Kelp caviar 昆布キャビア

Many years ago, we came across a "vegetarian" caviar. This was produced by a now-defunct company in the Los Angeles area and, If I remember correctly, was invented by a cardiologist. I am not sure what it was made of (probably seaweed like the current version we are showing here). We were rather impressed with the similarity in appearance and texture to real caviar. When we ordered caviar last time (from finecaviar.com), I noticed they also had "Kelp" caviar and ordered some along with other items. We served the kelp caviar on homemade blini, with homemade creme fraiche garnished with the green part of scallion (we did not have any chives).



This kelp caviar came in a 3.5 oz glass jar. This is said to emulate the appearance and taste of sturgeon caviar.



When I opened it, I noticed it had more liquid than real caviar or the previous vegetarian caviar we had.



I drained the kelp caviar in a fine meshed strainer as seen below. After which it looked more like sturgeon caviar. By itself, it tasted like kelp (of course this is made of kelp) and lacked the good "pop" mouth feel of real caviar.



However, when this was placed on top of the blini with creme fraiche (see the first picture), the kelp caviar tasted more like real caviar. This was certainly not bad for fake caviar and will be very handy if you have vegetarian guests. Apparently other vegetarian caviar products are also available. Although we must say we prefer real fish eggs and caviar, these vegetarian caviars are cheaper, available year round, keep longer, and taste better than you think. I got the idea for a future dish; serving salted kelp 塩昆布 on blini and creme fraiche which may taste similar to caviar although the texture maybe off.

Caviar on Blini キャビアとビリニパンケーキ

When I order sashimi from Catalina Offshore Products, I try to make the purchase worth more than the shipping. It is usually not difficult especially if I add a few trays of uni. The last time, however, they were out of uni. As a new item, they did have American sturgeon caviar (farm raised in California) and I ordered it.

To make the caviar experience authentic, we served the caviar with sour cream on blini pancakes which we made for the occasion.


At one time, in the past, we were curious to find out what all the hype was about caviar. So we had several caviar tasting parties with our good friends to try different kinds. As a legacy of those good times we had the special caviar serving dish shown below. It was given to us by our fellow tasters and was quietly tarnishing in the cupboard since it has been quite some time since we used it. My wife found it, polished it up and used it to serve the caviar.

As you can see in the picture, unfortunately, the amount of the caviar was ridiculously minuscule. Yes, the entire contents of the package are on display there at the bottom of the serving dish. I should have checked the specifications more carefully. I don’t know what I expected (probably something closer to an ounce) but it certainly not just the 10 grams (0.35oz) we received. This is by far the smallest tin of caviar I have ever seen. For a similar or slightly higher price per unit, we could have gotten genuine Russian Beluga.



In any case, to make the blini, I followed the recipe by Emeril Lagasse. I am familiar with the method of using both yeast and baking powder to leaven bread but his recipe used yeast and then whipped egg whites. As usual, my wife made the batter following the recipe and I cooked the pancakes (with my left hand since I was still recovering from my surgery on my right hand).

Batter:
1 package (1/4-ounce) dry active yeast
3 cups milk, warm to 110 degrees F

1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature

2 egg yolks, beaten

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup buckwheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 egg whites, at room temperature and beaten until stiff

1/4 cup butter, for cooking

The only modification we made to the original recipe was to let the dry yeast proof. We did this by adding it to a small amount of  warm (110F) water with a pinch of sugar, letting it stand undisturbed for 10 minutes to make sure it was vigorously bubbling. Then we added the mixture to the milk and butter mixture, mixed in the egg yolks, flour, and folded in the stiff-peak whipped egg whites. I checked the consistency and added more water to make the batter loose enough to spread as shown below into just over 2 inch pancakes. (I found that I usually have to adjust the consistency of pancake batter to get it right, regardless of the recipe I use).



After 1 to 1 and half minutes on medium low heat, I flipped the pancakes and cooked them for another minute.


For libation, we opened a good California sparkling wine Mumm Napa "DVX" 2001. This is a good clear sparkling wine with some depth; green apple, melon and hint of yeast or bread-like flavor and fine bubbles. (The other picture shows the caviar package).



Although the taste of the American sturgeon caviar was very good and went perfectly with the blini, sour cream and the sparkling wine, it was a cruel tease. There was only enough for 4 very small servings if we stretched it. That was just enough to ignite our dormant appetite for caviar. My wife immediately pronounced that we had to go get some more. Since the blini batter made close to 3 dozen pancakes foraging for more caviar seems justified. The additional supplies, however, will have to come from some other source.

Caviar and blinis キャビアとビリニ

At one time, we were into caviar including "fake" caviar made from kelp and other ingredients. But after all our experimentation, we decided caviar was not worth it. We rather prefer salmon caviar (or "Ikura") and other fish roe. But the occasion called for caviar and champagne this time, so I got Israeli Osetra caviar from a local gourmet grocery store. We decided to make blinis as the caviar delivery system. My wife dug into her recipe box and found this recipe. We tried several blinis recipes when we were in our caviar tasting mode and decided this was the best among them. We used sour cream. (We were not prepared to make creme fraiche) and garnished with chopped chives.

Certainly, the combination of caviar, blinis, sour cream and chive was perfect. We did not have a particularly special champagne and opened Champagne Philippe Prié Brut Tradition which was pretty good.

The below was the entire setup. We even took out our caviar server (on the lower left).

This is the 1 oz (30grams) we got.

The blinis were good but a bit denser than we expected.

Ingredients:
3 cup milk, warm to 110 degrees
1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature
2 egg yolks, beaten
3 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites, at room temperature and beaten until stiff
1/4 cup butter, for cooking

Directions:
In a bowl dissolve the yeast in the milk. Stir in the butter. Cover and allow to sit for 10 minutes.
Stir in the egg yolks.
Sift together the flours and salt. Slowly stir into the yeast mixture. Mix well.
Fold in the egg whites and mix thoroughly. If necessary add some more milk to get the right "pancake" consistency.
Preheat griddle over medium heat and melt some of the butter. Drop the batter, a tablespoon at a time onto the griddle a couple of inches apart. Cook until the cakes are lightly golden on both sides, about 1 1/2 minutes on each side. Repeat until all the butter and batter are used up. Drain the cakes on paper towels. Sprinkle with the salt and serve warm with caviar and creme fraiche.

As a special treat this was very good. Next time we may add more milk as necessary to get a thinner consistency. Its astounding how fast 1 oz of caviar can disappear!

Decadent breakfast with caviar, scrambled egg and creme fraiche キャビアと卵の豪華版朝食

Caviar is  not an "Izakaya" item but we tend to get carried away sometimes. Since the last time we had real Beluga caviar was ions ago, we decided to get both American Sturgeon as well as Beluga for a taste comparison and to refresh our memories. As before we got these from Fine Caviar.

This is American sturgeon. According to the fine caviar web site;

"Hackleback Sturgeon - (Scaphiryhnchus platoryhnchus) is indigenous to the Missouri and Mississippi River systems"



So this one is from wild-caught sturgeon. As you can see the grain of the caviar is fine and the color is black. The flavor is very subtle but not fishy with a nice salinity. The crunch and pop are great.

This is imported Beluga caviar which appears to come from "farm raised" sturgeons in "Eastern Asia" (which ever country that may be). Again quoting form the website;

"The eggs of the Huso Dauricus Sturgeon are raised in advanced farms located in Eastern Asia."



As you can see the grain of the caviar is much larger and the color is gray. In terms of the flavor, the difference is very subtle. We are not sophisticated enough to say one is better than the other or Beluga is worth the extra expense.



In any case, here is Beluga caviar on blini, with homemade creme fraishe and chives, which was wonderful.



Next morning, we decided to go past just a scrambled egg breakfast. So we put the eggs on blini and added American Sturgeon caviar.



Fish eggs for breakfast may not be everybody's idea of a good breakfast but this combination was quite good and luxurious, at least, to us.

I think we had enough caviar to last us for a while.

Blini with sour cream and olive ビリニのサワークリムとオリーブ乗せ

After our recent “mini bite” of American Sturgeon caviar from Catalina, we found ourselves with nearly 3 dozen leftover blinis. While the experience evoked a strong desire to rush out and procure some more caviar to go with the blinis that was not possible. As an alternative my wife came up with the idea a “vegetarian” caviar made from black (oil cured) and green olive tepanade. You may wonder, as I did, what the thought connection was here but she explained that she was building on the taste combination of blini, sour cream and saltiness that is characteristic of caviar and blinis. In the past, we have had "fake" or "vegetarian" caviar* which was not too bad so we decided to try it.


I simply chopped up a mixture of green and black oil cured olives after removing the stones. As we did with the caviar, we heated up the blini and let it cool a little to prevent the sour cream from melting. Then I layered the sour cream (creme fraiche would have been better. Home-made creme fraiche is for another post) and added the olives.

This turned out to be really good. If it is not exactly like real caviar it is at least reminiscent of it. The saltiness and flavor of the olives really goes well with the blini and sour cream. We tried this with sake and it went remarkably well.

*Many years ago, a company in Glendale, CA made vegetarian caviar (from seaweed, I think) and we got it a few times but the company went out of business. I have seen "vegetarian" caviar advertised on some caviar selling websites. It appears to be same or a very similar item. We may try this in the near future.

American Sturgeon caviar and homemade Creme Fraiche アメリカ産のキャビアと自家製クレムフレッシュ

The last time we got American sturgeon caviar from Catalina, it was such a small amount we had to send out for additional “relief” supplies. Finally they arrived and are shown below.


The above tin is 2oz (57grams) of American sturgeon caviar from "Fine caviar". Compared to what I previously got from Catalina Offshore products (0.35oz or 10grams!!), the price for 2oz tin is nearly identical to the 0.35oz tin and the quality is equally as good (at least to us). Keep in mind the amount is almost 6 times more for about the same price! This is indeed a good size tin for the two of us to enjoy some caviar. We defrosted several of the blinis we made before and enjoyed the caviar with home-made creme fraiche. Previously we could not get creme fraiche* so we substituted sour cream*. This time we were not going to let a small obstacle such as no creme fraiche at the grocery store stop us. So we made our own(see below). We also added chopped chives as garnish. Finally, we could sit down and savor the joy of caviar to its fullest extent—mission accomplished.



Since we were ordering the caviar, we also got "Golden Pike" caviar.



To be honest, we prefer Japanese "Tobiko" トビコ or "Masago" まさご roe (flying fish and capelin roe, respectively) over this golden pike roe. This roe has a slight slimy texture and not much flavor bedside some fishiness.

We also got "Ikura" イクラ (salmon roe) in a small jar from the same source but it looked slightly cloudy. Again we prefer the Japanese-style ikura we get from Catalina or the Japanese grocery store.

*Creme fraiche vs sour cream:
We like creme fraiche over sour cream (both are commercial products) because the creme fraiche has a more delicate taste and better texture. We thought creme fraiche and sour cream both were heavy cream with lactobacillus fermentation and did not know the difference. It appears that commercially-made sour cream may not be "fermented" at all but made with the addition of thickening agents and acids to heavy cream. We also learned that when adding to a sauce, sour cream breaks easily but creme fraiche does not. We have yet to test this statement in practice.

In any case, we knew it was supposedly easy to make creme fraiche at home and discovered that it was indeed easy.

How to make creme fraiche or (home-made or real) sour cream:
We added buttermilk (2 tbs) to cream (1 cup) and let it sit on the counter at room temperature for 1-2 days in a loosely covered sealable container (the time will depend on the temperature—it was fairly cold when we made it). After the desired thickness was reached, mix well, seal the container and refrigerate. That is it. We tried it with "light" (fat 18-30%) cream as well as "Heavy whipping" (fat 36%) cream. Both worked well but we probably liked the one made with light cream because it had a lighter taste and mouth feel. Instead of buttermilk, we could have used yogurt. But we have not tried that method yet. Our homemade creme fraiche is very good--better than the creme fraiche or sour cream we bought at the store. Come to think of it after this we won’t be buying any more at the store.

Eggplant caviar 茄子のキャビア

Every time I see a good eggplant, I can not resist getting it. I saw some nice looking small Italian eggplants at the grocery store and bought two. Since I occasionally forget what I bought and find the liquefied remnants later in the fridge, my wife kept the eggplants out on the counter for me to cook that evening (translation: immediately!). After I considered making my usual suspects, I realized I have not blogged this dish and decided to make it. I first saw this in one of the Silver palate cookbooks many years ago and made it several times since then but not recently. My recipe is loosely based on the recipe from the book. This time I did not check the original recipe and made it from memory. As usual, I made some of my own contributions (read modifications) to the dish. Why is this called "caviar"? I am not sure. But the seeds of eggplants may look like "caviar" with some, no, lots of  imagination. Japanese have "tonburi" とんぶり, a type of grass seeds prepared a specific way, which is sometimes called a "land" caviar and is more similar in appearance and texture (not taste) to real caviar than this dish.

 The amount is an appetizer for two.

Eggplant: I used two small Italian eggplants. I pricked the skin with the tines of a fork so that it will not explode during baking. (A digression: One time I was barbecuing small Japanese eggplants and did not think to prick the skins. I put them in a very hot weber grill with the lid on. My wife and I sat back with a nice glass of wine to relax and wait for things to cook when suddenly there was a very loud "whumph" from inside the grill followed by a large puff of ash out the bottom. I jumped up and removed the lid...there was absolutely no trace of the eggplants. They had exploded so violently there was nothing left; not even bits plastered on the lid. Lesson learned: prick the eggplant.) Back to the recipe: I baked the eggplant for about 15 minutes in a preheated 450F toaster oven turning once half way through the time. The eggplant should be totally soft, otherwise bitter taste may remain. I suppose you could microwave the eggplants as well. I let it cool down and removed the stem end and skin. I cut it in thin strips lengthwise and cut into small dice but I do not like to totally mash it.

I finely diced one small shallot, zest (using a micrograter) and juice of half a lemon, a few sprigs of chopped parsley (or other fresh herbs such as fresh basil if available). I mixed this into the eggplant above and season it with salt, pepper and a good olive oil (2-3 tbs). I tasted it and I thought that pine nuts would go well with this dish. So I dry roasted pine nuts (2 tbs) in a dry frying pan and mixed in (optional).

I let it sit for 10-15 minutes before serving so that the tastes amalgamate and the shallot become less sharp. I served this with more olive oil on the top. Thinly sliced small baguette rounds or good crackers will be good with this. We had this with crackers. The nice soft texture of the eggplant, the fresh taste of the lemon (especially the zest) and parsley all worked together. My addition of roasted pine nuts added richness and some different texture.

This is fairly easy to make but tastes really good. Some fruity white wines will go well with this but, as usual, we drank a red.

P.S. In view of the catastrophic tragedy in Tohoku-Sendai area, we offer our sympathy and support for the survivors. All my family and the friends we contacted are Ok but our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were not as fortunate. We were in the Sendai, Matsushima and Kinkazan areas in 2006, which makes watching these images and videos much more difficult.

Savory Japanese egg custard with eggs, eggs, and more eggs ウズラの卵，ウニ，イクラ、カマスの卵のせ茶碗蒸し

Finally my right hand is out of the cast. While the recovery is slow, the strength is coming back and I started cooking again. (my wife was more than happy to turn over the set of cooking knives and all that they entail). To celebrate the fact that I can once again hold a knife and cut sashimi, I ordered blue fine tuna, yellow tail (hamachi) sashimi, and uni from Catalina. In addition, we had some left over caviar from Fine Caviar. We decided to indulge and make a few dishes that would go well with sake. The first one was a Japanese savory (not sweet) egg custard (Chawanmushi 茶碗蒸し) which contained boiled quail eggs and was topped with salmon eggs and golden pike eggs (caviar) and uni.



The chawanmush was served at room temperature (so as not to “cook” the caviar) and garnished with chopped chive and my usual "real" wasabi.



I made the chawanmushi in the same way as before. I mixed 3 eggs (about 150ml) and 450ml of kelp dashi broth seasoned with light-colored soy sauce or usukuchi shoyu 薄口醤油, salt, and mirin みりん. I poured this through a fine-meshed strainer into individual small bowls. Since I was planning to top it with uni and salmon roe, I did not put in any meat or shrimp but just Ginko nuts (銀杏), (from a can), chopped scallion, and fresh shiitake mushroom (sliced) and boiled quail eggs (ウズラの卵, cut in half, from a can) as seen below.



The amount of egg mixture made 6 small containers (actually soba dipping cups). I steamed them rather slowly using an electric wok for 30 minutes until the custard was set. I removed them from the steamer covered them loosely with a paper towel, and let them cool to room temperature. Except for the two we planned to eat in a few hours, I covered the rest with plastic wrap and move them to the refrigerator for future enjoyment.



This is just a variation on the theme of chawanmushi. The uni was not one of the best (Catalina only had "Premium" but "Gold" is the best). Although the flavor of the uni was good, the consistency was much softer and it had slightly slimy texture. Nonetheless the dish was adequately decadent. It was very good. We mixed up all the eggs and the egg custard and enjoyed the symphony of eggs.

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. 

Morimoto, Philadelphia, April 23, 2010. レストラン森本、フィラデルフィア

(from http://www.top-hotels-restaurants.com/files/morimoto-restaurant/5.jpg)

We finally made an excursion over the weekend to dine "omakase おまかせ menu" at Morimoto in Philadelphia. From the hotel, we walked to Morimoto down Chestnut street. The walk was an interesting mix of inner city decay amid the former splendor of old Philadelphia and the inspiration of new businesses taking root. The block on which "Moriomoto" is located may need more time to fully recover its former glory. Opening the semi-transparent door, the inner decor is certainly not Japanese in any way. The space is deep and narrow with a tall undulating ceiling. In the back, there is a large square counter and the open kitchen and further back the closed main kitchen. Both sides of the main floor are slightly elevated and it is one step up to the tables for two. The center booths are divided by semitransparent Plexiglas low partitions back lit by blue and red neon in the bottom of the partition.  The color of the neon changes every-now-and-then but mostly stays blue giving an impression of the bottom of the sea. We were seated at a table for two on the elevated portion. For us, "midgets", the chairs were too tall--for the first time since childhood, our feet did not touch the ground, and it was not really comfortable. We weren't entirely sure about this interior decor but it does indicate things to come in term of the cuisine. 

The sake selection was very limited (disappointing). We chose a bottle of Akita Komachi Diaginjo 秋田小町大吟醸 from "Yuki no bosha" 雪の茅舎 brewery in Akita 秋田 prefecture of northern mainland Japan. As I tasted it, however, I regretted that I did not order "Wakatake Onigoroshi" 若竹鬼ころし Junmai Daiginjo from Shizuoka 静岡 prefecture which was also in the short list. Akita Komachi was nice enough with a smooth mouth feel with subtle pear and melon notes but it was a bit too sweet for our taste. It reminded me of Kanbara 蒲原 Bride Of The Fox from Niigata 新潟. It appears that both are specifically bottled for export, I wonder the importers must think that most American like this type of sake. We rather prefer a dry, fruity and crisp sake. Their own "Morimoto" branded sake and beer are also available but we did not try.

(Sake bottle image from http://www.jotosake.com/?p=226)

After conferring with our server, we decided to order the $120 "Omakase" menu. The dishes came at a good pace--not too fast and not too slow. 

(from https://images.anidori.com/xl/895_3605.jpg)

The first course was a rather mundane "Toro tartar" with crisp fried shallot, chive topped with caviar and a small amount of broth in the bottom made of dashi, mirin, and soy sauce. The wasabi that accompanied it appears to be from a real wasabi daikon 山葵大根. The toro was too finely mashed and we would have preferred finely diced instead. The crispy fried shallot was very nice. The sauce was too sweet. The caviar must have been North American (may have been even Paddle fish caviar) and did not add much. They gave us a small stainless steal spoon but we would have preferred non metal spoon for this dish.

Next came three "Kumamoto oysters on the half shell", with three different toppings; momiji oroshi 紅葉おろし, which is daikon and hot red pepper grated together, ceviche sauce with cilantro, Yuzu soy sauce with a thin slice of Jalapeno pepper. Kumamoto is one of our favorite oysters (eaten raw). It was excellent and we liked it very much. 

This must be meant as a "salad". Several nice slices of "Kanpachi" (young Hamachi) sashimi with micro greens" dressed in yuzu vinaigrette.  The Kanpachi slices were placed on a wasabi cream sauce. It was nice but I was not sure about the wasabi-cream sauce. 

We must be moving toward cooked items on the menu and as a liaison between "raw" to "cooked", we got "Tile fish carpaccio topped with uni, chives and tarragon and heated sesame oil yuzu dressing". (When it was served, the dish was cold.) Tile fish or "amadai" 甘鯛 is rather delicate and the hot sesame oil cooked the fish just a little. We found the sauce to be too overwhelming for this delicate fish.

At some point (unfortunately, neither of us can remember exactly when) but most like between the raw and cooked courses we were served a "palate cleanser". It was a small tall glass of carbonated beverage with a sweet mildly rose flavor. 

We were now deeply into the "cooked" course which consisted of half a small "Baked or sautéed Lobster with spicy rub and vegetables. Instead of butter for dipping, it was served with a creme fraiche and Yuzu mixture. One of the characteristic ways Japanese serve lobster, Japanese "Iseebi" prawn, or crab is so that you do not have to struggle trying to remove the meat from the shell. In the presentation at Morimoto, although the claws were cracked, we had to use our fingers and chopsticks to dig the meat out. In the end fingers and chopsticks were not the most appropriate utensils for the task and we were forced to leave some of the meat behind. Although the server warned us that the lobster may be very spicy, it was not. While the Yuzu-flavoured creme fraishe was nicely inventive, it clearly had been put into the ramekin the night before. Taste-wise it did not do much to me. I rather prefer simple melted butter and lemon. At the completion of the course we were presented with a "hot towel" to clean our hands. It was in the style of a Japanese "oshibori" おしぼり but was much larger and bulkier--essentially an American washcloth.  It had a rancid moldy smell that certainly did not add to the dining experience. 

The turf part of Moromoto "Surf and Turf" entree consisted of "Wagyu" Fillet mignon.  It was totally unmemorable and a bit over cooked to my taste.

Now comes "shime" 締め or ending dish which is 5 pieces of "nigiri sushi". Our sushi rice connoisseur (my wife) immediately said "not enough vinegar in the rice". Chu-toro was good but not exceptional. Raw octopus was nice since it is difficult to have in the U.S. but not the best we had.

Desert (strawberry mousse with chocolate cake) is more mundane American; not bad especially since it was not overly sweet but hardly creative.

We are glad we finally dined at Morimoto. We had been looking forward to it for quite some time. The food can best be described as a very good fusion with a heavy Japanese influence--we definitely would not describe it as a "Japanese" restaurant. At this price point, we were not particularly impressed but that could be because we were expecting something else. We had the same feeling after eating at "Nobu" in New York where Morimoto used to be an executive chef. We are not into Japanese fusion dishes that much, I guess. 

The sake tasted better with the food since the sweetness was dampened by the sweet taste of the sauces. After checking out the price at which I could have bought this sake at home (which I will not do), however, I found that, at $160, the mark up was over 150%--that is somewhat steep. 

Blini with sour cream and scrambled eggs

This is continuation of the blini-caviar saga. What is blini but a humble buckwheat pancake? What is caviar but a form of egg? When are pancakes eaten but for breakfast? Hence we came up with the scrambled egg, sour cream breakfast blini. In retrospect, we could have added crumbled crispy bacon to add a bit more saltiness but that would probably have made it too deadly.

We just layered the blinis with sour cream and then soft scrambled egg, sprinkled some salt and garnished with young shoots of Italian parsley we are growing on the window sill.
With scrambled eggs, the flavor combination is quite different. It is, nonetheless, a perfect breakfast which goes well with our first cup of cappuccino made with our home expresso machine (We do also roast green coffee beans at home).

Bluefin tuna chunks 黒鮪チャンク

Recently while browsing online purveyors of sashimi-grade tuna I noticed advertisements for bluefin sashimi tuna "imperfect cuts" or " chunks". I surmise this may be something to do with increased popularity of "poke" which, unlike Japanese sashimi, does not require uniform sized blocks of fish. Since I myself make dishes such as "imitation negitoro" 擬制ネギトロ, and "namerou", which do not require perfect cuts, I decided to try it. This one came from our old, tried and true Catalina Offshore products. As you can see in the picture below, there are several chunks of frozen bluefin tuna. The majority is “akami” red  meat and some are “chu-toro” medium fatty. I divided the shipment into three portions. I thawed one in the refrigerator and vacuum packed the other two and put them in the freezer. Since they are chunks, it is very easy to apportion whatever amount I would like to thaw and prepare.

I decided to taste the tuna as sashimi first. I sliced one chunk which looked like chu-toro 中トロ and another which looked like akami 赤身. Since the shipment also included Ikura salmon roe いくら and my wife made blini a few days ago, we served a blini topped with cream cheese (home made), smoked salmon, ikura and chopped chives.

Both the toro and akami were very good. For us, this is just perfect, just a little bit of tastes.

This blini with ikura is one of our favorite appetizers. We tried caviar but we like ikura better. This ikura (came frozen) also from Catalina tasted very good and fresh.

  

This combination of appetizers can go well with both red wine or sake but on this occasion, we had cold sake. After this, we had imitation negitro made from akami chunks with cucumber slices and nori. I also served our usual “yamakake” after marinading the akami cubes for 30 minutes. The yamakake was quite filling. 

So our assessment of the bluefin sashimi-grade tuna chunks is very positive. They are very reasonably priced and tasted good. They can be served as sashimi. Even though the slices are not perfect, they tasted perfect.

One of the cherry trees in our backyard bloomed almost overnight. This particular cherry tree has really grown since we removed the enormous ash tree that over shadowed it. We had to remove the ash because it succumbed to the "emerald borer". This cherry tree always blooms first (we have three cherry trees including the replacement for our old tree which was destroyed during the Nor'Easter storm in 2018). As the "first bloomer", it is in step with the cherry trees at the tidal basin; blooming at about the same time. The remaining trees in our yard are more leisurely in their approach; blooming about 1 week later. These blossoms are really a treat. Finally Spring has sprung.

Shad Roe from South Carolina 南キャロライナからのシャド魚卵

Although fish roe are very popular in Japan, it is not common in U.S.. Few exceptions are, of course caviar, bottargo, and shad roe. We posted a shad roe dish in 2012 but since then we have not had it until now. Turns out my wife’s sister loves shad roe. (According to my wife when she was a kid shad was considered a “trash” fish but the roe were considered a delicacy. Her grandfather particularly liked shad roe and shad roe season was an eagerly anticipated event. He particularly like the roe sautéed with bacon and served with eggs for breakfast. Due to her grandfather’s enthusiasm my wife ate a fair amount of shad roe in her childhood.) My wife’s sister apparently inherited Grandad’s appreciation for shad roe and had an arrangement with a company called “Charleston Sea Food” in South Carolina. They call her every year to let her know when the season opened and she would immediately sign up for a delivery.  Although she would relay the information to my wife, my wife had not inherited Grandad’s level of appreciation and previously never pursued purchasing some. But this year we decided to try it. We got 4 sets meaning 4 pairs of egg sacs (minimum you could buy). It comes fresh vacuum packed and can be easily frozen for later use. It arrived in ice packs (picture #3). As before, we cooked in the very traditional way; pan fried in bacon drippings (#1). I fried blanched broccoli in the same frying pan as well as sage brown butter maitake 舞茸 “hen of woods” mushroom (subject to a separate post) as sides.

You can see the grain of the roe on the cut surface (picture #2). This is much coarser than “tarako” たらこ cod roe or “kazunoko” 数の子 herring roe. The texture and flavor are difficult to describe but we like it. To me this reminded me of the roe of a Japanese fish called “Hatahata” ハタハタ but the Japanese fish has a different texture (a bit slippery texture).

We cooked exactly the same as before (in the previous post) but I did not finish it in the oven. I repeat this again for my convenience.

Ingredients: (small servings for two of us, this will be one serving for most)
One sac (half of one set, picture #3 g one set, came fresh and vacuum packed ) of shad roe, removing attached vessels etc but keep membrane intact
2 strips of bacon
6 florets of blanched broccoli (optional)
Salt and pepper

Directions:
Fry the bacon until crispy and fat rendered, remove the bacon and set aside on paper towel lined plate leaving the bacon drippings in the pan.
Add the shad roe and adjust the flame to medium.
After one side is browned (5 minutes) turn it over cook for another 5 minutes (picture #4). Place the lid and cook 5-10 minutes until fully cooked (no pink inside)
Add the broccoli 5 minutes before the roe is finished and season with salt and pepper
Season it with salt and pepper
I cut into short segments and served.

This was not bad at all. I served it with sides of the broccoli and hen of woods mushrooms which went well. I will try cooking it Japanese style to see how that works. I have to say shad roe fits seamlessly into my Japanese fish roe palette…also, I have to appreciate that my wife’s Grandad was a man of fine taste.

Pan fried shad roe with bacon シャド 魚卵のベーコン焼き

My understanding is that shad is type of fish which lives in the ocean (Atlantic in the U.S.) but swims up the river to spawn in spring. I do not think a similar fish exists in Japan. The roe of this fish is more valuable than the fish itself. It is also very seasonal and only appears in fish markets, in March and April. The first time I saw shad roe, I was a bit surprised to learn that Americans eat "fish eggs".  As I mentioned before, when I made shrimp roe with scrambled eggs, the classic way to cook shad roe is scrambled with hen's eggs as a breakfast, which was also surprising to me since "fish" or "fishy" food are usually not eaten for breakfast in the U.S.. I mentioned in passing, when I posted simmered cod roe "Tarako", that I could make a similar dish with shad roe.  

Speaking of seasonal food or shun 旬 (which is mostly lost since almost everything is available year around), it also applies to "soft shell crab" season. So one evening, on the way home from work, we stopped at the near-by gourmet grocery store and got live (until it was cleaned) soft shell crabs (which was consumed as "tempura" immediately that evening) and shad roe (which was prepared for the next evening and is the subject of this post).

I asked my wife how she likes shad roe to be prepared. She was not keen on the idea of simmering it in the broth in a Japanese style. She told me of how her grandparents looked forward to shad roe season and brought them home with much fan fare mostly to be served with eggs at breakfast but also in the traditional way with bacon. She mentioned that aside from caviar, shad roe were the only fish eggs she had ever eaten before she met me.  So in honor of her nostalgia,  I cooked these roe American style as you see in the picture above. Shad roe is similar to tarako or cod roe but the eggs are a bit coarser.  I panfried it in browned butter and bacon fat and finished it in an oven. As a side I made sautéed shimeji mushrooms and baby spinatch using the remaining bacon fat and butter.

Shad roe: I removed the membrane connecting two roe sacks first and then soaked them in cold salted water (taste just salty, 3%??) in a sealable container which can hold the roe sacks comfortably in a refrigerator for over night. You could skip this step but since we were having soft shell crabs that evening, this was a perfect step for us. It removes some of the fishy taste/smell and also brines or seasons it. Next day, I removed them from the salt water and patted them dry using paper towels. I then seasoned them with salt and pepper (left in the picture below). I then dredged with flour.

Cooking: I first slowly cooked one strip of bacon in a frying pan (for 7-10 minutes) until the bacon fat was rendered and the bacon became crispy. I set aside the bacon and added a pat of butter (1/2 tbs) and turned up the flame to medium. When the butter melted and started browning, I put the shad roe in and cooked for 2 minutes.Then carefully turned them over (the roe was still soft) and cooked it for another minutes or so until the surface get brown and crispy (another 2-3 minutes). I finished cooking in a 350F oven for 5 minutes. It is important not to over cook. I was aiming for, when pressed, soft but somewhat elastic texture (I read somewhere that this was described as "like a ripe avocado").

For the sides, after I removed the roe and set it aside, I put, in the same frying pan on medium flame, the mushrooms and sautéed them for several minutes seasoned with salt and pepper. I pushed the mushrooms aside and sautéed baby spinach next until wilted (less than 1 minute), again, seasoned with salt and pepper.　

I sliced the shad roe and garnished with crispy bacon bits and chopped parsley and served with wedges of lemon. I think that any Japanese would like this dish and it will sell in Izakaya. The shad roe has a just slightly fishy taste with a nice consistency (like that of a meatball) and browned butter and bacon fat combination cannot go wrong.