Frozen bluefin tuna block from Great Alaska Seafood 冷凍オーストラリア産の黒鮪

 We have purchased quite a few items from Great-Alaska-Seafood. We tried frozen sashimi-grade yellowfin tuna or "kihada-maguro" 黄肌マグロ blocks which were on a par with the ones we can get at our Japanese grocery store. Recently we received an email from Great-Alaska Seafood about a special offer for Australian aqua-cultured sashimi-grade blackfin tuna, "Hon-maguro or Kuro-maguro" クロマグロ. In general I am a fan of any tuna but I tend to like blackfin a bit more than yellowfin. Great-Alaska’s advertising was pinpointed targeting. They clearly “had-my-number/Knew-where-I lived”/had-me-dialed-in”. I instantly succumbed to the offer and ordered the tuna. If I recall correctly I had to call a special number (rather than order on the internet) and the offer was good for only one day. The offer consisted of a total of 8 lbs made up of 8,1 lb packages,  half-and-half chu-toro 中トロ and akami 赤身.  As you can see below, the blocks were irregular in size and inconsistent in shape. I surmise that because they were not cut like Japanese “saku” blocks which are neatly of equal size and shape they probably could not be used in a Japanese sushi bar for example. 

Each packages are marked either  “akami” (left) or “chu-toro” (right) .

We first tried the smallest package which was marked as “akami”. I served two small dishes.

The picture below shows a dish of straight forward sashimi with cucumber sunomono きゅうりの酢の物 with tomato garnished with “ikura” salmon roe. The akami was certainly better than the frozen yellowfin tuna and good enough but not great.

I also made it into cubes of tuna and avocado 鮪とアボカドの角切りon a bed of arugula dressed with soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil.

So bottom line is that this is not bad. It is certainly better than yellowfin tuna but it was not truly great. Nonetheless we are satisfied that we have this choice and will have absolutely no trouble “choking” it down .

Mixed seafood fry 海鮮フライ

This is our effort to clear up some frozen seafood inventory that has been in our freezer “long enough”. Among the items in danger of exceeding their allotted time were  scallops we got from Great-Alaska-Seafood and Pacific Oysters we got from Vital Choice wild seafood. I added shrimp also from Great-Alaska-Seafood to these items so that I could make a mixed seafood fry.

The picture below is not one of my better jobs at presentation, but hot out of the oil, these fried items were great. I served them with homemade Pa Dutch coleslaw, Campari tomatoes and wedges of lemon.

Although the scallops had freezer burn, I carefully shaved it off before cooking. Despite that, they tasted good. We should not be eating this type of fried food too often but when we  do, we  really enjoy it.

Octopus leg dressed in salted plum sauce タコの梅肉あえ

I have posted many dishes using octopus which we got from different sources. We like octopus legs (boiled and frozen) from D’artagnan and Great Alaska Seafood. Interestingly, both are “Spanish octopus legs”.  The offer we recently purchased from Great Alaska Seafood included quite a large amount of octopus legs so I have the luxury of using it fairly regularly. The last time I used it, after thawing, I reserved about 2 inches of the octopus leg to eat as “sashimi*” 刺身 and I made the remainder into tender simmered octopus タコの柔らか煮 using an Instant pot. We usually eat octopus sashimi with wasabi and soy sauce or sumiso but this time, I tried a different dressing using salted plum or “Umeboshi” 梅干し (I used some umeboshi we received quite a few years ago from my mother the last time she made it. We kept it in a sealed container in the refrigerator. It looked and tasted good). I also served two small appetizer dishes.

*Most common “sashimi” of octopus is previously boiled legs because raw octopus is extremely perishable. Real “raw” octopus can be had in Japan. The first time we had “raw” octopus sashimi was in Kobe 神戸 many years ago. Because of the location of Kobe, very fresh octopus from the Japanese inland sea 瀬戸内海 was available. Now, because of the advancement in the logistics of transporting fresh seafood in Japan, it is more readily available throughout Japan. As a matter of fact, we had raw octopus sashimi at Tako Grill in Kuroishi 黒石, Aomori prefecture 青森県 in Japan.

The upper left picture above shows the Octopus slices with salted plum sauce: タコの刺身梅肉和え.

Ingredients and directions: (two small serving)

2 inches of boiled octopus leg, sliced thinly into 8 -10 slices

For Umeboshi 梅干し “bainiku” sauce 梅肉ソース

1 “umeboshi” salted plum, meat removed and finely chopped until creamy.

1 tsp mirin, mixed in

For garnish

1 perilla leaf, finely julienned 

1 nyouga, thinly slices

Cucumber slices

I also served tender simmered octopus leg タコの柔らか煮.

Since we had a small portion of filet mignon left over from the day before, I thinly sliced it and dressed it in ponzu sauce ポン酢醤油 with grated ginger. The green is blanched sugar snaps in dashi broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし.

 

These small appetizers were great to start the evening.

Yellowfin tuna from Great Alaska Seafood 冷凍キハダ鮪

I am always looking for alternative sources of sashimi grade fish. Catalina offshore products has been a most reliable source for a long time. Other sites have come and gone such as "Fish-for-sushi" and "Sushi at home".  When it comes to sea urchin, "Maruhide" 丸秀 which sells only uni and uni products, is where I go to get them. Recently, I came across the website for "Great Alaska Seafood". I noticed they have "sashimi-grade" yellowfin tuna blocks. You have to buy a rather large amount. (In this case, 8 lbs. that is 8 blocks or "saku" of frozen tuna each weighing about 1 lb.). The price seemed reasonable. While it would have been difficult to accommodate an 8 lb. slab of frozen fish, 8 one pound blocks were do-able and the fact they were frozen made "storage" easier.  I also figured if the fish is not good enough for sashimi, I could always cook it. So I bought it.  The picture below shows one of the frozen blocks. 

The dish shown below was the first time we tasted my purchase. I made three different preparations but I did not take a picture of the third dish which was an imitation "negitro" ネギトロ.

After thawing the tuna block in the refrigerator (it took almost 2 days), I divided the block into three portions. One I made into "zuke" 漬け or marinated tuna. This time I used "concentrated noodle sauce めんつゆ from the bottle" plus ground roasted white sesame.  I sliced the tuna and marinated the slices for several hours in the refrigerator. Just for variation, I seared half of the "Zuke" tuna (far right) using a kitchen torch. The yellow item shown on the plate below is "Dashimaki" だし巻き omelet I had made earlier. I placed the tuna sashimi on top of baby arugula. I also served "Ikura" salmon roe in a cucumber cup (upper left corner).

We really enjoyed this. This is about the same as the frozen yellowfin tuna blocks we buy at our Japanese grocery store. It may be slightly better since it seemed to contain less water. (After thawing, not much water came out). The textures and taste are about the same. The "Zuke" and "imitation negitoro" preparations made very good variations.

Seafood nabe on a snowy day 雪降りの夕の海鮮鍋

As the weather got colder our thoughts turned to having Japanese hot pot or nabe 鍋 for dinner. This week we had some snow and our backyard was transformed to a winter wonderland; perfect time for nabe. So we decided to have one using whatever ingredients we had on hand.

We used to cook nabes on a portable gas cooker with a butene fuel canister but both the cooker and the canisters became so old we started worrying about how safe they were. Fortunately after we used up the canisters several years ago. We switched to a table top induction cooker (or Japanese will say IH or induction heater).  Making Sukiyaki すき焼き on this type of cooker works well because a sukiyaki nabe pot is usually made of cast iron but other earthenware or pottery pots or nabes won’t work. Then, we discovered an induction-cooker-compatible nabe pot. (It has a magnetic metal disk embedded in the bottom). With it,  we can do a nabe at the table without having to use a gas canister fuel source. 

I checked our freezer and refridgerator and decided we could do a sea food nabe or “kaisen-nabe” 海鮮鍋. We defrosted, scallops, cod, pacific oyster (this is the second time we used frozen Pacific oyster which worked well as a fry) and shrimp. We also had fresh shiitake and  nappa cabbage but not other green leafy vegetables. In any case, we set up our nabe feast.

I started the broth by soaking kelp in the nabe pot in cold water for several hours.  In the evening, I put the pot with the kelp in it on the induction cooker. Once the water came to a boil, I removed the kelp. I then added the shrimp shells and once the color of the shells changed I continued simmering for a few minutes, I the removed the shrimp shells.  I seasoned the broth with white dashi “Shiro-dashi” 白だしand light colored soy sauce making a very gentle broth. I started cooking the hard part of the nappa cabbage as well as the other vegetables. We also had some decent firm tofu from Whole Foods which I added. Next came daikon, carrot and potato, all precooked in the microwave oven.

Our seafood lineup is shown below (all frozen, and thawed in the refrigerator). It included shrimp, scallop (from Great Alaska Seafood), Pacific oysters (from Vital choice wild sea food and organics) and cod (from Whole foods). This was the second time we used frozen Pacific oysters. The first time I made fried oysters.  These were much better than the small fragmented fresh or pasteurized  oysters we sometimes get.

The picture below shows the vegetables which waiting to be put into the nabe; the leafy portion of nappa cabbage, tofu, shiitake mushroom, precooked daikon, potato, and carrot. 

We made sure the seafood was not overcooked. We also used  ponzu sauce as we were eating. This was a fun dinner perfect with the snowy winter outside and the steaming body warming nabe inside. We had warm sake (“Hakutsuru Ginjo 白鶴吟醸) to boot. Of course, there were leftovers. Classically, Japanese will end the nabe by adding rice or noodles into the remaining broth to make a “shime” 〆 final dish but we were too full and the next day, we made rice porridge with eggs for lunch.

Watari bune Daiginjo 渡船純米大吟醸

This sake “Watari bune, junmai daiginjo” 渡船純米大吟醸 was a gift from a friend for a recent occasion. This is a really great sake with a slightly effervescent feel and fruity, crisp but very complex flavors. This should definitely be drunk cold. This sake is brewed by “Fuchu-homare” 府中誉 which is located in Ibaragi prefecture 茨城県. The sake rice or “sakamai”  酒米 used for this sake is also called “Watari bune” which is supposedly a very rare near-extinct sake rice which relatively recently has been revived. The famous and most popular sake rice “Yamada nishiki” 山田錦 is reportedly a descendant of this rice. Also the name “Watari bune”  渡船, which means a  “ferry” or “ferryboat”, is very fitting for sake from Ibaragi which is known for Tone river 利根川 and its estuaries criss crossing the flat delta before pouring into the Pacific ocean.This area also contains large lakes. (Such areas rich in water ways and lakes are called “Suigou”  水郷). Such topography would require use of ferries i.e. “Watari bune” to navigate the water ways.

In any case, a great sake calls for great “Tsumami” ツマミ or small sake snacks. We were lucky to get fresh unprocessed fresh “uni” sea urchin in salted water from Maruhide 丸秀 called “Ensui uni” 塩水ウニ. We also recently got frozen blocks of Bluefin tuna from Great-Alaska-Seafood. We served these items on recently acquired Japanese plates. The soy sauce in the small round plate is also a special “sashimi” soy sauce.   

I made the tuna three ways (two shown directly below. One came later). The first was straight sashimi (upper left in picture). The second was “Negi-toro” ネギトロ with slices of cucumber (lower left in picture). We enjoyed this negi-toro as a kind-of hand roll on a small sheet of nori (not shown) with the cucumber slices (shown).

This uni from Maruhide (shown upper right in the picture) is not processed with the usual “alum” and only soaked in salt water with salinity consistent with seawater. As far as I can tell, Maruhide is only source in the U.S. where we can get this. As an aside: my wife can sometimes taste the alum on uni. She immediately passes her portion to me when this happens. Not exactly a hardship for me, since I can’t taste alum. (She can also detect the alum used in some brands of baking powder).  The consistency of the uni in salt water is slightly softer than alum processed ones but it is absolute pure fresh uni. With just a little bit of wasabi and soy sauce and a sip of the sake, you cannot get anything better.

We needed a few more “Tsumami” to go with this sake. We had more tuna, this time “zuke” tuna 漬けマグロ, in which tuna slices are marinated in x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce for few hours so.  I served it with wakame and cucumber dressed in sumiso sauce 胡瓜とわかめの酢味噌あえ (left). Since my wife made blini a few days ago and we had Keta salmon ikura roe thawed, we made our usual “blini topped with cream cheese, smoked salmon and ikura” (right).

All these items are again perfect accompaniment for this wonderful sake.

Scallops With Shallot Citrus Sauce 帆立のシトラスシャロットソース

This is a continuation of our story about frozen food inventory control. This time it was scallops from Great-Alaska-Seafood. These are really good scallops and we wanted to enjoy them while they were still good. Our most common and favorite way to prepare scallops is “Hotate-no Isobe-yaki” 帆立の磯辺焼き in which the scallops are seared, seasoned with soy sauce, then wrapped in a sheet of nori. This time we tried something different. We saw an article in the Washington Post featuring 6 scallop recipes. One of them was “scallops with shallot citrus sauce”. This was perfect since we happened to have some grape fruit and oranges we’d gotten from Harry and David. So one evening we decide to make this.

To prepare the fruit is a bit of work but the this dish was really great. Nice fresh citrus flavors went well with the seared scallops.

Ingredients (2 small servings)
4 large sea scallops (we used 4 scallops for 2 servings but the standard size may be 4 diver scallops for each serving).
1 medium red grapefruit.
1 large orange
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 large shallot, finely diced (about 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup dry white wine, (we used sauvignon blanc)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon or basil, for serving (I used chopped fresh parsley)

Directions:
Using a sharp paring knife, trim the top and bottom off the grapefruit and the orange. Working over a bowl so the citrus segments fall into the bowl and you catch the juice, use a paring knife to remove each segment of the fruit from its membrane. Squeeze the remaining membrane over the bowl to extract more juice. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the citrus segments to a separate bowl; reserve the juice.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil until shimmering. Add the shallots and cook, stirring, until they soften slightly, about 2 minutes. Add the wine, increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Cook until the wine is reduced by about half, about 2 minutes. Add the reserved citrus juice and cook until the liquid in the pan has reduced slightly, 1 to 2 minutes more. Stir in the butter and 1/4 teaspoon of the salt, then remove from the heat and cover to keep warm.

Pat the scallops all over with paper towels to ensure they are as dry as possible, then sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 teaspoon of salt and pepper. Heat the remaining oil in a large skillet over high heat, until shimmering. Add the scallops and cook, without moving them, until caramelized and brown on the bottom, 2 to 3 minutes. Gently flip, and cook on the other side until the scallops are only slightly translucent in the center, 2 to 3 minutes more.

While the scallops are cooking, add the citrus segments to the sauce, stirring gently so they don’t break up much; return the sauce to low heat until warmed through.
 Evenly divide up the scallops per serving and place on the plates. Pour about 1/3 cup of sauce on top, and sprinkle with the herbs. Serve warm.

We had this with freshly cooked rice mainly because we were running short of frozen rice (which is very convenient to have on hand).  The citrus sauce went remarkably well with the rice. We ended up pouring all the available sauce on the rice and even supplementing the dish with more fresh rice. We do not always have grapefruit and oranges on hand but when we do this is a great way to serve scallops.

Tender simmered octopus たこの柔らか煮

I have to admit that I really like octopus (tako) and am on a constant prowl to find places to get decent tako. I have gotten octopus from a few different places with varying success and I’ve cooked it several different ways over the years. Among the seafood vendors, recently, we have been getting fairly good frozen  seafood from  Great Alaska Seafood . This time, they were selling frozen Spanish octopus legs and we tried them. (At another time, they were also selling Alaskan octopus -uncooked and frozen- but we did not try it.) The legs were from Spanish octopus, boiled and frozen (see the picture 2nd from the last below). It came as 4 pounds of octopus in 8 half pound vacuumed sealed packages. After thawing a package in the refrigerator, I thinly sliced it and tasted it. It was fresh tasting but compared to Japanese products, it was much softer. So I decided the first dish I would make would be simmered octopus  or “Tako-no-yawaraka-ni” 蛸の柔らか煮 literally meaning “tender simmered octopus”.  I tried this before with tako from other sources and despite long simmering, the octopus never got really tender. This time I have two elements which would make this dish successful; 1. This particular octopus had been pre-cooked before we received it and it was much more tender than the boiled and frozen octopus I tried before and 2. I now have a Instant pot which allows me to make this dish using pressure cooking. The combination of these factors resulted in a dish that was quite a success. The octopus was very tender and flavorful. 

I served this with fried shrimp heads (they were from Tako Grill takeout). Whenever we have shrimp (“bonanebi“ 牡丹海老) sashimi, we get fried heads which we heat up in the toaster oven and serve with wedges of lemon and salt broth soaked sugar snaps. On the right in the picture below is squid shiokara イカの塩辛 (frozen which comes in a plastic pouch). This is certainly a good line-up for starting the evening.

Here is the close up of the octopus.

The picture below shows how the octopus legs came. Two good sized legs in one package.

Since this was a trial, I used only one leg for this dish.

Ingredients:
Boiled octopus leg, thawed
200ml Japanese dashi (I made this from dashi pack).
1tbs soy sauce
2tbs mirin
2tbs sake
several think ginger slices

Directions:
I used an Instant pot with a small metal container insert with a silicon lid (you could use the inner pot of the instant pot).
I added the octopus and the seasoning liquid into the insert and put on the lid.
I added 1/2 cup water to the pot and using the metal holder that came with the insert, lowered it into the instant pot.
I cooked it on high pressure for 30 minutes with natural depressurization.
The picture below is after cooking.
One of the problems with the Instant Pot cooking is that the simmering liquid does not reduce at all.
So I decided to put the leg and the simmering liquid in a frying pan and cook it on medium flame for 15-20 minutes until the liquid reduced by half.

I cut the leg into bite sized pieces and served it at  room temperature. This is a most tender and flavorful octopus leg. Next time I will make a larger amount since the entire leg was just enough for two small servings.

Riviera Seafood Club sashimi リビエラシーフードクラブからの刺身

This is my on-going effort to find retailers where I can get sashimi-grade fish. As I have mentioned previously some of the on-line places like "sushi at home" or "fish for sushi" which sold sashimi fish have come and gone. The good and reliable Catalina Offshore Products is still going strong and we still get occasional shipments of sashimi fish from them. When it comes to Uni うに, Maruhide 丸秀 is the place to go. We have gotten frozen blocks of sashimi-grade tuna from "Great Alaska Seafood" and although it is yellowfin tuna, it is better quality than the frozen yellowfin tuna blocks we got from the  Japanese grocery store.  Recently I became aware of another vendor called  "Riviera Seafood Club" (according to the website it was launched in July 2019, and is family-run).  I finally decide to get some akami 赤身 (8oz), chutoro 中トロ (8 oz) and hamachi はまち(8 oz) sashimi from them. Unlike some of the other vendors we have tried, they offered smaller portions which is nice and makes it easier to manage use of the shipment. The chutoro block had one half almost akami and another half of toro. I divided up the block and served the toro part the evening we received the sashimi. The reaming akami was used to make imitation negitoro and cubes of avocado and tuna next evening. The hamachi still had the skin attached which needed to be removed. The picture below shows the serving of the various sashimi.

The quality of akami was good. The chutoro was good in terms of texture and taste but had some sinew (which happens sometimes especially in the toro parts of tuna). The hamachi was ok but didn’t appear to be super fresh. I marinated it in sake, soy sauce and grated ginger juice for the next evening, which made it more palatable.

I think this is a good alternative source of sashimi. It came exactly as they suggested (ordered on Wednesday and arrived on Friday). The only odd thing was that there was no communication. No order confirmation email or shipping notice aside from a text message I received from FedEx concerning expected delivery date.We may try this place again. It is good to know we have more than one place where we can get sashimi.

Shushi Taro Osechi 2020 寿司太郎のおせち重箱 2020

Since we did not finish the bluefin tuna sashimi and boiled octopus which we got frozen from Catalina offshore products and ate on New Year's eve, we started the evening of January 1st or "Gantan" 元旦 with the remaining tuna sashimi 本マグロ赤身, and octopus leg 茹で蛸の足. I also added some other items I prepared. For the first time, we got  frozen salted herring roe 数の子 from a company in Alaska called Great-Alaska-Seafood. Although, after I prepared it, it tasted the same as the Japanese sourced herring roe we have had in the past, it tended to be a bit soft and crumbly and the lobes were not uniform in size. I also made a part of the tuna sashimi block from Catalina into "marinated zuke tuna" 鮪の漬け which I served as "Yamakake" やまかけ.  I did not take pictures of this first round of the Gantan feast.

After this first round prelude, we finally opened the Sushi Taro Osechi Jubako 寿司太郎のおせち重箱. Although we have done this every new year since 2012, it is still always a thrill to open the osechi box. The picture below shows the first layer.  We immediately notice our favorites "karasumi" 唐墨 and steamed sea urchin 蒸しうに. A new item we noticed (there may be more) is in a bamboo container on the right upper portion called "lobster in shuto egg sauce" ロブスターの酒盗和え (see the comments on our tasting of this item, below).

Here is the close-up of karasumi or Japanese Bottarga. They make their own at Sushi Taro and as far as we can tell, it is the best.

This is the second layer. In this layer one of our favorites is in the left upper corner which is "Monkfish liver terrine" or あん肝豆腐.

Since we already had sashimi and yamakake, we ate only a little from the box. We made a small collection of our favorites shown below.

1. Karasumi, 2. Steamed sea urchin, 3. lobster in Shuto egg sauce*, 4. Caramelized baby shrimp, 5. Fish cake with matsutake mushroom, 6. Cod roe rolled in kelp, 7. Steamed kumquats in syrup, 8. Monkfish liver terrine and 9. Glazed duck.

*Lobster in Shuto egg sauce is new this year and we liked it very much. The sauce is creamy and I am wondering if it is like "kimi-su" 黄身酢 which was also seasoned with "Shutou" 酒盗 but that is my guess.

In any case, this was the excellent first evening feast of 2020.

Shrimp in spicy mayo sauce エビマヨ

 My wife found 4 frozen good-sized shell-on shrimp from Great Alaska Seafood, lonely and tucked hidden under a number of other items in the freezer door shelf. She asked me if I could make something with them. I am familiar with popular Japanese shrimp dishes called “Ebi-chiri*” エビチリ and  “Ebi-mayo*” エビマヨ. (Japanese are very fond of two condiments; ketchup and mayonnaise).  I got an inspiration from these dishes and made this (slightly) spicy mayo sauce for the shrimp. I also added blanched sugar snaps since I had them.

*Digression Alert:  Ebi-chiri was supposedly invented by Chin Kenmin 陳建民 (the father of Iron Chinese Chef Chin Ken-ichi 陳健一) based on a Sichuan dish called 乾焼蝦仁 modified to suit Japanese taste. The origin of “Ebi-mayo” appears less certain but it was based on an American Chinese dish of shrimp with Aurora sauce (mixture of ketchup and mayo) which was improved upon by a Chinese Chef in Yokohama. There are many variations of these two recipes.

This dish was impromptu but it came out rather well for a small appetizer. Despite the fact the frozen shrimp had been abandoned for some time in the freezer door shelf they tasted very nice; no iodine flavor and good firm texture.

Ingredients: (two small servings)
4 shrimp (I used 4 shell-on frozen shrimp), thawed under running water, shell removed, brined in cold salted water for 5 minutes, washed in cold running water and patted dry
Olive oil for frying

Sauce (mix the ingredients in a small bowl)
2 tsp mayonnaise
2 tsp Greek (strained) yogurt
1/2 tsp Sriracha or any other hot sauce such as gochujang

Directions:
Lightly salt the shrimp and cook in a pan with olive oil, turning few time for total of 1 minute.
Set aside the shrimp
Add the sauce warm it up and then put back the shrimp, add the sugar snaps
Serve immediately.

Brining in salt water brought back the shrimp's briny taste and texture (“puri-puri” プリプリ in Japanese). This is perfect with either wine or sake. I should make this dish more often.

How to defrost a frozen tuna block 冷凍鮪柵の解凍方法

 This is a continuation of the frozen bluefin tuna block from Great-Alaska-Seafood saga. This is mostly to document for myself how best to thaw a frozen sashimi tuna block (since we have a number to which this process will need to be applied). In any case, we tried “Chu-toro” 中トロ this time. This was a relatively small  block and was perfect for the two of us. I served two slices as is (left) and made one slice into “Aburi” 炙り (right) (which was possible due to the recent acquisition of a new small kitchen torch. More about that later). This is better than the “akami” we tasted before (due to the thawing method or the fact this is chu-toro is unclear but probably both).

I made the remaining tuna into our usual “pseudo” negitoro  擬制ネギトロ. served with slices of cucumber and small sheets of nori (this is “Korean nori” 韓国のり. Since there was a bit too much tuna to  make all into “Negitoro”,  I also served one slice of tuna as well.

 

Now onto the main topic. I knew there were special instruction on how best to thaw a frozen tuna block which I may have seen on several YouTube videos. Most of the time, however, I am too lazy and just take it out from the vacuum pack, wash it in cold running water, blot it with paper towel, place it on the folded paper towel, wrap it with a plastic wrapping and thaw it in the refrigerator. This time, I looked at several instructions and decided to record the best method as far as I could tell.

How to thaw a frozen tuna block:
1. Remove the tuna block from the vacuum pack.
2. Quickly wash the surface using cold running water to remove any “saw dust”.
3. Soak it in 40C, 4% salted warm water for 3-5 minutes or until the surface becomes soft.
4. Quickly wash and blot the surface with a paper towel.
5 Wrap it completely with a sheet of paper towel.
6 Place it in the ziploc bag and remove the air, seal or Using a “Food saver” type vacuum bag and device, vacuum pack (see below).

7. Submerge the vacuum packed tuna in ice water for 1 hour or until thawed (below).

Digression alert: Every set of instructions I came across also provided some “scientific” explanation of each step. I am not sure of the validity of those explanations but the following is my understanding of the science behind each step. The warm salt water process may activate myoglobin oxidation which, especially in “akami”, makes a better red color without extracting or infusing liquid (over exposure to oxygen may make the tuna darker or “black”). Because of the much better heat conduction of water (20 times greater than air), the tuna will quickly thaw without increasing the temperature in the ice water than in the refrigerator. This process allows the tuna block to go through a -5 to -1C temperature zone which is conducive to the formation of ice crystals in the meat more quickly than if it is left to “thaw” in the refridgerator. A shorter time spent in that temperature zone supposedly improves the quality of the tuna meat because the formation of ice crystals can break the cells or form holes making the meat mushy.

As a side note, I got a new small kitchen torch since the old one failed to ignite last time. Instead of a larger torch which would use a standard size butane canister, I chose one that requires charging the butene gas like a cigarette lighter like the one I had before. Also, I had some leftover butane canisters from the previous torch I had. My reasoning was that we had a difficult time to use up and discard the standard butene canisters that we used with our old table-top gas cooker, basically because we seldom used the cooker. In any case, this one is compatible with Zippo butene canister which comes in a much smaller size.

This torch works well. It ignites easily and the flame size can be easily adjusted. I made “aburi” 炙り quite quickly with a nice char. I salted the surface before torching.

Red wine "Zuke" tuna and avocado 鮪の赤ワイン漬けとアボカド

This is part of the continuous effort to use frozen items before they get too old. In the freezer I found this sashimi tuna block which was labeled “best used by August of 2019”. (At July 2020 it was one month short of being a year past its “best by” due date—not too bad). This is one we got from the Japanese grocery store. Recently we tried a similar yellowfin tuna "saku" sashimi block from "Great Alaska Seafood" and I noticed it seemed to contain less water than the ones from the Japanese grocery store. I knew this one would have a high water content, so I thawed it on a rectangular plate lined with paper towel, uncovered, in the refrigerator. The paper towel was soaked when it finished thawing. I made "Negitoro" ネギトロ in the evening. The next evening, from the remaining half, I made this variation/combination of "Zuke" 漬け and "Tuna and avocado cubes" 鮪とアボカドの角切り. Using red wine in the marinade was inspired by the recipe I saw on-line  (In Japanese) and similar in idea to chicken liver simmered in red wine.

I garnished it with chiffonade of perilla and some white sesame.

Ingredients: (appetizers for two)
1/2 block of sashimi tuna (in our case, frozen yellowfin), thawed if frozen, cut into small cubes
1/2 ripe avocado

Marinade:
3 tbs red wine (I had an open California cab).
2 tbs soy sauce (I reduced the soy sauce from the original recipe)
1 tbs mirin
1/4 tsp dark sesame oil

Directions
In a Ziploc bag, add the marinade and tuna cubes. Remove the air as much as possible and let it marinate in the refrigerator for a few hours (in my case, it was close to10 hours).
Just before serving, take out the tuna cubes, blot off the excess marinade using a paper towel.
>Remove the stone and skin from the avocado, cut into bite-sized pieces, dress with either lemon juice or yuzu juice (to prevent discoloration, I used yuzu juice from the bottle).
Mix the tuna and avocado in a bowl ( I added a few more drops of Yuzu juice).
Serve on the perilla leaves and garnish with a chiffonade of perilla and some sesame seeds.

This was pretty good especially considering that the frozen yellowfin tuna which was passed its prime. I thought we would add soy sauce when we ate it but the tuna was nicely seasoned and there was no need to add soy sauce. Since it was marinated in red wine, this could have gone well with red wine but we had cold sake.

Lily Bulb 百合根

I keep finding Japanese groceries at Weee  which previously were just not available or difficult to get. This time, it was “edible lily bulb”*. The package states “this is a product of China”. So, initially, I was not sure this item would be the same as Japanese “Yuri-ne” 百合根 but decided to try it anyway. Growing up in Hokkaido 北海道, Japan, which is the major producer of edible lily bulbs in Japan, my family enjoyed “yuri-ne” often. Most commonly, my mother made chawan-mushi 茶碗蒸し or Japanese steamed savory egg custard with yuri-ne lily bulb. I remember the nice texture and sweet flavor of yuri-ne. So it is a very nostalgic flavor for me that I have not tasted in a very long time. It arrived fresh in a vacuum packed container. It looked exactly like Japanese “yuri-ne and (better yet) tasted the same.

Although the package indicated “slices”, the lily bulbs are made of petal-like multiple layers which can come apart especially after blanching (see below). I would have preferred a whole intact bulb since that would have given me more choices in how to prepare it but this will do for sure.

*Digression alert: There is a myth that all lily bulbs are toxic which apparently may be based on the fact that any part of lily is highly toxic to cats (inducing renal failure). Also, the name “lily” is attached to many plants/flowers which are not “true” lily.  Some of these certainly would be toxic to humans. In any case, Japanese and Chinese (reportedly also native American Indians) enjoy eating lily bulbs.

I made three dishes; “chawan-mushi” 百合根入り茶碗蒸し(center bottom), bainiku-ae 百合根の梅肉和え (dressed in pickled plum sauce, upper left) and goma-ae 百合根の胡麻和え (dressed in sesame sauce, upper right). I also served lotus root kimpira “renkon-no-kimpira 蓮根のきんぴら(left bottom) and “ohitashi” edible chrysanthemum or “shungiku-no-ohitashi” 春菊のお浸し (right bottom). The fresh lotus root and edible chrysanthemum both came from Weee.

The picture below shows the chawan-mushi made with yuri-ne, topped with ikura salmon roe and blanched sugar snap. You cannot see the yuri-ne well but two are peaking out on either side of the ikura.

The next picture shows the chawan-mushi before the toppings were put on. I put the yuri-ne on the bottom as well as on the top. Other items included fresh shiitake mushroom, and shrimp as usual. The egg and dashi mixture was my usual 1 to 3 ratio. There is no difference in how to make it from standard other chawan-mushi.

For next two dishes, I quickly blanched the yuri-ne, drained it and let it cool before proceeding.

One pickled “umeboshi” plum, meat removed and then chopped fine with  a knife, then placed in a Japanese “suri-bachi” mortal, 1/2 tsp mirin added, 1/2 soy sauce and ground to make a smooth paste. I added “kezuri bushi” bonito flakes (the amount arbitrary). I added more bonito flakes on the top.

The below picture shows yuri-ne with sesame dressing.

For sesame dressing:
1tsp white roasted sesame, dry roasted in a dry frying pan and then ground in a suri-bachi
2 tsp white sesame paste or “shiro neri-goma” 白ねりごま
1 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar

I garnished it with blanched sugar snap

These small dishes were nice and Weee made it possible for me to make these. These were quite filling but we also had a small serving of blue-fine tuna sashimi (frozen Australian from Great Alaska Seafood). The chawan-mushi was particularly special since it brought back good memories of the chawan-mushi my mother used to make.