Philadelphia (Philly) rolls "Hosomaki" 細巻きフィラデルフィアロール

Although I have posted  Philadelphia rolls (or Philly rolls) 6 years ago, it was a medium sized (chumaki 中巻) and the nori outside (omotemaki 表巻き). I also said in that post that this could be a thin roll with the rice outside (Hosomaki 細巻き and Uramaki 裏巻き) like California rolls. So this is exactly that version. The reason I made Philly rolls is that the type of smoked salmon we got from Vital Choice which was called "wild salmon lox" was sliced a bit too thick and did not have much of a smoked flavor so it didn’t work well with our usual smoked salmon dishes such as blini, smoked salmon and ikura dish. I made sandwiches using this lox with avocado and cucumber on croissants smeared with cream cheese one side and mayo on the other which was quite good. A few days later I made these Philly rolls for an ending "shime" 〆 dish in the evening. 

I made two rolls. The first one (upper row) came out better. For this, we made fresh rice and made the sushi rice using a Japanese cedar "hinoki" 檜 vessel  called "Hangiri" 飯切りor sushi-oke 寿司桶. We brought this so many years ago when we visited Kiso 木曽 but amazingly it still smells of Hinoki wood. In any case, this Philly roll was made exactly like California rolls but instead of crab meat and avocado, I used lox, cream cheese and cucumber. I also sprinkled the outside layer with white sesame as in California rolls. In this preparation, the lox from Vital Choice tasted great.

As a small side dish I served simmered tender octopus leg 蛸の軟らか煮 (shown below).

I also served cucumber asazuke 胡瓜の浅漬け with salt broth soaked sugar snap スナップ豌豆の塩びたし.

This was a rather large shime dish for us but it was very good and both of us managed to finish it. (Such a hardship…not!)

Watari bune Daiginjo 渡船純米大吟醸

This sake “Watari bune, junmai daiginjo” 渡船純米大吟醸 was a gift from a friend for a recent occasion. This is a really great sake with a slightly effervescent feel and fruity, crisp but very complex flavors. This should definitely be drunk cold. This sake is brewed by “Fuchu-homare” 府中誉 which is located in Ibaragi prefecture 茨城県. The sake rice or “sakamai”  酒米 used for this sake is also called “Watari bune” which is supposedly a very rare near-extinct sake rice which relatively recently has been revived. The famous and most popular sake rice “Yamada nishiki” 山田錦 is reportedly a descendant of this rice. Also the name “Watari bune”  渡船, which means a  “ferry” or “ferryboat”, is very fitting for sake from Ibaragi which is known for Tone river 利根川 and its estuaries criss crossing the flat delta before pouring into the Pacific ocean.This area also contains large lakes. (Such areas rich in water ways and lakes are called “Suigou”  水郷). Such topography would require use of ferries i.e. “Watari bune” to navigate the water ways.

In any case, a great sake calls for great “Tsumami” ツマミ or small sake snacks. We were lucky to get fresh unprocessed fresh “uni” sea urchin in salted water from Maruhide 丸秀 called “Ensui uni” 塩水ウニ. We also recently got frozen blocks of Bluefin tuna from Great-Alaska-Seafood. We served these items on recently acquired Japanese plates. The soy sauce in the small round plate is also a special “sashimi” soy sauce.   

I made the tuna three ways (two shown directly below. One came later). The first was straight sashimi (upper left in picture). The second was “Negi-toro” ネギトロ with slices of cucumber (lower left in picture). We enjoyed this negi-toro as a kind-of hand roll on a small sheet of nori (not shown) with the cucumber slices (shown).

This uni from Maruhide (shown upper right in the picture) is not processed with the usual “alum” and only soaked in salt water with salinity consistent with seawater. As far as I can tell, Maruhide is only source in the U.S. where we can get this. As an aside: my wife can sometimes taste the alum on uni. She immediately passes her portion to me when this happens. Not exactly a hardship for me, since I can’t taste alum. (She can also detect the alum used in some brands of baking powder).  The consistency of the uni in salt water is slightly softer than alum processed ones but it is absolute pure fresh uni. With just a little bit of wasabi and soy sauce and a sip of the sake, you cannot get anything better.

We needed a few more “Tsumami” to go with this sake. We had more tuna, this time “zuke” tuna 漬けマグロ, in which tuna slices are marinated in x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce for few hours so.  I served it with wakame and cucumber dressed in sumiso sauce 胡瓜とわかめの酢味噌あえ (left). Since my wife made blini a few days ago and we had Keta salmon ikura roe thawed, we made our usual “blini topped with cream cheese, smoked salmon and ikura” (right).

All these items are again perfect accompaniment for this wonderful sake.

Ikura from Vital Choice バイタルチョイスからのイクラ

 I am always looking out for alternative sources of sashimi items such as "ikura" salmon roe. Depending on the source, the quality and price vary a lot. Our Japanese grocery store almost always has it but the per ounce price is very high. Other sources often have Ikura but the roe are a smaller size with a smaller diameter.  We like salmon roe with a 5 mm diameter rather than the smaller ones. Sometimes the roe are identified as trout roe, but often the type is not specified so it is very difficult to know exactly what type of salmon roe we are getting. We learned "keta" or "chum" salmon roe fits our preferences best. Recently we have gotten frozen keta salmon roe from Vital Choice. It came as a package of three, 7 oz. glass jars. The price was about average, and the quality was quite good. The 7 oz jar size was also a good size for us because we could generally finish it in 5 days. We have prolonged the shelf life of ikura by adding a marinade. (I use a mixture of x4 concentrated 'mentsuyu" Japanese noodle sauce and sake). Since we used up three of the jars, I went back to order the same but the only choice at that time was a 2 lb. (almost 1 kg) tray. I thought that would be way too much for us to use up before it went bad unless we could somehow divide up the quantity into smaller portions. But the offer was too good to pass up so I took a chance and ordered it. Turned out the pack could be subdivided (see discussion below).

 Ikura can be used many different ways. The below is an appetizer of home-made blini, cream cheese, smoked salmon, ikura and chopped chives.

Another way we like it is as a topping for cold "chawan-mushi" Japanese savory egg custard.

The picture below shows how we received the package (#1). It was packed with dry ice and solidly frozen. Once I opened the lid, I saw the package was divided into 4 compartments. Each compartment was about 1/2 lb. or 8 oz). Fortunately for us, using a small plastic spatula, ikura in one compartment could easily be removed (#3). I vacuum packed three blocks (#4) and placed them in the freezer. I let the remaining block, thaw in the refrigerator for a few hours (#5).  Although the center was still solidly frozen, the peripheral portion started thawing and crumbling away from the still frozen section. I placed the crumbled portion into a separate plastic container with an airtight lid and put it back in the freezer. 

I left the remaining ikura in the refrigerator to thaw. The amount was about 1/4 lb (or 4 oz). It was just the perfect amount for us to use up in a few days. I refroze the portion which was semi-thawed (#6). Later I thawed this and it looked and tasted fine. So, buying 2 lbs of Ikura is very feasible…it was quite good, I might add. 

Salmon cake with rapini サーモンケーキ

 After we switched to grocery home delivery, we realized some of the items were different from the ones available at a physical store. One of them is a whole half filet of salmon with skin on (around 2.5 lbs.) which appears to be only available for home delivery. The price per pound is more reasonable compared to smaller filets available in the store. We like every part of the salmon even the skin particularly when cooked to crispiness.  Interestingly the salmon is not scaled when it arrives. So one of the first things I have to do is to scale it using a handy-dandy Japanese fish scaler. (I guess the grocery store reasons that most customers don’t like the skin. They just remove it and throw it away so why take the time to scale it.)  Another part of this type of fillet that we particularly like is the belly portion which we eat as a small hors d’oeuvre . We also like the main portion of the fillet dried in the fridge for a few days before panfrying it .  (Drying the salmon in the fridge was a technique my mother introduced to us. On one of our visits to Japan my mother offered to cook some salmon she dried with the enticing phrase “Totemo oishi WA” delivered with an emphatic nod of her head. Even my wife knew this meant, “it’s really good” and it was.) Drying the fish obviously removes some of the moisture and in so doing improves the flavor. 

I usually end up with several portions of salmon in irregular shape from both the belly and tail end of the fillet. I remove the skin and and make salmon cakes with these portions. I usually make 4 cakes which are perfect for lunch or snack. This time, I served this as a small dish to go with red wine. I heated up the cakes in a frying pan, added blanched and chopped rapini and made sauce with brown butter and lemon juice. To make it more interesting, I added yuzu-kosho 柚子胡椒 which went remarkably well with this dish.

I followed this with fried shrimp heads  reheated in the toaster oven (this was a part of take out sashimi/sushi combination from Tako Grill the night before)  and the usual simmered root vegetables I make (lotus root, burdock root, carrot, bamboo shoot, and shiitake mushroom (dried). The greens are blanched sugar snap in salt broth.

Salmon cakes

Ingredients: (make 4 small salmon cakes)
150 gram salmon meat, half finely chopped (to hold the cakes together) and another half coarsely chopped (to add texture), amount is variable, whatever I have when preparing the whole half filet of the salmon.
1 small shallot (or onion) finely chopped (#1)
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and deveined, chopped finely (#1, optional)
2 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps finely chopped (optional, this time I did not have fresh shiitake)
2-3 tbs of panko Japanese bread crumbs (#4, adjust the amount based on the consistency of the mixture)
1 tbs mayonnaise (#2)
1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard (#2)
Lemon juice from half a lemon
1 tbs chopped fresh dill (#2), I use the dill I cleaned and froze)
Olive oil for frying the vegetables and the salmon cakes

Directions:

Sauté the onion, pepper and shiitake mushroom in olive oil, season with salt and pepper, let it cool down before mixing with other ingredients.

Mix the remaining ingredients except for the panko (#3), add panko to adjust the consistency of the cakes (#4).

Make round disks (#5) and cook with olive oil in a frying pan, several minutes on each sides until brown and cooked through (#6).

This is a good dish to have. The leftover cakes can be warmed up in a frying pan or in a toaster oven. You could make some kind of sauce as I did here or just a squeeze of lemon juice. They go great with red wine.

Uni shutou with salmon roe 雲丹酒盗いくら入り

The last time we bought fresh uni from Maruhide 丸秀, we also got a few “uni shutou” 雲丹酒盗including one with salmon roe 雲丹酒盗いくら入り which was a new choice for us. So, one weekend evening, I served this with our usual squid shiokara イカの塩辛. I also served chawanmushi 茶碗蒸し and simmered Kabocha squash カボチャの煮物. These were nice starters.

Left in the picture below is uni shutou with ikura. Obviously, this is a great combination and we, especially my wife, loves uni-ikura donburi ウニいくら丼. Right is our usual squid shiokara. Both are perfect for sipping sake, although you do not need much, just a bit of taste to go with sake.

I served this chawanmushi cold. I often top this with ikura or uni or both but not this time. I made the dish with shrimp and chicken in addition to shiitake. I added scallion and sugar-snap towards the end of cooking.

The picture below shows simmered Japanese kabocha squash カボチャの煮物. It’s a classic.

This was great start of the evening and the combination of uni and ikura shutou is definitely a favorite.

New Year 2022 Jan 3 Salmon three ways 一月三日鮭尽し

We have been enjoying the items from the Sushi Taro osechi box. After indulging in a serving of wonderful dishes from the box which go perfectly with sake,  I served this plate as the “second course”.  The red and white fish cake or "kouhaku kamaboko" 紅白蒲鉾 (upper left in the picture) came from the osechi box (they were the last four slices). I made a deep pocket in each and stuffed the pink one with the leftover Maruhide sea urchin shutou 丸秀雲丹の酒盗 topped with a dab of wasabi. I topped the white one with Ikura marinated in soy sauce イクラの醤油ずけ topped with strips of nori.

The remaining items were all different salmon dishes which I prepared for New Year. Starting from right upper, clock wise, is salmon nanban 鮭の南蛮漬け、Russian marinated salmon 鮭のロシア漬け, and finally salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻き. These three salmon dishes all have different textures and flavors. For the salmon nanban, the salmon was dredged in flour and fried before being marinaded in sweet vinegar which gave it a bit firmer texture. The Russian marinated salmon started out as thin strips of raw salmon marinated in sake, vinegar and oil without any sweetness. This year I something different. I added dijon mustard to the marinade and emulsified it with the “motor boat” emersion blender. As a result the oil didn’t separate or solidify. Also, the salmon did not “over cook”  and had a lovely soft texture. Finally the salmon kelp roll was simmered for sometime in seasoning broth, producing a yet different soft and moist texture. These are wonderful to enjoy with sips of sake.

Happy New Year 2022 明けましておめでとう 2022.

Happy New Year 2022! The pandemic still persists with the Omicron variant making it debut and spreading so quickly just when we thought things were starting to come under control and using a quote from the movie Jaws "it was safe to go back in the water again".  In any case, both my wife and I took all the precautions; being vaccinated and boosted. We sincerely hope we can get past this soon.

This is the year of tiger according to Chinese/Japanese zodiac signs. We thought we had a larger tiger figurine but these are what we had. The two shown below look somewhat like cats rather than tigers.

The one shown here really looks like a tabby cat. It is made of carved wood and is one of a full set of the 12 zodiac figures we got in Kyoto on one of our trips to Japan. This year, I decided not to get "Kagami-mochi" 鏡餅 new years decoration since we generally do not finish the round mochi inside. 

When it comes to traditional Japanese New Year food, we look forward to and revel in the routine (or some may call it a rut) that we've developed over the years. First off is the expectation of the wonderful goodies contained in the Sushi Taro Osechi 寿司太郎お節 on 12/31/21 or "oomisoka" 大晦日 in Japanese.  Picking it up on New Year eve is an excursion we generally look forward to, although it is a bit of an arduous drive going into town and back. It was especially so this year when we discovered various parts of the route were closed to cars that day and only open to bike traffic. But it was worth it. We will be hitting the Osechi box this evening. We established the tradition of having our usual breakfast with cappuccino and the choice of various holiday breads such as stollen or panettone for the first day of the new year or "Gantan" 元旦. Then, for lunch, we have the more traditional Japanese New Year soup or "Ozouni" お雑煮 as well as some of the auspicious foods served for the New Year as shown in the next picture.

The next picture is a close-up assortment of "good luck" foods I served.

Some came from the Osechi box such as the fish cake 紅白蒲鉾 (#3) (since I did not get any red and white fish cakes this year), small fish じゃこの有馬煮 (#1), shrimp 小海老甘露煮 (#2) and black beans 黒豆 (#5). This year I was lucky to be able to get salted herring roe or Kazuniko 数の子 from the grocery section at Tako Grill. The amount was not too much and just right. I prepared kazunoko marinated in sake lee and miso かずのこの粕味噌漬け(#4). I also served salmon kelp rolls 鮭の昆布巻き and the datemaki 伊達巻 New Year's omelet roll (#7) I like to make based on my Mother's recipe. I also served salmon "Russian" marinade 鮭のロシア漬け which again was something special my mother used to make. I made it some days ago, so it had cured enough to eat. I also served simmered root vegetables including the symbolic "renkon" lotus root, "kobo" burdock root, bamboo shoot and carrot (#9).

Now the "ozouni" New Year soup. New Year is the rare occasion when I use this genuine Japanese lacquerware bowl that my mother gave us many many years ago.

Although you can not see it, the "mochi" 餅 rice cake is placed in a deep fried tofu or "abura-age" 油揚げpouch. I usually seal the pouch with a kanpyo 干瓢 (or gourd peel) tie. But in recent years I have not been able to find kanpyo and I used up what I had for the salmon kelp rolls. So this year, I had to improvise by blanching a whole scallion and using that to tie the tofu pouch. Other items in the soup included shrimp (from Great Alaska seafood), chicken tenderloin from some sous vide chicken breast I made, and vegetables including shiitake mushroom, daikon, gobo, and carrot. For the green, I used rapini flower buds. The shrimp was particularly good. I poached them gently in the broth with the shells on for a few minutes, took them out and shelled them before placing them on the top of the soup.

As usual, I served "daikon namasu" 大根なます with "ikra"  salmon roe いくら and a slice of boiled octopus leg 茹蛸.

Another salmon dish is sautéed salmon in sweet vinegar or 鮭の南蛮漬け.

Although this was lunch, no New Year feast is complete without the symbolic libation of sake (Koshi-no-homare hiyaoroshi 越の誉　冷やおろし). We toasted 2022 with one glass each to commemorate the New Year. This was a good New Year lunch covering many good luck foods. Let's hope it portends similar fortune for the rest of the year.

The 4th of July Pacific saury barbecue さんまの塩焼き、焼きおにぎり

 This year, instead of celebrating the 4th of July (Independence day) by firing up the Weber grill, we decided to fire up our ”Hibachi*" or "charcoal konro" 炭火コンロ. And, instead of grilling chicken, we decided to grill some pacific sauries or "sanma" さんま which had been hanging out in the freezer for some time. (My wife refers to these as "torpedo fish"). In the past, “sanma” which is a very bony fish was not considered “prime” eating and was very cheap. But in recent years, they are getting scarce and much more expensive.  According to the label on the package this group of three came from "Taiwan". Traditionally, fresh sanma is cooked with the innards intact but I cleaned these fish after thawing. I had posted and pontificated about sanma previously.  I salted them before grilling and served them with grated Daikon 大根おろし. We even found an appropriate long oval dish serving dish which appropriately accommodated this long heads-on fish as shown in the next picture.

*Digression alert: A Japanese style small charcoal-fired grill is called "hibachi" in the U.S. (or may be elsewhere also). But in Japan "hibachi" 火鉢 is not used for cooking but as a source of heat used in winter for warmth in traditional Japanese rooms. (Not in Hokkaido because it is too cold and an hibachi is not an adequate source of heat). The grills used for cooking are traditionally called "shichirin" 七輪. The modern name would be "charcoal or sumibi-konro".  In the old days, if grilling fish at home,  you would do this outside using a "shichirin" and charcoal fire. More recently, however, most of Japanese cook tops have a built-in fish grill which prevents smoking while grilling fish making "shichirin" obsolete. But, in my opinion, charcoal grilled fish is still the best!

Since the fish is oily, it makes a quite a good amount of smoke but cooks rather quickly.

Whenever we fire up the Japanese charcoal grill, my wife asks me to make grilled rice balls. I usually make a simple rice ball without any filling but this time she specifically asked for stuffing- mayo and mustard dressed salmon. So, I obliged. Since grilled rice ball takes much longer to cook than the fish, I started grilling the rice balls first while we enjoyed several small appetizers and cold sake. I posted how to make perfect grilled rice balls before. As far as we are concerned the best way to cook a rice ball is over a charcoal fire. Such perfection is displayed in the next picture. The high heat sears the outer layer into a toasty brown crust enhanced by the taste of the soy sauce mixture brushed on while it is cooking. The inside is soft and moist. The addition of the salmon stuffing further infuses a mayo/mustard/salmon/salty flavor. 

Once the rice balls were finished, I set them on edge over a cooler part of the grill to keep them warm while I grilled the fish. Our holiday meal is shown in all its splendor in the next picture.

Sanma are extremely boney fish and my wife is not as good at spitting out fish bones as I am. (This was demonstrated early in our marriage when I had to remove a fish bone from the back of my wife’s throat using a long nose plier.) But she is much better at deboning a fish with a knife than I am. So although “bone-out” is not quite the traditional way of serving "sanma", in the interest of safety, that is how we served it.  Seeing the pile of lovely fish meat next to the pile of recently removed bones somehow reminded me of the "Meguro-no sanma" story 目黒のサンマ which, again, I pontificated on before. In any case, this was very enjoyable holiday celebration; grilled sanma with grated daikon and soy sauce followed by grilled stuffed rice balls (we each finished one. My wife thinks the remaining rice balls will nicely heat up in our toaster oven. We will see).

Salmon "ruibe" frozen sashimi 鮭のルイベ

One evening, we wanted to have one more appetizer to go with the cold sake we were enjoying. I remembered that we had frozen sashimi-grade salmon from Catalina Offshore products in the freezer but it was a one pound piece and would take too long to defrost. Then, it occurred to me that we could have "ruibe" ルイベ which is frozen raw salmon shaven into thin pieces to eat as a kind of sashimi. This dish is supposedly derived from the way the indigenous people who lived in Hokkaido 北海道 known as "Ainu" アイヌ used to eat salmon. Since I am originally from Hokkaido, I was familiar with this dish. In the “old” days salmon harvested in the fall could be stored frozen during the hard cold Hokkaido winter without the need for modern freezers. My understanding is that the Ainu people just shaved pieces off the frozen salmon and ate the shaved pieces. (Hopefully, the long and deep freezing in the cold Hokkaido winter was sufficient to kill the parasite endogenous to salmon making it safe to eat raw.) The salmon we had was sashimi-grade and frozen, (also from Norway ??) so it is safe to eat. Thus the only question was "Could I, in fact, shave pieces off the frozen salmon?" So I tried it using a heavy chef's knife. Amazingly, I could as shown in the next picture. 

 When I served this it was still frozen but quickly melting on the edges. We dipped the slices in soy sauce with wasabi. It quickly melts when held momentarily in the mouth. Initially it is crunchy ice coldness followed by the slow unfolding of fresh salmon taste; quite a unique and interestingly pleasant sensation not previously experienced elsewhere. We found this is a very good way to enjoy salmon sashimi “on the fly” without having to thaw it ahead of time.

The one pound frozen salmon sashimi block from Catalina tends to be too big for us to eat in one sitting so once it is thawed I am hard pressed to come up with multiple ways to serve it. (Eating the whole thing as sashimi demonstrates that it is possible to have “too much of a good thing”.)  I had contemplated cutting the large piece into smaller manageable sizes but didn’t think I could cut through the block while it was still frozen. After having successfully sliced the frozen salmon for the ruibe, however, I tried to see if I could divide up the frozen salmon block. Surprising success!! Using a heavy chef's knife and warming the blade a few times in hot water, I did cut the frozen salmon into two pieces. I vacuum packed both pieces and placed them back in the freezer. This was an additional side benefit of my experiment with ruibe. Now I can divide the frozen sashimi salmon so we can thaw the amount reasonable for one sitting.

Three appetizers with two new ones 新しいお通し2種

 I served these three appetizers one evening. The dish shown on the left in the first picture is my stand-by fried salmon in sweet vinegar or “salmon nanban” 鮭の南蛮漬け. The new ones are the one in the center “dried persimmon and daikon in sweet vinegar” 干し柿の大根なます and the one on the right, “udon noodle salad with peanut butter dressing” うどんのピーナッツバター和え.

The second picture is a close up of the dried persimmon and daikon in sweet vinegar sauce. This is loosely based on my compiled version of various recipes. I actually used the leftover marinade and vegetables from the previous batch of salmon nanban. (If I made this from scratch, I would make it close to the traditional New Year dish “daikon namasu” 大根なます and just add strips of dried persimmon). For a change, I also added roasted and ground sesame (fine grind but not paste) and a small amount of dark sesame oil. The combined taste of sweet and sour with added sesame flavor and refreshing daikon went well with the soft and sweet dried persimmon. Over time the persimmon got softer in the marinade. This is a good refreshing dish.

These are the ingredients and directions to make this dish from scratch (not reusing the vegetable and marinade of the salmon nanban).

Ingredients: 
2 dried persimmon, stem end and seeds removed and cut into strips.
1 inch segment of daikon, peeled, and cut into buttons then julienned.
Carrot and/or celery julienned (optional)
1/2 cup sweet vinegar (1/2 rice vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar or 2:1 ratio, pinch of salt, heat until dissolved. Then let it cool)
1 Tbs roasted white sesame seeds, fine ground (I used a Japanese mortar and pestle or suribachi.
1/2 tsp dark sesame oil

Directions:
Salt the daikon pieces and knead, then let it stand for 5-10 minutes.
Add all the ingredients and the sweet vinegar.
Let it marinate for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

The next dish is a variation of sesame noodle salad. Since we had home-made peanut butter, instead of sesame paste or “neri-goma” ねりごま, I used the peanut butter. This was very similar but different because of the rather intense peanut flavor. I have not made the sesame noodle salad for sometime and never made it with peanut butter. This is a good salad as an appetizer, I should make it more often.

Ingredients: (amount is all arbitrary)
Cooked thin udon noodle
Carrot, julienned
Scallion, sliced thinly diagonally
Sesame seeds for garnish (or crushed peanuts)

For Dressing:
Peanut butter, soy sauce, and rice vinegar in 2:1:1 ratio
Dash of dark peanut oil
Sugar and sriracha to taste
Minced ginger and garlic to taste
Add warm water if the consistency is too thick

Directions:
Cut the noodles into 1-2 inch lengths (optional but for ease of eating)
Dress with the peanut dressing.
Garnish with sesame seeds or crush peanuts.

Four appetizers in new small bowls 御通し4種類と新しい小鉢

We have a good number of small Japanese-style bowls and plates but for some reason my relationship with breakable dishes ends up with them getting broken every-now-and-then. So I am always on the look out for potential replacement small Japanese style dishes/bowls. (Also, since enjoyment of food is visual in addition to taste, I just like different bowls in which to present what I make to complete the entire experience). I found these small bowls on Amazon. They came in four different patterns/colors in a set of four (i.e. total of 16 bowls) . I ended up getting all 4 sets. So, this is the first time I used this set to serve 4 appetizers. The first picture, from left to right, are "salmon nanban" 鮭の南蛮漬け, "hijiki seaweed stir-fry" ひじきと油揚げの炒めのも and Japanese "dashi-maki" だし巻き卵 omelet, "Wood ear"* mushroom, cucumber and wakame seaweed sunomono" キクラゲ、ワカメ、胡瓜の酢の物, and  "shredded chicken tenderloin and asparagus in sesame dressing" 鳥のささみとアスパラの胡麻和え. 

*Wood ear mushroom is so-called because it grows out of the surface of wood like an ear sticking out. Japanese call it "ki-kurage" meaning "jelly fish of the wood" because the crunchy texture is similar to dried and salted edible jelly fish. It is interesting, however, when it is written in "kanji" ideograms, it is  木耳 which means wood 木 ear 耳. There is no way you can pronounce 木耳 as "ki-kurage" but the meaning of these two ideograms indeed mean "wood ear".

The second picture is the salmon dish I usually make, fried and marinated in sweet vinegar with vegetables. In order to serve multiple appetizers, it is necessary to pre-make a number of them and have them last long enough to serve over several days. Due to the vinegar this dish lasts a few weeks in the refrigerator. So this salmon dish is a good one to serve as an appetizer. Perfect with sake but not with wine. The pattern of this bowl is not classic Japanese but nice—also the color complements the color of the salmon.

The third picture of hijiki seaweed is a dish that also lasts for some time in the fridge. I served it with Japanese "dashimaki" omelet which goes well with the seaweed dish both visually (yellow and black) and by taste (sweet and salty). The pattern of the bowl is classic Japanese wave pattern.

This is a variation of my usual "sunomono" dish. Besides cucumber and wakame, I used wood ear mushroom. We can get this mushroom usually dried. One of the problems with hydrating the dried items like this is after hydration, the volume increases much more than expected. This was a case here and I used wood ear in several dishes including fried rice for lunch one day. In any case for this dish, I cut the wood ear into thin strips like jelly fish. I also added ground sesame and sesame oil in the dressing. The wood ear really adds crunch exactly like jelly fish.

I froze sous vide chicken breast a few months ago and decided to thaw one. It came out exactly like it was just cooked. I made the chicken salad I usually make which was really good but I kept the tenderloin part of the sous vide chicken for this "goma-ae" 胡麻和え dish. I tore the tenderloin along the meat fibers to make thin strands. I dressed this with sesame dressing ("nerigoma" 練りごま sesame paste, roasted and ground sesame, sugar, rice vinegar and soy sauce. I kept this dressing in the fridge which made it stiff. So I added small amount of warm water to loosen the dressing) with blanched asparagus (stem cut into thin pieces at a slant and garnished with tips of the asparagus). The meat was so juicy and tender.

These small dishes are nothing special but I make slight variations which make it interesting and adds to the enjoyment of sake.

One spoonful appetizers and more

These are appetizers I served one evening. Not particularly new but we had "uni" sea urchin from Maruhide 丸秀 a day before, so my one spoonful appetizers a.k.a baby food for adults got a topping of ikura with chopped perilla (for cauliflower purée) and uni with broccoli florets (for broccoli purée).

I also added three small appetizers  which I served in small lidded bowls we got from Nishiki market in Kyoto 京都錦市場. We had Dassai 45 獺祭４５with this.

This is salmon "Nanban" 鮭の南蛮漬け (fried salmon marinated in sweet vinegar with carrot and celery).

This is salmon Russian marinade 鮭のロシア漬け topped with vinegar cucumber slices.

For veggies, I served blanched sugar snap soaked in salt broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし and skinned Campari tomato.

Uni from Maruhide (both regular and in salt water) is really good. My one spoonful appetizer definitely got "kicked up a notch" with the addition of uni.

A spoonful appetizer 一口スプーン前菜

My wife gave me some new plates and bowls for Christmas which required us to rearrange things to make a room for them. During these activities, we found spoons my wife got for me some time ago which were meant to serve a just one-swallow/bite appetizer.  Since they newly resurfaced, I promptly tried a one-swallow/bite appetizer using the spoon. The handles of the spoons are bent so that they can sit on the plate without a handle sticking over the edge. I served this with the last of New Year’s salmon kelp roll and Russian marinaded salmon.

This was just a whim-of-the moment dish. Since I had Cauliflower purée which I made a few days ago, I just put a small amount on the spoon and topped it with soy sauce  marinated “ikura” salmon roe and micro green perilla from our window sill herb garden. This combination worked well. We had this with cold sake and it went very well.

This was quite good. Although our initial cauliflower purée was made with cauliflower cooked in milk, recently I have been making in an abbreviated quick method.

Ingredients:
One small head of cauliflower, florets separated
1-2 tbs unsalted butter
1 cup warm milk

salt to taste

Directions:
Steam the cauliflower using a basket steamer for 10-15 minutes until very soft.
Place the cauliflower in a plastic container for immersion blender

Add 2/3 of the milk and blend using an immersion blender in high-speed
Add more milk for the nice silky consistency if needed.
Add the butter in thick pats
Season with salt and blend until very smooth and silky

This is wonderful way to prepare cauliflower. This purée can be used in many different ways. The smooth texture of the cauliflower purée was a great contrast to the burst of saltiness from the ikura.