"Ozouni" New Year Soup お雑煮

We started having New Year's soup or "ozouni" お雑煮 as a lunch rather than breakfast a few years ago. We need coffee in the morning even if it's New Year's day. So, we started the day with our cappuccino and the assorted holiday breads such as stollen and panetonne that my wife baked for the holidays. The ozoni made its debut at lunch. Ozoni varies among regions and even families. Sometimes husbands and wives may have grown up with totally different types of ozoni and it can be a source of contention. In our household, however, there is no problem since mine is the only ozoni we both know. (Ozoni was not part of my wife's childhood menu so the only ozoni she has ever eaten was based my mother's recipe which is also the ozoni I grew up on). My wife suggested several modifications early on in our marriage, so our ozoni varies slightly from the original and is rather uniquely our own. The base is clear soup seasoned with mirin, soy sauce and salt. I make a stock base from  kelp, dried bonito and chicken. The items in the soup include shiitake mushrooms, freeze dried tofu (kouya-dofu 高野豆腐), daikon, carrot, burdock root 牛蒡, chicken, shrimp, fish cake 蒲鉾, snow peas, and mitsuba greens みつば. As per my wife's suggestion, we put the Mochi 餅 rice cake in the deep fried tofu (or "abura-age" 油揚げ) pouch, tied with "kanpyou" 干瓢 so that it won't dissolve or stick. (Unfortunately, it is on the bottom of the bowel and can't be seen in the picture). The items vary from year to year as well. This year, I forgot to get freeze dried tofu and shiitake so I used maitake instead.

I also served the usual new year food I made. All except for the gobo dish are in "Norio's New Year's dishes" tab in our blog.

Left is "Russian" marinated salmon 鮭のロシア漬け and the right herring roe 数の子.

Daikon namasu 大根なますwith ikura salmon roe. Since we could not get octopus leg, I had to be satisfied with head (body) of octopus this year.

Datemaki 伊達巻 egg roll and "gobo" burdock root with sesame dressing.

We had only one small cup of symbolic sake with this.

Happy New Year 2018 明けましておめでとう ２０１８

Happy New Year 2018

This is a year of dog.

Caviar and blinis キャビアとビリニ

At one time, we were into caviar including "fake" caviar made from kelp and other ingredients. But after all our experimentation, we decided caviar was not worth it. We rather prefer salmon caviar (or "Ikura") and other fish roe. But the occasion called for caviar and champagne this time, so I got Israeli Osetra caviar from a local gourmet grocery store. We decided to make blinis as the caviar delivery system. My wife dug into her recipe box and found this recipe. We tried several blinis recipes when we were in our caviar tasting mode and decided this was the best among them. We used sour cream. (We were not prepared to make creme fraiche) and garnished with chopped chives.

Certainly, the combination of caviar, blinis, sour cream and chive was perfect. We did not have a particularly special champagne and opened Champagne Philippe Prié Brut Tradition which was pretty good.

The below was the entire setup. We even took out our caviar server (on the lower left).

This is the 1 oz (30grams) we got.

The blinis were good but a bit denser than we expected.

Ingredients:
3 cup milk, warm to 110 degrees
1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature
2 egg yolks, beaten
3 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites, at room temperature and beaten until stiff
1/4 cup butter, for cooking

Directions:
In a bowl dissolve the yeast in the milk. Stir in the butter. Cover and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
Stir in the egg yolks.
Sift together the flours and salt. Slowly stir into the yeast mixture. Mix well.
Fold in the egg whites and mix thoroughly. If necessary add some more milk to get the right "pancake" consistency.
Preheat griddle over medium heat and melt some of the butter. Drop the batter, a tablespoon at a time onto the griddle a couple of inches apart. Cook until the cakes are lightly golden on both sides, about 1 1/2 minutes on each side. Repeat until all the butter and batter are used up. Drain the cakes on paper towels. Sprinkle with the salt and serve warm with caviar and creme fraiche.

As a special treat this was very good. Next time we may add more milk as necessary to get a thinner consistency. Its astounding how fast 1 oz of caviar can disappear!

Angel Biscuits エンジェルビスケット

My wife makes biscuits occasionally. Here, we mean US biscuits which are close to muffins and scones rather than UK biscuits which are basically cookies. She decide to make these angel biscuits one day. She used to make them regularly sometime ago but hasn't made them recently. They are interesting because they use three leavening agents; yeast, baking soda and baking powder.

Ingredients (15 small square biscuits ):

5 cups AP flour

1/2 cup warm water (100°F to 110°F)  (suggestion: replace water with buttermilk and don’t bloom yeast see below)
1 (1/4-oz.) pkg. active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp.)
1/4 cup sugar (1/2 cup sugar for sweeter biscuit) 
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup veg shortening (butter)
2 cups butter milk (2 1/2 cups buttermilk if replace water with buttermilk)

Directions:
Dissolve a pinch of sugar in warm water, add yeast and mix well in a small bowl. Let stand until the surface bubbles up (5-10 minutes). If the surface does not bubble after 10 minutes, the yeast may be bad (dead).
Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 3 tablespoons sugar in a large bowl; cut cold butter into flour mixture with a pastry blender or 2 forks until crumbly.
Add yeast mixture and buttermilk to flour mixture, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; chill at least 2 hours or up to 5 days.
Preheat oven to 450°F.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead 3 or 4 times. Gently roll into a 1⁄2-inch-thick square, and fold in half; repeat.
Gently roll to 1⁄2-inch thickness; cut into 2-inch squares (#1 and #3) (We used a knife to cut into squares which eliminated any scraps of the dough that would have to be reworked. You could use biscuit cutter, either round or rectangular).
Bake in preheated oven until golden, 15 to 20 minutes (#4). Note: cook 9 minutes at 450, then reduce heat and cook for another 8 to 10 minutes or until golden. 

We served this as a lunch with an omelet filled with spinach, shiitake mushroom and goat cheese. The biscuits were flaky, light and very satisfying.

Chicken and fresh tomato stew 鶏と新鮮トマトシチュー

This started as a leftover control dish but turned out to be very good.  This started because we had a whole roasted Cornish game hen leftover (cooked in the Weber grill with wood smoke). We had cooked two birds but between the two of us, half a bird was more than enough. So, one was leftover. When I roasted them this time I stuffed a mixture of goat cheese and chopped fresh rosemary between the skin and breast meat. I also stuffed the cavity with garlic, celery, onion, and a sprig of rosemary. So, it was rather good roasted chicken to begin with.  I also had half a small head of cabbage which was getting old. So I decide to make a stew using these two items.

Although I made regular stew with chicken broth first, I added fresh tomato puree with concentrated Japanese noodle sauce, pressed garlic and olive oil (the sauce for cold noodle/spaghetti with prosciutto) and warmed it up briefly. I garnished with EV olive oil and chiffonade of basil.

Ingredients:
Cornish game hen, one, smoke roasted in Weber (any fresh chicken parts will do as well). Back bone removed, separated into parts and the breast cut in quarters.
Cabbage, 1/2 head, core removed and cut into large chunks
Onion, one large, cut into large chunks
Celery, several stalks, cut into 2 inch and 1/2 inch buttons (or chopped)
Carrot, 3-4 medium, peeled and cut into large chunks
Olive oil, 2 tbs
Chicken broth, several cups or enough to cover the ingredients. (I used Swanson no fat 1/3 less salt version).
Black pepper to taste (in our case, the chicken surface was well seasoned and I did not add nay salt or pepper).

For fresh tomato sauce (Puree all using an immersion blender)
Skinned and quartered Campari tomato, 3-4
Garlic, 2-3 cloves, pressed through a garlic press
Concentrated Japanese noodle sauce, 2-3tbs
Light olive oil, 2-3 tbs

Directions:
In a large pot, heat the olive oil and sautéed onion, celery, cabbage until the cabbage is wilted.
Add the chicken parts and the carrot, cover it with the chicken broth.
Simmer it for 1 hour or so.(I let it cooled down at this point).

Put the serving amount (for two dinner servings in our case) in a sauce pan. Add an even distribution of the chicken and vegetables for the two servings with some broth and heat it up.
Add the fresh tomato sauce and warm up but do not boil.
Check the taste and if needed season with Kosher salt
Garnish with the basil and a good olive oil (second time I used lemon-infused oil with a good result).

This is a really surprisingly good stew. The fresh tomato sauce really made the difference. It added an additional dimension of depth that did not exist in the stew without the sauce. The lemon-infused olive oil also did a good job. This is very fresh tasting stew. With a piece of bread, this is a complete meal.