Christmas "Eggs Benedict" クリスマスエッグスベネディクト

This was what we ate for Christmas day lunch. For breakfast we had just a cup of cappuccino and assorted home-baked Christmas breads such as stollen and panettone. So for lunch, we decided to splurge and made this Christmas  egg(s) Benedict with smoked salmon. We have posted this variation before. I added green (broccoli) and red (tomatoes) for Christmas color.

  

The bread was homemade English muffin bread which my wife baked on Christmas eve. I garnished the Hollandais sauce with chopped chives and paprika.

We had just enough Davidson's pasteurized eggs to make the Hollandais  sauce and two poached eggs.

I made the Hollandais sauce as before (for 2 servings) with one egg yolk, lemon juice (I used juice from one Meyer lemon), cayenne pepper and half a stick of cold unsalted butter. I first mixed the egg yolk, a pinch of cayenne pepper and the lemon juice in a double boiler. I whipped the mixture for several minutes until it became frothy and doubled in volume. I added thin pats of butter and mixed until one pat completely got incorporated before adding the next. After adding half a stick of butter, the consistency of the sauce is like soft or slightly runny mayonnaise. I tasted it and I initially thought it was too spicy but on the poached egg, it was just fine. I seasoned it with a pinch of salt. This was one of the better Hollandaise sauces I ever made probably because I added enough cayenne pepper and the lemon juice was from a Meyer lemon.

So, this was a rather luxurious lunch. We liked this version with smoked salmon better than Canadian bacon or ham.

Eel rice 櫃まぶし

This is the second eel dish I made from the packet of eel I had in the freezer. It was also our ending "shime" dish for the evening. We started the meal with pork  belly "Kakuni" 角煮 and "U-maki" 鰻巻き. I could have made the usual Unadon うな丼 or Unaju うな重 (eel over rice in a bowl or rectangular lacquered box) but I decided to make "Hitsu-mabushi" 櫃まぶし which is a local dish in Nagoya 名古屋. It is an essentially more approachable (read "cheaper") version of unaju; small chopped up pieces of eel kabayaki mixed with rice seasoned with eel sauce. This dish may have started as a way to use the small end pieces of eel which may not have been suited for una-ju or una-don. It is traditionally served in a shared "Hitsu" 櫃 or a box with lid like I did here and my wife and I shared it. Using small pieces of eel mixed into the rice makes sharing more reasonable since it is more difficult for one person to just snarf up the whole eel piece and "run".

Usually, it is served with some condiments such as julienne of perilla leaves, scallion and nori seaweed.  Supposedly, you first enjoy the dish as is and then add the condiments. Finally wasabi and broth are added and it is eaten as "Ochazuke" お茶漬け. Although I prepared the broth for this, we ended up not having the Ochazuke.

The sauce was the same as I made for "U-maki" 鰻巻き.

I prepared the frozen and packaged eel kabayaki as I described in the "U-maki" post. I first removed the sauce the eel was packaged in by gently washing the fillet in hot water. I then cooked it in the toaster oven with my homemade sauce. I mixed some sauce and thin strips of eel kabayaki into the rice and mixed.

Sometimes small bones bother my wife when eating eel. (On one occasion I had to remove said bones from my wife's throat using a pair of plyers; that was a memorable meal not to be repeated). So I have to be very careful to remove as many bones as possible. I found some small bones were particularly dense under the fins and cut them off which helped a lot. We really enjoyed this dish. It is easier to eat since the eel was cut into small pieces and the rice was well seasoned with the eel sauce. I hope we will have something left next time for ochazuke.

Eel omelet 鰻巻き

My wife reminded me that although I have mentioned it several times in the blog I have not actually made "U-maki" 鰻巻き. It is pronounced as "Wu-maki" not "You-maki".  It is a type of Japanese omelet made with a piece of eel "Kabayaki" うなぎの蒲焼 wrapped in Japanese "dashimaki" だし巻き omelet. Since I had a frozen eel "Kabayaki" package in the freezer, I made two dishes from it. U-maki was the first one. Although the eel came already sauced in the package, I decided to make my own sauce to go over it. I thought my home made sauce would be fresher than the one the eel was packed in.

This is before I added my Kabayaki sauce.

The picture below is an 11oz eel kabayaki thawed overnight in the refridgerator.

Ingredients I used to make my own sauce:

Soy sauce 300ml

Mirin 300ml

Sake 100ml

Sugar 250-300 grams

Directions:

I added the mirin and sake to a saucepan and gently boiled it for a few minutes to let the alcohol evaporate. I then added the sugar and soy sauce. After the sugar melted completely, I gently simmered the sauce and reduced it by half. The sauce attained a thick viscous consistency. If I had some eel (or anago which sea eel) bones available, I would have grilled them and added them to the sauce while simmering to increase the flavor. Then I would have strained the sauce to remove the bones. 

I used 1/4 of the package of eel. Since I was planning to use my own sauce, I removed the sauce already on the eel by soaking the fillet in hot water from the InstaHot and gently rubbing the surface to remove the original sauce (This is based on my assumption that my home-made sauce would be better or at least fresher, than the one on the eel).  I blotted both sides with paper towels. I wrapped the eel pieces in aluminum foil with the skin side down (I thinly coated the foil with oil to prevent the skin from sticking) and placed the packet in the toaster oven (on toast mode) for 3 minutes. I then opened the top of the packet to expose the meat side of the eel and put it back in the toaster oven. I brushed on the sauce I made several times and cooked the eel for another 3 minutes.  I scored the surface with a chef's knife and cut into two pieces (below).

Dashi maki:

Ingredients:

3 eggs

3 tbs Dashi broth (I used #1 dashi 一番出し I made few days ago with kelp and bonito flakes).

1 tbs sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

I coated a rectangular Japanese omelet pan with oil and placed it on a medium low flame. When the pan was hot, I poured in 1/4 of the egg mixture and spread it. When the bottom was set, I placed the two pieces of eel on top of the eggs one inch from the top of the pan to span the width of the pan and started rolling. I repeated the process by adding the egg mixture and rolling (below). 

This is a classic combination. We really liked this. I thought my home made sauce worked out pretty well.  this dish is perfect as a drinking snack for sake but even red wine will work with this.

Prosciutto wrapped peach 白桃の生ハム巻き

We enjoyed cold past with fresh tomato sauce which became one of our favorite dishes especially during the hot summer. Whenever possible, instead of prepackaged prosciutto, we got our prosciutto from the delicatessen at our grocery store;  (Boar's head brand apparently imported from Italy).   It went really well with the cold pasta dish but we had extra prosciutto left. So one day, I came up with this dish.  Although, prosciutto wrapped cantaloupe is a classic, we happened to have white peaches which were getting ripe. So, I wrapped wedges of white peach with the prosciutto.

I first peeled the skin of the peaches and cut into small wedges. My wife does not like the reddish portion touching the stone/pit, so I also removed that and wrapped the remaining wedges with prosciutto. I served it with leaves of baby arugula and drizzled our favorite Spanish olive oil.

This was not too bad. Salty porky prosciutto and peach is a good combination. The spicy olive oil and peppery flavor of the baby arugula also went well.

Braised spicy marinated tofu ピリ辛豆腐

This is a variation of the baked spicy tofu which I previously posted. Although we really liked this dish, it tends to get somewhat dry and spongy when baked as called for in the original recipe. Instead of baking, I cooked it in a frying pan. It added a nice brown crust while keeping the inside really moist. This is a much better way to cook this dish.

Since I had a fresh chives, I garnished it with them.

The preparation is the same as the baked version. The marinade consists of Sriracha (or other hot sauce, whatever amount to your taste), 1 tbs each of soy sauce, dark sesame oil, sake, rice vinegar with  grated ginger and garlic. I marinated the cubes of tofu for several hours to several days in the refrigerator. I removed the tofu leaving the marinade in the Ziplock bag. In a non-stick frying pan, I added a small amount of vegetable oil and browned the surface of the tofu cubes turning several times. When the surface was browned, I add all the marinade to the pan and turned up the flame. I shook the pan several times as the marinade reduced until only small amount of liquid remained coating the surface of the tofu.

We found this is a much better way to cook this dish. The browning made a nice crust and the tofu remained moist. The reduced marinade made a nice sauce making the mouth "sing" gently with hot flavor. It reheated well in the microwave. This is a perfect small drinking snack. This will go with either wine or sake.