Black bean pumpkin gyoza 黒豆かぼちゃ餃子

My wife wanted a seasonal quesadilla which is composed of pumpkin puree, black beans, cheese, and roasted pork. After enjoying the quesadilla as a lunch, a good amount of the filling remained.  My wife suggested we use it to make gyoza. It sounded a bit like an odd combination for gyoza but I have seen a recipe for gyoza stuffed with potato salad so I complied. I added more finely chopped BBQed pork . Since we ended up with quite a good number of gyoza, we realized we couldn’t possibly eat them all before they went bad so we decided to freeze some. Then the next question was how? In the past I made up some gyoza and without any additional preparation froze them. The shells became brittle and shattered apart. So we decided some degree of preparation was required to keep that from happening again. So I boiled them first and froze a number of them that way. Then we realized that we would have to fry them before serving. So we got the (brilliant) idea that if we boiled, fried and then froze them, all we would have to do is toaster-oven them (the verb form of noun toaster oven) without thawing and then serve. In any case, the pre-boiled gyoza were fried in a small amount of peanut and sesame oil to produce nice brown crispy shells, frozen than toasted in the toaster-oven as shown below. (Easy-peasy). 

You can see, on the cut surface, small cubes of pork, black beans and pumpkin puree. It is not typical gyoza flavors but it worked. 

We have two frozen batches; one boiled but not fried and the other boiled and fried. Any bets on which batch gets eaten first?

“Canned mackerel and hanpen” Satsuma-age like fish cake 鯖缶とはんぺんの薩摩揚げ

Canned mackerel or “saba-kan” 鯖缶 is a very popular canned fish item in Japan and is readily available in the U.S. Upon inspection, of the canned mackerel in our pantry, I realized that the “Best used by” date had just passed on one of the cans. (I thought canned food lasted forever but that is apparently not the case). I needed to use this can fast and I then saw a perfect  recipe of fried fishcake on the Japanese website I follow using canned mackerel and “Hanpen” fishcake はんぺん.  This type of fishcake is called “Satsuma-age” さつま揚げ, which is a very common dish served grilled in Izakaya. Although I attempted to make Satusma-age from scratch, it was not quite authentic due to the lack of appropriate kinds of fish. The current version is interesting because instead of using ground fish meat “surimi” すり身 which is the authentic way to make Satuma-age this recipe used a mixture of canned mackerel and hanpen.  I served this with the usual grated ginger and soy sauce. It does not have the texture of authentic Sastuma-age but this was good; crispy outside and tender inside with the firmer texture of edamame and carrot. It all worked. The inclusion of ginger and deep frying toned down the otherwise strong flavor of the mackerel. This is a perfect dish with sake.

Ingredients:
One can of boiled (Mizu-ni 水煮) mackerel (190 grams with the liquid, about 150 grams fish meat), drained and crumbled
2 hanpen steamed fish cakes, frozen, thawed (240 grams), cut into small pieces.
1 tbs potato starch
1 tsp sugar
30 grams julienned carrot(1/3 of medium carrot), boiled or microwaved for 30 seconds
60 grams cooked and shelled edamame
1/2 tsp grated ginger

Peanut oil for shallow frying

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients until completely incorporated (The original recipe placed everything in a plastic bag and hand massaged it to make the dough, I did not have the patience to do that so I used an immersion blender, #1).
Mix in the edamame and carrot and make flat ovals (I made 8) (#2)
Add the oil to the frying pan to the depth of 5mm and heat to around 350F and shallow fry for 3 minutes (#3)
Turn over and fry the other side for 3 minutes (#4)
Drain and serve immediately (or once refrigerated, toaster-oven to warm).

This is not Satsuma-age but it is a nice fishcake and we really like it. Since the ingredients (hanpen and canned mackerel) are easy to get, this is a good and easy dish to make.

Tuna, avocado and nagaimo cubes まぐろ、アボカドと長芋の角切り

One evening, we defrosted Chutoto bluefin tuna まぐろの中トロ from Great-Alaska-Seafood. I divided it into 4 parts thinking that I will make 4 different dishes. I served one part of it as straight sashimi, and second part as imitation negitoro 擬制ネギトロ. I made the third part as “zuke” marinated slices of tuna 漬けマグロ.  I planned to make the 4th part to our usual Yamakake 山かけ but we had freshly cooked rice, so instead, we went for a small tuna donburi using the marinated tuna sashimi or “Zuke”  漬け鮪丼. This was quite filling and we decided to keep the tuna prepared for Yamakake for the next day. This was cubes of tuna marinated in x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (short-cut version of “Zuke”).  Next day, instead of making Yamakake, I came up with this hybrid of Yamakake and tuna avocado cubes マグロとアボカドの角切. This turned out to be quite good with similar soft consistency of tuna and ripe avocado and crunchy refreshing cubes of nagaimo 長芋.

Ingredients:
Tuna Sashimi, 1/4 block, cut into small cubes and marinated in x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (few hours but in this case 24 hours).
Half ripe avocado, cut into similar sized small cubes and dressed with lemon juice to prevent discoloration.
I inch nagaimo, peeled and cut into small cubes
One clove of garlic finely chopped
two scallion, finely chopped

Dressing:
1/2 tsp dark sesame oil
1 tbs soy sauce with dissolved wasabi
I topped with dried nori strips.

This was a quite good appetizer with cold sake.

Ikura and smoke salmon appetizer イクラと冷製スモークサーモン前菜

 We have been getting keta-slamon roe “Ikura” from Vital Choice. The available packages vary in size; sometimes only a tray of one kilograms is available and other time 6oz jars. In any case, we like keta-salmon roe the best among other trout and salmon roes. Our most common way to serve ikura is on blini with cream cheese and smoked salmon. This time, only small amount of ikura was left, so we made cream cheese wrapped with smoked salmon topped with ikura placed on a slice of cucumber.

This had most of the flavor and mouth feel of the blini. (Can’t beat the lovely salty burst of the salmon roe). But the cucumber was much less filling than one with blini.

Cranberry tassie (mini-pie) クランベリーミニパイ

This is another one of the mini-pies or tassies my wife likes to make. Since the holiday season is upon us, we got fresh cranberries and I made my usual “figgy cranberry” sauce. My wife saw this and asked if she could use some for the tassie. I agreed but once she measured out the amount she needed I found I was left with a basically empty bowl and I had no choice but to make another batch. According to my wife, the original recipe was rather too simple calling for just finely chopped fresh cranberries with sugar. She thought this figgy cranberry sauce was much better. (So I decided the empty bowl was worth it.) She also added the crumble topping. The combination really worked. This is a wonderful small two bite dessert. The flavors are complex; slightly tangy and sweet cranberry with a fig aftertaste. As was the case  with the pumpkin tassie, this is a perfect small dessert for Thanksgiving and Xmas. We really like it.

Ingredients: (make 24)
For the crust
8 tablespoons (4 ounces/120 grams) unsalted butter, softened, but still cool to the touch
3 ounces (80 grams) cream cheese, softened, but still cool to the touch
1 cup plus 2 tablespoon (140 grams) all-purpose flour

For the topping:
1/2 cup (62.g) AP flour
6 Tbs. sugar (1/4 cup + 2 Tbs.)
1/4 tsp. salt
4 Tbs. (60 g) butter

For the filling:
2 cups of the figgy cranberry sauce*
2 eggs

*To make the figgy cranberry sauce: (#1)Frozen or fresh cranberries (12oz bag) (Do not thaw if you are using frozen).
Dried figs, coarsely chopped (1 cup)
Sugar 1/2 cup
White wine 3/4 cup
Orange peel, 2 long strips without pith
Salt, a pinch
Orange flavored liquor (I used triple sec), 2 tbs

1. Soak the figs in hot water for 20 minutes.
2. In a sauce pan, add the wine and sugar on medium flame. Once it starts to boil reduce the heat and mix to dissolve the sugar.
3.Add, the cranberries, drained figs, orange peel and cook for 10 -15 minutes stirring occasionally until the sauce thickens.
4. Cut the flame and add a pinch of salt and the orange liquor and mix.

Directions:(If you have read the other tassie recipes you may have “an acute sense of Deja Vu all over again” in reading this one).

To make the crust: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat together the butter and cream cheese until smooth, about 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and add the flour. On low speed, mix until no streaks remain and the dough starts to come together, about 1 minute. Scrape any stray dough from the sides of the bowl, gather into a ball and flatten into a smooth rectangle or disc.

Cut the cold dough into 24 equal pieces. I did this by dividing the total weight of the dough by 24 to get the gram weight of each piece. (It came out to about 14 grams per piece). Make a small ball out of the dough, put it in the cup then using your thumb push down on the center of the ball forcing a depression in the center and the displaced dough up the sides of the cup. Use your thumb and fingers to further spread the dough up the sides of the cup. There is enough butter in the recipe that the papers were not necessary. Refrigerate uncovered, while making the filling.

To make the topping:
Mix all the ingredients together using your fingers until they form small pea sized clumps (#2). Set aside

For the filling: Add two eggs to 2 cups of the figgy sauce.

To assemble:
Scoop the figgy cranberry sauce into the pastry shells (#3). (I used the smallest ice cream scoop to fill the cups about 3/4 full.) Top each cup with the topping (#4 & #5) Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 15 to 20 minutes until the crumble and crust are golden brown (#6). Cool completely before removing from the pan.

These are a great seasonal two bite dessert. The flavor is surprisingly complex. The sharp freshness of the cranberries is followed by a lingering flavor of the figs combined with the yuzu orange rind and triple sec liquor. The pie crust and crumble top add two separate crunch dimensions. The crust is firmer than the crumble with a predominant butter/cream cheese flavor while the crumble is softer and much sweet further offsetting the tartness of the cranberries.

Pumpkin tassie (mini-pie) パンプキンミニパイ

 This is another example of a small bite tassie (pie) my wife made. This time it was a type of pumpkin pie (in keeping with the Thanksgiving holiday season) and  more of a dessert than an appetizer. She served this two ways. One was topped with cream cheese and toasted (grilled) (left) and the other as is. The pumpkin filling has all the seasoning of pumpkin pie, so this tasted like one bite pumpkin pie. The cream cheese butter crust added a nice crunch. The browned cream cheese topping definitely made it better.

Ingredients: (makes 24)
For crust:
8 Tbs. Butter
80 g Cream cheese
140 g AP flour

For the filling:
2 large eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 Tbs. Evaporated milk
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
(2 tsp. Of pumpkin pie spice could also be used instead of the cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg)

For topping
Small slice of cream cheese

Directions:
In a stand mixer with a paddle beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth, about 2 minutes. Stop the mixer and add the flour. On low speed, mix until no streaks remain and the dough starts to come together, about 1 minute. Scrape any stray dough from the sides of the bowl, gather into a ball and flatten into a smooth rectangle or disc.

Cut the cold dough into 24 equal pieces, (I did this by dividing the total weight of the dough by 24 to get the gram weight of each piece. That way they would at least be somewhat equal). Using your fingers, evenly press each piece into the bottom and up the sides of the 24 mini muffin cups, making sure there are no holes. I found the best way to get the dough into the cups was to make a small ball out of the dough, put it in the cup then using my thumb push down on the center of the ball forcing a depression in the center and the displaced dough up the sides of the cup. Then using my thumb and fingers spread the dough evenly up the sides of the cup. (First picture below). There is enough butter in the dough that the cups don’t need to be greased or paper cups don’t have to be used. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (I refrigerated over night).

For the filling if using canned pumpkin cook it in a sauce pan for several minutes until it turns darker in color and pulls away from the sides. (This helps remove the canned taste, moisture and concentrates the flavor). Let the pumpkin cool than mix in all the remaining ingredients together. It will look like the picture below. Scoop the filling into the prepared crust cups. (I used the smallest ice cream scoop). Cook in a 350 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes until the crusts are golden brown and the filling has set. 

These are wonderful mini pumpkin pies which bear all the flavor of the fall season. They are good just eaten plain or topped with a small piece of cream cheese. They are best when toaster-ovened until the cream cheese becomes soft and develops caramelized spots.

Daikon and Cheese dressed in umeboshi 大根とチーズの梅肉和え

I saw this dish on one of the YouTube episodes by the first Iron chef Japanese Rokusabuto Michiba 道場六三郎. Although he is now 91 he has a YouTube channel. In that episode, he oversaw the production of ultimate sake and, while visiting the brewery, made two dishes that go well with sake. This one is very simple and I had all ingredients so I decided to make it. This is essentially cubes of daikon and cheese dressed in salted “Umeboshi” sauce. I served it with cold sake and it surprisingly went very well.  

Ingredients:
Daikon, peeled and cut into small (5mm) cubes, amount arbitrary
Cheese (I used smoked gouda) cut into small (5mm) cubes, amount arbitrary
Two umeboshi, fresh (“bainiku” 梅肉) and skin removed and cut into paste, add a small mount of sugar (I sometimes add mirin but Michiba-san suggested to add sugar.

Directions:
Simply dress the cubes of cheese and daikon.

I kept this in the fridge for a few hours. This was a very simple dish to make and as Michiba-san suggested it went well with cold sake.