Uni Miso Ika Zuke 雲丹みそいか漬

This blog is to highlight another item called "Uni Miso Ika Zuke"雲丹みそいか漬 that we got from Maruhide (shown in the little round dish on the right). We got it just before New Year with some other items including fresh uni. We finished all the other items sometime ago. I rediscovered this one "hiding" in the freezer and decided that unlike wine, frozen fish generally doesn't improve over time so it was time to open the jar and taste the contents. We had it as a starter with cold sake one weekend evening.

"Uni miso ika zuke" is similar but different from squid "Shiokara" 塩辛 or "Shutou" 酒盗.  The "sauce" is concentrated uni sea urchin. The below is the description from the Maruhide web site.

"Maruhide's "Uni Miso" is Sea Urchin paste made with California Red Sea Urchin. Steamed at low temperature to condense to 1/2 of its weight, to make it rich and flavorful. The combination of "Uni Miso" with Sashimi grade Mongo-Squid ("Ika Zuke") makes the perfect complement for sake."

We wholeheartedly agree with the statement. It has a concentrated uni flavor but not too salty and the squid has a nice "sashimi"-like texture. This is indeed perfect to go with sipping cold sake.

I added few other items from my usual stash. From left back clockwise; chicken tsukune square つくね (instead of making into into a ball or sausage shape of tsukune, I put it in a baking pan and baked in the toaster oven at 350F for 30 minutes like the  other chicken squares I make. Since I had fresh garlic chives, I added them), blanched rapini dressed in mustard-soy sauce 菜の花の辛子醤油, blanched sugar snap marinated in seasoned dashi スナップ豌豆の塩びたし, simmered "Kabocha" pumpkin かぼちゃの煮物, Dashi-maki Japanese omelet with garlic chive だし巻き and spicy baked tofu ピリ辛とうふ.

We had this while sitting outside on our deck on one of the first warm days of spring which made it taste even better. Now we have two house sakes; "MU"daiginjo 大吟醸　”無” and "天狗舞”. Both are quite good with a bit more complexity in "tengumai".

Easter breakfast 2019 イースター朝ごはん2019

This is a sort of regular menu for Easter breakfast. My wife baked hot cross buns for Easter this year as usual but without the representative icing cross. Instead, she put icing on the side so that we could "smear" it on the bun however and wherever we wanted.  In addition, she made a new cream cheese based icing. She also has a collection of "bunny" plates (bunny seen here peeking out from behind the food) that add to the occasion.

To complete the spring theme, I made creamy scrambled eggs which was supposedly made by Chef Patrick O'Connor of Inn at Little Washington when Queen Elizabeth visited some years ago. Since I did not have green aspraragus, I garnished with blanched sugar snaps and rapini.

The hot cross buns are made with a recipe from King Arthur flour.

Instead of confectionary sugar icing, she made cream cheese based icing with honey and cinnamon.  This was much better and much easier to handle.

Ingredients for the icing:
1 package of Philadelphia cream cheese
1 tsp cinnamon powder
3 tsp. honey
3 tbs. butter

Directions: Cream the butter in a mixer. Add the cream cheese and mix until it is fluffy. Add the honey and cinnamon until completely blended.

This is not as sweet as a sugar based icing and it comes out like a spread so it is easier to use on the muffin. The cream cheese gives it a slight tartness offset by the honey. The cinnamon goes so well with the spices used in the hot cross buns. This is certainly something worth getting up for in the morning.

Chicken tulip drummets with Gorgonzola dip 手羽元チューリップとゴルゴンゾーラディップ

I have not made "Teba-gyoza" 手羽餃子 for some time but recently when I did a barbecue pork roast in the Weber grill, I also made teba gyoza.  I had to remove the drummets to make the teba gyouza, so, I used them to make these tulip of drummets.  Just as a minor variation, I marinated the tulips in "Shoyu ko-ji" 醤油麹 overnight before baking.  I did not make my own Shoyu koji but I used a store-bought package.

As before, I coated the tulips with yellow cornmeal and baked them in our toaster oven on convection mode at 450F for 15 minutes.

My wife made Gorgonzola dip for this, which worked very well.

For the Gorgonzola dip

Ingredients
1 cup blue cheese (gorgonzola) crumbles (about 4.5 oz)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup mayonnaise
 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
3 tbsp buttermilk (or however much is needed to get the desired consistency)
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Directions:
Just mix and refrigerate before serving.

I served the chicken tulips with carrot and celery sticks. Deep frying may be better but high temp baking made it rather crispy on the outside. The dip went very well.  (We decided that if it was made with a looser consistency it would also make a nice dressing for salads). We are not sure that the "Shoyu koji" marinade made a big difference but the meat was reasonably tender.

Beginning of Hanami 2019 花見の始まり2019

Last year, in a nor'easter (winter hurricane) we lost the 30 year old cherry tree that formed a canopy over our deck and was the foundation of our hanami celebrations. Although we immediately replaced the destroyed tree with a new one it is "just a kid" (only about 7 feet tall). Although it is blooming it's little heart out it has some serious growing to do before it replaces the gap left by the tree that was destroyed.  Luckily we have two other cherry trees which were growing on the property when we moved in.  Some years all the cherry trees sing as a chorus; blooming all at the same time. At the other extreme, some years they perform sequential solos.  This year the small native cherry tree bloomed first. Last weekend, it was in it's full glory. Then the "kid" joined in for a duet. We are waiting to see when the last, oldest tree, will decide to make its voice heard.

The cherry tree blossoms were accompanied by the vibrant pink  of our plum tree. It usually blooms much earlier sometimes even in February. We actually have pictures from previous years of the blossoms covered in snow.  Between the cherry trees and the plum tree we decided there were enough pink blossoms around for us to have our first hanami 花見 or cherry (cum plum) blossom gazing.

So, our hanami appetizers for the evening are shown below. I served 5 appetizers in a 5 well rectangular plate. All except for the asparagus spears with sesame dressing アスパラの胡麻よごし are store bought. I added two more plates of appetizers rounding out the 5 to 7. My wife chose pink sake cups for both of us to commemorate the cherry blossoms.

The first two dishes are our usual ika-shiokara イカの塩辛 and ika-mentai いか明太子.

For the dishes shown below I blanched the asparagus and served only the tips for this dish. The sesame dressing was made using white sesame paste (from the pouch) and grated roasted sesame seeds, soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar.  On the right is "spicy baby clams" which I bought in a plastic container from our Japanese grocery store. It is sort of Chinese flavor with rings of red "togarashi" red pepper and wakame (the root portion). It was quite good and not too spicy if you avoid the red pepper.

The last dish shown here (on the right) is Chinese-style squid salad which also came in a plastic container. All these small dishes were perfect for sake.

I also served my dashi-maki Japanese omelet だし巻き卵, Campari tomato, blanched broccoli and braised cauliflower.

The last dish is boiled octopus leg thinly sliced with su-miso dressing 酢味噌, thinly sliced and salted  cucumber and topped with "ikura" salmon roe.

These were just enough appetizers to honor the first hanami of the year accompanied by sips of cold sake.

Shumai V2 焼売再挑戦

When I tried to make shumai 焼売 the first time, things did not go well. The skin did not adhere to the meat filling. In an effort to salvage the situation, I ended up converting the shumai into wanton noodle soup. So, this is the second try at making shumai. This time I was more careful to wrap the filling and pinched the sides of the wonton skins. It was a qualified success. I made this as a lunch over the weekend.

The wonton skins adhered much better than in the previous version.

I should still try harder. The top portion was stuck together but toward the bottom was a bit loose.

I served it with rice vinegar with white pepper and soy sauce.

As a side, I served cucumber and tomato  (skinned and  cut Campari tomato) mixed with masago (small hatchlings - which was previously frozen) dressed with sweet vinegar.

I very quickly made the filling with ground pork, chopped ginger, and chopped scallion seasoned with sesame oil, salt and pepper. I just wanted to try making the shumai again; I was challenged to make the wonton skins stick better. I was more careful to press the side to the filling and also let it sit for 10 minutes before steaming hoping the moisture from the filling would permeate the wonton skin.

I also got a new bamboo steamer (#1) with a perforated parchment paper insert(#2) which prevents the steamed items from sticking to the bottom of the steaming tray. With this new contraption, I could space the shumai so that they did not touch and would not stick to each other (#3). I steamed the shumai for 10 minutes and they came out OK. They at least did not stick to the bottom of the tray or each other.

Although I still need to refine the way I form shumai, I'm getting there. Or maybe, I should stick to making gyouza.

Bonito tataki yamakake variation 鰹のタタキ山かけ風

I made this dish from the leftover bonito tataki 鰹のタタキ I served the day before. I first made it into "zuke" (marinated fish) by putting the leftover bonito into a small ziploc bag and adding concentrated noodle soup base  or "mentsuyu" 麺つゆ (from the bottle)  to preserve the tataki. The next day, I made a sort of "Yamakake" 山かけ variation. Classic yamakake is tuna sashimi or zuke mixed with grated nagaimo 長芋.  Here I made small cubes of nagaimo instead of grating it and used bonito tataki instead of tuna.

I dressed this using Ponzu sauce (from the bottle) and garnished with scallion.

Of course, sake is called for here. This is our new house-sake "Tengumai" daiginjo from Ishikawa prefecture 天狗舞純米大吟醸. We first had this in Kanazawa 金沢 (it was "yamahi junmai" 山廃純米). Recently we re-discovered this brand of sake and like it very much. Compared to our other house sake Yaegaki "Mu" daiginjo 八重垣無大吟醸 which is clean and fruity, tengumai has a bit more complexity and depth.

Ingredients (amounts are all arbitrary):
1. Nagaimo, peeled and cut into small cubes (#1).
2. Scallion, finely sliced and soaked in water and then drained (#2).
3. Bonito tataki, marinated in concentrated noodle sauce (from the bottle) overnight and cut into cubes (#3).
4. Mixed together and dressed in Ponzu sauce (from the bottle) ( #4).

This was a nice small dish. My wife liked this version since the nagaimo was nicely crunchy (instead of slimy). The bonito tataki lost any hint of fishiness and had a nice favor and texture. Perfect to have it with a bit of good cold sake.

Bonito tataki carpaccio style 鰹のタタキ、カルパッチョ風

This is a just a variation of "Katsuo-no-tataki"カツオのタタキ or bonito filet with the surface cooked/smoked with a fire fueled by straw. Since we had this frozen bonito in our freezer for sometime, we decided to finally eat it one weekend.  Instead of the usual way of serving, I decide to serve it carpaccio-style. This was inspired by and adapted from a recipe I saw on line. The dressing is garlic infused light olive oil with anchovies. Served with cucumber, tomato, sweet onion, fried garlic chips, lemon zest and lemon juice. The picture below is just one slice with all the garnish.

The picture below shows the serving dish of bonito I arranged to share one evening. This is a bit more than half of the bonito tataki package we opened.

 Here is the package of bonito tataki which was thawed in the refrigerator for over one day. To remove some taste of fishiness, I dried the surface with paper towel and then covered it with a rice vinegar soaked paper towel for 5 minutes.  I sliced it into pieces that were a bit less than half an inch thick.

I assembled the garnish from ingredients I had on hand. I sliced half a sweet onion (Vidalia) and some American mini cucumber.  I kneaded the cucumber with a pinch of salt and let it stand for 5 minutes. Then I wrung out the excess moisture. I added a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar on the bottom of the serving plate and placed the onion and cucumber on top.

I happened have some skinned and prepared Campari tomatoes. So I sliced them and layered the tomato and bonito slices in concentric circle as shown below. I scattered some lemon zest over the top using a micro-grater.

For the sauce, Initially I though about a mixture of balsamic vinegar and soy sauce (which is a similar combination used in the sauce that traditionally accompanies bonito tataki. I also considered a Ponzu sauce, which is a mixture of Japanese Yuzu citrus juice and soy sauce). But taking a cue from the aforementioned recipe on line, I made a mixture of garlic infused oil (the oil left over after the garlic chips were fried and set aside) and anchovy paste (I added to taste).

I drizzled the dressing on top of the bonito and tomatoes then squeezed on some lemon juice, and added the fried garlic chips. We ate the slices of bonito with tomato, cucumber and onion. I had my serving with the garlic chips but my wife avoided them. The bottom onion slices absorbed the balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The sauce was very good too. Surprisingly, unless someone mentioned the sauce contained anchovies, I never would have guessed. The anchovies did give it an added dimension of complexity even though they did not announce their presence.  The combination was quite good and different from our usual way of serving bonito.