Brie and Fuji Apple quesadilla ブリィチーズとリンゴのケサディア

This is a very interesting quesadilla. I bet you will not get this in Mexico but it is perfect with wine. We saw this in "Cooking Light" (paper copy) and both my wife and I independently thought it was interesting. Although the recipe came form "Cooking Light", by no means, is this dish "light". 

This is essentially just like any quesadilla but instead of Jack cheese and some kind of meat,  brie and Fuji apple are used, which make it very unique. Disclaimer: I did not follow the recipe to the letter, so the end product may have been slightly different. I used two small flour tortillas (instead of using a one large tortilla and folding it in half). The recipe calls for regular brie but it turns out I picked up goat milk brie instead, Fuji apple, and baby arugula.

I spread a thin layer of Dijon mustard (Grey Poupon) on one side of both tortillas. In a small (8 inch) frying pan on low flame, I add 1 tsp of olive oil and placed the first tortilla with the mustard side up and placed slices of brie on the tortilla.  After the cheese started melting, I placed thinly sliced Fuji apple on the cheese to cover the surface (I peeled and cored the apple before slicing) and a handful of arugula on the top. I sprinkled freshly cracked black pepper over it. I then placed the other tortilla with the mustard side down. I pressed gently with a spatula. After few minutes, I flipped it to brown the other side and cook it for 2-3 more minutes.

As you can see in the above image, melted brie started oozing out as I tried to cut it. The unique combination of goat milk brie, mustard, black pepper, apple (still crispy, sweet and sour) and slightly peppery arugula, all works together. The goat milk brie had a very pleasant somewhat "gamey" flavor. This was a very nice Franco-Mex (?) hors d'oeuvre indeed, which goes particularly well with wine. We had this with red wine but any white, particularly something like Riesling will also do.

Pork cutlet bowl カツ丼

This looks like the classic lidded Japanese bowl you may see in "Taishu shokudo" 大衆食堂、which is the Japanese equivalent of American diners.  I do not remember when I got this bowl but it must have been in California. I have not used this bowl for a long time for some reason. This dish, Katsu-don カツ丼, is a classic dish being served in Japanese eateries and this bowl is perfect for it. Since we had already made pork fillet cutlets, I made this classic dish from the leftovers and frozen rice. Of course, you could make this from just fried tonkatsu and freshly cooked rice, which would be much better.

There are two distinctive styles in "Katsudon". One type is with soy sauce based broth and beaten egg anchoring everthing together called "Tamago-toji katsudon" 卵とじカツどん, which is, by far, the most popular style and is usually referred as simply "Katsudon". Another (more  regional and less popular) kind is tonkatsu dipped in semi-Western style tonkatsu "sauce" with shredded raw cabbage placed on the top of rice, which is called  "sauce Katsudon" ソースカツどん. I am from the area of Japan where the former style is the only type of Katsudon available. I personally never had a "sauce" Katsudon but I do not think I am missing much (I can easily image how that would taste). 

Here is the view with the lid off, served with beer marinated daikon. Perfect dish to make quickly on a weekday evening. I could have worked on the presentation, though.

To make this dish, you could use the special pan shown below (also perfect for Oyako-don 親 子丼) but I do not have one. Any small (8 inch) frying pan with a fitting lid will also work. You have to use one pan for making one serving. So, in our case, I use two 8 inch frying pans.

Broth/sauce: This is a typical dashi, soy sauce, mirin combination. How much and how strong the broth should be depends on personal preferences. Japanese diners tend to go with a strong broth and a small amount. My wife likes enough broth to moisten the rice adequately. I favor less broth but a bit stronger taste. For this evening, my broth is a compromise. For two servings, it iconsists of dashi (1/3 cup, instant granulated dashi dissolved in hot water), mirin (1 tbs), and soy sauce (1 tbs) but you have to taste and decide how sweet and how strong you would like the broth to be. You could also add sugar, if you like it sweet. I tasted and adjusted further (a bit more soy sauce). I seasoned it more severely than soup you will drink but not as strong as a dipping sauce.You could use any type of tonkatsu. I used "hirekatsu" ヒレカツ or fried fillet of pork.

I arranged the ingredients except for the snow peas in a small frying pan, which makes one serving. I used one medallion of pork per serving for us but I suggest two for most people; sliced in 1/3 inch (or about 1 cm) thick. For vegetables, I used fresh shiitake mushroom (one medium, stem removed but not sliced, with a decorative cut but you can not see it well in the picture), onion (1/4 medium, halved and thinly sliced) and snow peas (2 or more). I add the broth above (1/6 cup or half of what I made). Put a tight lid on the pan and cook for 4-5 minutes on a low flame. I add beaten egg (1 large) and the snow peas and cook another two minutes or so with a lid on.  I take the pan off the heat when the egg is just barely congealed in the center.

I place the cooked rice (in our case, microwaved froze leftover rice) in the bottom of the bowl and slide the topping onto the rice with all the remaining broth (The broth reduces a bit. The special pan in the picture comes in handy if you have one). Put the lid on the bowl and let it stand for a one minute or two. If you like the eggs to be a bit runny skip this last step. If you do, please use pasteurized shell eggs). If you have already made rice and tonkatsu, this is a very quick weekday evening meal. Everything tasted pretty good except my wife wanted more broth.

Japanese Breakfast 日本風朝ご飯

Hangover or "futsuka-yoi" 二日酔い is sometimes an inevitable by-product of the izakaya scene. In my bar hopping days in Japan, hangovers were unavoidable. There are many folk remedies for hangover but their effectiveness is dubious. One such remedy recommended by fellow imbibers while I was living in Japan, was the administration of tomato juice or miso soup--but this never worked for me. Of course, "hair of the dog" or "mukaezake" 迎え酒 (meaning welcoming sake) may be the ultimate cure but it may set you up for the next day's hangover and a vicious cycle may ensue. "Moderation" (what's that) and "hydration" probably are the best way to prevent hangovers.

In any case, you may want to try a traditional breakfast to combat hangovers after having too much fun in Izakayas the night before. Here is my Japanese breakfast but I did not have a hangover and I ate it as supper (Please do not ask why because I don't know why. I had all the ingredients and it just struck my fancy). If you have a hangover, you will feel better after eating this.

 Of course, you need rice and miso soup with any Japanese breakfast.

This example consists of grilled aburaage 焼き油揚げ (top left in the picture below, a bit over done), stewed potatoes and green beans (top right), grilled shishamo 焼きシシャモ (middle left), asazuke 浅漬け (middle right), Perila seedpod tsukudani (bottom left) and miso soup with tofu, wakame sea weed, and aburaage (bottom right).

Other common items include seasoned dried nori (味付け海苔), raw eggs (生卵), natto (納豆), Japanese omelet (卵焼き), and any kind of condiments such as tsukudani (佃煮) of small fish, kelp, and nori.

I am not sure how you feel about eating raw egg over hot rice called "Tamago kake gohan" 卵掛けご飯 (This subject actually appears in Wikipedia--truly amazing!) with a bit of soy sauce (all mixed well), but this is a very popular way to enjoy rice and egg especially in the morning. There is strong following for this dish in Japan with restaurants specializing in it and even a special soy sauce to use on it. (the link is in Japanese).  

Several years ago, we stayed at Kinkazan Shrine/Island 金華山 overnight. Why I decided to visit and stay there is a long story. I think I was expecting to have an experience similar to the lovely time we had at a Buddhist temple in Koyasan 高 野山 a few years earlier. Suffice it to say that was not the case. Just a quick hint; the men's showers had only cold water. Breakfast was served after the morning prayer ceremony (participation in the ceremony was mandatory for all guests--something we didn't know before we arrived). The ceremony occurred at 5:30 AM with 50 or so other fellow worshipers. When we say participate I mean literally. The guests are expected to run part of the ceremony. Luckily I was provided with a crib-sheet of instructions to be learned hastily before going to the main alter in front of all those people to "perform". The priestess conducting the ceremony announced our family name and stated that, as devoted worshipers, we came all the way from Washington, DC. Since I am Japanese (at least from outward appearance), I was expected to sit on the hard floor with legs folded (pure agony) but my wife was provided with a folding stool. In my agony, I didn't think that was quite fair. After the ceremony, all 50 guests were herded into another big room where long bench tables were set with a traditional Japanese breakfast. 

Next to all the usual Japanese breakfast items sat an egg in a small bowl just like the one shown in the picture. While I knew immediately what it was and what it was for, my wife automatically assumed it was a hard boiled egg, something often served in an American breakfast or at Japanese coffee houses. As she was getting ready to smack the egg hard on the table to crack the shell and eat it, something caused her to stay her hand. And a good thing too. Imagine how embarrassing it would have been to deliberately smash a raw egg onto the table while all the other guests, who were Japanese, were managing to get their raw egg onto the rice. How surprised the other guests would have been! It didn't occur to her for even a second that the egg could possibly be raw! Nobody serves a raw egg in the shell for breakfast in the United States (not even our household) !! But she now knows that, in Japan, they do. 

Sauteed nagaimo 焼き長いも

I have posted quite a few dishes of nagaimo 長芋. You can make so many variations, either cooked or raw, but this grilled nagaimo with black pepper and salt has been featured not once but twice by the expert expats Izakaya connoisseurs and I decided to make my version. Since this was a weeknight, I did not charcoal grill the nagaimo but pan fried it.

This dish is simple to make. Since I do not like the skin I removed it but you could keep the skin on. I sliced it into rather thin (1/4 inch) disks but this could be a bit thicker. I blotted any moisture from the surface using a paper towel. I added light olive oil (1 tbs) to a hot frying pan on medium-high flame and browned one side rather well (bottom side) for 2 minutes. I flipped it over and fried for 1 more minute. I flipped it over again and sprinkled salt and freshly cracked black pepper. You could use different seasoning such as Japanese 7 flavored red pepper  七味唐辛子, sansho 山椒, or even cumin or curry powder if you like.

We had this as an opening dish with leftover yakitori drumettes reheated in a toaster oven as seen above. The nagaimo has a nice mild crunchy crust and becomes very sweet (some starch must convert to sugar). It is really satisfying and the salt and pepper make this dish. Nagaimo can be simmered in broth as well but I never posted it. Maybe that will be my next post on nagaimo.

Grilled Baby Octopus and grilled smashed potatoes 子鮹のグリルと焼き潰しジャガイモ

I don't think I've ever seen uncooked baby octopuses in a regular grocery store.  Last time we went to the market to get pasteurized eggs, to our surprise, they had fresh baby octopuses. It was also very cheap (less than $5 per pound and I could not resist getting some). I decided to marinade them in both Western and Japanese styles and just grill them on a charcoal fire.

In the picture below, the left four are Western style and the right 5 are Japanese style in the back row (This is the first batch that we grilled, we had much more). Aren't they cute? The front row is smashed and grilled potatoes. I think this definitely qualifies for Izakaya food.

Western style Marinade: Lemon juice (from one medium lemon), lemon zest (from one lemon before squeezing its juice using a micrograter), olive oil (3-4 tbs), salt and pepper. I also added fresh thyme (finely chopped) from our herb garden.

Japanese style marinade: Sake, Mirin, and soy sauce (1:1:2) with several slices of fresh ginger.

I marinated the octopuses for several hours in the refrigerator. I drained the marinade and simply grilled them for 2-3 minutes turning frequently (below, left). As per my wife's idea (she got the idea from one of the issues of Cook Illustrated), she microwaved baby red potatoes, then coated them with oil and smash them flat. We then grilled both sides (below, right).

Both styles had lots of flavor, especially the Western version had nice lemony and thyme flavors. Only problem was that both were a bit chewy. For most Japanese, this degree of chewiness is Ok but not for most Westerners including my wife. I ended up cutting them into small pieces.

Since we made perilla seedpod Tsukudani 紫蘇の実の佃煮, we tried it on the potatoes. it is much better than just salt. It has very interesting taste, sweet and saltiness and popping texture. We also made our usual grilled rice balls. These food all went very well with cold sake and we stayed until dark on our back deck. 

Our neighbor's dog showed up and hung around despite her owner's calling. She was not about to leave our barbecue. She may get in trouble if this continues.

Artichoke, acorn squash and rack of lamb アティチョーク、エイコーンスクワシュ, 子羊肉

This is certainly not Izakaya food. But I thought, just in case there are some Japanese readers out  there, acorn squash and artichokes may be a bit unusual for them. Artichoke is a very strange vegetable (if it is a vegetable). It is the immature flower bud of a giant thistle. Whoever (must have been Europeans) decided this could be eaten, must have been very hungry. In terms of its strangeness and the fact that it is a flower bud, it is on par with myouga 茗荷. I didn't cook artichokes myself until I moved to California from the east coast many, many moons ago. We fondly remember driving through Half-moon Bay on the California coast, one of the major artichoke producing regions of the United States. We often stopped at one of the many road side stands to buy fresh artichokes just harvested from the fields that extended either side of the road. After moving back to the east, the artichokes we see at the market are usually pitiful and we only rarely buy them. Last weekend, I found some reasonably good looking artichokes and I could not resist buying them, but I did not have a chance to prepare them right away.

My wife came to the rescue and she prepared the artichokes along with acorn squash the following Friday. I only had to cook the rack of lamb that went along with them for dinner.

Artichokes: There are many ways to cook artichokes (which also depend on the size of the artichokes). The most classic old fashioned way for regular size artichokes is what we did this evening.  How to clean and prepare artichokes is readily available elsewhere. My wife steamed them for 45 minutes in water to which lemon juice, onion, black pepper corns, bay leaf and olive oil had been added. The picture above shows the cooked artichoke served on the plate. What it doesn't show are the many outer petals that were already eaten in transit between pot and plate (It went swimmingly well with a sip of the red wine we were having).

To eat, remove a petal, the edible portion is attached only to the bottom inside of the petal (above image, upper left), dip it in a whatever dip you like (the above image, upper right, is mayonnaise with lemon juice, but you could use melted butter as well) and using your front teeth, scrape off the edible portion (above image, lower left). When you get into the more immature inner petals, not much edible portion is attached. You then remove all the petals exposing the "chokes" (which, I suppose, eventually become the fluffy cottony stuff attached to the seeds to be carried by the wind). As the name implies, you do not want to put these chokes into your mouth. They are not named "chokes" for no reason. The name describes how you will feel if you attempt to eat it--choked. You must carefully remove all the chokes using a knife or spoon or both. You end up with the heart of the artichoke (the above image lower right, this one is already quartered). Actually, this is the meatiest and the best part of the plant. This is what the previous work was all about. The taste of artichokes is difficult to describe. We like it very much but you would have to taste it and decide for yourself.

Acorn squash: It is a very popular fall vegetable and my wife cooked it in the traditional American way but seasoned it with a Japanese touch. She cut the squash in half and removed the guts (seeds and inner membranes). She washed it under running water (leaving some water inside). The water puddles under the squash and steams it as it bakes. She then placed them on a flat cooking sheet with the cut-side down. The squash baked in a 350F oven for 45 minutes. She scraped all the meat out of the shells and put it in a bowl. She added butter, honey, and soy sauce (in lieu of salt), mixed well and then stuffed it back into the half shells. This tastes somewhat like mashed sweet potatoes but different. It has a mildly sweet taste yet is savory at the same time. This was a perfect side for the lamb (or more like, the lamb is perfect side for the squash).

Rack of lamb: This was seasoned with salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary. identically seasoned as ones in my previous post but I did not marinate and, instead of an electric grill, I browned it in a frying pan and finished it in an oven (350F 5-8 minutes).

Between the artichoke, squash, and lamb we noticed that this meal resulted in an unusually large amount of debris on the plate by the time we were finished. Doesn't this look the epitome of a good feast thoroughly enjoyed? In case you were wondering, it was.

The wine we had this evening was Benessere Vineyards Napa Valley Phenomenon 2005. This is a California red blend Super Tuscan style and made of Cab Sauv (47%), Sangiovese (27%), Merlot (14%) and syrah (12%), all from St. Helena estate-grown fruits. It is not like classic Napa cab with strong vanilla and chocolate but has a more subtle but complex taste. The tannin is now nicely matured giving a nice backbone to this California Super Tuscan. We like this wine very much. It went so well withthe lamb and artichokes. Perfect for tonight dinner.

Perilla seedpod Tsukudani 紫蘇の実の佃煮

Aojiso 青じそ or green perilla is nice to have in your garden, especially if you are making any Japanese dishes as an ingredient as well as a garnish.The only problem is that this plant is like mint and is very prolific. It will reseed and take over the entire garden if you are not careful. When they start blossoming and making seeds, it is one of the signs of autumn for us. As you can see below, our small raised herb garden is dominated by perilla now with its flowers and seedpods.

I have used the flowers and seedpods as a garnish/decoration and seen commercial Tsukudani of shiso seedpods 紫蘇の実の佃煮 but never thought of making it myself until I came across the post from one of the blog I follow (in Japanese). I think the major effort required to make this dish is to remove the seedpods from the stalks.

The image above on the left and center are seedpods attached to the stalk and the right is after separating pods from the stalk. This is a rather time consuming tedious step (My wife helped me). I washed the pods with stalks and let it dry before removing the seedpods. I would have only used mirin, sake and soy sauce for the seasoning like I did with kelp tsukudani, but I followed the recipe from the aforementioned blog and also added rice vinegar (at the very end of the cooking) and umeboshi.

I just poured the seasoning liquid of sake, mirin, and soy sauce (1:1:1) just to barely cover the seed pods and add the meat of two umeboshi 梅干し (pickled plum) cut up and also added their stones. I also added rice vinegar (2 tsp) at the very end. I am not sure how much of the seedpods I had to begin with but probably 3 cups or so. After 20-30 minutes with the lid slightly askew to encourage reduction, the liquid almost all evaporated and the pods become brown with the seeds visible (image below).

It tastes somewhat like any tsukudani (salty soy sauce and molasses-like sweetness) but has a nice popping crunchy texture when you bite down on it (Japanese expression is "puchi puchi" プチプチ). It doesn't have much perilla taste per se but it does have interesting flavors. Certainly, this will be very good to just nibble while drinking cold sake or on hot rice. We actually tried it on potatoes and it was very good. At least, we feel like we reduced the amount of reseeding for the next year.