Sushi taro Osechi and New Year's day evening 2018 元旦の夕べ

It was a mellow relaxing New Year's day. My wife wanted to see the first sunset of the year at our sunset gazing spot in our house. First rate sunset admiration requires food and libation. Rather than carrying up many plates and bowls,  however, I came up with the idea of using stackable "Tsugaru-nuri" 津軽塗り Japanese lunch box which my friend gave me many years ago.

Although we were ready to dig into our Sushi-taro osechi box 寿司太郎御節箱, I started with what I made, which, to my surprise, mostly filled the boxes. I only added shiitake-umani 椎茸旨煮 and "fu" gluten cake 梅麩 from the Sushi-taro osechi box. For the occasion, I used "Hagoita 羽子板*"-shaped chopstick pillows or "hashi oki" 箸置き.

*Hagoita is a racket for Japanese badminton-like game which was traditionally played in New Year. Now, almost nobody plays the game and "hagoita" rackets are a purely decorative item for New Year, there are special "ichi" or markets before the New Year which specialize in decorative "hagoita".

Recipes for most of the dishes I made are posted in the "Norio's New Year's Dishes" tab in this blog. #1=Salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻, #2= salmon "Nanban" 鮭の南蛮, #3=Russian marinaded salmon 鮭のロシア漬, #4=Date-maki omelet roll 伊達巻き, #5=chicken patty with dried fig and Gorgonzola cheese いちじくとガルゴンゾラチーズの松風焼き (I garnished with my figgy cranberry sauce), #6="Matsukaze-yaki" chicken patty with pine nuts, 松風焼き#7=simmered shiitake mushroom 椎茸旨煮 and "fu" gluten cake 梅麩 (these are from the osechi box), #8=blanched green asparagus with mayo-sesame paste-soy sauce アスパラの胡麻マヨ, #9=Thinly sliced rib roast with wasabi/horseradish Greek yogurt sauceローストビーフ, and #10=spicy tofu cubes ぴり辛豆腐.

After watching the sun set, we came back downstairs and hit the osechi box. The picture below is the top layer. We were excited to find "Karasumi 唐墨" Japanese bottarga. As usual, the box is packed with goodies.

Here is the close up of sun-dried karasumi 天日干し唐墨.

The picture below is the bottom layer.

This is the plate I prepared from the osechi box. I served the karasumi slightly heated in a toaster oven and sandwiched between thinly sliced daikon. The other items are ginko nuts 炒り銀杏, pickled flower-cut  lotus root  花輪蓮根, steamed "uni" sea urchin 蒸し雲丹, caramelized small shrimp "Tsuyani" 小海老艶煮 and grilled Japanese "Madai" snapper with Japanese pepper tree leave/miso or "kinome" sauce 真鯛木の芽焼き. I also heated up the fish in the toaster oven.  Some items especially grilled fish are best enjoyed heated up slightly to take off the chill of cold. Karasumi is, of course, our favorite and we started with cold sake we brought from Japan on the last trip there.

Here is the close up of all the items which go so superbly with sake.

The sake we opened was the limited edition,  "extra premium Jurakudai" daiginjou from Sasaki-shuzou in Kyoto 聚楽第大吟醸エキストラプレミアム, 佐々木酒造、京都. It was brewed from Yamada Nishiki 山田錦 milled to 40% and a special artesian well water from the ruin of "Jurakudai" castle 聚楽第跡, hence the name of the sake. All sounded very promising but it was not as impressive as we had hoped. It has  all the characteristics of daiginjou sake. Very fruity and it almost tasted slightly sweet which may not have been our favorite type of sake. Since this was bought at the duty-free shop in Narita airport, we did not have a large selection and we did not have any foreknowledge of the sake we were buying. Still, this was an excellent sake, especially with karasumi, uni and grilled fish with kinome sauce. Kinome has such a distinctive flavor you cannot miss. So we were warming up for more goodies and proceeded to make a second  plate from the osechi box.

The below are the second plate which included "tarako" cod roe kelp roll 鱈の子昆布巻, flower-cut simmered carrot 梅人参,  sweet simmered chestnut with inner skin 栗渋皮煮, pickled myouga 酢取茗荷 (new this year), Kumquat in syrup 金柑, simmered sweet fish with roe 子持鮎甘露煮, herring roe marinaded in miso 数の子味噌漬. I am not sure if snow pea 絹サヤ came from my own or from the osechi box.

Herring roe was very nice with very subtle sweetness.

Japanese sweet fish "ayu" with it's roe was also perfect.

At this point, we were quite full. As a ending dish, we had my fuccacia bread with Spanish olive oil for dipping.

This was a pretty auspicious way to start the New Year but it's not over yet. There are many more goodies in the osechi box.

"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.