch. I warmed up the soup and added the cream. With an the addition of the cream, this became quite a luxurious soup.

Happy New Year 2023 新年おめでとう御座います2023

It is morning of the first day of 2023. The past year was marked by many events; not the least of which is the still lingering COVID-19. In any case, here is the “Kagami-mochi” 鏡餅 New Year’s decoration. It is  accompanied by various rabbit figurines because this is the year of the rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac. We usually place the new year’s decoration in the tokonoma 床間 alcove  of  our “tearoom” in the basement but this year, we decided to place it in the room where we spend most of our time to maximize our enjoyment of the collection.

As usual, the highlight of our new year is the Sushi taro osechi box 寿司太郎お節箱. We drove down to Dupont circle and picked up the Osechi box and hand-cut soba noodles “toshikoshi soba” 年越しそば (which we usually enjoy the 2nd day of the new year). For many years, we traditionally have our regular breakfast of Cafe Latte with yogurt and breads and have the New Year’s “Ozouni” お雑煮 soup for lunch. I also served a few items I made. As always, we wheeled out the real Japanese laquer ware bowls my mother gave us a long time ago.

As usual, we encased the mochi in a fried tofu pouch or “abura-age” 油揚げ (in an effort to make the eating experience a bit more manageable). It is at the bottom of the bowl so you can’t see it in the picture. I cut the carrot into a flower-shape and the daikon into a ginko leaf-shape. I also added burdock root ごぼう (the white rectangular object in the picture), shiitake mushroom, shrimp, flower-shape gluten cakes or “fu” 麩, snow pea, scallion and yuzu zest (frozen). I made the broth from dashi packs, a bit of mirin and x4 Japanese noodle sauce.

The accompanying dishes (from left to right) are all listed in “Norio’s New year dishes”. They are: chicken squares with gorgonzola cheese and dried fig, salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻き, datemaki omelet 伊達巻, and salmon Russian marinade. (This year I made some modifications to the marinade by adding Dijon mustard and dill). Of course it wouldn’t be an adequate celebration of the first day of the New Year without at least a token glass of sake. This year it was our house favorite Tengumai Daiginjo 天狗舞大吟醸. The soup and these items were pretty good if I do say so myself.

Although we did not tap into the osechi box, here is a preview of what to expect when we eagerly dive in this evening. The picture below shows the first tier. Although many goodies are hidden below the items we can see, we can spot our favorites like “karasumi” 唐墨,  “mushi uni” 蒸し雲丹 and “Kazunoko” 数の子.

The second tier also has our favorites such as “Ankimo tofu”, “Ikura” and duck breast.

We are repeating ourselves but it is so wonderful that we are able to get this incredible osechi from Sushi Taro. We will be enjoying these delicacies over the next few days.

Nattou ball 納豆つくね

This recipe also came from a YouTube episode by the original Japanese Iron chef Rokusaburo Michiba 道場六三郎. He made two dishes from nattou 納豆, the infamous sticky and smelly Japanese dish of fermented soybeans, which often appears as part of breakfast. Nattou is most commonly eaten over rice for breakfast. Another less common but popular way is in miso soup for a dish which is called “Nattou-jiru” 納豆汁. Even among the Japanese, some (especially from “Kansai” 関西 west part of Japan) do not eat it and some love it. (I belong to the latter category). 

For many years my wife referred to nattou as the one Japanese food she just could not eat—the smell, the sliminess, the fermented taste.  (Every culture seems to have a dish like this; an acquired taste developed in childhood. Think ripe French cheese or Australian vegemite. And for me, believe it or not, cooked oatmeal).  Then my mother learned that the natto-nastiness could be alleviated by stirring it. She recommended several hundred turns would do the trick. The stirring apparently enters air into the natou that helps remove the smell and stringy sliminess. All of a sudden natto was on my wife’s menu. 

I have made quite a few dishes with nattou, many of which are focused on reducing the stickiness and the smell. In any case, Michiba made a miso soup but, instead of mixing nattou into the soup, he made nattou into balls which he called “nattou-tsukume*”  and then put it into miso soup. I made it as a small appetizer one evening.  I put a small amount of miso soup (made it a bit stronger) as a sauce and topped it with Japanese mustard (see picture below)

* “Tsukune”, “Tsukuneru” which means “knead” or “mix”, and is usually made from ground chicken and a most common item in “Yakitori” 焼き鳥.

I served two other small dishes; from left to right simmered “Kabocha” squash, miso simmered mackerel and nattou tsukune.

Ingredients (4 tsukune balls):

2 small individual packages of nattou (if frozen, thawed) with packets of sauce and mustard
1 stalk of chopped scallion
1 tbs katakuriko potato starch
2 cups of Japanese dashi broth
1-2 tbs miso
Japanese hot mustard (from tube) slightly diluted with water for topping

Directions:
Prepare the natou by adding the sauce, mustard and the scallion. Mix well (stir over 100 time if you have the time), add the potato starch and mix.
Using two spoons, moistened, I made four quenelles (or moisten your hands and make small balls) and drop them in the simmering broth.
Cook it for several minutes (see below).
You could dissolve the miso and serve this as “miso soup”. I wasn’t ready to serve the dish so I separated the nattou balls and the broth and placed them in a sealed containers and in the refrigerator.
Before serving, I warmed up the nattou balls in the preserved broth. I took out a small amount of broth and dissolved the miso to taste.
I served the miso broth in a small dish, with the nattou ball and topped with the mustard

This is a very interesting dish. The hot Japanese mustard made this dish. Although the nattou balls tasted like nattou to me, the texture and smell is quite acceptable (especially for my wife’s palate). “Mikey liked it!”

Clam Chowder 子ハマグリのチャウダー

 Recently while talking to my wife’s sister, she mentioned that she had made clam chowder using frozen baby clams. In the past, we used canned baby clams to make clam sauce for pasta as well as chowder. We always avoided using canned chopped clams which were very chewy and rubbery. Since we could not get our preferred brand of canned whole baby clams, we have not made either pasta sauce or chowder for a long time. We checked our regular grocery store (home delivery) and found that they carry frozen baby clams from Pana Pesca. We have had frozen squid and octopus from them before. We decided to try the clams. Around the same time, I came across YouTube video of New England clam chowder by Kenji Lopez-Alt. So it appeared that all the stars and the moon were aligned for me to make clam chowder. I made a chowder based on Kenji’s and my old recipes. I used a strip of bacon and used the bacon bits and chopped parsley as garnish.

The baby clams are pretty good and the best among the PanaPesca frozen seafood we tried.

Ingredients:
10.6oz (300gram) frozen baby clams, thawed and juice preserved
One medium onion, finely chopped
3 stalks of celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup of AP flour
2 bay leaves
5-6 baby red potatoes, peeled and cut into small dice
1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into small dice
1-2 strips of bacon (or salt pork)
2, 8oz bottles of clam juice
2 cups or less whole milk (amount adjusted based on the thickness of the chowder you like)
3 tbs olive oil + 1 tbs butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Fino sherry (optional)

Directions:
In a soup pot, add the bacon and cook until crispy and set it aside leaving bacon fat in the pot.
Add the butter and oil and sauté the celery and onion until cooked but not browned (4-5 minutes on medium to low flame. I also seasoned this with salt and pepper)
Add the flour and cook for a few minutes (do not brown), add the clam juice and about1 cup of milk and stir on medium flame until thickened add more milk to adjust the thickness to your taste.
Add the bay leaves, the clams and simmer for 7-8 minutes.
Meanwhile cook the potato and carrot in a separate pot in salted water (I would have cooked the potato and carrot in the same pot in which chowder was cooking but I took the suggestion from Kenji to cook them separately so that the potatoes would not dissolve).
Drain the potato and carrot and add to the chowder.
Season with salt and pepper (you could use white pepper but I used black pepper)

For garnish, I crumbled the bacon strips and finely chopped the parsley
I also added a small amount of Fino sherry to the bottom of the soup bowl.

We were quite pleased with the quality of the clams. We had this as a lunch with several slices of rustic apricot cranberry bread which went very well.

Tako rice and Matsutake soup for lunch タコ飯と松茸のお吸い物昼食

 This was a lunch we had one day. We had leftover frozen octopus rice or “Tako meshi” たこめし made from a kit we got from the  Rice factory. Although the original was not bad, the amount of octopus was rather small. Since I made tender simmered octopus タコの柔らか煮 a few days ago, I added slices of octopus legs to the previously made rice. Also we had matsutake mushroom 松茸 from Maine and made clear matsutake soup 松茸のお吸い物. I added a dish of salted vegetable or “asazule” 浅漬け and simmered root vegetables and chicken similar to “Chikuzen-ni” 筑前煮.

I  just microwaved the rice to thaw it then added slices of tender simmered octopus with a small amount of the simmering liquid and further heated it. I also garnished it with fresh “myouga” 茗荷 from our garden. The addition of the simmered octopus made the Tako rice much better than the original.

I made this clear soup from broth made from a dashi pack (kelp and shiitake), with mirin みりん and light colored soy sauce 薄口醤油. I also added shrimp (sunk in the bottom), scallion and flower-shaped “fu” 花麩 gluten cake. I also added frozen zest of yuzu 柚子 citrus. This is a lidded soup bowl and when the lid was opened the subtle but distinctive aroma of matustake and yuzu wafted out. (The aroma of matustake is one of the joys of the matusake season).  I think Maine matsutake appears to have a better aroma than the ones we used to get from Oregon.

The below are basic simmered root vegetables including daikon 大根, carrot 人参, bamboo shoot 筍, shiitake mushroom (I used dried) 椎茸, lotus root 蓮根, kon-nyaku 蒟蒻 and sugar snap スナップ豌豆 (for garnish). This time I also included chicken thigh.

This is my usual “asazuke” 浅漬け. I just made myouga in sweet vinegar 茗荷の甘酢漬け. I thinly sliced and served next to the vegetables.

For a lunch, this was quite good. 

Cold cucumber soup and aspic addendum 冷製胡瓜スープと胡瓜ゼリー

 Because we got 4 large American cucumbers instead of the 4 mini cucumbers we ordered for our recent groceries delivery, we decided to use them to make cold cucumber soup and cucumber aspic. We served the aspic with dill sauce. Although both dishes were very good and we ate each one individually for several lunches, my wife came up with the idea of combining the two. She placed the aspic in a bowl, poured in some of the soup and topped it with the sauce.

The result was an example of “the whole being greater than the sum of its parts”. The soup combined with the dill topping acted like a sauce which perfectly complemented the aspic. Cucumber was the predominant flavor but subtle differences in the flavors of the various ingredients that went into the soup versus the aspic added a pleasing complexity. In the future, we think this would be the preferred way to serve these two dishes so we decided to write this addendum to make that point. This cucumber combination also worked very well especially with the chicken curry we had with it for lunch. 

Cold cucumber soup 冷製胡瓜のスープ

Getting home delivery of groceries is very convenient but one problems that the quality of the fresh produce may be quite variable since we cannot inspect the product before buying. Broken eggs are not uncommon as well the the delivery of wrong items. We have also disable the automatic option for substitutions if the item we requested is not available. This is because the substitutions may not be always appropriate. For example, the substitution of shallots for jalapeno. Talking of wrong item being delivered, we recently received 4 giant American cucumbers instead of a package of 4 mini-cucumbers. (We like these because they are the closest in taste and texture to a Japanese cucumber). Although we do not like regular American cucumbers rather than throwing them out, we tried to use them. This is one of such attempt. We made cold cucumber soup with mint and buttermilk. We had it as a lunch with our usual potato salad and coleslaw. I also served skinned Campari tomato with broccoli and pecan, apricot bread. This was certainly all home-made vegetarian salad and soup lunch which was quite good and filling

Since I had few Japanese cucumbers (from our Japanese grocery store), I garnished the soup with several slices and chiffonade of mint leaves from our herb garden.

For both coleslaw and potato salad, we used home made Greek yogurt (from heirloom yogurt my wife makes regularly) which make it very creamy and also healthier (hopefully).

Since I made miso salad dressing several days ago (recipe from Washington Post, subject of another post), I dressed Campari tomato and blanched broccoli.

Although we jointly prepared the cucumber soup, I peeled, chopped and blended but my wife was in charge and ask her to take over for the recipe.

The recipe came from Southern Living on line.

Ingredients:
21 oz. cucumbers (in our case this was two big American cucumbers)
2 cups whole buttermilk
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (we used home-made)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint (from our herb garden)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, plus more for garnish (we did not have fresh, we used 1 tsp dried)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice plus 1 tsp. lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:
Peel, seed, and chop 2 of the cucumbers.
Process chopped cucumbers, buttermilk, yogurt, mint, tarragon, lemon zest and juice, and salt in a blender until very smooth, about 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down sides as needed.
Chill 1 hour or overnight.
We served with slices of Japanese cucumber and chiffonade of fresh mint leaves.


This was a quite nice cold soup. I usually do not particularly fond of buttermilk but for this soup, the buttermilk really tasted great. The slices of Japanese cucumber added nice fresh cucumber taste. One thing that was kind-of odd was that the soup was effervescent. You can see the little bubbles in the pictures above and interestingly the bubbles didn’t go away after the soup had been in the fridge for some time. The bubbles added to texture giving the otherwise velvety smooth soup and somewhat grainy mouth feel. Nonetheless it was a very good cool refreshing soup.