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.

Deep fried stuffed Shiitake mushroom 椎茸の肉詰め揚げ

This is a variation from "Deep fried stuffed peppers" (Mark's book p20). This is also a fairly common dish. Actually, one of the reasons I made this dish is (like Pork meat ball nabe dish) to use up the meat stuffing I made for gyoza. Somehow we did not feel like having gyoza repeated for a few days. In any case, the recipe is rather simple.

For the meat stuffing, you could use any kind of ground meat such as pork, chicken or even beef or a mixture of beef and pork. Here, since I used gyoza stuffing, it is made of pork, minced cabbage, scallion, ginger, garlic and seasoned with soy sauce, mirin and black pepper. You could use just meat but I prefer to lightly season it, at least with salt and pepper. Since this is a type of tempura, you could eat this with a tempura dipping sauce with grated daikon or graded daikon with red pepper "momijo-oroshi" 紅葉おろし as suggested in the recipe in the Mark's book or with a lemon and salt or just with a lemon juice as we did here because the meat stuffing was seasoned.

I used small fresh mushroom (about 2 inch in diameter). Although it is optional, I made a traditional decorative star-shaped cut on the surface of the shiitake mushroom as seen above. Take the meat stuffing and put it against the gill side of the mushroom and make a small mound. The amount of the stuffing depends on the size of the mushroom, I used 1-2 heaping tsp for each mushroom. I used a rather thin tempura batter. I made about 1/3 cup of the batter with 2tsp each of cake flour and potato starch and added cold water (from the refrigerator dispenser) to make the rather loose batter.

I heated peanut oil or vegetable oil in a pan to 375F (or you could use the more imprecise but easy method of judging the oil temperature as I described before). I used green beans as an accompaniment. I snipped both ends of green beans and coated them with batter. I fried the beans for 1 minute. Then, I coated the stuffed shiitake mushrooms with the batter and fried them meat stuffing side down first and after 2-3 minutes flipped them over and fried another 2 minutes on the mushroom side. I drained the stuffed mushrooms on a pepper towel or on a metal grate.

Small Japanese green peppers called "pea-man" ピーマン required in the recipe in Mark;'s book are difficult to get here in the U.S. and certainly, western green peppers are too thick and too strong in flavor for this dish. Especially since my wife does not like green peppers, shiitake mushroom is better choice for us. Shiitake mushroom has a nice meaty texture and we really like this combination.

Otoshi 5 kinds お通し５種類

I served this 5 kind of otoshi お通し appetizer on our relatively new five compartment plates. This was the evening I also served perilla-wrapped marinated tuna tempura 漬けマグロの青紫蘇包み天ぷら but I diverted a few of the tuna skewers to be served as is (see below) which was pretty good. This multiple otoshi to start was inspired by izakaya in Japan, "Suiko"酔香 and "Shuhai" 酒杯, where they regularly serve otoshi consisting of 6 dishes. Having store-bought items makes putting together 5 otoshi easy. Actually I had more than five I could have served as starters but this plate only had 5 positions.

The left two are composed of spicy clam salad and seaweed salad. Both were store-bought and fairly good. If you avoid eating the conspicuous red peppers  (seen at the upper left edge of the dish) the "spicy"clam salad is not too spicy. The seaweed salad appears artificially dyed but has a nice crunch.

The center two otoshi are sea food; boiled octopus leg 茹で蛸足 dressed in sumiso sauce 酢味噌 (I made the sumiso to my wife's spec "not too vinegary". I used dashi to get the consistency of the sauce). The dish on the right is perilla-wrapped "zuke" marinated tuna which I "stole" from the skewers destined to be made into tempura.

Although the tuna was marinated, I put on a few drops of wasabi soy sauce. I am now making different sauces ahead of time and storing them in the refrigerator in small squeeze bottles; (sauces like sumiso, wasabi soy sauce, mustard soy sauce, and sesame dressing.) This makes assembling multiple dishes more efficient. The last dish is eggplant and broccoli seasoned with black bean garlic and toubanjan (or Duabanjiang) sauce. I made this dish a few days ago to use up Italian eggplant leftover from making ratatouille. I made it sort of Chinese stir-fri-ish but I cannot even remember how I made it (I also used Japanese miso, come to think of it). It is not spicy and I added blanched sugar snaps for a color. Although I cannot reproduce it, my wife liked it.

So, this was a great start. I served few more small dishes and planed to finish with perilla-wrapped zuke tuna tempura.

Deep fried shrimp heads and Royal trumpet mushroom tempura 海老の頭の唐揚げとエリンギの天ぷら

I have posted deep fried shrimp heads before but it is, again spring season for amaebi or spot prawns. As usual, this came from Catalina offshore products and the shrimp was wild caught in water off San Diego. When they arrived, all of them were still arrive (albeit just barely), which was a very good sign.

One of the problems with spring amaebi (spot prawns) is their size. Although this was supposed to be 12 count per pound, We had only 6 in the pound; 4 were about 10C in size but two were gigantic. For sashimi, we prefer the small size. For smaller amamebi, the heads can be easily deep fried but when shrimp are too big, it is not feasible to do this.

In any case, we first had the four smaller ones as sashimi and also made deep fried shrimp heads. I trimmed the antennae and blotted the excess moisture (using paper towels) and fried in 350-370F peanuts oil for 6-7 minutes. After draining the oil, while they were still hot, I salted them. Since I had hot oil, I also cooked some royal trumpet mushrooms (very similar to eryngii which are popular in Japan) tempura. I tore one mushroom into 4 pieces from the bottom of the stem.  Tempura batter was made of cake flour with the addition of potato starch and cold water (4:1 ratio of the flour and potato starch. I added cold water until the desired loose "batter" consistency was reached).

The shrimp heads had a very nice crunchy shell and lots of sweet meat that almost tasted like small lobster. A word of caution;  bite down  the shell  perpendicular to your teeth lest you incur injury from the sharp shell or leg impailing your pallet or gums. For sashimi, beside sweet shrimp, we had maguro (ko-toro 小トロ bordering on chu-toro 中トロ) and uni 雲丹 sea urchin. Nothing but sake works for us for this type of food.

Tempura smelts 生シシャモの天婦羅

I spotted fresh and cleaned smelt in our regular grocery store one day. Smelt is a small fish and, in Japan, a type of smelt is called "Karafuto shishamo" which is a common substitute for real "Shishamo" from Hokkaido. Capelin is also in the same family. The smelt spends most of its life in the sea but, like salmon, it swims up river to spawn.  The ones I got  were most likely fresh water smelt from the Great Lakes. In Japan, egg-bearing females are the most valued. None of the smelt in my “catch” appeared to have eggs. As usual, Japanese and English fish names are difficult to sort out.

The smelt I got were already cleaned (gutted and head off) but not dried like the ones in Japan. The most popular way to cook smelt here in the U.S. (if you are the type of person who would even consider eating smelt) is deep fried. Like shishamo, you can eat every thing including bones, tails and fins. I pondered how to cook them and decided to make a sort of tempura using a thin batter.

Smelt: This is fresh smelt, head off and cleaned. I got 1 lb which is good for 4 generous appetizer size servings.

Tempura batter: I used cake flour (4-5 tbs) and cold seltzer water (add and mix until it forms a thin batter) with a pinch of salt mixed in.

I heated peanut oil in a frying pan (1 inch deep) to 350F (180C) on medium flame. I dipped the smelt in the batter and deep fried it for 3-4 minutes turning over once.

I served this with a wedge of lemon, deep fried parsley, and green tea salt. You could make this in kara-age 唐揚げ (coated with potato starch) or more Western style with seasoned flour or cornmeal and some kind of dipping sauce as well. This was a perfect drinking snack and also a good source of calcium. This goes well with any drink.

Izakaya Yuzuki in San Francisco 居酒屋癒月

We visited the San Francisco Bay area recently to attend a wine tasting and dinner held in honor of my former mentor. My friend, who organized the event, did a great job of putting together a wonderful great quality wine tasting of old vintages of California and Bordeaux wines emulating the judgment of the Paris in 1976. Afterwards, we decided to stay in San Francisco and visit a few Izakaya style restaurants. One evening, I chose Yuzuki 癒月 from the information I gather on the Internet and it happened to be a great choice.

The restaurant is in the Mission district. The building is old and could have previously been a neighborhood eatery. “Yuzuki” is a created word meaning “healing moon”. The picture below shows a framed calligraphy of the restaurant's name. In the old style, the letters are read right to left.

All the wait staff appeared to be Japanese and the two chefs busily preparing food could be seen through the pass-through opening in the back. The Sake sommelier  was also at hand to explain the sakes they were serving. The atmosphere was informal and very pleasant. For a more realistic Izakaya atmosphere, however, I would have preferred more counter seating. They have a bar counter (leftover from the previous restaurant?) but it is not quite the same as an Izakaya counter.

The table at which we sat was dark; darker than other tables which made picture taking a bit difficult. We started with a flight of four different sakes. The sake sommelier (a young man) served the flight and explained the types of sake, breweries, brew masters, flavor profiles etc. It was accompanied with a piece of paper with the name and short description of the sake. This is a much better way to experience a sake flight than the one we had at Sakamai 酒舞 in New Yolk because all the relevant information was available right in front of us.The Dewazuru junmai 出羽鶴　純米酒 was served at room temperature and the rest were chilled. From right to left, Takatenjin, Diaginjo 高天神大吟醸, Shizuoka; Fukucho “Suigetsu”, Junmai Ginjo 富久長　水月　純米吟醸酒, Hiroshima, Dewazuru Kimoto junmai 出羽鶴きもと純米, Akita; Yukino bosha, Nigori, Junmai ginjo, 雪の茅舎にごり純米吟醸酒　Akita.

We really enjoyed this flight. After the tasting, we chose a bottle of Fukuchou Suigetsu from Hiroshima as our drinking sake for the evening. The brew master for this sake is a female which is very unusual. We liked this one because of its nice clean taste yet it had some depth with a distinctive fennel after taste which was pleasantly surprising.

I forgot to take a picture of the first dish which was three Kyoto and home style vegetable dishes called “obansai” おばんさい presented very nicely in three small bowls set in a wooden compartmentalized box. There were three  specials on the menu that evening; 1) Hokkaido white squid sashimi, 2) raw oysters on a half-shell, and 3) anago 穴子 or sea eel tempura. We asked for the squid sashimi and anago tempura. In addition we ordered squid shiokara イカの塩辛 or “squid and guts”.

The picture above shows the squid sashimi. A portion of it was prepared in “naruto-maki” 鳴門巻き style with the nori seaweed. The legs were lightly boiled which was a bit chewy. This was very nice.

For the shiokara, we were well into it when I realized I had not taken a picture. We stopped eating long enough for me to quickly snap the pic. This was the best dish of the evening especially for my wife who is a shiokara connoisseur. This was home made by the chef rather than store bought and tasted of every bit of his skill.

The anago tempura was huge. The entire anago was served with other items such as egg plant, mizuna, and sweet potato. The entire length of the bone was also deep fried and served (a portion of it is visible in the picture above as “U” shaped item in the back). We also had shrimp kakiage かき揚げ and a very good chwanmushi 茶碗蒸し with uni (it was very good but the uni looked and tasted like it was from Maine).

As a shime 〆 or ending dish, we had grilled uni rice balls うにの焼きおにぎり. Four small wedges of rice topped with soy sauce-butter seasoning, uni, green (water cress), thin strips of nori. These were perfect for the two of us. This combination of uni and water cress sautéed in butter and soy sauce appears to have started out by the teppan-yaki 鉄板焼き place called "Nakachan" 中ちゃん in Hiroshima 広島 and was popularized by the new-trend sake bar "Buchi" in Shibuya. This was very good with a crunchy crust and nice uni taste.　

Although Yuzuki has the atmosphere of a small restaurant rather than an Izakaya, the food and sake were all excellent. If we were living in San Francisco, we would frequent this place often.

Information of Yuzuki:
Izakaya Yuzuki 居酒屋癒月
500 Guerrero Avenue, San Francisco
(415) 556-9898
http://yuzukisf.com/

Burdock root "gobou" three ways ごぼうの杣（そま）揚げ、チップス、きんぴら

For the New Year, I bought some burdock roots or gobou 牛蒡. One package contained two roots, which is a lot. So, after I used a portion for the New Year's dishes, I needed to finish up the remaining gobou. One evening I made these three gobou dishes.

Preparation of gobou is the same for all three dishes. The only difference is the shape of the pieces. I first halved the length of gobou since it is rather long and awkward to handle. Under running water, using the back of a vegetable cleaver or nakiri 菜切り包丁, I scraped off the dark skin. Depending on which dish I was making I cut the pieces differently but as soon as I cut the pieces, I soaked them in acidulated (with rice vinegar) water. Before using, I washed the pieces in cold water and dried them well using paper towels.

1. Soma-age 杣揚げ

The first one below is called "soma-age". "Soma" 杣 means wood or lumber cut from a mountain and the resemblance of this dish to the name-sake is rather obvious. I somehow remembered this dish from the depth of my memory (old drinking snack cook book*). It is like tempura but buckwheat flour or sobako そば粉 is used, which gives a nice crunchy texture and nutty flavor to this dish. It is a variation of gobou karaage 牛蒡の唐揚げ but it is different enough to warrant a different name.

I cut the gobou into 2 inch long pieces and then halved it lengthwise. I then placed the cut side down and sliced it rather thinly (2-3 mm or 1/5 inch) lengthwise. The central pieces were too wide so I cut them in half again lengthwise producing match sticks of gobou. After soaking them in acidulated water for 10 minutes, I washed them in fresh cold water, then patted them dry with paper towels.

Batter: I used  buckwheat flour (2-3 tbs) and a pinch of salt. I added enough cold water to make a rather thick batter.

Frying: I individually coated the gobou sticks and deep fried them in 340F peanut oil for one minute or until done and drained them over several layers of paper towels. 

This is best eaten while hot. The buckwheat crust and fried gobou are indeed a winning combination. We like this variation better than kara-age, although both are excellent Izakaya food.

*Later, I located this old cook book of drinking snacks by Shino Ikenami 池波志乃 called "Drinking snacks extraordinary" or 酒肴とびっきり and looked up the dish I made. It turns out I was actually, combining two of her recipes; one is tempura of "mountain" vegetables 山菜 using buckwheat flour batter and another is the original form of this dish; "gobou no soma-age" 牛蒡の杣揚げ, in which she used regular tempura batter. Although no new printing is being produced, surprisingly,  this book (used) is still available (It was published in 1983). 

２．gobou chips 牛蒡チップス

This is rather straight forward. I just sliced gobou on a slant rather thinly (paper thin). After soaking in acidulated water, I rinsed them and then patted them dry with paper towels. I simply deep fried the pieces for less than a minute in 320-330F peanut oil until brown and crispy turning once. While it was draining on the paper towel, I sprinkled on kosher salt.

This is like potato chips but gobou has a much more earthy nutty flavor. This fried up nicely and was not oily at all. It was nicely light and crunchy.

3 Stir fried "Kimpira" burdock root 金平牛蒡

This is by far the most popular preparation of gobou. It is a classic and still excellent. I have posted this before and will not repeat myself.

We had these three gobou dishes with California cab, Consentino 2005. This wine has a rather classic flavor profile of Califronia Cab in a good way. After tasting some austere Italian wines, we had to admit we like California reds like this one much better. This wine has a nice black and red fruit upfront with dark chocolate and vanilla with spices and moderate tannin.

Somehow this was a perfect wine with the gobou dishes. This red particularly went swimmingly with the "soma-age" burdock. Although I had to admit, these dishes will go well with beer or sake as well.

Matsutake Tempura 松茸の天ぷら

This is another classic dish made of matsutake 松 茸. I have to confess that this is my least favorite way to enjoy matsutake but in order to post something new, I have to explore many permutations of matsutake dishes. I do not particularly like making tempura of matsutake because, in my opinion, deep frying overwhelms the subtle flavor of the matsutake. Nonetheless, it is a popular way to cook matsutake

I used small sized matustake (two for two small servings like those shown above) which were cleaned and sliced. I made a tempura batter which was relatively thin. I used cake flour with the addition of a small amount of potato starch and added cold water until the thin batter was formed. But I was careful not to over mix, otherwise the gluten will develop and the result will be tough crust. Although I used peanut oil from force of habit, retrospectively, I should have used a flavorless oil such as canola or vegetable oil. The peanut oil adds an essence of peanut flavor to the matsutake--a somewhat confounding element. The oil temperature should be a bit higher (about 180C, I guess, I used my put-a-drop-of-batter-and-it-floats-back-immediately method of judging the temperature of the oil) ), so that the matustake will cook quickly and a nice crust is formed. It may splatter a lot (mine certainly did), so be careful.

I served this with a lime wedge and my ususal green tea salt. It is a very nice dish but the subtle flavor of matsutake is somehow lost. (That extra peanut taste didn't help). The texture is nice; a good contrast of slightly chewy matsutake and crisp crust.

Grilled soft shell crab ソフトシェルクラブの炭焼き

One nice sunny weekend, we stumbled onto a new farmer's market set up in the parking lot of a near-by strip mall. We bought some herbs to plant in our herb garden, nicely sweet and ripe strawberries, hot-house tomatoes (not as good as true summer tomatoes) and a few more items. One of the vendors was a fish monger selling fish from a refrigerated truck. Since they had soft-shell crabs, we could not resist and bought two.

Since it was such a nice sunny day, not too cold not too hot and no overt signs of mosquitos, we really wanted to stay outside. So, we decided to grill the soft-shell crabs instead of cooking them in our usual tempura method.

I somehow forgot to put my camera on "macro" mode and all the pictures I took except for the one (above) were out of focus and I cannot show you what the final servings looked like.

As usual, I started lump charcoal in a chimney starter and use our "Yakitori" grill for this. For basting, I made a mixture of melted butter (non-salted) and olive oil (about 1:1). I heated up the butter and olive oil for a few minutes and added finely chopped shallot. I then seasoned it with black pepper, salt, lemon zest and lemon juice and let it cool down to room temperature.

I brushed the butter mixture on the top side of the crabs and started grilling with the top side down (left in the above picture). After 4-5 minutes when the skin of the crabs turned red and blackend in spots, I basted the underside with the butter mixture and turned it over and cooked another 4-5 minutes (right in the above picture).

Although my picture did not turn out and I cannot show what the final servings looked like, I precut the cooked crabs and served it with grilled asparagus (using the same basting mixture) and grilled tomato halves (skinned, salted and coated with the same butter mixture) and a wedge of lemon. As usual, I also made grilled rice balls as an ending dish with cucumber slices in vinegar dressing with "jako" 胡瓜と雑魚の酢の物.

Although grilled soft-shell crabs are not bad, the skin does not get as crispy as in tempura and we both agreed tempura is the best way to enjoy soft-shell crabs. While edible, the crabs did not entirely meet my wife's standard of freshness, so we will probably not be buying anything else from that vendor. But, at least, we were outside cooking and enjoying the food and wine al fresco.

Spot prawn from Catalina カリフォルニア ボタン海老

We have not gotten anything from Catalina offshore products for a long time but it is California spot prawn season and we got these prawns along with frozen big eye tuna 中トロメバチマグロ and ankimo あん肝. Spot prawn is more like "botan-ebi" ボタンえび than "ama-ebi' 甘エビ and tends to be larger. The closest to Japanese ama-ebi is pink shrimp from Alaska and New England. We did get Alaskan pink shrimp a few times for sashimi from a Japanese-run company in Alaska, it came head removed and the freshness was not great. We see pink shrimp from Maine in our grocery store when it is in season but we never see it fresh enough to serve as sashimi. Even boiled, pink shrimp is quite good. In any case, we are not very fond of eating large spot prawn as sashimi. In the past we made ceviche out of it. I chose the smallest 6 and served it as sashimi for the evening we received them. I also served cucumber cups with tobiko トビコ and moromi-miso もろみ味噌.

For this occasion I thawed real wasabi. I also served octopus. This was quite good and we enjoyed it with cold sake.

I served the larger shrimp as tempura. Although these were not the largest ones the head was sill too tough and we had to remove the outer shell before eating. The prawn itself was very good. I served it with perilla tempura with green tea salt.

The next evening, I made a fry from the largest prawns. After the head and shell were removed, I de-veined (actually removed the intestine) from a tiny slit in the back with a tooth pick (actually not much to remove).  I made multiple shallow cuts on the belly side (ventral surface) to prevent it from curling up. As per usual, I  dredged in flower, dipped in egg water and  breaded in panko crumbs. I also deep fried the head. 

The prawn was very succulent and much better than "frozen and thawed" shrimp. I made an instant tartar sauce with store-bought mayo, finely chopped butter pickles with an addition of the pickling liquid.

Although I fried the head long time starting with low temperature and finished with regular 350F, the outer shell was still too hard. We removed it and only ate the center. The larger prawn is much better cooked than raw. We really enjoyed it. I also made broth from the remaining heads and shells which I am going to make some kind of soup.

Chestnut kakiage 栗のかき揚げ

One more dish made from North American chestnuts. This time I made “Kakiage” かき揚げ with onions and chestnuts.

Chestnuts: I prepared the chestnuts the same way as before. In brief, I boiled them and removed the outer and inner skins while they were still hot. For kakiage, you can use fragmented chestnuts.
Onion: Since I did not have any other vegetables such as carrot or gobou (burdock root), I just used sliced onion (halved first and then thinly sliced. The amount is totally arbitrary. You could add other items.
Batter: I lightly salted the sliced onion first and then sprinkled on cake flour and let it sit for 30 minutes so that the moisture from the onion came out.  To make this kakiage a bit richer I added one egg yolk (optional) and more cake flour and cold water and mixed. I tried to make a rather thin tempura batter.

In a deep frying pan, I added fresh vegetable oil and heated it to 350F on medium flame. When the oil was hot, I placed a flat disk of onion and chestnuts mixture using a slotted spoon (below). To make kakiage crispy, I fried it longer than I would usually fry tempura (5 minutes) and turned them over and kept frying for another 4-5 minutes until the edges of the onion were brown and crispy.

This is a good autumnal dish. The sweetness of the onion and chestnuts enhance each other with different textures. As usual, I served this with green tea salt and wedges of lemon.

Japanese Restaurant in Sapporo "Munakata"：むな形 円山鳥居前

When we were in Sapporo 札幌 (my home town), Japan, recently, I asked my mother if there was any restaurants she would like to try. She mentioned a new Japanese restaurant that opened a year ago that was on her route to the supermarket. When it opened up, she happened to walk by and got a flyer (she did not have it any longer).  After a quick Internet search, we identified this restaurant as "Munakata" 円山鳥居前 むな形.  The chef owner was reportedly from Hokkaido (a.k.a. Dosanko 道産子*) and opened up this new restaurant after having worked in another Japanese restaurant in Sapporo called "Otowa" 日本料理 をとわ.  According to my mother, the location previously had been occupied by a Belgian chocolate store and the store front was rather small. She was wondering how a Japanese restaurant could fit into the space. I made a reservation and we had a course dinner one evening.

* Dosanko refers to a small but very sturdy horse used in Hokkaido and literally means "child of Hokkaido". The proper way of reading the three ideograms should be "Dousanko" but the "U" sound is typically omitted. Dosanko also could refer to a person who was born and raise in Hokkaido (without any negative connotation). I myself certainly classify as "Dosanko".

The restaurant had nice light colored wood interior with a counter which accommodates 4-5 people (see below, I borrowed this from http://tabelog.com/imgview/original?id=r1437126198545). My mother's question was answered by the owner/chef who said the space was narrow but very deep and the previous chocolate store was using only the front as a retail store space.



There are a few tables as well. We were ushered into a private room (I am not sure but they may have 2-3 private rooms). Our private room was very nicely equipped with a table and chairs which accommodates 4 very comfortably and even had a small closet to hang our coats. We chose sake (I am sure I chose sake from Hokkaido but I cannot recall which one) to start.

And so the courses began. The appetizer was very nice with delicate (I think this may have been yuba 湯葉 but I’m not sure) flavors (upper two in the composite below). It was served in a modern-looking coffee cup. The second dish (lower two in the composite below) was a dumpling made of potato and either fava beans or edamame which appeared to be deep fried to add a thin delicate crust in a very rich sauce. My wife thought it was corn-based but when we asked the chef, he said “no” and said baby corn was used as garnish but did not divulge any additional information.



So far, we were impressed and it was a good start. Then came “Otsukuri” お造りor small sashimi dish which was very nicely presented. Shako シャコ  or Mantis shrimp (cooked) was the best. Squid (probably Mongou-ika 紋甲いか or cuttle fish) was scored and slightly charred but the meat was thick and the chewy texture was not my favorite.  Others included bonito and white meat fish (I assumed "hirame" 平目 or flat fish). While it was good the sashimi dish could have been better. We proceeded to tempura (see below composite upper right). One of the tempura was very unusual (see below). I think it was not too salty umeboshi 梅干し. It was nicely executed and we liked it.

Now came the least impressive dish. This appeared to be "Hassun" 八寸 (middle left in the composite below). The main one was an ocean caught salmonトキシラズ鮭. Which was grilled with cheese and slices of Japanese pepper or 万願寺唐辛子. I personally would rather have had this without the cheese or pepper. Other items were a bit disjointed in terms of the combination of tastes and textures. The meat ball made of squid (one with tooth pick) did not have much taste and had a watery consistency as if it was previously frozen and just thawed. The smoked pickled daikon or iburigakko いぶりがっこ was nice by itself but did not necessarily go with the rest of the items on the plate. One more small dish (middle right) and we were getting really filled up. But the next dish, which was beef nicely grilled with a miso-based sauce was excellent.  Despite being fully satiated, all of us finished everything. Then came the rice and soup or "Oshokuji" お食事.  The rice was "Fukagawa meshi-like" 深川飯風 with seasoned small clams. I was too full to enjoy it but my mother really liked it. The miso soup was classic akadashi 赤出しwith nameko mushroom ナメコ and was good (bottom picture) . As dessert, the citrus gele was light and refreshing (lower left in the composite below).



Rice and soup.



In general we really liked this restaurant. Despite a few stumbles with some of the dishes, the majority were very creative and inspiringly delicious.The service was impeccable. I am glad this level of Japanese restaurant is located very close to my mother's house.

Fried Burdock stick 牛蒡の唐揚げ

This is a rather common Izakaya dish, although, for some reason, I have not made it at home until now. There are several different ways to make deep fried gobo. There are gobo chips like potato chip, kakiage tempura, or match sticks like shoe string fries. It can be just deep fried as is, or some kind of batter (tempura batter or buck wheat batter) or flour coating could be used. Another variation infuses some flavors before deep frying.

I decided to make shoe string like fries. I also marinated it with sake and soy sauce before frying. I used potato starch to coat the surface to help make it crisper.

For two small servings like those shown above (one serving shown), I used 2 root end halves of gobo. I scraped the skin and cut into match sticks and soaked in acidulated water for 10-15 minutes with several change of water. I then drained and marinated it in a mixture of sake and soy sauce (1:1) in the fridge over night (few hours at room temperature will be fine or you can skip the marinading step all together). I drained the gobo and patted it dry with a paper towel. I then dredged the sticks with potato starch (katakuri-ko 片栗粉).

Instead of deep frying, I shallow fried them using light olive oil (below image) on medium flame. I could have used peanut oil and/or deep fried them. After several minutes, the gobo sticks turned brown and crispy. I drained the excess oil and while they were hot, I seasoned them with salt. Serve while hot.

My wife was totally sold on this dish. Gobo has a very unique flavor and prepared this was they were so crunchy. It is a bit like sweet potato shoe string fries but gobo is all fibers and crunch. This is probably much healthier than fried potato. This goes well with any drink but we were having cold sake.

Sushi Burittos from Buredo 寿司ブリト

Sushi is very popular in US and can be found just about everywhere. But there is a wide range in quality and price; from "super market" sushi to "omakase". In addition sushi is undergoing a trans-formative evolution at the hands of this popularity. Unique sometimes outlandish, by traditional Japanese standards, sushi rolls have appeared and are extremely popular in sushi bars. Of course there is the grandfather of western-invented rolls, the California roll カルフォルニア巻き made with real or imitation crabmeat and avocado. Although not a native of Japan, it has apparently found a foothold and I hear that it is now generally available in sushi bars. (Although probably not in expensive traditional places). Recently I read some interesting articles in the Washington Post regarding something called  sushi burritos. It is a variation of burrito that is like a thick sushi roll that has not been cut into slices. It uses nori sheets with a thin layer of rice instead of a tortilla to hold together the ingredients rolled up in it. It is apparently taking off in a big way. One particular restaurant specializing in  sushi burritos just opened. It is called "Buredo" which was created and run by two Washingtonians as a healthy lunch alternative.  I don't think I would have gone there on my own to have a sushi burrito but a recent surprise party (I was completely caught by surprise) at work was catered from Buredo and gave me an opportunity to try out a sushi burrito.

It was quite a spread with all their regular menu represented. The picture below shows two different kinds; one is tuna and the other is vegetarian with tofu. The descriptions below are from their menu.

Hanzo (left 3 of the bottom and the second rows)
bright, fresh: yellowfin tuna sashimi, avocado, cucumber, pickled fennel, arugula, tempura crunch, lemon aioli.

Elle (right two on the 1 st and second rows and the rest of the rolls)
savory, sweet: organic tofu, arugula, roasted red pepper, jicama, green onion, black sesame seeds, garlic crunch, passionfruit miso sauce.

Pai Mei
smoky, creamy: salmon sashimi, asparagus, pea shoot leaves, pickled red onion, daikon, katsuo mirin crunch, toasted sesame mayo.

This is what I had.

Beatrix
umami, sweet: yellowfin tuna  and salmon sashimi, cucumber, pickled cabbage, green onion, tempura crunch, unagi sauce.

Since it was not sliced, it was a bit difficult to bite through the nori but the fish was quite fresh. The sauce was a bit on the sweet side. Despite the ethnic fusion/confusion involved they were pretty good. I can see why they are getting to be popular. At the same time I have to shake my head and wonder 'what is the world coming to? Is nothing sacred any more?'  Then I wonder if the sushi burrito will make its way to Japan soon and what kind of transformations it will undergo there. If it does I'll have to try it out.

Renkon "hasami-age" with avocado and cod roe アボカドとたらこのレンコンはさみ揚げ

My wife found an interesting YouTube series called "Kimono Mom".  A former geisha retired early got married, had a daughter, and now became a YouTuber showing Japanese cooking. She has many followers. In any case, we watched some of her episodes. One of the dishes she showed was "Hasami-age" はさみ揚げ meaning stuffing sandwiched between two slices of renkon 蓮根 (lotus root). The “sandwich” is then battered and deep fried. This is a common way of using renkon and I have previously posted such a dish.  The stuffing is usually meat especially chicken. Kimono Mom used a mixture of avocado and spicy cod roe called "mentaiko" 明太子. I happened to have a fresh renkon which I got from Tako Grill (besides packaed and frozen Japanese grocery items, Tako Grill grocery section now has some fresh Japanese vegetables and even sashimi blocks). I did not have "spicy" tarako but I did have frozen tarako. I could make tarako spicy by adding Sriracha. So I have everything to make this dish.

I also had fresh Japanese "shishi togarashi" 獅子唐辛子 pepper. So I just fried it as a side. I served the renkon dish with a wedge of lemon and green tea salt.

This is a rather unique and good dish. The renkon remains crispy and the avocado creamy with salty and lightly spicy (I did not add too much Sriracha) tarako flavors come through.

Ingredients: making 6.
One segment of fresh renkon, peeled and sliced (about 1/2 to 2/3 inch thick, I got a total of 12 slices).
6 perilla leaves
One sac of tarako, roe scraped out from the sac (#1)
One ripe avocado, stone and skin removed (#2)
Sriracha or other hot sauce to taste

For tempura batter
1/4 cup cake flour plus a bit more for dredging the renkon slices
1/4 cup carbonated water

Oil for deep frying

Directions:
Mash and mix the avocado, tarako with the sriracha hot sauce to taste (#3 and #4).
Lightly dredge the renkon slices. Put on a perilla leaf and then 1/6 (2-3 tsp) of the stuffing (#5).
Top the stack with another slice of renkon. Press lightly to secure (#6).

Heat the oil to 320F.

Mix the cake flour and cold carbonated water to make a relatively thin (like crepe batter) tempura batter.

Dip and coat the renkon “sandwich” and deep fry (#7) for fa ew minutes on one side. Turn it over and cook another few minutes then drain (#8) and serve.

I served this cut in half with a wedge of lemon and the green tea salt. We really like this dish. This could be good with beer but since we do not drink beer, we had it with cold sake.

Candied duck liver and gizzard

The whole duck we rotissed for Christmas, came with most of its parts—the liver and gizzard tucked in its cavity. I decided to use these in a small appetizer which was inspired by the dish we had at Nojo restaurant in San Francisco. I think, for my first try, this was quite a success but it was a bit too sweet and I will need to further modify the recipe.



Duck liver and gizzard: For the liver, I removed any veins and fat from the surface and cut it into small bite sized pieces. For the gizzard, I removed the silver skin and sliced it rather thinly against the grain of the muscle.

Deep frying: I essentially made tempura. I first dredged the liver and gizzard. I made a rather thick tempura batter with cold water, cake flour and small amount of potato starch. I deep fried (350F vegetable oil) the pieces for a few minutes until they were cooked through and the crust was crispy and golden brown.

Sauce: I added honey (1tsp) and maple syrup (1/2 tsp) and water (2tbs) in a small frying pan over medium flame. After the honey and maple syrup blended, I added hot sauce (Sriracha). I added about 1/2 tsp but the amount is arbitrary and to taste. As the sauce reduced and thickened, I added the fried duck liver and gizzard and coated all the surfaces with the sauce (see the below picture).



This was quite good. The crust was very crispy and provided a nice crunch in contrast to the softness of the liver. Although the dish was a bit too sweet from the sauce, there was a nice slow heat from the Sriracha. The liver was good without any gamey flavor. I am sure I can do this with chicken livers. The gizzard was firm but added a nice contrast in texture to the liver. My wife usually does not like gizzard but this one she liked because of the thin slice. I may have to drizzle the sauce over the fried liver to make it less sweet next time.

Potato salad stuffed "chikuwa" fish cake 熊本惣菜ちくわサラダ

I saw this recipe on line. According to the recipe, this was invented by a side-dish store (called "Sozai-ya" 惣菜屋 ) of  Kumamoto city 熊本市 on Kushu Island 九州, the southern most island of Japan. It was invented as a way to use up an excess amount of potato salad. Since I had frozen "chikuwa 竹輪" fish cake and leftover potato salad, I made this one weekend. The original recipe calls for chopped boiled eggs in the potato salad but I just used my usual potato salad which included myouga 茗荷 in sweet vinegar (home grown, harvested and made) and rakyo ラッキョウ, Japanese cocktail onion in sweet vinegar (store bought).

The recipe suggested tartar sauce or "chu-nou" sauce 中濃ソース but I only had "tonakatsu sauce".

Ingredients:
Three "chikuwa"fish cakes (frozen, I had one open package with three left), thawed (#1).
Potato salad (enough to stuff the three chikuwa (#3)
Oil for deep frying
Tempura batter (3 tbs of cake flour and about 1/3 cup cold water or additional water as needed to obtain the appropriate thickness of the batter).
Tonkatsu sauce

Directions:
Slit open the sides of the chikuwa along the length (#2).
Stuff the opening with the potato salad (#3) (over stuffing is recommended to get the right ratio of fish cake to potato salad).
Dredge in the tempura batter and deep fry until the crust is done and crispy (#4). Do not over fry since the fish cake may expand.
Drain the oil (#5).
Cut on bias into two pieces and serve (#6).

This is a good combination. I served this with skinned Campari tomato and baby arugula. The center was still cold (which was good). This is definitely a nice snack. After we ate one each, we went back to finish off the third and last one.