Potato salad topped with squid "shiokara" イカの塩辛のせポテトサラダ

In one of the Izakaya blogs I follow, I saw a recipe to put squid "shiokara"イカの塩辛 ( or as my wife will say "squid and guts") on either mashed potatoes or potato salad. This recipe came to mind one evening after I came back from the Japanese grocery store with a package of shiokara (comes frozen in a plastic pouch) and one package containing 2 small boiled octopus legs. Since I already had potato salad in the fridge I decided to make a small dish of the potato salad topped it the shiokara as per the recipe. As another small dish, I sliced the octopus and served it on top of some daikon namasu 大根なます I had made for the new year. These two small items (shown in the picture below) were starter dishes for the evening meal.

The picture below shows the shiokara topped potato salad.  The idea here is that the salty and umami flavors of the shiokara will enhance the flavor of the potato.

The below is the octopus dish.  I just sliced the octopus leg thinly on the diagonal in a wavy pattern. I put the daikon namsu on the bottom of the small bowl and put the cut octopus on top.  I have been making a few Japanese sauces and storing them in the fridge in small squeeze bottles.  I squeezed some sumiso sauce that I made few days ago on top of the octopus. (Having these pre-made sauces ready in squeeze bottles is very convenient).

The potato salad shiokara combination is not bad but we both felt enjoying the potato salad and shiokara separately may be better. As my wife put it, "the purity of the shiokara flavor and the purity of the potato flavor are best experienced individually and in their own right." Thus sayeth a shiokara purist.

Happy New Year 2020 明けましておめでとうございます

Happy New Year 2020 which is also the end and beginning of a decade. 2019 was not a year we would like to repeat. Hope 2020 is a bit less "eventful". We started New Year 2020 as we would any other New Year. I put up the new "Kagami-mochi" 鏡餅 decoration in our Japanese "tea" room alcove or "Tokonoma" 床間 and displayed the zodiac mouse figurines子の年 from our collection of zodiac figures.

The largest mouse appears to be dressed in ”Kannushi" 神主 shinto priest attire. I am not sure what the smaller one is up to. It seems to be carrying a pouch and has on a backpack. (On closer inspection, this guy appears to be carrying a "Kome-dawara" 米俵; a traditional old fashioned woven-straw sac containing rice, no doubt a symbol of prosperity). It's cute.

We also displayed a small carved wooden mouse figure shown below which was not as anthropomorphized as the other two--he just looks cutely "mouse-ish".

Since we cannot start the day, even the first day of the year, without coffee, we gave up having a new year's "ozoni soup" お雑煮 for breakfast, instead, we had "ozoni" soup as a lunch as shown below. Not shown below, it was accompanied with a symbolic small cup of sake.

Nothing is  different from any other year but this year, I got fresh "mitsuba" 三つ葉. As usual, our mochi 餅 is wrapped in "abura-age" 油揚げ deep fried tofu pouch for easier handing/eating (especially for my wife).

I tried not to serve too much of food to make sure we can "adequately" hit the Sushitaro osechi box 寿司太郎のおせち重箱 and other goodies in the evening. All of the below are what I made. Two squares are "matsukaze yaki" 松風焼き (miso and pine nuts) and its variation (fig and bleu-cheese). I also served "kobu-maki" 昆布巻 kelp roll which was made from kelp and kanpyo 干瓢 "dried gourd peel") that were left over from when I made salmon kelp rolls 鮭昆布巻. I also made "datemaki" 伊達巻.

To help digestion (my father used to say "daikon" helps digestion), I also served  daikon namasu 大根なます topped with boiled octopus leg and ikura salmon "roe". This roe came from an Alaskan company. which we used for the first time. The ikura is much smaller than the ikura we usually get--it actually looks a bit more like trout roe but tasted the same as salmon roe.

So, this was how we started 2020 and more to come in the evening.

Otoshi 5 kinds お通し５種類

I served this 5 kind of otoshi お通し appetizer on our relatively new five compartment plates. This was the evening I also served perilla-wrapped marinated tuna tempura 漬けマグロの青紫蘇包み天ぷら but I diverted a few of the tuna skewers to be served as is (see below) which was pretty good. This multiple otoshi to start was inspired by izakaya in Japan, "Suiko"酔香 and "Shuhai" 酒杯, where they regularly serve otoshi consisting of 6 dishes. Having store-bought items makes putting together 5 otoshi easy. Actually I had more than five I could have served as starters but this plate only had 5 positions.

The left two are composed of spicy clam salad and seaweed salad. Both were store-bought and fairly good. If you avoid eating the conspicuous red peppers  (seen at the upper left edge of the dish) the "spicy"clam salad is not too spicy. The seaweed salad appears artificially dyed but has a nice crunch.

The center two otoshi are sea food; boiled octopus leg 茹で蛸足 dressed in sumiso sauce 酢味噌 (I made the sumiso to my wife's spec "not too vinegary". I used dashi to get the consistency of the sauce). The dish on the right is perilla-wrapped "zuke" marinated tuna which I "stole" from the skewers destined to be made into tempura.

Although the tuna was marinated, I put on a few drops of wasabi soy sauce. I am now making different sauces ahead of time and storing them in the refrigerator in small squeeze bottles; (sauces like sumiso, wasabi soy sauce, mustard soy sauce, and sesame dressing.) This makes assembling multiple dishes more efficient. The last dish is eggplant and broccoli seasoned with black bean garlic and toubanjan (or Duabanjiang) sauce. I made this dish a few days ago to use up Italian eggplant leftover from making ratatouille. I made it sort of Chinese stir-fri-ish but I cannot even remember how I made it (I also used Japanese miso, come to think of it). It is not spicy and I added blanched sugar snaps for a color. Although I cannot reproduce it, my wife liked it.

So, this was a great start. I served few more small dishes and planed to finish with perilla-wrapped zuke tuna tempura.

Italian-style octopus salad and more small dishes イタリアンたこサラダ

This is a variation on the theme of Italian-style squid salad イタリアンイカサラダ. To use up boiled octopus legs, I made this salad one evening. The dressing is made with rice vinegar, Dijon mustard and olive oil seasoned with salt and black pepper.

For vegetables, thinly sliced Vidalia onion, American mini-cucumber, finely chopped celery, skinned Campari tomatoes, Kalamata olive on the bed of our home grown arugula. Like squid salad, this is a good combination and a rather healthy starter.

We then proceeded with our usual suspects of small appetizer dishes.

This is cold tofu or "Hiyayakko" 冷や奴. I changed the topping with bonito flakes, finely chopped scallion, "ikura" salmon roe and blanched edible chrysanthemum all dressed with concentrated noodle sauce.'

This is the last of Chinese-style squid salad 中華風イカサラダ (store-bought).

This is Spanish Mackerel simmered in miso sauce サバの味噌煮 I made a few days ago with a side of blanched broccoli. I just warmed them up by microwaving for 15 seconds. Once I make this, we can usually stretch it out for about 10 days storing it in the refrigerator. This is always a good-to-have item.

We still had left over gyoza 餃子 I made and store-bought fish cake. Sugar snaps are blanched, cooled in ice water and soaked in Japanese dashi broth seasoned with salt スナップ豌豆の塩びたし.

We really like to have many small dishes with many different taste and textures.

”Otsumami” appetizer snacks 酒の肴（おつまみ）

This is another rendition of the appetizer snacks we had. I went to our Japanese grocery store the day before which made serving many small dishes easy. I used small lidded bowls and small crane plate we got from Nishiki marker 錦市場 in Kyoto 京都 sometime ago.

We both get filled up quickly so I try to serve small portions. In small bowls from left to right are cold tofu or hiyayakko 冷や奴, grated "Tororo" nagaimo とろろ with "ikura" salmon roe and "Chinese -style" squid salad 中華風イカサラダ

On the black rectangular plate are boiled octopus leg thinly sliced with sumiso sauce タコの酢味噌, my usual dashi-maki Japanese omelet with aonori sea weed 青海苔だし巻き玉子, store bought small fish cake re-heated in the toaster oven.

The gyoza 餃子 I made a few days ago heated up in the toaster oven (skin becomes really crispy) cut in half with a small amount of Ponzu sauce ポン酢 poured into them. This replaces the separate dipping sauce and makes it a bit easier to eat the gyoza.

This store-bought boiled squid salad with Chinese flavors.

This is grated nagaimo (which is called "Tororo"とろろ). I dissolved wasabi into soy sauce and mixed into tororo and topped it with ikura and chiffonade of perilla.

 This is cold silken tofu. I added blanched edible chrysanthemum 春菊. Instead of straight soy sauce I dressed it with concentrated noddle sauce and topped it with bonito flakes かつお節.

We had these small dishes with our house cold sake "tengumai" daiginjo 天狗舞大吟醸. Nothing really new here but very enjoyable.

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.

Octopus and avocado salad たことアボカドのサラダ

When we buy a boiled leg of octopus, it takes at least 3 separate sittings for us to finish it. So, beside the usual sashimi, I usually come up with a few variations. Since we had a ripe avocado, I decided to make something similar to tuna and avocado cubes. I garnished this with chiffonade of perilla.

I used both slices and small chunks of the octopus to finish up the remaining octopus leg.

For the tuna and avocado dish, I used minced garlic and dark sesame oil, for this I used finely diced red onion and olive oil, instead. I was aiming for a more gentle tasting dressing.

Ingredients (2 servings):
Boiled octopus leg, cut thinly as well as in small chunks, amount arbitrary but I used about the half of the leg.
Ripe avocado, half, skin and some removed and cut into small cubes
Red or sweet onion, half, small, finely diced

For dressing:
1/2 tbs light olive oil
1 tbs soy sauce
1/2 tbs rice vinegar or Yuzu juice

For garnish
2 perilla leaves, cut into thin chiffonade

Directions:
I mixed the ingredients for the dressing.
Mixed the octopus, avocado, onion and the dressing.
Garnish with the perilla.

This was a good salad. Since octopus does not have a strong flavor, I toned down the dressing and replaced the garlic with red onion which worked well. This was a good drinking snack and also we finished the boiled octopus leg in time before it went bad.

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.

Pulpo al ajillo タコのアヒージョ

This was a dish I made quickly one evening. Although I make "Gambas al ajillo" often, using octopus was a first for me. I happened to have a boiled octopus leg from our Japanese grocery store. I served it as sashimi with California spot prawns the previous evening. My thoughts went thusly; since we already opened a bottle of Cab this evening, my usual miso-vinegar dressing (sumiso-ae 酢味噌和え酢味噌和え) may not work. In addition, I baked baguette that morning. Looking at the line-up of red wine, octopus, and baguette; the only thing I could reasonably make was "Pulpo al ajillo". I did not follow any recipe, I just winged it. As usual, I cooked it my "antique" Corningware. (It was new when I bought it but I just recently discovered it is now considered antique...I don't even want to think about what that means. Nonetheless this is a good vessel to use for this dish).

I use a good amount of fruity EVOO with slices of garlic and red pepper flakes on low heat.

It takes some time before the edges of the garlic slices to brown. I quickly took out the garlic slices (I just used my dexterity with a pair of Japanese cooking chopsticks) and set it aside. I then added slices of the octopus leg (I sliced the tip length wise).

I seasoned it with salt and pepper and added finely chopped parsley. Even off the heat, the olive oil kept boiling for a few minutes. I served this with thin slices of my freshly baked baguette. Yes this was very good. The bread mopped up the wonderful garlic olive oil sauce. The octopus was chewy but tender.

 It is interesting to know that, when I searched for a similar recipe while writing this post, I only found recipes in Spanish. When I searched this in Japanese as "タコのアヒージョ", there were many recipes in Japanese. In addition, I found many Japanese variations. In any case, this was a perfect dish for the evening. The only problem is because of the bread this dish was quite filling.

Octopus carpaccio variation タコのカルパッチョ

I stopped by our Japanese grocery store this weekend, especially since we were running out of sushi vinegar 寿司酢 (an important item for any household especially ours). I bought a few other items which included boiled octopus legs ゆでだこの足. I served them with my usual "karashi sumiso" 芥子酢味噌 that evening with cold sake. The next evening I wanted to serve what was left but in a different way. The variation I came up with is the subject of the current post. Besides, my wife wanted to start the evening with a glass of red wine rather than sake. So, I came up with this rendition of octopus carpaccio. Although I posted a similar dish before, there are enough differences to warrant another post (I am a bit desperate for new posts at this point). Since I also bought cod roe or "tarako" たらこ and "salmon roe" いくら as well, I incorporated these into the dish as well. In the picture below, the green is cucumber slices, the red and white slivers are red radish, thinly sliced and then cut into thin julienne.

My wife asked why I always slice octopus in a wavy fashion (check out how a pro will do it with the visual aid here). This wavy cut is called "sazanami-giri" さざなみ切り("sazanami" is Japanese for the small ripply waves on the surface of otherwise calm waters).  I told my wife this is the traditional way of slicing octopus and abalone or "awabi" アワビ because the flesh of these creatures is firm. If the surface was cut smoothly the soy sauce would just run off. The ripples help hold the sauce on much like the grooves in pasta help hold on the tomato sauce. 

As usual, I started with olive oil (I used this excellent Spanish olive oil for this) and syrupy aged balsamic vinegar, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper on the bottom.

I made the base layer with very thinly sliced Vidalia onion (I used a Japanese "Benriner" mandoline). I then added cucumber slices around the perimeter and covered the center with thinly sliced octopus. I removed the tarako roe from its membrane sac (I used about 1/3). I scattered the tarako and ikura on the octopus and garnished it with thin julienne of red radish. I finished with drizzles of the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  

We had this with Louis M. Martini Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2012, this is a very reliable California Cab and got 90 from Wine Advocate. This winery was bought out by the Gallo some years ago but appears to be maintaining their quality. It may not be a spectacular wine but it has all the good qualities of  a Napa cab. One should be careful when buying this brand, however, since they make three different versions with near-identical labels but different prices; they are from Napa, Alexander and Sonoma valleys. We tried all three in different vintages but we liked the Napa version best.  This wine went rather well with the carpaccio, although the addition of fish roe resulted in a somewhat less than perfect match for red wine. The roe were in small enough amounts so as not to be objectionable and they did add a nice saltiness. The balsamic vinegar was more sweet than vinegary and did not compete with this red. The olive oil was again great, adding nice fruity, grassy tastes with a peppery finish. The octopus itself had a very neutral flavor (an euphemism for not much taste) but added great texture. We had the octopus slices with layers of the onion, cucumber which made it very nice. I made one more dish which we had with this red wine before changing to cold sake with tuna tartar (both dishes are subjects of future posts). 

Sautéed baby octopus タコのソテー

This is one of the dishes I made from a package of frozen small octopuses (octopi?) (we’ll call them guys) which I found in the frozen case of our Japanese grocery store. The package indicated this was a product made in the U.S. for an Italian American clientele. The package contained three little guys and I used two in my oden おでん (I did not take pictures but I posted octopus in oden previously). I made one into this dish. This was sautéed in olive oil and seasoned with salt and black pepper. We had this with red wine.



I washed and salted the thawed guys. I kneaded them in a metal bowl in an attempt to tenderize.



I then boiled them in water with added salt, sake, and a small splash of rice vinegar for 30 minutes on low heat.



After 30 plus minutes, the octopus shrank quite a bit.



I cut two into several long pieces and placed then in my oden pot and simmered for 1 hour or so with other oden items. This was very tender and nice. The remaining one, I cut into bite sized pieces, placed them in a ZipLoc bag and added olive oil. I kept this in the fridge for a few days before we got back to it. I simply sautéed it in olive oil and seasoned it rather severely with salt and freshly ground black pepper.



The octopus was very tender and the flavor profile went well with wine. If I find a similar package again I will definitely buy one but so far I have not seen this item in the Japanese grocery store.