Braised shishito with bonito flakes シシトウのおかかまぶし

 Japanese green pepper, (Shishi-tougarashi or shishitou 獅子唐辛子) is getting popular here. Nonetheless to my surprise, I found a bag of fresh shishitou at our regular grocery store the other day and got it. Eating Shishitou in U.S. is somewhat like a form of Russian roulette  since you can occasionally come across one that is atomically hot and you can never tell in advance which one it might be. Your first clue is when your mouth “catches on fire” as you bite into the pepper. (It seems this happens more often with U.S. raised shishitou than those raise in Japan. Legend says it has something to do with the soil.) In any case, I decided to make a shishitou dish I have not made before and added two small dishes as starters for the evening.

I thought if I de-vein and de-seed the shishitou, chances of hitting a hot one should be much less. So I de-veined and de-seeded and cut shishitou in long quarter strips. I served this with dashimaki だし巻きJapanese omelet with “aonori” 青のり dried seaweed.

Ingredients: (for two small appetizer servings)
4 shishitou, de-deined and de-seeded, cut into quarter strips lengthwise.
1 tsp x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (or half and half of mirin and soy sauce)
1 tsp vegetable oil
3 tsp or more dried bonito flakes.

Directions:
Saute the shishitou in vegetable oil on medium heat for a few minutes.
Turn dow the flame to low and add the noodle sauce and quickly braise.
Cut the flame and mix in the bonito flakes.

I also served two small appetizer dishes. The below is chicken tenderloin (from chicken roasted in the Weber grill) dressed in sesame dressing 鳥のささみの胡麻和え.

“Hya-yakko” 冷奴 cold cube of silken tofu topped with myoga  茗荷 and perilla 大葉 (both from our garden) and grated ginger with the concentrated Japanese noodle sauce.

These three appetizers were a perfect start of the evening. By the way, we did not get any atomically hot shishito in this batch. (Maybe this was due to the luck of the draw or maybe it is indeed worthwhile to removed the vein and seeds.)

Eggplant and Japanese pepper "Age-bitashi" with pickled myouga 獅子唐芥子と茄子の揚げ浸し

“Age-bitashi” 揚げ浸し is a rather classic Japanese cooking technique which I previously posted. This is another variation. “Age” means to "deep fry" and “Bitashi” or "Hidashi"means to soak. ). First a vegetable (eggplant is the classic) is deep fried and then “soaked” in a seasoned broth. This dish is either served at room temperature or chilled (especially in hot summer).

I had a half used package of Japanese small green pepper called “Shishi-tougarahi” 獅子唐辛子 or “Shishitou”ししとう for short. I decide to make it either “Yaki-bitashi” (grilled first and then soaked) or “Age-bitashi (fried fist and then soaked). At the grocery store, I found a nice looking Zebra eggplant and decide to make “age-bitashi” with eggplant and shishitou.

Here I served the resulting dish chilled with garnish of picked “home grown” myouga and thinly julienned ginger (“Ito-shouga” 糸生姜 or ginger-threads). This was a nice cool drinking snack to start. The only problem for me was that one of the peppers I ate was atomically hot* . I had been lured into complacency with several mild peppers. Without thinking I just popped the hot one into my mouth.  I had already chewed and swallowed when my tongue “caught on fire” and continued burning for sometime despite my efforts to put out the fire. My wife, however, did not suffer a similar misfortune

*Although shishitou in Japan appears to be always mild, shishitou grown in American soil for some reason occasionally reverts back to its original ancestor and is atomically hot. We equate eating US grown shishitou to Russian Roulette--you never know when you’ll get a “hot one”.


Shishi Tougrashi: I had about 10 leftover. I removed the stem and made a slit in the middle (To prevent exploding during cooking).

Eggplant: This is a small Zebra eggplant. I removed the stem end, cut in half lengthwise and then made half inch thick half moons.

Pickled Myouga: I posted this previously. I made some variation this time namely not blanching it before pickling (see below).

Broth: I took some short cut here. I used "Shiro dashi" 白だし from the bottle. This is concentrated dashi broth made from kelp and bonito shavings and seasoned with "shiro-zouyu" or colorless soy sauce. It is very strong and only need a little bit. I added 1 tbs of the concentrate into about 1 and half cup of water in a small sauce pan. I tasted it (dashi flavor was OK but needed a bit more saltiness) and added "Usukuchi-shouyu" or light-colored soy sauce (about 1/2 tbs). I needed some subtle sweetness and added about 1 tbs of mirin. I then let it come to a gentle boil and turned off the heat.

Instead of deep frying, I decided to sauté the vegetables. I added 2 tbs a light olive oil (or vegetable oil) into a non-stick frying pan on medium heat. I waited until the oil was almost smoking and added the eggplant. I fried one side until nicely brown (3-4 minutes) and then turned over (I added a bit more oil since eggplant soaks up the oil). After one more minute, I added the shishitou and moved them around for 2-3 more minutes or until the skin of the shishitou started blistering and brown marks developed.

I put the vegetables on the plate lined with a paper towel to remove excess oil. While the vegetables and the broth were both hot I put the vegetables into the broth, put on the llid and let them cool. After it came to the room temperature, I moved it to a sealable plastic container and placed it in the refrigerator for at least several hours or until thoroughly chilled.

The combination of shishitou and eggplant is excellent but if I have to choose I like eggplant better.

Sweet vinegared Myouga or 冥加の甘酢漬け
Although I previously posted about myouga and sweet pickled myouga, this year, I changed my recipe a bit taking my wife's input and re-posting it here. I think this recipe is better in preserving the unique myouga flavor.

As you can see below, despite the risk of being eaten alive by the mosquitos we managed to harvest some myouga. After removing the outer layers, I washed it several times to make sure no dirt remained attached (left upper). I then cut them into half and dried them on paper towels (right upper).

In the past, I blanched the myouga, which is part of the standard recipe, but my wife thought the parboiling reduced the myouga flavor in the final product. So this time, I did not blanch the myouga. I packed them in a sealable plastic container (middle left) and poured in warm sweet vinegar (middle right). As you can seen in the bottom row, the  myouga were mostly submerged. After a few days in the refrigerator, more moisture came out and the myouga was totally submerged. We started enjoying the pickled myouga after 4-5 days.

Sweet vinegar marinade:　This time I also change the recipe a bit. I added 180ml of rice vinegar, 4 tbs of sugar and 1/2 tsp of salt in a sauce pan (middle right in the picture above) on medium low flame. When the sugar  dissolved and come to gentle boil, I cut the flame.

After 3-4 days, this is ready to enjoy. I think without blanching, the myouga remains a bit more crispy and the unique flavor is better preserved.

Fried vegetables やさいの素揚げ

Since I had Kabocha Japanese pumpkin カボチャ, shishi-tougarashi 獅子唐芥子 or shishitou (both were from our regular grocery store) and "Gobo" 牛蒡 burdock root (from the Japanese grocery store), I decided to make this simple vegetable fry. It came our a bit too oily for our taste but still it was still quite good.

I precooked and seasoned the Gobo since I used a part of it for another dish. Alternatively, I could have used raw gobo just salted in acidulated water and then drained.

Ingredients (#3 below):
"Gobo" burdock root, about 1/3, skin scrabbled clean with a food brush but not removed.
Japanese "shishitou" peppers, 5-6, stem removed and slits cut in to the middle to prevent explosion in hot oil.
Japanese "Kabocha" squash, 1/4, innards removed and skin shaved off, cut into half inch thick pices
Oil for deep frying
Kosher salt

For preparing Gobo
Rice vinegar (making acidulated water for initial cooking)
Japanese dashi broth seasoned with soy sauce and mirin

Directions:
Cut the gobo into 3 inch lengths. First cook in water with a splash of rice vinegar for 10 minutes and then in plain water for another 10 minutes. Finally, cook in a seasoned Japanese broth (Kelp-bonito broth seasoned with soy sauce and mirin) in 10 more minutes.
Let it cool down in the broth and then cut into 4 long pieces and return to the broth to soak (#1) (I soaked it overnight in the fridge but it could be fried immediately).

I deep fried each items separately. Kabocha takes the most time (4-5 minutes) and shishitou takes the least time (1 minute). I served these sprinkled with a bit of Kosher salt. The kabocha came out very sweet. The gobo was still a bit fibrous but not bad. My wife removed the skin and seeds from shishitou and I ate all. Fortunately, none of them was atomically hot.

Anchovies in sweet vinegar イワシの南蛮

This is the second dish I made from the frozen "iwashi" イワシ anchovies. This is a standard "Nanban" 南蛮. The sweet vinegar cut the oiliness and fishiness of the anchovies and this is a very good dish.

Since I found Japanese "shishitou" 獅子唐芥子 at our near-by Whole foods, I added one, simply fried, as a garnish.

Ingredients:
Frozen (or fresh, if available) anchovy filets, thawed, three, cut into two making six pieces.
Potato starch for dredging
Peanuts or vegetable oil for deep frying
Celery (2 stalks), carrot (1 small), and sweet onion (1 small) cut into small strips (julienne)

For sweet vinegar marinade
Rice vinegar 1/2 cup
Japanese dashi 1/2 cup
Sugar 1/4 cup
Salt, a pinch
Light colored soy sauce, 1/2 tsp
Dried Japanese red pepper, 1 whole,

Directions:
Before starting to fry the fish, I prepared the vegetables and sweet vinegar.

I placed the ingredients for sweet vinegar in a sauce pan and heated it until the sugar melted. I let it simmer for 5 minutes and then let it cool to room temperature.
I added the julienned of vegetables.
I removed the whole Japanese hot pepper and sliced it into small rings removing the seeds for the garnish. (I did this in the morning and kept it in the refrigerator until I was ready to deep fry the fish).

I dried the fillets and dredged them in potato starch and deep fried them for 3 -4 minutes turning once in 350F oil,  drained it on a paper towel (see below).

While the fish was hot, I placed it in the sweet vinegar and covered the fish with the vegetables (see below). You can enjoy immediately or keep it in the refrigerator for later.

For this type of strong flavored fish, "nanban" is a good preparation. We enjoyed this with cold sake.

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.