American Wagyu New York strip steak アメリカ和牛のニューヨークストリップステーキ

Wagyu 和牛 is a breed of cattle developed in Japan (As I understand it they are a cross between Japanese native and western cattle. Reportedly, only a few pure native Japanse cattle remain in Kagoshima 鹿児島 and Yamaguchi 山口 prefectures). The breed was selected for its highly marbled meat. To us, classic Japanese Wagyu beef is too fatty when eaten as a steak but it is considered one of the most prized beef. When eaten raw, it has a mouth feel reminiscent of  fatty tuna but once cooked it tastes a bit too fatty to me. Beef fat has a strong taste to me particularly when in excess (unlike pork fat which can be eaten to any excess as far as I am concerned).  Dependining on the regions of Japan in which a particular breed was developed, it is named, for example, "kobe-gyu"  神戸牛, "Matsuzaka-gyu" 松坂牛 or "Oumi-gyu" 近江牛. Often, this beef is served thinly sliced for grilling (yakiniku 焼肉) or sukiyaki すき焼き.

My niece married into a family of cattle farmers near Sapporo. They raise Wagyu but I was told they mostly raise the cross between Wagyu and black Angus. I learned from my niece and her husband that the wagyu is rather delicate and has to be housed in a barn during the cold snowy season but the cross breed with black Angus is much more robust and can stay outside in the snow and survive (and thrive).

In the U.S., one could get genuine wagyu beef imported from Japan but it is prohibitively expensive (we never tried it). It is not worth it in my book. Instead, like ones raised in my nice's farm, American wagyu (cross between Wagyu and Black Angus) is raised in US and Australia and its meat is widely sold in a gourmet market at a reasonable (relatively speaking) price. The meat is much redder and not as highly marbled compared to genuine Wagyu beef as you can see in the picture below but it is much fattier and marbled than typical American prime or choice beef. The cut I got this time was  New York strip steak and I bought it as one serving. It weighed almost 1lb! (Between two of us we ate only less than half this evening).

I did not do anything special to cook the steak. I first let it warm up to  room temperature and seasoned it with Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Using a small amount of light olive oil, I seared both sides on medium high flame until a nice brow crust was formed (The above image on the right). I finished it in a 350F oven for 8 minutes (for medium rare  as you can see below). I removed the steak from the pan to a plate and covered  loosely with aluminum foil to let it rest for 10 minutes. It was homogeneously pink without the center being totally raw. The marble lines were almost not visible since the fat became semitransparent but it was there.

I served it sliced with the side of oven fried potato. For sauce, I degrazed the pan with sake (4-5 tsp) and reduced it to 1/3 and added soy sauce (1 tsp). I then added 4-5 pats of butter to make an emulsion.  Off heat, I added real wasabi (1/2 tsp) and poured it over the slices of steak (the first picture).

This was certainly a great steak. (Of course, it was perfectly cooked, if I do say so myself). The wasabi flavor did not come through as much as I expected. Is it better than U.S. prime stake? I am not so sure. The oven fried potatos were excellent. They had a crunchy crust and creamy soft inside (my wife's contribution). We were still enjoying the wonderful 2007 Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon with this steak.

Toriten 鳥天

This is a dish I did not grow up with. It is essentially tempura using chicken instead of fish. It apparently was started as a local cuisine in Ooita prefecture 大分県 in the southern most island of Kyushu 九州. In the neighboring island of Shikoku 四国 and the Kansai 関西 region (Oosaka 大阪 being at its center), it is often served with udon noodles. I bought bone-in split chicken breast over the weekend. I removed the bones and tenderloins. We ate the tenderloins as an appetizer (grilled with my usual perilla and picked plum) but the breast meat remained marinated in sake (for preserving) in the refrigerator. The next weekend, the chicken was still good and I made this dish.   I think it is usually served with some kind of sauce such as ponzu sauce, tartar sauce or as a topping for udon noodles with broth called "Toriten Udon" 鳥天うどん. Here, I simply served it with wedges of lemon and green tea salt.

Although this is breast meat, it came out quite moist inside. 

Since this is not a dish I am very familiar with, I consulted a few recipes on line. Apparently different parts of the chicken can be used for this dish.  It is essentially tempura with chicken meat but I combined the good parts of several recipes and came up with the following.

Ingredients:

Chicken breast, two halves, skin and bone off.

Marinade (sake, chicken broth -from a box Swanson broth - 1 tbs each, 1 tsp of potato starch, 1/2 tsp of grated ginger and a pinch of salt)

Tempura batter (cake flour, one egg and the same amount of cold water - I used reverse osmosis filtered water from the refrigerator,  and 2 tbs Vodka)

Peanut oil for frying.

Directions:

1. I cut the chicken breasts into bite size slicing across the grain of the meat. I then pounded the slices flat using a meat tenderizer with an irregular surface. I marinated the chicken pieces in a Ziploc bag, after massaging the chicken pieces and pressing out as much air as possible. I let it marinate for a few hours (at least 30 minutes) in the refrigerator. This treatment keeps the moisture in the meat and adds flavor.

2. I heated the oil to 350F. 

3. I drained the marinade from the chicken pieces and blotted the surface using sheets of paper towel.

4. To make the tempura batter, I mixed the egg, and Vodka - alcohol prevents gluten from forming. I added cake flour - again, cake flour has least amount of gluten. I could have also added potato starch which has no gluten. I mixed being careful not to over mix. I added flour and/or water to adjust the consistency to resemble runny pancake batter).

5. I dipped the chicken pieces in the batter, shook off the excess and fried until golden and crispy turning once, less than 1 minutes total.

6. I drained the excess oil and served hot.

This was a very nice dish. Despite using breast meat, it came out very moist and succulent. The crust could have been lighter and crisper but the moisture from the meat made the crust soft if not soggy. To be honest, I like kara-age with a coating of potato starch better but this is a new dish and I got one post out of it.

P.S. The next day, I heated up the leftovers in the toaster oven and the crust became nicely crispy, although the meat got a bit drier.

Potato Croquette with cheese チーズ入りポテトコロッケ

This is a form of leftovers control and I made it from my wife's mashed potatoes, which we had with roasted pork loin.  My wife's mashed potatoes were made from white potatoes (eyes removed and skin left on) cooked in the microwave oven until soft, then mashed rather coarsely, This time she added cream cheese with onion and chives spread, and buttermilk  (the buttermilk was Harrisburg Dairies whole milk buttermilk. It is her favorite and she refers to this as "high octane" buttermilk because, according to her, it is so rich and flavorful). She then seasoned it with salt and pepper. I noticed she made a lot of potatoes; much more than we needed for the meal. I commented on the large quantity. She confessed she made enough so there might be leftovers that could be used for other dishes such as my croquettes (hint, hint). A few days later, I obliged and transformed the smashed taters into potato croquettes. As seen below, I formed them into a shape like my creamy crab croquette instead of the more usual oval disk shape.

I served it with Indian-style carrot salad, and blanched broccoli.

The reason, I made these potato croquettes into this form was is to conceal a button of cheese I hid inside (I used smoked Gruyere cheese) which nicely melted.

Again, there is no recipe for this. I first made buttons of Gruyere cheese (about 5x1x1cm, or whatever size depending on how the croquette would be formed). I took my wife's leftover mashed potatoes (cold from the refrigerator and easy to form) and wrapped the cheese with the potatoes and shaped in to short cylinder form or "tawara" shape 俵 in Japanese culinary parlance. I then dredged in flour, egg wash and panko bread crumbs. I deep fried in 350F oil for 4-5 minutes turning several times.

This is best eaten piping hot with the molten cheese oozing out like the picture above. My wife was delighted with the hidden cheese surprise. For intentional-leftover control, this was not too bad. 

baked potato with bacon fat

Did I tell you that my wife is in pursuit of the ultimate oven fried potato? This is another attempt. The previous time, she parboiled the potatoes with the addition of baking soda and used duck fat. This time, she replaced duck fat with bacon dripping. As before she flavored the potatoes with fresh chopped rosemary.



The process was same as before, parboiling the white potatoes with the addition of baking soda. The main difference is that she added bacon dripping instead of duck fat. She also used all purpose (AP) potatoes instead of yukon gold.

The final result? It was very good oven fried potatoes but we did not taste much bacon flavor. We smelled the bacon while the potatoes were baking but somehow that did not translate into the flavor. We felt the same about the duck fat potatoes. Also the use of AP instead of Yukon gold potatoes doesn’t seemed to have mattered either. Maybe, for us, just olive oil would do the trick and that would be slightly healthier.

Kabocha Squash Cookies

Recently we got a kabocha かぼちゃ (Japanese) squash by the grocery delivery which was quite large. I made simmered “Kabocha” and potage but still half remained. Since it was near halloween, pumpkin recipes were appearing everywhere. My wife found a recipe for pumpkin/buttercup squash cookies on the Washington post web site.  She thought since buttercup squash and Kabocha are close squash relatives this recipe may be a good way to use up the remaining Kabocha. Also, we were both curious as to how a squash could be used to make a cookie. The picture below shows the 3 variations of the cookies my wife made. As suggested by the original recipe there were 3 coatings: cinnamon sugar (upper left), pine nut (upper right) and  toasted coconut (bottom). These were surprisingly good. They were just bite sized and somewhere between a cake and cookie.

Ingredients
1/2 cup flesh from cooked/roasted winter squash* (may substitute yam, sugar pumpkin or sweet potato. We substituted kabocha squash)
1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups almond meal/flour, or more as needed
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
Pine nuts, for coating (optional)
Shredded coconut, for coating (sweetened or unsweetened; optional)
1/4 cup sugar plus 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, for coating (optional)

*We used kabocha squash, cooked in a microwave oven and mashed. We further use a ricer to make it smooth.

Ingredients (X2)
1 cup flesh from cooked/roasted winter squash* (may substitute yam, sugar pumpkin or sweet potato. We substituted kabocha squash)
2 large egg yolk, lightly beaten
3 cups almond meal/flour, or more as needed
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Finely grated zest of 2 lemon
Pine nuts, for coating (optional)
Shredded coconut, for coating (sweetened or unsweetened; optional)
1/4 cup sugar plus 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, for coating (optional)
Sesame seeds for coating (optional).

Directions:
Combine the squash, egg yolk, almond meal/flour, sugar, vanilla extract and lemon zest in a mixing bowl, stirring to form a smooth, very soft dough. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to 1 day. If the dough seems too pasty and wet, add a little more almond meal/flour, keeping in mind that the dough will firm up further as it chills.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.
Divide the dough into 24 equal portions (about 2 teaspoons), rolling each one into a ball. Before spacing them on the baking sheets at least 1 inch apart, roll some of them in one or more of the coating options listed below. Bake (middle rack) for 15 to 20 minutes, during which time the cookies should not spread much.
Cool completely on the baking sheets before serving or storing.

All three version were very good. The cookie itself is moist and soft with a mild slightly sweet squash/pumpkin flavor. Not quite a typical cookie but very good. And three different coating worked excellently. We really like this cookie.

Tarako from Korean grocery store Hmart 焼きたらこ

 Lightly grilled salted "tarako" たらこ cod roe is not really a new dish as I posted it many years ago,  but it is a very common dish in Izakaya and goes perfectly well with sake. I usually get tarako (frozen) from our Japanese grocery store, but this time I got it from Hmart, the Korean grocery store, through Instacart.  The groceries were delivered while I was not at home so my wife received them. During a subsequent phone call,  she mentioned that it was not a completely successful grocery run since the three types of fresh mushrooms and the mackerel we ordered were not available. The good news was that the "tarako" did arrive. She said something was wrong, however, because it was covered with a red goopy stuff and suggested that maybe the little egg sacks had somehow ruptured spilling their contents. (Not good!) So when I got back in the evening and inspected the tarako I found it was coated with a Korean hot sauce "gochujang". We were both relieved and had a good chuckle. Since we are not into very hot spicy food, I quickly rinsed off the hot sauce. I made "Tarako" pasta たらこスパゲッティwith it and it was just fine. I made the dish shown below from the last sac of tarako. I just cooked it in the toaster oven until the surface was cooked but the insides were still raw. I served it with a Dashimaki omelet だし巻き I had made.

This was a part of several appetizers I served that evening (second picture). From left to right; Eggplant in seasoned broth 茄子のお浸し、deviled egg from pickled eggs my wife made,  salmon in sweet vinegar 鮭の南蛮漬け. The bottom right are oven-baked potato chips which my wife is in the process of perfecting and which will be subject of another post. The dish on the bottom left is a dipping sauce my wife made to go with the potato chips.

In any case, we started the evening with these small appetizers.

Grilled Tofu with miso 豆腐の味噌田楽

This is also a classic small dish perfect for Home Izakaya. I am not going to get into a lengthy discussion of how this type of dish came to be called "dengaku" 田楽. The name reportedly came from the appearance of the dish (square with skewers) which resembles a small stage on stilts set up in a rice paddy. Music and dance were performed on this stage for a rustic rice planting cerebration in old Japan which is called "dengaku", translated as "enjoyment in a rice paddy". Small portions of tofu, potato, egg plant, "kon-nyaku" or other vegetable are placed on a skewer and grilled with some type of sauce (miso-based is most common). Some items such as potato may need to be pre-cooked before it is grilled. This dish is a sort of snack on a stick, Japanese style.

 Here, I used a "firm" or "momen-goshi" tofu. I drained it and placed it between paper towels with some weight on it, not too heavy, for 5-10 minutes to remove additional water. I then cut it into small rectangles. I broiled it (without the skewer because the skewer might burn) in an oven with high heat--placing it very close to the heating elements so that the surface browns as the tofu is warmed through. Turn over once. You can also cook it on a grill or in a toaster oven. Take it out and coat the upper surface with a generous amount of a miso sauce which I described before. This one was made with sugar, sake, dashi, sesame paste, lime juice and grated lime and lemon zests (additional lime zest was added later as garnish as shown above). Put it back under the broiler for a few minutes until the sauce bubbles and gets nicely brown. If you use a grill, you could use a kitchen torch to brown the miso sauce.  Browning the miso sauce is important as it will make the miso fragrant. Put the skewer in as shown above.  The skewer is a sort of decoration here but to qualify for a "dengaku" dish you will need a skewer for the reason described above. Besides, it also allows you to pick it up by hand. Serve immediately while hot.

Classically,"kinome" should be used as a garnish--it looks very nice and has a distinctive flavor. But "kinome" is very difficult to come by in the U.S., unless you have a "sansho" or "Sichuan or Japanese pepper" tree in your backyard. "kinome" is the young shoot of this tree. As long as you do not add any meat or egg yolk to the miso sauce (which are common variations of this type of miso sauce) and use kelp or vegetable dashi broth, this dish is strictly vegetarian.

I served this with a American mini cucumber cut in "jabara" or a snake belly style with a sweet miso sauce.

Yakitori, two kinds 焼き鳥２種類、レバたれ、笹身のシソ梅肉

I started this blog with “Yakitori” posts 3 years ago. I also posted about our surrogate “Izakaya” “Tako Grill”.  Last year, to our surprise, Chef Kudo went back to Japan for good and opened up his restaurant “タコグリルTako Grill” in the small town he originally came from called “Kuroishi” 黒石 in Aomori prefecture 青森県. Now Mr. Terry Segawa 瀬川哲紀 who mostly took care of the business side of Tako Grill is more involved in the kitchen. He added quite nice Izakaya type snacks to the menu (actually, he now has a special Izakaya menu). When Terry is behind counter, he often offers something “off the menu”. These dishes are different and quite nice; one evening it was Yakitori (chicken liver and hearts). My wife really likes chicken liver Yakitori, which I have not made for some time. This prompted me to make these small yakitori skewers on weekend.
When I barbecue whole chickens, I usually discard the neck, gizzards and liver which are packaged in paper and tucked inside the cavity. (These are usually meant for making the American classic gravy-with-giblets). This time, I used the liver to make this small Yakitori while we are waiting for the whole chickens to finish cooking.

Since the Webber grill was otherwise occupied with the whole chickens and the mosquitos were still around making me reluctant to stand around outside tending the grill, I cooked these Yakitori in the toaster oven in “Hi-broil”.

Chicken liver: I removed attached fat, vessels etc and soaked them in sake for 20-30 minutes. I used a flat metal skewer. From two whole chickens, there was enough liver to make two small skewers (picture below).

Sauce: I made quick “tare” たれ or dipping sauce. It is a mixture of sake (1 tbs) mirin (1 tbs), sugar (2 tsp) and soy sauce (1 tbs). I first heated the sake and mirin mixture to boil, then dissolved sugar and added soy sauce. I then made a potato starch slurry (katakuriko 片栗粉 or potato starch plus sake). I streamed it in until the sauce was slightly thickened.

Chicken tenderloins: This is a variation of shiso and salted plum roll 梅しそ巻き which I previously posted. Instead of making it into a roll, I butterflied the chcken tenderloins, lined it with 1 or 2 leaves of perilla and smeared bainiku 梅肉 (I removed the meat of umeboshi 梅干 plum and minced it into paste with a small amount of mirin to make it a paste consistency). After closing the butterflied portions, I used a sawing motion to thread the skewer (see below).

I cooked the skewers on Hi-broil in the toaster oven (with the upper heating elements about 1 inch from the skewers) turning once or twice for 10-15 minutes. For the liver,  I coated the surface of the cooked liver with the dipping sauce and broiled it for one more minute turning once. I put on one more coat of “tare” sauce and sprinkled “sansho” 山椒 or powdered Szechwan pepper corn on the liver.

This was a perfect appetizer to eat while we waited for the chicken to cook. Sometimes the liver included in the packet found in the cavity of a whole chicken is not fresh and is all broken up, but I should check it before discarding. This was perfectly good chicken liver.

Green tea cake with "Kuromame" black beans 黒豆入り抹茶ケーキ

I usually do not make deserts but this was an exception. I saw the recipe (in Japanese) in one of the food blogs I follow. The blogger is a very talented and her cooking covers a wide range of international and Japanese cuisines.  Since I had leftover "Kuromame" 黒豆 black beans from the Osechi box and green tea powder or "macha" 抹茶, I decided to make this cake. Sushitaro osechi included a similar cake one year.  Since this is not my usual area of cooking my wife advised me on several of the techniques (such as creaming sugar and butter) and even though I had a slight "hiccup" in the butter creaming department, the cake came out extremely well. We had this as an afternoon snack with "sencha" 煎茶　green tea (from Hibiki-an 響庵).

The cake is moist with a nice green tea smell and flavor. Although I did not brush the cake with brandy as suggested in the original recipe, the brandy flavor came from the black beans since they were soaked in brandy before baking. This is an excellent cake.

The below are English translation of  the original recipe in Japanese.

Ingredients: (for one loaf of 19cm x 9cm)
100g unsalted butter, room temperature
65g  sugar
50g AP flour
20g potato starch (Katakuri-ko)
40g almond flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1tbs green tea powder (macha)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3tbs plain yogurt
1tsp vanilla essence
Japanese "Kuromame" black beans in a syrup, arbitrary amount, drained and soaked in 2 tbs brandy.

Ingredients: X2 (for 2 loaves of 19cm x 9cm)
200 g unsalted butter, room temperature
130 g  sugar
100 g AP flour
40g potato starch (Katakuri-ko)
80g almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs green tea powder (macha)
4 eggs, lightly beaten
6 tbs plain yogurt
2 tsp vanilla essence
Japanese "Kuromame" black beans in a syrup, arbitrary amount, drained and soaked in 4 tbs brandy.

Directions:
1. I mixed all dry ingredients (including the sugar) together and sifted to remove any crumbs.
(I made the mistake of not creaming the butter with the sugar. My wife (always helpful) pointed out that this process is very common in cake making or cookie baking. So in an attempt to recover from my mistake, I punted).
2. I added the butter and eggs to the plastic mixing container for the immersion blender. Using low speed, I mixed the butter and eggs. I added all the remaining wet ingredients and further mixed (This worked. All wet ingredients were nicely mixed).
3. I added the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mixed until no dry ingredients were visible (#1).
4. Since we did not have a loaf pan of the size specified in the original recipe, we used a disposable aluminum baking pan, well-buttered with the bottom lined with parchment paper  (in retrospect, we could have used a smaller pan which we did have). I placed half of the batter in the loaf pan and smoothed the surface (#2).
5. I drained the black beans soaked in brandy and mixed into the remaining batter (#3).
6. I layered the second batter on top of the first layer and smoothed the surface (#4). (This process results in the black beans being evenly distributed in the cake).
7. I baked the loaf in a preheated 350F oven for 40-45 minutes or until a bamboo skew inserted in the center came out clean.
8. After the loaf cooled down, I removed it from the pan (#5).
9. The black beans appear evenly distributed (sort of).

When the cake came out of the oven, the smell of green tea was really good. For the very first cake I ever made this is an unqualified success (thanks in part to my wife's guidance of course). We are thinking that instead of kuromame, we can make this cake without it or with nuts. We really enjoyed this cake. It is truly special.

Scalloped potato with cauliflower puree

My wife came up with this dish one day. A few days before I had made my usual Cauliflower puree. Beside eating it as an “adult baby” food, we have made Mac-and-cheese using the puree instead of Béchamel sauce. I am not sure how she came up with this dish but, it is essentially scalloped potatoes made with the Cauliflower puree, cheese, onion and jalapeño pepper. This was topped with several kinds of cheese and baked.

After the servings were cut out, you could see multiple layers of thinly sliced potato with cheesy sauce. The green bits are chopped Jalapeño pepper. She ended up making a quite large amount but we managed to enjoy it all as a side for lunches and dinner and also as appetizers. Probaly not as rich as if we made this with full-fledged Béchamel sauce but it was quite good.

I ask my wife to provide the recipe. I help her by slicing potatoes, onions, and chopping up Jalapeño pepper.

Ingredients:
Two russet potatoes thinly sliced
2 onions thinly sliced
2 jalapeño pepper
1 cup of cheddar cheese grated
1 cup monterey Jack cheese grated
1/2 cup parmesian cheese grated
Several slices of smoked gouda to top.
Enough cauliflower puree to cover several layers


Directions:
Cover the bottom of an oven casserole dish with the puree. Distribute a layer of potatoes (#1) then the sliced onions, jalapeño pepper and the various cheeses (# 1&2) then the cauliflower pure (#3) Keep layering until all the ingredients have been distributed. End by putting on slices of smoked gouda (#4). Cook in a 400 degree oven covered for 30 minutes. Remove the cover and continue cooking for 30 minutes until the potatoes are tender and a knife slides in easily. Let cool for 15 minutes before serving.

This is a very comforting dish with thin layers of potatoes between custard like layers of warm cheese. The jalapeño peppers and onion give a nice flash of flavor. You would never guess that cauliflower was one of the main ingredients. It heated up nicely in the microwave. This would the a staple for any menu. 

Chicken breast with yuzu flavor 柚子鶏

I saw this recipe in one of the blogs I follow (in Japanese). Interestingly, this is all done in the microwave oven in a fashion similar to my saka-mushi  or sake-steamed chicken. This is a quite good drinking snack and we enjoyed it.


I followed the recipe with very minor modifications (I did not add sugar to the marinade).

Ingredients:

Chicken breast, boneless skinless (one, large)
Salt (1/4 tsp)
Potato starch (1 tsp)

For marinade:
Soy sauce 1 tbs
Mirin 1.5 tbs (original 1 tbs)
Sake (rice wine) 1/2 tbs (original 1 tbs)
Rice vinegar 1 tbs
Soy sauce 1 tbs
(Sugar 1 tbs, I omitted this)
Yuzu koshou 2tsp

For the side:
Onion, sliced, 1 medium
Scallion for garnish

I first removed the tenderloin from the chicken breast. Following the original recipe, I "stabbed" the chicken breast with the tip of my knife to make multiple cuts across the grain of the meat. Then, I flattened it using my  meat pounder (with a smooth flat bottom). I placed the marinade and the chicken in a Ziploc bag, massaged, removed as much air as possible and sealed it. I let it marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.

I placed the chicken breast in a silicon microwave container. sprinkled in the potato starch, poured the marinade over and place on the lid. I microwaved it on high for 2 minutes and checked (it appeared that the sauce was getting thick and I added a small amount of hot water). I flipped the chicken over and microwaved for 1-2 more minutes. (Our microwave is 800KW, and this timing has to be adjusted depending on the wattage of your microwave oven). I let it cool down a bit with the lid on for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile I put the sliced onion in a separate silicon microwave container, put the lid on and microwaved it on high for 2 minutes. I then put the cooked onion in the sauce with the chicken.

When the chicken was warm but cooled down enough to handle, I sliced it (The first picture is one small serving which is half of the breast), put the onion on the side and garnished with chopped scallion (green part for color).
I thought this was quite good and had a nice yuzu-citrus favor from yuzu-koshou. It is not spicy at all despite the yuzu-kosho. My wife thought this was on par with my microwave sake steamed chicken. I thought this tasted more interesting. In any case, this is a perfect snack with sake or even wine. Actually we had a cold ginjou 吟醸 sake from Shizuoka 静岡 prefecture called "Wakatake Onigoroshi 若竹鬼ごろし" Devil slayer. This is a slightly sweet gentle sake but has a nice fruitiness and went well with this dish.

Roast beef ローストビーフ

This is a totally "out-of-bounds" post for an Izakaya blog but I have a special reason.

Some time ago my niece asked me how to make roast beef. Since we rarely eat roast beef and when we do, we usually barbecue it using a Weber kettle, I could only give her general instructions gleaned from other sources such as the "Joy of Cooking" cookbook. I decided to make roast beef with gravy and post the process, so that my niece can refer to it. Here, we served the slices of roast beef with gravy and oven fried potatoes. (For her, I added Japanese text à la Hiroyuki's blog).

私の姪にローストビーフのレセピーを教えてほしいと言われたのですが、私たち自身ローストビーフをほとんど作る事がないし、ごく稀に作るときは、ウエバーケトルグリルでバーベキュウするので、料理の本からのレセピーを伝える事ぐらいしかできませんでした。そこで、私の姪の為に、オーブンローストビーフとグレイビィを作って, その経過を記録してみることにしました。下の写真は、出来上がったローストビーフとグレイビー、そしてオーブンで作ったフライドポテトです。

In terms of equipment, you need a good quick reading meat thermometer. In the absence of the thermometer, you could estimate the cooking time by the weight of the roast but you have to use the internal temperature of the roast to most accurately judge the doneness. You also need a roasting pan with a metal grate or rack so that the meat will sit above the juices that accumulate on the bottom of the pan. This serves two purposes; the hot air circulates under the meat and cooks it evenly and the meat is not sitting in its own drippings during the cooking process which would tend to braise rather than roast the meat.

必要な道具は、温度がすぐ読めるミートサモメターと金属のラックのついたロースト用のパン。肉の重さからオーブンの時間は推定できますが、最終的には、ローストの内部の温度を計る事が焼き加減を知る一番の方法です。ラックは、肉の下側までオーブンの熱がよく伝わるためと、出てくる肉汁とロスートが直接接触しないようにするためです。

The cut of the meat I bought was a 3 lb top round (upper portion of the hind leg muscle) but it was not well cut and had a somewhat odd shape. So, this may not have been the best example of a good cut for roast beef (image below left, before trussing). It is important to truss it properly so that, it will cook evenly (Image below right).

私の買ったロースト用の肉は、トップラウンドと言うカットですが（後ろ足の上部の肉）あまり上質の肉ではないようで、ちょっと変な形をしています。重さは３ポンド（1.36kg). もうちょっと良い肉を買えばよっかたと反省しています（下の写真左側、紐で縛る前）。紐で形を整えながら縛る事 (トラシング) は、肉が均一に焼ける為に大切です（下の写真右側）。

For seasonings, I use fresh rosemary from our herb garden, garlic, salt, and freshly cracked black pepper. First, I thinly slice peeled garlic cloves (I use 4 cloves). I then make multiple deep slits in the meat and insert the garlic slices. It is important that the garlic slices are completely hidden below the surface so that the garlic will not burn during roasting. I remove the rosemary from the stems and finely chop (4 small sprigs) and mix with 2-3 tbs of olive oil and generously smear the mixture on the surface of the meat. I make a mixture of freshly cracked back pepper and kosher salt (half and half, about 2 tbs) and rub the mixture on the surface of the meat. (image below, left). Ideally, the meat should be at a room temperature before putting it in the oven. Actually my wife did the roasting part. Preheat the oven to 425 F and roast for 15 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 350F and roast for about 20minutes more/pound. So, a 3 pound roast will take about 60 minutes more. I start taking the temperature at the center of the roast after 45 minutes and for medium rare, I am looking for an internal temperature of 140F (Image below right).

私の庭で採れたローズマリー、ニンニク、挽きたての黒こしょう、塩で、肉の味付けをします。まずニンニクの皮を取ってから、薄切りにします（３−４個）。幅の狭い包丁（ボーニングナイフ）で肉に深い切り込みを幾つも入れ、ニンニクの薄切りを差し入れます。ニンニクが肉の外に出ていないように確かめてください。ニンニクが外に出ているとこげて苦い味になります。ローズマリーの葉だけとって細切り（４本もしくは大さじ２）、それをオリーブオイル（大さじ３）とまぜて、肉の表面によく塗り付けます。挽きたての黒こしょうと塩を混ぜ（それぞれ大さじ２）それも肉の表面にしっかりとなすり付けます。（下の写真左側）オーブンに入れる前に、肉が室温まで戻っているのが理想的です。ローストラックの上に肉をおいて、予熱した 220Cのオーブンの15分入れた後、温度を175Cにさげて、１ポンドあたり２０分（２０分／４５０グラム）。３ポンド（１.３６Kg) の肉だと、もう一時間焼きます。４５分位から肉の温度を計ります。メデァムには内部温度が、肉の真ん中の一番厚いところで、60Cになるまで焼きます。（下の写真右側）

This roast took a bit longer to cook than we expected (the center may still have been cold after it was taken out of the refrigerator). Transfer the roast to a plate and loosely cover it with aluminum foil to keep it warm and let it rest for 15-20 minutes before carving. Our roast was a bit more done that we wanted (Image below) but still rosy in the middle.

重さから推測したよりも少し時間がかかりました。肉を他のお皿に移してアルミのフォイルをゆるくかけで肉を切る前、１５−２０分休ませます。私たちの好みより少し焼け過ぎになりましたが（下の写真）まだ真ん中はピンクです。

Now making gravy; I remove the metal grate of the roasting pan which collected some dripping in the bottom and the edges are nicely browned (below left). I place the roasting pan across two burners on the stove on medium low flame and add port wine and chicken broth (1/4 cup each) (since we did not have beef broth) and deglaze all the nice brown bits using a silicon spatula (below right).

肉が休んでいる間にグレィビーを作ります。金属製のラックを取り除いた後に、肉汁が沢山落ちています。端の方はちょっとこげかけています。（下の写真左側）ローストパンを二つのコンロのバーナーにまたいでかけ（弱中火）ポートワインまたは赤ワイン（６０ml）をいれ、へらなどで焦げた肉汁をこそげながら溶かします。（ポートワインは甘みが有ります。) ビーフブロスまたはチキンブロス（６０ml、ブイヨンキューブを水に溶かして代用の場合は塩気に注意)をさらに入れます。（下の写真右側）

I could finish the gravy in the roasting pan but it is a bit unwieldy, so I transfer the contents to a frying pan on medium heat. Add any juice from the plate on which the roast was resting, and reduce it a little (few minutes). The traditional American way is to finish this with flour (There is a special finely milled flour called "Wondra" for making gravy). I used a corn starch slurry to thicken the gravy, which results in a slightly different mouth feel (more viscous texture). Taste and adjust the seasoning.

このまま最後までやっても良いのですが、わたしは、これをフライパンに移し、ローストビーフが休んでいるお皿にたまった肉汁も加えて中火で少し煮詰めます（１−２分）(下の写真左側)。伝統的なアメリカのやり方ででは、特にソースやグレイビー用に作られた、”ワンドラ”　という小麦粉を使いますが、ここでは水溶きしたコーンスターチを入れてグレイビーを仕上げました（下の写真右側）出来上がったグレイビーは小麦粉を使った場合と比べて、すこしヌルヌルした（なめらかな）口当たりになります。ここで味見をして、塩、胡椒を必要なら足してください。

You could add vegetables to the bottom of the roasting pan during roasting but we prefer to roast the vegetables (onion, garlic-skin on, potato,sweet potato, carrot etc) in a  separate pan by just coating them with olive oil and seasoning with salt and pepper. This way, you have better control of the doneness of the meat and vegetables.

根菜類をローストパンに肉と一緒に入れる事も出来ますが、私たちは、根菜類は、オリーブオイルを絡めて、塩、胡椒で味付けをして、別な容器に入れて、オーブンに入れます。この方が、肉と根菜が丁度良く出来上がる時間をそれぞれ調節できます。

This roast beef was OK with lots of garlic and rosemary flavors and the meat was reasonably tender if slightly more done than we would have liked (we prefer our beef on the rare side). The cut of the meat was not really the best. Hope this post helps my niece with her roasted beef and gravy dinner.

出来あっがたローストビーフはニンニクとローズマリーの味がして、肉も比較的柔らかく結構いいのですが、私たちの好みとしてはチョット焼き過ぎたのと、もともと肉の質が良く無かったのが、悔やまれます。このポストを参考にして、私の姪が彼女独自の完璧なローストビーフを料理する事を祈っています。

Grilled cod marinated in sake lees 鱈の粕漬け焼き

Sake lees or "sakekasu" 酒粕 is the residue of fermented rice or moromi もろみ after the sake is pressed. There are many forms of sake lees but it usually comes in sheets like the one I got. It consists of  fermented rice, sake yeast, with some residual alcohol. I bought this some time ago. I froze it and completely forgot about it until a few days ago. I can immediately think of three dishes to make from this; 1. Amazake 甘酒 which is sake lees sweetened and diluted with hot water. It is a classic drink of choice for girl's day celebration (March 3rd). It is too sweet for me and I never liked it. 2. Kasu-jiru 粕汁 is a soup made with dissolved sake lees (with or without miso) with vegetables and fish. This is much better than amazake and perfect for a cold winter's night and 3. Kasuzuke 粕漬け meaning "sake lees marinated". For this dish, the marinade is called "Kasudoko" 酒粕床. Fish, meat or vegetables can be marinated with this. If fish or meat is used it can then be grilled. The most famous vegetable kasuzuke is "Narazuke"  奈良漬け which originated in the oldest capital of Japan "Nara" where sake brewing as we know it may have originated.  Among these dishes, I like the sake lees marinated grilled fish best. So, I decided to make sake lees marinade base and then marinate cod and grill it. The fish needs to be marinated for at least 2-3 days in the refrigerator before grilling. 

I grilled the marinated cod in our toaster oven. This has to be done very carefully because it is very easy to "burn".

I served this with cucumber onion salad and cucumber, daikon and red radish asazuke 浅漬け.

Sake lee marinade base "Kasu-doko" 酒粕床
Ingredients:
Sake lees: one package, 300grams, frozen.
Miso: 30grams
Sugar: 3 tbs
Salt 1/2 tsp
Sake and hot water: as needed depending on how dry sake lees is (see direction).

Direction:
1. I broke the sake lees in to small chunks (#1). Since my sake lee was kind of dry, I added about 50ml of hot water and covered and let it steep to soften. 
2. I added miso, sugar and initially using a potato masher and then switched to a silicon spatula to mix as I added sake in small increments (probably ended up using about 100ml, #2).

3. I mixed it well until the sugar dissolved, then mixed in the miso until I attained the consistency of soft miso. The amount of hot water and sake totally depends on how dry the sake lees was to start with (#3).
4. I placed the sake lees mixture to sealable flat container (#4).


Preparation for cod:

I got two pieces of cod filet; serving for two. I washed and patted it dry using sheets of paper towel. I salted both sides and let it sit in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

I dried the surface again using paper towels and placed the filets in the sake lees marinade above (making sure all the surfaces of the fish were covered, see picture below). The fish needs to be marinated at least 3 days to have a nice somewhat pungent (but not fishy) flavor.

This is after three days. I carefully scraped off the sake lees marinade. Depending on your preference, you could leave some sake lee marinade attached but it is very easily burnt. I quickly washed off and then dried the fish it by blotting with sheets of paper towel before grilling.

I grilled it using our toaster oven.  Some moisture will develop during grilling so I placed a metal grate on a shallow baking pan and placed the fish 1 inch below the grilling element. I cooked one side 5-7 minutes until occasional brown spots appeared. I carefully turned it over and grilled the other side for several more minutes.

This technique can be used for other fish such as salmon but I like cod the best. Since cod or white fish does not have a strong flavor but does have a nice flaky texture, kasuzuke treatment really adds a nice albeit a bit pungent (but not fishy) flavor to the fish. This was somewhat nostalgic to me since I have not had cod kasuzuke for a long time. This is a lot of work but kasudoko can be frozen and can be used multiple times. I divided the kasudoko into two sealable containers; one for fish or meat and the other for vegetables (I am making cucumber kasuzuke as I speak). The only problem for us is to find space for it in our freezer.

Gnocchi ニョキ

When we barbecue chicken, we often bake potatoes. Since we had fairly large Russet potatoes, my wife just wrapped them in aluminum foil and we put them into the Weber next to the chicken. By the time the chicken was done (about 1 hour and 15-30 minutes), the potatoes were perfectly cooked. She made them to mashed potatoes with a Japanese touch i.e. liberal applications of soy sauce and butter. We love the crispy skin of barbecued chicken particularly when it just comes out of the Weber.  So, we immediately started snacking by making small rolls of mashed potatoes sprinkled with chopped chives wrapped in the crispy skin of the barbecued chicken. By the time we were ready to carve the chicken, we had mostly finished the dinner standing up eating the potato rolls with our fingers. In any case, my wife made gnocchi from the leftover mashed potatoes a few days later. As an ending dish of the evening, I served gnocchi with sage butter, meatballs I made that day and asparagus.

This gnocchi was more like sautéed in sage butter rather than swimming in sage brown butter. Although we grow sage in our herb garden, we used dried sage this time.

I made the meatballs from the trimmings of pork tenderloin. This time, I made my marinara sauce from skinned and diced Campari tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes.

Gnocchi
Ingredients:
16 oz. of mashed potatoes (3 cups)
4 oz. of AP flour (3/4 cup)
1 egg
1 tsp. salt

Ingredients X 1 1/2
24 oz. (1 lb. 8 oz.) of mashed potatoes 
1 1/8 cup of AP flour (may need more to make a workable dough)
2 eggs
1 1/2  tsp. salt

Ingredients X 2
32 oz. (2 lb.) of mashed potatoes 
1 1/2  cup of AP flour (may need more to make a workable dough) (I actually used 2 1/4 and it worked out        OK)
3 eggs
2  tsp. salt




Directions:
Press the mashed potatoes through a sieve. Add the flour and gently mix with a fork. Add the egg and salt and again gently mix with a fork until everything comes together into a dough.
Gently roll into 1/2 inch diameter logs. Cut into the desired size.
The pieces can be rolled on the back of a fork to make ridges to better hold the sauce but that didn't work out so well so our pieces generally didn't have any ridges.
Fill the dutch oven with water. Add 1 Tbs. Salt and several bay leaves. Bring the water to a boil. Lower the heat and gently add the gnocchi to the water. Heat just below the boil  for a few minutes in salted water until they float to the surface. Then remove from the water and put into the sauce.  Or for use later put in a bowl and coat with olive oil to prevent them from sticking together. 

This was really very good. They had a lovely light texture and the potato taste really came through. These were so easy to make and were so good they will definitely appear on the menu again. 

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.

PA Dutch Wet Bread stuffing

This is another one of my wife's PA dutch dishes triggered by our recent trip to rural Pennsylvania. It is essentially, a hybrid of mashed potato and bread stuffing but it tastes more like mashed potatoes than bread stuffing. When my wife was growing up, she used to eat something called wet bread stuffing served in the school cafeteria as a side dish for lunch. She remembers it as a loaf cut into slices and heated with a gelatinous texture.  Not one of her favorites as a child (it was that gelatinous texture) but as an adult she was curious to try it again. After some searching she found this recipe and though this may be it.



Ingredients (for 8 servings):
2 1⁄4 lbs potatoes, peeled and chopped
4 slices white bread, torn into pieces (My wife used Pepperidge Farm flavored bread stuffing about 2 cups). Several of the recipes go into great detail on how to handled the bread such as toasting it, frying it, and other methods to dry it out.
1⁄2 cup diced onion
1⁄2 cup diced celery
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Saute the onions and celery until the onions are just translucent and soft
2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
3. Add potatoes and cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes.
4. Drain, mash, salt and pepper to taste. Add enough milk and butter to give the mashed potatoes a very creamy texture. They should be a bit more liquid than usual for mashed potatoes because the dried bread soaks up the extra liquid. At this point just the potatoes themselves are good. 
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
6. Lightly grease a 2 quart casserole dish.
7. In a large bowl, mix together the potatoes, white bread (or flavored stuffing), onion, celery, salt and pepper. (First picture below)
8. Pour into prepared casserole dish, dot with pads of butter (second picture below) and bake for 1 hour. (Final picture below).

(Mix the seasoned bread stuffing with the mashed potato).

(Fill casserole and dot the surface with butter).



(Bake for one hour at 350F).



This was not exactly the dish she remembered from her childhood. For one thing, there was no gelatinous texture and it was very good. The bread stuffing completely amalgamated with the potatoes. The flavored stuffing really made the dish savory. It was like mashed potatoes but different. It must have been a great way for PA Dutch cooks to use stale bread and leftover mashed potatoes. The first day, it didn't hold together and we spooned it onto the plate as shown in the picture above but a few days later it could be sliced. My wife is still curious about the concoction she ate as a kid but from her descriptions of it, I'm glad this was not it.