Tako rice and Matsutake soup for lunch タコ飯と松茸のお吸い物昼食

 This was a lunch we had one day. We had leftover frozen octopus rice or “Tako meshi” たこめし made from a kit we got from the  Rice factory. Although the original was not bad, the amount of octopus was rather small. Since I made tender simmered octopus タコの柔らか煮 a few days ago, I added slices of octopus legs to the previously made rice. Also we had matsutake mushroom 松茸 from Maine and made clear matsutake soup 松茸のお吸い物. I added a dish of salted vegetable or “asazule” 浅漬け and simmered root vegetables and chicken similar to “Chikuzen-ni” 筑前煮.

I  just microwaved the rice to thaw it then added slices of tender simmered octopus with a small amount of the simmering liquid and further heated it. I also garnished it with fresh “myouga” 茗荷 from our garden. The addition of the simmered octopus made the Tako rice much better than the original.

I made this clear soup from broth made from a dashi pack (kelp and shiitake), with mirin みりん and light colored soy sauce 薄口醤油. I also added shrimp (sunk in the bottom), scallion and flower-shaped “fu” 花麩 gluten cake. I also added frozen zest of yuzu 柚子 citrus. This is a lidded soup bowl and when the lid was opened the subtle but distinctive aroma of matustake and yuzu wafted out. (The aroma of matustake is one of the joys of the matusake season).  I think Maine matsutake appears to have a better aroma than the ones we used to get from Oregon.

The below are basic simmered root vegetables including daikon 大根, carrot 人参, bamboo shoot 筍, shiitake mushroom (I used dried) 椎茸, lotus root 蓮根, kon-nyaku 蒟蒻 and sugar snap スナップ豌豆 (for garnish). This time I also included chicken thigh.

This is my usual “asazuke” 浅漬け. I just made myouga in sweet vinegar 茗荷の甘酢漬け. I thinly sliced and served next to the vegetables.

For a lunch, this was quite good. 

Mackerel hand-shaped sushi 鯖の棒鮨

Shime-saba しめ鯖 is vinegar pickled mackerel and a very popular item in Japan. The best is fresh local “branded” mackerel (such as “Seki-saba” 関鯖) prepared in-house but, nowadays, the risk of Anisakis is rising possibly due to warming of the sea water. (The fresher the mackerel the higher the Anisakis’ risk. In addition, curing the fish in salt and vinegar does not kill the Anisakis but freezing does). We can easily get shime-saba in the U.S. packaged and frozen. Although there are so many varieties of  mackerel, most frozen packages coming from Japan to the U.S. use mackerel from Norway as I understand it. I have posted molded sushi made of shime saba which is called “baterra” バッテラ or “oshizushi” 押し寿司. This type of sushi is famous in the Kansai region 関西. In that post, I said that the classic preparation requires a thinly shaven sheet of kelp called “Shiroita konbu” 白板昆布 placed on top of the fillet of fish. Such a preparation is next to impossible to get here in US. Some days ago, however, I found a package of frozen mackerel with a sheet of kelp already on it in Tako Grill’s frozen case and got it. This must be a new product which became available recently since I saw the identical item at the Japanese grocery store as well as at Catalina Offshore products. 

Instead of using a mold to shape the sushi, I made it freehand which is called “Bou-zushi” 棒鮨 (“bou” means a rod or stick). The picture below shows the “saba-no-bouzushi” 鯖の棒鮨 I served as the ending shime dish one evening. As you can see, the surface of the fish is covered with a layer of thinly shaven kelp.

Ingredients:
One package of frozen vinegar cured mackerel as described above, thawed, tail portion cut and tucked in to make an even width.
Sushi rice (my wife made fresh rice for this).


Directions:
Instead of using oshizushi mold, I formed a log of the sushi rice about the same length and width as the mackerel by hand (you need to wet your hand).
Using a silicon sushi rolling mat (relatively recent acquisition, you could use a regular bamboo mat covered with plastic wrap or wet tea towel), place the mackerel skin or kelp side down.
Place the log of the rice onto the mackerel.
Press the rice lightly against the mackerel and roll the silicon mat (top image in the picture below)
Tighten the mat and also press on both sides of the rice to make the rice and the mackerel form a slightly flattened cylinder and unroll (bottom image in the picture below).

Wet the knife and slice about half inch thick (below).

In this cut surface, you could see bottom rice layer and top mackerel layer and surface kelp layer.

This was a very satisfying dish. The layer of mackerel was very thick, but very tender and well seasoned. My wife really like this and said the ratio of sushi rice to fish was perfect. With the addition of kelp layer, it is authentic and tastes better (I think). Since I did not have to find and soak the mold ahead of time, this method was a bit easier to make.

Salmon cake with rapini サーモンケーキ

 After we switched to grocery home delivery, we realized some of the items were different from the ones available at a physical store. One of them is a whole half filet of salmon with skin on (around 2.5 lbs.) which appears to be only available for home delivery. The price per pound is more reasonable compared to smaller filets available in the store. We like every part of the salmon even the skin particularly when cooked to crispiness.  Interestingly the salmon is not scaled when it arrives. So one of the first things I have to do is to scale it using a handy-dandy Japanese fish scaler. (I guess the grocery store reasons that most customers don’t like the skin. They just remove it and throw it away so why take the time to scale it.)  Another part of this type of fillet that we particularly like is the belly portion which we eat as a small hors d’oeuvre . We also like the main portion of the fillet dried in the fridge for a few days before panfrying it .  (Drying the salmon in the fridge was a technique my mother introduced to us. On one of our visits to Japan my mother offered to cook some salmon she dried with the enticing phrase “Totemo oishi WA” delivered with an emphatic nod of her head. Even my wife knew this meant, “it’s really good” and it was.) Drying the fish obviously removes some of the moisture and in so doing improves the flavor. 

I usually end up with several portions of salmon in irregular shape from both the belly and tail end of the fillet. I remove the skin and and make salmon cakes with these portions. I usually make 4 cakes which are perfect for lunch or snack. This time, I served this as a small dish to go with red wine. I heated up the cakes in a frying pan, added blanched and chopped rapini and made sauce with brown butter and lemon juice. To make it more interesting, I added yuzu-kosho 柚子胡椒 which went remarkably well with this dish.

I followed this with fried shrimp heads  reheated in the toaster oven (this was a part of take out sashimi/sushi combination from Tako Grill the night before)  and the usual simmered root vegetables I make (lotus root, burdock root, carrot, bamboo shoot, and shiitake mushroom (dried). The greens are blanched sugar snap in salt broth.

Salmon cakes

Ingredients: (make 4 small salmon cakes)
150 gram salmon meat, half finely chopped (to hold the cakes together) and another half coarsely chopped (to add texture), amount is variable, whatever I have when preparing the whole half filet of the salmon.
1 small shallot (or onion) finely chopped (#1)
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and deveined, chopped finely (#1, optional)
2 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps finely chopped (optional, this time I did not have fresh shiitake)
2-3 tbs of panko Japanese bread crumbs (#4, adjust the amount based on the consistency of the mixture)
1 tbs mayonnaise (#2)
1 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard (#2)
Lemon juice from half a lemon
1 tbs chopped fresh dill (#2), I use the dill I cleaned and froze)
Olive oil for frying the vegetables and the salmon cakes

Directions:

Sauté the onion, pepper and shiitake mushroom in olive oil, season with salt and pepper, let it cool down before mixing with other ingredients.

Mix the remaining ingredients except for the panko (#3), add panko to adjust the consistency of the cakes (#4).

Make round disks (#5) and cook with olive oil in a frying pan, several minutes on each sides until brown and cooked through (#6).

This is a good dish to have. The leftover cakes can be warmed up in a frying pan or in a toaster oven. You could make some kind of sauce as I did here or just a squeeze of lemon juice. They go great with red wine.

Octopus rice 瀬戸内海蛸めし

 We have been getting Japanese rice from the New York Rice factory. It may be hard to believe (we our selves are somewhat incredulous) that there could be such a difference in something as subtly flavored as rice but the rice from the rice factory is really good. It is hard to identify what sets it apart from the rice we used to get but in general we really like the texture, the taste and especially how well it can be reheated and still tastes like it just came out of the rice cooker.

 Whenever I order rice from the rice factory I usually supplement the order with other items. In the past, we got a kit to make “red snapper rice” or “taimeshi” 鯛めし, a type of seasoned rice famous in the Japanese inland sea area or "seto-naikai" 瀬戸内海.  Another time I ordered a similar seasoned rice kit made with octopus called “seto-naikai tako-meshi” 瀬戸内海蛸めし. After I bought it, however, the kit sat in our pantry for some time. When I checked the expiration date, it had expired the previous month, so I decide it was time to make it as a shime 〆 or ending dish one weekend. The kit came in several pouches; one with seasoning sauce, one with small bits of octopus, one with freeze dried items. It also included a rectangle of kelp. I made the octopus rice according to the instructions. I served it with a side of simmered Japanese root vegetables I had made and salted cucumber, daikon and nappa cabbage or "oshinko" お新香.

 

The octopus was in really small pieces as you can see on the top of the rice in the next picture. I used a one to one mixture of glutinous “mochi” rice 餅米 (called "Hakucho" はくちょう or swan from Hokkaido and regular "uruchi" rice うるち米 called "Yumepirika" ゆめピリカ also from Hokkaido. (These two rice varieties came from the Rice Factory.) 

The simmered vegetables included shiitake 椎茸 (from dried and hydrated), "renkon" レンコン lotus root, "gobou" ごぼう burdock root, carrot, small bamboo shoot "or sasatakenoko" 笹筍 and konnyaku or konjack 蒟蒻.

The next picture shows the modified "oshiko" salted cucumbers and other vegetables I made. I modified the original recipe by increasing the salt from 2% to 3% weight of the ingredients and adding a small amount of Vodka. As a result this dish lasts much longer than when I made the 2% salt version.

This octopus rice was ok but we thought the tai rice 鯛めし was better (the octopus pieces were really  very minuscule). My wife said that the seasoned rice I make including chestnut rice 栗ご飯 and matsutake rice 松茸ご飯 are better and there is no reason to buy seasoned rice kits. In any case, this was a nice "shime" dish.

Happy New Year 2022 明けましておめでとう 2022.

Happy New Year 2022! The pandemic still persists with the Omicron variant making it debut and spreading so quickly just when we thought things were starting to come under control and using a quote from the movie Jaws "it was safe to go back in the water again".  In any case, both my wife and I took all the precautions; being vaccinated and boosted. We sincerely hope we can get past this soon.

This is the year of tiger according to Chinese/Japanese zodiac signs. We thought we had a larger tiger figurine but these are what we had. The two shown below look somewhat like cats rather than tigers.

The one shown here really looks like a tabby cat. It is made of carved wood and is one of a full set of the 12 zodiac figures we got in Kyoto on one of our trips to Japan. This year, I decided not to get "Kagami-mochi" 鏡餅 new years decoration since we generally do not finish the round mochi inside. 

When it comes to traditional Japanese New Year food, we look forward to and revel in the routine (or some may call it a rut) that we've developed over the years. First off is the expectation of the wonderful goodies contained in the Sushi Taro Osechi 寿司太郎お節 on 12/31/21 or "oomisoka" 大晦日 in Japanese.  Picking it up on New Year eve is an excursion we generally look forward to, although it is a bit of an arduous drive going into town and back. It was especially so this year when we discovered various parts of the route were closed to cars that day and only open to bike traffic. But it was worth it. We will be hitting the Osechi box this evening. We established the tradition of having our usual breakfast with cappuccino and the choice of various holiday breads such as stollen or panettone for the first day of the new year or "Gantan" 元旦. Then, for lunch, we have the more traditional Japanese New Year soup or "Ozouni" お雑煮 as well as some of the auspicious foods served for the New Year as shown in the next picture.

The next picture is a close-up assortment of "good luck" foods I served.

Some came from the Osechi box such as the fish cake 紅白蒲鉾 (#3) (since I did not get any red and white fish cakes this year), small fish じゃこの有馬煮 (#1), shrimp 小海老甘露煮 (#2) and black beans 黒豆 (#5). This year I was lucky to be able to get salted herring roe or Kazuniko 数の子 from the grocery section at Tako Grill. The amount was not too much and just right. I prepared kazunoko marinated in sake lee and miso かずのこの粕味噌漬け(#4). I also served salmon kelp rolls 鮭の昆布巻き and the datemaki 伊達巻 New Year's omelet roll (#7) I like to make based on my Mother's recipe. I also served salmon "Russian" marinade 鮭のロシア漬け which again was something special my mother used to make. I made it some days ago, so it had cured enough to eat. I also served simmered root vegetables including the symbolic "renkon" lotus root, "kobo" burdock root, bamboo shoot and carrot (#9).

Now the "ozouni" New Year soup. New Year is the rare occasion when I use this genuine Japanese lacquerware bowl that my mother gave us many many years ago.

Although you can not see it, the "mochi" 餅 rice cake is placed in a deep fried tofu or "abura-age" 油揚げpouch. I usually seal the pouch with a kanpyo 干瓢 (or gourd peel) tie. But in recent years I have not been able to find kanpyo and I used up what I had for the salmon kelp rolls. So this year, I had to improvise by blanching a whole scallion and using that to tie the tofu pouch. Other items in the soup included shrimp (from Great Alaska seafood), chicken tenderloin from some sous vide chicken breast I made, and vegetables including shiitake mushroom, daikon, gobo, and carrot. For the green, I used rapini flower buds. The shrimp was particularly good. I poached them gently in the broth with the shells on for a few minutes, took them out and shelled them before placing them on the top of the soup.

As usual, I served "daikon namasu" 大根なます with "ikra"  salmon roe いくら and a slice of boiled octopus leg 茹蛸.

Another salmon dish is sautéed salmon in sweet vinegar or 鮭の南蛮漬け.

Although this was lunch, no New Year feast is complete without the symbolic libation of sake (Koshi-no-homare hiyaoroshi 越の誉　冷やおろし). We toasted 2022 with one glass each to commemorate the New Year. This was a good New Year lunch covering many good luck foods. Let's hope it portends similar fortune for the rest of the year.

“Shoga-yaki” ginger pork bowl “tei-shoku” lunch 豚の生姜焼き丼定食

A few weeks ago, my wife suggested that it has been quite a while since we had sukiyaki すき焼き and it would be nice to have some. I agreed, but when I went to the Japanese grocery store, I forgot to get the frozen "Sukiyaki meat" すき焼肉. So, the next time I went I was proud of myself for not forgetting the meat. But apparently I picked up the wrong thing. My first clue was when my wife said, “I didn’t know sukiyaki is made with pork, I thought it was beef.” Instead of sukiyaki beef, in my haste I had picked up thinly sliced pork for "shouga-yaki" 生姜焼き. Since this package was next to the "shabu-shabu" シャブシャブ beef, I assumed it was also beef but for sukiyaki. In my enthusiasm I bought not one but two packages of the stuff. All was not lost, however, as I may have mentioned before, in Hokkaido 北海道, where I am originally from, many families use pork instead of beef for sukiyaki as was the case in my family. So, we went ahead and used one of the packs of pork to make sukiyaki. It was not good. The pork was too lean and too thickly cut. It got hard when cooked as sukiyaki. (So note to self: next time when at the Japanese grocery store get appropriate sukiyaki beef). Meanwhile, since I had bought two packages of this pork, I had one package left and it was clear that it would not be used for sukiyaki. So, one weekend I decided to use the pork as originally intended and made “shoga-yaki” ginger pork. Pork shoga-yaki 豚の生姜焼き is a very popular dish in Japan. When I was a college student, coffee shops near the university served lunch in addition to tea and coffee. In addition to  “Western-style” lunches such as sandwiches or spaghetti, most of the coffee shops also served Japanese-style  bento 弁当 or teishoku 定食* and shoga-yaki was among the popular ones. I am sure this has not been changed even now.

*Digression alert: I am sure it is no need to explain “bento” but here it goes anyway. When “bento” is served in restaurant/coffee shop, it is usually a lidded rectangular box which contains the entire meal but unlike pre-packaged bento, the rice and dishes are warm or just made. "Teishuku" (please follow the link for illustrated guide) is the Japanese concept of a "complete" meal or "meal set" which includes a bowl of  rice, soup, tsukemono 漬け物 (pickled or more likely salted vegetables), main dish (protein) and small "kobachi" 小鉢 side dish or bowl. In many "Taishu-shokudo" 大衆食堂 or "public" eateries which serve those who want drinks with food and those who want a complete meal, many different teishoku are available (the main protein dish varies and can be grilled fish, sashimi, or meat etc) but the remaining items, or “sides” such as soup, tuskemono, are usually the same for each available teishoku. The main and side dishes can be had as a single dish without other items (this is great especially if you are just drinking). It could also be "teishoku" for the price of a few more yen. 

So, this is  my rendition of "shoga-yaki" donburi teishoku 生姜焼き丼定食. In this case, the main protein and rice were combined as a donburi.

The main dish shown in the next picture is a bed of rice to which I added pork shouga-yaki with onion, seasoned shiitake mushroom (this was from dried shiitake and seasoned in "ama-kara" 甘辛 or sweet and salty with mirin and soy sauce) and blanched broccoli.

Miso soup is wakame ワカメ sea weed, "abura-age" 油揚げ fried tofu, silken tofu 絹ごし豆腐 and chopped scallion ネギ.

The "Kobachi" side dish was simmered root vegetable including "renkon" lotus root, "gobo" burdock root, "takenoko" bamboo shoot, shiitake mushroom, and "konnyaku" devil's tongue and blanched sugar snap in salt broth.

The tsukemono is cucumber, daikon, nappa cabbage, jalapeño pepper, and ginger (I salted this a bit stronger than I usually do; with salt 3% of the weight of the veggies instead of usual 2% and also added a dash of Vodka which makes it last much longer without changing the taste. (With this preparation it can easily last for at least one week in the refrigerator).

How to make pork shouga-yaki ginger pork (Although I posted "shouga-yaki" over 11 years ago, this time,  I am using a more appropriate, albeit not perfect, cut of meat). I am sure that there are so many variations and preferences and, of course, you could use other meat such as beef but this is what I made.

The essence of this dish is thinly sliced meat sautéed and seasoned sweet soy sauce flavored with ginger. Using lean meat can make tough shouga-yaki and using fatty cuts such as thinly sliced pork belly will prevent that but the traditional cut to be used is "pork roast" meat 豚のロース cut thinly (thin enough but not paper thin).

Ingredients:
Thinly sliced pork, 4-5 slices for one meal size serving (in Japan, specially packaged "shouga-yaki" pork is available widely. The one I got here is a bit too lean, the perfect cut has more fat. I used the entire package which is about 20 slices).

2-3 tsp neutral oil

Onion slices, optional

For marinade:
Mirin, soy sauce, and sake (1:1:1) ratio, enough to marinate the meat plus more to add while cooking.
Grated ginger (amount arbitrary, totally depends on your taste, I used whole grated ginger but you can use just the juice from grated ginger).
Dash of dark sesame oil
(optionally, grated onion).

Directions:
Marinate the meat. The amount of the marinade is enough to cover all meat slices and a bit more (additional 1/4 cup). I marinaded for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
I drained the marinade (the excess marinade reserved) and spread the meat slices on a paper towel to remove excess marinade.
In the non-stick frying pan, add 2 tsp neutral oil on medium flame. 

Add onion slices and cook until soft and somewhat transparent, set aside

Cook the meat slices, spread out without over lapping, in batches. One side 30 seconds and the other side 15 seconds. Do not overcook (the meat will finish cooking when cooked with the marinade later).
Set aside the cooked meat slices.
When all the slices are cooked, add the marinade to the pan (if not enough add more sake, mirin and soy sauce).
Add back the cooked meat with the accumulated juice and the onion .
Quickly cook and coat each slice with the marinade. Take it out and set aside.
Since I was planning to make a doumburi, I added a small amount of water at the end and heated the marinade to make sauce.

Assembly:
Top the rice with the shouga-yaki pork slices (I used 3 slices per bowl).
Pour in the sauce from the frying pan (just slightly moisten and season the rice).
Add any other garnish or topping (such as ginger julienne in vinegar or "benishouga" 紅生姜). I added seasoned shiitake mushrooms and blanched broccoli.

Compared to the sukiyaki we made with this pork, the shouga-yaki came out much better. The meat was tender and well seasoned. Perfect lunch for the weekend.

Raised Buckwheat Blini cooked in a “platar”

After making the blueberry buttermilk pancakes, my wife was leafing through the pancake section of the newer (1997 version) “Joy of Cooking” (JOC) cookbook when she found a reference to something called a “platar”. It was accompanied by a drawing of the device and the description; “a platar is a cast iron flat pan with seven round indentations each about 3 inches wide and 1/2 inch deep especially for making blini or other small pancakes”. A bell went off in her head. She immediately recognized the platar as the cast iron pan that has been floating around with our other cast iron griddles and frying pans for years. (Shown in the picture below.) 

We have had it for so long we are not sure how we acquired it and had no idea how it should be used. We vaguely thought it could be used to make biscuits but after some experimentation years ago we discovered that didn’t work. So it resided, taking up room, at the bottom of the stack of various sized cast iron frying pans in a drawer under the stove. She was absolutely delighted to finally find the purpose of the pan as well as the blini recipe on the next page of the cookbook. So this was our project one weekend.

Digression alert: At one time, we were into caviar and we made blini many times. We already had our platar at that time but obviously we did not know its purpose so we made the blini in a frying pan. By-the-way, we looked up (=Googled) the word “platar” and the only reference we could find was a listing in a forum where somebody who, like us, had read the section about platar in JOC asked what it was. The answers appear to suggest nobody knew. Although we could not find anything with the word “platar”, we did find a cast iron skillet that lookedexactly like our platar at Amazon.It was called “SIMLAY CO. Cast Iron Baking Pan”. The advertisement said it could be used to make many things; muffins, biscuits, eggs. Spoiler alert: We tried that years ago...somewhat less than successful. 

We did not have caviar the weekend we used the platar, but we did have "Ikura" salmon roe so we used that to top the blini. (We do not stock caviar but we do try to keep a supply of "Ikura' in the freezer).  The second picture shows the final (blini, sourcream, egg, ikura) dish with a garnish of chopped chives and marinated strawberries that we served that day for lunch. 

  

We had this with our usual second cup of coffee for the day; "macchiato". (The first cup was cappcino or more like cafe latte). 

I am sure there must be many interpretations of macchiato but our interpretaion is a single shot of espresso topped with 1 tsp. of frothed cream.

As usual my wife made the batter for the pancake and I cooked it. Since I have never used a platar, it was a learning experience. The blini came out better in the later batches. I ask my wife to provide the recipe.

Ingredients:
For Blini (makes about 21 blini)
1 1/2 cup milk
4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) butter
2 tsp. yeast
2/3 cup AP flour
2/3 cup buckwheat flour
2 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 large eggs, lightly beaten

For Blini (recipe X2) (mix in the 6 cup pyrex mixing cup so the batter can be poured rather than scooped into the cooking cups.) 
3 cup milk

8 Tbs. (1 stick) butter
4 tsp. yeast
1 1/3 cup AP flour
1 1/3 cup buckwheat flour
4 Tbs. sugar
2 tsp. salt
6 large eggs, lightly beaten

For topping (everything is to taste and depends on the number of pancakes being served. Also anything can be used. This is just what we came up with.)
sour cream (to taste)
2 eggs, scrambled
1 Tbs. Ikura (salmon eggs) or caviar
Chives finely chopped

Note: Use smallest ladle, Don’t make them too thick.  (Or conversely make them thick enough that they can be cut in half horizontally. That will shorten the cooking time).

Directions:
For the Blini: Melt the butter in the milk. Let it cool to about 105 to 115 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients (yeast through salt) in another bowl. Pour the cooled milk mixture over the dry ingredients mixing until just combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place until doubled in volume (about 1 hour) (#1 in the 3rd group of pictures). Once it has risen either make the pancakes immediately or refridgerate covered for up to 24 hours. (We made the batter after dinner and refridgerated it over night). If refridgerated let it stand at room temperature for 20 minutes (#2). Then deflate the batter and whisk in the  eggs lightly beaten.

Now, I am providing the details of how I cooked blini in the platar. This is for our future reference because this requires some finesse. First, I took out the planar and washed it with hot water (no soap), dried it by heating it on the stove and coated each of the 7 wells with olive oil using a paper towel (#3). I preheated the pan on low flame for 5 minutes then used a small ladle (second smallest ice cream scoop) add the batter, half filling the wells (#4). I continued to cook until the surface of the pancake showed bubbles and looked dry (5-7 minutes). Then came the challenge of flipping them. According to my wife,  the directions in the JOC said flip the pancakes over using a skewer. But that proved entirely too simplistic. After some experimentation I came up with a method of loosening the blini by running the tip of a dinner knife around the perimeter of the well, then inserting the knife tip under the bottom of the blini to pry it loose. Then with the knife under the blini and a bamboo skewer inserted into the top I flipped it (#5). As I repeated the process I got better and could flip the pancake without damaging the side. But I noticed that the 6 wells surrounding the center well had uneven heat and only the outer half got browned (#5). So with the next batch, I released the blini before they were ready to flip and turned them180 degrees in the well then cooked them for a few more minutes before flipping them over. In the next batch, the first side was more evenly browned (#6).  In any case, when all was said and done, we had at least a few perfect blinis (#7= top and #8=bottom).

I topped one of the “perfect” blini (#1) in the 6th set of pictures, with sour cream (#2), scrambled eggs (#3), "Ikura" salmon roe and finely chopped chives harvested from our herb garden (#4). 

 

This is the height of decadence. The blini had a soft thick texture and a very pleasing robust rustic flavor from the combination of buckwheat flour and yeast. The sour cream, eggs and salmon caviar were an excellent combination with complementary creamy texture. The burst of saltiness from the ikura at the end of the bite was a perfect finale. This is how we will be making blini in the future. Next stop crumpets in the platar. 

Matcha green tea tasting 抹茶の飲み比べ

Two years ago I made green tea and black bean cake  using the left-over "kuromame" 黒豆 black beans in syrup that came in the Sushi Taro osechi box. The recipe I used is in English in our blog. This year I commissioned my wife to take over making the green tea cake. Then, she pointed out that we were out of "matcha" 抹茶 green tea powder. I kept it in the freezer and mostly used it for cooking such as making "green tea salt" for tempura and apparently didn’t replace it after using it up. Since we are not physically going to our Japanese grocery store because of covid, I decided to get the green tea on line. Hibiki-an 響庵 is a company we have used in the past to get green tea and we could have gotten matcha from them but it is shipped directly from Japan and would have taken too long to get here. I then found "Matcha Kari" which imports its matcha stock from Japan but is located here so delivery time was much shorter.  I bought a mid-priced tea from them called "First harvest sipping matcha". (According to Mach-kari’s, Hibiki-an’s, and other websites which sell matcha, they offer several grades of matcha which appear to range from lowest quality/lowest price to highest quality/highest price, identified as “culinary”, “sipping”, “ceremonial” and “competition”.) (Disclaimer: I am not sure if there is official grading of matcha and if so what the grades would be). While we were waiting for this to arrive, I happened to see, while picking up a take-out at Tako Grill, that they had the matcha tea brand we used to get from our Japanese grocery store. This was very reasonably priced ($0.28 per gram, while the one from Matcha Kari was ＄1.17 per gram or over 4 times more expensive). I assume that the one from Tako Grill  was not as low-grade as “culinary” matcha  according to the lexicon I outlined but would be at the lower end of  “sipping“ grade. It also came from “Uji” 宇治 near Kyoto 京都. We have gotten regular Uji green tea (sencha 煎茶) from Hibiki-an in the past and it was pretty good. So as far as I was concerned this matcha (left in the picture below) was certainly good enough to make green tea cake. Then, a few days later we received the matcha from "matcha kari".

I have not made or tasted matcha for a long time but since we had two different kinds, we decided to have a tea tasting to see if we could taste a difference. I knew I had matcha bowls and a "chasen" 茶筅 (matcha frothing bamboo whisk) and a bamboo scoop or "chashaku" 茶杓.  The chasen and chashaku were easy to find but it took some search to find the matcha bowls. We have two; one that I brought with me for some reason when I first came to the U.S., and one that was given to us as a gift. Both are rather utilitarian  bowls but will do the job.

I made the two kinds of matcha, (the one from Tako Grill shown on the left and the one from Macha kari shown on the right) and taste tested.

For the sweet “chagashi” 茶菓子 accompanying the matcha I served the last of  the “kurt-kenton” 栗きんとん the mashed sweet potato with chestnuts from the Sushitaro osechi box and green plum I made simmered in syrup 小梅の甘露煮. It is customary to serve such a sweet with matcha to enhance the flavor of the tea. 

First of all, as a disclaimer, we have to acknowledge that we are not connoisseurs of matcha. Nonetheless after carefully sniffing and tasting both matcha we could state, with confidence, that despite quite a difference in price, we could not identify any difference in taste; none. The first thing that came to mind was the Japanese expression “Giving gold coins to a cat” or “neko ni koban 猫に小判” i.e. giving something of value where it can’t be appreciated. Well we did say we weren’t connoisseurs and this may just prove it. In the future, however, we will stick to the more reasonably priced macha.

Sushi Taro Osechi 2021 寿司太郎の御節 2021

We picked up our Sushi Taro Osechi box for 2021 on the last day of 2020. We opened it on the evening of January 1, 2021. I am doing this post just to remind us of all the wonderful items included in the box. Every year there are some changes although many "must-have" items remained the same. The SushiTaro osechi has been the highlight of our New Year celebrations since 2012. Before that I used to make osechi in a 3 layered juubako 重箱.  I had to spend almost the entire week before New Year cooking and the results were no comparison to the Sushi Taro box. In 2010 and 2011, (I apparently had excuses) I only made a few New Year items. On one other occasion, we tried frozen osechi from Kyoto, Japan. It was very expensive and just terrible. So, Sushitaro Osechi is indeed a God-send. Now I only make a few nostalgic items that I ate on New Year as a child. 

This picture is an overview of the upper layer of the Sushi Taro box.

 

The following pictures enumerate the contents of the box. Noteworthy is #1 smoked oyster in olive oil 牡蠣燻製. Large succulent oysters with smoky flavor are excellent and new this year. #2 is a sophisticated version of “daikon namasu” 錦なます. #3 is Kuro-mame  black beans in syrup 黒豆. #4 is grilled small "tai" red snapper 祝鯛姿焼き, #5 steamed sea urchin 蒸し雲丹.  #6 Kazunoko "herring" roe marinaded in miso 数の子味噌漬け.  #7 roasted A5 Wagyu (A5 is the top level wagyu) 和牛ローストビーフwhich is also new this year. Nicely marbled and tender.  #8 Cod roe rolled in kelp 鱈の子昆布巻.  I forgot to put the number but between the wagyu and the tail of snapper are chestnuts "shibukawa-ni" 栗渋皮煮, #9 is smoked salmon rolled in pickled radish スモークサーモン砧巻. #10 is our favorite "karasumi" botarga or sun-dried mullet roe 唐墨.  #11 is small ice fish simmered with sansho pepper 雑魚の有馬煮 (in plastic container) and #12 lily bulb dumpling 百合根まんじゅう which is new this year. Under #5 is red and white "kamaboko" fishcake 紅白蒲鉾,  under the roast beef is soy-marinated egg yolk with walnuts and truffle flavor which is also our favorite 黄身胡桃.  Somewhere under the tai fish is "gobo" burdock root with sesame dressing 叩き牛蒡. One more good dish wrapped in cellophane is hidden under the fish which is “Koji pickled Boston mackerel” 鯖麹漬. This may be also new this year. This reminded me of a Hokkaido dish called “iizushi” 飯寿司 which was made during cold winter fermented using koji/rice, dried herring, and vegetables. This version is using mackerel with crunchy daikon or kabu radish. We both really like it. 

And this is lower box.

#1 is Monkfish liver terrine 鮟肝豆腐, again our favorite, #2 pickled flower-shaped "renkon" lotus root 花輪蓮根、#3 is red and white shrimp dumpling 海老真蒸, #4 cured Spanish mackerel 鰆喜寿し, this is new and great, it is cured (with salt and vinegar, I suppose) but almost taste-like sashimi, no fishy taste and absolutely fantastic. #5 glazed duck 鴨照り煮, #6 caramelized crispy small shrimp 小海老甘露煮, #7 sake-steamed prawn 長寿海老, #8 Yellowtail sushi wrapped with pickled turnip 鰤かぶら寿し, #9 New Year's stewed vegetables (satoimo, carrot, bamboo shoot, shiitake, hana-fu,  snow peas, and "konnyaku", all individually delicately seasoned and cut into decorative shapes), #10 simmered "ayu" sweet fish with roe 子持ちあゆ甘露煮, #11 "Date-maki" New year's omelet 伊達巻 and #12 Burdock root, squid ink coated and stuffed with mustard からし牛蒡. Hiding underneath #1 and #2 is "kurikinton" mushed sweet potato with chestnuts 栗きんとん and underneath #5 is grilled yellowtail marinated in sake lee 鰤酒粕焼き.

　

Everything was carefully prepared and packed. All possible superlative adjectives can not begin to describe how wonderful each dish was.  I do not know how many orders they prepare but I got some glimpse of how much work this is from Chef Kitayama's instagram "chefmasayakitayama" and "togimax". Our only task now is to enjoy all these delicacies, something we are very good at.

Small salted plums カリカリ小梅

We planted a ume fruit 梅 bearing plum tree (prunus mume) about 30 years ago. While ornamental plum trees are quite common, we had to spend some time and effort to find one that bore the plum known in Japanese as ume. (We subsequently found out it is actually an apricot tree and the Japanese green ume is basically an unripe apricot from which plum wine or "umeshu"梅 is made. Standard "Umeboshi" pickled plum 梅干し is made from yellow ripe "ume".) It arrived in the spring in an envelop as a mere twig mailed from a nursery in Oregon. It spent the summer in a flower pot on the deck but in the fall we didn't know what to do with it so in the absence of any other plan we toed it into our vegetable garden never expecting it to survive the winter. To our surprise it not only survived but thrived producing bumper crops and providing us with the basic ingredient to make some mighty fine plum wine. The last bumper crop was in 2008.  Around that time, a fungal disease (black knot galls) started spreading among plum trees in our neighborhood. Many of the beautiful ornamental plum trees lining the street leading to our house became diseased and many subsequently succumbed. Unfortunately, our plum tree did not escape this fungal disease. The branches became deformed, coated in black cankers. It stopped producing fruit. Many of the branches died. In 2012 we had a Japanese master landscaper redo our backyard. As a result, the tree was moved to a different location and the diseased branches were severely pruned back.  It struggled for several years and I had to further prune out the affected branches several times. Frankly, there was not much of it left. We thought this tree was basically lost and even discussed whether we should have it removed. Surprisingly, although it still shows residual signs of the disease, it seems to have overcome the worst of it. It miraculously survived and even started putting out new growth. This year, for the first time since getting sick and since being transplanted, it bore a large number of fruit. One of the branches had so much fruit on it that it broke during a thunderstorm and fell to the ground. The branch is pictured below. 

Although the fruit was still rather small and unripe, we decided to harvest it since the branch was already off the tree. In total, the fruit was over 1kg (Below picture on the left). I knew immediately how I could use the fruit because we happened to watch (for the second time) one of the episodes of "Midnight diner" 深夜食堂 on Netflix. This episode was about "Karikari-koume" カリカリ小梅 which is crunchy small salted plums.

Ingredients:
1kg small green plums (left in the picture below).
100g salt (10% of the plum)
2tbs white liquor (I used vodka instead).

Directions
Cull plums with any blemishes, wash, and soak it in cold water for a few hours (right in the picture below).

Remove the remnant of flower (#1) using a bamboo skewers and dry the plum. 

Put the plums in a Ziploc bag,  add the salt and vodka. 

Remove as much of the air as you can and close the bag. Distribute the salt so that all the plums are coated and make a single layer of the plums (#2 in he picture below) 

I sandwiched the plums in the Ziploc bag between two sheet pans then placed weight (about 1kg, water filled jars) (#3, in the picture below) 

Leave it for 3 days. The color of the plum will change from green to light brown and water will come out (#4 in the picture below).

I moved it to the refrigerator and  after several days, placed the liquid and plums in the glass jar with air-tight lid (I used a small amount of Vodka to "sterilized" the jar before adding the plums)  (left in the picture below). The liquid (called "Umesu" 梅酢) came 2/3 of the jar (right in the picture below).

The recipe I am following said keep it in the refrigerator 3-4 weeks before eating. I had a taste when I moved the plum to the jar. It was salty and "karikari" meaning crunchy in texture but had a slight bitter aftertaste. Hope this will disappear in a few weeks. We will let you how it goes.

No Knead English muffin イングリィシュマフィン

We were offered a digital baking cookbook from Washington Post by email to use during the covid-19 stay-at-home period. (We subscribe to the digital version of WP having given up on the paper version many years ago). One of the recipes in the cookbook was for no knead English muffin, and it piqued our interest. I used to make English muffins and even have metal rings in which to bake them. But the dough was so sticky just getting a portion of it into the rings was a struggle.  My wife, started baking English muffin bread so I stopped making English muffins.  Even so, getting the dough into the loaf pans requires a pair of scissors and some finesse. This recipe, however, sounded interesting and also looked easier to make despite taking a long time for the dough to rise. The picture below shows the final product toasted and buttered after my wife carefully separated the muffin into two halves using a fork.

Digression alert: according to my wife this fork method, which she learned eating many English muffins as a child, is "de rigueur" for cutting them into halves. It's done by inserting the tines of a fork from the edge of the muffin toward the center multiple times around the entire perimeter. Once this is done it easily pulls apart with just a gentle tug.  As you can see from the picture it works pretty well. The two halves remain intact and the nice nooks and crannies are preserved. The original recipe calls for pulling them apart by inserting your thumbs and pulling with your fingers...needless to say, my wife quickly vetoed that method after she saw the mangled mess that resulted from my attempt to implement it. 

Ingredients:
2 cups  bread flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1⁄4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1⁄2 cups cold milk (any percentage)
1⁄4 cup honey
1 large egg white, cold

1 cup fine cornmeal, for dusting
2 tablespoons or more unsalted butter for cooking

Directions:
Mix together the dry ingredients and then add the wet ingredients, mix well with a spatula until smooth but sticky dough forms (#1). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for 4-5 hours in warm place. Dust a rimmed cookie sheet with the corn meal and drop on scoops of the dough using a large spoon (#2). Dust the surface of the dough with additional cornmeal and cover with a plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for 12 hours (we did this over night). The dough spread out so each dollop was almost touching each other (#3). Heat up a large cast iron skillet on medium low flame and when it is hot, add the butter (#4). Using a spatula, put the dough portions into the skillet (#5) and cook 6-7 minutes turning the dough 180 degrees half-way through cooking to get an even browning (our first batch was a bit over browned). Flip the muffins over and cook the other side (#6). My wife inserted a bamboo skewer from the side to the center to make sure the muffin was cooked. We put the cooked muffin in the wire rack to cool.

These muffins were our combined effort. The next morning, we cooked up the muffins and they were great. Although it takes time to prepare the dough, it is much easier to make than what I went through before. The addition of the whole wheat flour made it much better than just making it with white flour. The whole wheat flavor really came through with a mild nuttiness. Also, the butter became richly browned and added another wonderful taste dimension. We will make these again for sure. We can improve these in two ways; 1. reducing the salt in half (above we reduce to 2 tsp)--it tasted too salty to us and 2. Use lower heat to cook the muffin. The heat was too high and especially the first batch- came out too brown. Making the English muffin reminded us of naan we made which was also very good. Maybe we should make that again.