Cold pasta with smoked salmon and tomato トマトと燻製サーモンの冷製パスタ

This is a variation of cold pasta with tomato. We really liked this dish and tried to make it again on one hot and humid weekend.  We already had cooked thin Udon noodles and we had Campari tomato but we did not have prosciutto. My wife suggested we substitute smoked salmon.  

Just to change the appearance, I garnished the top with a chiffonade of basil and strips of smoked salmon and freshly cracked black pepper.

I also added a bit of the Spanish olive oil we really like,

The sauce was prepared as I posted before. Instead of pasta, we used thin Japanese Udon noodle (this was "sanuki" udon 讃岐うどん). This combination worked well. The saltiness of prosciutto is probably a better combination but this variation is no slouch. 

Succotash サカッタシュ

We thought we already posted "succotash" but found out we did not. So, this is our version of succotash. This must be an archetypical American food which may have originated with native Americans (at least the name is from "sohquttahhash" in Narragansett language meaning "broken corn kernels"). Traditionally, lima beans are used in addition to corn,  but I used "edamame" 枝豆  soybeans. (digression alert: My wife commented that she was glad I substituted the edamame for the lima beans. She mentioned that lima bean succotash was a staple of childhood summer dinners and she remembered the tedium of carefully separating the corn, which she liked, from the lima beans, which she did not like. The alternative was suffering through the starchy large lima beans at the expense of enjoying the sweet corn.)

There are so many variations of this dish and I did not follow any particular recipe.  This could be a vegetable side dish for meat but it can also be served as a small snack like I did here.

Ingredients:

Corn kernels, corn on the cob briefly boiled in salted water and kernels removed using a knife (see second picture below).

Edamame soybeans, shelled and frozen, briefly boiled in salted water and drained (see the third picture below).

Tomato, skinned and diced

Onion, finely chopped

Garlic, finely chopped

Bacon, one strip

Salt and pepper to taste

(The amounts are all arbitrary)

Direction:

In a frying pan, I cooked a strip of bacon on low heat until the fat rendered and the bacon became crispy. I took out the bacon and kept it on a plate lined with a paper towel.  I left the bacon drippings in the pan and added the onion and garlic and sautéed them until cooked (a few minutes). I added the corn, edamame, and tomato and cooked them for few minutes stirring. I added the crumbled bacon and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Cooked in bacon drippings with onion and garlic, this tasted pretty good. Although I only used one strip of bacon, the bacon flavor permeated the dish. We much prefer the soybeans rather than lima beans (even if they are small) which are usually used in this dish. 

Strawberries and Tuna with Wasabi Dressing イチゴとマグロのわさび和え

I came across a very interesting recipe using raw tuna and strawberries. I just could not imagine how this combination would taste and wanted to try it. Unfortunately, the strawberries I can get around here are not of the caliber available in Japan and the tuna I can get is frozen yellowfin tuna. In addition, nanohana 菜の花 or rape blossom cannot be had in US and I had to substitute broccolini. So, at best, this was a variation on the original recipes but this is the best I could do with ingredients available to me. I can only imagine whether the original tasted better.  

At least, visually it appears similar to the original recipe.

Ingredients:

Tuna, half block, (I used my usual frozen yellowfin tuna), cut into 5mm cubes (#1)

Strawberries, 5-6 (or about the same amount as the tuna), cut into 5mm cubes (#2)

Broccolini, one bundle, only top portion, blanched in salted water and then shocked in ice water (#3), using a knife to remove the buds (#4).

Salt 1/6 tsp

For Sauce

Sesame paste, white, 1 tbs

Wasabi (I used real wasabi) 1 tsp

Mirin 1 tbs

Soy sauce 1 tbs

For seasoning broccolini buds 

Japanese noodle sauce, concentrated (x3)

Directions:

1. I sprinkled salt over the tuna cubes, mixed and let it stand as I prepared the other items.
2. Although this was not in the original recipe, I seasoned the broccolini buds with a small amount of mentsuyu 麺つゆ, Japanese noodle sauce, mixed well and then squeezed out the excess sauce (#4).
3. I mixed the strawberries and tuna cubes.
4. Using a round mold, I first packed a layer of tuna-strawberry mixture (#5).
5. I then layered the broccolini, packed tight using the back of a spoon (#6).
6. I mixed, the sesame paste, wasabi, mirin, and soy sauce in a Japanese mortar "suribachi" and mixed it well. I added more wasabi after I tasted it.
7. I poured the sauce around the mold, garnished the top with slices of strawberry and carefully removed the mold.

Strawberries and tuna are indeed an interesting and good combination. If both the strawberries and tuna were better quality, this could have been spectacular. The sauce was good but had a predominantly sesame flavor and the wasabi was not very forthcoming. I may change the proportion of the ingredients in the sauce if I make this dish again.  But this dish was still very good and unique. We had cold sake with this, which went very well,  but I wonder if chilled champagne might have been a better pairing. We'll just have to make this again to see. 

Blueberry bread with pecan ピーカンナッツ入りブルーベリーパン

This is a continuation of my wife's quest of  blueberry bread/muffins. This time, the major addition is a layer of pecans on the bottom which formed an almost fried in the butter pecan crust. Certainly. this is a good bread but we wondered if it might not be good to just mix all the pecans directly into the batter.

The pecan layer is on the bottom and is nicely crunchy with a pecan flavor.

Ingredients:

3 cups pecans

3 cups blueberries

6 cups whole wheat or AP flour (I used AP)

2 1/2 cups sugar

8 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter melted

2/3 cup Greek yogurt

1 1//2 cup milk

4 eggs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat the inside of two loaf pans with butter and evenly sprinkle 1/2 cup of pecans over the bottom of the pans. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a bowl. Combine the dry and wet ingredients. Add remaining pecans and blueberries. Spread into prepared pans. Cook in oven for 25 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (The original recipe said to cook for 75 to 90 minutes which would have been way too long). 

This bread is very good. It has a very moist consistency and the blueberries give a nice fresh burst of blueberry flavor. The pecan crust is also very nice. 

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.