Meatball Udon Pasta ミートボール入りうどんパスタ

Although I make pork meat balls rather frequently, I realized I have not posted this. I did post a similar dish but these meat balls are baked not fried. I make this dish when I cook pork tenderloins. In order to make the tenderloins of equal size so they cook evenly, I trim off the ends. I use these ends to make the meat balls by hand chopping them into ground pork.  I generally get quite a good amount of trimmings from this process. I also use these trimmings for other dishes such as pork scaloppini but the trimming generally end up as ground pork. For this dish I used some pork meat balls I had made earlier and some udon noodles for a quick pasta and meat balls. (We use udon rather than spaghetti because my wife can't face spaghetti; something about those endless plates of overcooked spaghetti for school lunches as a kid)



I also quickly made the sauce from leftovers. I had some tomato sauce which I made a few days before for pizza. I just added cream to the sauce to change the flavor profile and consistency. The Japanese udon noodles were also cooked a few days ago.



I garnished it with chopped parsley and grated parmigiano-reggiano.



Meat balls: 
1 lb ground pork: I hand chopped the trimmings of two pork tenderloins.
1 large shallot finely chopped
3 medium fresh shiitake mushrooms, stem removed and chopped
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup or more panko bread crumbs
2-3 eggs, the amount of panko and eggs depending on the consistency of the mixture

I sautéed the shallot, shiitake mushrooms in a frying pan with olive oil for several minutes, seasoned with salt and pepper. After it cooled down to room temeprature,  I mixed it into the ground pork and added dried oregano, basil, salt, pepper, panko, and eggs and mixed well by hand. I like the mixture to be rather soft, I adjusted the amount of panko and eggs to get the right consistency.

Using a medium sized, ice cream scoop, I placed a scoop full of the mixture on an oiled baking sheet. I added a small amount of olive oil and shaped it into balls. I put them in a preheated 350F oven for 20-30 minutes. I like the meat balls that are rather eggy. When done, they are not perfectly shaped spheres; the bottoms are flat and the tops rounded but somewhat irregular.  Nonetheless I prefer this "artisanal" shape to dry dense perfectly shaped meat balls.

Tomato sauce:
2 large cloves of garlic, finely minced
1/2 medium onion, finely diced
3 tbs olive oil
2 14oz can of whole tomato, crushed by hand
dried oregano, basil, hot red pepper flakes, salt and black pepper to taste

I first sautéed the onion and garlic on low heat for a few minutes and added the tomato which was crushed by hand and excess liquid drained. When it started simmering, I added the seasoning and simmered for at least 30 minutes or longer depending on how much liquid I started with. When I have time, I add more liquid from the canned tomato and cook longer. If too acidic, I add a bit of sugar to the sauce.

Noodles: I just used dried "Sanuki" udon and cooked it boiling water for about 13 minutes as per package instruction.

In a frying pan on medium low flame, I added the tomato sauce and meat balls. When they were warmed up, I added cream and mixed. The amount of cream is to your liking. I then added the udon noodles until the sauce clung to the noodles and warmed up. I served the noodles with three meat balls per serving and topped it with a bit of fruity olive oil, parmigiano-reggiano, and chopped parsley. My wife sprinkled a bit more salt on hers. Since, everything was prepared ahead, putting together this dish was easy and quick. By adding cream, acidity of the tomato sauce was further reduced. It was very satisfying comfort meal.

Pie rolls with cheddar cheese and fresh Jalapeno ミニパイロール

When my wife made Jalapeño cheddar roll, she thought of making a similar but smaller and easier appetizer rolls from store bought pie crust. The first one we forgot to take pictures and this is the second one she made.



This is small and flaky and perfect Hors d'oeuvre (this French word appears more appropriate than appetizers somehow).



She grated sharp cheddar cheese and smoked gouda. I deveined and chopped 4 fresh Jalapeño pepper (above).



She rolled out pie crust in to 18 x 18 inch square and put cheeses and Jalapneo as see above.



She then roll this up to make a cylinder.



Cut the cylinder into 1 inch-thick disk.



Place the disks into a non-stick mini-muffin pan (above) and baked it at 350F for 20 minutes.



The pie crust is Pillsbury which is found in a cold case at a grocery store. This can be frozen if you are not using it immediately.

The result was rather good. This is much flakier and a perfect Hors d'oeuvre.  we enjoyed it with a sip of wine. It freezes well too and can be easily heated up in a toaster oven.

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.