Assorted sashimi from Riviera Seafood club リビエラシーフードクラブから ”美味しい刺身パック”

This is the second time we got super-frozen assorted sashimi called “Oishii Sashimi Pack” from Riviera Seafood Club. (“Oishii” means delicious). I forgot to take pictures when I served the akami and chu-toro tuna from the pack but it was identical to what I posted some days ago.  The package also contained 6 Hokkaido “hotate” scallops and tuna chunks (for poke I assume). I re-vacuum packed the scallops into packages consisting of two scallops each which was perfect for us. From the tuna chunks, I made two dishes; tuna avocado cubes 鮪とアボカドの角切りand pseudo negitoro 擬制ネギトロ the other day. (But did not take pictures). The tuna chunks are a mixture of toro and akami and the quality is good. In any case, we had hamachi and the last of the scallops this evening. As before, the hamchi had skin attached and had a dark chiai 血合い portion. Although the hamachi chiai is not as gamy as tuna, I removed it and made “namerou” なめろう (I did not take a picture). In any case, I served the scallop sashimi on little dishes of actual scallop shells. (Turns out over the years we have accumulated quite a few). I made three version of hamachi sashimi. I also added two kinds of wasabi (one kind included chopped wasabi plant stalks). I also included yuzu kosho and Japanese red pepper paste. For sauce, I served “sashimi shouyu” 刺身醤油 (with a dab of wasabi) and home-made ponzu 自家製ポン酢 (with a dab of red pepper paste).

I sliced the scallops in half horizontally. These were really good scallops, very sweet and fresh tasting. They went well with the wasabi that included chopped wasabi plant stalks and soy sauce.

I served three slices of the hamachi as is.

I served two slices as “zuke” which were marinated in 4x Japanese noodle sauce for 1 hour in the fridge. The hamchi became very rich with dashi taste.

The last two slices of hamachi are “Kobu-jime” 昆布締め which added “umami” from kelp and removed some of the moisture. This was best with the ponzu.

My wife really like “yuzu kosho” instead of wasabi for these sashimi.

The picture below is from the Riviera website. It shows the collection of fish that makes up the “Oishii Sashimi” package. Although this is a lot of sashimi, each portion is relatively small and we could handle it better than the larger potions we got before from other places. We have not started on the salmon yet. More to follow.

Roasted pepper blini ローストパプリカビリニ

We recently got a bag of assorted bell peppers from Whole Food. This time, the bag contained 2 red, 2 yellow and 1 orange peppers. As before, I roasted/baked them in our toaster oven (450F for 30 minutes turning occasionally and then placed them in a Ziploc bag for 20-30 minutes or until cool enough to handle). I removed the stem ends, skin, seeds and ribs. We were pondering how to use this when my wife found an interesting “blini” recipe using roasted pepper. (The original recipe calls for red peppers in a jar while we were using fresh peppers.) We had both yellow-orange and red peppers but we decided to use the yellow. The flavors appear to be the same regardless of the color. The resulting blini has a nice roasted pepper smell. We ate this for breakfast, and it does have a distinctive roasted pepper flavor.

For the evening, we used the roasted pepper blini with onion and chive cream cheese spread, smoked salmon and ikura salmon roe garnished with dill. We did not taste much of the roasted pepper flavors since the other items have such strong flavors. For the smoked salmon and salmon roe combination, in the future we will use our regular buck-wheat blini.

I asked my wife to take over as ususal.

Ingredients: (makes 7 blini)
4 oz. roasted yellow (or red) bell pepper, stem end, seeds, ribs and skin removed
2 tbs melted butter
1/4 cup cream
2 large eggs, beaten
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Ingredients (X2) makes 14 blini
8 oz. roasted yellow (or red) bell pepper, stem end, seeds, ribs and skin removed
4 tbs melted butter
1/2 cup cream
4 large eggs, beaten
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt

Ingredients(X2.5) makes 17 blini
10 oz. roasted yellow (or red) bell pepper, stem end, seeds, ribs and skin removed
5 tbs melted butter
1/2 +1/8 cup cream
5 large eggs, beaten
1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4  tsp salt

Ingredients(X3) makes 21 blini
12 oz. 1 1/3 cup roasted yellow (or red) bell pepper, stem end, seeds, ribs and skin removed
6 tbs melted butter
3/4 cup cream
6 large eggs, beaten
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbs + 1 1/2 tsp. Baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
In a food processor, puree the bell pepper until smooth; scrape into a medium bowl. Add the egg, the melted butter and cream, then add the flour, baking powder and salt and whisk until well blended. (You may need to add more liquid so the batter is the consistency of pancake batter.)

In a cast iron platar, melt 1 tablespoon of butter. Use the melted butter to grease each of the platar cups before adding the batter . Pour the batter into the cups until they are 1/2 full. Cook over moderately low heat, turning once, until set, about 3 minutes per side. Repeat with the remaining butter and batter.

This is a good blini but we like it best for breakfast as though it is crumpet.

New Divided Plate and 9 Otoshi Appetizers 9つ仕切り皿にのせたお通し9種類

This is on the theme of multiple small “otoshi” appetizers. Previously we used a 5 segmented plate to serve 5 appetizers. A few days ago, I found a 9 segmented square plate available on Amazon which was reasonably priced so I got two. I thought it would be hard coming up with 9 appetizers but I managed it with 8 dishes I made. The ninth dish was an exception since I didn’t make it. It was the fried shrimp head which came from Tako Grill when we had our sashimi/sushi take-out. (Shrimp head is a by-product of “botan-ebi” 牡丹海老 sashimi/sushi). In any case, I was surprised that once I started thinking otoshi I was on a roll and could have served two or three more appetizers if I wanted to. This was a nice start of the evening but even very small dishes are filling for us and we ended up with a  “shime” 〆ending dish after this.

In the 1st row, left, is a sugar snap in salt broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし. We used to be able to get decent sugar snaps from our regular grocery store but recently, we have had to go to gourmet grocery stores to get decent ones This was crunchy, sweet soaked in salt dashi broth.

In the 1st row, center, are cucumber onion salad and stir fried shirataki, jalapeño pepper and enoki mushroom.

In the 1st row, right, is the cheese curd my wife made  but instead of jalapeño pepper, she added “Yuzukosho” 柚子胡椒, soy sauce and cream. I added a dab of yuzukosho on the side to provide an added “schmear” of yuzukosho flavor if desired.

Tsukune on a slice of lotus root 蓮根つくね.

“Uni-shuto” ウニ酒盗 from Maruhide. As I stated before this is the best uni aside from fresh uni. I served it with cucumber and perilla leaves.

I refried the shrimp head kara-age which was part of take-out from Tako Grill a few days ago. Shrimp head has a good amount of meat and is very crunchy but you have to be careful how you eat the prickly legs so as to not injure your mouth.

Recently, we discovered that Whole Foods carries fresh quail eggs. We really like boiled quail eggs. Although we can get canned boiled quail eggs, boiled eggs prepared from fresh quail eggs are much much better. I served it with marinara sauce, basil and sprinkle of salt.

Blanched asparagus with sesame mayonnaise. The dressing is a mixture of mayo, Japanese sesame paste or nerigoma 練りごま and soy sauce.

Salmon salad. My usual. The dressing is mixture of mayo, Greek yogurt and Dijon mustard.

We really like our new plates. If I serve 9 appetizers for two of us in small bowls, we have to wash a total of 18 bowls but here we had to wash only two plates. We really like the many small dishes we had here; true Izakaya-style.

Stir-fried “Shirataki” with Jalapeño Pepper and Enoki Mushroom 白滝、えのき茸、ハロペニョペッパーのピリ辛炒め

I was taking inventory of what Japanese food items I had in the fridge, I realized that I have three bags of “shirataki” 白滝 (meaning “white cascade”) which is a noodle form of “konjac” or “kon-nyaku” こんにゃく. To reduce the inventory of shirataki, I quickly made this dish with what I had available. I intended to make this stir-fry slightly spicy. For an impromptu dish, not following any recipe, this was not bad, a perfect small “otsumami” おつまみ dish. It is slightly spicy since I used Japanese red pepper flakes or “ichimi-tougarashi” 一味唐辛子 but the jalapeño pepper was not spicy since I removed the ribs and seeds.

Ingredients:
One 7oz or 198g bag of shirataki in water (see picture below), drained, washed in running water and parboiled, drained and again washed (to reduce the unique smell). Cut into shorter lengths for ease of eating.
One 3.5 oz bag of enoki mushroom, root end cut and discarded
One large jalapeño pepper, cut in half lengthwise, seeds, ribs removed and cut on the bias into thin julienne.
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs mirin
1 tsp peanut oil with a splash of dark sesame oil
1/4 tsp Japanese “ichimi-tougarashi” red pepper flakes or more if you so prefer.

Directions:
In a wok on high-flame, add the oil and when it is hot, add the Japanese red pepper flakes. Sitr for 10 second and add the shirataki, stir until almost all the moisture evaporates; for 1-2 minutes
Add the Jalapeño pepper and enoki mushroom. Stir another one minute.
Add the mirin and soy sauce and stir until most of the liquid is gone
If preferred, add more red pepper flakes
Served hot or cold

It is a perfect small dish goes well with sake and because it is made with konyaku it has the characteristic of the ingredient; very low in calories..

Corn Sage Muffin Variation コーン、セージ、マフィンバリエーション

It is getting to be the season for fresh corn and we have gotten quite few ears of it recently. We (mostly my wife) love corn and we’re making quite a few corn dishes. This particular baking project started out as one of my wife’s regular sage corn bread (in muffin form) but she realized the recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of corn puree and she only had a cup; not quire enough of the corn puree required to make the batch of muffins. Then she remembered we had left-over corn, roasted red pepper, edamame and bacon salad that we had made a few days ago. She thought, ‘That salad included corn. If I substitute the salad for the missing corn, wouldn’t that make up the shortfall?’ She first contemplated pureeing the salad and adding it to the corn puree but in the end, she decided to just put a cup of the salad into the batter to add some additional texture.   I will never fathom how my wife (the queen of substitutions in recipes) comes up with these things but this substitution happened to result in a very good muffin. The red in the picture is the roasted red pepper. The green is the jalapeños pepper and boiled edamame. The flavors of these ingredients, particularly the roasted red pepper really comes through and went beautifully with the over all corn sage flavor of the muffin. This is a variation well worth repeating.

The picture below shows the salad she added.

The ingredients and directions for the two recipes she combine are shown below for convenience

Ingredients: For the muffin
1 cup grated corn
1 stick butter
6 large sage leaves (or several sprigs of rosemary)
1 cup of corn salad (this is the current variation in the recipe) (Salad recipe below)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 corn flour (or corn meal)
2 cups All Purpose (AP) flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup sugar (or more for a slightly sweeter muffin)

Directions:
Grate the ears of corn on a stand grater. Scrape the ears with the back of the knife to get the remaining "corn milk" . Melt the butter in a saucepan (do not allow it to boil or brown). Mix in the grated corn, salt, and sage leaves. Cook until creamy and thickened, making a kind of polenta. Remove the sage leaves. To achieve a really smooth emersion blend it further in a “motor boat” blender. Allow the mixture to cool. Add the buttermilk and eggs and mix until blended.

In a large bowl sift together the corn flour (or corn meal), AP flour, baking soda, baking powder, and sugar. Add the 1 cup of corn salad and mix in the dry ingredients to coat with a bit of the flour. Add the liquid ingredients and stir until blended. Scoop into the prepared muffin tin. Cook in 400F degree oven for 18 to 20 minutes for muffins, or until a skewer comes out clean and the muffins are nicely browned.

Ingredients: For the corn salad
1 roasted red pepper, skin, ribs and seeds removed and cut into small squares
2 ears of fresh corn on cob, microwaved wrapped in wet paper towel for 2 minutes or more until cooked
1 sweet (Vidalia) onion, finely chopped
2 strips of bacon, cooked to crisp and crumbled
1 large jalapeño pepper, seeded, deveined and finely chopped
1 cup of boiled edamame, shelled (or lima beans)

For dressing:
1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs honey
2 tbs rice vinegar (or any vinegar)
8 tbs or more fruity olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
For roasted red pepper
I roasted them at 450F in the toaster oven on convection mode for 20 minutes turning a few times so that all the surface was cooked/charred. I then put them in Ziploc bags to steam for 30 minutes. Once cooled down, remove the stem end, skin, ribs, seeds and peel. (The skin will come off easily).

Combine all the ingredients, add the dressing and stir well.

Sous Vide Chicken Breast with Red Pepper Sauce 低温調理鶏胸肉のロースト赤パプリカソース添え

In my book, the best way to cook chicken breast is using the sous vide method. As I posted before, skin-on and bone-in split chicken breast appears to work best. Sometimes this type of chicken breast is hard to come by since most people seem to prefer skin-less and bone-less chicken breast. So when skin-on bone-in chicken breast is available, we like to stock-up. This time we got a “family” pack which contained 4 large chicken breasts. I sous vide all of them and froze three. I prepared one of the sous vide breasts into three dishes. I hand shredded the tenderloin and dressed it with sesame/mayo sauce. I made half of the main breast meat into curry-flavored chicken salad and I served the rest sliced with roasted red pepper sauce.  I served this dish at lunch with two salad sides; celery mushroom feta salad (right upper) and corn, red pepper, edamame and bacon salad (right lower).

When we made corn, red pepper, edamame and bacon salad, we had an excess of roasted red peppers since we got a bag of 6 red peppers. So, I made a roasted red pepper sauce. The sauce went well with sous vide chicken shown here with mayo and blanched broccoli added to the plate.

I am sure there are many ways to make roasted red pepper sauce, but the one shown below is my improvised sauce.

Ingredients:
Two roasted red peppers, stem end and skin removed, seeds and ribs removed, cut into small size (for pureeing)
1/2 sweet (Vidalia) onion, finely chopped
1 tbs caper
1 tbs lemon juice
3-4 tbs olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Add all the ingredients except the salt and pepper in a cylindrical container for an emersion blender.
Puree on high-speed until smooth. Taste and add salt and pepper

This sauce went very well with the sous vide chicken breast. The chicken cooked this way is very moist and tender but can taste a bit bland. The sauce really added a nice slightly tangy flavor. We still have a lot of sauce left so there will be more to come.

Matcha Almond Pancakes, 抹茶アーモンドパンケーキ

We like pancakes as a breakfast. Our all time favorite is buttermilk blueberry pancake when blueberries are in season. Another one we like is a green pancakes made with spinach and mint. We decided that the flavor comes from the mint but not the spinach so we modified the recipe to use just mint. We like the flavors as well as the striking “verdant”  green color. Recently, we saw a recipe for “matcha almond pancakes”. We both thought ‘we have to make this’. So here they are. A stack of matcha almond pancakes

They were quite good. We had this as a breakfast sitting outside on the patio with a cup of cappuccino and mango yogurt made with home-made yogurt with pureed and small cubes of champagne mango mixed in. These pancakes reminded us of the “Matcha green tea cake” we made a few times before.

Ingredients: (The original recipe indicated it makes 8 pancakes but we doubled the recipe and got only 7 pancakes)

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (68 grams) whole-wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (60 grams) almond flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 tablespoon matcha
1 cup (240 milliliters) whole, reduced-fat or plant-based milk
1 large egg
1 tablespoon neutral oil, such as avocado or canola
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Maple syrup, for serving

Directions:
In a medium bowl, thoroughly whisk together the pastry flour, almond flour, baking powder and salt until combined. Sift the matcha into the mixture and whisk again to thoroughly combine.

In another medium bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, oil and vanilla until combined. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir just to combine. Do not overmix; it’s okay if there are some small lumps. Let the batter hydrate for 5 to 10 minutes. (The batter will initially appear quite watery but over the 5 to 10 minutes the flours thoroughly hydrate and it becomes thicker. Nonetheless it was still runnier than our usual pancake batters.)

Heat a large nonstick skillet or griddle over medium-high heat until hot. (To test, drop a dime-size amount of batter into the skillet and if it starts to bubble and brown right away, the pan is ready.)

Working in batches as necessary ladle the batter onto the skillet. Cook until bubbles form on top and the underside is nicely browned, about 2 minutes, then flip and cook until browned on the other side, and cooked through, 2 minutes more. Adjust the heat as necessary to prevent the pancakes from browning too fast before they’re cooked through. Transfer the pancakes to a plate and repeat with the remaining batter.

Serve with maple syrup.

These pancakes were quite good but not great. They were fairly thin in texture. The macha flavor really came through though. They reminded us of the macha cake we made previously. Next time we want a macha pancake we will try just adding some macha to our favorite buttermilk pancake recipe.

Addendum:Culinary grade vs. drinking/sipping matcha:

We have taste tested “Culinary” and “Drinking” grade matcha. Since we are not connoisseurs of matcha, we could not tell the difference. We bought the large can of “culinary matcha” from “Matcha Love” which is run by a Japanese tea company called “Ito-en” 伊藤園. For this type of cooking, this is quite good and reasonably priced.

Corn, Roasted Ped Pepper, Edamame and Jalapeño Pepper Salad 玉蜀黍、ロースト赤パプリカ、枝豆とべーコンサラダ

Although it is not quite local corn season, fresh corn is available and on our last trip to Whole Foods my wife celebrated the season by stocking up on corn. She used it for various dishes and this is one of them. In addition, we got a bag of 6 red peppers. (Turns out it was much cheaper to buy the bag of peppers than to buy several peppers individually). My wife looked up corn salad recipes which used roasted red pepper on the internet. This dish is an amalgamation of the various ingredients used in those recipes with our own ideas mixed in. It has a nice color combination and tasted great.

Ingredients:
1 roasted red pepper, skin, ribs and seeds removed and cut into small squares
2 ears of fresh corn on cob, microwaved wrapped in wet paper towel for 2 minutes or more until cooked
1 sweet (Vidalia) onion, finely chopped
2 strips of bacon, cooked to crisp and crumbled
1 large jalapeño pepper, seeded, deveined and finely chopped
1 cup of boiled edamame, shelled (or lima beans)

For dressing:
1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs honey
2 tbs rice vinegar (or any vinegar)
8 tbs or more fruity olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

For roasted red pepper
I roasted them at 450F in the toaster oven on convection mode for 20 minutes turning a few times so that all the surface was cooked/charred. I then put them in Ziploc bags to steam for 30 minutes. Once cooled down, remove the stem end, skin, ribs, seeds and peel. (The skin will come off easily).

Combine all the ingredients, add the dressing and stir well.

This is a great salad. The corn adds and lovely sweetness and crunch. Although I initially protested when my wife suggested using bacon, it adds a salty, smokiness and crunch which is really a great addition and a “must-have” for this salad. In addition to adding to the color the roasted red peppers adds a slightly spicy bite. The edamame yields yet another crunch dimension. The dressing adds a bright tart note. We will be making this one again.

Mini Apple Spiced Muffins アップルシナモンミニマフィン

We occasionally get a free cook booklets from Giant grocery store when we receive a grocery delivery. One of these include small “bites” type recipes. Since my wife is a devotee of “small bites” dishes, she decided to make one of these recipes. This is a kind of apple-cinnamon mini-muffin. This is very nice as a part of breakfast with nice classic apple-cinnamon flavors.

Ingredients: (makes about 24 to 30 mini-muffins)
1 apple, cored, skinned and cut into small pieces
1 cup bran cereal (we used Kellogg Special k,  since that was only cereal we had)
3/4 cup AP flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tps baking soda
3 tbs unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
1 cup Greek yogurt (we used home-made and strained kind)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F
Place the cereal in food processor and grind it to a fine texture. In a bowl, combine the cereal, flour, baking soda, and sugar.
In a separate bowl, mix the egg, butter, yogurt, cinnamon and vanilla.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients (do not over mix)
Fold in the apple
Add the batter in a greased mini muffin pan and bake 13-15 minutes.

For a freebee cookbook recipe, this is really good. My wife further expanded her repertoires. This is just the right size if you want a little added-something with your usual breakfast repertoire.

“Atsu-age” Fried-tofu with Mapo Eggplant 厚揚げの麻婆茄子かけ

“Atsu-age” 厚揚げ or “Nama-age” 生揚げ is fried tofu with a surface like “Abura-age” but the inside remains as soft tofu. We used be able to get good quality atsu-age from our japanese grocery store. I have posted quite a few dishes I made with this but the best dish, as far as we are concerned, and particularly if the quality of the atsu-age is good is simply grilled (in the toaster oven) served with soy sauce and chopped scallion. But, for some reason, the ones we have gotten recently are not really good.  This was the case with the one I got the other day. I decided to make something different using this not-really-good atsu-age. Since I had leftover mapo eggplant, I decided to use it as a topping for the atsu-age.

Because of the spicy mapo eggplant sauce, the atsu-age was more palatable but still not great.

I first cut the atsu-age into cubes and heated it up in the toaster oven on high toast mode.

This ws not bad and made a nice appetizer but I hope at some point we can get better quality atsu-age.

Mapo Eggplant 麻婆茄子

When I stopped by our Japanese grocery store, they had some genuine Japanese eggplants and I got two. I asked my wife what I should make, she requested “Mapo eggplant” 麻婆茄子. In the past I used to make this dish but I do not think I posted the recipe. I made it exactly like Mapotofu 麻婆豆腐 but instead of tofu, I used eggplant. Since I had some chicken thighs, I removed the meat from one of the thighs and hand chopped it into small pieces to use as a protein for this dish. The final dish was mildly spicy with the nice soft texture of eggplant. The chicken really added nice taste and texture. This is great as it is or over rice.

Ingredients:
2 small Japanese egg plants
One chicken thigh, skin and bone removed and chopped in small pieces or ground chicken
2-3 tbs peanut oil and 1 tsp dark sesame oil
1 tbs ginger root, skinned and finely chopped
1 tbs garlic, chopped
1 small shallot, finely chopped
3 stalks of spring onion
1 tsp Doubanjian 豆板醤
1 tsp Tenmenjian 甜麺醤
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 tsp potato starch+2tbs sake or water to make potato starch slurries

Directions：
Remove the stem end, peel skin in stripes (to reduce the bitterness the skin may have) and slice into 1/4 inch thick pieces.
Heat up a wok and add 2 tbs peanut oil and 1/2 tsp sesame oil. When the oil is almost smoking, add the eggplant and stir fly until the oil is absorbed and the eggplant slightly browned (see below).
Remove the eggplant from the wok and set aside.

Add 1tbs peanut oil and 1/2 tsp sesame oil in the wok. When the oil is hot, add the shallot, ginger and garlic and stir for few minutes. Add the doubanjian and stir until fragrant for 1 more minute. Add the chicken and stir until cooked (2-3 minutes). Add the eggplant, tenmenjian, chicken broth and mix and cook for a few minutes. Add the spring onion and the potato starch slurry and cook on high flame until the sauce thickens. If desired finish with sesame oil and powdered sansho pepper.

You just can’t beat the taste and texture of Japanese eggplant. This dish was homey and comforting. The eggplant had a soft texture and the chicken added a firm contrast. It is hard to get the right level of spiciness. It can either be too hot or too bland. This version was perfect.

Cold Marinated Eggplant 冷製レンジなすのポン酢漬け

We recently got Japanese (or Asian) eggplant from Weee. Although  I posted quite a few dishes using eggplant, we have not had eggplant for a long time. We really love “grilled eggplant” or Yakinasu 焼きなす, it requires a charcoal fire to make it correctly, however. I decided to take a short cut and cook the eggplant in the microwave oven. I then marinated the cooked eggplant (see below) overnight in the refrigerator.

Just before serving, I topped it with “katusobushi” 鰹節 bonito flakes. This is very easy to make and tasted pretty good. This is loosely based on a recipe I read on line sometime ago but I could not find the original recipe so I made the dish from memory.

Ingredients:
One Japanese eggplant (picture below).
3 tbs ponzu shouyu ポン酢醤油
1/2 tbs or more to taste, x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce
1/4 tsp dark sesame oil
2 stalks of scallion, finely chopped

Directions:
First make the marinade mixing the ponzu, noodle sauce, sesame oil and scallion.
Cut off the stem end of the egg plant and peel the skin
Since it was too long to fit into the silicon microwave container, I cut it into two pieces and microwaved it 2-2.5 minutes until cooked and soft (in the picture below, I made the indentation when I pressed it to see if it was done).
I cut the cooked eggplant in to long strips and then cut crosswise into bite sized pieces
I placed the hot eggplant into the marinade
I sealed the container and refrigerated it for a few hours or overnight (I like overnight marination)

Just before serving, top the eggplant with bonito flakes.

This is a very easy to make and tastes pretty good. Its a perfect small appetizer dish to go with sake.

Ginger Cookie Crumb Muffin

This is probably the last muffin my wife will make from left-over cookies; Because she has used them all up. This time it was using thin ginger snaps. As before, she made crumbs from the ginger cookie and used it as part of the batter. She added finely chopped candied ginger and pecan for good measure. The first time I tasted it, I did not taste strong ginger flavor but the next morning when we had it for breakfast, I tasted much more ginger flavor. A good amount of the pecan also did a good job in adding a nutty flavor. Very nice muffn.

This was not quite following the recipe but she  made it very similar to the “Cookie and cream crumb muffin”. I will ask her to take over.

Ingredients: (makes 12 muffins)

For the muffins:
2 cups AP flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
3/4 cup roughly crushed ginger cookies
1/2 cup finely cut candied ginger (or to taste)
1 cup toasted pecans (roughly chopped)

For the crumb:
1/2 cup butter room temp.
1 tbs. honey
1/4 cup regular sugar
2/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup of crushed ginger cookies.

Directions:
For the muffins: put the cookies in a plastic sandwich bag and using a meat pounder crush them into large pieces. (Otherwise the CuisineArt chopper has a hard time handling whole cookies. We found it’s attempt to do so is quite pyrotechnic.) Add the pieces to a cuisineArt grinder and process until the cookies are small crumb as shown in the picture below. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and line a 12 -cup muffin pan with liners of choice. Set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, vanilla extract, egg, melted butter, and sour cream until combined. 
Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture. Add in the crushed cookies and pecans and stir the whole mixture together with a spatula until there are no dry pockets.

For the topping : 
In a medium bowl, using your hands mix the butter honey, brown sugar, sugar, flour, salt and additional crushed cookies until the mixture is creamy and smooth. 
Evenly and generously cover each tin of muffin batter with the topping. Bake muffins for 18-20 minutes, or until just golden. A cake tester should come out clean. These muffins were very flavorful although it took several days for the ginger flavor to fully mature.

The topping was crunchy and the muffin itself was tender in texture with a bright ginger flavor. The pecans added a nice nutty texture and taste. Another great breakfast addition.

Canned Mackerel, Cabbage and Egg Stir-fry サバ缶とキャベツの卵炒め

We found a few cans of mackerel (Japanese.style cooked in water) which were approaching the BUB (best-used-by date) tucked away in the pantry. We bought these and other canned items during the height of COVID when protein shortages started to materialize. Those times have thankfully passed so I decided I could use the “emergency” mackerel to make a small appetizer. I have made and posted a few dishes made from canned mackerel. This is not particularly original but it worked well. Since I recently got fresh quail eggs, I used them to make miniature fried eggs and topped this dish. As a result, in the picture the mackerel part of the dish, is a bit obscured by the fried quail egg.

The below is the picture of another serving a few days later. I added boiled quail eggs which had been marinated.

This is based on the recipe on line (in Japanese).

Ingredients:
One can of mackerel in brine or “Saba-no-mizuni” 鯖の水煮
3-4 leaves of cabbage, thick vein removed and cut into bite-size square
2 shiitake mushrooms, stem removed and sliced (optional)
1 egg
1 tbs vegetable or olive oil
salt and pepper

Directions:
Make scrambled egg and set asdie
sauté the cabbage for few minutes
Add the mackerel and stir for few more minutes
Plate and top with the scrambled egg
Season with salt and pepper

This is an ok dish to use up the canned mackerel…actually tasted pretty good. It was even better the next day with the marinated quail eggs.

Mango Chutney Almond Milk Rolls マンゴーチャツネとアーモンドミルクロール

This is another example of my wife’s major morphing of a recipe into her own version. She saw the sweet roll recipe in Washington Post which used almond milk, marmalade filling, orange juice and  orange zest for glaze. Since we did not have Almond milk we ended up making it, although in retrospect, we are not sure why the recipe even calls for Almond milk. We had marmalade but did not have orange zest or orange juice. So my wife used Major grey’s mango chutney instead of marmalade and omitted the orange juice. Since she had some sweetened condensed milk left over from making milk bread she decided to use that in the filling too. This is quite different from the original recipe but when substitution of ingredients is needed, my wife is very inventive. The mango chutney worked very well. In any case, this roll is very tender and slightly sweet and perfect for breakfast.

Ingredients:
For the dough
3 1/2 cups flour, plus more as needed for rolling the dough
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. Salt
2 1/4 yeast
2 1/2 cups almond milk (not sure why almond milk is required next time I’ll just use regular milk)
4 Tbs. Salted butter
1 egg

For the filling:
30-50 grams sweetened condensed milk
30 grams butter softened
2 tsp sugar
3 Tbs. Major Grey’s mango chutney

Directions:
Add the dry ingredients; flour through yeast to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the wet ingredients; almond milk through egg. Mix until smooth dough forms. Knead for 10 minutes. Turn out onto floured surface and shape into a loaf. Put in a bowl, coat the surface with vegetable oil. Cover and put in the dough proofer at 78 degrees until doubled in size. Punch down the dough. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile make the filling by mixing together the ingredients for the filling. Roll out the dough into a large rectangle (#1). Cover the rectangle with the filling then roll it up as tightly as possible without squeezing out the filling (#2). Cut the roll into 14 to 16 equal slices. Put the slices cut edge down in a greased pyrex cooking dish. (Note: it is rather hard to cut the slices; they tend to squish. Out of frustration I just made the last part of the dough into a loaf and cooked it on a small cookie sheet. (I did not take a picture of this.) The loaf turned out just fine and could be cut into slices after it was baked. I might do this in the future instead of trying to make the rolls. ) Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown (#3, #4).

These muffins were quite good. The dough had a crunchy crust but a soft interior. The filling formed a light custard like texture which was slightly sweet but with a lovely hint of spice from the chutney. Several large pieces of mango from the chutney provide a moist surprise burst of flavor. These were perfect flavorful pastries to have for breakfast with coffee.

Almond Milk アーモンドミルク

This is an offshoot from my wife’s baking project. We never took interest in non-dairy milk except for soy milk (to make tofu). While she was pondering what to bake (not because we need more baked goods but just because she likes baking), she came across a sweet rolls recipe in the Washington Post but the ingredients included “Almond milk” and “orange juice and zest” (in the glaze), both of which we did not have. So, using her inventive mind, my wife decided to “make” almond milk (since we had almonds in the freezer) and “substitute” other ingredients for the orange juice and zest and omit the orange juice. We never had or even tasted almond milk but quickly found several recipes for home-made almond milk on the internet. We deviated a bit but in the end, we came up with a white liquid that was completely tasteless. (It didn’t even taste of almonds.) We could not figure out why the recipe called for almond milk instead of cow’s milk. The recipe also called for butter and eggs so it was not a vegan recipe. In any case, the below is the almond milk we made. If you are to drink this, certainly, some sweetener such as honey and a flavoring such vanilla may be needed…otherwise drink water. Thinking that  maybe our homemade version was lacking while the commercial version might be better, we subsequently got a commercial unsweetened Almond milk. Although it was indeed unsweetened as advertised, some vanilla flavoring had clearly been added to this product. If not for the vanilla, it too would have been totally flavorless. So our home-made almond milk was not off the target. I wondered if besides avoiding cow’s milk for a lactose intolerance or some other reason, there is any advantage using Almond milk in bakiing.

This is based on many recipes available on line. The basic recipe is to soak the almonds in water overnight. Drain, add more water and grind it in a high-speed blender and strain/press it to remove the pulp. It appears there are two types of recipes; one is grind the almond with skin on another is removing the skin after soaking over-night and then grinding it. The latter produces a minimum amount of plup residue. Since we had skin removed and slivered almond in the freezer, we decided to use this.

Ingredients:
1 cup almond, skin less and slivered (picture below)
2 cups water

Directions:
Soak the almond overnight in water
Drain the water
Place the almond and the water in a blender (we used Vitamix on the highest speed) for 2-3 minutes

This produced a rather thick almond milk with a good amount of pulp which was creamy. The recipe we saw added 2 more cups of water and blended it again.  Many recipes call for a pinch of salt. Since we were going to use it for baking we did not add more water or salt.

As metioned before, this is rather tasteless. Beside keeping the dishes vegan, we just did not see the point of Almond milk.

Root Vegetable Stew 根菜の煮しめ

“Nishime” or “Nitsuke” 煮付け, 煮しめ is a type of traditional Japanese cooking method in which food items are simmered in seasoned broth. I have posted many variations mainly based on what was simmered in the seasoned broth. I understand that there are differences between “Nishime” and “Nituske” but that is too esoteric for me. The broth can be based on either vegetarian (kelp, dried mushroom and vegetables) or more commonly including  bonito flakes, kelp, and other dried fish. The basic seasonings are soy sauce, mirin, sake or sometimes sugar. Food items in nitsuke could be vegetables especially root vegetables, mushrooms, fish cakes, tofu, chicken or fish. I made this because I had a package of boiled renkon lotus root 蓮根 which I needed to use. I also got assorted frozen fish cakes for oden and boiled frozen “satoimo” 里芋 taro root (this is the first time I got this, I usually get fresh ones and prepare them myself) and also a package of “shirataki” noodles tied into a knot called “musubi-shirataki” 結び白滝.  Using these ingredients, I made this without much effort. It was nothing special but a homey, gentle and comforting dish. The picture below shows daikon (left), renkon (center), satoimo (bottom left), fish cake (bottom righ). I also added blanched green beans and carrot.

The layer below shows three different kinds of fish cakes (straight chikuwa ちくわ), chikuwa with squid ika-chikuwa イカちくわ, ganmodoki がんもどき(all cut in half) and a knot of shirataki “musubi-shirataki 結び白滝”. Please notice, the taro “satoimo” is perfectly shaped since this is frozen packaged one.

Using prepared vegetables and assorted fish cakes, makes it much easier to make this dish. Beside using prepackaged items, the recipe is essentially the same as I previously posted.

Udon and Shrimp Stir-fry エビ入り焼きうどん

This an impromptu stir fry of udon noodles or “Yaki-udon” 焼きうどん I made for a lunch one day since we had cooked udon noodles. We did not have a protein readily available (we had frozen chicken and pork but they would have required time to defrost). So, I decided to use frozen shrimp which can be thawed quickly. In addition, since we had home pasteurized eggs, I added a fried egg with a runny yolk. This was not based on any recipe but it came out OK.

The egg could have been a bit less cooked but it had a somewhat running yolk. I seasoned the dish with oyster sauce and soy sauce. The oyster sauce (Kikoman brand) was a bit on the sweet side but it tasted pretty good.

This is not really a recipe but just a record of what I did. I just used what ever vegetables were available in the fridge.

Ingredients (for 2 servings):
One bundle of dry udon noodles, cooked according to the package instruction
6 shrimp, thawed, shelled, seasoned with salt and coated with potato starch
One medium onion, thinly sliced
Several leaves of cabbage, cut into small rectangles
5-6 green beans, blanched, cut into 1 inch segments
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 tsp chopped ginger
1 tbs peanut oil and 1/2 tsp dark sesame oil
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs soy sauce

1 tbs dried “aonori” 青のり powdered seaweed for garnish
Two pasteurized eggs, salt and pepper to taste and olive oil for frying

Directions:
Heat a wok and add the peanut and sesame oil, cook the shrimp, 30 seconds on each side, set aside
Add more oil and cook the ginger and garlic. Stir for a few seconds, add the onion and cabbage, cook 1-2 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.
Add the noodles (you may want to add a small amount of water), stir until warmed.
Add back the cooked shrimp
Add the oyster and soy sauce and stir for one more minute

In another frying pan on medium flame, add the olive oil and the eggs. Cook until the edges get slightly browned, place the lid on, cut the flame and let it steep for 1 minute.

Serve the noodles and shrimp and garnish with the aonori (You could also add pickled ginger and sesame seeds) and top with the fried egg.