Nine “Otoshi” Appetizers お通し九種類

This is another installment of 9 “otoshi” appetizers. I managed to fill all 9 spots with small dishes I made. Three fish dishes and 6 vegetable dishes but no meat.

A1: Wood ear mushroom dressed in Japanese hot mustard soy sauce 木耳の芥子醤油和え.  Blanched fresh wood ear cut into strips and dressed in a mixture of Japanese hot mustard, sugar and soy sauce. I also added small amount of roasted sesame oil and garnished with white sesame seeds..
A2: Cucumber and sweet onion salad 胡瓜と玉ねぎのサラダ
A3: Pickled daikon and cucumber. 大根と胡瓜の漬物 with Campari tomato.
B1: Salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻き. I started making this not just for New Year. This one was particularly good because of the good quality kelp.
B2: Pickled herring (from a jar in wine sauce) in sour cream dill sauce, ニシンのサワークリームソース, which makes it much better.
B3: Marinated “ Russian ” Salmon “ 鮭のロシア漬け.
C1: Blanched asparagus dressed in sesame mayonnaise アスパラのスリゴママヨあえ. The dressing is a mixture of roasted and  ground white sesame, mayonnaise and soy sauce.
C2: Garlic chive in broth (“Ohitashi” お浸し) topped with golden thread egg (“Kinshi-ran” 錦糸卵), ニラのお浸し金糸卵のせ. The broth is half and half mixture of Japanese “dashi” broth and x4 Japanese noodle sauce. The golden thread egg is thin omelet julienned.
C3: Braised daikon, carrot, daikon green, fried tofu pouch or “abura-age” 油揚げ. 大根, 大根葉と油揚げの炒め煮. This is my impromptu dish since we got daikon with some green top attached.

Although each dish is small after having 9 of those filled us up considerably. It takes some efforts but we like many small dishes with many different textures and tastes rather than one or two large dishes.

Steak and 2004 Insignia ステーキデｨナーと2004 Joseph Phelps Insignia

This was a sort of cerebration. We did not plan anything ahead of time. So we made a dinner with what we had. We had frozen filet mignon (last two packages from Omaha Steak), gnocchi my wife made some time ago which were cooked and then frozen. I also made a sauce from the pan juice, reduced port wine, butter, and sautéed shiitake mushroom stems and shallot *. My wife’s frozen gnocchi were pan fried without thawing to warm up and came out nicely hot and crispy. For a quick unplanned celebratory dinner, this was not too bad.

*When I get fresh shiitake mushrooms, I remove the stems, tear them into strands and cut into small pieces. I sauté them with finely chopped shallots in olive oil. This is a handy thing to have since it can be used in many ways. The separated caps are then placed in a ziploc bag with paper towel which makes fresh shiitake last longer.  I took the picture before I put on the sauce.

For wine, we decided to open one of the older vintage of Joseph Phelps Insignia that we had. This was 2004 vintage (picture #2). I decanted it about one  hour before serving. It had some sediments which were left in the bottle. The wine had a slight tinge of brown at the edge indicating some age but tasted quite good with a well-controlled classic California cabernet profile upfront dark fruits, a bit of vanilla. and chocolate ending with a firm but mellowed out tannin. Perfect!!

With the steak and reduced port wine sauce, this 2004 vintage  Insignia went so well.

New Divided Plate and 9 Otoshi Appetizers 9つ仕切り皿にのせたお通し9種類

This is on the theme of multiple small “otoshi” appetizers. Previously we used a 5 segmented plate to serve 5 appetizers. A few days ago, I found a 9 segmented square plate available on Amazon which was reasonably priced so I got two. I thought it would be hard coming up with 9 appetizers but I managed it with 8 dishes I made. The ninth dish was an exception since I didn’t make it. It was the fried shrimp head which came from Tako Grill when we had our sashimi/sushi take-out. (Shrimp head is a by-product of “botan-ebi” 牡丹海老 sashimi/sushi). In any case, I was surprised that once I started thinking otoshi I was on a roll and could have served two or three more appetizers if I wanted to. This was a nice start of the evening but even very small dishes are filling for us and we ended up with a  “shime” 〆ending dish after this.

In the 1st row, left, is a sugar snap in salt broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし. We used to be able to get decent sugar snaps from our regular grocery store but recently, we have had to go to gourmet grocery stores to get decent ones This was crunchy, sweet soaked in salt dashi broth.

In the 1st row, center, are cucumber onion salad and stir fried shirataki, jalapeño pepper and enoki mushroom.

In the 1st row, right, is the cheese curd my wife made  but instead of jalapeño pepper, she added “Yuzukosho” 柚子胡椒, soy sauce and cream. I added a dab of yuzukosho on the side to provide an added “schmear” of yuzukosho flavor if desired.

Tsukune on a slice of lotus root 蓮根つくね.

“Uni-shuto” ウニ酒盗 from Maruhide. As I stated before this is the best uni aside from fresh uni. I served it with cucumber and perilla leaves.

I refried the shrimp head kara-age which was part of take-out from Tako Grill a few days ago. Shrimp head has a good amount of meat and is very crunchy but you have to be careful how you eat the prickly legs so as to not injure your mouth.

Recently, we discovered that Whole Foods carries fresh quail eggs. We really like boiled quail eggs. Although we can get canned boiled quail eggs, boiled eggs prepared from fresh quail eggs are much much better. I served it with marinara sauce, basil and sprinkle of salt.

Blanched asparagus with sesame mayonnaise. The dressing is a mixture of mayo, Japanese sesame paste or nerigoma 練りごま and soy sauce.

Salmon salad. My usual. The dressing is mixture of mayo, Greek yogurt and Dijon mustard.

We really like our new plates. If I serve 9 appetizers for two of us in small bowls, we have to wash a total of 18 bowls but here we had to wash only two plates. We really like the many small dishes we had here; true Izakaya-style.

Lamb Tenderloin for Easter 子羊のテンダーローイン

Tenderloin of lamb is not a usual cut but we got several of them from D’Artagnan. We decided to try it for Easter dinner. I did not follow any recipes. I made a pan-sauce with red wine and balsamic vinegar.

I sort of did a reverse searing. After cooking it in the toaster oven, I seared it with sprigs of fresh rosemary which I kept in the frying pan during the searing and while I made a red wine sauce.

As sides, we served pencil asparagus and shiitake mushroom stir fry  (left) and Israeli couscous salad with marinated artichoke hearts (right). To mop up the sauce, we also served a slice of  (mini) baguette I baked.

I have never cook lamb tenderloins before. I decided to cook two of them in the toaster oven at 350F for 10 minutes and then reverse seared them in a pan with rosemary. It sort of worked but the lamb was a bit overcooked. The entire dinner was really good and for the occasion, we opened a bottle of 2014 Insignia from Joseph Phelps. Despite some age on the bottle, it was really fresh with a nice fruit flavor. It was a perfect wine for this dinner.

Ingredients (makes about 4 servings)
x2 Lamb tenderloins thawed, salted and kept in the refrigerator for 6 hours uncovered (to dry them a bit)
2 springs of fresh rosemary
2 tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

for the pan sauce
1/4 cup red wine (Not Insignia; a much more reasonably priced CA wine I already had open)
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbs of cold butter, cut into thin pats
Salt and pepper

Directions:
I seasoned the lamb with pepper (no salt; it was already salted). I roasted it at 350F in the toaster oven on convection mode for 10 minutes.
I then pan-seared it with olive oil and the rosemary for 1 minute on each side.
I set aside the lamb covered loosely with an aluminum foil, leaving the rosemary in the pan.
(I was aiming for an internal temperature of 130-135F for the lamb to be medium rare but in the end, the temperature went over)
I added the red wine and balsamic vinegar to the pan and reduced it to the point that it was just coating the bottom of the pan.
I added several pats of cold butter one by one until it reached a saucy consistency.
I seasoned with salt and pepper

I sliced the lamb tenderloin and spooned on the wine sauce then topped the dish with the rosemary sprig.

The couscous salad, asparagus with mushroom and baguette all worked well together with the lamb.  Of course, the wine made this dinner a bit special.

"Hamnase" with asparagus アスパラのハムネーズかけ

While I was looking for something to watch on YouTube, I came across a channel called ”Iron Chef's Kitchen" 鉄人の台所 in which the original Japanese iron chef "Michiba Rokusaburo" 道場六三郎 (who is now 90) shares his cooking/recipes. One of the episodes was about "Hamnaise" ハムネーズ in which he mixes "ham" and "mayonnaise" to make a sauce for asparagus. It looked interesting. I did not have "ham" but I did have prosciutto. So I made "prosciuttonaise" and put it over asparagus (left upper). The dishes shown below are the line-up of dishes for our “home Izakaya” one evening. Clock-wise starting from upper left is "asparagus with prosciuttonaise" アスパラガスのハムネーズ和え, "Udon-noodle salad with peanut butter dressing" うどんのピーナッツバター和え, "Chicken tenderloin with sesame dressing" 笹身の胡麻和え, "Rapini in Japanese broth" 菜の花のお浸しand "Chicken kara-age" 鳥の唐揚げ and "chicken and chestnuts stew" 鶏肉と栗の煮物. All these dishes except for the "prosciuttonaise" have been previously posted.

Among these six, the asparagus dish is sort of new. I used prosciutto which may have worked better than ham because of the saltiness. I added chopped parsley which was not part of the original Iron Chef recipe and it added a fresh taste. This prosciuttonaise was very nice and certainly made this a good dish.

Ingredients:
For prosciuttonaise dressing.
2 slices of ham or prosciutto, cut into small pieces
2 tbs mayonnaise
2 tsp white (sweet) miso
2 skinned campari tomato, seeds removed and cut into small squares
2 tsp chopped fresh parsley (my addition)

For asparagus.
10 fresh green asparagus, bottom woody part removed and bottom 1/3 peeled
1 tsp butter
2 tbs salted water

Directions:
Mix the ham and parsley together.
Cook the asparagus (like cooking "gyoza" as the Iron chef said) by first sautéing in melted butter. Then adding salted water just covering the bottom of the frying pan. Place on the lid and steam for 1 minute or until the asparagus are cooked but still crunchy.
Cut the asparagus into the desired length and top it with "prosciuttonaise".

For the next dish I could have used peanut butter instead of "nerigoma" ねりごま sesame paste. Using either one, the resulting dressing has a very similar taste. But in this dish, I used sesame paste and also freshly roasted (in a dry frying pan) sesame which I ground using a Japanese "suribachi" mortar. This gave a very fresh and strong sesame flavor.

For this dish I used peanut butter and topped it with crushed peanuts. 

The chicken, gobo, daikon, carrot all went well with sweet chestnuts.

This is a imitation of "Nano-hana" using "buds" of rapini or broccoli rabe. Instead of my ususal mustered soysauce or "karashi-jouyu"　芥子醤油, I made this "ohitashi" お浸し using a mixtire of Japanese broth with concentrated Japanese noodle sauce and topped it with "katusobushi" 鰹節 bonito flakes.

Finally, chicken kara-age 鳥の唐揚げ. This time I made this dish by deep frying (double frying). I just heated the previously cooked kara-age in the toaster oven but the crispy outside came back and it was almost as good as when it was just made.

We had these dishes with a glass of red wine. (Our choice of house reds currently includes "Pessimist" from Daou). Everything went well with the wine and although each dish was small there were many of them so after finishing them all we were quite full.

Firefly squid and asparagus sautéed in butter and soy sauce ホタルイカとアスパラのバター醤油炒め

This is the dish I made from the second tray of "hotaru-ika" ホタルイカ firefly squid. This is stir fried hotaru-ika and asparagus in butter and soy sauce. The recipe came from e-recipe.  I happened to have pencil asparagus and butter and soy sauce combination is our favorite, so this was a no brainer.

Stir frying made the tentacles crispy which gave nice contrast to the texture of the softer body. Still crunchy asparagus also made a nice texture and flavor, a perfect combination for spring.

Ingredients: (this is the amount I used for this dish for two servings)
Firefly squid, boiled 100grams (eye or beak removed)
Pencil green asparagus, 10-14, root potion snapped off by bending the bottom end until it snaps naturally. (I did not bother to peel and cut the stalks in a slant as suggested in the original recipe).
Butter 1 tbs (or 15 grams)
Soy sauce 1tsp or to taste

Directions:
Melt the butter in a frying pan on medium flame.
Sauté the asparagus for a few minutes.
Add the firefly squid and soy sauce and stir for 1 minute.

This was a simple but quite good dish. We liked this more than the previous dish with sumiso dressing.

Asparagus stir-fry アスパラガスの炒め物

In our regular grocery store, we often find bags of colorful mini sweet peppers. My wife likes these peppers especially broiled with the skin and seeds removed. It is a bit of effort to prepare them this way.  I broil them in the toaster oven then place them in a Ziploc bag to steam. Once they have cooled I remove the skin and seeds. Despite the work, they are nice to have around because they are flavorful, colorful and when added to a dish can add a nice bright note. I made this dish just to use up some left-over vegetables  (I had green asparagus, some shimeji mushrooms, Campari tomatoes and the prepared mini sweet peppers).   I also added scrambled eggs for additional color. I did not follow any recipe.

I was not sure how I would season this dish when I started making it, Chinese? Italian? I ended up just using salt and pepper and let the vegetable flavors speak for themselves.

I used my wok and everything came together quickly.

Ingredients:
5 fresh green asparagus, woody bottoms removed and skin of the bottom half peeled, tips cut across, and the stalk sliced on a bias.
1 small onion, halved and cut in thin strips.
1/3 package of shimeji mushroom, root potion removed and separated.
4 skinned Campari tomatoes, cut into quarters.
1 Jalapeño pepper, seeds and veins removed and finely chopped.
4 prepared mini-sweet peppers (see above), cut into thin strips.
1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes.
1 tbs olive oil
2 eggs (for scrambled eggs, optional).

Directions:
I heated up the olive oil in a wok and added the red pepper flakes until the oil was hot.
I then added the onion and the Jalapeño pepper and stirred until the onion was slightly brown for 5 minutes, then add the asparagus stems and cooked for another 3 minutes. I added the asparagus tips, the shimeji mushrooms, the sweet peppers and the tomatoes.
I seasoned it with salt and pepper and cooked it for another 3-4 minutes.

The red pepper flakes and the jalapeno pepper gave a mild slow heat. You could taste all the flavors from the vegetables which also gave the dish a slight sweetness. This was a good side dish.

Beginning of Hanami 2019 花見の始まり2019

Last year, in a nor'easter (winter hurricane) we lost the 30 year old cherry tree that formed a canopy over our deck and was the foundation of our hanami celebrations. Although we immediately replaced the destroyed tree with a new one it is "just a kid" (only about 7 feet tall). Although it is blooming it's little heart out it has some serious growing to do before it replaces the gap left by the tree that was destroyed.  Luckily we have two other cherry trees which were growing on the property when we moved in.  Some years all the cherry trees sing as a chorus; blooming all at the same time. At the other extreme, some years they perform sequential solos.  This year the small native cherry tree bloomed first. Last weekend, it was in it's full glory. Then the "kid" joined in for a duet. We are waiting to see when the last, oldest tree, will decide to make its voice heard.

The cherry tree blossoms were accompanied by the vibrant pink  of our plum tree. It usually blooms much earlier sometimes even in February. We actually have pictures from previous years of the blossoms covered in snow.  Between the cherry trees and the plum tree we decided there were enough pink blossoms around for us to have our first hanami 花見 or cherry (cum plum) blossom gazing.

So, our hanami appetizers for the evening are shown below. I served 5 appetizers in a 5 well rectangular plate. All except for the asparagus spears with sesame dressing アスパラの胡麻よごし are store bought. I added two more plates of appetizers rounding out the 5 to 7. My wife chose pink sake cups for both of us to commemorate the cherry blossoms.

The first two dishes are our usual ika-shiokara イカの塩辛 and ika-mentai いか明太子.

For the dishes shown below I blanched the asparagus and served only the tips for this dish. The sesame dressing was made using white sesame paste (from the pouch) and grated roasted sesame seeds, soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar.  On the right is "spicy baby clams" which I bought in a plastic container from our Japanese grocery store. It is sort of Chinese flavor with rings of red "togarashi" red pepper and wakame (the root portion). It was quite good and not too spicy if you avoid the red pepper.

The last dish shown here (on the right) is Chinese-style squid salad which also came in a plastic container. All these small dishes were perfect for sake.

I also served my dashi-maki Japanese omelet だし巻き卵, Campari tomato, blanched broccoli and braised cauliflower.

The last dish is boiled octopus leg thinly sliced with su-miso dressing 酢味噌, thinly sliced and salted  cucumber and topped with "ikura" salmon roe.

These were just enough appetizers to honor the first hanami of the year accompanied by sips of cold sake.

Pork chops Japanese style ポークチョップ

Pork chops are a rather popular cut in the US. Most popular are loin chops with rib attached (rib chops). One weekend, I bought a rather large pork loin without bones. Since it was large, I decided to cut off 4 loin chops before I trussed and seasoned the remaining loin for our usual  hot smoked pork on our Weber grill.  I wondered how I should cook the chops and decide to use a Japanese recipe. I grew up with simply sautéed pork chops in Japan but I wanted to do something a bit different. After reading through a few recipes, I made modified Japanese pork chops. I served them with sautéed pencil green asparagus and  corn shuffle my wife made unmolded and cut in half.

The sauce also included onion and shiitake mushroom.

I probably over cooked it and it came out a bit dry but the sauce helped.

Ingredients: (for 4 servings).
Four Pork loin chops (or rib chops).
Salt and pepper for seasoning
Flour for dredging
Olive oil

For sauce
One medium onion, halved and sliced
4 tbs ketchup
4 tbs worchestershire sauce
1/3 cup dry red wine
3 fresh shiitake mushroom, stem removed and sliced
2 tbs butter (or olive oil).

Directions:
Season both sides of the chops with salt and pepper, dredge them in flour.
Cook in a small amount of butter or olive oil until nicely browned (see below), turn them over and repeat.
Set the chops aside on a plate
Add the onion in the same pan and sauté until cooked and add the shiitake mushroom and continue cooking for several more minutes,
Put the vegetables in on the side of the pan, add the ketchup and cook it while stirring until the ketchup becomes caramelized and dark.
Add the red wine and Worcestershire sauce and mix and cook for a few minutes until the sauce lightly thickens.

Put back the chops and coat them with sauce (see below) to complete cooking the chops.

Serve hot with the sauce on the top. In Japan, the chops are served precut into bite sized pieces for ease of eating with chopsticks. This was not bad but the chops were a bit on the dry side.

Gnocchi ニョキ

When we barbecue chicken, we often bake potatoes. Since we had fairly large Russet potatoes, my wife just wrapped them in aluminum foil and we put them into the Weber next to the chicken. By the time the chicken was done (about 1 hour and 15-30 minutes), the potatoes were perfectly cooked. She made them to mashed potatoes with a Japanese touch i.e. liberal applications of soy sauce and butter. We love the crispy skin of barbecued chicken particularly when it just comes out of the Weber.  So, we immediately started snacking by making small rolls of mashed potatoes sprinkled with chopped chives wrapped in the crispy skin of the barbecued chicken. By the time we were ready to carve the chicken, we had mostly finished the dinner standing up eating the potato rolls with our fingers. In any case, my wife made gnocchi from the leftover mashed potatoes a few days later. As an ending dish of the evening, I served gnocchi with sage butter, meatballs I made that day and asparagus.

This gnocchi was more like sautéed in sage butter rather than swimming in sage brown butter. Although we grow sage in our herb garden, we used dried sage this time.

I made the meatballs from the trimmings of pork tenderloin. This time, I made my marinara sauce from skinned and diced Campari tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes.

Gnocchi
Ingredients:
16 oz. of mashed potatoes (3 cups)
4 oz. of AP flour (3/4 cup)
1 egg
1 tsp. salt

Ingredients X 1 1/2
24 oz. (1 lb. 8 oz.) of mashed potatoes 
1 1/8 cup of AP flour (may need more to make a workable dough)
2 eggs
1 1/2  tsp. salt

Ingredients X 2
32 oz. (2 lb.) of mashed potatoes 
1 1/2  cup of AP flour (may need more to make a workable dough) (I actually used 2 1/4 and it worked out        OK)
3 eggs
2  tsp. salt




Directions:
Press the mashed potatoes through a sieve. Add the flour and gently mix with a fork. Add the egg and salt and again gently mix with a fork until everything comes together into a dough.
Gently roll into 1/2 inch diameter logs. Cut into the desired size.
The pieces can be rolled on the back of a fork to make ridges to better hold the sauce but that didn't work out so well so our pieces generally didn't have any ridges.
Fill the dutch oven with water. Add 1 Tbs. Salt and several bay leaves. Bring the water to a boil. Lower the heat and gently add the gnocchi to the water. Heat just below the boil  for a few minutes in salted water until they float to the surface. Then remove from the water and put into the sauce.  Or for use later put in a bowl and coat with olive oil to prevent them from sticking together. 

This was really very good. They had a lovely light texture and the potato taste really came through. These were so easy to make and were so good they will definitely appear on the menu again. 

New Macro lens, Broccoli, tomato and white asparagus マクロレンズとリングLEDライト、ホワイトアスパラ

I just got a new sony macro lens E 30mm F3.5 Macro (SEL30M35) for my Sony Alpha a6000. Before this, I was taking my foodie pictures mostly using a kit lens (16-50mm zoom) which I bought with the camera body.  Real close ups were difficult with the kit lens. I also get an LED ring light for macro lens. The below are the first pictures I took with this set up. I happened to have blanched broccoli and took this picture.

The LED ring light has a bluish color temperature and unless, you are taking really a really tight shot, the periphery gets dim and only the center gets well lit. But I am happy with the close up I took.

For these two pictures, I adjusted the color and exposure using a Mac photo program. The below are taken with natural light from the windows.

I also made white asparagus with a Bearnaise sauce variation. Instead of tarragon, I used concentrated  white asparagus broth.

The sauce is another variation of Beanaise-like sauce.

As before I peeled and cooked white asparagus in water with all the peels until soft and cooked. I then removed the asparagus but left the peels and further simmered it until only a very small amount of liquid was left which has a concentrated flavor of white asparagus. I added rice vinegar and reduced it further (2 tbs of liquid left). In the double boiler, I then added two egg yolks to the concentrated liquid and whisked. Since the sauce appeared a bit runny, I decided to add pats of cold butter while whisking (about 1-2 tbs). I seasoned it with salt and white pepper.  For color, I garnished it with chopped chives. 

Hope I can take better pictures in the future but since I do not spend enough time to set up the lighting or to compose good pictures (after all, we need to eat), the quality may not really improve but I am having fun with my new toy.