Simmered sweet potato and azuki beans さつまいもとあずきの煮付け

Because our new grocery store had raw azuki beans, I made several dishes with them. Here is the first sort of savory dish which can be served as a vegetable side dish.

There is some confusion regarding sweet potato and yam especially in North America. As far as I can tell the ones available in North America, either white or orange varieties, are sweet potatoes. The orange variety are frequently referred to as "yams" which appears to be a misnomer. True "yams" are reportedly botanically different from sweet potatoes. In any case, the potato I bought for this dish is the orange variety and is similar to Japanese "satusma-imo".

I simply peeled and cut the sweet potatoes (3) into half inch thick half moon shaped pieces and simmered in dashi broth just enough to cover (I guess about 200ml. I took a shortcut and used instant granulated dashi). I tested for to see if they were done by piercing with a bamboo stick after 15-20 minutes. I seasoned them with mirin (2 tbs), soy sauce (3 tbs) and sugar (1 tbs) and further simmer for several minutes. I added slightly sweetened cooked azuki beans (if using canned cooked azuki, use the unsweetened variety) and let them warm up for another 4 minutes.

It is a bit sweet but very mildly so. The combination of slightly sweetened azuki beans and sweet poteto is excellent. Can this be a drinking snack? Possibly, but I have to say I would probably have something else with a drink.

Pork pot roast and scallion salad 煮豚と葱のサラダ

This is another variation of small dishes using nibuta/yakibuta 煮豚／焼豚. This is based on a recipe from Otsumami Yokocho page 33.

To make this dish is quick and easy. This is for one small serving as seen above. Only thing is that you need to have leftover Japanese pork pot roast. I had less than 1 inch thick pork roast left. I just sliced it into thin rectangles (or cut into "tanzaku" 短冊, which is a small elongated rectangle card on which you scribble down a traditional Japanese short poem using a brush and ink.)

Dressing: I mixed soy sauce (2 tsp), dark sesame oil (2 tsp), sugar (1/4 tbs), rice vinegar (1/2 tsp) and Chinese hot sauce/paste* (1/6 tsp or more as you like), grated garlic (1/4 tsp) and ginger root (1/4 tsp) in a small bowl.

Scallion: I just sliced a scallion thinly on the bias including some of the green parts.

Just dress all the ingredients and serve. It is quite good and quite different from similar salads I made before. We like both variations very much. This one has more assertive flavors from the garlic, ginger, sesame oil as well as red chili paste.

(* "Tobanjan"  Hot bean sauce 豆瓣酱 or Chili garlic sauce 蒜蓉辣椒醬, I used the latter. You could substitute with any hot sauce you may have.)

Sweet red bean and rice cake ぜんざい

This is obviously not Izakaya food at all and is probably the ultimate antithesis of it. I never thought I would be making this dish. But the aforementioned new gourmet grocery store has a large section of bulk grains and beans. All kinds of interesting items can be found there and you could even grind the grains of your choice or in combination to make your own flours. I actually found red beans or azuki 小豆 あずき (altenetive spelling, "adzuki"). I have never seen raw azuki beans being sold in the U.S. before* (canned cooked azuki is available). Tokachi plane 十勝平野 in Hokkaido 北海道, the northernmost island of Japan where I am originally from, is famous for producing azuki.  I have never attempted to cook azuki before--and there are reasons that I haven't. The most common use of azuki is to make Japanese sweets called "an" 餡, from which traditional Japanese sweets such as "Yokan" 羊羹 and "Zenzai" ぜんざい etc are made. I do not particularly care for them. They are also used to make "red rice" or "sekihan" 赤飯, a traditional celebratory food, which, I did not particularly like as a kid, liked even less as an adult and avoided eating if at all possible. Despite all this, when I saw the azuki in the bin, I had to get some. I have been in the U.S. too long, perhaps (or maybe the novelty of the situation overcame me).

*I was wrong about this. I simply was not looking for it before.  I did find raw red beans, vacuum packed, as well as canned cooked - both sweetened and un-sweetened - red beans in our Japanese grocery store (only one left in DC area).

The above picture is a classic Japanese sweet called "zenzai" ぜんざい or "O-shiruko" お汁粉 consisting of sweet azuki beans and grilled "mochi" rice cake. To my surprise, this was the best version of this dish I ever made. (Since this is the first time I ever made it "best" was not hard to achieve). But above and beyond that it was also the best I ever tasted. Granted, I've only ever eaten it a few times before and that was a long time ago. Even my wife agreed that this was the best she's eaten (she may actually have eaten some in Asakusa as recently as few years ago). If memory serves me correctly, the last time I had this dish was when I was in high school accompanying my classmate (sweetheart).....of course, back then this was something "girls" liked to eat. I recall it was sickeningly sweet and the only reason I ate it was because my classmate wanted some, not because I liked to eat "zenzai" )

In any case, a quick internet search revealed more than a few entries on how to cook azuki properly. I read a few of them and amalgamated them into the recipe I used. I think the secret was that I was careful not to make it too sweet.

Azuki beans look like this (image below left), I think I had about 1 pound. I washed and soaked the beans in plenty of water overnight. I cooked the beans on high flame using the water they soaked in. When the water came to a boil, I turned the flame down to a vigorous simmer (if such a term exists--it is just a tad below "gentle boil") for 10 minutes. I drained and washed the beans in cold running water. I put the beans back in the pot and added fresh cold water (3 times the volume of the beans). After the water started boiling I turned it down to a vigorous simmer. Small white bubbles or scum soon covered the surface, I skimmed it off repeatedly. If the water level went down too far, I added more hot water. After 30-40 minutes, it looks like this (image below right).  I tasted the beans, they were now soft. I set aside a portion of the simmering liquid and beans to use for other dishes, and continued making this dish. It appears important to add sugar in stages to keep the beans soft. So I added about 1/4 cup first. I cooked it for a while, tasted it (not sweet enough even for me) and add more sugar until I thought the sweetness was right (for me, that is. It must be a half of the recipe calls for). You could keep cooking to your desired consistency but I like it a bit soupy. I added a pinch (1/2 tsp) of salt at the end which supposedly enhances the sweetness.

I had some packaged mochi in the fridge left over from New Year. I cut the mochi into 4 small squares and toasted it in the toaster oven. (Since the mochi will become very sticky when cooked, I put the cubes on some aluminum foil). When it puffed up and browned slightly, I put it on the top of sweet azuki as see in the first picture.

My wife really liked this but said she would not consider it a dessert--Translation: "Do not attempt to serve this to me as a dessert.  If you would like to serve it as a starch side with the meal--perfectly acceptable".  In any case, I am planning to make some more savory dishes using azuki. No wine or sake will go well with this dish. "Bancha" 番茶 or "Hojicha" ほうじ茶, Japanese roasted tea will be the best bet as your choice of libation.

Hanger steak with port wine reduction and wasabi ハンガーステーキのポートワインバターソース山葵味

This was a celebration of sorts. We started the evening with my crab cakes (made from all jumbo lump crab meat without any assertive seasonings such as Tabsco or Jalapeno pepper this time). If I do say so myself, better crab cakes can not be had at any restaurant. (It is all in the quality of crab meat). We had this with a very crisp clean tasting California vintaged Sparkling wine, Mumm Napa Cuvee DVX 2001. We are partial to this wine, since it is connected to fond memories of our visit to the winery many years ago. We were club members at that time and one of the privileges of membership was free tasting samplers when we visited the winery. We spent a lovely afternoon, in Napa, on a spring day tasting samplers of sparkling wine overlooking the vineyard carpeted in the full bloom of bright yellow mustard flowers. Heaven!

The crab cake starter was followed by hanger steak with red wine vinegar, port wine reduction with real "wasabi".  This time I simply seasoned the hanger steak with Kosher salt and black pepper, seared it in a frying pan with olive oil and finished it in the oven to medium rare. I removed the steak to a plate loosely covered with an aluminum foil to rest. Meanwhile, I deglazed the "fond" with a small amount of red wine vinegar and reduced. I added port wine and again reduced. I poured back the jus accumulated on the plate where the meat was resting and finished it with pats of butter.  Off heat, I added a good amount of real Wasabi. You can see green specks on the steak in the picture above.

We opened a bottle from this year's shipment of Buccella 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. We have been fans of Buccella wines for some time. They consistently produce a highly extracted quality wine. This vintage is no exception. It has complex black fruit upfront with dark chocolate and cinnamon notes with rather refined tannin. Perfect with the steak. Hanger steak is not as tender as tenderloin but may have more flavor. The real wasabi in the sauce gave a fresh note that was a bit like but different from horse radish. It added complexity and interest to the steak. This steak is best served sliced very thin--equipment alert: a really sharp steak knife may be required. This time I did not pre-slice the meat.

My wife served a small desert but at this point the details were fuzzy to me.

Stewed "Kakuni" Pork belly, the 3rd time is the charm 豚の角煮、三度目の正直！

As I mentioned, the new gourmet grocery store that recently opened near us has a much nicer meat section. To my delight, they had pork belly. I just had to try making this dish again with genuine pork belly. I have posted two previous attempts using salt pork and pork spare ribs. The pork spare rib version was better than the salt pork but finally I can try the "real McCoy" using pork belly.

As before I used this recipe by Atsushi Tsuchiya. I cut slightly more that one pound of pork belly (474 grams as seen below upper left) into 2 inch blocks. You can see how fatty the front portion of the belly meat is (below image upper right). I marinated it in soy sauce (4 tbs) (Image below lower left) for 10 minutes at room temperature. I then browned all sides of the pork in a sauce pan starting from the fatty side. I removed the meat and blotted the excess fat from the pan. I then put the meat and the remaining soy sauce from the marinade into the pan and turned the meat over to coat several times on medium low flame. I added sugar (20 grams) and sake (200 ml). After it simmered for 2-3 minutes and the alcohol evaporated, I added enough water to cover (about 200 ml) and covered the meat with hydrated kelp. I put a Piggy drop lid (otoshi buta) on the pan along with a regular lid (askew) and simmered it for 1 hour (below image lower right). I added more water as the liquid evaporated. I turned the meat over and simmered 2 more hours.

We tasted a little at this point--it was mighty good. I let it cool down to room temperature and then put it into the refrigerator. The next day, I removed the congealed fat from the surface and reheated.

I served it with blanched broccolini and thinly sliced scallion and a dab of Japanese hot mustard. The best part is the most fatty portion of the pork belly (you guessed it right!). It just melts in the mouth and is so sweet. The more meaty part is less tender. So for this dish, it is best to use pork belly and second best to use pork spare ribs. The only problem is that this is so incredibly good it must be lethal--so we should not be eating this too frequently. 

With this in mind we quickly and liberally self-medicated with red wine to counteract the effect of the pork fat. This was another vanilla-laden California Cab, Maxwell Creek Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2008. The sweetness of the pork fat combined with the fruit forward and vanilla-laden cab was sublime! We will go back to enjoying more "subtle" and "austere" wines but this was a fun wine to sip. It was especially fun sitting outside in the sun on the deck enjoying perfect spring weather consuming pure pork fat.

Grilled branzini シーバスの焼き物

A new gourmet grocery store opened a few weeks ago. It is actually within walking distance. The store has been extremely popular, creating traffic jams and requiring police to direct traffic in and out of the underground parking garage. In any case, this has provided us with another venue to indulge our love of cooking--and eating. Among the other gourmet and international food items offered at the store are such "must haves" as ostrich and emu eggs (haven't tried them yet--still looking for recipes). The fish and meat sections are better than usual. Specifically they have whole fresh fish. The day we shopped, there were 5 kinds of whole fresh fish on display in large buckets packed with ice in front of the usual glass cases displaying fish fillets. At least we could smell and closely inspect the fish. We could have even touched them if we wanted but we hope not too many shoppers will do that. Among the five kinds offered, Branzini (or bronzini) looked best with nice clear eyes. Others such as large red snapper and black bass had cloudy eyes and did not look as good. Branzini is not a particularly interesting fish but we decided to get it.  Another name of Branzini is European sea bass. I suppose it is similar to Japanese sea bass or "suzuki" スズキ but to determine what is the Japanese equivalent and vise versa for fish is difficult, if not impossible.

We had it scaled and gutted but left the tail and head on (see below left). We like whole fish simply grilled on a charcoal fire. So, I just seasoned it with salt and pepper inside and out and stuffed the cavities with chopped fennel (including the feathery leaves), red onion, and slices of lemon a few hours before grilling (kept in the fridge). I cooked the fish on a direct hot charcoal fire (see below right) in a Weber kettle. I coated the skin with olive oil and used a special Weber-brand spray on the grill to prevent the skin from sticking.

I grilled the fish for 3-4 minutes per side covered with the lid half of the time to assure the meat was done before the skin got totally singed.

As you can see in the first image, I served it with spinach (briefly boiled, seasoned with soy sauce and bonito flakes wrapped in nori sheet and garnished with sesame seeds) and blanched broccolini with mustard soy sauce. I even did a decorative cut on the lemon (somewhat dated, about on par with that old warhorse sprigs of parsley garnish (not used here BTW, but, hey, it looks good).

Somehow, it is nice to have a whole fish. I just can not trust the freshness of filleted fish for one thing. Grilling fish with bone-in appears to add something and a fish head is always decorative (for Japanese particularly). Of course, the skin is always our favorite part.

Fried shishamo in sweet vinegar 揚げシシャモの甘酢漬け

This is a variation of "nanban" 南蛮, which is deep fried fish or meat marinated in sweet vinegar with red (hot) pepper and vegetable such as onion. Small fish such as "aji" 鯵 or Japanese jack mackerel is most commonly used but I posted one with chicken breast previously. Since I can not easily get aji, I used frozen "shishamo" シシャモ instead. This is a perfect small Izakaya dish which goes perfectly with sake.

Shishamo: I used the usual frozen kind (Capelin or "karafuto" shishamo). All had nice roe inside. Without defrosting, I dredged in potato flour and fried it in 370F peanut oil (I used the shallow frying technique) turning once for 5-7 minutes. After draining off the excess oil, I immediately soaked it in sweet vinegar marinade (see below).

Sweet vinegar: Sweet vinegar or "amazu" 甘酢 can be made ahead. It keeps a long time in the refrigerator. I put rice vinegar in a non-reactive (such as stainless steel or Pyrex) pan on low flame and added sugar (half the amount of vinegar, either by volume or weight, for example, one cup of vinegar and 1/2 of sugar) and a small amount (I used 1/3 tsp but could be more) salt. Stir and make sure the sugar is completely dissolved and let it come to a boil (called "nikiru" 煮きる), this makes the vinegar mellow. Let it cool down and put it in a plastic or glass container and keep it in the refrigerator. This can be used for many other recipes.

Marinade: I mixed sweet vinegar (2/3 cup), dashi (1/4 cup), mirin and soy sauce (1 tbs each). I added thinly sliced red onion and julienne carrot the night before. You can do this part a few days ahead. I like the veggies to marinated at least several hours or longer. To make it truly "nanban" you add red pepper flakes but I did not this time.

While the fried shishamo is still hot, I put it in the marinade with the vegetables already in. I cover the fish with marinated vegetables and let it marinate for at least 10 minutes or longer. I served it with the vinegared onion and carrot on the top.

We had this with cold sake (our house sake Yaegaki "mu"). I think sake or beer will go with this dish well but the acidity of the dish does not agree with wine. Of course every part of the fish  including head, bone and tail is eaten in this dish. "Waste not want not" never tasted so good.