Eggplant caviar 茄子のキャビア

Every time I see a good eggplant, I can not resist getting it. I saw some nice looking small Italian eggplants at the grocery store and bought two. Since I occasionally forget what I bought and find the liquefied remnants later in the fridge, my wife kept the eggplants out on the counter for me to cook that evening (translation: immediately!). After I considered making my usual suspects, I realized I have not blogged this dish and decided to make it. I first saw this in one of the Silver palate cookbooks many years ago and made it several times since then but not recently. My recipe is loosely based on the recipe from the book. This time I did not check the original recipe and made it from memory. As usual, I made some of my own contributions (read modifications) to the dish. Why is this called "caviar"? I am not sure. But the seeds of eggplants may look like "caviar" with some, no, lots of  imagination. Japanese have "tonburi" とんぶり, a type of grass seeds prepared a specific way, which is sometimes called a "land" caviar and is more similar in appearance and texture (not taste) to real caviar than this dish.

 The amount is an appetizer for two.

Eggplant: I used two small Italian eggplants. I pricked the skin with the tines of a fork so that it will not explode during baking. (A digression: One time I was barbecuing small Japanese eggplants and did not think to prick the skins. I put them in a very hot weber grill with the lid on. My wife and I sat back with a nice glass of wine to relax and wait for things to cook when suddenly there was a very loud "whumph" from inside the grill followed by a large puff of ash out the bottom. I jumped up and removed the lid...there was absolutely no trace of the eggplants. They had exploded so violently there was nothing left; not even bits plastered on the lid. Lesson learned: prick the eggplant.) Back to the recipe: I baked the eggplant for about 15 minutes in a preheated 450F toaster oven turning once half way through the time. The eggplant should be totally soft, otherwise bitter taste may remain. I suppose you could microwave the eggplants as well. I let it cool down and removed the stem end and skin. I cut it in thin strips lengthwise and cut into small dice but I do not like to totally mash it.

I finely diced one small shallot, zest (using a micrograter) and juice of half a lemon, a few sprigs of chopped parsley (or other fresh herbs such as fresh basil if available). I mixed this into the eggplant above and season it with salt, pepper and a good olive oil (2-3 tbs). I tasted it and I thought that pine nuts would go well with this dish. So I dry roasted pine nuts (2 tbs) in a dry frying pan and mixed in (optional).

I let it sit for 10-15 minutes before serving so that the tastes amalgamate and the shallot become less sharp. I served this with more olive oil on the top. Thinly sliced small baguette rounds or good crackers will be good with this. We had this with crackers. The nice soft texture of the eggplant, the fresh taste of the lemon (especially the zest) and parsley all worked together. My addition of roasted pine nuts added richness and some different texture.

This is fairly easy to make but tastes really good. Some fruity white wines will go well with this but, as usual, we drank a red.

P.S. In view of the catastrophic tragedy in Tohoku-Sendai area, we offer our sympathy and support for the survivors. All my family and the friends we contacted are Ok but our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were not as fortunate. We were in the Sendai, Matsushima and Kinkazan areas in 2006, which makes watching these images and videos much more difficult.

Pork Cutlet ポークカツレツ

This dish is looking into a bit of history on Japanese "Western" dishes. This dish may look like "Tonkatsu" トンカツ but this is the predecessor of Japanese tonkatsu and called "poku katsuretsu" ポークカツレツ and it is closer to Western "cutlet" than tonkatsu. ("katsu" in "ton-katsu" is a short for "katsuretsu" but you do not say "tonkatsuretsu" to mean "tonkatsu"). When a famous and pioneering yoshoku restaurant, "Renga tei" 煉瓦亭 in Ginza, opened in 1895 (it is still in business today), started serving Western cuisine to Japanese, they had to make some modifications to the original Western dish to accommodate Japanese taste. These variation reportedly formed the basis of Japanese "yoshoku". For example, instead of sautéing breaded thin pieces of meat in a small amount of oil or butter in a frying pan as Western cutlets are usually prepared, they deep dried them as though making tempura (another foreign derived Japanese dish which was introduced to Japan from Portugal much earlier). They also used pork instead of veal for this dish. This eventually became tonkatsu トンカツ using pork fillets or chops rather than thinly pounded meat.

I used a pork fillet cut into small medallions (1 inch thick) and then pounded very thin. I also used some end pieces and trimmings of pork fillets (this time I used mostly trimmings). I breaded them in the standard way; seasoned with salt and pepper, dredged in flour, dipped in egg water and coated with Panko bread crumbs (left upper in the image below). I used a small amount of light olive oil (less than quarter of an inch deep) on medium low flame as seen in the right upper of the image below. After a few minutes, I turned them over and fried the the other sides until browned and the meat was done (few more minutes, left lower image below) and drain excess oil (right lower image below).

I served this with Pennsylvania Dutch noodles and steamed broccoli. On the side I put, Japanese hot mustard and tonkatsu sauce. Because the breading/meat ratio is different from tonkatsu, this tastes different from tonkatsu. It is dominated by the crispy crust and is very good in its own right. Leftovers make a mighty fine sandwich particularly if the mustard/tonkatsu sauce is used on the bread.

We had this with a decent Napa Cab from wine reseller Cameron Hughes wine called "lot 200". Cameron Hughes supposedly buys excess "juice" from "famous", "big-name" wine makers (mostly Napa) and bottles it under his label with a simple designation of a "lot number". We first tried CH wines after reading a WSJ article. The idea is that the original big name wineries get cash they needed but do not ruin their reputations by fire sales of their wines. We consumers get a good deal and CH makes money in the process. So everybody wins. We tried a few CH wines and most of them are decent and worth the price. This lot 200 is one of the higher priced CH wines and is a classic Napa Cab with a medium body. Not quite a high-end Napa but a very pleasant wine. Only problem with CH wines is, when you find something you like, you can never go back and buy the same wine again.

Homemade cottage cheese with olive oil and chives 自家製カッテージチーズ

Coagulated milk protein is the base of any cheese. Trying not to be too indelicate in discussing this; the only way a calf (or any other mammalian baby including humans) can digest mother's milk is to coagulate the milk in the stomach. Babies have a special enzyme called "rennet" in their stomachs. Although rennet derived from plants is available, many traditional cheeses are made using calf rennet. Rennet is also used to make a very old fashioned custard dessert called "rennet custard" or "junket". My wife loves junket and used to get "junket custard mix" This mix is very difficult to find and she had to mail order her supply. As a result she was very reluctant to make this desert lest she deplete the cache. On a recent trip to the grocery store, she found "rennet" tablets. She started reading the recipes in the back of the box and decided to make cottage cheese.

She used 1 gallon of 1% milk warmed to 70 degrees in a pan.  She added 1/4 rennet tablet dissolved in water, and 1/4 cup buttermilk mixing well. She removed it from the heat, covered the pan with a dish towel and let it sit on the counter at room temperature for 18 hours. The next day, a nice curd had developed. She cut the curd into small 1/2 inch pieces using a long blade knife. She put the pan in a bain marie and slowly heated it to 110F and held it at that temperature for 20 to 30 minutes stirring every 5 minutes to make sure the curd heated evenly. She drained the curd using colander lined with a moistened cheese cloth. After draining several minutes she lifted the curd in the cheese cloth and immersed it in cold water stirring and pressing with a spoon to break the curd into smaller pieces. She placed the curd in a bowel added 1 tsp salt and 1/3 cup cream stirring until everything is mixed in.

After the cheese cooled down in the refrigerator, we served it with a drizzle of good extra-virgin olive oil, freshely cracked black pepper and chopped chives. The texture was a bit spongy but sort of between commercial cottage cheese and mozzarella. We liked this. Compared to "acid" coagulated curd, we like rennet coagulated curd. My wife said she was making cheddar cheese next. So please keep an eye on this blog for home-made cheddar.

Simmered vegetables with chicken 鶏と根菜の煮付け

This is a typical home cooked dish. Similar dishes, but more sophisticated ones, are called "umani" 旨煮 and "chikuzenni" 筑前煮, which are often served as New Year's dishes. The type of dish I made here is generally called "nitsuke" 煮付け and is a homey toned-down version of these two dishes. It has a wider range of vegetables and all the ingredients are cooked together in one pot.

The reason for making this dish was to clean up some ingredients I had in our refrigerator. I deboned chicken thigh several days ago and it had been marinating in sake for several days. I had to use it or lose it. I also had a half daikon and burdock root or "gobo" 牛蒡. You could use any combination of root vegetables for this dish.

The amounts of each ingredients are totally arbitrary. You can make it with lots of chicken or chicken can be just a flavoring or no chicken. I used three chicken thigh (skinned and deboned) cut into large bite sized pieces. The vegetables included daikon (3 inch long, medium, peeled and cut into a half inch thick disk cut into quarters), gobo (half, skin scraped off under running water and cut into small "rangiri*" 乱切り pieces, soaked in acidulated (with rice vinegar) water, and carrots (two medium, peeled and cut into medium "rangiri" pieces).

*rangiri: This is a type of cut used often in Japanese cooking especially for long root vegetables. After peeling, you lay the vegetables flat on the cutting board and cut the first piece on a slant from the end, turn 90 degree and making another cut on a slant until it is completely cut up. Here is a visual aid.

I placed all the root vegetables in cold water in a pan and cooked them for 20-30 minutes or until the daikon and gobo are soft (they take the longest to cook). I drained and placed the vegetables in a pan and poured in dashi broth (about 3 cups, again I made dashi using a dashi pack) to just cover the vegetables. When the broth came to boil, I added the chicken pieces and turned down the heat to simmer with "otoshibuta" 落とし蓋. When the chicken pieces became opaque, I skimmed off the scum and fat that formed on the top of the liquid and added mirin (3 tbs) and soy sauce (2 tbs). I kept simmering occasionally skimming more scum and fat. After 10 minutes, I added more soy sauce (1 tbs) and checked the seasoning. I let it cool down. I reheated it before serving and garnished it with boiled green beans. I think, in a more traditional way, the seasoning of nitsuke is stronger with mirin, sugar and soy sauce. I tend to make the seasonings light, so you have to experiment to find the best seasoning for you. To make it simpler, you could cook everything using broth and seasoning but gobo and daikon will be milder if you precook as I did here.

This is again nothing special but very comforting (at least for me) food.

Finally, our blog cookbooks are here!

My wife really wanted to have a book of our blog. Finally here it is! A two volume compendium of Norio on Wine and Food Cookbooks. Please click the  rightmost tab above "NOWAF cookbooks etc" to view.

Amuse-buche, Smoked salmon on potato スモークサーモンとジャガイモのアミューズブーシュ

Like "Otoushi" お通し in Izakaya, many restaurants in the U.S. and elsewhere are now serving a small appetizer, before the start of the actual dinner or even the delivery of the "real" appetizer. This little morsel is call "amuse-bouche" or translated "entertain the mouth". This is my version of an amuse-bouche. Since we only had a very small amount of left-over smoked salmon, I made it into a one-bite appetizer.

I microwaved two small new red potatoes. I then removed the skin and carved it into two small cylinders. I placed this on a very small dish and seasoned it with salt, layered it with creme fraiche and garnished it with chopped chives. I put two small squares of smoked salmon on top and topped it with more chopped chives. We popped the morsels into our mouths and let the layers of flavors and textures tantalize the tongue. The combination of potato and smoked salmon was very nice. The bouche was amuzed...and thanked us for it.

Shimeji mushroom and Canadian bacon stir-fry しめじとハムの炒め物

I had a package of fresh shimeji mushroom ホンシメジ and leftover Canadian bacon. Using these two items, I came up with this small dish. I could have used good quality ham rather than Canadian bacon. I did not know of the existence of Canadian bacon (as it is called in the U.S. but not in Canada) until I came to the U.S. it appears you can get it in Japan.

I just cut the root end of the shimeji mushroom and separated the stalks (1 package). I cut the Canadian bacon  (4-5 slices) into half inch strips. I added olive oil (2 tsp) and butter (1 tsp) to a frying pan and sauté the shimeji for a few minutes and added the Canadian bacon. I seasoned with a splash of sake, soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Finally, I add finely chopped parsley just before shutting off the heat. Somehow, the Canadian bacon just tasted off (may be it wasn't in its prime) which ruined the dish somewhat. The idea was good and I am sure better quality Canadian bacon or ham would have made this dish much better. Although I ate everything, my wife only ate the mushrooms (she is a picky eater).