Cucumber in soy sauce 胡瓜の醤油漬け

I would like to have fresh cucumbers (if available Japanese cucumber but American mini-cucumber is a great substitute). Usually American min-cucumbers come in a pack of 6. If not used within 2-3 days, they go bad (white specks, either bacteria or fungus, develop on the surface).  I make several kinds of cucumber salads and pickles in an attempt to use up the cucumbers.  Currently our favorite pickled cucumber is using leftover pickling liquid after making the daikon pickles. In addition, I also try to preserve fresh cucumbers by placing them in a Ziploc bag and pouring enough Vodka to coat all the surface plus a bit more and then I squeeze out as much air from the bag as I can. With this treatment, the fresh cucumber last about one week or a bit more. I am always looking for other recipes to use cucumbers. I saw this recipe in one of the Ko Kentetsu You Tube episodes. It is easy enough and looks interesting. This is marinated about 3 days. It is still crunchy. Soy sauce and vinegar make the foundation but the addition of ginger and a small slash of dark sesame oil really make it.

Ingredients:
3 American mini-cucumbers or 2 Japanese cucumbers. 
Fine julienne of ginger root

Marinade:
1 tbs sugar
2 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs rice vinegar
Small splash of dark sesame oil

Directions:
Cut the cucumbers length wise in half
Remove the seeds using a small spoon
Cut the cucumber on a bias in bite sized pieces

Add the cucumber, ginger and the marinade to a sealable container. Close the container and refrigerate. 

You can enjoy this immediately or in few days.

We like this. It is very easy to make and slight sweetness combided with the sesame oil and ginger really make this a good side dish or “Hashi-yasume” 箸休め meaning “chopsticks rest” so that the chopsticks take a brief rest after heavy lifting of main dishes.

Pickeld Micro Cucumber and Daikon 小さなキュウリと大根のピクルス

The other day while we were shopping at the near-by Whole Foods, my wife found a new item which is called “Teeny Tiny Cucumber” (picture #3). They are much smaller than “American Mini-cucumbers” and about the size of cornichons. I decide to use them to make a Japanese style pickle along with a daikon pickle. I would have used Japanese citrus “Yuzu” but we do not have any access to fresh yuzu so instead, I used Myer lemons (#1). The cucumbers were not crunchy but the daikon was nicely crunchy. It was a bit too sour/acidic for my wife so next time, I will dilute the marinade with some water.

The marinade is a standard Japanese sweet vinegar (one part rice vinegar,1/2 part sugar, small amount of salt). This is essentially a variation of “Daikon Namasu” 大根なます.

Ingredients:
1 package (9oz) teeny tiny cucumbers (picture #3)*
1/3 medium daikon, peeled, cut into 3-4 mm thick rounds and then cut into tick match sticks
1 Meyer lemon, sliced (or yuzu if available).
1 tsp of salt to “sweat” the cucumber and daikon to remove some internal moisture. 

Marinade:
1 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup water (optional)*

Directions:
Mix the marinade ingredients in a sauce pan and heat on medium flame until sugar and salt melt and start the liquid starts simmering. Let it cool for 5-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a bowl add the cucues, daikon and salt, mix well and let it stand for 10-15 minutes until water comes out.
Drain the excess moisture that came out, add half of  the lemon slices to the bottom of a mason jar, add the cucues and daikon and top with slices of the lemon (picture #2). Pour in the marinade. Once cooled to room temperature, place the jar in the refrigerator. The pickles will be ready in 2-3 days.

* Picture #3 is the package of this tiny cucues. I am not sure if this is a special kind of cucumber or just a young and small cucumber. It is grown in Canada.

We like this pickles. The cucumbers are a bit soft and not crunchy but the daikon was nicely crunchy. Over all, this was nice refreshing dish. May be we should have eaten it raw with a dip as suggested in the package. Next time.

Pickled Cucumber キュウリの漬物

We really like the pickled daikon which I posted before. I am making it regularly. As I mentioned in the previous post, the marinade contains a good amount of sugar and when I placed the daikon in the marinade, the marinade was basically a slurry i.e. not liquid. It weighed a total of 170 grams (120g sugar 25 gram vinegar, 12 gram sake, 15 gram salt, and 10 gram sake). But after 1-2 days, the moisture extracted from the daikon made the slurry into a liquid. Previously I discarded the marinade after the pickled daikon was finished. But this time I decided to experiment and added several whole American mini-cucumbers into the leftover marinade to see what would happen. After two days, the cucumber looked wrinkled. Nonetheless the result was surprisingly good. The cucumber tasted fresh and had some crunch left but was not raw. Initially I thought it was too sweet but the next day, the sweetness dissipated and just complemented the fresh taste of the cucumber. 

I wanted to see how the marinade changed after I used it for both the diakon and the cucumber. I did this by weighing it. I weighed the marinade both before and after the daikon and cucumbers were done. Before I put in the diakon, the marinade weighed 170 grams. After the diakon had been in the marinade for 2-3 weeks I removed it and weighed the marinade. It was 343 grams; meaning that 173 grams of liquid were extracted from the daikon and replaced in the diakon by the salt and flavoring of the marinade. In essence the moisture extracted from the diakon doubled the total volume of the liquid.  I then added 4 American mini-cucumbers to the 343 grams of marinade and after 1week I removed the cucumber and weighed the marinade. It had increased to 398 grams. (An additional 55 grams of liquid from the cucumbers were added to the marinade). I am not sure how many times I can reuse the marinade like this but it is good to know that I can use it for at least one batch of cucumbers after marinating the diakon and the cucumbers come out nicely. 

Pickled “Takuan” daikon and cream cheese 沢庵とクリームチーズ

 Among the Japanese pickles, “Takuan or Takuwan*” 沢庵 is common and traditionally made from “Daikon” 大根. My mother (and many other “mothers’) used to make it at home in the traditional way. First the daikon was hung to dry and then mixed with salt, rice bran and other ingredients in a wooden tub. Weights (often river rocks) were placed on a wooden lid which was slightly smaller than the opening.  It was then left to ferment for several months.  (In my mother’s case, it was left in the root cellar). In my childhood, it was a common fall scene to see daikon out hanging to dry often on the rack used to dry clothes. Nowadays, the vast majority of takuwan is produced commercially. The takuwan has a characteristic yellow color which traditionally came from a type of fruit called “Kuchinashi” クチナシ or “Gardenia” (this is just for color not for flavor) but commercial products may use other yellow food coloring.

*Growing up in Sapporo, Hokkaido, we always pronounced it “Takuwan” but elsewhere in Japan, it may be pronouced as “Takuan”.

In any case, when I was picking up our take-out order of sashimi and sushi at Tako Grill the other day, I saw a package of “Takuwan”. I have not had takuwan for many years but I am sure I was influenced by seeing a YouTube episode which featured a dish made of takuwan with cream cheese which the host clearly announced he did not like and thought it was very strange. I thought it was a very interesting combination and wanted to try it. After coming home, I tasted the takuwan and it was kind of salty and sweet at the same time and nicely crunchy. After a quick Internet consultation, I made two variations and served them with crackers.

The first one (shown on the left) is cream cheese flavored with miso mixed with juliennes of takuwan and carrot. The second shown on the right is made with cream cheese, soy sauce, and takuwan.

Ingredients and Directions (Miso flavored):
50gram cream cheese, softened at room temperature
1 tsp of miso (I used “awase miso” 合わせ味噌 or mixture of “red” and “white” miso)
Takuwan and Carrot , thin juliennes, arbitrary amount

Mix everything.

 

The second one is a soy sauce flavored cream cheese with small dice of takuwan and topped with freshly cracked black pepper.

Ingredients and Directions (soy sauce flavored):

50gram cream cheese, softened at room temheprature

small dices of takuwan, amount arbitrary

A mixture of soy sauce and wasabi to taste

Freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Mix everything.

Unlike the YouTube sequence which inspired me to try this dish, our assessment which differed from that of the host was that both were quite good and went well with the Cabernet we were having. The first one with miso has more complex flavors and lots of umami. The second one definitely needed the cracked pepper. Sweet and salty and peppery with some crunch from the takuwan went well.

Myoga harvest 2020 冥加の収穫 ２０２０

Last year, we could harvest only a few myoga (or myouga 冥加) from the new myoga rhizomes we planted in the spring of 2019 to replace the ones that had mysteriously disappeared. But this year we finally got a good harvest. This harvest was much later than usual; mid September instead of early August as in previous years. Nonetheless the myoga buds were much larger and well formed. To harvest myoga, these edible buds are under ground just below the surface. The only way to harvest them is to scrabble in the dirt with your bare hands to find them with your fingers and then dig them up. My wife is skilled and persistent at finding myoga. She can go over a patch I just harvested and dig up many more. She did comment, however, that harvesting myoga wrecks havoc on her manicure. (News Flash! She admitted she has never had a manicure). So, the below is this year’s harvest.

A few had already flowered but we harvested many just in time. I decided to leave the small ones to enjoy fresh. I made the remaining myoga into pickles (pickled in sweet vinegar). Since this year's myoga were large, I decided to halve them before making them to pickles. By halving them, I could clean them better as well.

Ingredients:
Myoga (we probably had about 4 cups), cleaned and halved (or whole if they are small)

For sweet vinegar (combine the below in a pan and heat and melt the sugar and salt)
1 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
In a sealable  container, add the myoga and the sweet vinegar. It may not completely cover the myoga but myoga will exude water and in few days, all myoga will be covered. Seal the lid and refrigerate. It can be eaten after 3-4 days. In the previous post 10 years ago, I said this will keep for at least several weeks but we have eaten the previous batch for at least 3 years. After one year, all the red color was bleached out but it was still good.

We are so delighted to have a decent myoga harvest! We had cold silken tofu (hiya-yakko 冷奴) with thinly sliced myoga and bonito flakes. Myoga has such a distinct flavor which we really missed.

Cabbage and perilla in brine キャベツの青じそ漬け

These were five small appetizers we had one evening. Among these five appetizers, one is new and another is sort of new (a variation).

From the left, three kinds of protein. In the picture below which is the close up of the individual dishes, the left is smoked mackerel with miso sauce (since it is difficult now to get fresh mackerel, we got a package of smoked mackerel). My wife suggested serving it with the miso sauce I use to simmer the fresh mackerel サバの燻製味噌ソース. Unfortunately, this batch of the smoked mackerel was a bit too salty and the addition of the miso sauce did not improved the situation by adding more saltiness. The center is vegetables and fried salmon in sweet vinegar 酒の南蛮漬け and the right is chicken dressed in sesame dressing 酒蒸し鶏胸肉の胡麻和え.

Below, from  left to right is the previously mentioned chicken with sesame dressing, the center is a new small dish which is cabbage and perilla in brine キャベツの青じそ漬け.  There are many variations on this theme but I used a recipe from the on-line version of the Japanese newspaper "Asahi shinbun" 朝日新聞. (The recipe follows below the picture). The right is my usual potato saladポテトサラダ. 

Ingredients for cabbage dish

150 grams cabbage, cut into 1 x 3-4 cm strips
4-5 Green perilla leaves, cut into 1cm square

For Brine (mix the below and let it cool to room temperature)
1/2 cup hot water
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp rice vinegar

Directions
In a Ziploc bag, add the cabbage and green perilla, pour in the brine, remove the air as much as you can and seal. Sandwich the bag between two plates and put the weight and let it stand for 30 minutes until more water comes out and the cabbage becomes soft. It will keep several days in the refrigerator.

The brine was rather gentle and the cabbage tasted fresh and had a nice crunch. eating it with the perilla pieces really made it. This is a nice refreshing dish.

Pickled grapes with Japanese style curry ブドウのピクルス添え日本風カレー

In order to use up some cooked pork tenderloin before it went bad I decided to make a Japanese style curry but I did not have any commercial Japanese style curry roux. So I "winged it" and made my own curry roux. In addition I also didn't have the usual Japanese curry condiments, so continuing the "winged-it" theme I made "pickled" grapes and served them on the side.

The pickled grapes have a sweet-sour taste with cardamon flavor which really made the whole thing special.

To make the dish a bit more decadent, I topped the curry with a sunny side up fried egg (using pasteurized egg).

Pickled fruit (This is from Milkstreet magazine).


Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups rice vinegar (unseasoned)
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tbs kosher salt
6 wide strips of lime zest plus 1 1/2 tsp lime juice
4 wide strips of lemon zest plus 1/4 cup of lemon juice
3 white cardamon pods

Directions:
I did not have any lime so I did not use it. Put everything in a pan and heat to boil and dissolve the sugar and salt. Cool it to room temperature.  I only added grapes but  the original recipe also suggested the following fruits could also be pickled; apple, melon, pineapple, plum, and strawberry. Leave the mixture at room temperature  for 48 hours then refrigerate.

Japanese curry (my short cut method, makes about 4 small servings)


Ingredients:
Cooked pork, cubed (whatever amount you have, this is leftover control).
1 medium onion, small dice
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 small piece of ginger root, peeled and finely minced
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into bite-sized cubes (or more traditionally potato)
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into cubes
10 green beans (I happened to have blanched green beans), cut into 1 inch segments
1/4 cup of AP flour
2-3 tbs olive oil
2 tsp Garam Masara
Salt to taste
2-3 tsp Japanese curry powder (I used S&B)
2 cups chicken stock (or more depending on the thickness of the curry)

Directions:
In a pot on medium flame, add the olive oil, onion, garlic and ginger and sauté until fragrant and onion slightly caramelizes (5-7 minutes). Add the flour and sauté until the bottom of the pan develops a brown crust, add the curry powder and keep sautéing for several more minutes. Add the chicken broth and using a silicon or wooden spatula, mix well trying to dislodge the brown crust on the bottom until, the sauce thickens. Add the pork, carrot, parsnip and simmer (This is usually cooked in a broth, before adding the curry roux, I am taking a shortcut). Simmer for 30 minutes until the vegetables are soft. Just 4-5 minutes before serving, add the garam masala, season with salt and pepper and add the green beans.

To make it more luscious, I topped this with a sunny side up fried egg with runny yolk (using pasteurized eggs). For a quick shortcut curry for leftover control, this was pretty good. The pickled grapes also added, a sweet and sour tang with a subtle but lovely cardamon flavor which really made the pickles something special.

Indian-style pork "Vindaloo" curry with pickles インド風ポークカレー

I asked my wife to make this curry from leftover barbecued pork butt since it was getting to the end of it's life. This is my wife's version of pork "Vindaloo" which we posted few years ago. Instead of using uncooked pork, she used barbecued pork cut into cubes this time. Since I used dry rub (roasted cumin, smoked paprika, salt and pepper) for the barbecue, these spices were automatically added to the curry.

She added roasted mustard seeds, you can see the seeds in the curry which gave small pops and bursts of mustard  flavor. Instead of coconut milk, she used yogurt (since we do not particularly fond of the taste and flavor of coconut milk), it broke a bit but still tasted good. Despite the addition of yogurt and reduce cayenne pepper to 1/4 of the lower end of the amount suggested in the original recipe (about 1/4 tsp), this curry was hot enough for us. Despite using cooked pork, it was tender and quite enjoyable. This is another way for taking care of leftovers.

Since I had a fresh green and yellow zucchini (really yellow zucchini not yellow squash), I added panfried coins of zucchini seasoned with salt and pepper, grilled fig with balsamic vinegar. In addition, I added pickled cucumber and carrot I made.

I just used the sweet vinegar I used to make pickled myouga since we used up the pickled myouga from this container. I placed cucumber (American minicucu), carrot and skinned Campari tomato into the leftover sweet vinegar. I let it pickel for several days in the refrigerator.

We decide to have a store bought mini baguette (which was partially baked and frozen). I  finished baking in 350F toaster oven in convection mode for 15 minutes. This went well with the curry. Next time, we will make naan, though.

Deviled pickled eggs ピクルドデビルドエッグ

When my wife made pickled eggs, she wanted to see how they would taste made them into deviled eggs. The egg yolk of the pickled egg was different from the consistency of regular hard boiled egg; it was fairly dense and we weren't sure how much we liked them. This is the pickled deviled egg shown below.

Since the pickled egg had a lot of flavor she thought the egg yolk filling should be fairly simple so she made it in a most classic way.

The stuffing was much more flavorful and also had a nicer consistency then the plain pickled egg yolk. The brown color of the egg white came from spices (cinnamon sticks and star anise) used in the pickling medium. We really like this rendition of deviled eggs.

Since we weren't sure if we would like this she made with only one pickled egg.

Ingredients:
1 pickled egg
1tsp. mayonnaise
1tsp. greek yogurt
1/2 tsp. mustard
1/4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/8 tsp. onion powder

Directions:
Remove the yolk from the pickled egg and smash with a fork. Add all the other ingredients and mix until a creamy consistency is reached and all the ingredients are blended in. Put the egg yolk mixture back into the egg white.

This was very good. The egg yolk had absorbed some of the flavor from the pickling medium and this really added a pleasing taste element to the the deviled egg.  I couldn't help but ask "is it worthwhile to take the time and effort to make pickled eggs and then make deviled eggs from them?" But I do have to say the end result is probably one of the best deviled eggs I've ever eaten. From a practical view point the pickling process makes the eggs last longer. So, if we make a portion of it to deviled eggs, this may be worthwhile.

Diversion alert: A few days ago wife noticed that a frog had moved into the small fountain in our backyard. She identified it as an American Bullfrog mostly through the sound it made. (Although I did not hear it, my wife heard low rumbling croaks). Reportedly, Bullfrogs prefer large bodies of water. Our little fountain certainly didn't fit that description. We named him "millennial" since he had just moved into the bullfrog equivalent of a micro-apartment (about 10-15 gallon of water under our fountain). For several days he came out to sit on his front door step near the fountain (see below) to croak occasionally. We saw him jump back into the fountain through a small gap at the edge of the flat rock we use to cover the access to the pump. I appears that he moved out few days later. We thought maybe prospective mates were not enchanted with the micro apartment he had chosen. Or maybe it was the school district.

Pickled eggs version 2 ピクルドエッグ version2

This is my wife's second try to make pickled eggs. Last time, she used rice vinegar and mustard and the eggs did not have enough "pickled" flavor. This time she used cider vinegar and different spices. I served this in small egg-shaped containers. I placed the pickled onion and slices of cucumber under the eggs.

This time, I cooked hardboiled eggs perfectly without green rims on the yolks.

We served this as a light lunch in one of the weekends. with cucumber and salmon salad.

Red pickled eggs without the red;

This is basically the traditional recipe for red pickled eggs without the red. My wife thought this would be a good way to get the traditional flavor without the traditional red stain on clothing, hands, or anything else the beet juice touched.

Ingredients:
6 hard boiled eggs, peeled
1 medium onion, sliced
1 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 Cinnamon sticks
2  Star anise
4 whole cloves

Directions:
Put the eggs and half the onions in a container (#1).
Put the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook until the onions are translucent (#2).
Let cool slightly then pour over the eggs and onions in the container (#3).
Make sure they are completely covered with the liquid (#4). Seal the container and put in the refrigerator.

These were much better than the previous version.  For one thing we did not bust into them until they had been in the brine for about 10 days. They had a more assertive vinegar flavor and both cinnamon and star anise flavor came through. My wife was satisfied that this was the flavor she remembered from her childhood. The cooked egg white was firm but the texture of the yolk also changed as well. It too was firmer and had a mild pickled flavor. Next, my wife said (threatened?), to make deviled eggs from these pickled eggs.

Pickled eggs and other drinking snacks 卵の酢漬け、酒の肴

This was the evening line-up of small dishes we had one weekend. Bluefish in miso sauce (left back), pickled egg (right back) and fish cake (store bought) grilled in the toaster oven with soy sauce and grated ginger.

Among these dishes, pickled eggs are new.

This fish cakes were bought at our Japanese grocery store. They appeared locally made and are fresh not frozen. They come in a simple plastic container without any brand name. Compared to frozen fish cakes, these taste much better and have a nice consistency. Every time we see them at the Japanese grocery store, we get them.

This fish simmered in miso sauce was posted before. Instead of mackerel, I used blue fish. It came out almost identical and is a good way to cook blue fish. For this type of strong fish the combination of miso and ginger flavors works well.

Among these snacks, the pickled eggs were new. Since we often get caught with eggs in the refrigerator with an expiration date that just passed or was about to pass, we thought this might be a way to preserve them and buy a little more time until we got around to eating them. In addition, my wife grew up in rural Pennsylvania where pickled eggs are common and a significant part of a summer picnic. So she decided to make some. While she ate many pickled eggs in her youth, however, she never made any. The traditional PA Dutch pickled eggs are bright red. The color does not come from food coloring but from beets which are used to make the brine and are pickled along with the eggs. My wife knew from experience that beet juice is a great dye i.e. it gets into everything and is impossible to remove. For this reason she was reluctant to go with the traditional red egg and found a recipe for mustard pickled egg. This used turmeric which makes the eggs and the onions bright yellow. (Come to think of it, turmeric is a pretty stubborn stain to remove as well.)

Mustard pickled eggs.
Ingredients:
Hard boiled eggs, 4, peeled
Sweet onion such as Vidalia, medium, sliced in thin strips
2 cups water
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 Tbs salt
1/2 Tbs mustard seed
1 1/2 Tbs prepared mustard
1/2 tsp. turmeric

Directions:
Put eggs and onions in a glass jar.

Bring everything else to a boil.

Let cool a few minutes than pour over the eggs and onions. Make sure the eggs and onions are completely covered with the liquid. Seal the jar, put in the fridge and wait at least a week before tasting.

This should have been a hard boiled egg but this one is somewhere between soft and hard boiled.

Because of the turmeric, egg white became bright yellow.

These were good snacks to start the evening. The pickled eggs had great yellow color and a slight pickled mustard flavor but were otherwise rather bland. This was the first time I ever had pickled eggs and was surprised to find that the consistency of the cooked egg white got much firmer. Actually, the onion was the best part. I am sure my wife will tweak the recipe. She said next time she would reduce the amount of water so the vinegar would be stronger and suggested that maybe the eggs should have been left to marinate a bit longer. (We busted into them after only 5 days.)