Chicken Patty, miso flavored, with pine nuts 鶏の松風焼き

This is a variation of chicken "tsukune". The addition of pine nuts and miso make this dish distinctive. I used 1/2 lb ground chicken. Add white miso (2 tbs), mirin (2tbs), panko (1/2 cup), flour (2 tbs) and toasted pine nuts (3 tbs) and 1 egg. Mix and put in small square baking dish (I sprayed with "Pam" to prevent sticking) so that the thickness is about 1/2 inch. Put it in a 350 F oven for 15 minutes.

I think this was in one of the recipes for "Osechi" お節料理 or New Year Dishes which I saw on-line some time ago. I have made this for New Year. In that case, I cut the loaf into the shape of "Hagoita" 羽子板 and insert tooth picks to mimic the real thing and brush mirin and add "aonori" 青のり for green "pine" needle color as instructed in the original recipe (left in the above picture).

The taste is great and goes well with any drinks including red wines.

Duck breast salad with grilled shiitake 鴨胸肉と焼きシイタケのポン酢酢の物

This is another quick dish I made from the leftovers we had as a starter dish of the evening. There is no recipe for this, I just concocted it on a whim. I had roasted duck breast leftover and I thought the combination of onion and ponzu with duck will be good.

The amounts are for two small servings as seen above. I fist thinly sliced red onion (1/3 medium). I salted, kneaded, and soaked it in water for 5 minutes and wrung out the moisture with a paper towel. Cucumber was sliced obliquely very thin. I salted and squeezeed out the excess moisture (one small American mini-cuke). I thinly sliced the duck breast (cooked to medium rare with nice uniform rosy color) and then cut it into wide strips (4 thin slices per serving). I also found fresh shiitake mushroom (4, small) left in our refrigerator and decided to include it in this dish. I washed and broiled them in a toaster oven (it is sort of steam broiled). After a few minutes before it gets dried up, I removed the shiitake and cut into thin strips and dressed with a small mount of soy sauce.

I mixed all the ingredients except for the shiitake in a bowl and dressed them with ponzu shoyu ポン酢醤油 (from the bottle) and a splash of a good olive oil. I topped it with the grilled shiitake and sprinkled roasted white sesame seeds on top.

For an impromptu dish, this was a great success. The onion is strong enough but not too assertive because of the salting and soaking in water. The addition of the olive oil contributes depth of the dish. We had this with "G sake" from SakeOne. The very first US brewed sake we really like. This is a wonderful pairing. I should have made more since we had more duck breast.

Crudités with moromi miso もろみ味噌のクルデテ

Probably this is not even worth posting but just in case I run out the items to post. This is obviously the same as "morokyu" もろきゅう but given a French name. For cucumber, I used American mini-cucues which was cut into a flower-shaped cup so that it can hold moromi miso もろみ味噌. I also made small boats of celery after I removed the strings or veins. As usual, I also used Campari tomatoes after skinning and cutting the top criss-cross halfway through. My wife particularly liked tomato and miso combination.

You could use other vegetables such as carrot, cabbage leaves, lettuce, radish etc. Besides moromi miso, you could make other flavored miso for dipping.

Pork pot roast salad 焼豚のサラダ

This is yet another quick starter dish. Even for us (small eaters), I should have made more in retrospect. We got a whole pork loin since the price was really good. I roasted half (in the oven). I made Sino-Japanese style pot roast 焼豚／煮豚 and several chops from the remainder. Since the cooking liquid for the pot roast is so flavorful, I  made "seasoned" eggs or 味付け卵 (as usual) by marinading soft boiled eggs in the pot roast cooking liquid. This is a salad made of these leftover items.

This is for two tiny servings as seen in the picture. I sliced and cut the pork in rather wide strips (4 slices). I skinned and sliced Campari tomatoes (4). I sliced scallions (two) on a slant. For dressing, I mixed mayonnaise (1 tbs) and the cooking liquid of the pot roast (1/2 tbs or so) and  dressed the above ingredients. I added the seasoned egg cut into quarters as garnish.

This is a small quick and nice dish. The addition of the pot roast cooking liquid, which has now congealed into a soft jell, has a nice sweetness, saltiness and the flavor of star anise 八角 which makes this dish really good. The flavors permeate the egg as well as the dressing. I should have made more.

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.