Chestnut and parsnip soup 栗のポタージュ

This is a very interesting soup/potage and this can be a very good starter dish. Here we served it in a demitasse cup.

This was made by my wife. The soup is made with peeled and boiled chestnuts sold in a jar from France. (With the failure I experienced trying to use chestnuts-in-the-shell, we are sticking to pre-processed products like this one when the recipe calls for chestnuts). 

She sauteed onions (one medium, roughly chopped), carrots (2 medium, peeled roughly chopped), and parsnip (4 small, peeled and chopped) for few minutes in butter (3 tbs). She then added the chestnuts (16oz) and low-sodium, fat free Swanson chicken stock (about 4 cups) and simmered for 30 minutes. Using an immersion blender she pureed the cooked mixture. She added more chicken broth to adjust the thickness of the soup and obtain a smoother texture. Then she seasoned with salt and white pepper. She served this garnished with a small dollop of creme fraiche and chopped chive.

The chestnuts give a very interesting sweet nutty taste which is complemented by the parsnips. The chestnuts and parsnips also add to a rich velvety texture of the soup. In all, this is a quite unique and good soup/potage.

Curry flavored chicken salad with grapes and cantaloupe カレー味のメロンとぶどう入り鶏肉のサラダ

I am not sure what is the origin of the recipe for this salad but it may have been based on a recipe in one of the cookbooks or magazines we have. In any case, it is very interesting since it is curry flavored and uses a combination of yogurt, manogo chutney and mayonnaise as a dressing with the addition of fruit; cantaloupe and grapes.

I made this with left-over barbecued chicken but any cooked chicken will do. I coarsely shredded the chicken by hand. Other ingredients are chopped celery, scallion, and walnuts (pre-toasted). I added grapes and cubes of cantaloupe but the fruit can be added later.  The amount of the ingredients are all arbitrary. Of course, I use seedless grapes.

Dressing: I used 2/3 cup plain yogurt and 1/3 cup mayonnaise (happened to be home-made from pasteurized eggs), Japanese-style curry powder (1 tsp, as much as you like, yogurt reduces the heat of the curry so you can use quite a bit of curry powder). and mango chutney (2 tbs, I  like Major Grey's). Season with salt if needed (I did not).

I served this as one of a small dish with a garnish of baby arugula, Campari tomato and a small dab of home-made mayonnaise. This small salad goes well with any drink. The curry flavor, sweetness of the mango chutney and of the fruit with crunch of walnuts all works well.

Spoon tofu with green tea salt and salted plum topping 掬い豆腐の抹茶塩と梅肉かけ

I have posted similar dishes before but this one is rather good. Tofu comes in various degrees of firmness such as momenkoshi 木綿ごし (firm) and kinugoshi 絹ごし (soft or silken), the softest kind of tofu is called "zarutofu" ざる豆腐 (tofu scoped up by a basket or "zaru" in Japanese but not pressed) and "sukuitofu" すくい豆腐 or spoon tofu. I happened to get a package of sukuitofu at the Japanese grocery store.

Since this tofu is so soft, you just spoon it into a small bowl. I topped this with green tea salt (a mixture of powdered green tea and kosher salt which I make in batches and keep in the freezer in a sealed container). To make this dish more interesting, I added umeboshi 梅干し or Japanese salted plum. This was from the last batch of home made that my mother sent me. I removed the meat of the umeboshi from the stone. I also included the red perilla leaves from the umeboshi container (salted red perilla adds the color and flavor to umeboshi) . I chopped finely both umeboshi and red perilla together and mixed in a small amount of sake (or mirin if you prefer some sweetness). For good measure, I also added a chiffonade of perilla.

Since the tofu is very soft, you just mix the toppings with the tofu using a spoon and enjoy. It had a perfect amount of saltiness and flavor. You have to have this with sake. We had this with chilled G-sake. 

P.S. I noticed that the taste of leftover G-sake deteriorates after a few days--losing its fresh clean taste and becoming very cloying, even if the the bottle is tightly sealed and kept in a refrigerator. This means that if we open the bottle, we have to finish it in one sitting. What a hardship!

Baked cauliflower with garbanzo beans, olive and garlic カリフラワーとひよこ豆、オリーブ、ニンニクのオーブン焼き

This is or another attempt at keeping ready-to-eat vegetables, like my ratatouille, handy. My wife is in charge of making this dish and the recipe below is from her. This dish goes well with any main proteins but especially goes well with lamb or roasted pork. Served by itself, this is also a good drinking snack.

Separate cauliflower into florets (one large head), place it in a bowl. Add garbanzo beans (chick peas), drained and rinsed (one 16 oz can), olives (pitted, oil cured black olive is best, add several kinds if you have them, the amount is arbitrary), garlic (several cloves, separated but with inner skin still on). Season with salt (olives are salty, so careful with salt) and pepper. Add olive oil (3-4 tbs) and toss to coat each florets. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes (more if you like it hot) and mix again. Place it in a baking dish such as a flat pyrex baking dish and bake it in a 350F oven for 30-35 minutes, uncovered, mixing midway through. The cauliflower should be cooked but still crunchy. Be aware that it will keep cooking after the pan is out of the oven. The reason we keep the skin on the garlic is to prevent it from browning and becoming bitter. The cloves still add flavor. The resulting roasted garlic is an added byproduct of the dish and can be used two ways. If you are eating this at home, squeeze out the inside of the roasted garlic and mix it with the other items.  Or use it separately by smearing it on bread and enjoy. If you are taking this as a part of your lunch, I would leave out the garlic as a "public service".

This is a good dish either warm or cold. The crunch of the cauliflower with the hot zing of the pepper flakes really makes this dish. Do not overcook.

Baked oyster 牡蛎焼き

We usually make this dish on the grill but grilling was not an option in the bitterly cold weather we are having at the moment. I decided to do a small scale grilled (baked) oysters using the oven. Due to the simplicity of preparation this dish totally depends on the availability of good fresh live oysters. This is a very nice dish and perfect for an Izakaya feast.

At the near-by gourmet grocery store, they had live oysters but many were rather small (I assume they were Chesapeake bay oysters). I only got 4 (they were rather expensive).  I first pre-heated my convection oven to 450F. I washed the oysters in running water using a small brush to remove any dirt or seaweed attached to the shell. In a small frying pan, I added Kosher salt about a half inch thick (if you do not want to use salt, you could use crumpled aluminum foil instead). I placed the oysters on the salt with the pointed or deep side of the shell down (left in the image below). The salt help hold the oyster shells upright and also conducts the heat evenly. I made sure that the oyster shells were horizontal so that the juice wouldn't run out once the shells open. I placed the pan on the upper rack of the oven for 7-8 minutes*. I try not to over cook the oysters. You may have to remove the smaller ones earlier. All live oysters will open up like the one seen in the middle of the image below. If the shell does not open the oyster was dead and you should not attempt to eat it. Unfortunately that was the case with one of these. So four became three and we felt cheated. Taking care not to burn myself and not spill the juice, I grabbed the open edge of the upper shell and removed it. The shells can be removed very easily, usually without any tools. The larger oysters may still be attached to the shell but it is easy to detach them with a small knife. During this process it is important not to spill any of the liquid gathered in the lower shell. As you can see the oyster was done and sitting in a nice pool of briny oyster liquor (right in the image below).

*Although I have not tried, I remember seeing or reading that you could put the oysters in an oven for a short period (1-2 minutes??) to make the shells open without cooking them. Then, it is much easier to remove the oysters from their shells.

You could eat these with ponzu or lemon juice but the oyster liquor has its own flavor of the ocean itself and you may not need anything. Just slurp the liquor and eat the luscious plump oyster.

Hope we can do this in a bit larger scale when the weather gets warmer and we can fire up the charcoal grill.

Herring roe with cucumber in wasabi mayonnaise 数の子とキュウリのわさびマヨネーズあえ

This is another dish I made from the "kazunoko" 数の子 herring roe which did not arrive in time for New Year. This is a dish, again, I just whipped up. This turned out to be pretty good.

These herring roe were the last three we had left (of the batch I prepared) and had been marinated fairly long. Nonetheless, the seasoning was very light and subtle. I simply cut it up in small bite sized pieces. The cucumber is the usual American mini-cucumber, sliced thin, salted with the excess liquid squeezed out. The dressing is a mixture of real wasabi (almost 1 tsp), mayonnaise (1 tbs) and soy sauce (1/2 tsp). When mixing wasabi in mayonnaise, you can add quite a lot because the Mayonnaise dampens the wasabi's sharpness. I just dressed the cucumber and kazunoko with the wasabi-mayonnaise. I garnished it with tomato (this was a regular hydroponically grown tomato which was rather tasteless).

This was quite a success. The kazunoko and wasabi mayo go very well together--perfect with cold sake.

Salmon chanpuru 鮭のチャンプルー

I had leftover grilled salmon. I often cut it into good size cubes and just reheat it in a frying pan and season with mirin and soy sauce. With a sprinkling of sancho powder 山椒, it is quite good. I also made another dish with grated daikon and ponzu from leftover salmon. You could also make salmon salad. This time I wanted to make something different. Chanpuru is an Okinawan stir-fry. The most popular variety of this dish includes bitter melon which I posted previously.

Use of tofu and egg may qualify this dish as chanpuru. I cut the leftover grilled salmon into large cubes. I am not sure about the amount but 6-7 half inch salmon cubes. I  drained 1/3 block of tofu and wrapped it in paper towels. I weighted it down for 10-15 minutes with a plate on top to remove excess moisture. I then cut the tofu in cubes similar in size to the salmon.

I added sesame oil (2 tsp) to a frying pan on a medium flame. I first fried the tofu cubes to make all four sides slightly brown (1 minute each side). I added the salmon and stir-fried for several minutes. The tofu cubes may crumble but that is OK. I then added finely chopped scallion and beaten egg (one large). As the egg was cooking I seasoned the dish with salt, pepper and a small splash of soy sauce to taste.

I am not sure this was a great success. Somehow this combination does not work as well as a classic goya chanpuru. Still, this is something different using leftover grilled salmon.