Indian-style Carrot salad インド風人参サラダ

We try to make "sides" over the weekend so that we can take them to work as an accompaniment for the sandwiches we take for lunch. My wife wanted to make Indian-style carrot salad. This recipe is again based on Madhur Jaffrey’s “Quick and Easy Indian Cook Book” with liberal alterations.

 

We also made some other salads. These salads are good as drinking snacks and we serve them on weekday evenings. The salads shown here are (clock wise): Indian-style carrot salad (upper left), Bulgur wheat salad, potato salad (with pickled myouga and rakkyo), cucumber onion salad with dill.



All four salads are unique with different tastes and textures. The carrot salad is the most spicy among them.



My wife was trying to get the right combination of crunchy/raw to slightly cooked texture for the carrots in this salad. She tried slicing the carrot in the food processor and decided the slices were too thick even using the thinnest blade. She tried grating the carrot in the food processor but the pieces were also a bit too big. I contributed to the project by slicing the carrot very thinly by hand as well as chopping the grated carrot into smaller pieces. She decided the grated carrot cut into smaller pieces were the best. Having made raw carrot salad before, she thought the mouth feel of totally raw grated carrot was unpleasant. So, she also lightly microwaved the grated carrot for 50 seconds to 1 minute or just until the edges were slightly softened but still crunchy. (In the picture below are mostly grated carrot briefly microwaved but also included my thinly sliced carrots which were also microwaved). This extra step really improves the texture. The carrot is still crunchy and the light cooking brings out its sweetness.


Spice mixture:
1/2 tsp salt
1/8-1/4 cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin (Next time I may use less because it had a very strong cumin flavor)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
raisins
Greek yogurt

I put some peanut oil in the frying pan and added the mustard seeds. When they began to pop I added the cumin, salt, and cayenne quickly followed by the raisins which plumped up nicely in the hot oil. Then, while still hot I added the entire mixture over the carrots and mixed well. (a word of caution: the mustard seeds start popping like Mexican Jumping Beans. Several jumped right out of the pan straight into my face. Luckily I was wearing glasses so they burned my cheek and missed my eye. Next time I may wear protective googles.)
This is the spice mixture which fried in peanut oil.



The spice mixture with hot oil was added and mixed in.



For dressing, the original recipe calls for plain yogurt but we used Greek (drained) yogurt my wife prepared.

This made a very nice salad. The spiciness was dampened and mellowed by the Greek yogurt but still had some kick and nice roasted cumin flavor. The gently cooked carrots had a very nice texture. Certainly this will join our favorite salad lineup.

Ramen #4 Miso Ramen 味噌ラーメン

This is the fourth post for ramen ラーメン and the second after I said I would not post anymore ramen. But I saw this miso ramen 味噌ラーメン in the frozen case at our Japanese grocery store, and could not resist getting one. This is partly because I am originally from Sapporo 札幌 where miso ramen originated. Although "shio" and "shoyu" ramen are being served in any ramen place in Sapporo,  miso ramen appears to have become almost synonymous with "Sapporo ramen".  Miso ramen was reportedly invented at "Aji no Sanpei" 味の三平 in Sapporo. I remember going to this place when I was in high school. I do recall that there was a line but I did not think it was worth it (As I confessed before I was not a ramen aficionado). This is from the same company called Sun Noodle that made the "Shouyu" ramen I previously bought.  Before making this for lunch over the weekend, I thawed both the noodles and miso flavor packs for several hours prior to cooking as per the package instructions.



The toppings can be anything but I made something different. I even added a pat of butter which was not done when I lived in Sapporo but is now added with some corn mostly so tourists can have the  "Hokkaido" food experience. Again, I made half-ramen (one serving divided into two servings) or han-ramen 半ラーメン.



Since I had pork belly and also a small slice of filet mignon, I decided to use these as toppings as well.



On the left below is the sliced filet pounded until thin and pork belly thinly sliced.




Topping:
Onion: one medium onion cut in half and then sliced into thin strips.
Bean sprouts: One package of mung bean sprouts washed and drained.
Filet mignon: thinly sliced and then pounded thin. Seasoned with salt and pepper.
Broth: In a separate pan, I boiled water (about two cups) and dissolved one package of the miso flavoring that came in the package. I used more water than specified but it tasted salty enough.

I cut the pork belly in small bite sized pieces. I sautéed it in a frying pan with a small amount of peanut oil and a dash of roasted sesame oil. When the meat was cooked, I added onion and sautéed it until soft and edges were slightly brown. I then added the bean sprouts and kept sautéing for a few more minutes.  I seasoned with salt and pepper and a bit of miso flavoring from the packet.



I kept the miso flavored broth on simmer and boiled the noodles in a separate pot. After I tasted for doneness of the noodle, I drained and shook off the additional moisture using a strainer. I placed the noodles in two bowls, poured on the broth and topped with the onion-sprout mixture. I quickly cooked the steak in a separate frying pan with butter (30 seconds on each side).



I also added menma メンマ or seasoned bamboo shoots.



I garnished it with chopped chives and a thin pat of butter (second and third pictures above).

The noodles were different from the noodles in the shouyu ramen (which was Tokyo straight noodle). They were curly with a firm yet elastic texture (this must be the company’s version of the  "Sapporo noodle"). The soup was quite good with the taste of pork/chicken-based broth.The butter added a nice richness but being a traditionalist probably was not needed.

Simmered Nagaimo and Fried tofu 厚揚げと長芋の煮付け

I bought atsu-age 厚揚げ at our Japanese grocery store one weekend thinking I would either add it to oden おでん or just grill it in the toaster oven but neither happened.  I realized "the best tasted before date" was a few day AGO. So, instead of grilling, I switched to “emergency mode” and quickly made this dish which is like oden but has only a few items.



Again, I made this with what I had on hand.  I had half a nagaimo 長芋 in the refrigerator left over from when I made yamakake  山かけ more than a week ago. I also had some nice thick shiitake mushrooms which I also bought at the Japanese grocery store sometime ago that needed to be used.



So this is the dish I came up with.

Broth: I made broth from dashi pack (dried bonito and kelp), added sake, mirin, light colored soy sauce. I supplemented the soy sauce with salt added in increments as I tasted. I used the salt because I did not want the nagaimo to become too dark as it would have if I used all soy sauce but I also wanted properly seasoned simmering broth. (I ended up using about 1/2 tsp of Kosher salt).

Atsu-age: I placed them in a colander and poured hot water over them (from the instant hot water dispenser which is connected to Culligan reverse-ososis filtering system) to remove excess oil. I then cut them in half.

Nagaimo: I peeled and cut into 1 inch-thick rounds and then halved them. I immediately soaked in water with a splash of rice vinegar.

Shiitake mushrooms: I removed the stems and cut into half inch slices (this was rather large and thick shiitake, possibly from Japan).

I placed the nama-age, nagaimo and shiitke in the broth and gently simmered it for 40-50 minutes. I served it in a bowl with a bit of the simmering broth and garnished it with chopped scallion.

This was a good combination. When cooked, the nagaimo looses it's sliminess and has a nice crunchy texture. This was perfect for cold sake.

Smoked salmon with poached egg スモークサーモンの温玉乗せ

This was breakfast for one weekend. I have  posted a similar dish before but we like this variation a lot. This is an open sandwich with salmon and soft poached egg.



I garnished with ikura salmon roe which made it very luxurious. This time, instead of creme fraiche, we used cream cheese spread with onion and chives.



Since We had freshly made cucumber onion salad, I served it on the side.

Bread: We used a slice of toasted store-bought semolina sesame bread
Cream Cheese: We used store bought whipped cream cheese with chive.
Poached egg: We used commercial pasteurized eggs from Davidson.
Smoked salmon: This was "pastrami"style.
Cucumber, onion salad: Made of sliced mini cucumber, sweet onion (salted and soaked in water) dressed in Greek yogurt (home made) and rice vinegar.

The runny yolk really makes this dish wonderful. The addition of salmon roe added richness and saltiness which was perfect. The cucumber salad was refreshing with a lot of fresh dill flavor; a perfect accompaniment. With Cappuccinos, this was a perfect breakfast for us.

Sautéed baby octopus タコのソテー

This is one of the dishes I made from a package of frozen small octopuses (octopi?) (we’ll call them guys) which I found in the frozen case of our Japanese grocery store. The package indicated this was a product made in the U.S. for an Italian American clientele. The package contained three little guys and I used two in my oden おでん (I did not take pictures but I posted octopus in oden previously). I made one into this dish. This was sautéed in olive oil and seasoned with salt and black pepper. We had this with red wine.



I washed and salted the thawed guys. I kneaded them in a metal bowl in an attempt to tenderize.



I then boiled them in water with added salt, sake, and a small splash of rice vinegar for 30 minutes on low heat.



After 30 plus minutes, the octopus shrank quite a bit.



I cut two into several long pieces and placed then in my oden pot and simmered for 1 hour or so with other oden items. This was very tender and nice. The remaining one, I cut into bite sized pieces, placed them in a ZipLoc bag and added olive oil. I kept this in the fridge for a few days before we got back to it. I simply sautéed it in olive oil and seasoned it rather severely with salt and freshly ground black pepper.



The octopus was very tender and the flavor profile went well with wine. If I find a similar package again I will definitely buy one but so far I have not seen this item in the Japanese grocery store.

Dutch baby ダッチベイビー

We like to eat different things for weekend breakfast. Somehow we remembered that we used make Dutch baby quite often but we have not made it for some time.  In addition, I realized that I have not posted this before. So, one Saturday, I asked my wife to make it. We served this with roll-up smoked salmon with dill cream cheese, cucumber onion salad dressed in rice vinegar and Greek yogurt and wedges of tomato dressed in my mustard honey dressing.



The pancake nicely puffed up.



This is rather easy recipe but I will asked my wife to fill in.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbs. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine the ingredients until moist (first picture below). Melt butter in a cast iron skillet over medium heat (second picture below). Pour batter into the pan and cook 1 minute (do not stir) (third picture below). Transfer pan to oven and cook for 18 minutes.





She also used a heavy cast iron skillet, preheated on medium high flame.



When the batter was poured in the edges bubbles up and made noise.



She placed the skillet in the oven and cooked for 18 minutes. It browned and puffed up nicely.



This is after it was taken out from the pan.



She cut it into 4 pieces and we each had two.



We should make this more often. This is indeed a wonderful pancake for breakfast.

Filet Mignon with Béarnaise sauce ヒレステーキバーネィソース添え

We do not eat this type of dinner often but we decided to have filet mignon with Béarnaise sauce and also opened a bottle of 2010 Joseph Phelps Insignia for the evening.



As sides, my wife made oven fried potatoes and sautéed  green beans and snow peas.



I could do without Béarnaise sauce but this is my wife's favorite sauces. Diversion alert: My wife told me about the culinary adventure she had solo in her youth at a 3 star restaurant in Paris. Although she studied French for many years she had no culinary vocabulary (the focus of her training was on the vocabulary that would enable her to discuss literature or political and economic issues in international academic/diplomatic circles), she  found herself quite adrift when faced with a French menu. That evening she spied something called rognon d'agneau avec Béarnaise. She didn’t know what rognon meant but she knew d’agneau meant lamb which she loved and, of course, she really liked Béarnaise so she ordered the dish. Not only that, but as a true French aficionado, she ordered it “bleu” or rare.  She smelled the stench the minute it emerged from the kitchen. They placed it in front of her bleeding all over the plate and reeking of urine.  She tentatively cut into it wondering what part of the lamb she was facing when she noticed the two waiters standing over in the corner snickering at her.  After several mouthfuls it dawned on her; she was eating basically raw lamb kidney! The only thing she could eat on the plate was the small container of béarnaise sauce which she licked clean. (Being a 3 star restaurant the sauce was pretty good). Now she does not enter a French restaurant without her French/English dictionary in tow.

I first salted the filet mignon and left them in the refrigerator uncovered for several hours (sort of a quick dry aging) and took them out 30 minutes before cooking. I seasoned with fresh ground black pepper and seared them (below). I finished cooking them in a 400F oven for 6 minutes for medium-rare.

For the Béarnaise sauce

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" cubes

1 tablespoons minced shallots

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoons Champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar ( I used rice vinegar)

1 large egg yolks

1/2 tablespoon finely chopped fresh tarragon

In the top pan of the double boiler directly on medium flame, I added a thin pat of butter and sautéed the shallot until it was semitransparent. I added vinegar, salt and pepper and reduced it close to half. I let it cool down off heat and then placed the top pan over the bottom part of the double boiler which had water in it at a gentle simmer. I added an egg yolk and whisked until frothy. I added tarragon and small cubes of butter and kept whisking until the sauce reached the proper consistency. (below, I did not use the entire stick of butter). I tasted and adjusted the seasoning as needed.

The sauce was a bit thicker than I intended but it tasted great (with this much butter and egg yolks, better be good). My wife wanted to save the small amount of remaining sauce but, of cause, it breaks if reheated after refrigeration.

Insignia is such an elegant California red. Some years ago, we visited the Joseph Phelps Vineyard. As a preferred customer, we tasted wines with Riedel glasses that they provided for the experience. After tasting, we got nice cheeses, sausages and baguette from a fancy grocery store in Calistoga and went back to the winery. We got a bottle of Insignia and two Riedel glasses and had a wonderful lunch at a picnic table under the large oak tree overlooking the vineyard. That is one of the most wonderful memories. We are still J-P wine club member and get an occasional shipment from them.

Insignia is not a candy wine but such a classic wine, to us, it is what the best Bordeaux wine should have tasted like i.e. without the funk.

We could not finish the steak but enjoyed our dinner and wine.