Julienne of Nagaimo with sea urchin 千切り長芋と雲丹

I just realized that my fellow Izakaya affectionado, Tobias at Izakaya Sanpo, has one recent post on October 2011 which I missed. It is about the Izakaya in Setagaya ward 世田谷区 called "Akaoni' 赤鬼, which is an imaginary red demon in Japanese folklore. One of the dishes he had and posted included this dish. Since I happened to have all the ingredients, I decided to make it.

I should have arranged everything more neatly but this is an Izakaya dish after all and I suppose rustic or not perfectly neat presentation is OK. The description of this dish and picture were enough to assemble this simple dish.

I just sliced and cut nagaimo 長芋 into small match sticks. I dressed with a small amount of sushi vinegar (from the bottle) and placed in the middle of the dish. I placed California gold uni with a small dab of real wasabi. On the three corners, I paced nori strips.

Before eating, we poured a small amount of soy sauce and mixed. This is certainly a good small dish. A perfect Izakaya affair which goes well with cold sake even with Daiginjou 大吟醸.

Sparkling Sake スパークリング清酒

We have tried a few sparkling sakes in the past. We were not particularly fond of these sparkling sakes. Since we have not tried more recent versions of sparkling sake and saw one in the nearby liquor store, I decided to try it.

This is called "Zipang" from Gekkeikan 月桂冠 (imported from Japan). My understanding is that, "Zipang" is one of the oldest names referring to Japan which was supposedly mentioned by Marco Polo as a country of pearls and gold. This particular sake came in a 250ml bottle. The alcohol content is low at 7%. According to the website of "Gekkeikan sake" 月桂冠酒 (In Japanese), the carbonation is from the secondary fermentation in a tank in low temperature (with sugar, I assume like the beer/ale I used to make) rather than injected carbon dioxide.  The carbonation pressure is between beer and champagne using the innovative technique of filtering out spent yeast without losing the carbonation. It appears to be especially aimed at the American market and started exporting to US in 2005.

When poured, it is clear with a rather gentle effervescence. No particular aroma can be detected. The taste is very subtle, clean with very slight sweetness but not much else. I am sure, as their web site states, this will be very acceptable to the Western palate and, if you were not told this is sparkling sake, you certainly could not tell this is sake. It almost tastes like Sprite without the citrus flavor and less sweetness. It is food neutral as are other sparkling wines and is refreshing especially in warm weather but we were not sure this is anything we would like to try again. It should have some more taste/favor to distinguish this as a type of sake. I have to admit, though, this is much better than sparkling turbid sake we tried many years ago in a Japanese restaurant in Napa.

We had this sparkling sake with cold simmered vegetables (this time instead of daikon 大根, I used nagaimo 長芋) in addition to carrot and blanched broccolini (left).  I also served Japanese cucumber sunomono with semi-dried scallop 胡瓜と貝柱の酢の物, daikon namasu 大根ナマス garnished with salmon roe and few slices of octopus leg. This time, I used sweet vinegar I made few days ago as a dressing.



Like sake, this sparkling wine did not complete with the vinegar in these dishes. However, we would rather have regular sparkling wine and/or champagne.

Cherry blossom gazing part 2 続花見

We continued with our hanami. We have mentioned before that, for some reason, the birds (and now other creatures) eat the cherry blossoms from the trees in our backyard. These are ornamental rather than fruit producing cherry trees so we’re not clear why they do this. In addition, we have not heard of similar behavior toward the trees on the Tidal Basin or anywhere else for that matter. It started some time ago with the house finches. Then apparently the cardinals learned from the finches and we have a few pictures here as “proof”. Sometimes it feels like a race to finish our hanami before the birds finish the blossoms we are celebrating. Often the petals are raining down around us at a furious pace as we raise our sake glasses in libation (Occasionally having to pause and fish out petals that plop into the up-raised glasses.)

 

As you can see this one got caught “red beaked” as it were. Come to think of it their beaks are always red.



They only eat the bottom of the flowers which must contain a sweet nectar or something.



Amazingly, some of our squirrels appear to have learned from the birds. This is the first year we caught one eating the flower. As a result, even before full bloom, cherry petals were dropping.



In any case, we continued with our feast despite this distraction. This one is "Nanohana" (broccolini) and shrimp dressed in “kimisu” 菜の花と海老の黄身酢和え. “Kimisu” is a sort of Japanese hollandaise sauce without butter. I also added cucumber cup with tobiko roe on the side.

I got this idea when Chef Kitayama of Sushi taro served a dish with “kimisu” the last time we dined there. His was very rich and thick. He said he attained that texture by freezing the eggs in the shell. This makes it easier to completely remove the egg white (after thawing I assume) and also removes extra moisture from the yolk. I, of course, did not take this extra-step. Here is my recipe (the standard recipe but I did not measure the ingredients, the below is my estimate).

“Kimisu” 黄身酢:
One egg yolk (I used pasteurized shell egg)
Sugar (1 tsp)
Salt (small pinch)
Sake and mirin (1  tsp each)
Rice vinegar (1 tsp)

I mixed everything in a small sauce pan, on the lowest flame. Using a silicon spatula, I continuously mixed until the sauce thickened. I moved the pan on and off the fire to prevent scrambling the eggs. Since I did not remove the chalaza completely from the yolk, it became white hard specks in the sauce. I used a fine mesh strainer to remove it. I placed it in a small sealable container and refrigerated until use.

“Nanohana” 菜の花: I have posted information about flowering rapeseed plants and possible substitutes in the U.S. The substitute is between broccolini and broccoli rabe.  I used broccolini for this dish. I just blanched it in salted boiling water for a few minutes and shocked it in ice cold water and drained.

Shrimp: These were shell-on frozen shrimp. I thawed them under running water. I rather severely salted it and let it stand for a while.  I then cooked them in gently simmering salted water splashed with sake for few minutes, let them cool in the shell and then peeled the shell.

Although the sauce was not as rich or thick as Chef Kitayama's it was rather luxurious with some tang and sweetness gently wrapped in. A perfect, subtle spring dish.



The 3rd dish was usual “dashi maki” 出し巻き Japanese omelet. I served it with grated daikon and soy sauce on the side.



We switched the sake glasses . These came from Kitaichi glass 北一グラス in Otaru 小樽. Left is with sake in it, the right is without sake. Once the glass is filled with liquid, the cherry blossom pattern around the base appear to float up but it is not easy to capture this in a photograph. In any case, these were more appropriate glasses for the occasion.



The 4th dish was Wakatake-ni 若竹煮. Although it is the season for bamboo shoots and fresh wakame seaweed in Japan, we could not get these seasonal items around here. I used packaged boiled bamboo shoot (I am sure from the last year crop) and salt preserved wakame sea weed (which was kept frozen in the freezer).



The 5th dish was  our usual yamakake 山掛け (cubes of marinated tuna and graded nagaimo). Since we did not have perilla leaves, I used fresh basil leaves we had growing on the window sill.  (I gave my wife the choice of fresh mint or basil leaves. She suggested basil). Unexpectedly, this combination was really good. I think we’ll use it again.

Although these were small dishes, we are getting quite filled up at this point. Since the day was so warm, we turned on the flood lights and went into night time cherry blossom gazing or “yozakura kenbutsu” 夜桜見物.

Grated Lotus Root and Tofu Ball レンコンと豆腐まんじゅう

This is a variation of “renkon ball” (renkon manju レンコン饅頭) I posted before.  Besides grated renkon lotus root, it also uses tofu. Since I had the last of the lotus root and half of the tofu, this was a perfect dish to make. I got the idea watching one of the YouTube cook shows. This is a basic version but I could add more items to make it more interesting. I could have made some kind of broth or sauce but this was pretty good as is. Picture #1 shows the cut surface with small chunks of tofu. This has nice soft interior and crunchy crust. When I made this dish I also made “nagaimo” fries which turned out really good and will be the subject of separate post (picture #1 right lower).

Ingredients:
200 grams lotus root, peeled and grated, moisture drained out naturally
300 grams tofu, moisture drained
3 tbs Potato starch
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp miso (original recipe calls for 1/2 tbs soy sauce, I used miso since the dough was bit runny)
Flour for dredging.
Oil for deep frying.

Directions:
Add the grated lotus root, tofu, potato starch, ginger and miso and mix well until smooth. Add more starch if too watery/soft.
Using the ice cream scoop, make equal sized balls, dredge in the flour and deep fry at 160-180F oil for 3-4 minutes turning a few times until the outside is nicely brown (picture #2).

Initially, I served these hot but it can be heated up nicely in the toaster oven. It is seasoned but you could add soy sauce with grated ginger or some type of hot broth. If I make this again I could add chopped scallion, cut up shrimp, ginko nuts, mushrooms etc to make it more interesting.

A few days later, I tried to make a dish (soup) with the leftover renkon balls (picture #3). I made this for lunch. I made it a few hours ahead and re-heated just before serving. The idea was good but the execution was not so great. While the renkon balls were sitting in the broth they absorbed the broth and mostly disintegrated as you can see in the picture #3. It still tasted good.

This is mostly leftover control and there is no recipe but this is how I made it.

Ingredients: (for the soup)
4 Renkon balls, cut in half
Half package of brown shimeji mushroom, root end removed and separated
1 inch daikon, peeled and drained
1 spring onion, finely chopped
Cooked udon noodle, amount arbitrary, this was leftover

For broth:
2 cup Japanese broth (from dashi pack)
1 tbs each of  sake and mirin
1/4 cup of x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (or taste)

Directions:
Add the ingredients for the broth in sauce pan and heat to simmer
Add the grated daikon, renkon balls and mushroom and simmer.
Add the noodles and scallion
Serve while hot*

* as I mentioned, I made this ahead of time and reheated before lunch. That was a mistake, the renkon balls absorbed the broth and mostly disintegrated. Nonetheless it tasted good and the addition of grated daikon added flavor and cut the oily taste from the renkon ball.

Tuna and Salmon roe 'yamakake" 鮪といくらのやまかけ

This post indicates than it is getting harder and harder for me to come up with new dishes to post. These are some of the dishes I served when we were tasting the new batch of G-sake "joy". The yamakake was the 4th dish after octopus sumiso-ae, braised potatoes and green beans and  "ankimo" with orange marmalade soy sauce.

The only variation of this "yamakake" was to add salmon roe or "ikura" to this dish. Again, the tuna sashimi is from frozen "yellow-fin" tuna block from my freezer which was marinated in sake and soy sauce (1:1) overnight.   I used home-grown perilla as the garnish. As usual, I dissolved wasabi in soy sauce and mixed it into the grated nagaimo before serving.

We  progressed into simmered eggplant (with Italian eggplant) served cold. We also reheated simmered chicken wings. This chicken wing dish is getting to be our favorite. It is so easy to make and tastes even better after a few days, reheated. At my wife's suggestion, I also cooked bone-in chicken thighs the same way. Instead of nice collagen from the skin and tendons of the wings, the thighs were much meatier and also tasted excellent.

The stewed eggplants are also nice to have since it also tastes better next day or later served cold. For this batch, I used a whole dried red pepper cut up instead of red pepper flakes, which made the dish a bit more spicy than usual.

There is nothing really new here but showing our Izakaya dishes in sequence.

New Year "Osechi" from sushi Taro 寿司太郎のおせち料理

 We have been feasting on Sushi Taro Osechi Boxes おせち料理 for three days and there is still some left. As usual we picked it up the boxes on the afternoon of December 31. We received two boxes or "Ju-bako" 重箱 neatly wrapped in "Furoshiki" 風呂敷 Japanese wrapping cloth as you can see below. Although this is the 3rd year we've gotten the Sushi Taro Osechi, it was still exciting to peek into the boxes to see what treats are inside.



This is a view of the upper box. Black beans (kuro-mame 黒豆) are in the jar (left upper corner) and steamed sea urchin is in the right upper corner. In the center is a small grilled red fish or "Tai" 小鯛の姿焼き and the right to that is beef tongue, Some items are hidden underneath.



This is the lower box. We love "ankimo" monkfish liver terrine (left upper) and this year, we got more of our favorite "karasumi" からすみ or Japanese bottarga (in the upper center). With these two items alone we can consume a lot of sake. The center row includes sake steamed prawns and chestnuts. The 3rd row contains simmered vegetables, duck breast and simmered octopus.


On New Year's Day, I made a plate with the combination of my dishes and the ones from Sushi Taro Osechi. Although, "Datemaki" 伊達巻き (yellow roll) was also in the box, I served the one I made from "Hanpen" はんぺん fish cake and eggs. Besides "matsukaze yaki" 松風焼き (left lower), salmon kelp roll 鮭の昆布巻き (behind Datemaki) and Kazunoko herring roe 数の子 (below Datemaki, the rest of the items are from the box. I added decorative cuts on the red and white fish cake 紅白蒲鉾. A big prawn was sake steamed and delicious.



Daikon Namatsu 大根なます was also included in the box but I served mine with Ikura salmon eggs and sweet vinear marinated octopus.



This is marinated "Russian" salmon with lemon and onion I made as usual from my mother's recipe.



The below are drinking snacks on January 2. These are all from the box. We had this with red wine. From the left, beef tongue, marinated egg yolk with Brasilian nuts (wonderful!), Sweet potato, Datemaki, Chestnut (shibukawa-ni 渋皮煮), Ankimo terrine (right upper), Daifuki mame beans 大福豆 and cherry petal nagaimo. All went well with the wine.



This could have been a lunch on the second. The left is small molded sushi with cured snapper, the front is my salmon kelp roll.



This could have been the 3rd day appetizers. Duck breast, marinated egg yolk, mustard stuffed burdock root, burdock root with sesame sauce, cumquat simmered in syrup, three rolled items on the right (from the top) are cod roe wrapped in kelp, shrimp cake "shinjo" 海老しんじょう wrapped in "yuba" 湯葉 tofu skin, cured snapper with center of vinegared young ginger "gari" wrapped in kelp. All are excellent but the mustard (mixed with egg yolk??) stuffed burdock root is exceptional and only a "pro" could make the items wrapped in the nori sheets (I think).



I have not mentioned all the nice simmered vegetables and several kinds of marinated grilled fish and other goodies. For the past three days of the New Year, we have been indulging in so many small nice dishes. This is better than Christmas feast (at least for me).

This is January 4th. I again combined items from the box with the ones I made. The marinated grilled fish was best served heated up in the toaster oven.



Although this was a lunch, this type of food begs for sake and we succumbed. For starch, we had grilled mochi Izobemaki 磯辺巻き.



I think we have to stop this sometime soon. We are definitely over indulging. The items below were the ultimate snacks for drinking sake including karasumi, ankimo terrine, cod roe wrapped in kelp, sweet fish with its roe and sake steamed prawn.

With these, we finished a bottle of rather dry but very agreeable Suigei 酔鯨 from Kochi 高知.

Again the boxes from Sushi Taro were fabulous. They make a good New Year an even better New Year. We could get used to this life style!

Japanese omelet with Cod roe wrapped in nori 鱈子と海苔いりだし巻き

This is a dish I made from the cod roe left over after I made nagaimo dressed with cod roe. I posted a similar dish before but this time I wrapped the cod roe with a nori sheet before making it to a Japanese style rolled omelet. Again, I could have done a better job of centering the nori/cod roe.

The cod roe is about a half a sack mixed with sake and Tabasco. I just cut the nori sheet to the width of the square frying pan I used to make the Japanese omelet. I put the cod roe in the center of the nori sheet and rolled it to make a rather flat roll (image below left).

I just mixed two beaten eggs with dashi broth (2 tbs) and added sugar (2 tsp) and salt (a pinch). On medium heat, I put a small amount of vegetable oil (1 tsp) and poured in 1/4 of the egg mixture. When the bottom is set, I placed the cod roe/nori roll on the far side of the pan and started rolling using a spatula, Japanese cooking chop sticks and by tilting the pan to help with the rolling. I poured another 1/4 of the egg mixture into the open area of the pan, lifting the existing omelet so that the egg mixture flows under it. I rolled again and repeated the process until all the egg mixture was used resulting in a rectangular omelet (image below right).

I cut it into 6 pieces (3 for one serving). The cod roe was just barely cooked and was lovely and moist. The addition of nori makes the rolling easier as well as adding a nice oceanic flavor to this dish. The tabasco gave it a slight zing. Of course, the egg part is slightly sweet and dashi adds nice soft texture and delicate flavor. There is no need for soy sauce since cod roe gives enough saltiness. The winning combination! We, of course, had cold sake with this.

Stewed Cornish game hen 若鶏の黒酢煮

This is based on my wife's suggestion. This is a variation on the theme of "Kurosu-ni" 黒酢煮. Some time ago, I decided to preserve the simmering liquid by removing the congealed fat and straining it after each use. I adjust the seasoning by adding more black vinegar, soy sauce and mirin. Sometimes I also add water to compensate for evaporation. The simmering liquid became rich in taste and collagen and it congeals like jelly in the refrigerator. Since the simmering liquid has become a rather large amount, at my wife’s suggestion, I cooked a whole Cornish game hen stuffed with very small Yukon gold potatoes (or “potatolets”).


When I simmer various chicken parts in this mixture of black vinegar, mirin and soy sauce, I often cook root vegetable such as potato, nagaimo, and daikon. Potato can be a problem since a part of it can dissolve into the simmering liquid making it more difficult to strain. Since we found  small potatolets (the second picture below in the left), I decided to use them with the skin-on which prevents the potatoes from breaking up and dissolving.

I first stuffed the cavity of the bird with the potatolets and trussed the chicken in my usual way (leaving string long so that I can fish it out later more easily. This was not needed however--in the picture below left). I poured in the simmering liquid. Although the depth of the liquid was enough to completely submerge the chicken, the chicken floated up (in the picture below on the right). I used a silicon “otoshibuta” to keep it submerged and simmered it for 1 hours then let it cool down in the liquid. We did not eat this immediately. I put it in the refrigerator. The next day, I skimmed off the congealed fat that had formed on the surface but not much fat was present. I warmed it up on simmer for another hour.



I removed the chicken and trusses as well as the potatolets (in the picture above on the right).

The Cornish game hen was tender and the meat fell off the bones. The potetolets kept their shape but were soft and could easily be mashed to soak up the simmering liquid. The skin was also soft. This is a interesting way to cook and serve whole Cornish game hen.

Another three appetizers お通し３種類

Here are other examples of drinking snacks--3 kinds. From left to right are blanched okra, burdock root salad and edamame.



I made the okra dish just before serving. The rest were prepared ahead of time.



1. Okura
Most of the time the okra I see at our regular grocery store is blemished and generally not good. This time, when I went to the grocery store, which is not our usual one, for Pasteurized eggs, I saw really fresh good looking okra and could not resist buying it. I first rolled the okra on the cutting board with Kosher salt to remove the fine hairs on the surface. I washed off the salt and blanched them in salted boiling water for 15 seconds and then cooled them in ice water. After they were cooled, I blotted the water from the surface and kept them in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Just before serving, I sliced them into thin slices and dressed with soy sauce and dried bonito flakes.

2. Burdock root
I made this at the same time I made Kimpira. Instead of  braising the burdock root, I boiled it in salted boiling water for a few minutes. I let it cool down and dressed in mayonnaise with a bit of soy sauce.

3. Edamame
This is just boiled frozen edamame. Since I had broth left over from the simmered atsuage  and nagaimo dish, I just cut off the ends of the pods and soaked the edamame in the broth. I kept it for a few days in the refrigerator.

This threesomes was not bad (but not great either). Although I liked the okra, my wife did not like the residual sliminess (in general okra is not one of  her favorites). The burdock root salad was good but I think the classic kimpira is better. The broth did not season the edamame as much as I thought it would. As a starter, however, this was more than adequate.

G Sake on the rocks G 酒 オンザロック

When we were at Izakaya Kurakura 蔵倉 in Kyoto recently, we had "Icebreaker" summer sake on the rocks which gave us the idea to taste G sake on the rocks. We posted G sake Joy and G sake Fifty in 2013. While they were good, we were not wild about these sakes (we liked the original G sake) and thought they were a bit too assertive/savory in taste with cloying sweetness (this tendency was more pronounced in "Fifty"). As a result several bottles of G sake have stayed in the refrigerator untouched. Since they were a rather assertive undiluted genshu with higher alcohol content (18% alcohol), we thought they may taste better on the rocks like Icebreaker sake.

We first tried G sake (2013 version) on the rocks.



The glass came from Kitaichi glass 北市グラス in Otaru 小樽. While we were in Japan, we noticed some of the Japanese tumblers were made of incredibly thin glass. We learned that since incandescent light bulbs are becoming a thing of the past in Japan, the same technology used to make light bulbs is being used to make very thin-walled glass tumblers. The ones we bought have little dimples on the sides making them easier to grasp. We tasted G sake "Joy" on the rocks in these tumblers accompanied with deep fried small sweet fish or "ayu".



A few days later, we tried G sake "Fifty" (2013 version) on the rocks. The major difference between "Joy" and "Fifty" is the degree to which the rice has been polished; 40 and 50% (of outer kernel removed), respectively.



This time we had octopus sashimi and raw ocutopus in wasabi yuzu dressing (in the square container,  from a frozen package). I also served matchsticks of nagaimo in vinegar dressing garnished with dried "aonori".



We liked G sake "Joy" on the rocks. The cloying sweetness was much less and the slight dilution and icy temperature made the G sake taste crisp and better.  G sake "Fifty" got much better than tasting it straight but the cloying sweetness broke through even on the rocks. Certainly, we can drink it much more easily on the rocks than straight. In conclusion, it is a good idea to have G sake on the rocks in hot summer. The assertive tastes of G sakes are actually perfect for on the rocks. We much prefer G sake "joy" over "fifty". We have not tried the most recent brews, however.

"Tsukune" Chicken patty and mountain yam fritter 鶏のつくねと長芋のフリット

"Stukune" つくね is ground meat (chicken is most common) with binder and seasoning made into a ball or patty. It is one of the most popular "Yakitori" 焼き鳥 item but it can be deep fried, pan fried or boiled.  Here I made another popular version of chicken "stukune". As an accompaniment, I also made a "mountain" yam fritter.

The recipe is rather simple. I used pre-ground chicken (1/2 lb), added sauteed finely chopped onion and shiitake mushroom mixture (2-3 tbs), "Yuzu-kosho" 柚子胡椒 (1/2 tsp, commercial kind in a tube) and 1 tsp of potato starch. I made oval flat patties (about 2x4 inch). In a frying pan, add 1-2 tsp of peanut oil and cook each side for 3-4 minutes. I added sake (1tbs), mirin (2 tbs) and soy sauce (2 tbs) and put a lid on. I cooked on low heat for 3-4 minutes, then removed the lid and increased the heat until the liquid became thick and coated the patties. I sprinkled them with Japanese "sanshou" or Sichuan pepper powder.

For mountain yam or "nagaimo" 長芋 fritter (I am not sure what is the right name for this dish, "fritter" is not quite right but piccata is also not right), peel and slice the yam in 1/2 inch thick rounds (I made 4 rounds). Beat one egg and mix in 2 tbs of finely chopped vinegared ginger root (called "Gari", the type you have at the sushi bar) and dried "aonori" powder (1 tsp). Dust each round with popato starch and then coat with egg mixtures. Pan fry in a frying pan with a small amount of vegetable oil (I used light olive oil) for 2-3 minuts on each side until crusts are formed. Eat with salt or soy sauce (I used salt).

I am not sure that the addition of a "Yuzu-kosho" to "tsukune" was a success. It does not have enough fresh "yuzu" flavor to make a big difference. But as far as "tsukune" goes it was more than OK. The mountain yam fritter has a very nice crunchy texture inside and nice eggy crust with ginger and aonori flavors. Very nice texture and flavor contrasts.

"Yamaimo somen" Mountain yam noodle in cold broth 山芋ソーメン

Recently I was introduced to several very interesting food blogs on Izakayas through "Izakaya Sanpo", which I listed in my favorite links. One called "Eating out in Tokyo with Jon" is quite amazing as he is very prolific (eating out and blogging) and his writing very informative and interesting. I was reading one of his posts on a quaint drinking place in Takasaki, Gunmma 群馬県高崎市 called "machiya" 待家. This reminded me of the last time we were in Maebashi 前橋-Takasaki 高崎 areas in Gunmma prefecture, my friend and his wife took us to a very fancy and excellent French restaurant which we enjoyed enormously (including a bottle of Chateau Lynch-Bages -- 2001, I think), but if I had known of this place we would have begged my friend to take us there instead. In any case, he was describing a mountain yam or "yamaimo" dish called "Yamaimo somen". Since I am trying to reproduce Izakaya food at home and blog about it, I wanted to reproduce this dish based on the picture and his description.

I peeled "Nagaimo" (it is the cultivated variety of "yamaimo") and then using a Japanese mandolin (the "Benriner", which we have been using for almost 25 years but still has very sharp blades), I made thick (using the most coarse julienne blade) juliennes, which are rather fine, actually. I think that, depending on what kind of texture/sliminess you like, one can change the treatment of the "Yamaimo somen". We rather like some slimy texture as well as crunch, so we would use these juliennes as is.  If you would rather reduce the sliminess, then, I would soak them in vinegared water, drain and wash them in running water to remove the surface slim before putting them in a bowl. Judging from the picture and the delighted expression by Jon, they must have washed the slim out somehow. For us, I just placed the "yamaimo somen" into a bowl and poured in a cold noodle sauce (I used a bottled concentrate with strength weaker than for dipping but stronger than for hot noodle dishes). I garnished with chopped scallion and nori with a side of "real" wasabi. This was quite a new (at least to us) way of enjoying this slimy potato. I have posted several other ways to enjoy this slimy potato (mostly grated, Sorry, Jon). Certainly, we can serve this to our Western guests with much less problem. Another idea I have is to mix this with juliennes of daikon which may add another type of crunch to this dish.

Monkfish liver "Ankimo" with Ponzu and grated daikon 鮟肝とポン酢紅葉おろし

When we received the shipment from Catalina, we did not eat the ankimo 鮟肝 immediately since it was frozen and can keep for some time. Now, having polished off all the sashimi items, we decided to hit the ankimo. This time I served it in a more traditional style with grated daikon mixed with red pepper flakes called "momiji oroshi" 紅葉おろし (meaning "red maple leaf" grated daikon), with ponzu ポン酢 instead of the orange marmalade soy sauce. I also added "nagaimo" 長芋, which was cut into match stick-sized julienne dressed with sushi vinegar and garnished with "aonori" 青のり.

The traditional way to prepare "momiji oroshi" is to make a small hole in the middle of the daikon and insert a dried whole red pepper and then grate the daikon and pepper as one. I simply added Japanese red pepper flakes from the bottle 七味 or 一味唐辛子 and mixed it with grated daikon then poured ponzu shouyu (from the bottle) over it. The grated daikon cuts the heat of the red pepper and also the fattiness of the ankimo.

After I made (or arranged) this dish, we realized our house sake, Yaegaki "Mu" Junmai daiginjou 八重垣 "無" was all gone but, for ankimo, we need sake. We did have several bottles of the US brewed sake called "Haiku" 俳句 (we keep it for emergencies), which is brewed from Californian rice and Sierra water in California by Ozeki 大関酒造.  It is not too bad (in an emergency), and is a type of "Tokubetsu junmai" 特別純米酒 but it is a bit yeasty for our taste and we liked to have a better sake with ankimo. Then, we found the last bottle of "Nanawarai" daiginjou 七笑大吟醸 from Kiso  木曽 in our refrigerator, which we hand carried home last year from Japan.

This was good; a very gentle sake without assertive flavors. It reminded us of Dassai 23 獺祭 23. For a more clean fruity taste, we favor our house sake but this sake tasted better than I remembered it. I am not sure if I can get this sake here in the U.S. anyway. In any case, ankimo and cold sake went so well together.

Burdock fettuccine with red pepper and anchovy 牛蒡のペぺロンチーノ

When I buy gobo 牛蒡, I usually get one gobo at a time but this time, the minimum amount I could buy was two. So, besides my usual, kimpira 金平 or nituske 煮付け, I decided to expand my repertoire of gobo dishes. Emulating noodles by using julienned and/or long shavings of vegetables (such as potato, nagaimo or daikon )(for that matter, spaghetti squash does not even need to be cut into a noodle shape) is not unusual but making noodles from gobo is new to me. I saw this in e-recipe and decided to try it.

Gobo: I used the stem half of gobo for two servings. After I scraped off the skin using the back of the knife under running water, I used a vegetable peeler to make nice thin long strips. I immediately put the gobo strips in acidulated water. I changed the water several times until the water became clear. I drained and patted the gobo strips dry using paper towels.

Cooking: I heated olive oil (1 tbs) in a frying pan on medium-low flame. I added garlic (two cloves, finely chopped) and anchovy (2 fillets, finely chopped). When the garlic and anchovy became fragrant, I added the gobo strips and red pepper flakes. I stirred it for 2 minutes more or so and seasoned it with salt (taste before adding salt, the anchovy may be salty enough) and black pepper. I added chopped fresh parsley at the end.

This is a surprisingly good dish.  It has a nice spiciness and the gobo provides a pleasing firm texture. The garlic, anchovy, and red pepper create layers of flavors that all go well together. This is a perfect drinking snack. Any drinks including cold sake (not warm sake), wines (especially a nice peppery Australian syrah) and beer will pair well.

Drinking snacks from frozen tuna block 冷凍キハダマグロのさくの酒のあて

One week we could not stop at our Izakaya substitute Tako Grill. So, on the following weekend,  I tapped into our frozen emergency rations, i.e. frozen yellow fin tuna sashimi block to make several drinking snacks.

The first one was tuna and avocado cubes. This was similar to what I have made before; cubes of tuna sashimi and avocado dressed in soy sauce, sesame oil, with grated garlic. This time, however, I garnished it with crispy garlic chips since I had them already made.



The second was pseudo negitoro ネギトロ擬き.  Oh the magic of adding mayonnaise; it really tasted like real negitoro! I was thinking of serving this as a "shime" ending dish either as small sushi rolls or hand rolls but instead, I served it with nori sheets so that we would not get filled up. This worked very well. We made small rolls of negitoro wrapped in nori—excellent!



The third one was our usual yamakake 山かけ. I marinated the cubes of tuna for 1 hour or so in soy sauce and sake mix.



Because of the grated nagaimo yam, this dish is more filling than it looks. At this point we finished the entire block of yellow fin tuna. We wanted one more dish. So I served freshly made non-frozen fish cake or satsuma age さつま揚げ which I bought at our Japanese grocery store. I served it with burdock root salad dressed in sesame mayonnaise and Japanese shishitou green pepper 獅子唐芥子prepared in "Tsukuda-ni" 佃煮 style. I just broiled the fish cake  in a toaster oven until  thoroughly heated up and the surface showed some brown spots.

For this evening, we enjoyed Niigata 新潟 sake Kubota Senju 久保田千寿、吟醸. We were not a big fan of Kubota in the past. I remember the Kubota series, even the higher end ones, tended to be too dry and a bit yeasty but this one was quite fruity and crisp but not too dry and had no yeastiness. Several days, later we had a chance to taste 久保田万寿 Kubota Manju which is daiginjou. This one tasted drier than Senju. For the price, I consider Senju a much better buy.

At this point we were getting quite filled up but my wife wanted a small desert and served some grapes and a mini chocolate something. For a low quality frozen yellow fin tuna sashimi block, these dishes were quite enjoyable. We were especially impressed with the pseudo negitoro.