Yakitori donburi 焼き鳥丼

Yakitori donburi 焼き鳥丼

This a quick "donburi" dish using left over "Yakotori". "Donburi" 丼, which is often shorten to "don", refers to a large (relative to a regular rice bowl) Japanese bowl, like the one seen below. It can also refer to the food placed in the bowl. The basic construction of a "donburi" dish is a bed of cooked rice with whatever toppings may be available accompanied by a small amount of savory sauce. This is a very typical "whole-meal-in-a-bowl" affair. Many Japanese fast food chain restaurants are specialized in this type of dish. Am

ong the most popular are "oyako donburi" 親子丼, which is a combination of chicken and egg  ("oyako" means "mother and offspring", for obvious reason), "gyudon" 牛丼 which is made with small cut-up pieces of seasoned beef, "ten-don" 天丼 which is topped with "tempura", and "katsu-don" カツ丼 which features breaded and deep fried pork cutlet called "tonkatsu". Although I have not tried it, "Yakitori donburi" is reportedly served as a lunch item in a famous Yakitori restaurant in Tokyo. This dish appears to place freshly made Yakitori (2-5 skewer-worth depending on the price) on the bed of rice with some Yakitori "tare" sauce.

When we make Yakitori at home,  we usually will have a good amount of left-overs. When I have thigh or liver left over from a barbecue, I make my version of Yakitori donburi. (I save the left-over barbecued wings and drumettes to re-heat in the toaster oven to eat crispy and hot by themselves). If I have grilled vegetables I add them to the donburi as well.

This time, I used left-over Yakitori liver,  thinly sliced onion, shiitake  mushroom, and greens (here, I used arugula but spinach, broccoli, green beans, snow pea all work well). In a small frying pan, arrange the ingredients except for fast cooking greens such as spinach and arugula. Add a mixture of mirin, dashi, and soy sauce in about equal amounts (or use a commercial Japanese noodle sauce diluted with water). Please make sure that the broth is not too salty since it will reduce during cooking). The liquid should just barely cover the ingredients, cover the pan and simmer until the onion is soft and cooked (10 minutes). Add the greens to cook just for few minutes. At this point, the broth should be reduced to a small amount. My wife likes more broth/sauce than I do. I like just a small amount of strong tasting sauce to moisten the underlying rice rather than enough sauce to make the rice too wet. It's a personal preference, however, and the initial strength and amount of the broth need to be adjusted accordingly. Slide the topping and sauce on the bed of hot rice. I sprinkle "sansho" powder which is a Japanese version of finely ground Sichuan pepper.

Lox and Ikura "donburi" bowl 燻製鮭ロックスとイクラ丼

After making Philly rolls, I used the left over lox from Vital Choice to make a donburi for lunch.  I made the lunch in the form of a Japanese meal set or "teishoku" 定食. I served the lox/ikura donburi with miso soup made with wakame ワカメ, abura-age 油揚げ and scallion as well as cucumber asazuke 胡瓜の浅漬け

I made sushi rice from the rice we cooked a night before. I microwaved the rice first. I also warmed up sushi vinegar in the microwave and mixed them together in a warmed bowl and let it stand for a few minutes covered. I placed the sushi rice in the bottom of the small bowl. Besides the lox, I topped the bowl with scrambled egg, salmon salad (in the center), cucumber and wakame with sumiso dressing ワカメと胡瓜の酢味噌あえ (leftover), "ikura" イクラ salmon roe and garnished with thin strips of nori or "Kizami-nori" 刻み海苔.

The main ingredient "lox" is mostly hidden so I dug it out for the picture (below).

So this was quite a luxurious lunch and we were good and did not succumb to having sake with it and just enjoyed this salmon "oya-ko*" donburi 鮭の親子丼.

*”Oya-ko” means parent and offspring. The classic of this type of donburi bowl is chicken meat and egg on rice. The combination of smoked salmon (lox) and salmon roe could be also considered “Oya-ko” donburi. 

Beef Donburi 牛丼もどき

Sometimes the standard portion of beef you will get in the US can be rather large, either at a restaurant or at a market. I bought a good sized NY strip steak the other day. It was almost 1 pound and I was told by the butcher that was considered one portion! I thought one portion would be enough for the two of us but we ended up using it in three additional dishes (aside from enjoying it as a steak on the first day). This was the third dish I made from the steak. I did not follow any recipe. This is a cross between beef donburi or gyu-don 牛丼 and roast beef donburi ローストビーフ丼. Instead of a raw egg, I topped it with a soft poached egg. I added fresh corn and spinach since I happened to have them available. 

The yolk was almost totally runny but the egg white was cooked (Of course I used pasteurized eggs from Davidoson).

Again, I did not measure anything so this is not a recipe. I started with Japanese dashi broth (Bonito and kelp), added mirin, sugar and soy sauce to make a rather strong sweet and salty simmering liquid. I added thinly sliced onion and let it cook until the onion was translucent. I added fresh corn kernels (leftover from making shrimp balls) and spinach and cooked it until the spinach wilted (about 1 minute). At this point, the simmering sauce was a bit reduced too much so I added a small amount of hot water (from my InstaHot) and re-tasted it. 

I sliced the NY strip streak thinly which was cooked medium rare. I placed on the top of the cooked vegetables and placed the lid and let it sit for 1 minutes to warm it up (not to cook). I placed the vegetables with the simmering liquid (it was just right amount of two servings) on the top of warm rice (I used microwaved previously frozen rice for this) as seen in above picture.

I covered the surface with warmed steak slices. Meanwhile I poached eggs (using pasteurized Davidson eggs) and top each donburi. We broke the yolk and let it mingle with sauce and meat. This dish was not roast beef don (which is usually served with Japanese style onion sauce) and flavor is more similar to gyu-don. This was our lunch on our off day and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Uni-Ikura donburi うにいくら丼

When I posted Eki-ben 駅弁 or station bento box, I mentioned my wife was disappointed because she could not get her favorite eki-ben from Hakodate; they are "Ikura bento" イクラ弁当 and "Uni-Ikura bento" ウニイクラ弁当 because our train connection to Sapporo was very tight due to the delay of our train to Hakodate. We did not have a time to buy eki-ben in Hakodate 函館.  After we came back to the U.S., she lamented the fact that she could not have  "Ikura and Uni bento". So, to appease her, I got uni (fresh) and ikura (frozen) from Catalina offshore products and made her Uni-ikura donburi.

The picture below is what she could have gotten in Hakodate but she did not.

(from https://www.jr-shop.hakodate.jp/mikado/product/product01.html).

This is what she got after coming home.

Since this was after eating some other goodies including toro sashimi トロ刺身 also from Catalina, I made a small donburi.

Ikura: I first thaw Ikura in the refrigerator over night. I then added a mixture of sake and soy sauce (equal amount), mixed and let it sit in the refrigerator over night in a sealed plastic container. The ikura swelled up absorbing the seasoning by the next day.

Uni: This is straight from the tray of California Gold uni from Catalina.

I first put the "sushi meshi" 寿司飯 on the bottom of the bowl, I then scattered thin strips of nori. I then topped the rice with uni and seasoned ikura. I could have added golden thread omelet or "kinshiran" 金糸卵.

As a consolation prize, this was not too bad. My wife said she was quite thrilled and satisfied to finally get her Uni-ikura donburi.

Miso flavored ground pork donburi 豚肉味噌丼

I frequently purchase pork tenderloin. Although I sometimes make "Tonkatsu" トンカツor "Hirekatsu" ヒレカツ from it, my most common way of cooking it is to rub it with a combination spices (the combination changes frequently but the most common ones are either chopped fresh rosemary with salt and pepper or a mixture of smoked Spanish paprika, cumin, cinnamon, black pepper, and salt). I then bake it in a low-temperature oven (350F convection oven for 30 minutes) or grill it on the Weber grill. When I prep the tenderloin, I usually cut off the head and tail portions so that the rest of the tenderloin will be a uniform size and cook evenly.  I use these trimmings for many dishes but I most often hand chop them into ground pork. This is one of the dishes I made using pork tenderloin trimmings.



This is a variation of meat "soboro" 肉そぼろ. I posted one with chicken and soy sauce flavor. This one is pork with miso flavor for a change. I used this one night as a topping for cubes of warm tofu or 肉味噌豆腐 and from the leftovers, I made this donburi dish 肉味噌丼.



I just placed a runny yolk poached egg ( I used Pasteurized shell eggs) in the center of the bowl with warm cooked rice in it and then surrounded the egg with miso-flavored ground pork. I garnished it with chopped chives.

Ingredients:
Ground pork (Probably about half pound), miso (4 tbs), sugar (1 tbs) mirin (3 tbs) and sake (2 tbs), scallion (finely chopped, 4 stalks), ginger (finely chopped to taste) and Japanese single flavored red pepper flakes (to taste) .

The ratio of the meat to the sauce is rather arbitrary and depends of how you are going to use it. For a donburi dish, you may want to have a larger quantity and thinner sauce. For topping, you may want the sauce to be a bit drier. The amount of sweetness is also up to your taste.

I first cooked the ground pork in a frying pan with a small amount of vegetable oil (or sesame oil if you so prefer). Once the color changed, I took it off the heat and set aside.

In the same frying pan, I added more vegetable oil and sautéed the chopped ginger until fragrant (you can also add garlic here). I mixed the miso, sugar, mirin and sake in a small bowl and poured it into the frying pan. When the sauce heated up, I added the red pepper flakes and the meat. I constantly stirred on medium heat until the sauce thickened to my liking. I let it cool and kept it in a sealed container in the refrigerator for later use.

For this dish, I took the miso flavored ground pork which I made several days ago out of the refrigerator. I heated it up in a small sauce pan. The sauce was not enough and too thick for this dish so I added a mixture of miso, mirin and sake to make more sauce.

My wife is not particularly fond of the flavor of miso, red pepper and ground pork for some reason. The sauce was not too hot but she added a small mount of yogurt to hers. The combination of freshly cooked rice with salty, nutty, sweet miso flavor which were mixed with egg yolk is pretty good, at least, for me. We had this one as a "shime" 〆 or ending dish of the evening and was quite satisfying.

Marinated Salmon and salmon roe “Oyako” rice bowl 鮭のマリネといくらの親子丼

I still had some leftover Russian marinated salmon from the New Year. One evening I made this small "donburi" 丼 as an ending dish. In Japanese culinary parlance, "Oyako" 親子, meaning parents and offspring, denotes dishes in which both offspring (eggs) and parent (meat) are used in the same dish.  The most common is a combination of egg and chicken in a donburi called "Oyako donburi" 親子丼. Another rendition is the combination of salmon (grilled, cold smoked, or sashimi) and salmon roe "Sake Oyako donduri". Since I had marinated salmon and I prepared Ikura in sake and soy sauce a few days ago, I came up with this dish.



I just made vinegared rice, added nori strips and julienned perilla leaves, I then placed Russian marinated salmon and onion and topped it with Ikura in soy sauce and sake.

The combination of saltiness with vinegar flavor both from the rice and the marinated salmon works well.

Seasoned fish "soboro" donburi 鯛のそぼろ丼

We had this as a lunch one weekend. This is a mini-"donduri" rice bowl ミニ丼 made with the last of the leftovers from the Sushi Taro osechi box. I made a similar dish before. The osechi box included a small "tai" red fish 小鯛姿焼き which is basically a symbolic dish for the new year. The fish does not have much of the meat and taste rather mild. So rather than just eat it, I removed the meat and made "soboro" そぼろ. I also used "jako" arima-ni" ジャコの有馬煮 in this donburi. I served this with a clear soup made of fish meat ball  (from mackerel) and tofu さばのつみれ汁.

To add colors and taste, I also added scrambled egg and green beans. The green beans were blanched, cut into small pieces and sautéed in butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. The scrambled egg was seasoned with sugar and salt.

The "tai" soboro is visible on the left and the Jako arima-ni on the right.

The picture below shows the mackerel fishball soup. I added snow peas, shiitake mushroom, chopped scallion and Yuzu skin.

Fish soboro 魚のそぼろ
"Soboro" is a type of Japanese dish in which finely minced meat (chicken, pork or beef) or fish is braised with seasoning (soy sauce and mirin or sake) until almost dry. The soboro is usually used as a condiment for rice or used to make donburi by putting it on top of the rice.

I just removed the meat from the small red fish and tore the meat into small pieces. I braised it with soy sauce and mirin (about 2:1ratio) until also mostly dry. I tasted it towards the end of cooking and added more soy sauce. The seasoning is totally arbitrary but, as a condiment for rice, you may want rather strong soy sauce/salty flavor. To balance with "Jako" arima-ni, I also added sansho powder 山椒 at the end.

I microwaved frozen rice (it was frozen in a special Japanese container for rice. I just opened the steam hole and microwaved it). I placed the rice in the bowl, arranged fish soboro, Jako arima-ni, scrambled egg and green beans on top.

This was quite satisfying lunch and went well with the soup.

Parent-offspring (chicken and egg) bowl 親子丼

This was a "shime" 〆 dish I served one evening. Chicken and egg bowl or "Oyako donburi" 親子丼 is a classic "donburi" or one bowl dish. It sounds a bit gruesome when it was translated literally into English. Albeit less common, the combination of salmon and salmon roe donburi also falls into this category of "parent-offspring" bowl.

For 2 servings, I used chicken thighs (2, deboned, skin removed and cut into bite size), small onion (1, halved and thinly sliced), shimeji mushroom (root end cut and divided, or fresh shiitake mushroom stem removed, arbitrary amount or "tekiryou" 適量), some kind of green (spinach is most commonly used, here I used baby arugula, again, an arbitrary amount) and eggs (two, I used one brown and one pasteurized shell eggs for the reason you will see below).

Broth: I just used instant dashi granules dissolved in hot water (half cup), I added mirin and soy sauce (1 tbs each). You would like to have the broth a bit stronger than a soup but not as strong as a dipping sauce. I tasted and added a bit more soy sauce.

In two non-stick small (8 inch) frying pans on a low flame, I poured the broth and arranged the onion and mushroom. I put on the lids and let it simmer for 5 minutes or until the onion was almost cooked. I then added the chicken and let it cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the chicken was just cooked through. I added the greens and poured the beaten brown egg over it (divided between two pans). I put the lids back on and let it simmer for 2-3 more minutes or until the egg is almost completely cooked (image below), I turned off the fire and poured the beaten pasteurized shell egg over everything and put back the lids letting the pans steep for 1 -2 more minutes. (The beaten pasteurized egg should not be completely cooked).

I slid everything onto a bowl of warm cooked rice (I used leftover frozen rice, microwaved). By this time only a small amount of the broth remained.

This is best when the egg is semi cooked (or "hanjuku" 半熟). This is the reason, I added the beaten pasteurized egg after I cut the flame. This dish is a classic comfort food and perfect for lunch, dinner or "shime" 締め.

Sea Urchin from Maruhide 丸秀の特選生うに

We are always looking out for new sources of sashimi items. Although Catalina Offshore products have been our go-to place, in recent years, quality tuna マグロ and sea urchins うに have been hard to come by. For uni sea urchin, we found an excellent alternative. It is a company called "Maruhide" 丸秀 from Long Beach. Uni is harvested off Santa Barbara. By far, the quality and careful preparation and packaging are the best. It tends to be a bit expensive but not overly so. It comes in a metal box with a transparent plastic front. The uni is sandwiched between the bottom sponge sheet and the top special absorbent pad (see below) so it doesn't slide around in the box getting turned to mush during shipment. This is 3.52oz or about 100 grams.

Upon opening, it is nicely shaped with the bright yellow color of California Uni.

As soon as we received it, we had to taste it. So, we had a small amount around lunch time. It was indeed sublime. Creamy but not too soft or liquefied. Although it is treated with alum or myoban ミョウバンas per the back label, we did not detect a chemical or bitter taste, which sometimes happened especially with U.S. prepared uni. Actually, the company also sells uni soaked in salt water that doesn't use myoban, This product is called "uni in salt water" 生うに海水パック or Shiomizu-uni 塩水うに which we would like to try next.

In the evening, we had more uni as sashimi. Since we did not have any other sashimi items, we had uni with avocado slices and skinned and sliced Campari tomato.  As a "shime" ending dish for the evening, I made a small donburi with golden egg threads, nori, and cucumber over vinegared rice.

The next day, we finished up two trays of uni with another simpler version of uni donburi. I also made a sort of salad with cucumber, tomato, broccoli, wakame sea weed and shrimp dressed in kimisu 黄身酢.

This version of donburi made with only nori worked better since we could really enjoy the uni.

This is by far the best uni we can have had either in restaurants or at home.

This time I got the uni with kazunoko 数の子 from JAL Shopping but we learned that we can also get uni directly from Maruhide.

Digression addendum:
We recently had a snow storm (the first measurable accumulation of the year). The temperatures were very low with highs in the low 20's. This was the scene at the feeder in our backyard. Depending on how you count them there are over 20 birds lined up to get on the feeder. Most of them were cardinals.

We often supplement the feeder by distributing peanuts. Everybody loves peanuts--birds, squirrels and we have even observed foxes eating the peanuts we put out).  The cardinals beg for peanuts when they see us at the window. On this day, a female cardinal came and pecked at the window next to which we were sitting. In response, we got up to put out the peanuts shown below--who is better trained the cardinal or us?

This male cardinal is posing for his close-up.

"Wu-zaku" eel and cucumber 鰻ざく

Because of Covid-19, and the uncertainty of some food supplies particularly due to the closure of multiple meat processing plants, we were gradually increasing our frozen cache of meat and fish as well as stews and curries made using the stockpiled proteins. One day, I noticed a strange smell when I opened the refrigerator or freezer.  I asked our resident "sniffer" who has an uncanny sense of smell and also happens to be my wife to sniff out what was going bad. She said the smell is not coming from food but was an electric-related smell. Not good news! Red alert; the refrigerator/freezer could well be on its way out. We immediately went on line to order a back up small stand alone freezer to save all the food we had just stock-piled. Apparently, with everyone else stocking up on food in case of a shortage small stand alone freezers were in high demand and absolutely none were to be had.  Some sites specified how to order; pick out the model you want, pay for it in full and your name would be then be put on a waiting list. No expected delivery time indicated. We finally ended up placing an order for a small stand up freezer which would not arrive for at least 6 weeks.  (We always seem to be on the trailing edge of these things). (And wouldn't you know that if the fridge is going to fail it would be at a time like this-- just after you have fully stocked it.)

The refrigerator limped along for a day or two with the smell seeming to disappear only to return. One morning, I came into the kitchen and there was a puddle of water on the floor coming from the freezer side of the fridge.  I realized it had happened; the fridge was kaput.  I checked the frozen food. Many of the meats and fish luckily, were still frozen. Since the back-up freezer had not yet arrived, I quickly recommissioned a small stand-up freezer in which my wife keeps speciality flours for baking, from a baking freezer to a meat freezer. I removed all the flour and replaced it with the meat and fish. It all fit.

Unfortunately many of the Japanese items were on the top shelf of the freezer and had already almost completely thawed by the time I got to them. Among the Japanese fish packages was "eel" kabayaki うなぎの蒲焼. So, that evening we had unexpected "Eel" feast. I started with "Wu-zaku" 鰻ざく. This is warm grilled eel with eel sauce topped with cool slices of cucumber in vinegary dressing. I suppose the contrast of warm, oily, soft, sweet and salty eel with cold crunchy cucumber with vinegar dressing is the main attraction of this dish.

I first made cucumber topping.

Ingredients (2 small servings)
One American mini-cucumber, sliced, salted, left for a short while then squeezed to remove the excess moisture
1/2 inch ginger root, skin removed and finely julienned

For dressing
2 tbs Japanese dashi broth
1tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp light colored soy sauce

Chill the cucumber topping in the fridge until just before serving.

Frozen package of eel kabayaki, thawed (whether accidentally like this time or intentionally). I used half for this dish, cut into pieces shown below).

Assembly:
I heated up the eel pieces in a toaster oven (I used toasting function at the highest).

Put the eel pieces on a small plate.

Top it with the cucumber.

Of course, cold sake was called for. Although we still like "Mu" which has been our house sake for a long time, we switched to "Tengumai" as seen below. This daiginjou has a bit more complexity than "Mu" and, at Tippsy sake, Tengumai is less expensive than "Mu".

This was followed by a few more items and we had eel donburi or "unadon" うな丼 as a "shime" ending dish with golden thread eggs 金糸卵. My wife is often leary of the multiple small bones in eel. From experience she found that big pieces of eel such as the kind used in donburi often have numerous hidden small bones but usually the pieces used in sushi do not. She even went so far as to call eel donburi "toothbrush buri". And after several bad experiences in Japan actually stopped ordering eel dunburi.  This time she was quite happy to discover that although the piece was quite large, it was sushi quality and didn't have any small bones. It was one of the best eel dunburies ever.

“Shoga-yaki” ginger pork bowl “tei-shoku” lunch 豚の生姜焼き丼定食

A few weeks ago, my wife suggested that it has been quite a while since we had sukiyaki すき焼き and it would be nice to have some. I agreed, but when I went to the Japanese grocery store, I forgot to get the frozen "Sukiyaki meat" すき焼肉. So, the next time I went I was proud of myself for not forgetting the meat. But apparently I picked up the wrong thing. My first clue was when my wife said, “I didn’t know sukiyaki is made with pork, I thought it was beef.” Instead of sukiyaki beef, in my haste I had picked up thinly sliced pork for "shouga-yaki" 生姜焼き. Since this package was next to the "shabu-shabu" シャブシャブ beef, I assumed it was also beef but for sukiyaki. In my enthusiasm I bought not one but two packages of the stuff. All was not lost, however, as I may have mentioned before, in Hokkaido 北海道, where I am originally from, many families use pork instead of beef for sukiyaki as was the case in my family. So, we went ahead and used one of the packs of pork to make sukiyaki. It was not good. The pork was too lean and too thickly cut. It got hard when cooked as sukiyaki. (So note to self: next time when at the Japanese grocery store get appropriate sukiyaki beef). Meanwhile, since I had bought two packages of this pork, I had one package left and it was clear that it would not be used for sukiyaki. So, one weekend I decided to use the pork as originally intended and made “shoga-yaki” ginger pork. Pork shoga-yaki 豚の生姜焼き is a very popular dish in Japan. When I was a college student, coffee shops near the university served lunch in addition to tea and coffee. In addition to  “Western-style” lunches such as sandwiches or spaghetti, most of the coffee shops also served Japanese-style  bento 弁当 or teishoku 定食* and shoga-yaki was among the popular ones. I am sure this has not been changed even now.

*Digression alert: I am sure it is no need to explain “bento” but here it goes anyway. When “bento” is served in restaurant/coffee shop, it is usually a lidded rectangular box which contains the entire meal but unlike pre-packaged bento, the rice and dishes are warm or just made. "Teishuku" (please follow the link for illustrated guide) is the Japanese concept of a "complete" meal or "meal set" which includes a bowl of  rice, soup, tsukemono 漬け物 (pickled or more likely salted vegetables), main dish (protein) and small "kobachi" 小鉢 side dish or bowl. In many "Taishu-shokudo" 大衆食堂 or "public" eateries which serve those who want drinks with food and those who want a complete meal, many different teishoku are available (the main protein dish varies and can be grilled fish, sashimi, or meat etc) but the remaining items, or “sides” such as soup, tuskemono, are usually the same for each available teishoku. The main and side dishes can be had as a single dish without other items (this is great especially if you are just drinking). It could also be "teishoku" for the price of a few more yen. 

So, this is  my rendition of "shoga-yaki" donburi teishoku 生姜焼き丼定食. In this case, the main protein and rice were combined as a donburi.

The main dish shown in the next picture is a bed of rice to which I added pork shouga-yaki with onion, seasoned shiitake mushroom (this was from dried shiitake and seasoned in "ama-kara" 甘辛 or sweet and salty with mirin and soy sauce) and blanched broccoli.

Miso soup is wakame ワカメ sea weed, "abura-age" 油揚げ fried tofu, silken tofu 絹ごし豆腐 and chopped scallion ネギ.

The "Kobachi" side dish was simmered root vegetable including "renkon" lotus root, "gobo" burdock root, "takenoko" bamboo shoot, shiitake mushroom, and "konnyaku" devil's tongue and blanched sugar snap in salt broth.

The tsukemono is cucumber, daikon, nappa cabbage, jalapeño pepper, and ginger (I salted this a bit stronger than I usually do; with salt 3% of the weight of the veggies instead of usual 2% and also added a dash of Vodka which makes it last much longer without changing the taste. (With this preparation it can easily last for at least one week in the refrigerator).

How to make pork shouga-yaki ginger pork (Although I posted "shouga-yaki" over 11 years ago, this time,  I am using a more appropriate, albeit not perfect, cut of meat). I am sure that there are so many variations and preferences and, of course, you could use other meat such as beef but this is what I made.

The essence of this dish is thinly sliced meat sautéed and seasoned sweet soy sauce flavored with ginger. Using lean meat can make tough shouga-yaki and using fatty cuts such as thinly sliced pork belly will prevent that but the traditional cut to be used is "pork roast" meat 豚のロース cut thinly (thin enough but not paper thin).

Ingredients:
Thinly sliced pork, 4-5 slices for one meal size serving (in Japan, specially packaged "shouga-yaki" pork is available widely. The one I got here is a bit too lean, the perfect cut has more fat. I used the entire package which is about 20 slices).

2-3 tsp neutral oil

Onion slices, optional

For marinade:
Mirin, soy sauce, and sake (1:1:1) ratio, enough to marinate the meat plus more to add while cooking.
Grated ginger (amount arbitrary, totally depends on your taste, I used whole grated ginger but you can use just the juice from grated ginger).
Dash of dark sesame oil
(optionally, grated onion).

Directions:
Marinate the meat. The amount of the marinade is enough to cover all meat slices and a bit more (additional 1/4 cup). I marinaded for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
I drained the marinade (the excess marinade reserved) and spread the meat slices on a paper towel to remove excess marinade.
In the non-stick frying pan, add 2 tsp neutral oil on medium flame. 

Add onion slices and cook until soft and somewhat transparent, set aside

Cook the meat slices, spread out without over lapping, in batches. One side 30 seconds and the other side 15 seconds. Do not overcook (the meat will finish cooking when cooked with the marinade later).
Set aside the cooked meat slices.
When all the slices are cooked, add the marinade to the pan (if not enough add more sake, mirin and soy sauce).
Add back the cooked meat with the accumulated juice and the onion .
Quickly cook and coat each slice with the marinade. Take it out and set aside.
Since I was planning to make a doumburi, I added a small amount of water at the end and heated the marinade to make sauce.

Assembly:
Top the rice with the shouga-yaki pork slices (I used 3 slices per bowl).
Pour in the sauce from the frying pan (just slightly moisten and season the rice).
Add any other garnish or topping (such as ginger julienne in vinegar or "benishouga" 紅生姜). I added seasoned shiitake mushrooms and blanched broccoli.

Compared to the sukiyaki we made with this pork, the shouga-yaki came out much better. The meat was tender and well seasoned. Perfect lunch for the weekend.

Sea urchin sashimi and donburi 雲丹の刺身と雲丹丼

We cannot decide if we like ankimo 鮟肝 better than sea urchin "uni" 雲丹 or vice-versa. But the batch of California sea urchin we got this time was particularly excellent. Certainly much better than most we tasted in Japan last time. This one was harvested offshore in California and delivered to us overnight by Catalonia Offshore Products. We can get uni from California and from Maine in the U.S. Maine uni is like "bafun uni" 馬糞雲丹. It is smaller, firmer, darker, and gamier. We prefer the one from California which is bright yellow with a very creamy texture and clean taste.  We enjoy either uni as long as it is fresh and not off-tasting. We gave up ordering uni in sushi bars since the variability of uni quality and freshness is so wide and even after asking the sushi chef if the uni is good and getting his approval, we have had less-than-aceptable uni. Having bad uni turns you off eating any uni very quickly.

We like to first enjoy uni in its pure form, with wasabi and soy sauce and nori seaweed which has a special affinity to uni. I garnish uni with nori strips. I also serve uni on top of slices of lemon. The very subtle lemon flavor is transferred to the uni. This has to be tasted with sake. Aaaah, a fresh ocean taste spreads in your mouth. No other drink will go with uni.

I mentioned earlier in my blog that my wife loves a donburi dish made with uni and ikura (salmon roe) called uni-ikura-don うにいくら丼 and that she had one in Otaru last time we visited Japan. So, by her request, I made a mini uni-ikura-don. Unfortunately I did not do a good job making "golden thread" omelet 金糸卵 this time (I browned the omelet but it tasted the same).  Assembling of this dish starts with a bed of sushi rice. Scatter thinly cut strips of nori, place ikura and uni, garnish with a chiffonade of perilla and golden thread omelet. I dissolved real wasabi in the "sashimi" soy sauce and served it on the side to be poured over. Mmmm...this may be too much of a good thing!

Natto and mackerel donburi 鯖味噌納豆丼

When I made natto with canned mackerel in miso sauce, the recipe suggested that this dish would be good as a drinking snack or on rice. So, I used the leftovers to make this donburi for lunch. I used frozen cooked rice which we always have in our freezer. (When we cook rice, we usually have leftovers so we freeze individual sized portions in small Ziploc bags with the date written on the outside. Then when we need rice we thaw it for 30 seconds in the microwave which makes rice to be separated but still semi-frozen. At this point, I put the rice in the bowl).

I also added precooked green beans (I usually  boil a package of green beans and keep it in the refrigerator). I microwaved it with a lid on (this donbri bowl has a lid) until the rice was warm (it comes out with a consistency and taste close to freshly made).

I also added a sunny -side-up fried egg (the egg yolk still runny).

This was quite good. I should have made more sauce.  I am sure freshly cooked rice would have been better but even with frozen rice, this was quite enjoyable.

Marinated tuna bento 鮪の漬け弁当

This is another way to present a one bowl "donburi" dish. Instead of a bowl, (which is "donburi" 丼 in Japanese),  however, I used a rectangular Japanese lacquer box. This is a very common presentation for grilled eels called "una-juu" うな重. (Lacquered square vessels are called "juubako" 重箱、since they can be stacked, "juubako"  means stacked boxes). Mine was not a "juubako" but a two-tiered bento box, so I will call this dish "marinated tuna bento" but I could have called this dish "tuna-juu" ツナ重. This beautiful Japanese lacquer bento box in "Tsugaru-nuri" 津軽塗 (see the picture below) is from Northern Japan (Tsugaru is an area near Aomori 青森). It was a gift I received a long time ago from one of my friends but I have not used it for many years. For this occasion, it was perfect since this has two stackable rectangular compartments.

This post is actually the continuation of a "fresh wasabi rhizome" post. That means the center of attention is the small mound of wasabi in the picture below. The rest of the dish was just to highlight the wasabi (this could be a case of the tail wagging the dog). I made marinated tuna or 鮪の漬け for this. This time I marinated the tuna overnight which made the texture of the tuna somewhat slimy which may not sound appetizing but many Japanese like this particular texture in marinated tuna.

I made the marinade as I posted before (a mixture of soy sauce, sake, juice of grated ginger, and ground roasted white sesame seeds). I did my "yubiki" 湯引き preparation as before, sliced the tuna and marinated it in the refrigerator.

I made sushi rice and spread it on the bottom of the bento box. I then covered the surface with marinated tuna. As garnish, I used Jabara-cut cucumber, avocado, scallion (briefly microwaved with splash of sesame oil), strips of nori and perilla. Of course, the most important garnish is the freshly grated wasabi.

I served it with miso soup (see above, with tofu, scallion and wakame seaweed).

The slightly slimy texture of the tuna, of course, does not brother me and even my wife sort of liked it. We spread a little of the wasabi on the each slice of tuna before eating. The is a sublime combination of flavors and textures. We almost used up this small wasabi daikon after all these dishes.

Chashu donburi チャーシュー丼

I am really running out of new things I can cook and post nowadays. My wife has really contributed a lot recently by coming up with some new dishes. Although our posts may not be as interesting or new, it is nice for us to have a record of the various dishes we ate that we can refer back to later. This is one such post. Using the same chashu pork チャーシュー I made chashu egg チャーシューエッグ, I made  this donburi 丼 or rice bowl with chashu, ajitsuke tamago 味付け卵, and spicy baked tofu 豆腐のピリ辛オーブン焼き for lunch. It was an unexpectedly pleasant and sunny day and we were lounging on our deck. This was a quick lunch to make since we did not want to spend too much time inside cooking.

I used the simmering liquid with which I made the chashu. It was concentrated; having reduced by 2/3 during the cooking of the chashu.  I let the remaining 1/3 jell by cooling it in the refrigerator and removed the congealed fat on the surface. I repurposed it by making a sauce/broth for this dish. I thinly sliced half of a medium onion and cooked it in the broth (1/4 cup) for several minutes with a lid on until cooked. I had blanched green beans. I sliced them on the bias and placed slices of chashu pork, green beans on the top of the cooked onion and cut the flame and let it warm up (not to cook further) with a lid on. Since I made baked spicy tofu that morning, I also added it to this dish. The rice was previously frozen and then microwaved to thaw. I added some of the broth to moisten the rice and the rest was poured over to my wife's bowl since she like more liquid than I do.

As I mentioned before, the egg yolk in ajistuke egg changes in consistency during the  marinating process. It becomes firmer; almost like a custard.  It also absorbs the flavor of the marinade. As far as we were concerned the egg was the star of the dish...but the pork was pretty good too, oh and there was the tofu; it was mighty fine. This was a perfect small lunch to enjoyed outside on an early summer day. I usually make some kind of miso soup but I did not this time to maximize the lounging time outside.