"Saki ika" dried and seasoned squid tempura さきイカの天ぷら

As I mentioned in previous posts, Japanese have many pre-packaged drinking snacks. The variety of which far exceeds American counterparts of mixed nuts, gold fish– cracker not the real fish, beef jerky and mini-pretzels. One rather common snack is thin strands of semi-dried and seasoned squid called "Saki ika" さきイカ meaning "torn squid". This is a modern commercial product derived from an old fashioned dried squid or "Surume" スルメ.

When I was growing up, "surume"  was a rather common snack, not necessarily just a drinking snack. This was a dried whole flattened squid. To eat, you have to first grill it lightly and then tear it along the grain into thin strips (it can easily be torn into strands by hand with an occasional application of teeth). It is very chewy like old leather and you have to work on it for a while in your mouth before it’s soft enough. As you chew, more flavors will come out. In fact a Japanese saying, "The more you chew, the more flavor you get" 噛めば噛むほど味が出る equates the effort you need to extract full flavor from dried squid to the effort you need to extract meaning and joy out of life; or subtle but real goodness can only be appreciated with substantial effort. But even in Japan, vigorous use of the masseter muscle is not an exercise people like to do. So much-easier-to-eat pre-cooked, seasoned, and pre-torn dried squid in a package is more common, replacing the old-fashioned "surume".  You could just eat "saki ika" as is (there are many variations but, in general, it has a somewhat sweet seasoning). Or you could used it in a dish. This tempura or fritter version is supposedly a classic Izakaya affair.  I have not seen or eaten it before so I decided to try it.

I checked a few recipes but, in the the end, as usual, I used my common sense and altered or combined several recipes.

The picture to the left is the "saki ika" I bought from the near-by Japanese grocery store. It said "a letter from shore" and "directly sent from where it was caught" but, who knows, this may have been made from squid caught off African shores and previously frozen. In any case, this is how I made this dish.

Dried and seasoned "saki ika" squid: I am not sure how much is in one package but I used the whole thing for two good sized servings. I first soaked the squid in an equal mixture of sake and water (2Tbs each) in a bowl and let it soften for 30 minutes. I then wrung out the excess moisture and wrapped it in a paper towel.

Tempura batter: I have experimented in the past what made the best tempura batter including the use of Vodka in a mix. This time I used cake flour, club soda (carbonated water) and dried "aonori" 青海苔 seaweed. I first mixed the flour and aonori in a bowl (the amount is arbitrary, the proper consistency is what you are after, you have to adjust the amount of flour and the water, accordingly). Just before frying, I mixed in the cold club soda and quickly mixed to make a runny pancake batter consistency. I added more flour and water as I needed to make the amount of batter I needed. But do not over mix otherwise the gluten will develop.

Oil: I used peanut oil for deep frying. I heated the oil to about 170C (335F). I placed the softened squid strips in the batter to make a small bite size portion. As I placed it in the hot oil, I tried to spread it into a flat disk-shape so that the strands of squid didn’t bunch up too much. I fried for few minutes turning once. The oil may have been too hot. The edges got a bit too dark (the seasoning of the squid apparently contains sugar) but it was not burnt and did not affect the taste too much.

As you can see in the first picture, I served this with a wedge of lemon and mayo mixed with soy sauce and Japanese 7 flavor red pepper flakes 七味唐辛子.

This is an excellent drinking snack. The "saki ika" squid has just right consistency, not chewy but not too soft, with very light crispy tempura crust. I was afraid the squid may became too fishy but that was not the case. Using carbonated water in the tempura batter really worked. Among other methods I tried, this is the simplest and most effective. As much as we liked this dish very much, it is not particularly "healthy". To compensate, I served a simple refreshing "sunomono" 酢の物 salad dish following this.

This is just cucumber, wakame (did not show up well in the picture) and tomato dressed in seasoned sushi vinegar and topped with crumbled soft semi-dried scallop from Hokkaido 北海道.

Grilled fava beans 焼きそら豆

Fava beans or soramame 空豆 are in season. I found some nice fava beans in pods in a grocery store near us. Compared to our stand-by frozen fava beans, fresh ones are not as mushy and always taste much better. Only trick is when you are selecting the pods, press them between your fingers to make sure they are full. Sometimes you may come across a very large nice looking pod but inside is almost empty. When I posted fava beans before, we compared boiled and grilled (in a toaster oven) and said there was no difference but I wanted to try grilling on a charcoal fire. Since we were grilling some trout, this was a good chance to grill fava beans as an appetizer.

The first picture shows some very nice looking fava beans in pods (see below, left). I simply grilled them over the charcoal fire until the surface of the pods were charred (5-6 minutes) and then turned them over and grilled 2-3 minutes more. I had to let them cool down a bit before we could bust into the pods.

I served this with a small mound of Kosher salt on the side as a starter for the evening. Some people eat the skin of the beans but we are in the group of people who insist on removing the thin skin. Again, we did not taste the difference between "beans-removed-from-the-pods-and-boiled" vs. "beans-grilled-in-the-pods". But if you already have a charcoal fire for other reasons, this is a very simple and good way to cook fava beans. Also serving fava beans in charred pods is more spectacular than serving individual beans.

Grilled and hot smoked trout 鱒の薫塩焼き

We always use pasteurized shell eggs, especially for dishes where the yolk is not fully cooked such as poached or fried eggs. (we love runny egg yolks). They also come in handy for sauces that use undercooked or raw egg yolks such as Hollandaise sauce or mayonnaise. For some reason, one of the near-by grocery stores where we regularly got pasteurize eggs stopped carrying them. We asked around and found another store from the same grocery chain, which is slightly farther away, apparently carried them. So we drove there in one afternoon—believe it or not just to get the eggs. Although both stores belong to the same chain, there appeared to be significant differences between them. This new one was much more upscale. Among other things, the most important difference, of course, was that they carried pasteurized shell eggs. In addition, the fish were displayed better and appeared to be of better quality.We passed the fish department on the way to the dairy case to get the eggs and my wife stopped dead in her tracks. She was “on point” for some particularly good looking trout--very fresh, with clear eyes. She wasn’t budging until two were bagged in plastic with ice.

When we lived in Los Angles, trout was about the only fresh whole fish we could get and we frequently ate them. But, for some reason, we have not eaten them that much trout after we moved back East; probably because other types of fish are available.

I decided to simply grill them. Obviously the fish monger did not expect that someone would  like to eat the skin as we do and these trout were not scaled. (When my wife pointed out the two trout she wanted he asked in surprise, “you want the whole fish”?) I guess that meant scales and all. So first,  I had to scale them. I salted inside and out and let them rest in the refrigerator for several hours before grilling (#1 below). Instead of placing the fish directly on the grill, I decide to do it Japanese style. I put two long metal skewers through the fish, from the tail, slightly fanning out through the head in a wavy fashion (#2 below) to simulate a fish swimming.

I used lump hard wood charcoal and direct heat. I also sprinkled soaked apple wood chips over the hot charcoals to grill and hot smoke at the same time. To raise the fish above the grill, I just used the metal baskets I use to put hot charcoals for indirect heat (#3 above). The distance between the charcoal bed and the fish was about 15 inches. Because of the oppressive heat, humidity and mosquitoes we were having in our area, I could not attend to the fish closely. Although I initially covered the tail fins with aluminum foil (#3), it came off or the entire tail came off and the end result was tail-less trout (#4). I grilled about 5-6 minutes per side until skin is nicely blistered and browned (#4).

I simply served the grilled trout with grated daikon or daikon-oroshi daikon 大根おろし, a wedge of lemon, and soy sauce. Of course, we had to have a bowl of freshly cooked rice. My wife, as usual, added butter and soy sauce to her rice.

We really enjoyed simply grilled tout since we have not had this for some time. The skin was the best part. My wife was very proud of her chopstick dexterity and the fact that the bones of her fish were cleaner than mine (above). The only disappointment was that she could not find cheek meat since the fish head was too small.

Baked green bean salad with sliced almond ささげのオーブン焼きサラダ

This is a rather simple dish made from baked green beans. As long as the green beans are good, this is a wonderful dish. To us, it is always hit-or-miss when it comes to green beans. Some have very tough skins and no matter how long you cook them, the skin remains tough and you might as well throw them out. Other times, the green beans are very nice and just a little of cooking, either boiling, sautéing, or baking, makes them nice and sweet, slightly crunchy--no tough skin. When the green beans are good, our favorite way of cooking is to just bake them with olive oil and salt (about 30 minutes in 350F oven). Beans cooked this way are wonderful as is but we went a step further making them into a nice salad.



Dressing: This is my regular dressing. I finely chopped shallots (1 medium), Dijon mustard (2 tbs), honey (2 tbs), rice vinegar (3 tbs), salt and black pepper to taste. I drizzled in a good fruity olive oil while whisking vigorously. Because of the mustard, it will make an emulsion. I am not sure how much olive oil but I just taste every-now-and-then until it does not taste too acidic (probably 1/3 cup).
Just dress the baked green beans. My wife roasted whole almonds (4-5 minutes in a toaster oven). While they were hot, I sliced them and let if cool down. We sprinkled them on top as a garnish.

The acidity and slight sweetness of the dressing really enhances the baked green beans. The almonds add a nice crunch. Toasting them really adds to their flavor.

Chicken skin salad with yuzu-koshou 雛皮の柚子胡椒サラダ

This is a variation on the theme of chicken skin. I was going to make a simple chicken skin dish but found out I was out of Ponzu (-shouyu) sauce. So I made the sauce with soy sauce, rice vinegar and yuzu koshou 柚子胡椒. This is a perfect refreshing sunomono 酢の物 salad to start.



Dressing: I made a mixture of soy sauce (reduced salt, 2 tbs), rice vinegar (3 tbs) and the juice accumulated in the container of saka mushi or sake-steamed chicken (2 tbs).  You should taste it and if it is too salty or vinegary, you might want to dilute this with dashi broth if you did not make saka mushi chicken. This dressing is similar to  a Japanese vinegar dressing called “Nihaizu” 二杯酢. I added about 1/2 tsp of yuzu-koshou in 7 tbs of the soy sauce vinegar mixture but the amount of yuzu-koshou is up to your taste.

Chicken skin: This is again the skin from two spilt breasts I made into saka mushi chicken. As usual, after removing any fat layer I could remove I sliced it into a thin julienne and marinated in the above dressing overnight in the refrigerator.

Other items: I just used whatever was available cutting it into julienne of similar size to the chicken skin pieces. From the left, wakame seaweed (1/4 cup after hydration, hydrated and roughly cut, gold thread egg or “kinshiran” 金糸卵 (from one egg), cucumber (one mini-cucumber, sliced on a slant and julienned, and daikon radish, 2 inch segment, peeled, sliced and julienned. The cucumber and daikon were salted, kneaded, and let stand for a few minutes, with the excess moisture squeezed out.



I added the wakame, cucumber and daikon into the container in which the chicken skin marinated in the yuzu-koshou sauce and mixed. I served this in a shallow grass bowl making a small mound in the center and topped them with golden thread egg as seen in the first picture.

This was much better than I expected. The yuzu-koshou gave it a nice zing of yuzu citrus flavor. This is a very nice refreshing sunomono salad. You could easily substitute the chicken skin with ham or any cooked meat. I can also add threads of jelly fish or kurage くらげ to this for the texture. I could also add sesame oil to this but without sesame oil, this is more refreshing.

Meatloaf hash ミートローフハッシュ

I keep posting leftover dishes. This one is also made from leftover meatloaf my wife made one day. "Hash", most commonly "corned beef hash", is a very popular breakfast dish in American diners. Essentially diced potatoes, meat, and onion fried together in a skillet and often served with eggs and toast. As I said before, any hearty breakfast can be had as a late night snack after drinking to absorb the excess alcohol. Along with German omelet, any variation of hash should be served at any Izakaya in my opinion.

This is for two servings as a breakfast or late night snack.

Meat: Any precooked or cured meat such as corned beef (typically from a tin or you could make it yourself), roast beef, or even sausage (uncooked, out of the casing). Since I had leftover meatloaf that my wife made the other day, I crumbled it and used it. The amount was about two slices worth (about 2 inches thick).

Potato: I microwaved Yukon gold potatoes (2 medium) for about 6 minutes (take care not overcook.  I tested doneness using a bamboo skewer towards the end of the 6 minutes and adjusted the cooking time). While it was hot, I removed the skin (holding the hot potato using a paper towel) and diced.

Onion: I first halved the onion and then sliced it to make thin strips (one medium).

I added olive oil (2 tbs) in a non-stick frying pan (or a seasoned cast iron skillet if you have one) and sautéed the onion for 5-7 minutes on medium heat until soft and edges browned, I then added the diced and cooked potatoes and crumbled meatloaf. After sautéing for one minute or so I seasoned with salt and black pepper. I pressed the hash to the bottom of the pan (picture below) and let it brown for a few minutes and then turned it over using a spatula (in small segments) to brown the other side and make it crusty. I repeated this process several times until a nice brown crust covered most of the hash.

This was a lot of food for us. We did forgo the eggs and served this with Campari tomato (skinned and lightly salted) and pickled okra (from the jar). I garnished it with fresh basil and ketchup. My wife also added slices of smoked cheddar. Althought it did not melt well it tasted good.

Ground pork curry ひき肉カレー

I mentioned that pork gyouza stuffing is very versatile and can be used as the base for other dishes. This is another example of that kind of versatility. Of course you could make this curry dish with just simple ground meat. In any case, I had some leftover gyouza stuffing (about 9 oz or about 250 grams) and decide to use it up before it went bad.

This may have been inspired by keema curry but this version is not at all authentic. Japanese have created many Japanese variations of curry beside the classic Japanese curry which in itself is a variation based on British modification of the classic indian curry. These Japanese variations include "dry"curry and a rather modern invention in my home town, Sapporo 札幌, Hokkaido 北海道 called "soup" curry. This curry I made is sort of cross between these latter two.



I included chunky potato and served this a closing dish or "shime" 〆 or ending dish. I made this curry a day before I served it.

Meat: Leftover gyouza stuffing (9 oz or 250 grams) made of ground pork mixed garlic chive, ground ginger and ground garlic.

Vegetable: I used onion (one medium, finely chopped), celery (2 stalks, finely chopped), carrot (2 medium, peeled, finely chopped), yellow squash (half with seeds removed and finely diced, optional, I happened to have it), garlic (1 clove, finely chopped), and ginger root (1/2 tsp finely chopped). I also peeled some small white potatoes (6-7).

I added light olive oil (2 tbs) in a pot on medium flame. When the oil was hot, I first sautéed the garlic and ginger and then onion and celery. I added curry powder (2 tsp or more, this time I used S&B brand Japanese curry powder) and kept sautéing. After the curry powder became fragrant, I added flour (2 tbs) and kept stirring until well incorporated. I moved the vegetables on one side of the pot and added tomato paste (2 tbs) in the empty area of the pan. I sautéed the tomato paste until the color slightly darkened and mixed thoroughly into the remaining ingredients. I added the remaining vegetables except for the potatoes. I added chicken broth (1 cup, my usual Swanson low-salt no fat version). Using a silicon spatula, I mixed and scraped off any "fond" that developed on the bottom of the pot. I also added Garam masala (1 tsp, this particular one had a strong cumin flavor) and more chicken broth (2 cups). I put in the potatoes and let it simmer for 40 minutes. I tasted and adjusted the seasoning using salt and black pepper. It was moderately spicy. We did not eat this immediately. I heated it up few days later and served over rice with sautéed asparagus and Japanese curry condiments (rakkyou ラッキョウ and fukushinzuke 福神漬け).

The addition of tomato paste made this curry sauce a bit unique. The sauce mellowed and it was only mildly spicy but had lots of flavors. The use of all the finely cut vegetables also gave it an undertone reminiscent of a french mirapois.  As an impromptu, leftover control cuisine, this was not bad at all.