Omelet with tarako and nori 鱈子と海苔入り卵焼き

I made this dish at the same time I made "Braised shirataki and tarako" since I had extra tarako. This is one of many variations of Japanese omelet called "tamagoyaki" 卵焼き which I posted one previously.

Tarako mixture: First, remove tarako roe by slicing the membrane and, using a back of the knife, scrape off the roe from the membrane and put it in a small bowl. For three eggs, I used two small sacs of tarako but the amount is totally arbitrary. I add 1-2 tbs of sake and dash of Tabasco (optional) and mix so that it will have nice thick saucy consistency.

For two to three servings (two to three slices per serving), I crack eggs (three, large) in a bowl  and add mirin (1 tbs). I then add the tarako mixture and coarsely crumbled nori (half sheet),  beat it using chop sticks to mix well. I also add chopped chives but this is optional.

As usual I use a Japanese square frying pan. On a medium flame, I add vegetable oil (1/2 tbs) and add 2/3 of the egg mixture and gently scramble until it is semi-solid. Using a silicon spatula, I push the egg mixture to one end of the square frying pan to make it into a rectangle shape. If needed, I add more oil in the empty portion of the frying pan and add the remaining egg mixture. Again using the spatula, let the egg mixture flow under the rectangle of the eggs by lifting the rectangle. Wait a few moments until the egg on the bottom is set but the surface is still wet. Start rolling the rectangle of eggs so that the surface is all covered with the last layer of the egg mixture. Make sure the end of the seam is well set (you may have to flip it over several times so that all four surfaces are set). I take it out and wrap it in parchment paper to shape (if need be, further wrap it in a bamboo sushi mat to shape - I did not do this this time) and let it cool. The end result is like the image below, a nice rectangular shaped omelet.

I sliced it and served it with grated daikon or "daikon oroshi" 大根おろし (add soy sauce just before eating), finely cut myouga and salted and vinegared cucumber cut in jabara 蛇腹. This is, again, a perfect small dish for sake. Myouga really added to this dish. Myouga flavor is very difficult to describe but it is not scallion or ginger-like and it is just unique.

Marinated tuna sashimi マグロのづけ

The quality of tuna sashimi we can get from Japanese grocery stores in the U.S. is a far cry from what you can get in Japan from such places as "depachika" デパ地下 or basement (Gourmet food) floors of Japanese department stores. Even in the U.S., New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco areas may be the only areas in which you may have better luck getting some decent sashimi items. Oh, I almost forgot San Diego, home of Catalina Offshore Products. I have posted a few dishes I make from low-grade frozen "saku" (a block for sashimi) of yellowfin tuna. Although this is always available in our near-by Japanese grocery store (the one which is still open), and I can keep it for couple of months in our freezer, it is not good---very lean with a mealy texture.  Among the many techniques used to make this kind of sashimi more palatable is marinating in a mixture of soy sauce, sake and mirin, which is called "zuke" 漬け or づけ. Of course, you can use this technique for a good quality tuna as well if you so prefer. I often use this "zuke" technique for the tuna in my Yamakake やまかけ mostly for the taste even when I have a descent quality tuna. If you marinate the tuna over night, the texture will change to a more "slimy" (this is not an appropriate word since it has a negative connotation for Westerners. The Japanese word will be "nettori" ねっとり, which does not have a negative connotation) texture. I do not particularly like this texture but some (Japanese) people love this. This time, I made this dish based on the recipe I saw in the Asahi Newspaper Web and I kind of like it. It changes the texture but not to the point of sliminess and makes this low-quality tuna sashimi much more palatable.

Tuna block or "saku": First, I thaw one "saku" 柵 of frozen yellow fin tuna in the refrigerator overnight. I then do a "yubiki" 湯引き or "shimofuri" 霜降り process of plunging the tuna into boiling water for 5 seconds and then soaking it immediately in ice water for a few minutes until the tuna is ice cold again. Only the surface becomes white. This is similar to "Tataki" たたき technique which involves brief grilling instead of boiling. I dry the surface with a paper towel after taking it out from the ice water. I slice it on a slant (slice about 50-60 degree, instead of 90 degrees, from the horizontal surface of the saku) to make a less than 1/2 inch (or about 1 cm) thick but larger slices as compared to ones you slice perpendicular to the saku.

Marinade: Mix sake (1 part), mirin (1 part), light colored or "usukuchi" soy sauce 薄口醤油 (1 part) and regualr or "koikuchi" soy sauce 濃口醤油 (2 parts) with dry roasted coarsely ground white sesame seeds (2 tbs) and the juice from grated ginger (1 tbs). Although white sesame seeds you get from a Japanese grocery store are already roasted, I roast them again in a dry frying pan for 5 minutes or until the sesame seeds become fragrant and just start popping. I coarsely grind them in a "suribachi" すり鉢 or a Japanese mortar. This step is really worth the effort. You should smell a nice fragrance of sesame.

Marination: In a flat sealable container, I put the marinade and the tuna slices in one layer so that all the surface of the tuna is covered with the marinade. I let it marinate at room temperature for 10 minutes and then for 2 hours in the refrigerator. The timing is rather important since the taste and texture (especially the texture) will change depending on the length of the marination. I found two hours to be perfect.

I serve this like sashimi with a Chiffonade of perilla leaves, chopped chives and thin slices of the white part of scallion (or whatever fresh herbs you like to use) with a dab of real wasabi. I think the timing of the marination, addition of sesame seeds, and ginger juice all work. Mixing light (colored) and regular soy sauce made the color of tuna sashimi darken to just the right color and make this low-grade sashimi taste and look like much better quality tuna sashimi. It tasted very good with a scant smear of wasabi. Only problem I had was that it tasted a bit too salty for me and I may reduce the proportion of soy sauce next time (my wife thought it was just fine). You could make a donburi どんぶり by placing the marinated tuna sashimi on (sushi) rice. This is indeed a great way to upgrade a low-quality tuna sashimi.

Grilled squid with lemon and thyme レモン、タイム味のイカ焼き

This is a type of dish that sounded great in concept but had some problems in execution. I did not follow any particular recipe but thought that having thyme and lemon flavoured grilled small squid would be a nice appetizer.

 
The type of squid I can consistently get here is a small pre-cleaned (previously frozen) kind which tend to be loaded with water (They must absorb water during the preparation process). I had too-much-liquid-coming-out-of-the-squid problem before.

 
I marinated the squid in olive oil, lemon juice, grated lemon zest and fresh thyme, salt and freshly cracked white pepper for several hours in the refrigerator. I grilled the squid on a very hot charcoal fire but it failed to get nice char marks and sort of steamed. I have to assume it had so much water in the meat that the surface temperature did not rise high enough to form a char despite the hot charcoal fire. It was certainly edible but it did not have enough flavour and was somewhat tasteless. What a disappointment.

Grilled squid, wakame and myouga in vinegar miso sauce イカとワカメ, 茗荷の酢みそ和え

This is a made-from-leftover dish and very similar to  the dish I posted previously but since we harvested the very first myouga 茗荷, this is a preview of the myouga dishes to come. We grilled marinated squid (in lemon zest, olive oil, fresh thyme etc) few days ago but it was not a roaring success. I used this leftover squid, combined with a type of sea vegetable called "wakame" 若布, and cucumber to make this small starter dish. I added the star attraction--a garnish of myouga.

I thinly sliced cucumber (American mini cucumber) and salted the slices. I squeezed out the excess moisture and lightly dressed it with sushi vinegar. For "wakame", after re-hydration, I squeezed out the excess water and also lightly dressed it with sushi vinegar. Before dressing with  a "sumiso" sauce, I again squeezed out excess liquid from both the cucumber and wakame. I sliced the left over grilled squid into thin rings.

Karashi sumiso sauce: This is my regular sumiso sauce with miso (I used red miso this time without any particular reason), sugar and rice vinegar with Japanese hot mustard.

After dressing everything in the sumiso, I garnished with a perilla leaf, sliced Campari tomato, and fresh myouga (just a cameo appearance of myouga here). Because of the karashi sumiso, the squid tasted better and the myouga has such a unique taste it really added to the dish.

We are still waiting for the myouga to get a bit larger.

How to make a perfect grilled rice ball with crispy crust all around. 完璧な焼きおにぎりの作り方

Grilled rice balls 焼きおにぎり are the most common "shime" 締め dish for us when we fire up the grill, either the Konro or Weber. My wife really likes the crispy brown crust and encourages me to maximize the crust around the entire rice ball. But it is difficult to get crispy crust on all sides since the rice ball usually does not stand on the side by itself. At my wife's suggestion, I made a rice ball that does, in fact, stand on its side. I did this by making triangular-shaped rice balls with wider and perfectly flat sides. I shape the rice ball by placing an amount of cooked rice in the middle of a piece of plastic wrap. I gather the ends of the wrap together and form a ball. Then I shape the ball into a triangle. Since the rice ball is wrapped in plastic, I flatten the sides and then test to see if the rice ball will remain standing on the counter top without any support. If it rolls over I flatten the sides and test again. I do this on all three sides). Here they are! Standing up on their sides very proudly without any support. We now have the perfect grilled rice ball, nicely crunchy and brown crust all around. Toward the end of the grilling, I brush all the surfaces with either yuzumiso 柚子味噌 or mirin-soy sauce mixture. This time, I used Yuzumiso. In most Izakayas, grilled rice balls are not grilled long or thoroughly enough and certainly do not have a crunchy crust on all sides. Hope other Izakayas will emulated this (not likely).

By the way, a small white half moon shaped item is a Japanese turnip (ko kabu こかぶ) which was grown by our friend. It turned out that this kabu is rather spicy (hot).

Natto soba 納豆蕎麦

Several things came together to inspire me to make this dish. First the cover picture on the cookbook "Takashi's Noodles" triggered the memory of a similar dish I occasionally had for lunch at a Soba restaurant in downtown Sapporo. Second, it has been really hot and muggy here--the kind of weather that calls for cold soba.  In Japan, soba is a very popular lunch item and there are many restaurants specializing in soba and they do a brisk business during lunch. The combination of cold soba topped with natto 納豆 is rather classic and called "Natto soba" 納豆蕎麦 which was one of my favorites. I made this as a "shime" dish one night and found out my wife never had this before.

This is not a recipe per se since this is just a plate of soba and various garnishes which happened to include natto. A raw egg yolk usually accompanies this dish. Raw or undercooked eggs here in the U.S. are always iffy because of the potential for Salmonella contamination. We use "free-ranging" and "organic" brown eggs for dishes that are not fully cooked or have runny yolks. We do not know, however, if there is scientific or statistical evidence that these eggs are indeed safer than regular supermarket white eggs. (P.S. I found an article indicating that there is a lower risk of salmonella contamination in organic and free ranging eggs, although the risk is not zero. I also found that pasteurized shell eggs* are going to be available more widely in very near future.) We have been eating soft boiled eggs, poached eggs, and sunny side ups for many years and so far, (knock on wood) we have not experienced any ill effects. This time I used egg yolks from  "Onsen tamago" 温泉卵, which I made from the brown eggs.  This is a very peculiar Japanese way of cooking eggs, which, I am sure, I can describe in more details in a separate post.

I cooked dried soba noodle as per package instructions and washed them in cold running water and drained. I diluted a bottled noodle (concentrated) sauce in cold water to my liking. Natto was prepared my usual way. Other garnishes include thinly sliced (on bias) scallion , dried bonito flakes, thin strips of nori and an egg yolk from the onsen tamago. Just before eating, I poured on the dipping sauce. I took a dab of  wasabi and worked it in by mixing all the items well. This is a perfect dish for hot summer days. By the way, my wife, who is not a card-carrying member of the Natto fan club, liked this dish.


* P.S. 2: We found Davidson's Pasteurized shell eggs in our neighborhood market (one we have not been before). I will have a separate post for the pasteurized shell eggs in the near future.

Grilled Capelin 焼き ししゃも

Shishamo ししゃも is a small salt sea fish endogenous to Hokkaido 北海道 and the name is derived from a native Ainu language meaning “willow leaf fish”. The name of this fish in Kanji 柳葉魚,  is a classic example of “ateji” 当て字 in which the meaning of the kanji letter is “willow 柳”+”leaf 葉”+ “fish 魚” but there is no way to pronounce this Kanji as “shishamo”. Although you can still get true shishamo in Hokkaido, unfortunately,  the vast majority of “shishamo” you buy and eat at an Izakaya nowadays is not true “shishamo” but its cousin “Karafuto Shishamo” or Capelin. (see P.S. below) That includes the one shown here which came from Canada. Although my memory of eating shishamo while bar-hopping in Susukino 薄野 is a bit foggy (whether because it was such a long time ago or because I was, in fact, bar-hopping), the shishamo tasted much better in Hokkaido. Whether it was “true” shishamo or “Karafuto shishamo” I was eating, like the rest of the memory, is somewhat unclear.

In any case, this fish is among the Izakaya favorites and the female with eggs or “Komochi Shishamo” 子持ちししゃも is much better to eat than the male fish without eggs. The  eggs of this fish “Capelin roe” are often seasoned and artificially colored (wasabi flavoured etc) and served as “Masago” or sometimes “Tobiko” at a sushibar. “Tobiko” should be  flying fish roe, so there are lots of substitutions and confusing naming when it comes to fish.

We get these fish frozen and I grilled them in a toaster oven unthawed and serve it with grated Daikon and soy sauce. This may not be the true “shishamo” but it goes well with a drink of sake.

P.S. Jon provided me with an eyewitness evidence that, indeed, some Izakayas serve true Hokkaido shishamo 北海道本ししゃも. I believe this is the menu from "Honoka". This is something I can look forward to next time we visit Japan. Thank you, Jon.