Octopus and cucumber in sumiso dressing 蛸のぶつ切りと胡瓜の酢味噌あえ

This is nothing new; just a continuation of frozen and boiled Spanish octopus from Great Alaska Seafood. This is a good example of how an octopus leg cut can make a big difference in texture.  Boiled octopus can be sliced thinly with a wave cut or cut into chunks called "Butsu-giri" ぶつ切り. The cut that is used depends on the firmness of the cooked octopus meat. Firm texture octopus it is quite chewy. A thick slice would be too difficult to eat. The thin wave cut provides a manageably chewy piece and the wave pattern catches any sauce that is used. Alternatively if  the octopus meat is soft, the thinly slice wave cut doesn’t have any texture and basically dissolves when eaten so cutting it into chunks is the better choice. Since this octopus was a bit on the soft side, I opted for the chunky cut and made this classic "octopus and cucumber  sumiso-ae" 蛸のぶつ切りと胡瓜の酢味噌あえ. I served this with store bought squid shio-kara (right)

Since this octopus leg was more tender than ones from Japan, this "Butsu-giri" cut really worked. It is not too chewy but has nice texture.

Otoshi three kinds including octopus sashimi タコ刺身、酢味噌和えとおとうし三種

This was the starting lineup for dinner one weekend evening. I had just come back from our Japanese grocery store burdened with all kinds of "goodies"; "ikura" いくら salmon roe, boiled octopus leg, fish cake, steamed squid salad Chinese style, and other items. So this was a quick and easy starter to prepare.  I used a store-bought "sashimi" soy sauce  刺身醤油 (small bottle shown below). Regular soy sauce is made with a mixture of soybeans, Koji rice, salt and water. It is somewhat watery and clear in appearance. In contrast this "sashimi" soy sauce is made differently. It uses either Tamari たまり, which is made from 100% soybeans (instead of a mixture of soybeans and koji-rice)  or it uses "double prepared" soy sauce or "Saishikomi-shoyu" 再仕込み醤油.  This is double prepared because soy sauce is substituted for the water used in regular soy sauce and is brewed again to make the "double prepared" soy sauce. As a result of this double brewing, it is thicker and more viscous than regular soy sauce. Depending on the brands, it may also contain "dashi" or "mirin" or other additions. For us, the difference is subtle but we occasionally have this special soy sauce for sashimi.

I served octopus two ways; one was sliced thinly with a wave pattern, which is called "sazanami-giri" 漣切り meaning "ripple cut".  My version is more like "big wave cut". This is done so that when dipping in wasabi and the afore-mentioned sashimi soy sauce, the surface will hold the sauce. The other is a tip portion cut into small chunks and dressed in "karashi sumiso" 芥子酢味噌.

The dressing is a mixture of miso, sugar and  and rice vinegar in 2:1:1 ratio and added prepared Japanese hot mustard to taste. Recently, I have reduced the vinegar (as per my wife's request) and added a small amount of hot water (from our "instant" hot water dispenser using RO filtered water). This makes the dressing milder and also dissolves the sugar better. I also added small chunks ("rangiri" 乱切り) of American mini cucumber.

Shown below is store-bought fish cake which we like. I grilled it in the toaster oven and dressed with ginger soy sauce (mixture of grated ginger and soy sauce). Since I had chives, I also added chopped chives.

This is another store bought drinking snack made of steamed squid with a "Chinese" style dressing called  "Ika-chuka-sansai" イカ中華山菜. Depending on the brand, the taste and ingredients vary  a little but this is not bad at all (except some of  the large chunks of squid was too chewy for my wife and she graciously transferred them to me).

This is the only one I really made. Cucumber suno-mono with small dried shirasu (whitebait/dried sardine hatchlings) garnished with ikura  しらす入りきゅうりの酢の物. Thinly sliced cucumber (American mini-cucumber), salted with moisture wrung out, mixed with "shirasu" (frozen in a package), dressed in sweet vinegar and garnished with ikura.

For a change, we started the evening with  tokubetsu junmai "Suigei" 特別純米酒　酔鯨 sake from Kochi in Shikoku 高知、四国. This is a  dry sake with acidity but not yeasty at all and went well with these snacks.

Nagaimo and daikon yukari-ae 長芋と大根のゆかり和え

These are small dishes we started the evening meal. Among the five items I served, only one is new which is in the blue bowl on the upper left. Upper center is squid stuffed with caramelized onion イカの飴色玉ねぎ詰 and tentacles, upper right is chicken liver simmered in red wine 鶏レバーの赤ワイン煮, lower left is sugar snaps soaked in dashi broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし, and one in the small yellow container looking like a citrus fruit is uni or sea urchin "shuto" from Maruhide 丸秀のウニの酒盗.

This is a new item made from nagaimo and daikon. It is rather interesting and we like it.

As we mentioned before, when this squid dish is cold, I can slice it without separating the stuffing and the squid body. As you can see on the cut surface, quite few squid legs are stuffed. I drizzled our favorite spicy Spanish olive oil.

The below is another "teiban" 定番 in our household, red wine simmered chicken liver. This time I garnished with fresh thin slivers of ginger or "Hari-shouga" 針生姜.

Sugar snaps are good just blanched but this one was soaked in lightly seasoned Japanese broth. When you bite down, instead of water, you can get the subtle taste of the broth which makes an already good veggie nicer.

This is one of the five different kinds of sea urchin or uni "shuto" from Maruhide. When we got fresh uni last time, we also got these "shuto". Although frozen, they won't improve with age, so we have been hitting them regularly. This on is with hot chili and indeed the spiciness creeps up on you afterwards. This is almost as good as fresh uni.

For "Nagaimo no yukari-ae" 長芋のゆかり和えfrom E-recipe. I changed the amount of Yukari thinking the original recipe will make this dish rather salty.

Ingredients (for 2 servings, for the amount shown probably make 4 servings):
1 inch long daikon, peeled, sliced thinly and cut into thin julienne.
1 inch nagaimo, peeled, sliced thinly and cut into thin julienne.
1/2 tsp Yukari salt
1 and 1/2 tbs  sweet vinegar (300ml rice vinegar, 120-150 gram sugar and 5-10 gram salt)

Directions:
Put both the daikon and nagaimo in boiling water. When it comes back to a boil, drain and let it cool in a colander.
Dress with Yukari salt and sweet vinegar.

This is a nice dish. My wife thought everything was nagaimo but this is a mixture of daikon and nagaimo which give an interesting texture difference. Yukari (dried red perilla) salt and sweet vinegar combination is very good giving nice refreshing taste. This is another way to use nagaimo and more interesting than sushi vinegar and aonori combination. In any case, we had cold sake with these starters.

Salmon "Zuke" bowl サーモンのずけ丼

The day after our hanami was cold and rainy so we could not do another day of hanami outside. Since we had to finish up our sashimi salmon, I made a salmon "Zuke" bowl for lunch.

I first sliced the salmon sashimi a bit thinner than I would if I was serving it as sashimi. I then marinated the pieces in a concentrated noodle sauce (from the bottle. I was a bit too lazy to prepare a "Zuke" sauce myself) for 2 hours in the refrigerator. Since salmon is rather oily, it did not absorb the marinade as much as tuna would. I warmed up some frozen rice from our stash in the freezer and dressed it with sushi vinegar for an instant sushi rice. I added the rice to a bowl (this was a baby size), topped it with the marinated slices of salmon. I garnished with sugar snaps (boiled and then cooled in seasoned broth. The recipe is from "Otsumami Yokocho" おつまみ横町 cookbook), thinly sliced green part of scallion and dried nori strips.

As a side, I served cucumber and radish "sunomono" 酢の物 salad.

I also served miso soup (julienne of daikon, "abura-age" deep fried tofu pouch, and scallion). This was a good light lunch for us. Now only half of the salmon sashimi is left.

Boiled Octopus 煮だこ

Initially I didn't think this was worth posting but I am running short of items so here it is. I made this before the New Year since I could not get my usual boiled octopus leg for the holidays (boiled octopus was sold out at our Japanese grocery store by the time I got there). I had some small frozen octopuses in the freezer.  I found them some time ago in the frozen case of our regular grocery store.  I felt we had to have octopus with our new years daikon namasu dish 大根なます and decided to cook up these small fellows. I served it on top of the daikon namasu with Ikura salmon roe. I also added "karashi sumiso sauce" 芥子酢味噌 on top.

As I have mentioned before, this is packed by an American company called PanaPesca (#1). After thawing, I washed (#2) and salted them. I then massaged them vigorously until slim/bubbles developed (#3). I then washed them and repeated the same process several times (in the hope to make it tender). I slowly lowered just the tentacles into a pot of salted boiling water to which a splash of sake had been added holding the octopus body suspended above the water. The tentacles immediately curled up. I then dropped in the rest of the body to submerge it in the boiling water.  I let it cook for just 30 seconds and took it out to cool (#4).

In order to make octopus tender it is important to either boil it briefly or simmer it for long time. Although legs were a bit smaller than they should have been for New Year dishes they tasted ok. At least, we had octopus to grace the holiday.

Year of the Rooster, Happy New Year 2017! 酉年新年おめでとうございます ２０１７

Happy New Year! As we get older, it seems the year is getting shorter and no sooner do we turn around and we are facing the start of yet another year. This year I finally gave up buying a plastic "Kagami-mochi" decoration  鏡餅 since we always ended up throwing out the rice cake inside (not to mention the Japanese grocery store was all sold out by the time I got there). This year is the year of the rooster (or hen or chicken). Accordingly, I decorated our "Tokonoma" alcove 床の間 with the roosters my wife collected for the occasion over the years on our various trips to Japan. The two large ones are "Dorei" 土鈴 or bells made of clay and the smallest one is carved from wood.

The small wooden rooster is part of a 12 zodiac animal set my wife bought in Kyoto on our last trip to Japan several years ago.

As before, we started the day with a cup of cappuccino and my wife's assorted home baked breads. We did our Ozou-ni お雑煮 and new year dishes for lunch. At this point, we refrained from digging into the Sushi Taro Osechi box (that is for the evening). I served several of the dishes I made as well as some I bought at the store.

I made the same dishes I always make such as "Datemaki" 伊達巻 (left upper), two kinds of chicken patties (one is with pine nuts and miso flavor or "Matsukaze yaki" 松風焼き and the other with blue cheeses - this year I used British Stilton and Shropshire Blue - and dried figs (left middle). I cut them in the shape of "Hagoita" 羽子板 ( the decorative item based on the traditional badminton like game that used to be played on New Year). My usual salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻き (left bottom). Russian marinated salmon 鮭のロシアずけ (center top), Red and white "Kamaboko" 蒲鉾 fish cake stuffed with two kind of seasoned sea urchin or ウニの酒盗 from Maruhide 丸秀 (center bottom). Simmered freeze-dried tofu or "Koya-dofu" 高野豆腐 (right top) and two kinds of herring roe I prepared from salt preserved herrings 数の子の塩漬け; the one with bonito flakes is my usual one and the one below that was marinated in miso and sake lee 数の子の味噌漬け.

This is my usual daikon in sweet vinegar dressing or "daikon namasu" 大根なますgarnished with salmon roe ikura いくら and boiled octopus with sumiso dressing 酢味噌. This year, I could not get the type of octopus leg I usually get (sold out at our Japanese grocery store--I'm going to have to get started on this sooner next year). So I used frozen raw octopus from the regular grocery store. I prepared and boiled it myself--not a trivial task. They were rather small but tasted OK.

Finally. my New year's soup Ozouni お雑煮. As usual, by my wife's request, I put the mochi 餅 in fried tofu pouches 油揚げ. This year, I did not add any meat protein such as chicken or shrimp (for no particular reason). I also happened to get some Mitsuba 三つ葉 which added a nice unique flavor to the soup.

Since these New Year's dishes would not be complete without it, we also had a small amount of sake (Shouchikubai Daiginjou 松竹梅大吟醸酒, US brewed from California Yamadanishki 山田錦). It was quite wonderful and we got quite full. Small dishes add up and mochi is very filling. But this was a good start of the New Year.  Next, we have the opening of the Sushi-taro osechi box for the evening to anticipate.

"Aji" Jack mackerel sashimi 3 ways 鯵の刺身3種類

It is most difficult to find the equivalent English names for fish named in Japanese. For example, the fish called "Aji" 鯵 アジ in Japanese is a member of the Mackerel family but whether the English equivalent name should be "Jack mackerel" or " horse mackerel" is unclear. In any case, I found a package of frozen "Aji" filets  tucked away in our freezer.  I must have bought it at our Japanese grocery store some time ago but I do not remember when. The package was also labeled in English as "Wild jack mackerel" (see #4 in the last composite picture below). Since such fish (or other things for that matter) do not improve spending lengthy time in the freezer, I decided to use it immediately. This package of aji was already prepared; filleted with skin removed. I thought of making a fry 鯵のフライ but this aji was rather small I decided to serve it as sashimi in three ways on one weekend.

From left to right on the bottom row are "namerou" 鯵のなめろう, "goma-mabushi"  鯵のごままぶし, and "sunomono" 酢の物.

"Aji-no-namerou" 鯵のなめろう or "chopped aji seasoned with miso" is a very common way of preparing mackerel. I have posted a similar dish using low-quality tuna.

"Aji-no-gomamabushi" 鯵のごままぶし or "aji covered with ground roasted white sesame" was inspired by the recipe I saw on line.

"aji-no-sunomono" 鯵の酢の物 or "aji and cucumber in vinegar dressing" is also a classic dish. The addition of ginger root is also common to counter the sometimes strong flavor of the fish.

The aji was frozen and vacuum packed (#1). It was filleted with skin removed. I have to assume it was first salted and prepared in the usual manner of "San-mai oroshi" 三枚おろし(three pages preparation consisting of two fillets and a layer containing a backbone).  After I removed the fillets from the package, I washed them in cold filtered water, dried them with a paper towel. I then placed the them between the sheets of paper towel on the cutting board. I sprinkled sushi vinegar so that the paper towels were saturated with the vinegar (became transparent, #2). I let it sit for 10 minutes.  This technique is called "sujime" 酢じめ which is commonly done for blue skinned fish to preserve and reduce any "fishy" smell and taste. The fresher the fish the less amount of "sujime" is needed. This one was not too bad and I only vinegared it for 10 minutes. After that, I removed the center line of the fillets which contained small bones to make 20 small half fillets. I divided these into three portions (I apportioned two extra half fillets to the "namerou" since I knew this dish would be good).

Aji-no-sunomono 鯵の酢の物　

1. I cut the aji filets into small bite sized pieces.
2. I prepared "nihaizu" 二杯酢 by mixing rice vinegar, light colored soy sauce and dashi broth (3:2:2 ratio but the ratio can be modified based on your taste).
3. As an additional item, I made "jabara" 蛇腹 cut cucumber, which was first salted, let to stand for 5 minutes then excess moisture squeezed out.  I dressed it with sushi vinegar (from the bottle) and set it aside until I assembled the dish. (I could have added wakame seaweed but I did not).
4. I also prepared "hari-shouga" 針生姜 as a garnish. By first removing the skin from ginger root, thinly sliced, and then julienned (#5) and soaked in water (#6) to make it less strong. The longer you soak the ginger root and the more frequently you change the water the less potent the ginger becomes. You have to taste and decide when to stop. I strained the ginger using a fine nylon strainer and squeezed out the excess water using a paper towel.
5. I assembled the dish in a small bowl, first putting in the cucumber (excess sushi vinegar squeezed out), then the aji. I poured the "nihaizu" around and topped with "hari-shouga" ginger (picture above).

Aji-no-goma-mabushi 鯵のごままぶし

1. I cut the aji filet into a bite sized pieces and sprinkled enough soy sauce to coat all the surface and let it stand for 5-10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, I dry roasted the white sesame seeds (about 2 tbs) until fragrant and just starting to turn color. I tipped the seeds into a Japanese mortar or suribachi すり鉢 and let it cool a bit.
3. Using a pestle or surikogi すりこぎ, I ground it into coarse powder.
4. I place the marinated aji  in a bowl and coated the all surfaces with the sesame powder and served (picture above).

Aji-no-namerou 鯵のなめろう

1. I coarsely chopped the aji.
2. I finely chopped chives (or scallion), perilla leaves, and miso (amount is arbitrary but you could taste during the preparation and add more) and mixed with the aji while chopping with the knife.
3. For a change, I added a bit of mirin to make the mixture loose and added some sweetness.
4. I did not add ginger since I had ginger in the other dish.
5. I placed decorative perilla leaves on top as garnish and served in a small bowl (picture above).

This was a wonderful combination to have with cold sake. We like the namerou best, followed by one covered with sesame seeds. The sunomono was good but, among the three, it had the least impact. The problem is that we can consume a quite a lot of sake with dishes as good as these three.

Three otoshi #2 続お通し３品

We really like multiple "otoshi" drinking snacks. This is another example which I made one weekend. From left to right are: "Nattou, marianted chiai tuna with egg york" 卵黄入り鮪の血合い納豆, "Crab and cucumber dressed in vinegar" かにと胡瓜の酢の物 and "squid sashimi dressed in soy sauce and wasabi" イカ素麺.

"Chiai" is the very dark portion of tuna which I removed from the blue fin tuna toro block we got. I marinated the chiai in equal amounts of soy sauce and sake in the refrigerator. As before, I just mixed nattou, marinated chiai tuna, and egg yolk (Pasteurized shell egg). I garnished it with thinly cut perilla. Chiai usually tastes gamey and strong but this preparation makes it much more palatable.This dish is pretty high on the slime factor scale so it is not for the faint-hearted or for consumption by “J-Q public” particularly in the United States but Yamada Taro 山田太郎 (equivalent to John Q. Public in Japan) may like it.  But we (including my wife) certainly like it.

The second is a very standard "sunomono" 酢の物. The crab meat came from Catalina Offshore products. We have never tried this before but, again, because some items we wanted such as sea urchin or amaebi were not available, I decided to try this cooked crab meat. This was a great disappointment.  It was all claw meat of stone crab but it was not easy to remove the hard shell (only tip of the claws) and thin cartilage. It all came out as small pieces. We can get much better packaged lump crab meat at our local grocery store. In any case, we had a Japanese cucumber for a change and made this crab and cucumber sunomono. As usual, I thinly sliced the cucumber, salted it and let it stand for a few minutes and then wrung out the moisture. I dressed it with sushi vinegar with splashes of yuzu juice (from the bottle).

The below is another version I made the day before with addition of tomato and daikon threads which was dressed in ponzu (leftover from garish I used for tuna sashimi).

The below is a packaged and frozen sashimi of squid I got from our Japanese grocery store. I simply dressed it with soy sauce and wasabi and served on the top of water cress.

These are nothing special or new but good drinking snacks to start with your cold sake.

Cherry blossom gazing part 2 続花見

We continued with our hanami. We have mentioned before that, for some reason, the birds (and now other creatures) eat the cherry blossoms from the trees in our backyard. These are ornamental rather than fruit producing cherry trees so we’re not clear why they do this. In addition, we have not heard of similar behavior toward the trees on the Tidal Basin or anywhere else for that matter. It started some time ago with the house finches. Then apparently the cardinals learned from the finches and we have a few pictures here as “proof”. Sometimes it feels like a race to finish our hanami before the birds finish the blossoms we are celebrating. Often the petals are raining down around us at a furious pace as we raise our sake glasses in libation (Occasionally having to pause and fish out petals that plop into the up-raised glasses.)

 

As you can see this one got caught “red beaked” as it were. Come to think of it their beaks are always red.



They only eat the bottom of the flowers which must contain a sweet nectar or something.



Amazingly, some of our squirrels appear to have learned from the birds. This is the first year we caught one eating the flower. As a result, even before full bloom, cherry petals were dropping.



In any case, we continued with our feast despite this distraction. This one is "Nanohana" (broccolini) and shrimp dressed in “kimisu” 菜の花と海老の黄身酢和え. “Kimisu” is a sort of Japanese hollandaise sauce without butter. I also added cucumber cup with tobiko roe on the side.

I got this idea when Chef Kitayama of Sushi taro served a dish with “kimisu” the last time we dined there. His was very rich and thick. He said he attained that texture by freezing the eggs in the shell. This makes it easier to completely remove the egg white (after thawing I assume) and also removes extra moisture from the yolk. I, of course, did not take this extra-step. Here is my recipe (the standard recipe but I did not measure the ingredients, the below is my estimate).

“Kimisu” 黄身酢:
One egg yolk (I used pasteurized shell egg)
Sugar (1 tsp)
Salt (small pinch)
Sake and mirin (1  tsp each)
Rice vinegar (1 tsp)

I mixed everything in a small sauce pan, on the lowest flame. Using a silicon spatula, I continuously mixed until the sauce thickened. I moved the pan on and off the fire to prevent scrambling the eggs. Since I did not remove the chalaza completely from the yolk, it became white hard specks in the sauce. I used a fine mesh strainer to remove it. I placed it in a small sealable container and refrigerated until use.

“Nanohana” 菜の花: I have posted information about flowering rapeseed plants and possible substitutes in the U.S. The substitute is between broccolini and broccoli rabe.  I used broccolini for this dish. I just blanched it in salted boiling water for a few minutes and shocked it in ice cold water and drained.

Shrimp: These were shell-on frozen shrimp. I thawed them under running water. I rather severely salted it and let it stand for a while.  I then cooked them in gently simmering salted water splashed with sake for few minutes, let them cool in the shell and then peeled the shell.

Although the sauce was not as rich or thick as Chef Kitayama's it was rather luxurious with some tang and sweetness gently wrapped in. A perfect, subtle spring dish.



The 3rd dish was usual “dashi maki” 出し巻き Japanese omelet. I served it with grated daikon and soy sauce on the side.



We switched the sake glasses . These came from Kitaichi glass 北一グラス in Otaru 小樽. Left is with sake in it, the right is without sake. Once the glass is filled with liquid, the cherry blossom pattern around the base appear to float up but it is not easy to capture this in a photograph. In any case, these were more appropriate glasses for the occasion.



The 4th dish was Wakatake-ni 若竹煮. Although it is the season for bamboo shoots and fresh wakame seaweed in Japan, we could not get these seasonal items around here. I used packaged boiled bamboo shoot (I am sure from the last year crop) and salt preserved wakame sea weed (which was kept frozen in the freezer).



The 5th dish was  our usual yamakake 山掛け (cubes of marinated tuna and graded nagaimo). Since we did not have perilla leaves, I used fresh basil leaves we had growing on the window sill.  (I gave my wife the choice of fresh mint or basil leaves. She suggested basil). Unexpectedly, this combination was really good. I think we’ll use it again.

Although these were small dishes, we are getting quite filled up at this point. Since the day was so warm, we turned on the flood lights and went into night time cherry blossom gazing or “yozakura kenbutsu” 夜桜見物.

Chicken skin salad with yuzu-koshou 雛皮の柚子胡椒サラダ

This is a variation on the theme of chicken skin. I was going to make a simple chicken skin dish but found out I was out of Ponzu (-shouyu) sauce. So I made the sauce with soy sauce, rice vinegar and yuzu koshou 柚子胡椒. This is a perfect refreshing sunomono 酢の物 salad to start.



Dressing: I made a mixture of soy sauce (reduced salt, 2 tbs), rice vinegar (3 tbs) and the juice accumulated in the container of saka mushi or sake-steamed chicken (2 tbs).  You should taste it and if it is too salty or vinegary, you might want to dilute this with dashi broth if you did not make saka mushi chicken. This dressing is similar to  a Japanese vinegar dressing called “Nihaizu” 二杯酢. I added about 1/2 tsp of yuzu-koshou in 7 tbs of the soy sauce vinegar mixture but the amount of yuzu-koshou is up to your taste.

Chicken skin: This is again the skin from two spilt breasts I made into saka mushi chicken. As usual, after removing any fat layer I could remove I sliced it into a thin julienne and marinated in the above dressing overnight in the refrigerator.

Other items: I just used whatever was available cutting it into julienne of similar size to the chicken skin pieces. From the left, wakame seaweed (1/4 cup after hydration, hydrated and roughly cut, gold thread egg or “kinshiran” 金糸卵 (from one egg), cucumber (one mini-cucumber, sliced on a slant and julienned, and daikon radish, 2 inch segment, peeled, sliced and julienned. The cucumber and daikon were salted, kneaded, and let stand for a few minutes, with the excess moisture squeezed out.



I added the wakame, cucumber and daikon into the container in which the chicken skin marinated in the yuzu-koshou sauce and mixed. I served this in a shallow grass bowl making a small mound in the center and topped them with golden thread egg as seen in the first picture.

This was much better than I expected. The yuzu-koshou gave it a nice zing of yuzu citrus flavor. This is a very nice refreshing sunomono salad. You could easily substitute the chicken skin with ham or any cooked meat. I can also add threads of jelly fish or kurage くらげ to this for the texture. I could also add sesame oil to this but without sesame oil, this is more refreshing.

Chestnuts rice with North American Chestnuts 北米栗の栗ご飯

Last year I posted chestnuts rice or 栗ご飯. The chestnuts I bought at the gourmet market were probably of European origin and not particularly fresh. They were basically tasteless and had a really chalky consistency. In that post, I also mentioned that almost all North American chestnut trees were wiped out by the Chestnuts blight around 1940. But, at that time, by searching on the web, I found out that small numbers of chestnut groves survived and some farms are indeed producing North American chestnuts. By the time I got onto this last year, the season was over and I could not get the North American Chestnuts. This year, I was prepared and as soon as the chestnuts season came around, I placed my order. Although there are a few farms that sell chestnuts, mine came from Girolami farms in Califronia.

Here is a 3 lb bag of North American chestnuts I received (#1 below). They look excellent and are fairly big.

Chestnuts preparation: I soaked the chestnuts in boiling water (off heat) and let them soak until the water cooled down to room temperature. This softened the outer skin ("onikawa" 鬼皮 or demon skin) and made them easier to peel. Using a sharp paring knife, I first cut the bottom of the chestnut and peeled off the outer skin and then removed the inner skin ("shibukawa" 渋皮 or bitter skin). The inner skin was more difficult to remove, although for some I got lucky and it came off in one piece. For many of them I had to shave off some of the meat of the nuts to get the skin off (#2 below). I prepared 11 chestnuts (for 2 Japanese cups or 360ml of uncooked rice). As I peeled the inner skin I soaked the nuts in water to prevent discoloration and some starch leached out as well.

Rice: I used two cups (the measuring cup that came with the rice cooker--180ml. I understand that a regular Japanese cup is 200ml and an American cup is 240ml) of rice (360ml); a combination of regular Japanese short grain rice (Koshihikari コシヒカリ variety from California called "Kagayaki" かがやき) and "mochigome" 餅米 (glutenous or sweet rice), one rice cooker cup (180ml) each. After washing the rice in running cold water until the water ran clear. I drained the rice in a fine meshed strainer and let it sit in the strainer until I was ready to cook it.

Broth: I decided to use a seasoned "dashi" broth for this dish. I made dashi broth from a dash pack (combination of bonito flakes and kelp). In the cooled down dash broth, I added light colored soy sauce or "usukuchi shouyu 薄口醤油 (1 tbs) and mirin (1 tbs) and made it 400ml total.

Cooking: I used "Kamadosan" かまどさん, an earthenware rice cooker. I added the rice, broth and, for a good measure, a 3 inch square of dried kelp (surface wiped with damp paper towel) and arranged the prepared chestnuts on the surface. As per the instructions that came with the rice cooker, I set the steam holes of the inner and outer lids perpendicular to each other and placed it on a medium high flame for 14 minutes. I then shut off the heat and let it steep for 20 more minutes (#4 above).

While the rice was steeping, I made a small cucumber and myouga sunomono 胡瓜と茗荷の酢の物 (left in the back in the first picture).

I removed the kelp and mixed the rice while trying not to break the chestnuts. The bottom had a very slight crust of "okoge" おこげ. I served it with a garnish of black sesame seeds (The first picture above). 

The result? Much better than last year--a world of difference. The chestnuts were much sweeter and while they had the somewhat dry texture characteristic of chestnuts, it was pleasing and definately not chalky.  The  addition of the glutenous rice gave the dish a sticky consistency or "mochimochi" もちもち consistency. The seasoned broth that I used also added a subtle but nice flavor. So, I have to say this was a success. We are glad that North American chestnuts have survived and we can enjoy them. 

Chow-chow pickles チャウチャウ ピクルス

In the food section of Washington Post online, I found a recipe for scrapple (a fairly "refined" version) and sent it to my wife. Since she created Auntie N's no-crapple scrapple, I thought she would be most interested in this recipe. As she was looking through the scrapple recipe, she also came across a recipe for a dressing which is based on (store-bought) "chow-chow", Pennsylvania Dutch pickles.  Although she is not Pennsylvania Dutch, she grew up in the Pennsylvania Dutch country. She tells me that chow-chow was ubiquitous and appeared everywhere. It was even served in the school cafeteria.

Chow-chow is one of the classic Pennsylvania dutch "Seven Sweets and Seven Sours" which by tradition should be included in every dinner served to company. The seven sours included: pickled vegetables (such as pickled cauliflower, beets, or cabbage), coleslaw, dill pickles, green tomato relish, meat jelly and spiced cucumbers in addition to chow-chow. (For those who are interested the sweets included: jelly (currant or apple), apple butter or apple sauce, preserves such as quince, candied watermelon rind or wild strawberry, two or three pies such as schnitz, shoofly, funeral or montgomery and cheese cake). As a kid, my wife particularly liked chow-chow because she could pick out the veggies she liked best from the wide selection that made up the dish. Although my wife knew chow-chow as exclusively PA dutch, we found out that it is also a southern dish. The Pennsylvania version, however, is said to be much sweeter than the southern.  Over the years my wife has looked for but never found a recipe that reproduces the chow-chow of her childhood.  She searched on line and found this one based on an old Pennsylvania dutch cookbook from the 1930's.

Vegetables: Red and yellow pepper, cut in strips (one each), Cauliflower (one head, separated into small florets), celery (two stalks cut in to 3 inch buttons), green beans (on hand full), corn (kernels from 2 cobs, uncooked), kidney beans (one 15 oz can), black beans (one 15 oz can), Lima beans (one package, frozen thawed) (picture below upper left). The cauliflower and beans were precooked by steaming.

Pickling liquid: She used sushi vinegar (1 cup), (this is obviously her modification--sushi vinegar is not traditional to Pennsylvania Dutch cooking. She said she used it because it is milder than the traditional cider vinegar), sugar (1 cup), water (1 cup), kosher salt (2 Tbs.), ground turmeric (1 tbs), black pepper corns (1 tbs), cinnamon stick (one), whole all spice (1/2 tbs). She simmered these ingredients in a pot for about 30 minutes. (top right picture).  

Then she strained the syrup to remove the spices. She poured the strained syrup back into the pot and added whole bay leaves (3), hot red peppers (dried, 2), yellow mustard seed (2 tbs), celery seeds (1 1/2 tsp) and simmered the mixture for another 10 minutes. 

She arranged the vegetables in a glass baking dish (top left picture, since we did not have a glass pickling jar) and poured the hot liquid over the vegetables, stirred well and covered. After it cooled she put it in the refrigerator. The recipe said 'wait at least a week before serving. Because of the way these pickles were made they are considered "refrigerator pickles" meaning that they should be kept in the fridge and will not last more than a couple of weeks. The traditional PA dutch method is, of course sterilized, "heavy duty" canning.

After waiting a week my wife tasted the chow-chow...she was ecstatic!! This was the traditional taste of her childhood that she had been looking for all these years.  She was so excited she called me at work to tell me the pickles were a success. She said that the minute she tasted them she was instantly transported back to her childhood--summer picnics, dinners at friend's houses, cafeteria lunches, community suppers at the firehouse. As she said, Proust really knew what he was talking about with those madelaines.  

This is a very mild pickle with a pleasing sweet and sour taste. If truth be told, it is a little too sweet for me (my wife says that she probably liked it as a child because it was sweet--she said she still likes it a lot). All the additional spices give it a distinctive depth of flavor. The veggies are still very crisp and the diversity of ingredients makes it very interesting. Chow-chow is sometimes referred to as "the end of summer pickles". It includes such a variety of vegetables because these are all the veggies that are left over from pickling individual vegetables from the summer harvest. I suspect my wife will be making this again. It is certainly worth the effort.