Braised Shirataki with Tarako roe 鱈子と白滝の炒り煮

This is another small dish perfect for "Otoshi" お通し. It is made of "shirataki" 白滝 (a noodle form of konkyaku 蒟蒻) and "tarako" 鱈子 roe.  I often had this dish with additional ingredient of sliced "chikuwa" 竹輪 fish cake and seasoned with soy sauce and mirin as a side dish when I was a child (obviously not as "Otoshi" for a drink). I modified the way my mother used to make this dish and seasoned it with soy sauce and sake but no sweetness added (no chikuwa, either), so that it may go better with a drink of cold sake.

I decided to make this dish because I found frozen tarako in our freezer which appears not to be high in quality (I must have bought it frozen sometime ago). Shirataki, which means "white cascade" in Japanese, is Konnyaku or Konjac made into thin noodles by extrusion and is often used in Sukiyaki. It does not have many calories and, for that matter, not much taste but can absorb any flavor you add to it.

Tarako mixture: First, remove the tarako roe by slicing the membrane and, using a back of the knife, scrape off the roe from the membrane and put it in a small bowl. For the one package of shirataki, I used two small sacs of tarako but the amount is totally arbitrary. I add 1-2 tbs of sake and a dash of Tabasco (optional) and mix so that it will have nice thick saucy consistency.

Shirataki: I drain and wash one package of shirataki and cut into three portions to make the noodles more manageable and cook it in a boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes (mostly to remove the peculiar smell konnyaku and shirataki always have) and drain. Put the shirataki noodle in a dry non-stick frying pan on a medium flame. Stir to let the excess moisture evaporate (so that it can absorb more liquid seasoning). I add sake and soy sauce (1 tbs each) and stir until the liquid is almost all gone. You could add mirin here to make this dish a bit sweet. 

Add the tarako mixture and keep stirring until the color of the tarako become white and cooked through. Since tarako is salty you may adjust the amount of soy sauce accordingly. I mix in chopped chives (or scallion). I garnish with chopped chives when serving.

This dish has an interesting texture contrast of cooked roe and shirataki noodle. The addition of Tabasco adds a  very slight and slow acting pleasant heat to the dish. Sake is definitely called for.

Electric Sake Warmer 電気酒燗器

We usually drink sake cold. For drinking sake cold, we like a crisp, clean, and fruity flavor profile of daiginjo 大吟醸. Some junmai 純米 and junmai ginjo 純米吟醸 sakes also have this flavor profile. Our house sake, curretly, is “Tengumai 50 Junmai Daiginjo” 天狗舞純米大吟醸. We enjoy it cold and it has a nice clean, dry,  crisp, and fruity flavor. Now, not going into the details, somehow, by mistake (not mine), we ended up with a case of “Tengumai yamahai-shikomi junmai”天狗舞山廃仕込純米 instead of our favored house sake.  As I mentioned previously this sake has a more savory, yeasty and mushroomy flavor when tasted cold or at room temperature. Then I read that this sake changes its flavor profile if heated. Almost in desperation, we tried it warm (at 120F or “Atsu-kan” 熱燗). We were pleasantly surprised that the flavor profile changed completely and became smooth and mild. We thought “Ah-Ha” the secret is that this sake should be consumed warm which would be particularly appropriate during the winter months when we have dishes like hot pot “nabe” 鍋 dishes, “sukiyaki“ すき焼き, or  “oden” おでん. But the main reason we rarely drink sake warm is that one additional step of warming it up and the difficulty of maintaining the temperature while enjoying it warm.  So, we decided to splurge on an electric sake warmer 電気酒燗器.

We bought it at Amazon but it came from a seller in Japan. The sake warmer sits on top of the heating unit. The server holds about 240ml (1号半). It heats up to the specified temperature in10-15 minutes. The temperature control is continuous (not discreet steps) and ranges from about 35C to 60C (95F to 140F). Using my digital thermometer and water, the actual temperatures are higher (by about 5-10F) than it indicated. We usually like “Atsu- kan” *.

*ranges of warm sake temperature
“Jouon” 常温, room temperature 20℃ (68F)
”Hinata kan” 日向燗 sunny side 30℃ (86F)
”Hitohada kan” 人肌燗 skin temperature 35℃ (95F)
”Nuru kan” ぬる燗 luke warm 40℃ (104F)
”Jou kan” 上燗 warm 45℃ (113F)
”Atsu kan” 熱燗 hot 50℃ (122F)

The sake warmer works extremely well. We can have it sitting next to us and as we are enjoying the warm sake, we can add more sake to the server. By the time we are ready for the next serving, the sake has reached the proper temperature. The only challenge is to warm up enough but not too much sake and to consume it at just the peak of time it has been warming. This is because any leftover sake once heated will not be good the next day for example. Also,warming up the sake and keeping it warm more than 1 hour is not good either. In any case, this was a great improvement break through.  We are glad that we can now enjoy Tengumai junmai sake this way. So the mistake which had us end up with a case of tengumai-junmai instead of our favored house sake was indeed a “blessing in disguise”. It introduced us to a sake variation which we now enjoy but would never otherwise thought of trying.

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.