Chicken with Avocado miso dressing アボカド味噌ドレシング

We used to subscribe New York Times Cooking. It was rather expensive for just the cooking section so we eventually cancelled the subscription. In any case, this is a recipe called ”Creamy Avocado-miso dressing” and it is from NYT Cooking. Since we had ripe avocado on hand and the recipe uses miso, we deemed this worth a try. This was supposedly  “salad dressing” for “hearty” greens, a warm grain bowl or grilled vegetables. We tried it as a topping for the homemade cheese wife made and as a dip for blanched cauliflower. Both tasted good. When we thawed a sous-vide cooked chicken breast, in addition to my traditional shredded chicken dish using sesame dressing, as per my wife’s suggestion, I made half of the shredded chicken with the avocado miso dressing. In the picture below, the left is with sesame dressing and the right is with avacado-miso dressing.

I used fresh cilantro leaves to garnished the dish made with avocado dressing.

For the one made with sesame dressing, I garnished it with white sesame.

The sous-vide cooked chicken breast is perfect for this type of dish. The meat is soft and moist.

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado, halved and pitted, flesh removed from skin
1/4 cup lemon juice (I used Meyer lemons since I had them).
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs vinegar (I used rice vinegar)
1 tbs white miso (I used “awase-meso” which is mixture of red and white miso).
1tbs honey
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a mini-food processor and blend until smooth (shown below).

This is a very nice dressing and we definitely taste the miso. The avocado takes a back seat but works well with the bright taste of the lemon and vinegar. We think this works better as a dip for vegetables. (We also had it as a dip for crackers and that worked very well too.) For the chicken dish, we think the sesame dressing goes better.

Steak dinner with Insignia 2012 ステーキとインシグニア2012

We rarely eat steak. This time, on the strong recommendation from my wife’s sister, we got a “special”package from Omaha Steaks which included, among a lot of other things, filet mignon. (It was called “Butcher’s cut”. We are not sure where this cut ranks on their quality scale of steaks). In any case, an occasion called for a special dinner and wine. So we cooked the steak and opened 2012 Joseph Phelps Insignia. The package from Omaha Steaks also included scalloped potato (shown here lower right) which I served with the steak, caprese salad and sautéed green beans.

The steak was first cooked in sous vide. After thawing, I patted the meat dry, seasoned with salt and pepper and vacuum packed with pats of butter and sprigs of fresh rosemary. I sous vide at 130F for 3 hours (minimum of 1.5 hours) for medium rare. Just before, serving I seared both sides briefly and set aside. I made a quick pan sauce by deglazing the pan with port wine, a dash of balsamic vinegar. I added any meat juice accumulated in the sous vide bags and on the plate on which the steaks were resting. After the liquid reduced in half, I added pats of butter and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Since this was sous vide cooked, the inside of the steaks were uniformly pink (as shown in the following picture). The steak was flavorful but a bit chewy/sinewy especially for filet mignon but we enjoyed it and the scalloped potatoes were great.

 

I checked our wines and decided to go with the oldest Insignia vintage we had which was 2012. I opened the bottle one hour prior to the planned dinner and decanted it. 

The wine was excellent. It was not too aged with nice dark fruit, vanilla and chocolate and well structured but mellowed tannin. In general we are not a great fans of old wines but this was just nicely aged for us to enjoy.

The steak and wine went as well as expected i.e. wonderful. We think we commemorated this special occasion adequately.

As an aside: The “special” we got from Omaha Steaks was quite a “haul” and included a number of items in addition to the steaks and scalloped potatoes. They were: hamburgers, meat balls, hot dogs, chicken fried steak, pork chops, chicken breast and apple pie.  We do not even remember when was the last time we ate hamburger or hotdogs so this should be interesting as we taste these additional items. I may have to commission my wife to bake some hamburger and hotdog buns.

Pork belly and diakon simmered in miso 大根と豚バラ肉のみそ煮

 We have been getting gourmet meat such as duck and lamb from D’Artagnan. This time, we got an email promotion from them for pork belly from young pig called “porcelet”. Since we have not had pork belly (from adult pig or otherwise) for sometime (we usually get it from Whole Foods), we decided to give it a try. It arrived hard chilled with skin on. It was also much larger than we expected. Although the ad said it was 6 lbs. it was essentially half of the entire belly and we realized that in its present shape it probably would not fit in our freezer so I immediately divided it into three portions. I vacuum packed and froze two and thawed one. I made several dishes from the one piece I thawed. One dish is shown below. I thinly sliced a small portion while it was semi frozen. This preparation is called “buta-bara komagire” 豚バラ細切れ and is usually used to “season” other ingredients, mostly vegetables, rather than served as a “meat dish”. I used it to make a Japanese style miso simmered dish with root vegetables. The original recipe came from erecipe, a Japanese recipe site. One evening I served this dish (left) with dashi-maki omelet, rapini buds (substitute for “nanohana” 菜の花 dressed in mustard-soy sauce or “karashi-jouuyu” 辛子醤油 and skinned Campari tomato.

Ingredients:
150 gram (1/3 lb) Pork belly, thinly sliced
1 carrot, medium, peeled and cut into bite size (“rangiri” 乱切り).\
Lotus root (renkon), I used frozen already cut ino slices, I used 4 which was cut into half circle.
1/3 Gobo burdock root, skin scraped off and cut into bite size (“rangiri”), soak it in vinegared or acidulated water until use (this is my addition since I had some left over gobo)
1 small piece of ginger root, skin scraped off and cit into julienne.

Pre-cooked green beans or other greeneries

oil for sautéing (I used peanut oil with  a dash of dar sesame oil)

Simmering liquid
150 ml Japanese both
3 tbs sake
1 tbs mirin
1 tbs sugar
2 tbs miso
1 tsp soy sauce (this is added at the end of cooking)

Directions:

Add the oil to a pan and sauté the ginger until fragrant. Add the pork and cook until the color changes

Add remaining vegetables and cook for few more minutes.

Add the simmering liquid (sans the soy sauce)

Cover it with either a parchiment paper lid or “otoshi-buta” 落とし蓋 on low flame for 20-30 minutes and the liquid reduces by half.

Remove the paper lid and mix the contents of the pan

Add the soy sauce and green beans

Pork and miso are a good (and classic) combination. The ginger flavor also goes well. This is Japanese home cooking and is very satisfying. It goes well with sake or rice.

Beef tongue carppaccio 牛タンのカルパッチョ

 My wife loves beef tongue but not the way it’s usually prepared in Japan (thinly sliced and grilled). As a result I usually prepare the tongue by boiling it in water with some aromatics which is how the beef tongue she ate as a child was prepared. (She refers to it as the Pennsylvania Dutch rather than Japanese method of preparation. The Pa Dutch method results in a meat that is extremely tender and melts in the mouth. The Japanese method in contrast results is a fairly tough and chewy meat. As my wife would say, “Which is the best method of preparation? What was the question?”) After removing the skin, I thinly slice it and make sandwiches using pumpernickel bread with mayo and mustard. (Again made to the exacting specifications of the tongue sandwiches my wife used to eat as a child.) Portions are further cooked as a Japanese-Western style beef tongue stew. (Which by-the-way was not something my wife used to eat as a child but likes non-the-less.) 

We have not able to get beef tongue for a while. Although we know one of the grocery stores usually carries it, we have not been there recently since we are getting grocery home delivery. But an unexpected event led us to be at this particular grocery store and since we were there we snagged a rather large beef tongue. We enjoyed the tongue over several days as sandwiches and stew with spaetzle. I finally used the last portion of the tongue to make carpaccio (left in the picture below) and a small salad in Japanese-style (made using the PA. Dutch style prepared tongue, of course) with ponzu, yuzu-kosho, onion, cucumber topped with sesame seeds (right)

I made this carpaccio the same way I usually make it using leftover steaks or octopus. I first make zig-zag lines of olive oil (I used our favorite Spanish olive oil) and balsamic vinegar (this is a quite good one we got as a gift) perpendicular to each other on a plate. Then I scattered Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper over the oil mixture. I then I put on a layer of Videlia onion cut paper thin using a Japanese mandoline  slicer. I then add a layer of thinly sliced beef tongue. I garnish with cucumber (thinly sliced, salted, with the moisture squeezed out and then dressed with sweet vinegar), more onion and concasse of tomato with basil strips. I finished with more olive oil, balsamic vinegar. This was really great with read wine.

For the other salad, I just used the cucumber and onion left over from the previous salad. I arranged it with the onion on the bottom, the tongue (thinly sliced) next and topped with the cucumber. I dressed it with ponzu ポン酢 mixed with Yuzu-kosho 柚子胡椒 and topped with sesame. (The dressing is what made it Japanese style.) We liked the carpaccio better.

Our garden now has azaleas and iris in full bloom. My wife brought some of the more elegant looking    iris inside for us to enjoy. Isn’t spring wonderful!

$10 red wines 10ドルの赤ワイン

We have tried quite a few $10 a bottle red wines in the past (from California , Spain, Chile, Argentina, Italy and France) which got high marks (meaning 90 or near it) by wine experts. Every time we were  disappointed (which may be at least partly due to what we look for in a red wine). My sweet spot for red wine or house red wine is between $20-30 a bottle, mostly from California and also Spain and Australia. Our current favorites in this category are “Pessimist” (Petit Sirah, Zinfandel and Syrah  based blend) and “ Cabernet Sauvignon” (both from from DAOU vineyards in Paso Robles), “Black Stallion Cab” (from Napa) and “Juggernaut Hillside Cabernet Sauvignon” (From Clarksburg, CA). 

*We were not sure why this wine is called “Pessimist” initially then we found the following statement on the back label: “a pessimist is never disappointed”, which has some philosophical resonance. 

But, recently, we came across these two $10 red wines through Vivino which are quite good and very drinkable.

In the picture below, the left and center are "Athena Cabernet sauvignon 2019 and 2020" and the right is “Leyth California red” (blend of Petite Syrah and Merlot similar to Pessimist). Both are $10 a bottle and if you buy more than 6 bottles, the shipping is included. I am not sure of current availability, though.

These wines are not flashy but honestly good drinkable wine. We had a chance of vertically tasting 2019 and 2020. We felt 2020 is even better with nice cedary nose.

Chicken spinach curry ほうれん草入りチキンカレー

This is another one of my wife’s curry projects. This is based on a recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s  “Quick & Easy Indian Cooking” called Chicken in cilantro, spinach and mustard sauce. Since we did not have fresh cilantro, we omitted it and we added potato based on our belief that potato goes well with almost any curry. We replaced “hot green chili” with Jalapeño pepper. My wife made additional changes as well. This may not be the dish in the book but this tasted very good with a nice creamy sauce.

Ingredients:
3 bay leaves
6 cardamon pods
1 inch stick cinnamon
5 whole cloves
2 or 3 onions chopped
1 cup raisins
1 cup greek yogurt
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 inch piece of fresh ginger peeled and chopped
2 Jalapeno peppers, deveined, seeded and chopped finely
Package of fresh spinach
3 tablespoons of grainy mustard
4 chicken thighs
Generous handful of cilantro tops (optional)

chicken broth as needed if the sauce gets too thick or starts to scorch

Directions:
Gather together the spices and ingredients (#1 & #2). Combine the yogurt and mustard and set aside. Put the bay leaves through cloves in a pan with hot peanut oil. Fry until the bay leaves start to brown and the spices become fragrant. (Remove the cardamon pods and cloves. The bay leaves and cinnamon can stay because they are big enough not to be eaten by accident.) Add the raisins to the hot oil. (Frying the raisins really transforms them. They puff up and their flavor becomes more intense.) Add the onions and fry until they are soft and slightly brown. Add the jalapeno and ginger and fry a few minutes. Add the yogurt/mustard combination with the salt and cayenne pepper. Mix until the sauce is distributed. Nestle the chicken into the sauce, add the potatoes and makes sure they are all covered in the sauce. Lastly add the spinach (#3). Cover and simmer gently until the spinach has wilted into the sauce. (#4). Gently simmer for about 1 hour until the potatoes and chicken are cooked through. (If the sauce gets too thick or starts to scorch dilute it with some chicken broth.)

This is a really good curry. It was different from the previous curries. The raisins give it a deep fruity flavor which contrasts with and is offset by the vinegary sharpness of the mustard. It results in a really nice kind-of sweet and sour combo. The Yogurt makes the sauce very rich and creamy. The potatoes absorb the flavor of the spices and also add to the creaminess of the sauce. The spinach adds additional texture and a slight bitterness on the tongue. Another great choice for lunch or dinner. 

Octopus leg from D'artagnan ダルタニアンからのスペイン産タコの足

I am fond of octopus and I’m always on the look out for a good and  reliable source. Our Japanese grocery store usually has it but I’m not going there as often as before. Our “tried and true” source is Catalina offshore products has frozen package of octopus for octopus leg from Japan. When I checked this time, however, only whole octopus was available.  We tried several other sources but they are were not always reliable. We recently tried Great-Alaska seafood which sold "Boiled Spanish Octopus". This was not bad and came two legs in a package frozen so it is just the right amount; however, it is a bit too soft/mushy. I made "Yawaraka-ni" やわらか煮 or tender simmered octopus which worked really well. This time, while we were reordering duck breast and lamb loin from D'artagnan we found that they also sell frozen Spanish octopus legs and decide to give it a try. One evening, I thawed one leg and tried it with sumiso dressing (on the right in the picture below) along with some cold chawan-mushi 茶碗蒸し topped with ikura (shrimp, chicken and nameko mushroom are in the chawan-mushi).

Since this was just a try, I only served three slices with cucumber in sweet vinegar.

Interestingly, the texture of this Spanish octopus is just right and to our liking-slightly chewy, not mushy or as toughly chewy as Japanese style octopus can be. It also tasted fresh. If D'artagnan keeps an inventory of octopus, this is another source. (We really liked the lamb loin we got from them which is a subject of another post.)

Potato mozzarella croquet モッツァレラチーズいりコロッケ

My wife was inspired to make these cheese croquets after viewing a similar dish on Webspoon (Youtube). Of course, ingredients and directions are hard to remember since there appears to be no written recipes for Webspoon. This recipe (as shown on the web site) was mashed potatoes with some starch, salt and grated parmesan cheese added. Mix and make discs, place mozzarella  cheese on one disc and cover it with another to make cheese enclosed by potato and fry it. My wife decided to make this dish and as usual took the web recipe as advisory. For the potatoes, she used her gnocchi recipe. The picture below shows the result; crusty outside, soft creamy potato with melted mozzarella cheese oozing out. This is a good version. As usual, I will ask my wife to take over. 

Ingredients:

16 oz. of mashed potatoes* (3 cups) 
4 oz. of AP flour (3/4 cup)
1 egg
1 tsp. salt

Low-moisture while cow’s milk Mozzarella cheese

*The mashed potatoes are made from russet potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil cooked in the Weber when we cook either pork or chicken. My wife then removes the potato skins, mashes them in a bowl and adds about 1/2 stick of butter, 1/4 cup cream cheese and chives, salt and drippings from barbecued meat. (These are pretty luscious mashed potatoes as is, especially wrapped in crispy chicken skin.)

Directions:
Put the potatoes through a potato ricer to remove any remaining clumps not previously mashed. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until it forms a dough. (Shown in the bowl in #1. You may need to add more flour until the dough forms.) Form a patty and put it on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Put the cheese (also shown in the lower right in #1) on the patty. Take another clump of potato mixture put it on top of the cheese covered patty and seal the edges. After the patties are formed dredge them in flour (#2). Fry the patties in peanut oil (#3) until they are golden brown (#4). 

These are a great way to eat potatoes. The potatoes themselves have great flavor from the cream cheese, butter and barbecue meat drippings. They have a nice crispy outside texture and a soft creamy interior. Also, there is no way to go wrong with the added feature of cheese oozing out. They also crisp up nicely in the toaster oven. 

Carrot soup with shrimp エビ入り人参スープ

 This is an impromptu dish I made one weekend for lunch. We bought a bottle of carrot juice sometime ago with the intension of making the carrot curry shrimp dish. But I did not have a chance to make it and the carrot juice passed “used best by” date by a few weeks. Not to be deterred by a “hypothetical (?)  best by” date wife cautiously tasted it and declared it perfectly good. She suggested using it to make a carrot soup. So, I came up with one based on what we had in the refrigerator.  I added boiled shrimp to the soup and served it with a potato muffin my wife made some time ago.

I made the soup the day before I served it. When I served it I added some cream and warmed it up. My wife suggested adding shrimp which was in line with the carrot shrimp curry we were originally planning to make. This was a perfect suggestion since we had frozen shrimp which was also past its “best by” date. The shrimp was shell-on. I gently poached them shell on in salted water with some sake then removed the shell. I garnished the soup with chives.

This is not following any recipe and I just winged it.


Ingredients:
450ml (15.2oz) bottle of carrot juice
4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into small cubes/coins
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into small cubes/coins (I added this because I had it and it was passing it’s peak)
2 small red potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
1/2 tsp fresh ginger, peeled and chopped finely
1 cup (or just enough to cover the vegetables) chicken broth
1tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

6 shrimp, poached and shelled (optional)

Directions:
Add the olive oil in a pan on medium flame, add the onion and cook for several minutes or until soft but not browned. Add the carrot, parsnips, potatoes and ginger. Add the chicken broth to just cover the vegetables. Simmer for 30 minutes or more until all the vegetables are soft. Add the carrot juice and cook for a few more minutes. Using either a food processor or immersion blender, process until the soup is smooth. Season with salt and pepper.


Just before serving, add the cream to your liking and warm it up. Add whatever topping and garnish.

This was a good soup especially since I made it not using any recipe. We did not taste the ginger but the taste of parsnips came through. There was enough carrot flavor to tell this was a carrot soup. It went well with the potato muffins and was perfect lunch.

Chicken curry with navy beans ネイビー豆入りチキンカレー

This is another one of my wife’s curry projects. This is a chicken curry based on a recipe in Madhur Jaffrey’s “Quick and Easy Indian Cooking.” The original recipe calls for lentils but we did not have any. So my wife used canned navy beans. The addition of navy beans really worked adding a creamy texture to the sauce. My wife put just enough “heat” in addition to all the other spices. One of the best curries she made.

Ingredients: (shown below with little easter bunny to commemorate the season)
6 tbs. Oil
3 bay leaves
5 whole cloves
6 cardamon pods
1 cinnamon stick about 2 inches long

2 or 3 onions diced
2 cloves garlic finely chopped

1/2 tsp. Turmeric
2 tsp. Salt
1 1/2 tsp garam masala
1 1/2 tsp. Lemon juice

1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
12 cherry tomatoes
1 can of white navy beans
6 oz. Green beans cut into 1 inch lengths
4 chicken thighs

Directions:

Put the ingredients from the oil to the cinnamon stick in a frying pan and heat until the bay leaves turn dark and the other spices bloom and become fragrant. Remove all the whole spices except for the bay leaves and cinnamon stick. (These can stay because they are easy to spot and there’s no chance someone might eat them by accident.) Add the onions to the spiced oil and cook until they start to brown slightly. Add the garlic and cook (careful not to burn). Next add the turmeric through lemon juice and cook until they bloom and become fragrant. Then  add and bloom the next spices—cumin seeds though cayenne pepper. Add the green beans, navy beans and tomatoes. Stir them into the sauce. Add the chicken and turn it over until coated in the sauce. Nestle into the sauce leaving it skin side down. Cover and cook gently on simmer for about 30 minutes. Then turn the chicken over and coat with the sauce. Continue cooking until the chicken is done about another 30 minutes for a total of 1 hour cooking. 

This was truly one of the best curries my wife has made. The beans absorbed the spice flavor and partially dissolved into the creamy sauce with some left whole to add a texture element. The spices provided layers and depth of flavor. The cayenne added just the right amount of zing to provide an interest that slowly built on the tongue. The chicken was flavorful and tender. This will become a regular in our repertoire. 

Hot cross buns 2022 ホットクロスバン 2022

It has been customary every year when Easter approaches, for my wife to make hot cross buns  (mostly without the sugar frosting cross, because the buns are sweet enough without it). This year was no exception. This year the recipe came from the heavy hard covered cookbook called “Bouchon Bakery Cookbook”. To me, this one looked like the most complicated recipe for hot cross buns I’ve seen my wife make over the years. Nonetheless it tasted very good and had a very nice texture.

This recipe calls for a lot of butter and multiple foldings. You can sort of see the multi-layering on the curt surface.

Ingredients: (#1)
Flour 372 g (2 1/2 cups)
Yeast 8 g (2 3/8 tsp)
Sugar 44 g (3 tbs. + 2 tsp)
Salt 9 g (1 1/2 tsp.)
Eggs 186 g (2 eggs)
Whole milk 63 g (1/4 cup)
Butter 167 g (5.8 oz) cut into small cubes
Raisins 122 g (3/4 cup)
Dried cranberries 61 g (1/2 cup)
1 tsp. Vanilla

Ingredients doubled:
Flour 744 g
Yeast 16 g (4 3/4 tsp)
Sugar 88 g (7 tbs. + 1 tsp)
Salt 18 g (3 tsp.)
Eggs 372 g (4 eggs)
Whole milk 126 g (1/2 cup)
Butter 334 g (11 oz) cut into small cubes Raisins 244 g (1 1/2 cups)
Dried cranberries 122 g (1 cup)
2 tsp. Vanilla

Directions:
Combine the fruit in a bowl and pour 2 cups of boiling water over it. Let sit for 5 minutes then drain and pat dry with paper towel. Set aside. Add all the other ingredients but the butter to the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Mix until a paste-like dough forms. Add the butter a piece at a time and incorporate into the dough. (At this point it will look like that will never happen since there seems to be more butter than flour mixture to incorporate it into.) When all the butter is incorporated mix on speed 2 for 7 to 10 minutes. Pat the dough into a rectangle and spread the fruit evenly over it (#2). Fold the dough into thirds as an envelope fold. Press the dough out into a rectangle again. Turn the dough 180 degrees and do another envelope fold. Press into a rectangle, turn and fold again (#3). Pat into a loaf and place in a lightly oiled bowl turning to coat with the oil and placing it seam side down (#4). Cover and put in proofing box at 75 degrees and let rise for 45 minutes. Remove from bowl and repeat 2 more folds. Return to bowl to rise another 45 minutes. Remove from bowl and divide into 12 equal portions, (24 equal portions for doubled recipe). Roll the divided portions into bun shape and place evenly spaced on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (Next time I will just cut into squares. This will require less working of the dough and make the number of folds more evident in the final product). Cover the pan and let rise until rolls are touching each other. Coat with egg wash and bake in 350 degree oven for 18 to 22 minutes until golden and toothpick comes out clean. Let cool on a rack.

These were indeed fairly complicated muffins. The hardest part was incorporating all the butter. At one point it looked like it wouldn’t happen. But it did. The muffins themselves are luxurious. The texture is dense but very soft. The numerous foldings made very fine layers. They were sweet but not too sweet. (They would have been sweeter if we had added the icing). The fruit adds another texture and a slight vanilla flavor. These are really quite something and worth the effort. 

Salmon cake with rapini サーモンケーキ

 After we switched to grocery home delivery, we realized some of the items were different from the ones available at a physical store. One of them is a whole half filet of salmon with skin on (around 2.5 lbs.) which appears to be only available for home delivery. The price per pound is more reasonable compared to smaller filets available in the store. We like every part of the salmon even the skin particularly when cooked to crispiness.  Interestingly the salmon is not scaled when it arrives. So one of the first things I have to do is to scale it using a handy-dandy Japanese fish scaler. (I guess the grocery store reasons that most customers don’t like the skin. They just remove it and throw it away so why take the time to scale it.)  Another part of this type of fillet that we particularly like is the belly portion which we eat as a small hors d’oeuvre . We also like the main portion of the fillet dried in the fridge for a few days before panfrying it .  (Drying the salmon in the fridge was a technique my mother introduced to us. On one of our visits to Japan my mother offered to cook some salmon she dried with the enticing phrase “Totemo oishi WA” delivered with an emphatic nod of her head. Even my wife knew this meant, “it’s really good” and it was.) Drying the fish obviously removes some of the moisture and in so doing improves the flavor. 

I usually end up with several portions of salmon in irregular shape from both the belly and tail end of the fillet. I remove the skin and and make salmon cakes with these portions. I usually make 4 cakes which are perfect for lunch or snack. This time, I served this as a small dish to go with red wine. I heated up the cakes in a frying pan, added blanched and chopped rapini and made sauce with brown butter and lemon juice. To make it more interesting, I added yuzu-kosho 柚子胡椒 which went remarkably well with this dish.

I followed this with fried shrimp heads  reheated in the toaster oven (this was a part of take out sashimi/sushi combination from Tako Grill the night before)  and the usual simmered root vegetables I make (lotus root, burdock root, carrot, bamboo shoot, and shiitake mushroom (dried). The greens are blanched sugar snap in salt broth.

Salmon cakes

Ingredients: (make 4 small salmon cakes)
150 gram salmon meat, half finely chopped (to hold the cakes together) and another half coarsely chopped (to add texture), amount is variable, whatever I have when preparing the whole half filet of the salmon.
1 small shallot (or onion) finely chopped (#1)
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and deveined, chopped finely (#1, optional)
2 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps finely chopped (optional, this time I did not have fresh shiitake)
2-3 tbs of panko Japanese bread crumbs (#4, adjust the amount based on the consistency of the mixture)
1 tbs mayonnaise (#2)
1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard (#2)
Lemon juice from half a lemon
1 tbs chopped fresh dill (#2), I use the dill I cleaned and froze)
Olive oil for frying the vegetables and the salmon cakes

Directions:

Sauté the onion, pepper and shiitake mushroom in olive oil, season with salt and pepper, let it cool down before mixing with other ingredients.

Mix the remaining ingredients except for the panko (#3), add panko to adjust the consistency of the cakes (#4).

Make round disks (#5) and cook with olive oil in a frying pan, several minutes on each sides until brown and cooked through (#6).

This is a good dish to have. The leftover cakes can be warmed up in a frying pan or in a toaster oven. You could make some kind of sauce as I did here or just a squeeze of lemon juice. They go great with red wine.

Cabbage stir fried Japanese style 日本風キャベツと油揚の炒め物

This is a simple Japanese family-style cabbage dish which my mother used to make. I thought I must have posted this before but obviously I did not. When we celebrated St. Patrick’s day this year we had a sort of Irish dinner with Shepherd pie, Irish soda bread, and I contributed this cabbage dish to complete the meal. This is a vegetarian dish since instead of meat, deep fried tofu or “abura-autge” 油揚げ is used. I also added onion but it was most likely not included in the original recipe. The seasoning is a typical Japanese one; soy sauce and mirin. This can be a drinking snack or accompaniment for rice (in that case, more soy sauce is called for). 

 I made. this with the center portion of cabbage I had left in the refrigerator. Since I was trying to use up the last of the cabbage, I made a bit more than I intended.

Ingredients: (The amount of the ingredients are arbitrary)
Cabbage, thinly sliced, soaked in water for 10 minutes and then moisture removed in a salad spinner (#1).
Deep fried tofu (abura-age), rinsed in hot water to remove excess oil, cut in half and sliced into thin strips (#2).
Onion, cut in half and thinly sliced (#3).
Vegetable oil with a dash or dark sesame oil for stir flying (#4)
Soy sauce and mirin as seasoning.

Directions:
Add the oil to a wok on medium-high flame
Stir fry the onion for a few minuets and then add the cabbage and continue cooking or few more minutes or until the cabbage softens.
Add the mirin and then soy sauce. Add the seasoning to taste.

This is a nice side dish and a nostalgic reminder from my childhood. 

Firefly squid grilled in miso-scallion sauce ホタルイカのネギみそ焼き

 One of the delicacies of Spring in Japan is firefly squid or “hotaru-ika” ホタルイカ.  Like last year, we got boiled firefly squid from Regalis Food. Since I started seeing “Hotaru-ika” in the Japanese food blogs I follow, I checked the Regalis site but they were not available yet so I asked to be notified when they came in. A few days later, I got an email saying firefly squid was available. I looked for something else to purchase from their site but nothing drew my attention so I decided to fill out the order with two packages of the squid. A major part of the preparation of this squid is removing the stone hard eyes and beak before serving/cooking. (It is more difficult to remove the beak than the eyes. Unfortunately I was not completely successful in beak-removal on some of the squid as my wife so kindly pointed out to me after crunching down on several of the ones I accidentally left behind). I served the firefly squid with “sumiso” 酢味噌 with “wakame” 若芽 seaweed twice which is the most common and basic way to enjoy this. For some reason, this year’s firefly squid tasted better than the ones we got last year. Since this is such a simple way of serving the squid the quality really makes a difference. I then proceeded with other preparations to serve.

One of those new preparations is shown below;  “firefly squid grilled in miso scallion sauce”. This is a perfect drinking snack and went so well with the cold sake we were having. 

The recipe came from e-recipe (in Japanese).

Ingredient: (for two small servings)
Firefly squid, about 20, both eyes and beak removed.

For sauce:
Scallion, finely chopped, about 2 tbs
Miso 1tbs
Japanese “dashi” broth 1tbs
Sugar 1-2 tsp
Soy sauce and white sesame (small amount, optional)

Directions:
Mix the all ingredients for the sauce (taste and adjust the amount of sugar and broth).
Place the firefly squid in a single layer in a oven-proof ramekin (picture below).

Cover the squid with the miso sauce (picture below).

Cook in the toaster oven until the surface becomes brown (6-7 minutes in toast mode). If needed, broil the surface for additional browning. Serve immediately.

Since grilled miso by itself is great with sake, this combination with firefly squid makes this dish perfect. 

Shepherd's pie

It was St. Patricks day so what would be the best way to celebrate? My wife suggested that at the very least a shepherd's pie should be involved. Since St. Patricks day fell on a weekday, we made this shepherd's pie on the following weekend. I theoretically knew what shepherd’s pie was but I had never made it and I do not think I ever even tasted one. In any case, here is a Shepherd's pie made from ground lamb in small individual ramekins topped with cheddar cheese.  This one really tasted lamb-y/mutton-y with nice mashed potatoes on top. So to continue, shouldn’t a traditional Irish meal include some cabbage?  My contribution was a Japanese-style cabbage dish. (This is a simple home style dish my mother used to make. I realized I never posted it. Therefore, subject for future post).  This Irish celebration was rounded out with the addition of a slice of Irish soda bread my wife made recently. 

Ingredients: (from Washington Post, for 4 servings which made 8 small ramekins, see below #1)
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 pound ground lamb
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 medium onion, chopped (about 3/4 cup)
1 large carrot, peeled and diced (I chopped it in fairly small dice)
1 teaspoon minced thyme (I used dried thyme since we did not have fresh one)
1 tablespoon flour
1 1/2 cups low-sodium beef broth (I used chicken broth)
2 tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley (Our parsley in the fridge was too old and we did not have dried one, so we skipped this altogether).

--The potato topping was my wife's territory---
2 russet potatoes
4 tablespoon unsalted butter
4 tablespoons onion & chive cream cheese
1 cup cheeses, grated (optional) (we used cheddar and smoked gouda).

Directions:
Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees.

In a large skillet over medium heat, warm the oil until shimmering. Add the lamb and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes or until browned. Season with 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper to taste. With a slotted spoon, transfer the meat to a medium bowl. Drain all but 1 tablespoon of fat from the pan. Stir in the onion and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, or until soft but not browned. Add the carrot and thyme. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 to 2 minutes. Gradually add the broth, increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil, stirring.

Return the meat to the pan, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 10 to 15, or until the lamb is cooked through and the sauce has slightly thickened. Stir in the parsley and adjust the seasonings to taste.

Meanwhile, for the potatoes: Cook in the microwave with skin on for about 10 minutes (5 minutes turn and another 5 minutes) until a screwer goes in easily. Peel and put in a bowl. Add the butter, cream cheese, salt and stir until smooth.

Using a large spoon, transfer the meat mixture to a medium casserole dish or 4 ovenproof 8-ounce ramekins (As you can see below, we used small ramekins which made total of 8 servings, #1). If there is any sauce left in the skillet, add it to the casserole or divide it among the individual ramekins. Drop spoonful of the mashed potatoes on top, then spread the potatoes across the meat mixture, forming peaks, and to the edges of the dish(es) (#2). Add the cheese (#3). Bake at 450 for 20 minutes (#4).

This was a great meal of Irish dishes (with a slight Japanese twist on the cabbage dish). The lamb/mutton taste was very pronounced (read: STRONG). My wife really likes lamb and thought it was great but it was a bit too strong for me. We think with this celebration we adequately honored St. Patty and his day. 

Bluefin tuna chunks 黒鮪チャンク

Recently while browsing online purveyors of sashimi-grade tuna I noticed advertisements for bluefin sashimi tuna "imperfect cuts" or " chunks". I surmise this may be something to do with increased popularity of "poke" which, unlike Japanese sashimi, does not require uniform sized blocks of fish. Since I myself make dishes such as "imitation negitoro" 擬制ネギトロ, and "namerou", which do not require perfect cuts, I decided to try it. This one came from our old, tried and true Catalina Offshore products. As you can see in the picture below, there are several chunks of frozen bluefin tuna. The majority is “akami” red  meat and some are “chu-toro” medium fatty. I divided the shipment into three portions. I thawed one in the refrigerator and vacuum packed the other two and put them in the freezer. Since they are chunks, it is very easy to apportion whatever amount I would like to thaw and prepare.

I decided to taste the tuna as sashimi first. I sliced one chunk which looked like chu-toro 中トロ and another which looked like akami 赤身. Since the shipment also included Ikura salmon roe いくら and my wife made blini a few days ago, we served a blini topped with cream cheese (home made), smoked salmon, ikura and chopped chives.

Both the toro and akami were very good. For us, this is just perfect, just a little bit of tastes.

This blini with ikura is one of our favorite appetizers. We tried caviar but we like ikura better. This ikura (came frozen) also from Catalina tasted very good and fresh.

  

This combination of appetizers can go well with both red wine or sake but on this occasion, we had cold sake. After this, we had imitation negitro made from akami chunks with cucumber slices and nori. I also served our usual “yamakake” after marinading the akami cubes for 30 minutes. The yamakake was quite filling. 

So our assessment of the bluefin sashimi-grade tuna chunks is very positive. They are very reasonably priced and tasted good. They can be served as sashimi. Even though the slices are not perfect, they tasted perfect.

One of the cherry trees in our backyard bloomed almost overnight. This particular cherry tree has really grown since we removed the enormous ash tree that over shadowed it. We had to remove the ash because it succumbed to the "emerald borer". This cherry tree always blooms first (we have three cherry trees including the replacement for our old tree which was destroyed during the Nor'Easter storm in 2018). As the "first bloomer", it is in step with the cherry trees at the tidal basin; blooming at about the same time. The remaining trees in our yard are more leisurely in their approach; blooming about 1 week later. These blossoms are really a treat. Finally Spring has sprung.

Miso maple syrup loaf 味噌メープルシロップローフ

I saw this interesting quick bread in one of the food blogs I follow (in Japanese) using “miso” and “maple syrup”.  This recipe was credited to Dorie Greenspan and it was easy to find the recipe in English in the New York times cooking section among other sites. So, I commissioned my wife to make this bread loaf. While baking, it definitely had the smell of  nutty miso. It is mildly sweet and salty with nutty overtones. It’s quite unique (in a good way) and nice. We had this as an ending dish the evening she baked it and also as a breakfast bread.

Ingredients: (Pictures #1 & #2) (Makes one loaf)
4 ounces (113g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1¾ cups (238g) all-purpose flour
1¾ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
Finely grated zest of 1 orange or 2 tangerines (or 1 tsp. Orange flavoring)
¼ cup (70g) white miso
¼ cup (60ml) pure maple syrup
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
⅓ cup (80ml) buttermilk (well shaken before measuring)

Recipe doubled (makes 2 loaves)
8 ounces (226g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
31/2 cups (476 g) all-purpose flour
3 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cup (300g) granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Finely grated zest of 2 orange or 4 tangerines (or 2 tsp. Orange flavoring
1/2 cup (140g) white miso
1/2 cup (120 ml) pure maple syrup
4 large eggs, at room temperature
3 tsp. teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup (160 ml) buttermilk (well shaken before measuring)

Directions:
Whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Put the sugar, salt, and zest in the bowl of a stand mixer. Rub the ingredients together until the sugar is moist and fragrant; it may even turn orange. Add the butter, miso, and maple syrup to the bowl. Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl and beater(s) as needed to form a creamy mixture. One by one, add the eggs, beating for a minute after each. Beat in the vanilla. The mixture might curdle, but this is a temporary condition. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk and mix until they are incorporated.


Scrape the batter into the greased loaf pan, working it into the corners and smoothing the top (#3). Cook in a 350 degree oven for 50 to 55 minutes. Check the loaf after 40 minutes and cove the top loosely with a foil or parchment tent if it’s browning too fast. The loaf is properly baked when it pulls away from the sides of the pan and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. The top will be flat and most likely cracked down the middle (#4). Transfer the pan to a rack and let the bread rest for 5 minutes, then run a table knife around the edges of the loaf and unmold onto the rack; turn it right side up.

This was quite an engenius flavor combination. The bread has a very tender texture and the maple/miso combo plays extremely well together. Praise-be to whom ever thought of combining maple syrup and miso. (Side note: My wife made the bread in the late afternoon and it came out of the oven just before dinner. That night my wife woke up smelling miso. Her first thought was, ‘someone is making miso soup…who would be making miso soup at this hour?’ Then it dawned on her. It was the residual smell of the bread she had just baked.) We highly recommend this bread.

Our plum tree has been blooming recently in response to several warm days we had. It was a nice reminder that spring was indeed on its way. It looked beautiful and it had a lovely fragrance that was wonderful wafting on the breeze. Then a “bomb cyclone” whipped through, dumping snow, ice and cold temperatures. We woke up to a white winter wonderland. Everything, including the plum blossoms covered in snow and ice. But our plum tree stood fast. We still had plum blossoms even after the snow melted. Spring was not to be deterred by the late winter icy temper tantrum of a mean old bomb cyclone! 

Uni shutou with salmon roe 雲丹酒盗いくら入り

The last time we bought fresh uni from Maruhide 丸秀, we also got a few “uni shutou” 雲丹酒盗including one with salmon roe 雲丹酒盗いくら入り which was a new choice for us. So, one weekend evening, I served this with our usual squid shiokara イカの塩辛. I also served chawanmushi 茶碗蒸し and simmered Kabocha squash カボチャの煮物. These were nice starters.

Left in the picture below is uni shutou with ikura. Obviously, this is a great combination and we, especially my wife, loves uni-ikura donburi ウニいくら丼. Right is our usual squid shiokara. Both are perfect for sipping sake, although you do not need much, just a bit of taste to go with sake.

I served this chawanmushi cold. I often top this with ikura or uni or both but not this time. I made the dish with shrimp and chicken in addition to shiitake. I added scallion and sugar-snap towards the end of cooking.

The picture below shows simmered Japanese kabocha squash カボチャの煮物. It’s a classic.

This was great start of the evening and the combination of uni and ikura shutou is definitely a favorite.