Panna cotta from homemade buttermilk 自家製バターミルクでパナコッタ

After my wife made buttermilk using the culture from "The culture for health" we were quite impressed with the quality of the buttermilk. My wife decide to make something using the buttermilk. Since we had some leftover blueberries she decided to use the newly made buttermilk to make panna cotta with blueberry sauce as shown in the first picture.

Ingredients
1 tsp. gelatin
1 1/2 Tbs. water
1 cup 4% milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup buttermilk

For the blueberry sauce:
1 cup of blueberries
1 tsp. Of sugar

Directions:
For blueberry sauce:
Put the blueberries and sugar in a small ceramic dish and cook them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes in the toaster oven until they form a thick type of blueberry jam.

For panna cotta:
Bloom the gelatin in the 1 1/2 Tbs. of water. Put the milk and sugar in a sauce pan and heat until the sugar is melted. Remove from the heat and use several tablespoons of the warm mixture to “temper” the gelatin until it is completely dissolved. Add the tempered gelatin into the rest of the milk mixture and stir completely. Let cool to room temperature. Add the buttermilk and vanilla. Pour the mixture into the containers. Tip the containers using a muffin tin to support them in order to get the beveled appearance. Cool in the refridgerator until the mixture becomes firm. Just before serving spoon in the blueberry mixture on top of the buttermilk mixture to bring the contents of the container even with the top.

This panne cotta turned out well. It was very creamy, slightly tangy and sweet with a vanilla flavor. The blueberries added a nice fresh blueberry flavor that went very well with the vanilla.

Homemade buttermilk 自家製バターミルク

 For the last couple of weeks we have not been able to get buttermilk particularly the brand my wife likes best. As was the case when we could not get plain yogurt at the start of the pandemic and my wife started making it, she decided to start making buttermilk too. So she ordered buttermilk starter from "Cultures for Health" (the same place she got the starter for yogurt). Unlike yogurt, however, there is little information on the internet on how to make buttermilk. Most of the entries are about what to substitute in recipes for buttermilk if you don’t have it. 

Digression alert: Buttermilk is one item that is very difficult to find or not at all in Japan even recently. When I was growing up in Japan, I never heard of it. Even in the U.S., not many people will drink buttermilk but almost exclusively use it in cooking, especially baking. It has its own unique tangy flavor which will add to the flavors of baked goods and its acidity will activate baking soda. My wife is one of the rare people I know, who enjoys drinking buttermilk. (She says, 'What's not to like? If you like sharp cheese why not buttermilk?') Originally buttermilk was the residue liquid after butter was churned. It was fermented to make buttermilk but modern buttermilk was made by inoculating and fermenting whole milk as my wife did (see below).

The resulting buttermilk (shown in the first picture) was quite thick and almost the consistency of runny yogurt but it has a very different taste... tasted like...buttermilk…actually pretty good buttermilk!

 

To make buttermilk

To “wake up” the culture when you first get it. 
Pour 1 quart of pasteurized milk into a glass container. 
Add 1 packet of starter culture and mix well. 
Cover the container and put in a warm spot (we use the proofing box) at 70 -77 degrees. 
Check after 24 hours to see if the buttermilk has set. If it has not leave it up to 48 hours checking every so often. 
Once it has set refrigerate at least 6 hours. (We put the container in the proofing box at 9:00 am on Friday and took it out at 8:00 PM on Saturday.) 

For subsequent batches add 1/4 cup of the previous batch to 1 quart of milk and repeat the procedure of putting it in a 70-77 degree proofing box until set. It should set in less time than the first batch, about 12-18 hours. While doing subsequent batches I realized the milk was very cold just coming out of the refridgerator and it took some time until it even reached room temperature in the proofing box. So I gently heated the milk to about 90 degrees in a pan on the stove. When it was about room temperature i.e. just warm to the touch,  I added the starter. This really accelerated the process. If the milk was started at 7:00 AM it was ready by 7:00 PM. The instructions suggest making a new batch every 7 days to keep the culture strong. It also suggests that it may take several batches for the flavor and texture to even out. 

The resulting buttermilk from our first batch, was very thick and creamy. It had a very mild flavor and even I was able to drink a little of it. 

Periodic cicadas Brood X 2021 １７年周期の蝉

 Disclaimer: I want to make crystal clear, right up-front that although various recipes for cooking cicadas appeared in the local media, WE DID NOT COOK OR EAT ANY and this is not a blog on “how to serve Cicadas.” If that is what you were looking for, please move on. With that out of the way, today’s blog is not about food. It is about commemorating a wonder-of-nature that just took place in the Washington area this year; the emergence of the 17 year cicadas Brood X. 

Cicadas or "semi" 蝉 are very common in Japan. When I was growing up, my brother and I collected cicada nymphs when they emerged from the ground and started climbing the trees in the early evening. We brought them inside and let them spend the night clinging to the curtains in our bedroom. (Yes my mother was a saint). They would molt during the night and by the time we woke up the next morning, they were all dry and ready to fly.  It was this transformation that fascinated us. After observing them for some time we just let them go. The cicadas of my childhood came out every year. They had brown eyes and opaque brown wings and were called "aburazemi" 油蝉 or "Large brown cicada". They spent about 3 years under ground but their emergence was not synchronized. So every year, a batch of about the same number would appear. 

In contrast, while the area where we live now has cicada every year, it is also characterized by the emergence of "periodic cicadas". These are cicada that synchronize their emergence to come out en mass (read, in the billions) as a strategy to overwhelm any predators so enough will survive to procreate. The most impressive is the emergence of the 17 year cicada. They spend 17 years living under ground feeding on the sap of tree roots before they emerge, molt into their adult winged form, issue their deafening shrill mating call, mate, lay their eggs in trees and die. They are unique to the eastern United States. None of the other 3,400 species of cicada worldwide do this. There are three species of 17-year cicadas—Magicicada septendecim, M. cassinii and M. septendecula. They form mixed-species cohorts called broods whose members arise like clockwork on the same schedule. The broods are identified by Roman numerals. There are 12 of them identified according to the regions of the United States in which they appear. For example, Brood I, the Shenandoah brood so named because it appears in the Shenandoah valley area, or XIX the Great Southern Brood appears in the U.S. southeast. Brood X, known as the Great Eastern Brood is the largest of the 12 broods and it is the one that made it’s appearance in the Washington area this year. The cicada that appeared this year were spawned 17 years ago in 2004 when their “parents” last emerged. (This is a very long lived insect. If these were kids they would be thinking about attending college). The number in which they emerge is truly mind boggling. Their mating call is deafening. Heard from a distance it sounds unworldly—like a space ship—and it goes on for about a month. 

We took several pictures to commemorate the event. The first picture gives a glimpse of how they come out in droves. This is just a small segment of the continuous stream of cicada working their way up the tree from the ground. Looks almost like a cicada rush hour traffic jam up our small cherry tree which we planted about 3 years ago after our 30  some year old cherry tree was destroyed during nor easter. 

More cicadas are "resting" on the hosta leaves.

Brood X periodic cicada is much smaller than the cicada I am familiar with in Japan. They are also more colorful; quite the fashionista with the red colored eyes and transparent gold wings as shown in the portrait here. And check out the golden legs. 

They are harmless rather awkward flyers, bumbling into things, flipping upside down when landing, feet flailing in the air, minutes spent righting themselves, walking mechanically one leg after the other somewhat like a wound-up robot. Think about it. You spend your entire life (17 years) in the dark, underground, wingless. Then suddenly, literally overnight, you find yourself above ground, in the light, in an entirely different body, with wings no less. Is it any wonder that it takes some time for them the pass the “driving test” in these new bodies? While we were sitting outside in our backyard, they made themselves quite at home, landing and crawling all over the place. The one shown here is checking its email.

Here is one taking selfies.

This one stopped by for an espresso.

Apparently pets (especially dogs) and wild animals (rats. mice, squirrels and birds) enjoy this bounty which for them is food. We watched a resident squirrel grab a cicada, rip off  its wings, head and eat the rest all within seconds. Then eventually the squirrels became satiated. There were just too many cicada for them to eat so, in typical squirrel fashion, they started burying them. (Not sure how that helped. We pointed out to the squirrel that the next generation cicada in larva form would eventually end up underground again so burying the parent that was going to die anyway would not be helpful). Ok the recipes we saw in the media during this event were interesting in a certain intellectual sense but we were certainly not into it. We decided to leave the cicadas to the other gourmets such as the squirrels. Although this emergence of Brood X cicadas looked somewhat smaller and not as noisy or numerous than as the one 17 years ago, it was still one of the best floor shows put on by nature. 

Crumpet version 2 クランペット 第二弾

After we made blini using a newly rediscovered cast iron pan (supposedly called a "platar"), we challenged ourselves to use it to make crumpets. The last attempt at crumpets was less than successful; those crumpets did not develop the "hole-y" characteristic which makes a crumpet crumpet. This time with a new recipe and the newly rediscovered cast iron pan, we succeeded in making perfect crumpets. We served them with melted butter and a small amount of honey.

The batter is rather runny almost the consistency of pancake batter. In our previous version we used English muffin rings, as recommended in the recipe we were using, but the batter seeped out at the bottom of the ring. We had no such problem with our cast iron pan.

The new recipe had instructions as to how to control the heat to develop multiple holes as shown in the second and third pictures. You can see that while cooking, bubbles developed and then popped creating nice holes.

Ingredients:

1 times the recipe (about 14 crumpets)
300 g. (2 cups) AP flour
400 ml. (1 1/2 cups) warm water
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Sugar
2 tsp. Baking powder (The recipe said baking soda doesn’t work as well)
2 tsp yeast
2 tbs. warm water

1 1/2 times the recipe (about 21 crumpets)

3 cups AP flour (2 cups AP and 1 Cup +2 Tbs. Cake flour) 

600 ml. warm water
1 1/2 tsp. Salt
2 tsp. Sugar
3 tsp. Baking powder (The recipe said baking soda doesn’t work as well) 
3 tsp yeast
3 tbs. warm water

2 times the recipe (this is the recipe I’ve been using) 
600 g. (4 cups) AP flour (or 2 cups AP and 2 cups + 1/4 cup  Cake flour) 
800 ml. (3 cups) warm water (or buttermilk or regular milk)
2 tsp. Salt
2 tsp. Sugar
4 tsp. Baking powder (The recipe said baking soda doesn’t work as well) 
4 tsp yeast
4 tbs. warm water (1/4 cup)

(Use second to largest scoop not completely filled)

Directions:
Bloom the yeast in the warm water. Put the flour, water and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on speed 5 for 1 minute until smooth paste forms. Add the yeast mixture, sugar and baking powder and mix on speed 5 for another 30 seconds. Cover with cling wrap and put in a warm place for 15 to 30 minutes. The surface should get foamy but it will only increase in volume by 10 to 15 %.

Pre-heat the platar and coat the cups with melted butter. Using a small ladle scoop the batter into the cups. Heat control is key to crumpet success. Stronger heat is needed to begin with to get the holes bubbling. Cook on the higher heat for about 1 1/2 minutes until bubbles start appearing. Then lower the heat so the crumpet cooks through without burning the base, but strong enough to make the bubbles pop. Cook on the lower heat for about 1 minute until the bubbles start popping. Bubbles will start to pop around the edges first then in the center. Finally, lower the heat further and continue cooking for 2 1/2 to 4 minutes until the surface is set and it is clear no more bubbles will be popping. (According to the recipe, at this stage the final bubbles could be popped with the help of a skewer.)  Some wisps of smoke from the butter around the rings may appear. If there is a lot of smoke it means the skillet is too hot. Flip them over to cook the other side for 20 to 30 seconds to give it a blush of color. Cool on a wire rack. 

These crumpets were much better than the first batch we made. They got even better after the second day. We tasted them just out of the pan and the outside was crunchy but the inside was kind of wet and doughy. We initially thought they may not have been cooked through. But by the next day the insides had firmed up and were nicely chewy. The flavor was nicely accented with the taste of browned butter. We toasted them in the toaster oven and served them with melted butter and some honey. Mighty fine! 

Sashimi from Japanese grocery store 日本食料店からのはまち刺身

I have not physically gone to a grocery store including our Japanese grocery store for almost one year because of the COVID. We are mostly satisfied with our main grocery store delivery service but especially for Japanese or specialized  grocery items, nothing replaces shopping in person. So, now fully vaccinated for sometime, one weekend, I decided to visit our Japanese grocery store and really realized nothing replaces being there and selecting items you are buying. I got so many good Japanese food items (I got a bit carried away). After coming back from the store, we had a lunch of grilled mackerel and rice balls. They were made at the store and were still warm fresh out of their kitchen. I made a miso soup (tofu, shimeji mushroom and abra-age 豆腐、油揚げ、ぶなしめじ) to complete our lunch. This was a very satisfying meal. In the evening, we had "Hamachi" はまちの刺身 yellowtail sashimi which I have not seen  previously at our Japanese grocery store. Since we had a frozen "Ankimo" 鮟肝 which I bought at the Japanese grocery store last time I was there, over a year ago, I decide it was the time to serve it. So, we started the evening with Hamachi sashimi and ankimo with ponzu sauce. I also got a special "Sashimi" soy sauce 刺身醤油 for this.

The hamachi in the picture one serving which is half of the tray I bought. So it is a good amount.  I served cucumber in vinegar dressing and wasabi from the tube. This was quite descent yellowtail sashimi.

I usually serve Ankimo with soy sauce and orange marmalade but the jar of marmalade we had was unopened but expired several years ago. So I served it with Ponzu sauce and green part of scallion as a garnish.

We somehow feel really good that we can get Japanese food items from our Japanese grocery store again. It made us feel like there may be light at the end of this covid tunnel. We really like to start our evening with a little bit of sashimi.

Eggplant stir fried with sweet miso 茄子の味噌炒め

 This is the eggplant dish I made with the last remaining Japanese (Asian) eggplant we recently got from Hmart (left in the first picture). I served this with bluefish simmered in miso ブルーフィッシュの味噌煮 (right).

Since oil and eggplants go well together, first frying it  in oil and then simmering in sauce is the most usual way of preparing eggplants. That what I did with this dish; the eggplant was first fried and then simmered in the miso flavored sauce. I garnished it with roasted sesame seeds.

This was accompanied by another miso flavored dish; bluefish simmered in miso.

Ingredients for the eggplant (makes about 8 of the small servings in the first picture):
1 Japanese eggplant (this was a big one about 10 inch long), stem end removed, skin peeled in strips and cut into bite sized pieces ("Ran-giri" 乱切り) then soaked in salted water to 10-15 minutes.
2 tsp neutral oil (I used light olive oil) for frying
1 tsp grated ginger root

For miso seasoning (Dissolve the below in a small bowl)
2 tbs sake
2 tsp red miso
2 tsp mirin

Directions:
Sauté the eggplant in a frying pan with the oil on medium flame until the oil is absorbed and the eggplant is soft (few minutes).
Add the ginger and then the seasoning and stir for a few minutes.
I served with white sesame seeds as garnish.

Since oil and eggplant go together well, this is a nice dish but we like the eggplant in seasoned broth 茄子のお浸しbetter. It is easier to make to boot and probably, is healthier since  no oil was used. 

Bluefish "sanga" fish cake ブルーフィシュのサンガ

We are getting fresh whole fish from Hmart which has a wider selection at lower prices than other grocery stores in the area. We particularly like mackerel with bluefish as a very good mackerel substitute. Bluefish like mackerel is not considered a particularly prized fish because of its very strong flavor. There are various ways to cook it that turn its flavor into an asset which is why we like it. For that reason, bluefish or mackerel are often smoked in the US. I often simmer either fish in miso and ginger which reduces the fishiness. This time, we got a fairly large bluefish. Since this was a fairly big fish, I ended up with a good amount of fish meat scraped off the bone and tail. I was thinking about making “tsumire” ツミレfish balls cooked in broth but I came up with this dish called “Sanga” さんが which is a type of fisherman’s dish famous in Chiba prefecture 千葉県.  This is usually made from types of fish called “Hikari-mono” 光り物 including mackerel and sardine which have shiny blue skin and tend to get spoiled quickly and can have strong or “fishy” flavors especially when not fresh. Since bluefish to me is in the same ilk, I decided that this dish should  work. This dish is essentially a cooked version of  “namerou” なめろう. The main flavorings are miso and ginger. Here, I put perilla leaves on one side of the fish paddies and included a side of sugar snaps in salt broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし.

This is the cross section. Some of the fish meat were not completely mashed. The yellow and white bits are chopped ginger and scallion.

Ingredients (made 6 small patties).
Blue fish meat scraped off the bone, tail and other parts, hand chopped using a heavy Chef’s knife, about 150grams (a guess)
Red miso 1 tbs
Ginger cut finely, 1 tsp plus ginger juice from grated ginger (about 1/2 tsp)
Scallion, 4 stalks, finely chopped
Potato starch (katakuri-ko) 2 tsp
Dark sesame oil 1/2 tsp
Perilla leaves (4-6 depending on the size)

Directions:
Mix all ingredients well except for the perilla leaves.
Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions.
Lightly oil hands and make the portions into flat discs and place the perilla leaves on one side (#1) in the third picture).
On a medium low flame with a small amount of neutral oil, first cook the side without perilla leaves until nicely browned (#2).
Flip it over and cook the other side for another 1 minute or so or until done (#3 and #4).

 This is a good way to use scrap fish meat from the bluefish. The double doses of ginger juice and finely chopped ginger add ginger flavor but not overwhelmingly so. The miso flavor and sesame oil are a good combination. I am not sure if I can taste the perilla leaves. It warmed up nicely by microwaving.

Raised Buckwheat Blini cooked in a “platar”

After making the blueberry buttermilk pancakes, my wife was leafing through the pancake section of the newer (1997 version) “Joy of Cooking” (JOC) cookbook when she found a reference to something called a “platar”. It was accompanied by a drawing of the device and the description; “a platar is a cast iron flat pan with seven round indentations each about 3 inches wide and 1/2 inch deep especially for making blini or other small pancakes”. A bell went off in her head. She immediately recognized the platar as the cast iron pan that has been floating around with our other cast iron griddles and frying pans for years. (Shown in the picture below.) 

We have had it for so long we are not sure how we acquired it and had no idea how it should be used. We vaguely thought it could be used to make biscuits but after some experimentation years ago we discovered that didn’t work. So it resided, taking up room, at the bottom of the stack of various sized cast iron frying pans in a drawer under the stove. She was absolutely delighted to finally find the purpose of the pan as well as the blini recipe on the next page of the cookbook. So this was our project one weekend.

Digression alert: At one time, we were into caviar and we made blini many times. We already had our platar at that time but obviously we did not know its purpose so we made the blini in a frying pan. By-the-way, we looked up (=Googled) the word “platar” and the only reference we could find was a listing in a forum where somebody who, like us, had read the section about platar in JOC asked what it was. The answers appear to suggest nobody knew. Although we could not find anything with the word “platar”, we did find a cast iron skillet that lookedexactly like our platar at Amazon.It was called “SIMLAY CO. Cast Iron Baking Pan”. The advertisement said it could be used to make many things; muffins, biscuits, eggs. Spoiler alert: We tried that years ago...somewhat less than successful. 

We did not have caviar the weekend we used the platar, but we did have "Ikura" salmon roe so we used that to top the blini. (We do not stock caviar but we do try to keep a supply of "Ikura' in the freezer).  The second picture shows the final (blini, sourcream, egg, ikura) dish with a garnish of chopped chives and marinated strawberries that we served that day for lunch. 

  

We had this with our usual second cup of coffee for the day; "macchiato". (The first cup was cappcino or more like cafe latte). 

I am sure there must be many interpretations of macchiato but our interpretaion is a single shot of espresso topped with 1 tsp. of frothed cream.

As usual my wife made the batter for the pancake and I cooked it. Since I have never used a platar, it was a learning experience. The blini came out better in the later batches. I ask my wife to provide the recipe.

Ingredients:
For Blini (makes about 21 blini)
1 1/2 cup milk
4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) butter
2 tsp. yeast
2/3 cup AP flour
2/3 cup buckwheat flour
2 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 large eggs, lightly beaten

For Blini (recipe X2) (mix in the 6 cup pyrex mixing cup so the batter can be poured rather than scooped into the cooking cups.) 
3 cup milk

8 Tbs. (1 stick) butter
4 tsp. yeast
1 1/3 cup AP flour
1 1/3 cup buckwheat flour
4 Tbs. sugar
2 tsp. salt
6 large eggs, lightly beaten

For topping (everything is to taste and depends on the number of pancakes being served. Also anything can be used. This is just what we came up with.)
sour cream (to taste)
2 eggs, scrambled
1 Tbs. Ikura (salmon eggs) or caviar
Chives finely chopped

Note: Use smallest ladle, Don’t make them too thick.  (Or conversely make them thick enough that they can be cut in half horizontally. That will shorten the cooking time).

Directions:
For the Blini: Melt the butter in the milk. Let it cool to about 105 to 115 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients (yeast through salt) in another bowl. Pour the cooled milk mixture over the dry ingredients mixing until just combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in volume (about 1 hour) (#1 in the 3rd group of pictures). Once it has risen either make the pancakes immediately or refridgerate covered for up to 24 hours. (We made the batter after dinner and refridgerated it over night). If refridgerated let it stand at room temperature for 20 minutes (#2). Then deflate the batter and whisk in the  eggs lightly beaten.

Now, I am providing the details of how I cooked blini in the platar. This is for our future reference because this requires some finesse. First, I took out the planar and washed it with hot water (no soap), dried it by heating it on the stove and coated each of the 7 wells with olive oil using a paper towel (#3). I preheated the pan on low flame for 5 minutes then used a small ladle (second smallest ice cream scoop) add the batter, half filling the wells (#4). I continued to cook until the surface of the pancake showed bubbles and looked dry (5-7 minutes). Then came the challenge of flipping them. According to my wife,  the directions in the JOC said flip the pancakes over using a skewer. But that proved entirely too simplistic. After some experimentation I came up with a method of loosening the blini by running the tip of a dinner knife around the perimeter of the well, then inserting the knife tip under the bottom of the blini to pry it loose. Then with the knife under the blini and a bamboo skewer inserted into the top I flipped it (#5). As I repeated the process I got better and could flip the pancake without damaging the side. But I noticed that the 6 wells surrounding the center well had uneven heat and only the outer half got browned (#5). So with the next batch, I released the blini before they were ready to flip and turned them180 degrees in the well then cooked them for a few more minutes before flipping them over. In the next batch, the first side was more evenly browned (#6).  In any case, when all was said and done, we had at least a few perfect blinis (#7= top and #8=bottom).

I topped one of the “perfect” blini (#1) in the 6th set of pictures, with sour cream (#2), scrambled eggs (#3), "Ikura" salmon roe and finely chopped chives harvested from our herb garden (#4). 

 

This is the height of decadence. The blini had a soft thick texture and a very pleasing robust rustic flavor from the combination of buckwheat flour and yeast. The sour cream, eggs and salmon caviar were an excellent combination with complementary creamy texture. The burst of saltiness from the ikura at the end of the bite was a perfect finale. This is how we will be making blini in the future. Next stop crumpets in the platar. 

Mint and pea kakiage ミントと豌豆のかき揚げ

Sometime ago, I saw this recipe in the web version of a Japanese newspaper. I thought mint and pea kakiage (a type of tempura made with several small food items) かき揚げ was very interesting and unique but was dragging my feet in actually making it. The mint crop is flourishing in our herb garden and my wife harvested some to make mint tea recently. She reserved some mint leaves for me to use for this kakiage (so I found myself fresh out of any excuses for not making it.) Finally, I made this dish one weekend evening. I served it with wedges of lemon and green tea salt.

I did not remember the details of the original recipe (and I could not find it any longer) but I used cake flour and carbonated water to make rather thin tempura batter and it came out very light and airy.

Ingredients (I did not precisely measure anything but it made four kaiage tempura).
About 1 cup of fresh mint leaves, washed and dried.
About 1/2 cup of peas (I used frozen petit peas, thawed).
Cake flour for dusting.
Peanut oil for frying.

For Tempura batter
About 1/2 cup cake flour
Cold carbonated water.

Directions:
Lightly dust the mint leaves and peas with the cake flour (#1 in the third picture)
Mix the cake flour and the carbonated water to make thin tempura batter and add the peas and mint leaves (#2)
Using a slotted spoon, I scooped up the mint and peas and slid the clump into the hot oil (350F) (#3)
Turning once, I fried them until crispy and slightly golden then drained them (#4)

We couldn’t taste much of the peas but this was very light, airy and crunchy with refreshing mint flavor. Perilla leaves, which are a bit similar to mint leaves, are a standard tempura item which I have used in several variations but mint leaves are certainly unique. Since we have a good supply of fresh mint leaves during the summer, we might try this in different combination...asparagus and mint immediately comes to mind.

Addendum
I made this dish again a few days later. I also found the original recipe and only thing I missed was adding potato starch (should equal 1/2 the amount of cake flour used). I also added fresh corn. I lowered the hot oil temperature to avoid browning. All worked better.

Tarako from Korean grocery store Hmart 焼きたらこ

 Lightly grilled salted "tarako" たらこ cod roe is not really a new dish as I posted it many years ago,  but it is a very common dish in Izakaya and goes perfectly well with sake. I usually get tarako (frozen) from our Japanese grocery store, but this time I got it from Hmart, the Korean grocery store, through Instacart.  The groceries were delivered while I was not at home so my wife received them. During a subsequent phone call,  she mentioned that it was not a completely successful grocery run since the three types of fresh mushrooms and the mackerel we ordered were not available. The good news was that the "tarako" did arrive. She said something was wrong, however, because it was covered with a red goopy stuff and suggested that maybe the little egg sacks had somehow ruptured spilling their contents. (Not good!) So when I got back in the evening and inspected the tarako I found it was coated with a Korean hot sauce "gochujang". We were both relieved and had a good chuckle. Since we are not into very hot spicy food, I quickly rinsed off the hot sauce. I made "Tarako" pasta たらこスパゲッティwith it and it was just fine. I made the dish shown below from the last sac of tarako. I just cooked it in the toaster oven until the surface was cooked but the insides were still raw. I served it with a Dashimaki omelet だし巻き I had made.

This was a part of several appetizers I served that evening (second picture). From left to right; Eggplant in seasoned broth 茄子のお浸し、deviled egg from pickled eggs my wife made,  salmon in sweet vinegar 鮭の南蛮漬け. The bottom right are oven-baked potato chips which my wife is in the process of perfecting and which will be subject of another post. The dish on the bottom left is a dipping sauce my wife made to go with the potato chips.

In any case, we started the evening with these small appetizers.

Eggplant in seasoned broth 茄子のお浸し

We got 2 fairly large Japanese (or also called Chinese or Asian) eggplants (long and light purple colored). So, one evening, I made this dish from one of them. This is based on a recipe I found on-line. It was a shortcut recipe since the eggplant was microwaved but it turned out pretty good.

I topped this with dried bonito flakes or "Kezuri-bushi" 削り節.

Ingredients: (makes about 6 small appetizer servings like in the first picture)
One Japanese eggplant (this was large about 10 inch long)

For seasoned broth (mix first two items)
1/4 cup Bonito dashi broth (As usual I made this from a dashi pack).
1/4 cup or "to taste" concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (from the bottle)
Dried bonito flakes for topping.

Directions:
Remove the stem end of the eggplant and remove the skin in stripes using a vegetable peeler,
Cut lengthwise into two pieces.
Cut the two pieces further into bite sized pieces (called "ran-giri" 乱切り, cut in 45 degree angle as you rotate 90 degree).
Immediately soak in salted cold water for 10 minutes (water darkens).
Wash in cold running water.
Place the eggplant in a silicon container for microwave cooking and microwave for 1 minute (depending on the size of the eggplant and the wattage of the microwave oven).
Let it cool down until it can be safely handled.
Place the eggplant in the seasoned broth and refrigerate for a few hours.
Top with the bonito flakes just before serving. 

Since this type of eggplant is not as "bitter" or astringent as Western eggplant, soaking in salted water and microwaving worked. The skin is also much more tender than that of Western  eggplants. The seasoned both really made this dish. Perfect gentle cold dish for summer.

Scalloped potato with cauliflower puree

My wife came up with this dish one day. A few days before I had made my usual Cauliflower puree. Beside eating it as an “adult baby” food, we have made Mac-and-cheese using the puree instead of Béchamel sauce. I am not sure how she came up with this dish but, it is essentially scalloped potatoes made with the Cauliflower puree, cheese, onion and jalapeño pepper. This was topped with several kinds of cheese and baked.

After the servings were cut out, you could see multiple layers of thinly sliced potato with cheesy sauce. The green bits are chopped Jalapeño pepper. She ended up making a quite large amount but we managed to enjoy it all as a side for lunches and dinner and also as appetizers. Probaly not as rich as if we made this with full-fledged Béchamel sauce but it was quite good.

I ask my wife to provide the recipe. I help her by slicing potatoes, onions, and chopping up Jalapeño pepper.

Ingredients:
Two russet potatoes thinly sliced
2 onions thinly sliced
2 jalapeño pepper
1 cup of cheddar cheese grated
1 cup monterey Jack cheese grated
1/2 cup parmesian cheese grated
Several slices of smoked gouda to top.
Enough cauliflower puree to cover several layers


Directions:
Cover the bottom of an oven casserole dish with the puree. Distribute a layer of potatoes (#1) then the sliced onions, jalapeño pepper and the various cheeses (# 1&2) then the cauliflower pure (#3) Keep layering until all the ingredients have been distributed. End by putting on slices of smoked gouda (#4). Cook in a 400 degree oven covered for 30 minutes. Remove the cover and continue cooking for 30 minutes until the potatoes are tender and a knife slides in easily. Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.

This is a very comforting dish with thin layers of potatoes between custard like layers of warm cheese. The jalapeño peppers and onion give a nice flash of flavor. You would never guess that cauliflower was one of the main ingredients. It heated up nicely in the microwave. This would the a staple for any menu. 

Warm tofu with shiitake sauce 豆腐の椎茸あんかけ

 For some reason, it is getting more and more difficult to get fresh whole shiitake mushrooms. Our regular grocery store used to carry them but now only pre-sliced shiitake are available.  Whole foods used to have them regularly but it is now hit or miss. This time, we tried Hmart, Korean grocery store, through Instacart. Despite  the specific instruction that we wanted only whole fresh shiitake, we got pre-sliced. I decided to cook them so that they would keep longer and if needed I could also freeze them. So I just sautéed the mushrooms with olive oil, finely chopped red onion (I happened have extra finely chopped red onion left over from another dish). Several days later, I made this warm tofu dish from silken tofu (right, in the first picture). I also served fried salmon in sweet vinegar 鮭の南蛮漬け topped with ikura (left in the first picture)

I garnished it with chiffonade of perilla.

This is our stand-by dish but the ikura was soaked in a mixture of Japanese bonito broth and concentrated noodle sauce which makes the individual ikura swell up and give a nice snap with more flavor. 

Ingredients:(two small servings)
1/4 silken tofu, cut into two cubes
1 inch long dried kelp (for making broth)
Water

For "ankake" 餡掛け sauce
1/2 cup (arbitrary) sliced fresh shiitake mushroom (in my case mixture of finely chopped onion and pre-sliced shiitake sautéed in olive oil)
1/2 cup dashi broth (I used bonito broth using dashi pack)
1 tsp potato starch ("katakuri-ko")
1 tbs sake
1-2 tsp of concentrated noodle sauce (from bottle) to taste.
1/4 tsp grated ginger
chiffonade of perilla (optional)

Directions:
Wipe the kelp with a wet towel. Put in a pan and add water. When it comes to boil turndown the flame to simmer and add the tofu cubes to warm (5-10 minutes)

In a small sauce pan, add the bonito broth and the shiitake. Let it come to boil then turn down the flame to simmer. Cook for a few minutes. Add the concentrated noodle sauce to taste. Thicken the sauce by mixing in the potato starch slurry (with sake) and cook for few more minutes. Add the grated ginger and cut the heat.

In a bowl, carefully scope up the warm tofu cubes with a slotted spoon draining water. Pour over the "ankake" sauce and garnish with chiffonade of perilla (if using).

This is a nice, very gentle dish with soft and warm silken tofu with mild flavors of soy sauce, broth and shiitake. Although the day was not cold, we enjoyed this with cold sake.

Blueberry pancake v2 ブルーベリーパンケーキ V2

We always associate fresh blueberries with early summer, although they are now available year-around because they are also produced in South America. One way we enjoy blueberries is by making blueberry pancakes. Recently my wife was talking to her sister, and mentioned that we had just enjoyed blueberry pancakes for breakfast that day. Her sister asked for the recipe and my wife said it was in "The Joy of Cooking" (JOC). (This cookbook is a quintessential fixture of American kitchens and has been continuously published since 1936.) Sometime later her sister mentioned that she had made blueberry pancakes and they were really gourmet because of the addition of cornmeal and lemon zest. My wife was confused because  the JOC recipe she was familiar with did not include cornmeal or lemon zest. As a matter of fact there was no recipe in the pancake section of her JOC that mentioned those two items. So she went back to her sister and asked how she had calculated the amount of cornmeal to substitute for the regular flour called for in the recipe. Her sister replied that she had just followed the recipe in the cookbook. Then it dawned on my wife that her sister was using a different edition of JOC than the one my wife was using. It turns out that my wife's blueberry pancake recipe is from the 1980 edition and the recipe her sister used was from the 1997 edition, (which my wife also has). (I think the newest edition is 2019)**. In any case, my wife decided to try the 1997 edition blueberry pancake recipe her sister had used.

**Digression alert. We basically stuck with the older version of the cookbook because it was the one we were familiar with and particularly once we noticed that some of our favorite recipes from the old cookbook were not in the new cookbook. From an esoteric point of view, I particularly missed the section on how to prepare wild game that was in the old cook book. Although I may never have to use the knowledge that grey squirrels taste better than red squirrels because red squirrels are quite gamy in flavor or that squirrels should be skinned while wearing gloves to prevent possible tularemia infection, it is nice to know such information is available.  Not to mention the "must have" recipes for opossum, porcupine, raccoon or muskrat. 

As before, we "install" the blueberries individually rather than mixing into the batter to ensure even distribution. My wife is in charge of preparing the batter and I am in charge of cooking it.

Here I asked my wife to take over.

Ingredients:
2 cups AP flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
8 Tbs. (one stick) butter melted
4 large eggs separated
3 tsp lemon zest

Directions:
Mix the dry ingredients flour through salt in a mixing bowl.
Mix the wet ingredients, buttermilk through the 4 egg yolks in another bowl.
Add the lemon zest to the wet ingredients.
Whip the 4 egg whites until peaks are stiff but not dry.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.
Carefully fold the whipped egg whites into the batter.
Put a teaspoon of olive oil in a frying pan then scoop a ladle full of batter into the preheated pan and cook until done flipping once.


These pancakes, like the previous version, are very good. Both are nicely fluffy and have a pleasant mildly sweet taste with a lovely burst of flavor from the blueberries. This version has the addition of a mild lemon flavor. We didn't detect any addition flavor added by the cornmeal. Both recipes make a mighty fine pancake.

Salmon "ruibe" frozen sashimi 鮭のルイベ

One evening, we wanted to have one more appetizer to go with the cold sake we were enjoying. I remembered that we had frozen sashimi-grade salmon from Catalina Offshore products in the freezer but it was a one pound piece and would take too long to defrost. Then, it occurred to me that we could have "ruibe" ルイベ which is frozen raw salmon shaven into thin pieces to eat as a kind of sashimi. This dish is supposedly derived from the way the indigenous people who lived in Hokkaido 北海道 known as "Ainu" アイヌ used to eat salmon. Since I am originally from Hokkaido, I was familiar with this dish. In the “old” days salmon harvested in the fall could be stored frozen during the hard cold Hokkaido winter without the need for modern freezers. My understanding is that the Ainu people just shaved pieces off the frozen salmon and ate the shaved pieces. (Hopefully, the long and deep freezing in the cold Hokkaido winter was sufficient to kill the parasite endogenous to salmon making it safe to eat raw.) The salmon we had was sashimi-grade and frozen, (also from Norway ??) so it is safe to eat. Thus the only question was "Could I, in fact, shave pieces off the frozen salmon?" So I tried it using a heavy chef's knife. Amazingly, I could as shown in the next picture. 

 When I served this it was still frozen but quickly melting on the edges. We dipped the slices in soy sauce with wasabi. It quickly melts when held momentarily in the mouth. Initially it is crunchy ice coldness followed by the slow unfolding of fresh salmon taste; quite a unique and interestingly pleasant sensation not previously experienced elsewhere. We found this is a very good way to enjoy salmon sashimi “on the fly” without having to thaw it ahead of time.

The one pound frozen salmon sashimi block from Catalina tends to be too big for us to eat in one sitting so once it is thawed I am hard pressed to come up with multiple ways to serve it. (Eating the whole thing as sashimi demonstrates that it is possible to have “too much of a good thing”.)  I had contemplated cutting the large piece into smaller manageable sizes but didn’t think I could cut through the block while it was still frozen. After having successfully sliced the frozen salmon for the ruibe, however, I tried to see if I could divide up the frozen salmon block. Surprising success!! Using a heavy chef's knife and warming the blade a few times in hot water, I did cut the frozen salmon into two pieces. I vacuum packed both pieces and placed them back in the freezer. This was an additional side benefit of my experiment with ruibe. Now I can divide the frozen sashimi salmon so we can thaw the amount reasonable for one sitting.

Carrot cake with pineapple muffin パイナップル入り人参ケーキマフィン

 Recently we received two pineapples as a gift. They were probably the best pineapples we have ever had. They were certainly much better than the ones from the grocery store. They were very sweet, juicy and not fibrous except for the center cores towards the top and bottom. Although they were good, it was a lot of pineapple. Then, my wife found a recipe for carrot cake muffins in the recently re-discovered cookbook “Mostly Muffins” which uses pineapple and she went for it. This was a delicious most tender soft muffin. It did not taste of pineapple; but it must have contributed to making the muffin extra-tender. The amount of carrot that went into the batter was also quite large. Both the pineapple and the carrots basically disappeared into the muffin. This is another excellent muffin.

As usual, I ask my wife to provide the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup AP flour
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. mace
1/2 cup crushed pineapple including juice
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups shredded carrots
1/2 cups raisins

Double recipe
3 1/2 cup AP flour
1 1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. mace
1 cup crushed pineapple including juice
1 cup vegetable oil
2 egg, lightly beaten
3 tsp. vanilla
4 cups shredded carrots
1 cup raisin

Directions:
Put the pineapple in the bowl of a food processor with a blade and puree. Shred the carrots in a food processor. Set both the pineapple and carrots aside. In a bowl mix the dry ingredients (flour thru mace). In a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients (pineapple thru vanilla). Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Stir until just mixed then add the carrots and raisins. Mix until incorporated. Scoop the batter into 12 heavily greased muffin tins. (I used the 2nd largest scoop). Bake in a 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes until a tester put into the middle muffin comes out clean. These muffins are exceedingly tender. They have to be cooled completely before attempting to take them out of the muffin tins. (The first batch I made fell apart into large crumbs when I tried to remove them from the tins soon after they came out of the oven. The second batch was fully cooled and came out just fine.)

These are really good muffins. As stated previously they are very tender with a mild cinnamon sweetness and a nice firm texture element from the raisins. Great for breakfast.

Potato dill muffin ポテトとディルのマフィン

 This is another muffin from the “Mostly muffin” cookbook. My wife made this since we had leftover mashed potatoes made from russet potatoes baked (in Weber grill with pork roast). The mashed potatoes were seasoned with buttermilk, butter, salt and pepper. This is a very nice muffin with a clearly identifiable dill flavor but also a hint of the mashed potato.

Here again, I ask to my wife to take over.

Ingredients
2 cups AP flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup cooked mashed potatoes
1/4 cup lightly salted butter melted and cooled
1 egg lightly beaten
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. Sriracha hot sauce
1 1/2 tsp. dried onion (or onion powder or 2 Tbs. chopped scallions)
2 Tbs. dill chopped

Directions:
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl (Flour thru salt). In another bowl mix the wet ingredients (i.e. the rest of the ingredients). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated. Scoop (using 2nd largest scoop) into 12 heavily greased muffin tins. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until a cake tester in the middle muffin comes out clean. Let cool for about 5 minutes before removing them from the muffin tin.

These were very hearty muffins. The dill flavor was the most noticeable. The rest of the flavors were a bit muted. Next time I might increase the hot sauce and onion. Nonetheless this was a good muffin for breakfast or even lunch. 

Three appetizers with two new ones 新しいお通し2種

 I served these three appetizers one evening. The dish shown on the left in the first picture is my stand-by fried salmon in sweet vinegar or “salmon nanban” 鮭の南蛮漬け. The new ones are the one in the center “dried persimmon and daikon in sweet vinegar” 干し柿の大根なます and the one on the right, “udon noodle salad with peanut butter dressing” うどんのピーナッツバター和え.

The second picture is a close up of the dried persimmon and daikon in sweet vinegar sauce. This is loosely based on my compiled version of various recipes. I actually used the leftover marinade and vegetables from the previous batch of salmon nanban. (If I made this from scratch, I would make it close to the traditional New Year dish “daikon namasu” 大根なます and just add strips of dried persimmon). For a change, I also added roasted and ground sesame (fine grind but not paste) and a small amount of dark sesame oil. The combined taste of sweet and sour with added sesame flavor and refreshing daikon went well with the soft and sweet dried persimmon. Over time the persimmon got softer in the marinade. This is a good refreshing dish.

These are the ingredients and directions to make this dish from scratch (not reusing the vegetable and marinade of the salmon nanban).

Ingredients: 
2 dried persimmon, stem end and seeds removed and cut into strips.
1 inch segment of daikon, peeled, and cut into buttons then julienned.
Carrot and/or celery julienned (optional)
1/2 cup sweet vinegar (1/2 rice vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar or 2:1 ratio, pinch of salt, heat until dissolved. Then let it cool)
1 Tbs roasted white sesame seeds, fine ground (I used a Japanese mortar and pestle or suribachi.
1/2 tsp dark sesame oil

Directions:
Salt the daikon pieces and knead, then let it stand for 5-10 minutes.
Add all the ingredients and the sweet vinegar.
Let it marinate for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator.

The next dish is a variation of sesame noodle salad. Since we had home-made peanut butter, instead of sesame paste or “neri-goma” ねりごま, I used the peanut butter. This was very similar but different because of the rather intense peanut flavor. I have not made the sesame noodle salad for sometime and never made it with peanut butter. This is a good salad as an appetizer, I should make it more often.

Ingredients: (amount is all arbitrary)
Cooked thin udon noodle
Carrot, julienned
Scallion, sliced thinly diagonally
Sesame seeds for garnish (or crushed peanuts)

For Dressing:
Peanut butter, soy sauce, and rice vinegar in 2:1:1 ratio
Dash of dark peanut oil
Sugar and sriracha to taste
Minced ginger and garlic to taste
Add warm water if the consistency is too thick

Directions:
Cut the noodles into 1-2 inch lengths (optional but for ease of eating)
Dress with the peanut dressing.
Garnish with sesame seeds or crush peanuts.