Grilled fig in sesame dressing イチジクの胡麻酢和え

We usually do not go to expensive restaurants when we visit Japan. We end up in Izakayas or similar establishments. Only a few exceptions occur when we dine with our Japanese friends. Most of our hosts would take us to more formal restaurants than an Izakaya. We really liked one appetizer dish we had in such a Japanese "ryoutei" 料亭 in Niigata 新潟. It was figs dressed in sesame, vinegar dressing. After coming back, I looked up recipes and tried to make a similar dish. This is the first try.

I used nice ripe mission fig.

This was good but not exactly the same as the dish we had in Japan. The one we had in Japan, appeared to have no skin.

Ingredients (for two small servings):
2 ripe mission figs
Sugar to coat the figs.

for sesame dressing:
2 tbs white sesame seeds
2 tbs white sesame paste
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp rice vinegar
1/2 tsp sake
1/2 tsp soys sauce

Directions:
For figs.
1. Cut the stem of the figs, cut into quarters. Roll the skin side in sugar to coat.
2. In toaster oven, toast the figs until sugar melts and starts bubbling (see below).
3. Take them out and let them cool down.

For sesame dressing:
1. In a small dry frying pan, add the sesame seeds and roast the sesame until slightly brown and fragrant.
2. Put the roasted sesame in a Japanese suribachi すり鉢 and grind them until oil comes out and they are evenly ground.
3. Add white sesame paste(nerigoma 練り胡麻), sugar, rice vinegar, sake, and soy sauce and mix well. Adjust the consistency and taste by adding more vinegar/sake or or sauce.
4. Dress the figs and serve.

This is not bad but the skin on the figs did not particularly go well. It was a little tough and distracting from the over all texture of the dish. I will try a different version.

Shiitake risotto with lamb chops 椎茸リソトとラムチョップ

My wife likes lamb. I got a rack of lamb from New Zealand. I asked how she would like it cooked. She suggested I separate the rack into individual lamb chops rather than cooking it as a rack. That way each chop would be individually cooked to the same doneness. For a side, since we had just gotten some shiitake mushrooms (which are getting increasingly difficult to find) we decided to make "shiitake risotto". So we just made "shiitake risotto" or what is actually a cross between shiitake "Okayu" おかゆ porridge and risotto.

I cleaned up some of the excess fat and separated the rack into lamb chops. I simply seasoned with salt and pepper.  We also served skinned Campari tomato (seasoned with Kosher salt and Spanish olive oil) and blanched green beans sautéed in butter.

The lamb chops were first seared in the frying pan and fished in a 350F oven for 3-4 minutes for medium.

We came up with this risotto recipe on the fly.

Ingredients:
1 cup of cooked rice (we used rice we cooked and then frozen in small portions. We thawed it by microwaving for about 30 seconds)(My mom introduced us to this method of left over rice control. It keeps well, cooked rice is always available and it comes out perfectly when lightly microwaved).

3-4 Fresh shiitake mushroom (caps sliced into strips, the stems with bottom removed, torn length-wise in thin strips and then cross cut into small pieces)

2-3 tbs sake
3 cup Japanese dashi (#2) (I made this using a dashi pack with bonito and kelp)
2 tbs butter (unsalted)
1 tsp light colored soy sauce
salt, additional pats of butter
Grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Directions:
Sautee shiitake mushroom (Chopped up stem first and then caps) in melted butter (#1)
Meanwhile prepare the dashi and keep it warm (#2)
Add thawed rice and sautee (#3)
Add the sake and stir until most of the liquid is absorbed.
Add warm dashi in increments and stir until desired consistency is attained.
Season with light colored soy sauce and salt (#4)
Add a few pats of butter to finish (#5)
Meanwhile sear the both sides of the lamb chops (#6) and finish in a 350F oven for 3 minutes.
We decided to add grated Parmigiano cheese to the risotto.

The risotto was very good. Nice strong shiitake flavor was the major flavor with a background of Japanese dashi and soy sauce. The butter and cheese went amazingly well. The lamb chops were a bit gamy (lamb-ey) but my wife liked the flavor. (She claims that is what lamb is all about). It was done medium with some pink left. This was satisfying ending dish for the evening.

For this, we opened really good Virginia red called RdV Rendezvous 2013 (by the best Virginia red wines we ever tasted). Rendezvous is sort of right bank equivalent and another red called "Lost mountain" is the left bank equivalent. These reds are in the same league as top Napa and Bordeaux red wines. We heard about this in Washington Post article. We visited the Vineyard and we are impressed. I think this requires a separate post.

Pumpkin Yogurt パンプキンヨーグルト

Since Halloween is approaching, it is "pumpkin" season and my wife is into pumpkin dishes. Digression alert: apparently pumpkin flavor has become extremely popular. It is appearing in everything from coffee to dog food (really?).  Not be left behind by any trend, my wife was inspired to make this dish. She prepared canned pumpkin puree with pumpkin spices and mixed into plain yogurt. She decided to add finely chopped Japanese apple pear.  Here the addition of Japanese apple pear really worked well. I should have done a better presentation for the picture but this is how we take yogurt to work every day for breakfast; in small plastic containers. From my perspective, while it is very unique, it was also very seasonal and surprisingly good .

One of the secrets my wife uses for her pumpkin recipes is to heat up the puree with the spices mixed in. This gets rid of the "canned" taste in the puree, evaporates some of the water content, concentrates the pumpkin flavor and blooms the spices.

Ingredients:
One 15 oz. can pumpkin puree
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 cup sugar
Japanese pear finely diced
1 1/2, 32 oz. containers of plane yogurt (we use Dannon) (come to think of it we eat a lot of yogurt)

Directions:
Put the puree and spices in a sauce pan. Cook on medium heat stirring constantly for about 5 minutes or until the puree thickens, pulls away from the sides and the spices become nicely fragrant. Let cool.

Add the yogurt and sugar. Mix well add the diced apple pear.

This pumpkin yogurt gets better with time as all the flavors meld together. The asian pear exudes sweet juice that adds nicely to the pumpkin flavor.  It also adds a pleasant crunch. This is quite a unique yogurt and the addition of juicy crispy Japanese pear really worked.

Savory bread pudding Version 2 甘くないブレッドプディング 第２弾

This is my wife's second attempt at making savory bread pudding. This time, she used store bought bread rather than bread stuffing. One weekend, we had this as a lunch with vegetables (asparagus, baby corn, green beans all previously blanched, sautéed in butter with skinned Campari tomato seasoned with salt and pepper).

This was just perfect for a light weekend lunch. It is almost quiche-like with eggs, bacon and cheese 

Ingredients:
112 g dried bread
2 pieces bacon
2 onions diced
1/2 lb. mushrooms (or to taste)
1/4/ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Chopped parsley
2 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried sage
Several Jalapeno peppers diced (optional)
1/4  tsp salt
3 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup cream
1/4 cup grated Gruyere cheese

Directions:
Cut the bread into cubes and lightly toast in the oven to make them crisp "stale".
Cook the bacon in a frying pan until crisp, add the diced onions to the remaining bacon fat and cook until caramelized.
Add the mushrooms and cook until they are slightly wilted. Add the Parmesan cheese, thyme, sage and salt to the onion/mushroom mixture and mix well and cool to room temperature.
In a separate bowl whisk the eggs, milk and cream together.
Add to the onion/mushroom mixture and mix well. Gently add the bread cubes and stir gently. Give the bread a few minutes to absorb the liquid.
Pour the bread mixture into a greased baking pan (#1).
Spread the grated Gruyere cheese over the top (#2).
Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes to an hour or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean and the mixture is browned (#3).

Compared to the previous version, this one had a lovely pudding texture with  nice herb flavors of thyme and oregano. Like quiche, this is a good almost all inclusive (carbohydrate, protein, fat) meal. the only thing we needed was the side of veggies.

Corn Jelly コーンジェリー

This was my wife's idea. Since she really liked the corn cob broth she made and she had some corn broth left she came up with the idea of making corn jelly.  The idea was to jell the corn cob broth and use it like fruit jelly.

We tried it on piece of the homemade bread my wife made.

And also on a type of cracker with sesame seeds.

We needed to add more pectin but finally it nicely jelled.

This is the type of fruit pectin we used. After we tasted the assertive acidity in the resulting corn jelly, we checked the package. It contains citric acid. It does not say how much but says it helps the pectin to work. In addition, there is not one word of instruction in or on the package to explain how to use it. My wife got a general idea from looking at jelly recipes on the internet. Nonetheless it was trial and error and the first attempt was error. It did not jell. We determined that we may have made two mistakes, first was not using enough of the Sure Jell powder and the second was not boiling it long enough. So we heated it up again added more powder and really boiled it. We must have done something right because it jelled.

Ingredients:
1 cup corn cob broth
1/2 pouch of Sure Jell pectin
1/4/ cup sugar
1/2 tsp of butter (to reduce the bubbles)

Directions:
Heat the broth until it comes to a boil.
Add the pectin gradually while whisking.
Add the butter
Let it comes to vigorous boil and maintain the boil for one minute then cut off the heat.
Pour it in to a glass jar and loosely cover until it cools to room temperature.

The resulting jelly was not what we envisioned and we were a bit disappointed.  All we could taste some citrus/acidity and sugar. It taste like apple jelly; any vestige of corn flavor was completely lost. Although it was not corn flavored jelly it still tasted good on buttered toast. We need to work on this recipe.

Hanpen stuffed with cheese はんぺんのチーズ焼き

This is a slight variation on what I posted before. "Hanpen" fish cake stuffed with cheese cooked with olive oil and seasoned. I served this with chicken liver simmered in red wine as a starter one evening.

When I made oden おでん a few days ago, I used kelp to make broth. I recycled the used kelp into "tsukudani" 昆布の佃煮 and used it as a topping.

The cheese melted nicely and this was also seasoned with concentrated noodle sauce and grated ginger.

This is the second time I made this chicken liver dish. Although the liver was a bit mangled up into pieces rather than whole lobes and it may not have looked as nice as the last batch I made, it still tasted really good. The red wine I used this time was California cab (I think it was Louis M Martini Cab from Napa  2014). It is not as tannic as what I used last time and the overall dish came out better than the first batch.

I just thawed the "hanpen" fish cake. Cut it into 4 pieces and made a pocket using a small knife and stuffed the pocket with cheese (I think I used double Gloucester). I fried both sides in a small amount of olive oil until golden and the cheese melted. I added a small amount of concentrated noodle sauce (or soy sauce). I added a dab of grated ginger and the kelp tsukudani. This combination is always good. The kelp's slight saltiness went well.

Fresh Corn Polenta 新鮮コーン入りポレンタ

We thought we must have posted our polenta recipe a long time ago but we have not. We just mentioned it in passing. Since it is still local corn season, my wife decided to make polenta with fresh corn kernels. This is perfect for breakfast but we also had this as our ending "shime" dish one evening. We served it with a fried (pasteurized) egg. As you can see, the one in the picture is a bit overcooked the egg (you should have runny yolk with polenta or scrapple).

This is a picture of the polenta just before frying. You can see the fresh corn kernels.

Ingredients:
1 cup corn meal
3 cups of corn cob broth (#3)
1 tbs butter
3 tbs sugar
1/2 sp salt
1 cup corn kernels (ears of corn microwaved for 4 minutes, covered with paper towel, kernels removed) (#1 and 2).

Direction:
1. If you try to remove the corn from the cob on a cutting bored, the kernels go all over the place. I placed a Pyrex ramekin upside down in a metal bowl and put the ear of corn on top of the ramekin. I then cut off the kernels using a knife (from top to bottom). The kernels are captured in the bowl (#1 and 2).
2. For making the corn cob broth, put 4 cups of water in a pan and add 6 corn cobs after the kernels have been removed. Also add coarsely chopped one medium onion and boil gently for 1 hour (#3). if you want stronger broth after straining the liquid it can be further reduced.
3. Pour the corn cob broth into a pan. Add the butter, sugar and salt and let it come to a boil. Add the corn meal in a steady stream while vigorously whisking to prevent lumps from forming (#4).
4. As the mixture gets thicker switch the whisk to a wooden (bamboo) spatula and continue stirring (this is where I help my wife since stirring polenta is hard work). Keep cooking and stirring until the polenta starts coming off the side of the pan. Add the corn kernels and mix. (#5).
5. Place the polenta in a loaf pan which has been rinsed with cold water (not oiled) (the residual water on the pan allows the cooled polenta to drop out when the pan is inverted . Make sure there are no air bubbles trapped. Smooth the surface (#6).
6. Cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight after cooled to the room temperature.
7. Just before serving, slice the polenta into 1/2 inch thick pieces (#7).
8. Dredge with flour and pan fry using peanut oil turning once until both sides develop a nice brown crust (#8).

We have not had polenta for some time and this tasted really good. Using the corn cob broth and fresh corn kernels really added a nice fresh intense corn taste. The kernels provided a sweet burst of flavor and a nice crunch element to the texture. Our only regret was that the eggs were overcooked.