Tuna and Daikon salad ツナ大根

We found two cans of albacore tuna in our pantry. We are not a fan of canned tuna and I am not sure why we have it; something to do with the start of COVID and the various food shortages, particularly of protein that occurred at that time. In any case, I saw a recipe on YouTube which combined daikon 大根 and canned tuna ツナ缶. I was not sure how this would work but I had just got two whole daikon from Weee. So I had to try this recipe. We first tasted the tuna as is. It was very dry and not great tasting but my wife said the only way to save this tuna was with the addition of mayonnaise.  This made me think that  this recipe could work after all. I slightly deviated from the original recipe.

Ingredients:
1 can of tuna (I used albacore tuna in water but the original recipe used tuna in oil)
1/4 daikon, peeled, sliced and julienned
salt

For dressing
2 tbs mayonnaise
2 tbs Greek yogurt
1-2 tsp soy sauce or x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce
1/4 tsp yuzu kosho (optional)
1/2 tsp “aonori” dried sea weed flakes (optional)

Directions:
Add salt to the daikon, knead and let it stand for 10 minutes
Squeeze out as much moisture as possible
Add the mixture of the mayo and Greek yogurt
Add the soy sauce and taste. If needed add more.
Add aonori and yuzu kosho if using..

This is a surprisingly good dish. If you are not told you couldn’t guess it has daikon in it. Even the tuna added some flavor helped by the dressing. This is definitely a very easy dish to make as well. Perfect for a drinking snack or a small side dish.

Tsukune with Lotus Root and Perilla 蓮根大葉つくね

This is a hybrid of “Renkon Tuskune”  蓮根つくね and “Tsukune with perilla” つくねの大葉焼き. Since our perilla is growing profusely in our herb garden, we are using perilla leaves whenever we can.  This is also the last segment of fresh lotus root we got from Weee asian grocery delivery service. We found that we could make the lotus root last longer by separating the fresh lotus root into its individual segments, wrapping the segments in paper towel and vacuum packing them. With this preparation they last for a long time under refrigeration (at least 1 mouth or more). Beside using a slice of the lotus root as a base for the Tuskune, I also included chopped up lotus root in the tsukune itself to give it nice crunch without using chicken cartilage. The perilla leaves add an additional unique flavor.

I served this with “kinpira” braised lotus root 金平蓮根 I made to finish up the last of the renkon. I also served simmered “kabocha”  かぼちゃの煮物 Japanese pumpkin.

Ingredients:
8 slices of lotus root, skin peeled and sliced into (4-5mm) thick plus two or three slices chopped up (to mix into the tuskune itself)
8 perilla leaves (if too large cut in half to make 8 pieces)
4 oz (114 gram) of ground chicken (this was low-fat breast meat ground chicken)
1/2 tsp ground ginger root
1/2 tsp ground garlic
1 tsp mayonnaise (optional, to compensate low-fat ground meat)
1 tsp miso
1 tbs “katakuri-ko” potato starch
1 tbs vegetable or olive oil

Directions:
In a bowl, mix the chicken, ginger, garlic, mayonnaise, miso and chopped up lotus root. Mix well by hand until the mixture is elastic and binding together (if too loose, you could add potato starch, if too stiff, you could add a beaten egg)
Coat the slices of lotus root with the potato starch thinly (to improve the adhesion of the meat mixture)
Place 1/8 of the chicken mixture onto the lotus root on the cutting board and press lightly so that the mixture will go into the holes of the lotus root.
Place the perilla leaf on and press lightly so that it adheres to the meat mixture (see below)
Add the oil to a non-stick frying pan on medium heat, and start cooking the lotus root side down first (see below) and cook a few minutes or until the lotus root browns a bit
Gently turn it over and turn down the heat to low and cook a few more minutes with the lid on for the last 2 minutes to make sure the meat mixture is cooked through.
Optionally you could add a mixture of mirin and soy sauce at the end but I did not.

Drain excess oil on a paper towel.

This tsukune is seasoned enough for us but you could add “Yakitori sauce (equal mixture  of mirin and soy sauce) ” as mentioned before. This re-heats nicely in a toaster oven. It is a nice contrast in textures and taste. The chicken portion is almost fluffy in texture which is a nice contrast to the crunch of the renkon on the bottom layer and distributed through out the meat. The perilla adds a nice fresh minty spiciness.

Marinated “Tsukemono” Daikon 大根漬物

We got 2 medium size daikon from Weee. From half of one daikon I made two dishes; tuna and daikon ツナ大根 and dried persimmon and daikon in sweet vinegar 干し柿の大根なます. I made this dish from the other half. This is a type of tsukemono 漬物 (salted/pickled vegetable) but it uses quite a large amount of sugar besides salt and vinegar. When I saw this recipe on-line, I was a bit skeptical about the result but this is surprisingly good and we finished half a daikon in two sittings. I used frozen Yuzu citrus zest as well (see below).

I have seen similar recipes in which both salt and sugar were used but this one appears simplest.

I converted the Japanese tbs=15ml and tsp=5ml to grams but this may have increased both the sugar and salt amount as compared with the original recipe but it still came out OK.

Ingredients:
1/2 medium-size daikon radish, peeled, cut in half,

Marinade
25ml rice vinegar
15grams salt
120grams sugar
10 ml sake
Yuzu zest

Directions:
Mix the marinade. The amount of sugar is quite large and the marinade is slush rather than liquid
Add the marinade and the daikon into a Ziploc bag, remove the air as much as possible
Put it in the refrigerator, turning once or twice a day. After a few hours, the moisture from the daikon made the marinade completely liquid and clear (see below)

This dish was subtly very appealing; slowly growing on you. The daikon had a very pleasing crunch; not the hard not too soft. The slight sweetness of the sugar contrasted with the slight sourness of the vinegar and completely permeated the daikon. The original daikon spicy flavor peeked through at the very end of the bite. The added Yuzu zest was like icing on the cake adding yet another dimension of citrus. No wonder we consumed the whole thing in only 2 sittings.

Chestnut Flour Cake with Persimmons and Buttermilk チェストナッツフラワーと柿のケーキ

This is an another cake my wife made from the new chestnut flour.   She came across the recipe using chestnut flour, persimmons, and buttermilk. Since we happened to have all these ingredients, she went for it. The cake was very moist and had nice chestnut flavor but the persimmon flavor is very subtle (i.e. not discernible at all). It was not too sweet and perfect for breakfast.

Ingredients:
172 grams chestnut flour
148 grams or 5.2 ounces of persimmon puree. *
1/2 cup buttermilk (we used my wife favorite buttermilk from Harrisburg dairies.)
3 eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup melted unsalted  butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
generous pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder

* The persimmon came from Weee (#1 below). They are “Fuyu” 富有柿 (which is pronounced “fuyuu” meaning “wealthy”) variety and are called chocolate fuyuu because of the dark brown color of the fruit. They were not expensive but they were small with seeds. (Most commercially grown Fuyu persimmons are seed-less). They were irregular in shape with dark blemishes which made them look like they came from somebody’s backyard tree. But when ripened they are very good with pudding-like consistency and sweet. Only problem was that it was very difficult to remove all the seeds/stones.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Butter 9" cake pan. (Having learned from our previous experience with the chestnut flour cake we added a buttered piece of parchment paper to the bottom of the pan and the cake came out of the pan with no problem) 
Puree the persimmon and set aside (#2). Sift chestnut flour to remove any larger bits/chunks.
Mix dry ingredients in bowl and set aside. Using either an electric mixer or a bowl whisk and beat the eggs. Add other wet ingredients. Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients until fully incorporated (#3).
Pour batter into buttered pan and put into pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes, until the cake is firm in the middle and a toothpick pulls out clean. Remove from oven and cool on baking rack for at least 30 minutes before serving (#4). We reheated in the microwave for 15 seconds (First picture).



This cake was very moist, slightly sweet with a dense texture. The nutty chestnut flavor came through but we couldn’t identify any persimmon taste. This was a very good addition to breakfast.

Soft Boiled Duck Eggs 半熟アヒルの卵

This is continuation of the duck eggs we got from Weee. Since we do not want to worry about a potential Salmonella problem, I pasteurized the duck eggs. I managed to make soft boiled duck eggs with runny yolk (see below). I somehow cut across the egg rather than usual halving the egg length-wise. In any case, the yolk was very rich and creamy. Interestingly, egg white clearly (more pronounced as compared to hen egg) showed two layers; an inner layer that did not congeal as firmly as the outer layer egg white.

I topped this with “ikura” salmon roe and a bit of soy sauce. This is a very luxurious appetizer.

Actually, this was part of the evening offerings. I made “bo-zushi” 棒鮨 of pickled mackerel with kelp. a very small sashimi assortment.

1. How to pasteurize duck eggs: Since duck eggs are larger than hen eggs (in our case no more than 30%), I used 57C for 2 hours instead of 75 minutes for hen’s eggs. As before, when the 2 hours were up, I immediately soaked the eggs in ice water for 30 minutes or more and placed them in the refrigerator.

2. How to make soft-boiled duck eggs with runny yolk: According to the on-line instructions I found, place the duck eggs in cold water and when the water starts simmering, cook another 6-7 minutes. I was not sure if I should pierce the shell on the air cell side (bland end) to prevent the egg from cracking. In the end, I did. One of the eggs extruded a thin thread of yolk. Next time, I will not pierce the shell and see what happens. After 7 minutes, I soaked the eggs in ice cold water. We peeled the shell after 30 minutes and the eggs were cooled down. It was difficult to peel. My wife did a better job.

We are quite satisfied with the soft-boiled duck eggs only if we can peel it more easily.

Beef Barley Soup 牛肉と大麦のスープ

We really like beef tongue which is not popular in general, not widely available in US and requires some “courage” to try it. But we like it very much either boiled and sliced for a sandwich or made into stew.  Recently, we found that our Asian grocery delivery service “Weee” had frozen beef tongue so we got it.  My wife suggested to have it instead of the usual turkey for Thanksgiving. So, we thawed the tongue and cook it up. For the dinner we had thick slices of boiled beef tongue, which were extremely tender and flavorful, with red wine cranberry sauce I made and a side of stuffing balls made by my wife, and blacked Brussel sprouts. This really “hit the spot” and as far as we are concerned is much better than ham or turkey for sure. Using the remaining beef tongue and the liquid in which the tongue was cooked, we made beef tongue stew which we really enjoyed. Still half of the boiling liquid remained which has the nice flavors of the beef and aromatics. So we decided to make “Beef and barley soup” from it. We made this soup/stew with meat from a beef chuck roast. It turned out to be an excellent soup. We looked at a few recipe on line but, at the end, we just made it our own way (not standard way) and this post is just for our own record.

The chunks of the beef were very tender and the barley gave the soup a nice unctuous texture.

We ended up with a quite large amount of soup, probably a bit over 3quarts (or 12 cups).

Ingredients:
2.3 lb package of bone-less chuck roast, seasoned with salt and pepper, seared on both sides and then cut into about 1 inch cubes
4 cups liquid from cooking the beef tongue (the liquid)
3 cups chicken broth
1/2 box (8oz) medium pearled barley, toasted in the toaster oven, rinsed and then cooked in the 4 cups of liquid from cooking beef tongue for 1 hour
2 large carrots, peeled and cut into half inch cubes
2 onions, cut into large dices
3 ribs of celery, cunt into 1/4 inch thick
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
2-3 tbs vegetable oil

Directions:
Add one cup of the liquid and cubes of the beef in Instant pot, cook for 25 minutes under high pressure and naturally depressurize (we used 2/3 for the soup and 1/3 was added to the tongue stew to supplement the tongue)*
Add the oil in the dutch oven on medium flame. Add the onion and celery and sauté for 5 minutes, add the carrots. Add the cooked beef and barley with their juice. Add 3 cups of chicken broth, the bay leaves and cook for 30-40 minutes
Season with salt pepper to taste

*We cooked the beef one day prior. Placed the liquid and meat in a plastic container and refrigerated. Next day, we removed layers of congealed fat from the surface before using the meat and juice.

This is a very hearty and filling soup. The barley adds a creamy texture and a slight nuttiness from being toasted. The combination of broth used to cook the tongue and the broth used to cook the supplementary beef adds an unctuous and very meaty flavor. Another great soup for lunch on a cold winter’s day.

Fresh Wood Ear Mushroom and Chicken Salad キクラゲと鶏肉の酢味噌あえ

I am always on the look out for places where we can get good and specialized (especially Japanese) groceries. I have known about the on line service called “Weee” which does not have a brick-and-mortar location but does deliver Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Latino grocery items. I also recently found out they deliver to our area. So, I finally took the plunge and ordered mostly vegetables, (daikon, and fresh lotus root) but especially indulged in the extensive selection of mushrooms (oyster, shimeji, enjoki and  wood ear). I was surprised that the wood ear mushroom 木耳 or “kikurage” キクラゲ I received was fresh. Until now, I’ve only had dried ones. From the label, this was produced by Guan’s mushroom which seems to be a large nation-wide operation.

In any case, this is what fresh wood ear mushroom looks like.

In the past I usually used dried wood ear mushroom re-hydrated in Chinese-style stir-fry. I looked for new recipes on-line and, because of the other ingredients I had available, I ended up combining two recipes to make this woodear and chicken salad.

I served this as a appetizer one evening. It was good but fresh wood ear is not as crunchy as the dried ones.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup or more, Wood ear mushroom, washed, blanched, and cooled. Remove the hard attachment part if present and cut into strips. If using dried, rehydrate first.
1 American mini cucumber, both ends trimmed and the seeds scooped out. Cut into quarters length-wise and then obliquely
1/2 cooked chicken breast (we used breast meat from a whole chicken which was barbecued in a Weber grill, cut into similar sized pieces as the cucumber.

Karashi sumiso からし酢味噌 dressing (japanese hot mustard, miso, sugar and rice vinegar)

Directions:
Just dress all the ingredients and serve. Because of the acidity of the dressing, sake goes best.

Wood ear does not have much flavor but does have a nice crunch. Actually, the Japanese name “Ki-kurage” キクラゲ means “tree (ki) jelly fish (kurage)” because of the similar crunchy texture. The fresh one is nice but not as crunchy as re-hydrated dried ones. I may prefer the dried also because keep for a long time.

Eggplant Prosciutto and Ham Rolls 茄子の生ハム巻き

I was trying to come up some new eggplant recipes since we still had two large eggplants we got from Weee. I saw two recipes on-line using thinly sliced pork or prosciutto wrapped around a baton shaped piece of eggplant. Actually, these types of roll-ups are very popular in Japan. The most common ones use vegetables such as scallion or asparagus in the center rolled up in various kinds of thinly slices meat. Since we had slices of prosciutto and honey-baked ham, these two recipes inspired me to make roll-ups using batons of eggplant with one kind wrapped in prosciutto and the other with ham. I did not add any sauce as suggested in one of the recipes. This is a good snack-y dish. Salted “umeboshi” plum paste gave a nice salty sour flavor that went well with the eggplant. We definitely liked the prosciutto one best.

Ingredients (made 12 roll-ups):
For salted plum sauce (“bainiku” 梅肉)
Two “umeboshi” 梅干し salted plums, meat removed from the stone, chopped.
1/2 tsp mirin

One asian/Japanese eggplant (long slender one which is not quite a Japanese eggplant), quartered length-wise, then cut across about 2 inch long or the width of the ham and prosciutto.
10 perilla “aojiso” 青紫蘇 leaves
12 slices total of prosciutto and ham.
1 tbs potato starch or “katakuriko”片栗粉
2-3 tbs light olive oil or vegetable oil

Directions:
Place the meat of the salted plum in a Japanese “suribachi” mortar. Add the mirin and grind into a smooth paste (#1)
Spread out a slice of the prosciutto or ham on a cutting board, place the perilla leaf on the ham, smear the plum sauce, place a baton of the eggplant and roll to make 12 roll-ups (#2 and #3).
Thinly coat the surface with potato starch
Seam-side down, fry in a non-stick frying pan with the olive oil in medium heat, turning occasionally to brown all sides (#4). Once all sides are brown, turn the heat down put the lid on, to complete cooking of the eggplant (about 5 more minutes).
Serve hot or re-heated in the toaster oven before serving.

As mentioned before, the ones made with prosciutto were much better largely because the ham didn’t have any flavor. The outside was crispy with some saltiness. The eggplant was creamy, soft and permeated with the major flavors that came from the salted plum paste and the perilla leaves. Very good combination of the textures and flavors. Perfect snack for either sake or wine.

Fig and Edible Chrysanthemum Salad 無花果と春菊の甘酢あえ

A few days ago, we got some mission figs. Since figs tend to get moldy rather quickly, I processed them meaning I quartered them and then marinated them in Triple Sec (this is our standard method for prolonging the shelf life of many fruits). Since we had a lot of other fruit (especially grapes) to eat, we forgot about the figs for a while. When I checked, they were still good thanks to the liquor. Instead of eating them as is, I made this small salad with edible chrysanthemum. This was inspired by this blog I follow. The edible chrysanthemum is from Weee. Some time ago, we got it for sukiyaki but somehow we did not have the sukiyaki. So, I blanched and froze it. I thawed and used it for this dish. The fig was quite nice and sweet which made this dish.

This is not a quite a recipe but I used my home-made sweet vinegar and a dash of x4 concentrated noodle sauce for dressing. I served this one evening as part of an “Otsumami” drinking snack line-up. The figs were sweet and slightly sour from the vinegar in the dressing with a slight crunch from the seeds. The chrysanthemum provided a slightly bitter contrast that added to the overall complex flavor of the dish.

Duck Egg アヒルの卵

While I was browsing Weee Asian grocery website, I noticed that in addition to the quail eggs which we like to get regularly, they also have duck eggs. I asked my wife if she had ever eaten a duck egg. She replied, “Have I ever eaten a duck egg?” Then reminded me that duck eggs were a regular by-product of raising ducks as a child in rural Pennsylvania even if the ducks were just pets. “So yes she had eaten a number of duck eggs in her past.” She also mentioned that, to her recollection, they were extremely rich with a rather strong/gamy flavor. In fact, to her juvenile palate they were almost inedible. (Her sister emphatically confirmed my wife’s description of the duck eggs).  Her family used to cook scrambled eggs in the ratio of one duck egg with several hens eggs to somewhat blunt the gaminess of the duck eggs. This peaked my interest and ordered half a dozen.

The picture below is a comparison of a hen’s egg (left) to a duck egg (right). Although we read that duck eggs can be as much as 50 to 100% larger than chicken eggs, in this particular example, the duck egg is only about 20-30% larger than the chicken egg. 

Upon cracking it open, the duck egg has a thicker and sturdier shell and the inner membrane appears stronger. The duck egg yolk (right) are larger and brighter orange in color. 

For a taste comparison, we decided to simply scramble the two eggs. This preparation would also be the closest to the tastes my wife experienced as a child. Since this was a lunch, I served slices of barbecued pork cooked our Weber, celery feta cheese with shiitake mushroom salad, “drunken” Campari tomato and a half slice of home-baked English muffin bread.

The scrambled duck egg has much brighter yellow in color (shown on the right). We tasted to compare. Based on my wife’s recollection, we were expecting the duck egg to be much stronger and gamier in flavor but it was quite similar to the hen’s egg. If we were not told, we would not have been able to tell the difference. My wife initially was hesitant to eat the duck egg fully expecting what she experienced as a child. Then she was very surprised and even a little disappointed at how similar it tasted to the chicken egg. (So she was left with a quandary. What had changed since her childhood—the duck egg or her palate?)

This was very interesting and we will try various preparations such as boiling, poaching or frying the duck eggs for comparison to the hen’s egg.

“Maitake” Hen of Woods Mushroom in Brown Butter and Sage 焦がしバーターとセージ風味舞茸

We like mushrooms. We used to get fresh mushrooms from Oregon mushrooms (on-line order) and Whole Foods but recently, we have been getting many different kinds of fresh mushrooms from Weee. Besides the usual kinds of mushrooms, we can get from any grocery store, we can get shiitake 椎茸 (Good quality), enoki エノキ, kikurage 木耳 (wood ear), shimeji しめじ, king trumpet, and maitake 舞茸 (hen of woods), and hiratake 平茸  (oyster).We usually get several kinds of mushrooms when we order groceries from them. This time beside the usual shiitake and shimeji, we got maitake. When we had shad roe, I served maitake cooked in brown sage butter as a side which was really great. (My wife may have liked the mushroom more than the shad roe.)

This recipe came from “Foragerchef.com”. The original recipe calls for a large amount of mushrooms. I scaled it down.

Ingredients
One package (35g)  fresh hen of the woods (This was the size of the package I got), separated into a few fronds each in thin, long pieces

2 tbs (or about 40grams) unsalted butter

1 garlic clove finely chopped 
5-6 fresh sage leaves (from our herb garden, I used whole leaves, since they would be easier to remove from the browned butter later)

2 tbs dry white wine (I used sake)
2 tbs chicken stock (our usual Swanson low salt no fat)
1⁄4 teaspoon kosher salt
A few turns of the pepper mill to taste
A squeeze of fresh lemon juice to taste

Directions
In a frying pan with high sides, add the butter and the sage. Heat the butter on medium heat until melted and sizzling and brown bits appear (usual brown butter process). When the butter has reached the desired level of brown, remove the sage leaves. Then add the stock or water, salt, a few turns of fresh pepper from the pepper mill and the mushrooms. Cover with a lid, increase the heat to medium high and cook, stirring occasionally to coat the hens with the pan juices for about 10-15 minutes.

Finishing and serving

Continue cooking the mushrooms until the liquid is gone and there’s only butter. Stir the mushroom to coat with the juices, then taste a piece and adjust the salt as necessary until it tastes good to you.

Cook until the mushrooms have just started to brown lightly on the edges. Turn the heat down a bit. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two more. Add the wine and the squeeze of lemon, simmer for a minute to cook off the alcohol.

This maitake is very good with sage and brown butter and garlic flavors are nice with the almost meaty texture and flavor of the mushroom. 

Eggplant Stir-fry with Perilla and Ginger 大葉ナス

Again we got some Japanese groceries delivered from Weee which included some Asian eggplants. Since the delivery included quite a good number of eggplants, I had to come up with a number of different dishes to use them before they go bad. I made this dish which is new to me. I was inspired by looking at a YouTube episode. This was a perfect dish since in addition to eggplant, it uses green perilla which is growing quite well in our herb garden. As usual I treated the recipe as “advisory” and made some modifications. This is slightly sweet due to the oyster sauce and added sugar but it is also somewhat spicy from the ginger. It has a nice perilla taste as well. I think this is good served warm or cold. It’s also another item that goes well with cold sake.

Ingredients:
One asian eggplant (this was a slender long one, which is equivalent to two small Japanese eggplants), cut into quarters lengthwise and then cut on the bias into bite sized pieces.
10 green perilla leaves, finely chopped (left in the picture below).
1 tbs julienne of ginger (center in the picture below).
2 tbs oil (I used light olive oil with a splash of dark sesame oil) (divided 1 tbs each).
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tsp ponzu
1 tbs chicken broth (the original recipe calls for granulated chicken broth or 鶏がらスープの素 which is freeze dried granules of chicken and vegetable broth. This is an ingredient that often appears in Japanese recipes)
2 tsp salt and 1 tbs potato starch (for preparation of the eggplant)

Directions:
Salt the eggplant pieces, mix well and and let it stand for 5 minutes or more (until some moisture comes out)
Wash with cold water to remove excess salt, ring out moisture from the eggplant (left in the picture below), lightly coat with the potato starch

Add the oil to the frying pan on medium flame. When the oil is hot add the eggplant pieces turning until both sides are cooked and browned (3-4 minutes), set it aside (picture below)

Add the remaining oil to the pan on low flame add the ginger and sauté for one minute or until fragrant.
Add the perilla and sauté for one more minute. Add the soy sauce, oyster sauce, chicken broth and mix.
Add back the eggplant and stir and the sauce slightly reduced (1-2 minutes).

This is another flavorful rendition of “eggplant”. I was very careful not to overcook it and have the eggplant dissolve as a result the skin had a slight crunch while the white interior was soft and creamy. It had a surprising bite of hot spiciness which took us a little while to figure out was coming from the ginger. But it added another positive note to the dish.