Mixed seafood fry 海鮮フライ

This is our effort to clear up some frozen seafood inventory that has been in our freezer “long enough”. Among the items in danger of exceeding their allotted time were  scallops we got from Great-Alaska-Seafood and Pacific Oysters we got from Vital Choice wild seafood. I added shrimp also from Great-Alaska-Seafood to these items so that I could make a mixed seafood fry.

The picture below is not one of my better jobs at presentation, but hot out of the oil, these fried items were great. I served them with homemade Pa Dutch coleslaw, Campari tomatoes and wedges of lemon.

Although the scallops had freezer burn, I carefully shaved it off before cooking. Despite that, they tasted good. We should not be eating this type of fried food too often but when we  do, we  really enjoy it.

Seafood nabe on a snowy day 雪降りの夕の海鮮鍋

As the weather got colder our thoughts turned to having Japanese hot pot or nabe 鍋 for dinner. This week we had some snow and our backyard was transformed to a winter wonderland; perfect time for nabe. So we decided to have one using whatever ingredients we had on hand.

We used to cook nabes on a portable gas cooker with a butene fuel canister but both the cooker and the canisters became so old we started worrying about how safe they were. Fortunately after we used up the canisters several years ago. We switched to a table top induction cooker (or Japanese will say IH or induction heater).  Making Sukiyaki すき焼き on this type of cooker works well because a sukiyaki nabe pot is usually made of cast iron but other earthenware or pottery pots or nabes won’t work. Then, we discovered an induction-cooker-compatible nabe pot. (It has a magnetic metal disk embedded in the bottom). With it,  we can do a nabe at the table without having to use a gas canister fuel source. 

I checked our freezer and refridgerator and decided we could do a sea food nabe or “kaisen-nabe” 海鮮鍋. We defrosted, scallops, cod, pacific oyster (this is the second time we used frozen Pacific oyster which worked well as a fry) and shrimp. We also had fresh shiitake and  nappa cabbage but not other green leafy vegetables. In any case, we set up our nabe feast.

I started the broth by soaking kelp in the nabe pot in cold water for several hours.  In the evening, I put the pot with the kelp in it on the induction cooker. Once the water came to a boil, I removed the kelp. I then added the shrimp shells and once the color of the shells changed I continued simmering for a few minutes, I the removed the shrimp shells.  I seasoned the broth with white dashi “Shiro-dashi” 白だしand light colored soy sauce making a very gentle broth. I started cooking the hard part of the nappa cabbage as well as the other vegetables. We also had some decent firm tofu from Whole Foods which I added. Next came daikon, carrot and potato, all precooked in the microwave oven.

Our seafood lineup is shown below (all frozen, and thawed in the refrigerator). It included shrimp, scallop (from Great Alaska Seafood), Pacific oysters (from Vital choice wild sea food and organics) and cod (from Whole foods). This was the second time we used frozen Pacific oysters. The first time I made fried oysters.  These were much better than the small fragmented fresh or pasteurized  oysters we sometimes get.

The picture below shows the vegetables which waiting to be put into the nabe; the leafy portion of nappa cabbage, tofu, shiitake mushroom, precooked daikon, potato, and carrot. 

We made sure the seafood was not overcooked. We also used  ponzu sauce as we were eating. This was a fun dinner perfect with the snowy winter outside and the steaming body warming nabe inside. We had warm sake (“Hakutsuru Ginjo 白鶴吟醸) to boot. Of course, there were leftovers. Classically, Japanese will end the nabe by adding rice or noodles into the remaining broth to make a “shime” 〆 final dish but we were too full and the next day, we made rice porridge with eggs for lunch.

Persimmon, smoked oyster shira-ae 薫製牡蠣と柿の白和え

Actually, this was inspired by a dish we had at Sushi Taro Omakase and then by a variation that was in the 2020 osechi box and was called "kaki kaki kunsei" (Smoked oyster and persimmon). In Japanese, persimmon is "Kaki" with flat intonation and oyster is "Kaki" with an accent on "ki", so this was a sort of play on words. The quality of the smoked oysters and persimmon are important. The oysters used by Sushi Taro were smoked in-house and were wonderful. The persimmon was perfection. The osechi version of this dish (picture below) had a light olive oil-based dressing and was also extremely good. In the case of the dish I made, the importance of the quality of ingredients was driven home in spades. Both the oysters and the persimmon were not really great but the basic recipe is good so after several iterations we finally came up with a dish that was not bad.

We found a package of "kaki" persimmon 柿 from California at Whole Foods. It looked like "Shibu-gaki" 渋柿 meaning "puckering persimmon". But these must have been treated. There are multiple ways this could have been done. For example it could have been treated with carbon dioxide since this was apparently commercially done. (The "at-home" treatment to reduce the puckering effect is usually to wait until the persimmon is completely ripe and becomes somewhat gelatinous). The advertisement on the package stated "you can eat it as it is" and showed a cherub of a boy eating it like an apple.

Since the persimmon we bought were supposedly ready to eat, we tried it. It was still hard. Although it was not puckering, the "persimmon" flavor was not as pronounced as we would have liked. As the first iteration of trying this persimmon,  I made "shira-ae" 白和え a very common small dish which I blogged previously.

For the next iteration I served the persimmon with canned smoked oysters as my attempt to emulate what we had at Sushi Taro. Unfortunately, the canned smoked oysters which came from China and were bought at our local grocery store (shown as the bottom can in the picture below) were, as far as we were concerned, not suitable for human consumption. The oysters were fragmented, almost black in color and tasted terrible. They completely ruined the dish.

For the third iteration I used smoked canned oysters in olive oil from Whole Foods (shown as the top can in the picture above). (We didn't look to see where they came from). These were infinitely better than the previous batch. They were plump, whole and had a nice smokey flavor. This dish is shown below.

The strong smokey taste of the oysters and the sweetness of the persimmon' with the gentle sesame punctuated flavored dressing of tofu worked well.

This was one of three small starter dishes I served one evening with cold sake.

Of the other two dishes, the left most is fried salmon in sweet vinegar 鮭の南蛮漬け. I garnished it with sushi vinegar dressed cucumber キュウリの酢の物.

The center dish is my usual mackerel simmered in miso サバの味噌煮.

Ingredients:
One persimmon peeled and cut into bite sized pieces (below left).
One can of smoked oysters in olive oil.

For the Shira-ae dressing 白和え (below right)
1/4 silken tofu, wrapped in paper towel and weighted down to remove extra moisture.
1 tsp miso (or to taste)
1/4 tsp roasted sesame seeds, ground in a Japanese suri-bachi すり鉢 mortar.
1/4 tsp of light colored soy sauce

Directions:
Add all the shira-ae ingredients to a Japanese suribachi mortar and grind them until smooth (above right). Taste and if need adjust the seasoning.
Dress the persimmon pieces and top with the oysters. (I blotted off any excess oil and cut the oysters into two pieces.

Compared to the first try with oysters, this second try was much better. (As good as it was it did not hold a candle to the Sushi Taro version).  I do not think this type of persimmon is particularly good for this dish. I prefer another kind of non-puckering persimmon called  "ama-gaki"甘柿. It has a better texture, is sweeter, and has a stronger distinctive persimmon flavor. In any case, the contrast of the flavor of the persimmon with tofu dressing and smokey oyster flavors worked well enough.