A Happy New Year 2012 明けましておめでとう

New Years day was very mild and quiet. After having cafe latte to wake up, we had a customary new year's soup or "ozouni" お雑煮 which is the same as any other year. Many variations of ozouni by regions and families exist. If you are interested, here is the pictures of all kinds of ozouni across Japan.

When I've made excuses 3 years running for not making osechi おせち料理 juubako 重箱 (layered boxes, with three layers being the full implementation), nobody will believe that I used to make 3 layer boxes every year for many years. In any case, I have an excuse again this year and only made a few dishes for the new year.  

Salmon kelp roll (left upper) and Japanese style chicken loaf with pine nuts (right upper) were specifically requested by my wife. This year, I made matsumae-zuke 松前漬け. The Japanese chicken loaf is called "pine breeze grill" or matsukaze-yaki 松風焼き.

Matsumaezuke was made from a "kit" which contained thinly cut threads of dried kelp and squid. I added a mixture of broth (from dashi pack), soy sauce and mirin (1:1:1 ratio) and let them sit in a refrigerator overnight. I prepared herring roe or kazoko 数の子 as before. Since this was a New Year deluxe version, I cut up the kazunoko in large chunks and mixed in.

For chicken Matsukaze-yaki, I cleaned and hand chopped chicken thighs into ground chicken (about 1 lb). I mixed in miso (2-3 tsp), sugar (1-2 tsp), mirin (1 tsp), flour (2-3 tsp), soy sauce (2 tsp), egg (one beaten), panko (about 1/2 cup) and mixed well (of course,you could use a food processor but I did it all by hand since I did not want to clean the bowl of the food processor). My wife helped me by dry-roasting pine nuts (3 tbs). After the pine nuts cooled down, I mixed the nuts into the meat mixture. I sprayed Pam on the metal baking dish (about 5x7 inches) and placed a parchment paper on the bottom. I then spread the mixture into the pan with a spatula to slightly less than 1/2 inch thick loaf. I baked it in a 350F preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the meat mixture pulled away from the sides of the pan. 

After it cooled, I removed the loaf from the baking dish. Because of the Pam spray and the parchment paper, it came out without any difficulty.  I first removed the all four edges (good snacking) and cut it in half dividing the short side into two long rectangles.  I then cut the pieces into the shape of a Japanese "Hagoita" 羽子板 racket like you see here on the left. "Hagoita" is a racket used in a Japanese girl's New Year game called "Hanetsuki" 羽根つき which is something like badminton but the racket is made entirely of wood. Nobody plays this game and "Hagoita" has been transformed into a New Year's decorative item rather than actually being used as a racket. In any case, the shape of this dish is to imitate "hagoita". Just before serving, I inserted the toothpick in the narrowest end to further emulate the handle of the hagoita. I brushed a bit of mirin on one side and coated it with aonori 青海苔 or powdered green sea weed (see the second picture from the top). Between the pine nuts and the green color, the New Years theme "pine breeze" is complete. Pine is auspicious along with bamboo and plum flower or "shou-chiku-bai" 松竹梅 in Japanese culture especially in New Year.

But this is not the exciting part of new year's dishes. We got special osechi dishes this year from Sushi Taro 寿司太郎. This is the first year we learned that Sushi Taro makes New Year's Osechi layered boxes or Juubako, without hesitation, we signed up to get it.

We drove to Dupont Circle on December 31 to pick it up. This is a two tired juubako wrapped in furoshiki 風呂敷, a Japanese wrapping cloth. It felt very heavy (a good sign!). According to my wife, who ran into the restaurant, while I waited outside double parked, the dining area of the restaurant had been converted to assembly area for osechi juubako.

After we came home, we unwrapped the furoshiki revealing the menu written in Japanese and English. Expectation heightened while we waited until New Year's day evening to fully enjoy this (come back for the next installment to see what surprises await--to be continued).

Packaged drinking snacks #2 出来合の酒のつまみ パート２

This is the last post of 2011. It will be the year of the dragon next year. Although this may not be a worthy ending of 2011,  this is  the second installment of the series on prepackaged drinking snacks from Japan. These three items are vacuum packed but not individually packaged. So, once you open up the bag, you have to finish them relatively quickly.

The left is miso flavored squid from Tsunami ravaged Iwate prefecture, the center is squid cheese rolls, the right is "toba" which is "cut" and "soft" accoding to the label.

I am not sure how the squid was prepared but it is semi-dry and slightly chewy with good miso flavor. The item shown in the center picture is cut-up squid encased in mild cheese (Japanese "processed" cheese). This is rather mild and soft with a very agreeable taste. The right is "soft and cut" toba. Toba とば, written in kanji ideograms as 冬葉 which means "winter leaves". This is a famous item on my home island of Hokkaido. The name, I suppose, comes from the way the strips of salted salmon drying in the cold winter wind on the bare branches of trees resembles brown leaves. Traditonal toba is usually very chewy, or sometimes hard like a strip of leather, and very salty. It is sort of the Hokkaido version of beef jerky. This version is considerably "tamed". The skin has been removed and it is cut into smaller pieces. In addition, somehow it has been made much softer, although it is still quite salty.

(from left to right; smoked cheddar, toba, miso flavored squid, cheese-encased squid and cucmer slices)

I served these three items with slices of smoked sharp cheddar cheese and slices of cucumber. Somehow, these drinking snacks called for scotch and water. Although we only rarely drink hard liquor now-a-days, I made a very small and weak scotch and water. Since we had not drunk scotch for such a long time, I had to hunt around to find a bottle and eventually came up with "Chivas Regal". Somehow toba goes well with scotch. Is it possible that I used to have toba with scotch in my drinking days in Susukino 薄野?

Packaged drinking snacks #1 出来合の酒のつまみ パート１

Like mixed nuts, mini pretzels and goldfish crackers in American bars, the Japanese have a much wider array of prepackaged drinking snacks. So, when you are in Japan, in a pinch, even in your hotel room, you could have a small party without spending a fortune on room service. Drinks (beer, whiskey, chochu, sake or premixed alcoholic drinks in a can) and drinking snacks of many different kinds are available from vending machines or near-by convenience stores (you have a better choice in the latter). We received a care package from my mother. This year, for some reason, she sent different kinds of packaged drinking snacks. The four I am showing here came in a large bag but were individually wrapped. (Such double wrapping is very common for Japanese food items).

Here are the individually packaged items which can be stored at room temperature for quite some time. The below are what they look like after removing the wrappers.

The left upper is "Iso-noki konbu" 磯の木昆布, a small layered kelp stick, which is a bit chewy but has a slight sweetness and kelp flavor (lower left in the picture below). The lower left is another kelp snack called "Yuzu-aji konbu" or yuzu-flavored kelp ゆず味昆布, a similar small kelp stick but less chewy with a nice yuzu citrus flavor (lower right in the picture below). In the center is "Iso-yaki hotate-gai" shore-grilled scallop 磯焼き帆立貝, which is a semi dried and cooked (the name implies grilled-on-the-shore) scallops. They have a nice scallop flavor but do not appear to be smoked but seasoned instead - soy sauce, mirin?? (Upper right in the picture below). Finally, on the right in the above picture is "Specail cheese hotate" スペシャル チーズ帆立, the muscle of scollop with mild cheese covering one side (Left upper in the picture below). This one is not as strongly flavored as the shore-grilled scallop.

These snacks are much more interesting and tasty (and sometimes chewy) than their American counterparts. It is very convenient as a drinking snack while you are making something else for your drink. My wife liked the yu-zu flavored kelp stick the best followed by the cheese covered scallop. I was more partial to the two scallop snacks. Whichever snacks we preferred, we both ended up drinking quantities of water--because although individually they are pleasingly seasoned cumulatively we felt we had eaten a lot of salt.

Omelet rice オムライス

One evening, this was what we had as a shime 〆 or ending dish. I thought about what we had in the fridge and suggested to my wife "chicken omelet rice" or "omuraisu" オムライス. Omuraisu, "omu" is short for "omelet" and "raisu" i.e. rice in Japanese. It is a quintessential Japanese style Western "Yoshoku" 洋食 dish and also one "kids" like. I am not sure about the history of omuraisu but the movie "Tampopo" たんぽぽ made a version of omuraisu famous. Please see this link for the details and the actual movie footage.

The basic omurice is fried rice flavored with ketchup and covered with an omelet. I do remember my mother making it for us when we were kids. She had a special rice mold just for omurice.

You cannot really appreciate the size of this omurice seen above but this is a miniature version and probably less than 1/3 of the usual size. As such it is a perfect shime or ending dish for us.

Rice: As ususal I used previously frozen rice (about 1/2 cup) which was briefly microwaved; not warm but the grains could be separated (in my case about 30-40 seconds).

I used finely chopped shallot (1 medium or onion), leftover barbecued chicken (meat from one leg, cut into small cubes), and parsley (several sprigs, finely chopped). The more authentic recipe calls for canned green peas for greenery.

I added light olive oil (1 tbs) to a non-stick frying pan on medium heat. I first sautéed the shallot for 1 minute or until it became semi transparent, I then added the chicken meat and the rice and fried them for 1-2 minutes. I seasoned it with salt and pepper. I then moved the rice mixture to one side making an empty area in the frying pan. I added about 2 tbs of ketchup and stirred using a silicon spatula without mixing it with the rice for 1 minutes until the color darkened (which makes the flavor of ketchup a bit more complex).  I then mixed the ketchup with the rice mixture and added the parsley. I tasted (adjust the seasonings if needed) but did not need more seasonings.

After I divided the fried rice into two portions, I cleaned the frying pan and added a pat of butter and one egg (beaten) to make a thin omelet. I devided the omelet in half and draped it over the mound of rice and adjusted the shape to make it presentable. I squirted the ketchup on the top and added parsely springs as a garnish. If you have, you could erect a small Japanese flag or any national flag of your choice on the omuraisu but that is for kids. I have no idea  why a flag is used to decorate a "lunch" for kids or "Okosama ranchi" お子様ランチ in which "omuraisu" is one of the most popular items.

My wife is not crazy about "ketchup" flavored rice but I think this is a perfectly fine dish for adults to end the evening as long as you do not erect a national flag on it.

Edible chrysanthemum with black sesame sauce 春菊の黒ごま和え

Edible chrysanthemum or "shungiku" 春菊 is one of my wife's favorite Japanese vegetables. We even grew some from the seeds for few years.  The harvest, however was was quite meager and the plants frequently got leggy consisting mostly of stalks with few leaves so we stopped growing it. Only sporadically, do I see fresh shungiku at the Japanese grocery store. This green is usually used in "Sukiyaki". My wife, however, gets quite creative with it, claiming that "shungiku in not just for sukiyaki any more." She shocked several of my Japanese friends by using it as lettuce in a salad..."but it is never eaten this way in Japan", they exclaimed. My wife asked, "why not?"

I bought shungiku last weekend but did not have a chance to prepare it. Rather than let them go waste, I decided to make this simple dish.

Shungiku: This started out as a good sized bunch but once cooked, like spinach, it reduced tremendously. I first cut off the largest stalks on the bottom and blanched the bunch in salted boiling water for about 1 minute and immediately shocked it in ice water. Using paper towels, I wrapped the shungiku and squeezed out any excess moisture as much as I could. I then wrapped the shungiku in nori sheet to make a cylindar. I sliced the cylindar into 4 pieces (2 pieces per serving as you can see above).

Black sesame sauce: This is exactly as I posted before. I used black sesame paste from the pouch (2 tbs), sugar (1 tsp), soy sauce (1-2 tbs), if needed, sake or mirin to adjust the consistency.

The flavor of shungiku is very unique. It is not spinach and really taste like "chrysanthemum". This is rather healthy but quick good dish. Next time, when I get fresh shungiku, I have to make sukiyaki--unless my wife comes up with something else first.

Drunken tomatoes and its "marinade" Martini 酔っ払いトマトとマーティニ

This is certainly not post-worthy but I noted it anyway just in case I have a lean time for recipes (such as now). I have previously mentioned our favorite way of preserving and enjoying Campari or cherry tomatoes; we make them into a drunken tomato or Martini-on-a-stick.

I first blanch the tomatoes (Campari or cherry or even grape tomatoes), shock them in ice water to stop the cooking and then remove the skin. For marinade, I use either straight Vodka or more often,  Vodka or Gin Martini (I prefer Gin and used Tanqueray this time, the proportion of dry vermouth is up to your taste) and soak these skinned tomatoes. After overnight soaking in a refrigerator, they are ready to be enjoyed. The most proper way is to put tooth picks and serve several on a plate with a small mound of salt on the side and call it "Martini or Bloody Mary-on-the-stick". Another way is to use it as a garnish or as a salad. 

Soaking tomatoes in alcohol keep them fresh tasting for long time in the refrigerator but after one week, it is time to finish up. So I made a salad from the drunken tomatoes, leftover baked cauliflower, chick peas and olive and baby arugula.  For dressing, I simply splashed Champagne  vinegar, good fruity olive oil, a few grinds of black pepper, and sprinkling of salt.

And now, the piece de resistance is the marinade. It is essentially gin martini but has nice sweet tomato flavors and is much easier to drink than straight gin martini. It serves as a perfect aperitif, and with the salad, a promising start of the evening.

Chestnut croquettes 栗のコロッケ

This looks like "Menchi-katsu" メンチカツ but this is made completely with chestnuts, no meat or anything else is involved. After I got the second batch of North American chestnuts, I looked for chestnut recipes and found this chestnut croquettes recipe.

Here, are the cut surfaces. 

I only made three but to make three I needed 5 chestnuts for the batter (#1). I broke up boiled and cleaned chestnuts (5) and put them into a small bowl food processor. I added milk gradually white running the processor until a nice consistency of the batter was reached (#2). Actually, I overdid the milk so I added a small amount of potato starch to adjust the consistency. I then encased the three chestnuts with the batter (#3) and then rolled them in Japanese Panko crumbs (#4). I skipped the usual steps of dredging in flour and egg water steps since I did not feel they were needed. I let them sit for few minutes so that the panko adhered better to the nuts (#5) and deep dried them in 340F peanut oil on medium flame (#6) for several minutes.

This is really good. Chestnut encased in chestnut batter is a great combination. We really enjoyed the sweetness of chestnuts and the levels of texture ranging from the interior nut, through the batter surrounding it, topped with the crunch of the outer layer. I liked the chestnut tempura and this croquette equally well but my wife said she definitely like the croquette better. She said the croquette really had substance and could be served as the "meat" part of a meal. She also said she now realizes chestnuts are indeed "real" food you can enjoy.