Chicken and green beans in sesame dressing

These are nothing new but several rather good healthy appetizers. I could make these quickly because I already had cooked chicken breast and cooked green beans.



Traditionally the chicken breast or tenderloin would have been sake steamed but since I had barbecued whole chicken, I removed the tenderloins and hand shredded them into thin strands along the grain of the meat.



I also had haricot vert (small green beans) which I cooked in salted boiling water for a few minutes and let cool quickly. (I prefer using a fan to cool veggies rather than soaking them in ice water because the ice water would make the green beans taste water logged.) Using a fan, the green beans are cooked but still crunchy and keeps its color. I cut the green beans into 1 and 1/2 inch long pieces.



Dressing:

White roasted sesame seeds:  1tsp, although they are pre-roasted, I dry roasted them again in a frying pan and ground them in a Japanese mortar or suribachi until they became somewhat pasty but some of the sesame seeds were just coarsely ground.

White sesame paste (shiro nerigoma): 1 tsp, This comes in a plastic pouch or can.

Sugar, soy sauce and rice vinegar

I put the sesame paste and ground sesame in the Japanese mortar, added sugar (1/2 tsp), soy sauce (1/2 tsp) and rice vinegar (1/3 tsp). I checked the consistency of the dressing, tasted and adjusted the seasoning and liquids. I dressed both the chicken and green beans with the dressing and garnished with more whole roasted sesame seeds.

This is a tried and true good starter to have with for sake.

Daikon steak with cheese

I made this dish sometime ago. I must have seen this dish on the Internet. The most time consuming part of the preparation is boiling the daikon. Once that is done, the actual cooking is quick and easy.



I first pre-cooked the daikon as usual; I peeled the skin and cut the daikon into 1 inch thick rounds. I placed them in cold water with several kernels of raw rice, simmered for 20 minutes or until the daikon was cooked.

I first cut the daikon round in half. Using a small paring knife, I made a slit leaving the edge intact. I then inserted the slices of cheese (Any melting cheese will work. Here I used smoked cheddar). You may have to trim the corners of the cheese to make the slices fit. (left upper).

I put a pat of butter in a non-stick frying pan on low heat and started cooking the stuffed daikon (right upper). When the edges got slightly brown (in about 2-3 minutes), I turned them over (left lower). After a few more minutes of cooking I added just a small mount of soy sauce (right lower). I turned the stuffed daikon so that soy sauce covered all sides.



Certainly this is an interesting dish. We are not crazy about it but it is a nice small dish that goes with any drink. If you already have pre-cooked daikon for other dishes such as oden, this is certainly worth a try.

baked potato with bacon fat

Did I tell you that my wife is in pursuit of the ultimate oven fried potato? This is another attempt. The previous time, she parboiled the potatoes with the addition of baking soda and used duck fat. This time, she replaced duck fat with bacon dripping. As before she flavored the potatoes with fresh chopped rosemary.



The process was same as before, parboiling the white potatoes with the addition of baking soda. The main difference is that she added bacon dripping instead of duck fat. She also used all purpose (AP) potatoes instead of yukon gold.

The final result? It was very good oven fried potatoes but we did not taste much bacon flavor. We smelled the bacon while the potatoes were baking but somehow that did not translate into the flavor. We felt the same about the duck fat potatoes. Also the use of AP instead of Yukon gold potatoes doesn’t seemed to have mattered either. Maybe, for us, just olive oil would do the trick and that would be slightly healthier.

Stir-fried cabbage with fennel seed, parsley and lemon

This is a type of stir-fried cabbage dish. If this were done Japanese style, It would be seasoned with mirin and soy sauce but this one is from Cook’s illustrated and is seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon and parsley. I made some modifications and added fennel seeds and lemon zest. Since my wife fried up bacon to make bacon fat (for her oven fried potatoes), I garnished this dish with crispy bacon.



According to the original recipe, cabbage and other cruciferous vegetables have "sulfa" smells (it does not bother me at all) which can be reduced by soaking finely sliced cabbage in cold water for a few minutes.

Ingredients:
Cabbage: 1/4 head cut into fine strips.
Onion: One medium, cut into think strips.
Lemon: Juice of one lemon and zest (using a micrograder).
Fennel seeds (optional, 1/4 tsp).
Parsley: 4-5 sprigs, leaves removed and finely chopped.
Salt and pepper to taste.



First, I added oil to a frying pan on medium heat and added some Fennel seeds. When the Fennel got fragrant, I added the onion and sautéed until soft and the edges browned slightly. I seasoned with salt and pepper (#1). I then added the cabbage (soaked in cold water for 5 minutes, and drained) (#2). When the cabbage was cooked, I added the lemons zest, lemon juice and continued stirring, I added chopped parsley, mixed and the cut the heat (#4). I tasted and adjusted the salt and pepper. I garnished it with crispy bacon (the first picture).

This is a good way to serve cabbage. I still like the Japanese style with strips of deep fried tofu seasoned with soysauce and mirin but this is a good Western style variation.

Cold salmon and simmered vegetables 冷製サーモンと野菜の煮付け

This was a starter dish for one evening made up of leftovers. Cold salmon was leftover from pan fried and oven finished salmon filets. Straight out of the oven,  the skin was nicely crispy and we preferentially ate all the skin leaving good sized chunks of meat behind as leftovers. I simply served these salmon chunks cold with baby arugula dressed with honey mustard dressing.



On the right are simmered vegetables which started life as "oden" おでん. I served the oden several times stretching it out by adding boiled eggs, tofu, and fish cakes. These carrots, daikon, and konnyaku コンニャク were the remaining survivors of this never ending oden, I added a top portion of boiled bamboo shoot (leftover from when I made mu shu pork). I seasoned the oden broth further by adding soy sauce and mirin and made the remaining veggies to "Nitsuke" 煮つけ (compared to oden, nitsuke usually has much stronger seasoning).

Finally all the leftovers have been accounted for and served. I do not remember what we drank with this but either red wine or sake would be just fine.

Grated nagaimo and onsen egg トロロ温泉卵入り

This is a classic way of eating nagaimo 長芋 or yamaimo 山芋 in Japan. This preparation of grating or "Tororo" トロロ, however,  is not for most Western audiences since it is ultimately "slimy". My wife appears to have overcome the sliminess most of the time after gradual conditioning over the years. Although grated nagaimo  has right consistency as is, yamaimo tends to become very thick and to eat as "Tororo", it may have to be diluted with dashi (or my mother used to dilute it with miso soup since this was often served as a breakfast item and miso soup was also regularly served for breakfast).




I grated the nagaimo, seasoned with soy sauce with wasabi and chopped scallion. Since I had onsen eggs 温泉卵 which I had made previously sitting in the refrigerator, I dropped that in the middle and garnished it with thin strips of nori seaweed.



When you dig in you see the nice creamy egg yolk. The egg can be poured over rice and enjoyed as is the traditional way, we just ate as a accompaniment for sake. Since the potato has lots of starch, this is surprisingly filling and remarkably went well with sake.

Three appetizers お通し三種

This is another one of my otoshi お通しappetizer threesome. We got small covered containers and divided wooden trays  at a small shop in the Nishiki Market 錦市場 in Kyoto 京都 some years ago. Square and pentagonal bowls were from Gumps in San Francisco. This was one of the warmer days so far this year and for the first time, we were having this outside.



When you open the lids, it is ”fermented squid and guts” or shiokara 塩辛 . When written out in English it sounds very un-appetizing but it is one of the delicacies perfect for sipping sake and my wife's favorite. This one came frozen in a small pouch and. It is not as salty as ones we had before and was quite good.

The left is wakame seaweed 若芽 and cucumber salad (dressed with sushi vinegar, sesame oil and light colored soy sauce), the right is onsen egg 温泉卵 (cooked in my Sous Vide machine), dressed with ponzu sauce and garnished with finely chopped scallion and salmon roe or ikura いくら.



These are the ultimate for sipping sake. We gazed at our plum blossoms, tasting a little of these appetizers and sipping more sake.