Matsutake on "touban" grill 松茸の陶板酒蒸し焼き

This year, I didn’t order the Matsutake 松茸 from my usual place “Oregon mushrooms”. The matsutake I got from the different place turned out not to be as good as what I got previously from Oregon. For one thing when I ordered from Oregon Mushrooms I could specifying the grade of matsutake I wanted. The different place had only one type of matsutake available. In addition when it arrived the caps were open and mostly broken off leaving only stems (there were more stems than caps). The aroma was very faint for even North American matsutake. In any case, I decide to make an effort to enjoy it. The first dish I made was “Touban” mushi(yaki) 陶板焼き.

“Toubann” 陶板 means a ceramic plate. I have one of the smallest ones with a round ceramic bottom, a dome shaped ceramic lid and a small steam hole (#3 in the picture below). It can be used as a grill. It diffuses and retains heat better than a metal grill. It is a good way to grill seafood which is then eaten with a dipping sauce. Another way is to use the dome-shaped lid to add a steam/braising component to the cooking. I intend to post other touban-yaki dishes sometime.

In any case, I decide to cook the mastutake with the touban.  As before, I cleaned and cut/tore the mastutake as seen in #1 in the picture below. I preheated the touban on a medium flame and coated the surface with light olive oil using a paper towel. I first grilled the matsutake (#2) for a few minutes and then seasoned it with a sprinkle of Kosher salt, and a splash of sake. I quickly put on the dome-shaped lid to sake-steam the mastutake. After one minute or so, I removed the lid (#4). Even after I removed the touban from the fire, the small amount of liquid on the bottom kept bubbling (The first picture).

When I opened the lid, there was a faint aroma of matsutake. We had this with a squeeze of lime. This is a good preparation of matsutake but the aroma of this batch was a bit disappointing. We could have had Royal trumpet mushrooms instead. Of course, the accompanying drink must be daiginjou-class 大吟醸 fruity and crisp cold sake. In our case, the usual 'Mu" 八重垣　無 sake did the job.

Poor-man's sous-vide shio-koji pork belly 炊飯器で塩麹豚

Sous-vide is a popular way to cook meat or fish especially among professional chefs. It is done by submersing vacuum plastic wrapped meat or fish into warm water and cooking it for several hours. Although many sous-vide devices are available for home cooks, they tend to be rather expensive. I certainly cannot justify buying the equipment. I came across this recipe for marinating pork belly in shio-koji 塩麴 and slow cooking it in a rice cooker. Usually the water used for sous-vide cooking is 50-60C but, the “keep-warm” setting on a rice cooker, is more like 80-90C. In any case, since I just bought pork belly and happened to have shio-koji and an electric rice cooker, I decided to test this recipe.

I cut two small blocks of pork belly (probably less than 1/2 lb), put them in a small Ziploc storage bag (It is thicker than a similar size "sandwich" bag). I added shio-koji (10% of the weight or just enough to thinly coat the surface of the meat) and massaged it to coat the meat completely. I then removed as much air as I could from the bag and sealed it (#1 below). I placed the bag in the inner pot of the rice cooker (#2 below) and poured hot water to the highest level (#3 below)

I kept the cooker on “warm” mode for 4 hours and then let it cool down to room temperature (another several hours). I removed any excess fat and shio-koji from the surface (#4 in the picture above).

I sliced it and served it with Japanese hot mustard and yuzu-koshou (The first picture). This is certainly an OK preparation. The pork, however, was missing that unctuous melt-in-your-mouth feel and subtle sweetness which this dish is all about. The meat was cooked, but it was somehow too “solid” and dry.  If you’re going to flirt with eating this much fat it should be at its superlative best. For this reason, we much prefer the more tradtional “Kakuni”. At least, we learned that this poor-man’s sous-vide sort of works.

Shrimp cocktail in Hilton Head ヒルトンヘッドの茹で海老のオーロラソース

This is leftover peel and eat shrimp we made on the first evening at Hilton Head. I have posted “shrimp and grits” also made from the leftover shrimp and broth made from the discarded peels. I served this as an appetizer. Since I did not have my usual pantry, I made this sauce from whatever was available. Since we did not have appropriate vessels, I also made a cup from a half lemon.

The dipping sauce was made of mayonnaise (2tbs), ketchup (1 tbs), finely chopped sweet onion (2 tbs), finely chopped sweet pickles (1 tbs) and parsley (1 tbs), grated lemon zest (1/2 tsp) and lemon juice (1 tbs). The mixture of mayo and ketchup is popular in Japan and often referred as “aurora” sauce.

I shelled the boiled shrimp and served it with wedges of lemon and baby arugula. We had this with sparkling wine from California “Domaine Chandon” Reserve Brut. (We are partial to this winery since we had several memorable times at their restaurant). The shrimp was impeccably fresh, sweet, succulent and jumbo size—almost like small lobsters. They were shrimp at their finest something we have found to be consistent here.

The fabulous shrimp were followed by a main course of fillet mignon (which was a very good cut of beef from a local gourmet grocery store) with green asparagus and my wife’s smashed potatoes. We switched to “Darioush” 2009 Cab. This was a bit on the decadent side but we were on vacation. Sitting on the balcony in the candle light (we had a combination of LED candles and real candles. The LED candles were included because the wind from the ocean sometimes makes it impossible to keep the real candle lit), watching the moon rise over the ocean, listening to the surf and looking out at the bobbing lights of the shrimping boats as well as the lights from several large freighters on the horizon heading to Savannah, we could not have had a better dinner at any restaurant.

Shrimp and Grits シュリンプ アンド グリッツ

As usual, we were in Hilton Head island in shrimping season. One of joys of being here is the view of the ocean from our balcony including shrimping boats that come very close to the shore and, as a result, enjoying peel and eat fresh local white shrimp. The first night, we boiled up a pound and a half of white shrimp. With a good crusty bread and wine, it was dinner. Using the leftover shrimp and a broth made from the water used to boil the shrimp with the peeled skins added, we made a classic southern dish “Shrimp and Grits”.This could be a breakfast dish or ending dish for a snack dinner with wine.

We made this in a rather simple way. Some traditional recipes suggest making Tasso ham gravy and using chicken broth to make the grits. We made the grits using the shrimp broth, ham, onion and leftover boiled shrimp. For two servings like you see above we used;

Grits – 1/4 cup Quaker oats quick (5 minutes) grits. Real stone-ground hominy (alkali-treated corn) takes too long to cook and “instant” kind does not have the right consistency.
Shrimp broth – 1 and 1/4 cup. This was salted when we boiled shrimp. Just enough saltiness that you could drink it.
Onion 1/2 medium onion, finely chopped.
Ham – two slices of good packaged ham, cut into small bite sized pieces.

My wife first sautéed the onion in a small sauce pan with olive oil (1-2 tbs) until soft and slightly browned (about 5-7 minutes), added the ham and the shrimp broth. When the broth came to a boil, she added the grits, stirred and turned down the heat to simmer for five minutes with a lid on. Then she added a tablespoon of butter and several gratings of parmesan cheese.
We served this in  a small bowl with the boiled shrimp and chopped Italian parsley as a garnish.

This dish was the essence of “shrimpiness”. The grits had a lovely light fresh shrimp taste and sweetness from the broth. The broth was what really made the dish. Although we did not make Tasso ham gravy, the onion and ham added a nice dimension. Something this good can only be made with the impeccably fresh shrimp available here. Especially with the view of ocean and shrimping  boats from our balcony, this was a perfect dish.

Shio-koji marinated Monk fish "mock" lobster 鮟鱇の塩麹焼き擬製ロブスター

Again, I spotted monk fish fillets in our grocery store. Since I am on a shio-koji 塩麴 kick, I thought this may be a good fish to try.

Monk fish: I bought two small monk fish fillets (combined, about 1 lb). I removed the slimy membrane as much as I could

Shio-koji marinade: I made some variation and added olive oil (2 tbs), mirin (2 tbs) to shio-koji (2 tbs). I placed two Monk fish fillets in a Ziploc bag, poured in the marinade, massage it a bit and removed as much air as I could and sealed. I let it marinade in the refrigerator overnight for 24 hours.

Since monk fish has the texture, but not the flavor, of lobster tail and is sometimes referred to as “poor man’s lobster), I decided to cook the Monk fish fillets as mock lobster tails. After the 24 hour marinade, I removed the fillets, blotted the excess moisture from the surface and sprinkled on smoked paprika (powder) (to simulate the color of cooked lobster) and then made shallow slit on top length wise—doesn’t it look like a lobster tail?. I placed them in a pre-heated 400F toaster oven for 10-15 minutes or until center of the thickest part was opaque (cut and peek).

I served this on a bed of couscous (from a box, this one was parmesan flavored). On the side, I served boiled sugar snap peas(seasoned with salt) and a tomato (skinned and shaped like a rose with salt and a dab of mayonnaise).

This was really good. The change in the texture of fish reminded me of “kasuzuke” 粕漬け or fish marinated in sake lee. The addition of mirin gave a bit more sweetness. Both of us really liked this preparation. Although Monkfish without marinating is very good, this one really made it better.

Shio-koji marinated pork chops ポークチョップの塩麹焼き

Shio-koji 塩麹 got me going again. Given the previous success with chicken thighs and pork tenderloin skewers, the natural next choice was, of course, pork chops. In the U.S., pork chops are a very popular cut of pork but it is very difficult to cook them correctly especially on a barbecue grill—they often come out overcooked, tough, and dry. In Japan, SPF (Specific Pathogen-free) pork is popular and many restaurants may serve undercooked pork (center is still pink). But even SPF pork is not safe to eat raw or under cooked. Especially since some SPF pork was imported from other countries (especially South Asian countries). Even domestic (Japanese) SPF pork, requires a high level of faith in the level of inspection it has undergone. I personally have some doubt about how much regulation would be enforced. Although the risk of contracting something from eating undercooked pork in Japan maybe low, I just cannot trust blindly that pork labeled as "SPF pork" is safe undercooked. For that reason it probably a good thing that eating raw (sashimi) pork and beef liver was banned in Japan recently. Here is an interesting article about teneasis and cysticercosis in Japan. I have seen too many cases of cerebral cysticercosis in my line of work. I like my pork just perfectly cooked.

I marinated two pork chops in shio-koji (again 10% weight or just thinly coat the surface of the chops) and marinated it in the refrigerator overnight. As a control, I also cooked one chop seasoned with just salt and pepper. In the image below, two chops in the back, which were just turned over, are the shio-koji marinated, one in front which has not been turned over is the control chop. I browned both sides of the chops (#2). As before, the shio-koji marinated one browned more because of the sugar and starch in shio-koji. I then placed the frying pan into the pre-heated 350F oven for 10-15 minutes until a instant-read digital thermometer registered 145F inserted in the thickest portion of the chops. I covered the pan loosely with aluminum foil and let the chops rest for 10 minutes (#3 is shio-koji marinated and #4 is the salt and peppered one).

As far as pork chops go, this was not bad.I served this with a tomato rose, my wife's smashed potato, haricoverts (first steamed and sautéed in olive oil with garlic and seasoned with salt and pepper). I sliced the chops so that we could eat them with chopsticks.

As you can see in the first picture, it is perfectly cooked with the cut surface ever so faintly pink but uniformly so because of the resting process ensuring no undercooked center. It was tender and juicy (as pork chops go). We compared this with the salt and pepper seasoned control chop (#4 above) and there was a discernable difference but it was not great. Interestingly though, it was a different story with the leftovers. When I sliced into the shio-koji chop for sandwiches the next day, it was much more tender and juicier than the salt and pepper seasoned chop which was dryer and tougher. So this was a qualified success.

Chestnuts simmered in syrup 栗の甘露煮

We are into the chestnuts season once again. This year, I was Johnny-on-the-spot and pre-ordered them. I got North American Chestnuts from Girolami farm as before (#1 in the picture below). As I mentioned in last year’s post on chestnuts, it is wonderful to know some North American chestnuts trees survived the chestnut blight. American chestnuts, unlike Japanese chestnuts have a brown skin that goes deep into the nut. It is extremely bitter and unpleasant if left in the nut. But it is also very difficult to remove. Last year was a series of trial and error to come up with the best way to peel both the outer and inner skins (Onikawa 鬼皮and Shijukawa 渋皮, respectively. I finally found the secret. I peel the chestnut while it is still hot and the brown skin just lifts out. If you wait until it cools it is impossible to remove. This method, however, while successful, requires asbestos fingers.

This year I am providing some visual aids.The chestnuts came in a net bag (1 lb). I soaked them in water for several hours and then boiled them gently for 15-20 minutes (counting the time after the water came to the boil). I let it sit and cool down a bit--for 20-30 minutes. I scooped the chestnuts out of the water using a slotted spoon 3-4 at a time. While still very warm, I sliced off the flat bottom part using a sharp paring knife (#2). I kept peeling the outer skin by pulling it up from the initial cut (#3). Then, just tugging gently on the inner skin, it came off easily even from deep within the crevices (#4), Some chestnuts, however,had crevices made by the brown skin, so deep it almost divided the nut into two separate pieces. In that case, removing the inner skin breaks the whole chestnut apart. This year, my wife helped me removing the inner skin which sped up the process significantly.


Since I have already posted quite a few recipes using chestnut, I decided to make “Kuri-no-kanroni 栗の甘露煮. I usually buy this ready-made and sold in a jar. Most of the time, I use this in my “Chawan mushi” 茶碗蒸し.The commercial ones have both outer and inner skins cut away and the surface is smooth. The color is also bright yellow which make me think they use some kind of dye (natural dye or otherwise).
In my case, I used cooked and cleaned chestnuts like you see below (#1). For this amount of chestnuts, I prepared 200ml of water with 100grams of sugar dissolved poured over the chestnuts covering the chestnuts completely. I simmered gently for 20 minutes with the lid slightly askew (#2). I added a pinch of salt toward the end of cooking (to enhance the sweetness, although this may sound odd). I scooped up the chestnuts and placed then in a glass jar (#3). I reduced the remaining syrup for a few minutes and poured it over the chestnuts (#4).
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My kanroni does not look as pretty as the commercial kind but it tasted very good and can be eaten as a snack/dessert or, as I mentioned, in chawanmushi.