Mapo (mabo) Tofu 麻婆豆腐

Mapo tofu 麻婆豆腐 is a very popular dish in Japan and is called “Mabo tofu”. The Japanese version with which I am familiar is quite different from the original Sichuan 四川 dish. Now, however, even in Japan, authentic mapo tofu appears very much appreciated using Sichuan peppercorn 花椒 and touban-jan or douban-jan 豆板醤 as the main spices. These spices produce a “spicy hot” and “numbing” taste—we are not great fans of “spicy” and “numbing”. I have not made this dish for some time. Since I got a fairly decent medium firm tofu from Weee, I decided to make this dish. It is sort of an amalgamation of the authentic and Japanese styles. I used a small amount of touban-jan so that it is not too spicy for my wife and I added more to my serving later. Instead of using Sichuan peppers, I just sprinkled Japanese pepper powder or kona-sansho* 粉山椒 just before serving. I think this turned out OK and we had this over rice for lunch one day.

*Digression alert: Sansho 山椒 or Japanese pepper is from a shrub closely related to but different from the Sichuan pepper plant. Japanese use the young leaves from this plant as a garnish/herb called “kinome” 木の芽 which has a very nice almost citrusy smell. The unripe fruit is used in many Japanese simmered dishes but does not have the tongue “numbing” characteristic of the mature plant. The mature and dried fruit from the Japanese pepper plant is ground into a powder called “Kona-sansho” 粉山椒 which is available in a small jar in Japanese/Asian grocery stores. It is regularly used on grilled eel dishes with sauce or “unagi-no-kabayaki” うなぎの蒲焼. It is not spicy hot and imparts a very unique flavor but, in large quantities, sansho powder does have a “numbing” effect similar to its Chinese counter part.

Ingredients:
One tofu block (I used medium firm), cut into small cubes, blanched for a few minutes and drained
2 tbs peanut oil
1 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced shallot
1 tsp touban-jan
1 tbs miso mixed with 1 tbs mirin (in lieu of tenmen-jan 甜面醤, Chinese sweet soybean paste)
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
1/3 tsp dark sesame oil
2 stalks of scallion, chopped
150 grams ground pork (I used hand chopped trimming of pork)
Japanese sansho powder, to taste
1/2 tsp potato starch mixed with 1 tsp water or sake (potato starch slurry)

Directions:
Place the wok on high flame and add the oil. When hot, add the ginger and shallot. Stir for 30 seconds, add the garlic stir for another 30 seconds. Add the touban-jan and stir for another 30 seconds or until fragrant.
Add the pork and cook for one minute or until done.
Add the drained tofu and gently toss
Add the chicken broth, miso mixture. Add more chicken broth if needed.
When the mixture starts boiling add the scallion and sesame oil. Stir for 30 seconds
Mix in the starch slurry and cook until bubbly
Sprinkle the sansho powder and serve

This was just right for us. I added a bit more touban-jan to my serving. The power of Japanese pepper added its unique flavor without numbing the tongue. A few days later, we had the leftover mapo tofu as a rice bowl or donburi. Since I had a pasteurized egg, I made a slightly undercooked scrambled egg as a topping. I also added blanched sugar snaps.

In this dish, since it had been a day or so after the dish was made, the spices further melded together and got more tame and multi dimensional. Overall the flavors were great.

Braised shishito with bonito flakes シシトウのおかかまぶし

 Japanese green pepper, (Shishi-tougarashi or shishitou 獅子唐辛子) is getting popular here. Nonetheless to my surprise, I found a bag of fresh shishitou at our regular grocery store the other day and got it. Eating Shishitou in U.S. is somewhat like a form of Russian roulette  since you can occasionally come across one that is atomically hot and you can never tell in advance which one it might be. Your first clue is when your mouth “catches on fire” as you bite into the pepper. (It seems this happens more often with U.S. raised shishitou than those raise in Japan. Legend says it has something to do with the soil.) In any case, I decided to make a shishitou dish I have not made before and added two small dishes as starters for the evening.

I thought if I de-vein and de-seed the shishitou, chances of hitting a hot one should be much less. So I de-veined and de-seeded and cut shishitou in long quarter strips. I served this with dashimaki だし巻きJapanese omelet with “aonori” 青のり dried seaweed.

Ingredients: (for two small appetizer servings)
4 shishitou, de-deined and de-seeded, cut into quarter strips lengthwise.
1 tsp x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (or half and half of mirin and soy sauce)
1 tsp vegetable oil
3 tsp or more dried bonito flakes.

Directions:
Saute the shishitou in vegetable oil on medium heat for a few minutes.
Turn dow the flame to low and add the noodle sauce and quickly braise.
Cut the flame and mix in the bonito flakes.

I also served two small appetizer dishes. The below is chicken tenderloin (from chicken roasted in the Weber grill) dressed in sesame dressing 鳥のささみの胡麻和え.

“Hya-yakko” 冷奴 cold cube of silken tofu topped with myoga  茗荷 and perilla 大葉 (both from our garden) and grated ginger with the concentrated Japanese noodle sauce.

These three appetizers were a perfect start of the evening. By the way, we did not get any atomically hot shishito in this batch. (Maybe this was due to the luck of the draw or maybe it is indeed worthwhile to removed the vein and seeds.)

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.

Brined pork chops with homemade BBQ sauce ブラインドポークチョップとBBQソース

I usually do not get pork chops but, one day during the Covid19 pandemic, I could not find any other cuts of pork, so I ended up with fairly thin bone-in pork chops. After some thought about how to cook it, I decided to brine the pork (although we are not a true believer in brining). After brining I cooked the pork in a frying pan. My wife made her BBQ sauce to go with it. We served cooked baby red potatoes and sautéed green beans on the side; a classic American meat-and-potato affair.

Ingredients

Three bone-in pork chops (what I got was thin -1/2 inch-probably thick chops would be better).

For brine
2 cup water
1/3 cup Kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves removed and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

Mix the above ingredients in a pan, boil to dissolve the sugar and salt and let it cool down to room temperature.

For BBQ sauce (my wife made this)
2 medium onions coarsely diced, sautéed in olive oil until soft and caramelized (15-20 minutes).
1 cup of ketchup, added to the pan and cooked,  until the sugar in the ketchup is caramelized (the color will change from red to more dull brownish color).
 2 tbs  rice vinegar plus 1/2 cup water (or chicken broth),
1/4 cup lemon juice,
1/2 tsp paprika powder,
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce,
1/2 tsp salt,
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs mustard

Mix the above ingredients and simmer for about 20 minutes.

I brined the pork for 5 hours in the  refrigerator. Just  before cooking, I took them out of the fridge, rinsed and patted them dry. Using olive oil and butter, I cooked the pork chops few minutes on each side. At the end I added some of the BBQ sauce to the pan and continued to sauté for a few more minutes until the sauce covered the meat.

I think the chops were too thin to make good brined pork chops. The sauce was good but the chops were just so so. Later we cooked the leftover cooked pork chops with chicken drumsticks in the BBQ sauce in the oven in a covered casserole dish for about 1 hour or until the meat was tender. I then removed the meat from bone and hand shredded it to make something like pulled chicken and pork.

This preparation was pretty good. The tang of the BBQ sauce permeated the meat and the meat was very tender. This is probably how we would prepare pork chops in the future.

Maitake and chikuwa kinpira 舞茸と竹輪のきんぴら

Since I got maitake 舞茸 (hen of the woods) when I got matsutake 松茸 from Oregon mushrooms, this is the second dish I made from the maitake. This is loosely based on a recipe on-line. I made this as a first "otoshi" appetizer of the evening. I also served dried and seasoned squid strips or "saki-ika" さきいか.

This is a perfect  dish for sake. Fish cake and maitake are a good combination with contrasting texture.

Saki-ika is the last remaining from the package I opened a few days ago. This is a good very popular drinking snack in Japan. We think this goes best with Bourbon and water but sake will do as well.

Ingredients:
One package (1/4 lb) maitake, torn into bite sized pieces, rinsed in water and excess water removed by a salad spinner (#1).
One medium carrot, peeled, sliced on the bias and cut into julienne (#2)
One package (six) small yaki-chikuwa 焼き竹輪 fish cakes, thawed, one cut into 4 long strips (#3)
1 tsp of peanut oil and a splash of dark roasted sesame oil
A pinch of  dried red pepper flakes (as much as you like)
1 tbs mirin
1 tbs soy sauce
Roasted white sesame for garnish

Direction:
In a non-stick frying pan on medium flame, add the peanut oil with a dash of sesame oil and add the red pepper flakes and let it cook a little until fragrant.
Add the carrot and the mushroom and sauté for several minutes until the mushrooms start showing few brown spots (#2).
Add the chikuwa fish cake (#3) and keep sautéing for a few more minutes.
Add the mirin and then soy sauce and braise until the liquid is almost gone. Taste and adjust the seasonings (I added a bit more soy sauce).
Serve immediately or at room temperature with a garnish of roasted white sesame.

The maitake has a meaty texture and earthy flavor. The chiku-wa is soft and slightly sweet. The contrast in textures is very intriguing.The red pepper flakes gave a slight heat to the basic "kinpira" flavor of soy sauce and mirin. Everything comes together. This is a good starter. We had this cold later and it was still quite good.