New small containers and Walnut "shira-ae" tofu 新しい珍味入れとクルミの白和え

Every time we visit Japan, we shop in Kappabashi 合羽橋 in Tokyo and Nishiki market 錦市場 in Kyoto and buy some kitchen and table wares. The below is one such a purchase at Nishiki market. We bought similar items before from the same store called "Kawazen pottery" 河善陶器. They are tiny covered vessels in which "rare" tastes or "Chin-mi" 珍味 can be served. This time the proprietor suggested we get larger base (the little black tray divided into square compartments. He said that make everything a bit more "luxurious" (and we tend to agree with him.)
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So, one evening after we came back to the U.S., I made a few small dishes and served them in these newly acquired containers.



From left to right; Daikon Namsu with "Jako" 大根なます雑魚添え, Shira-ae with cantaloupe and walnuts メロンとクルミの白和え, and "Komochi megabu" 子持ちめかぶ.



This is my attempt at reproducing one of the otoshi items at Suiko. I promised my wife that I would make a similar dish. Since Persimmon was not yet available around here, I used cantaloupe instead.

Tofu: I used silken tofu (1/4). I placed it on a paper towel lined plate and microwaved it for 30 seconds to remove excess water and let it cool down to room temperature.

White sesame seeds and white sesame seed paste: I used the combination. I first dry roasted white sesame seeds (1/2 tbs, this one was already roasted but I briefly re-roasted using a small dry frying pan). Do not over do it since it will give the seeds color making shira-ae (literally means "white" dressing) not white. I ground the roasted sesame seeds in a Japanese mortar (suribachi すり鉢) until pasty and then added store-bought sesame paste (1/2 tbs). I then added miso (2/3 tbs, or to you taste) and the tofu and mixed it until it became a nicely smooth paste. I tasted and adjust the seasoning by adding more miso if needed.

Cantaloupe and walnut: Since I did not have a persimmon, I cut up a cantaloupe melon in to small cubes (amount arbitrary) and coarsely chopped roasted walnuts. I garnished with larger pieces of walnut pieces on the top.

Although, persimmon shira-ar is rather standard, the addition of walnuts really added to the taste and contrast in texture and this was a good variation of this dish.



This was my "sokuseki" 即席 or "instant or quick" version of "daikon namasu" 大根なます .



This was a packaged and frozen product. "Mekabu" めかぶ is a portion of "wakame" 若布 seaweed closed to the attachment. The eggs are Capelin eggs.

The tofu and cantaloupe was a good facsimile of the one we had in Japan. These containers look nice and we enjoyed our house sake "Mu" with these small drinking snacks.

Chestnuts with somen noodle crust 栗のコッロケのいがぐり揚げ

Besides matsutake 松茸, chestnuts 栗 are a classic symbol of autumn. Every year, we get whatever remained of North American Chestnuts from California. Same as matsutake dishes, I almost exhausted what I can make from chestnuts but I came up with a variation of the chestnuts croquet.



This is same as the chestnut croquet but instead of bread crumbs, I used broken thin Japanese noodles or so-men 素麺. As you can see above, it resembles the spiky outer layer or "Iga" いが or 毬 of chestnuts (sort of). This is mostly for appearance rather than taste.



When you cut into it whole chestnuts appears.

To make it, (I am repeating the previous post).

Chestnuts: The best way to removed the hard outer skin is to do it while it is hot after boiling. I took one out at a time and keep the rest in the hot water in which the chestnuts were cooked. I removed the outer skin by cutting the bottom of the chestnut (mostly skin part) and then peeling off the outer skin or "onikawa" 鬼皮. The outer skin is easy to remove (except that the chestnut is very hot). The inner textured skin or "shibukawa" 渋皮” is more difficult to remove. Especially for Northern American chestnuts, the inner skin goes deep into the crevasses of the nut. Sometimes pulling up will release it or more often, the nuts break apart. We did about 20 chestnuts and 9 came out whole and other 11 were fragmented.

I placed the fragmented chestnuts (11) into a small food processor and pulsed it to break down the chestnuts and then added milk. I gradually added milk as I ran the processor until a chestnut paste is formed  (upper left and right below). I added a pinch of salt as well. The paste was stiff enough that the traces of the tines of a fork remained on the surface.

I moistened my hands and covered each whole chestnut with the chestnut paste (right lower).


For regular croquets, I dredged with flour, egg water and panko bread crumbs. For this preparation, instead of panko bread crumbs, I broke up the dried somen noodle in small segments (about1 inch or less) and coated the croquets. I just deep fried them in 350F oil for several minutes or until the somen noodles were golden brown.

Matsutake Dinner 松茸

When we got 1 lb of matsutake 松茸, we had to concentrate on having an “all matsutake” dinner so that we could finish it before it went bad. Nothing new here but the proof that an all matsutake dinner is definitely not too much of a good thing.  They are similar or identical to I posted before (Sakamushi 酒蒸し, Chawanmushi 茶碗蒸し, Tenpura 天ぷら, Matsutake rice 松茸ご飯, Grilled 焼き松茸, Dobinmushi 土瓶蒸し).

Matsutake rice 松茸ご飯 and clear soup of matsutake 松茸のすまし汁.



Matsutake grilled on touban 松茸の陶板焼き.



Matsutake chawanmushi 松茸の茶碗蒸し with ginko nuts and chicken.



This was the second version of matsutake omelet 松茸のオムレツ. Instead of chopped scallion, I used chopped shallot.



I think we can wait for one year for the next matsutake feast.

Matsutake Omelet 松茸のオムレツ

When the season for chestnut 栗 and Matsutake 松茸 comes, I cannot help myself and rush to order some. I order Matsutake either from Oregon Mushrooms or Earthy delights. This year, I ordered from Earthy Delights. The matustake is from North America probably from Oregon or Colorado. One pound of matsutake is quite a lot. Most of the matsutake we received was just before the caps open and the quality appears much better than last year. Since I posted many matsutake dishes (Sakamushi 酒蒸し, Chawanmushi 茶碗蒸し, Tenpura 天ぷら, Matsutake rice 松茸ご飯, Grilled 焼き松茸, Dobinmushi 土瓶蒸し) before, I have to come up with something new. One weekend morning, my wife suggested that since truffles and eggs go well together and since matsutake is Japanese truffle, egg and matsutake should go well together. How about an omelet? This is what I came up with. I made the omelet from two eggs and we shared it.



Since the flavor (smell) of matsutake is rather delicate (faint), I decide to make it as simple as possible.

Matsutake: I used three small to small matsutake (below left). As usual, I cleaned them with a wet paper towel and gently scraped the skin with a sharp paring knife. Some times embedded dirt is very difficult to remove but these matsutake were rather clean. I cut off  the bottom halves of the stalks and finely chopped them. The caps and attached portion of the stalks were sliced (below right).

Scallion: I chopped up two scallions finely reserving the green part for garnish.

Eggs: I used two large brown eggs well beaten with addition of cream (2 tbs) and a pinch of salt.


In a small frying pan, I added light olive oil (2 tsp) on medium flame. When the oil was hot, I sautéed the chopped scallion for few minutes, seasoned with salt and added the chopped up matsutake stalks. I sautéed for another 1 minutes. I pushed the chopped scallion and matsutake to one side of the pan and then cooked the slices of the matsutake turning once so that both sides had a nice color.

In another non-stick small frying pan on medium low flame, I added a pat of sweet butter (1/2 tbs) and let it melt but not brown. I poured in the egg mixture at once. Because of the cream, the omelet was rather fragile and soft. Instead of my usual way of forming the omelet as I place it on the plate, I decided to from an omelet in the pan. After I lifted the edge of the omelet as the bottom was set to let the uncooked egg to run under for several times, only just a thin coat of uncooked egg on the surface remained. I added the chopped and sautéed scallion and matsutake in the center of the omelet and using a wrist motion, aided with a spatula, I formed it to an omelet (see below).



I cut the omelet in half and garnished with the matsutake slices and green part of the scallion (The first picture).

As in the case of truffles, the delicate earthy flavor of matsutake and soft omelet are a good combination. I served it without any condiments or sauce. I even did not use pepper in the seasoning. Definitely this is a good way to bring up and enjoy the flavors (smells) of matsutake.

Matsutake grilled on ceramic plate 松茸の陶板焼き

The simplest and probably best way to enjoy matsutake 松茸 is to simply grill it and eat it with the juice of Japanese citrus splashed over it (Sudachi すだち or Kabosu かぼす) and salt. Sometimes I feel, though, that direct grilling over a charcoal fire makes matsutake too dry. I have tried using a "Touban" grill with the addition of sake (grill-steamed). This time, I made it even simpler and it turns out that this is a very good way to enjoy the delicate flavor of matsukae in its purest form. I simply grilled it on the touban 陶板 and finished it with the lid on. This final step steams matsukake in its own moisture.

I placed the mastutake on the heated touban on low heat without any oil or liquid. After the matustake grilled enough to develop some brown spots (appearing in about 2 minutes), I put the lid on and let it continue cooking for another minute.

The dome-shaped lid really does a good job of retaining the matustake flavor yet you do not feel like you are eating “raw” matsutake. Since we do not have “Kabosu”, we used wedges of lime and Kosher salt.

Squid sashimi dressed in tarako イカの刺身の鱈子和え

I decide to make this dish since it was served as one of the numerous dishes for a dinner at Wakamatsu Hontenn 若松本店 in Narita 成田 on our last  night in Japan. Unfortunately, the quality of the squid sashimi we could get here was not up to par with what we had in Japan and the previously frozen "tarako"たらこ was a bit too salty. As a result this dish was a pale comparison to the one we had at Narita. Dealing with lesser quality Japanese food items is especially difficult sice we just came back from Japan.

Squid sashimi: This is a packaged, prepared and frozen. I just thawed it.

Tarako cod roe: This also came frozen. I opened a sac of one small tarako and scraped off the roe from the membrane of the egg sac. I put it in a small container and added a small amount of cold sake so that the constancy is more suitable to dress the squid (also reduced the saltiness).,

Just dress the squid sashimi with tarako sake mixture.

We served sake in our newly acquired "Tusgaru" nuri 津軽塗 sake cups at "Nebuta" village ねぶた村 in Hirosaki 弘前.

This is my cup which matches the my chop sticks.

This is my wife's which also matches her chop sticks.

In Hirosaki, near Hirosaki castle 弘前城, we went to "Nebuta"village which is a large tourist trap. Beside the display of "Nebuta", many Tusgaru 津軽 or "Aomori" 青森 crafts are being displayed and sold. Some of the artisans were demonstrating how these crafts were made. One of them was making "Tsugaru-nuri" which requires many layers of lacquer and polishing on every layers. We bought two sake cups. When we came home, we were surprised to find that chopsticks which we have had for years matched the sake cups. I thought our chopsticks were "Waksa-nuri" 若狭塗りbut now I realized they are "Tsugaru-nuri" 津軽塗. Surprise, surprise!

Kawadoko restaurant Kiraku, Kifune, Kyoto 貴船川床料理喜らく，京都

We visit Kyoto 京都 every time we are in  Japan. This time we had only 2 nights and one whole day. We stayed at out favorite hotel in Kyoto "Granvia" with a spectacular city view.

We arrived in Kyoto late afternoon on Sunday and many of the Izakayas we would have liked to visit were closed. The weather was not particularly cooperative either as you can see in the view from our hotel window. So, we went to our backup, "Torihachi"鳥八 on Sunday evening. One of the advantages of Torihachi is that they are always open even Sunday. (They may close New Year’s day). In addition, we could walk to it through the station and underground "Kintetsu meitengai" 近鉄名店街 shopping mall. Although the choice of sake is very limited, their "Kara-age" is to die for. They keep the skin on the meat and the skin gets crispy yet the meat remains succulent. We thoroughly enjoyed the evening at Torihachi.

In any case, we had only one whole day (Monday) and over the years we have visited most of the major sightseeing spots in Kyoto and surrounding areas (Nara and Uji) including some difficult to get to such as "Koke dera" 苔寺, so we decided to go to "Kurama" 鞍馬 this time. This is in the mountains where Minamoto Yoshitune 源義経, the favorite tragic hero of Japan, trained with the mystical red-faced and Pinocchio-nosed creature/monk warrior “Tengu 天狗” as a young  “Ushiwaka-maru” 牛若丸.  I walked the mountain path between Kurama and Kifune 貴船 many many years ago and remembered that the path was dark, cool with many tree roots exposed on the surface. My recollection was that I walked the path during a break in a business trip in my suit, tie and dress shoes. I remember it was very difficult (possibly due to my attire) but the detail of my memory have been blurred by time.

So, we decided to dedicate a whole day to this excursion. Our plan was to skip lunch and come back to the hotel early and hungry enough so that we could be at Akagaki-ya 赤垣屋 around 4:30pm when it opens so that we could sit at the counter.

Kurama is a bit far away but the concierge at the hotel gave us good advice. He suggested that we take a short taxi cab ride to the Keihan shichi-jo 京阪７条駅 station and pick up the train to Demachi Yanagi 出町柳 and then transfer to “Eizan-dentetsu” 叡山電鉄 to “Kurama”. Eizan-dentesu is a quaint local train and many intervening stations were un-manned (meaning that passengers had to get off from the first door so that the driver could collect the fare). Our slow train gradually climbed into the mountains and beautiful scenery unfolded as we went. (The train actually had seats placed parallel to the side windows so passengers could view the scenery comfortably facing front without having to turn their heads). 

We got off at the terminus, Kurama station. We walked easily to Kurama-dera temple. Next question was how far we had to walk/climb to attain the mountain path I remembered. I somehow thought it was an easy reach from Kurama station but it was not. (We found that there is little level ground in the mountains you are either walking relentlessly up or relentlessly down.) The path on this side of the mountain was relentlessly up. In addition to a short cable car ride, we had to climb numerous stone stairs, paths, and steps which were cut into the ground. We came across several temples and shrines of sorts along the way. After some way up, we felt we were deep in the mountains with dense stands of Japanese cedar trees soaring straight to the sky on both sides of the trail. The air was much cooler (this was a rather hot day) leaving our skin feeling clammy cool. Something that can not be captured in pictures were the continuous sounds of cicadas, other insects, and birds. We saw a small snake, brought to our attention by a lady hiker running past shouting "hebi…hebi" (snake, snake). We turned in time to see the creature slither off the path in the opposite direction of the screaming hiker. Finally, we saw the exposed tree roots on packed dirt that I remembered.

At this point, we had come half way along the route. Initially we were not sure we could walk all the way to “Kifune”. My wife said “I am not going back down the steps we’ve already climbed. Lets keep going”. That settled it. Forward and onward! The rest of the way was relentlessly down hill. This was not as bad as climbing. Although many steps had been painstakingly cut into the earth of the mountain path, we felt in some cases they actually made the walking more difficult. If the packed dirt and tree roots were kept as they were, it may have been easier to walk as long as it was not wet or muddy. Finally after 2 hours of climbing and walking on the stairs and mountain path, we heard the water running and saw the top of the tiled roofs. We knew we were finally at “Kifune”.

Coming down the last stretch of steep steps, we saw “Kawadoko” 川床. I had read about these restaurants in Kifune but this was not what I had imagined. Kawadoko is somewhat similar to Suzumi-doko* 涼み床 but better. Although we were supposed to skip lunch so that we could go to the Izakaya early, this view of kawa-doko changed our minds. We did not do any “research” (i.e. look up on the web) but we decided to have a lunch at “Kiraku” 喜らく. It was expensive especially for a lunch but we could not pass this unique opportunity.

The customers were seated (shoeless) on low, platforms suspended over the shallow river bed. The river bed was paved with cement embedded with stones and the water ran swiftly over descending rapids with a loud rushing sound. We were so close to the water we could have put our feet in. (My wife said she almost did while attempting to remove her sandals). The rapidly moving water served as a natural “air conditioner” cooling things by several degrees. The nice sound of rushing water further enhancing the cool feeling as well as muffled conversation from nearby tables. Please see the picture below and I also added a short video (below).

*Suzumidoko: We had spent an evening on Suzumi-doko in an old Japanese restaurant 料亭 on Ponto-cho 先斗町 some years ago. Prime seating was au fresco on a deck or veranda built over the flood plain of the Kamo river 鴨川. The idea is that the cool air created by the river going under and over the suzumi-doko served as a natural air conditioner making the hot humid summer evenings of Kyoto more tolerable while dining.

The above picture was the up-river view from where we were seated. The entire platform was just for us. The bamboo blind provided privacy from the diners next door. Please see the video below for the full effect of view and sound.

This was the most reasonably-priced lunch on the menu. Goma-dofu 胡麻豆腐, mountain vegetable tempura 山菜の天ぷら, cold somen noodle with poached egg 素麺の温泉卵 and several more small dishes. We thought this was quite a feast for lunch. But then, the second course appeared which was grated  mountain yam and Carp* "arai" sashimi* 鯉のあらいの山芋かけ which was a rather elaborate and filling dish.

*Eating raw fresh water fish is risky because of the parasites they may carry. In this type of Japanese restaurant, I was told that they only use specially "cultivated" carp for eating raw not wild. So the risk of parasites is said to be nonexistent. Since these raw carp dishes were being served in many reputable restaurants, I have to trust their safety. I don’t think, however, carp is worth ordering if you have a choice.



We forgot that we ordered an additional grilled sweet fish 鮎の塩焼き.



We did not know but they also served mushroom rice, soup and assorted pickled vegetables 漬け物.



Although we barely touched the rice, at this point, both of us were quite full and it was very unlikely that we would be hungry again at 4:30pm when Akagaki-ya opens. Nevertheless, this was a quite a experience and we were glad we did it. It was like a grand Japanese style reward at the end of the arduous hike.

We took a bus to Kifune-guchi station 貴船口駅. It was a paved road but very narrow, in some segments, it was not possible for two cars to pass. In addition, many tourists were walking along the road making driving even more difficult. We were glad we took a bus rather than walking. From Kifune-guchi station, we took the slow local train again back to civilization.

To make the day count, we got off the subway at 4-jo Kawaramachi ４条河原町 to do some shopping on the way back. We went to several of our favorite stores including the doll store which my wife really likes. We even managed to go to Nishiki ichiba 錦市場 and bought a few items including small containers to serve Japanese delicacies. At this point, we gave up on going to Akagaki-ya since we were not yet hungry and it was almost 5pm. Again we decided to go to our back-up Izakaya later when we were hungry.

This one is called "Kurakura" 倉蔵. It is hidden in the small alleyway but is in walking distance from our hotel. Although food could have been better, we had many choices of excellent sake as a de fact-sake sommelier (wife of the owner??) took interest in us and let us taste and served sake herself.  (Akagaki-ya does not have a good variety of sake). So we were quite satisfied. We declared our visit to Kyoto another resounding success and walked back to our hotel.