“Mughlai” Chicken 鶏肉のインド風クリームソース

This is the second Indian-inspired dish my wife made called “Mughlai” chicken. This is a very flavorful dish with lots of spices but not hot. Although it has good amount of cream, use of yogurt makes it less deadly while keeping the sauce very rich. I was sous chef and did the prepping of the chicken and chopping of vegetables. My wife follow the recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s “Indian Cooking” cook book. The recipe is similar to one by  Nigela Lawson which  is available on-line.

Ingredients:

Chicken: Both recipes are a bit vague about what parts and kind of chicken. We used chicken thigh, skin off, bone out, and cut into two pieces. We used a total of 6 thighs (12 pieces, about 3 lb or 1 kg).

Ginger, I inch cube, peeled and coarsely chopped (we cheated and used ground ginger from a tube).

Garlic, The receipt calls for 8-9 cloves but we cut this down but again used ground garlic from a tube.

Almond, 6 tps, sliced. We used whole almond toasted and sliced.

Cardamom pods, 10, lightly bruised

Cinnamon stick, one

Bay leaves, two

Cloves, 5

Cumin, ground, 2 tsp

Cayenne pepper, 1/8 tsp

Plain yogurt, 7 tbs

Light cream, 10oz

Salt, 1 1/2 tsp

Raisin, 2 tbs (the original recipe called for golden raison but we used regular raison.)

Garam masala, 1/4 tsp

Onion, 2 medium, finely chopped

Vegetable oil, 7 tbs

1. Make a paste of almond (4 tbs), garlic, ginger, and water (starting from 4 tbs) in a small electric blender. We needed to add more water to make it a paste.

2. Brown the chicken:in oil in a large skillet in all sides in two batches. Set them aside.

3. In the same pot, add the cardamom pods, cinnamon stick and bay leaves in the same oil and fry until fragrant. The original recipe does not instruct to remove these items (only mentioned that they were not meant to be eaten). So as not to accidently crack a tooth however, we removed these including black seed spilling out from the  cardamom pods using a fine meshed square skimmer.

4. We added the onion and sautéed it for 3-4 minutes. We then added the almond paste, cayenne pepper and cumin and sautéed for few minutes.

5. We started adding the yogurt one tables spoon at a time until all were incorporated.

6.We added the cream, salt, and the chicken pieces including the liquid accumulated.

7. We simmered it for 20 minutes on low flame with a lid on. We turned over the chicken pieces and added the raisons (see below) and simmered for another 10 minutes.

8. We served this over rice with toasted and sliced almond as a garnish (The first picture).

This is a very nice dish. It has a very complex flavor. Since we did not put too much cayenne pepper, it is not too hot. The mixture of yogurt and cream made the sauce very rich (hopefully better than just cream). This dish reheated well in the microwave oven.

Pistachio nut bread ピスタチオのパン

This is another of my wife's baking projects. This is unusual since half of the flour is actually ground pistachio nuts and Greek yogurt is used as a part of the wet ingredients. It has a very nice unique taste and we love it as a breakfast bread.

You can see small pistachio nuts on the cut surface of the bread.

When finished baking some fissures appeared on the surface but the texture was quite tender and delicate.

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
4 tsp. orange zest
1 tsp. orange flavoring
1/2 cup orange juice
2 2/3 cup pistachios roasted
2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cardamon
1 tsp salt
8 eggs
1 cup greek yogurt (my wife strained the regular yogurt).
1/2 cup olive oil
4 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
Roast the pistachios. Don't skip this step the flavor and texture of roasted pistachios is different from un-roasted. Grease and flour 2 bread loaf pans. Cut some parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pans and grease it on both sides. (This will make it easier to get the bread out of the pan).

In a food processor combine the sugar and orange zest. Process until the sugar is damp and fragrant Put aside in a bowl (#1). Add the pistachios to the food processor and pulse until coarse. Add the flour, baking powder, cardamon and salt and process with the nuts until finely ground (#2). Whisk the eggs, yogurt, oil, orange juice, orange flavor and vanilla into the sugar mixture previously set aside. (#3).  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Fold until blended. Put into the previously prepared bread pans (#4). Cook in a 325 degree oven for 50 to 55 minutes until a skewer comes out with moist crumbs. Cool in pan for about 15 minutes before removing. Let cool completely before cutting into pieces.

This bread has a nice orangey overtone from orange zests, juice bolstered by the flavoring. My wife reduced the cardamon so that this was not too overwhelming. The texture is extremely rich and moist. The flavor is very complex. The pistachio nuts added some nuttiness but we could not pinpoint that this is the taste of pistachios. Nonetheless, this is very flavorful bread with nice texture.

Butter Chicken バターチキン

Recently "butter chicken" was the theme for a cooking competition about Indian cuisine on the Netflix series called "Last table". We are not familiar with this dish and have never tasted it. So a few days later when my wife saw a recipe for butter chicken in the Washington Post  she decided to try it. But the recipe called for an herb call "fenugreek". The article even said that it was the fenugreek that gave the dish its distinctive flavor i.e. it wouldn't be butter chicken if it did not include this herb. Naturally we did not have fenugreek. So I promptly ordered some through Amazon. When this herb arrived, my wife made this "butter chicken". We had this dish with a baguette to mop up the sauce.

The green is the fenugreek leaves. It did have a particularly distinctive smell but in the sauce, its flavor appears very subtle.

This is based on the recipe from Washington Post but has been modified.

Ingredients:
FOR THE CHICKEN
4 chicken thighs (trimmed of excess fat), cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
fresh lime juice (from 2 limes)
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper (or more to taste).
3/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
2 teaspoons garam masala (spice blend)
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup plain, full-fat yogurt
2 cloves garlic minced
One 2-inch piece peeled fresh ginger root, minced (1 tablespoon)

FOR THE SAUCE
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
15 ounces canned plain tomato sauce
1/4 cup dried fenugreek leaves, soaked in a bowl of water for 15 minutes and skimmed off the top.
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper.
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup heavy cream (we used much less)
1 teaspoon ground cumin

Directions:
1. For the chicken: Combine the chicken pieces with the lime juice, cayenne pepper, paprika, garam masala, salt, yogurt, garlic and ginger in a mixing bowl until evenly coated. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, and up to overnight.
2. Take the chicken pieces out of the marinade and put into a frying pan with some peanut oil (there will still be marinade on the pieces). Cook stirring occasionally until the pieces are tender. Remove the chicken from the liquid that forms in the pan and discard the liquid.
3. In a clean frying pan melt 3 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat. As soon as it melts (without browning), pour in the tomato sauce. Stir in the fenugreek leaves, cayenne pepper, sugar and salt. Increase the heat to medium-high; cook just long enough so the sauce begins to bubble. Reduce the heat to medium-low, partially cover and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Put the chicken pieces into the sauce, along with any accumulated juices. Stir in the cream and cumin, then cover and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, so the chicken absorbs some of the rich flavors in the sauce.
5. Uncover the pan and add the remaining tablespoon of butter; once it has melted, stir it into the sauce. Serve right away.

Although my wife cut the cayenne pepper in half from what was specified in the original recipe, it was still plenty spicy for us. She added some yogurt to "turn down" the heat in her serving but for me, it was just right amount of heat without yogurt. We are not entirely sure the fenugreek really added any particular flavor but this was a good curry dish. The chicken was very tender and flavorful due to the marinade.

Cold cucumber soup 冷製胡瓜のスープ

Getting home delivery of groceries is very convenient but one problems that the quality of the fresh produce may be quite variable since we cannot inspect the product before buying. Broken eggs are not uncommon as well the the delivery of wrong items. We have also disable the automatic option for substitutions if the item we requested is not available. This is because the substitutions may not be always appropriate. For example, the substitution of shallots for jalapeno. Talking of wrong item being delivered, we recently received 4 giant American cucumbers instead of a package of 4 mini-cucumbers. (We like these because they are the closest in taste and texture to a Japanese cucumber). Although we do not like regular American cucumbers rather than throwing them out, we tried to use them. This is one of such attempt. We made cold cucumber soup with mint and buttermilk. We had it as a lunch with our usual potato salad and coleslaw. I also served skinned Campari tomato with broccoli and pecan, apricot bread. This was certainly all home-made vegetarian salad and soup lunch which was quite good and filling

Since I had few Japanese cucumbers (from our Japanese grocery store), I garnished the soup with several slices and chiffonade of mint leaves from our herb garden.

For both coleslaw and potato salad, we used home made Greek yogurt (from heirloom yogurt my wife makes regularly) which make it very creamy and also healthier (hopefully).

Since I made miso salad dressing several days ago (recipe from Washington Post, subject of another post), I dressed Campari tomato and blanched broccoli.

Although we jointly prepared the cucumber soup, I peeled, chopped and blended but my wife was in charge and ask her to take over for the recipe.

The recipe came from Southern Living on line.

Ingredients:
21 oz. cucumbers (in our case this was two big American cucumbers)
2 cups whole buttermilk
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (we used home-made)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint (from our herb garden)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, plus more for garnish (we did not have fresh, we used 1 tsp dried)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice plus 1 tsp. lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:
Peel, seed, and chop 2 of the cucumbers.
Process chopped cucumbers, buttermilk, yogurt, mint, tarragon, lemon zest and juice, and salt in a blender until very smooth, about 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down sides as needed.
Chill 1 hour or overnight.
We served with slices of Japanese cucumber and chiffonade of fresh mint leaves.


This was a quite nice cold soup. I usually do not particularly fond of buttermilk but for this soup, the buttermilk really tasted great. The slices of Japanese cucumber added nice fresh cucumber taste. One thing that was kind-of odd was that the soup was effervescent. You can see the little bubbles in the pictures above and interestingly the bubbles didn’t go away after the soup had been in the fridge for some time. The bubbles added to texture giving the otherwise velvety smooth soup and somewhat grainy mouth feel. Nonetheless it was a very good cool refreshing soup.

Indian-style Carrot salad インド風人参サラダ

We try to make "sides" over the weekend so that we can take them to work as an accompaniment for the sandwiches we take for lunch. My wife wanted to make Indian-style carrot salad. This recipe is again based on Madhur Jaffrey’s “Quick and Easy Indian Cook Book” with liberal alterations.

 

We also made some other salads. These salads are good as drinking snacks and we serve them on weekday evenings. The salads shown here are (clock wise): Indian-style carrot salad (upper left), Bulgur wheat salad, potato salad (with pickled myouga and rakkyo), cucumber onion salad with dill.



All four salads are unique with different tastes and textures. The carrot salad is the most spicy among them.



My wife was trying to get the right combination of crunchy/raw to slightly cooked texture for the carrots in this salad. She tried slicing the carrot in the food processor and decided the slices were too thick even using the thinnest blade. She tried grating the carrot in the food processor but the pieces were also a bit too big. I contributed to the project by slicing the carrot very thinly by hand as well as chopping the grated carrot into smaller pieces. She decided the grated carrot cut into smaller pieces were the best. Having made raw carrot salad before, she thought the mouth feel of totally raw grated carrot was unpleasant. So, she also lightly microwaved the grated carrot for 50 seconds to 1 minute or just until the edges were slightly softened but still crunchy. (In the picture below are mostly grated carrot briefly microwaved but also included my thinly sliced carrots which were also microwaved). This extra step really improves the texture. The carrot is still crunchy and the light cooking brings out its sweetness.


Spice mixture:
1/2 tsp salt
1/8-1/4 cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cumin (Next time I may use less because it had a very strong cumin flavor)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
raisins
Greek yogurt

I put some peanut oil in the frying pan and added the mustard seeds. When they began to pop I added the cumin, salt, and cayenne quickly followed by the raisins which plumped up nicely in the hot oil. Then, while still hot I added the entire mixture over the carrots and mixed well. (a word of caution: the mustard seeds start popping like Mexican Jumping Beans. Several jumped right out of the pan straight into my face. Luckily I was wearing glasses so they burned my cheek and missed my eye. Next time I may wear protective googles.)
This is the spice mixture which fried in peanut oil.



The spice mixture with hot oil was added and mixed in.



For dressing, the original recipe calls for plain yogurt but we used Greek (drained) yogurt my wife prepared.

This made a very nice salad. The spiciness was dampened and mellowed by the Greek yogurt but still had some kick and nice roasted cumin flavor. The gently cooked carrots had a very nice texture. Certainly this will join our favorite salad lineup.

Chicken spinach curry ほうれん草入りチキンカレー

This is another one of my wife’s curry projects. This is based on a recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s  “Quick & Easy Indian Cooking” called Chicken in cilantro, spinach and mustard sauce. Since we did not have fresh cilantro, we omitted it and we added potato based on our belief that potato goes well with almost any curry. We replaced “hot green chili” with Jalapeño pepper. My wife made additional changes as well. This may not be the dish in the book but this tasted very good with a nice creamy sauce.

Ingredients:
3 bay leaves
6 cardamon pods
1 inch stick cinnamon
5 whole cloves
2 or 3 onions chopped
1 cup raisins
1 cup greek yogurt
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 inch piece of fresh ginger peeled and chopped
2 Jalapeno peppers, deveined, seeded and chopped finely
Package of fresh spinach
3 tablespoons of grainy mustard
4 chicken thighs
Generous handful of cilantro tops (optional)

chicken broth as needed if the sauce gets too thick or starts to scorch

Directions:
Gather together the spices and ingredients (#1 & #2). Combine the yogurt and mustard and set aside. Put the bay leaves through cloves in a pan with hot peanut oil. Fry until the bay leaves start to brown and the spices become fragrant. (Remove the cardamon pods and cloves. The bay leaves and cinnamon can stay because they are big enough not to be eaten by accident.) Add the raisins to the hot oil. (Frying the raisins really transforms them. They puff up and their flavor becomes more intense.) Add the onions and fry until they are soft and slightly brown. Add the jalapeno and ginger and fry a few minutes. Add the yogurt/mustard combination with the salt and cayenne pepper. Mix until the sauce is distributed. Nestle the chicken into the sauce, add the potatoes and makes sure they are all covered in the sauce. Lastly add the spinach (#3). Cover and simmer gently until the spinach has wilted into the sauce. (#4). Gently simmer for about 1 hour until the potatoes and chicken are cooked through. (If the sauce gets too thick or starts to scorch dilute it with some chicken broth.)

This is a really good curry. It was different from the previous curries. The raisins give it a deep fruity flavor which contrasts with and is offset by the vinegary sharpness of the mustard. It results in a really nice kind-of sweet and sour combo. The Yogurt makes the sauce very rich and creamy. The potatoes absorb the flavor of the spices and also add to the creaminess of the sauce. The spinach adds additional texture and a slight bitterness on the tongue. Another great choice for lunch or dinner. 

Cucumber and Vidalia onion salad キュウリとタマネギのサラダ

We made this for the 4th of July barbecue among other salads. This is a perfect dish for Swedish Smörgåsbord judging from its white color especially next to marinated herring in sour cream. (Japanese call this type of all-you-can-eat buffet "Viking" which is a catchier name and easier to pronounce, especially for Japanese, while suggesting its origin). My wife said, however, that this is not a Swedish but a Pennsylvania Dutch recipe. She grew up eating this salad in the summer and it was one of her favorites. In any case, this is a very cool refreshing salad for hot muggy summer days. In the original recipe sour creme is used. We substituted yogurt for the sour cream, making it is very healthy to boot. The major flavoring is dill.

I helped by slicing and chopping and did other prep works. My wife essentially was in charge of dressing and seasoning this. The amount and proportion of onion and cucumber is arbitrary.

I washed the cucumbers (American mini-cucues) then rubbed the cucumber skin with salt, rinsed and dried with a paper towel. Since we had 6 cucumbers, I used a Japanese mandoline and sliced it thinly. I added a small amount of salt (1/2 tsp), kneaded it and let it stand for 10-15 minutes. I wrung out the excess moisture but I did not wash away the salt (below left). My wife seasoned it with rice vinegar (about 2 tbs or to taste).

I used Vidalia onion (1 medium) thinly sliced. I added a relatively large amount of salt (3 tsp), kneaded and let it stand for 10 minutes or more (above right). I washed and drained several times in running cold water. I then wrung out the excess moisture and soaked in ice cold water (with ice cubes) for 30 minutes (skip this process if you really like strong onion flavor).

Dressing: My wife added Greek yogurt and finely chopped fresh dill (as much as you like).

The salad becomes better after one day in the refrigerator. Especially since we used yogurt, excess whey may develop, just pour it out before serving. Since we used Vidalia onion and salting and soaking all contributed to very mild almost sweet flavor of the onion. Using American mini-cucumber which is closest we can come to a Japanese cucumber also makes this salad much better than using ordinary American cucumbers. 

Pairing with drinks is not easy. Sake and beer will go with this salad but not any wines.

Green Goddess dip and improved carrot miso dip 緑の女神ディップ

We made these three dips/spreads for a dinner we had with friends. We previously posted the carrot cashew spread (left) and Greek cheese with olive oil (center) recipes but the green dip (right) is new. All of these dips are great and the carrot cashew spread was a great improvement over the previous version. These are perfect with crackers and wine. We also used the green dip on a sandwich instead of mayonnaise and it was really good.

This is an improved carrot miso spread. The last time we made this, we did not have raw cashews so we used roasted cashews. This time we used raw cashews which were also cooked in chicken broth before being pureed. This resulted in a much smoother consistency. Both the miso and the natural sweetness of the carrot come through. I also roasted the sesame seeds before grinding them which really added a fresh nutty sesame taste. I am not sure if using raw cashew nuts or cooking them or both made the difference but this version is much creamier in texture.

This Greek yogurt olive oil dip is our old stand-by and favorite. Two key points to making this dip are to straining plain yogurt (not low-fat) to make your own Greek yogurt and using high quality fruity and spicy olive oil like our favorite Spanish olive oil. This time, I garnished it with Japanese Yuzu peels (frozen) which added nice fresh citrus taste.

This is a new dip. The recipe came from the Washington Post. It is called "Cashew Green Goddess Dip". The green color makes it look like an avocado dip but there is no avocado. The green color comes mostly from parsley and tarragon. Another interesting ingredient is canned anchovies.

Ingredients:
1 cup raw cashews*
1⁄2 cup water (we used chicken broth*)
1⁄2 cup chopped parsley
1⁄4 cup lemon juice
1⁄4 cup chopped fresh tarragon
2 tablespoons chopped chives
3 filets of canned anchovies, drained
1 teaspoon honey
1 clove garlic
1⁄2 teaspoon salt

*The instructs state that if you are using a high-speed blender such as Vitamix, you just puree the ingredients. (We have a good regular blender), otherwise you soak the cashews in water overnight before pureeing. We cooked the raw cashews in chicken broth for 5 minutes instead. This worked well. The broth, in which the cashews were cooked, was also used in leu of the water.

Directions:
Combine the raw cashews*, water (or chicken broth), parsley, lemon juice, tarragon, chives, anchovies, honey, garlic and salt in a blender. Puree until smooth. Chill before serving.

This is a very good and unique dip. We can really taste the tarragon and honey. The garlic and anchovies are there in the background and add "je ne sais quoi" but if we are not told, it is not easy to detect. The original recipe called for celery sticks as the dip "delivery system" but we just enjoyed it on crackers. All these three dips are excellent and different from each other and made an excellent start for the evening.

Bangladeshi White Chicken Korma チキンコルマ

This is another of my wife's curry projects. (She has been making curries about once a week. We really like having them for lunch.) This recipe is based on a recipe in the cookbook  “Curry Easy” by Madhur Jaffrey which my wife got recently. This is a yogurt based white curry. 

 We added blanched green beans and skinned Campari tomato. I also garnished it with Japanese pickles called “Funkushin or Fukujin-zuke” 福神漬け to add some colors.

Ingredients:
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. Cardamon
1/4 tsp cayenne
4 bay leaves
3 onions roughly chopped
4 chicken thighs
3 Tbs. Grated ginger
6 garlic cloves peeled and lightly crushed
1 cup greek yogurt
1 tbs. Vinegar
1 1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
Put several Tbs. Peanut oil in a frying pan and bloom the spices cinnamon through bay leaves in the hot oil. Add the onions and sauté until they are translucent. Add the garlic and ginger and fry until fragrant. Add the yogurt, vinegar and salt. Stir to make a creamy sauce. Put in the chicken and cover with the sauce. If more liquid is necessary add some chicken broth. Cook on simmer for about 1 hour or until the chicken is completely cooked.

This is a nice curry. It seems that the recipes in this cookbook are a bit simpler than the recipes in the other Madhur Jaffrey cookbooks we have. This one was very nice and a bit different from the usual that we have made which was good for a change. The sauce is creamy and the spices are flavorful and fairly gentle but slow heat will creep up on you. rice and Japanese Fukujinzuke pickles, this is a good curry.

Sweet Potato and Tuna Salad サツマイモとツナのサラダ

This is dish is on the theme of using up a can of tuna. We had one more can of albacore tuna which we bought during the Covid protein shortage, aging in the pantry. The idea for this dish is very similar to the tuna and daikon salad ツナと大根のサラダ but I replaced the daikon with sweet potato. Again mayo saved the canned tuna. This is also a good dish for a small appetizer.

The recipe came from e-recipe.

Ingredients:
1 small Japanese “Satsuma-imo” sweet potato, microwaved for 3-4 minutes until soft in a silicon container, peeled and mashed leaving some small chunks
1 can of tuna
1 tbs mayonnaise
1 tbs Greek yogurt (strained home-made yogurt my wife made)
salt and pepper to taste
chopped parsley

Directions:
Add the tuna and mashed sweet potato in a bowl, add the yogurt and mayo and mix
Season with salt and pepper and mix in chopped parsley.

This is another good dish using canned tuna. It is quite different from the tuna and daikon salad I posted before. The sweet potato has nice soft texture and sweet taste which went very well with tuna containing dressing.

Red snapper in aspic 鯛の煮こごり

I did not make this dish, the dish made itself! We recently had simmered red snapper. (This was the second time we had this dish in recent weeks). We could not finish one whole fish so my wife carefully removed the meat sans bones and placed it in a sealable container, poured in the left over simmering liquid and placed the container in the refrigerator. A few days later, when I tried to serve this leftover fish, I was pleasantly surprised to find this dish; simmered red snapper aspic. In Japanese, this type of jell or aspic is called "nikogori" 煮こごり. When I was a kid this usually happened in winter when our kitchen was very cold and the leftover simmered fish (I remember it was often sand dabs) was covered with its own natural aspic. The best way to eat this was to put it on the top of hot steamed rice. The aspic started melting immediately and seasoned the rice nicely. When I saw what had happened with the red snapper that came out of our fridge, I quickly changed gears and served this eclectic dinner featuring red snapper aspic as the main dish. The rest of the plate came from whatever we had in our refrigerator.



Here is a close-up of the aspic. Although we did not intend to make this dish, this was nicely done.



I made Chinese -style "nibuta" 煮豚 sometime ago and last weekend I also made "ajitsuke tamago"  味付け卵 and served that.



I also served a small slice of Chinese simmered pork and cucumber/onion salad with fresh dill dressed in rice vinegar and Greek yogurt (my wife made the Greek yogurt by draining regular yogurt through cheese cloth in the fridge overnight).



Ajitsuke tamago:
This is the most common topping for ramen noodle. I made soft boiled eggs from home pasteurized shell eggs using my sous vide machine. I then soaked the eggs in the simmering liquid of the pork and let it sit for a few days. This process seasoned the eggs as well as changed the consistency of the egg yolks. I could have made "softer" boiled eggs but this was just fine.

I also served steamed green asparagus that I prepared the prior weekend with mayo. Since we did not have a time to prepare rice, I microwaved leftover rice and garnished with dried ao-nori. By the time, we were ready to eat, the rice was not hot enough to melt the aspic but it was good. Since the seasoning was on the light side, this worked better. This was a rather well balanced eclectic meal

Puff pastry loaf with roast beef, cheese and potato salad ローストビーフ、チーズ、ポテトサラダローフ

My wife invented this loaf which is a variation of egg and smoked salmon in puff pastry. She already made one variation using smoked salmon, cheese and mashed potato. This time, we were in cleaning-up-leftovers mode. Although we rarely eat beef, one weekend we made a beef roast on the Weber grill with hot smoke. We used thin slices of the roast beef for sandwiches during the week but still had some left over. In addition, I had made potato salad a few weeks ago and a good amount was still left.  (The potato salad is made with rice vinegar and strained yogurt i.e. Greek yogurt in addition to the usual mayonnaise, and these two ingredients act as a kind of preservative. As a result the potato salad lasts a long time but even so there is a limit so we had to use it up). My wife came to the rescue with this dish using roast beef, potato salad and her variation of cheese stuffing. This is like a "pasty", all inclusive--starch, veggies and proteins from the meat and cheese.

Ingredients:
sheet of puff pastry thawed

for cheese filling:
4 oz. feta cheese
3 oz smoked mozzarella cheese
2 oz. Monterey jack
5 oz. ricotta cheese
2 large eggs
sprinkle of red pepper flakes to taste

Other ingredients
roast beef cut into thin slices.
cup of potato salad (or amount needed to top the cheese filling)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Crumble the feta cheese into small pieces. Grate the mozzarella and Monterey jack cheeses. Mix the crumbled and grated cheeses with the ricotta, egg and red pepper flakes. Roll out the thawed puff pastry on parchment paper. On half of the pastry dough, add layers of thinly sliced roast beef, the cheese mixture and potato salad (shown below).

Fold the other half of the pastry dough over the filling and seal the edges by painting on a mixture of water and flour and pressing the edges using the tines of a fork.  Dock or prick the top of the dough with the fork. (This lets steam escape as the loaf cooks). With the loaf still on the parchment paper place it on a rack and put the rack on a cookie sheet. (This allows the bottom to cook thoroughly). Cook for 25 to 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.

Again, you can't go wrong with this combination of pastry, meat, cheese and potatoes--its a meal in itself. The potato salad was an interesting addition. It added a slight vinegar tang and the mayonnaise yogurt blended into the cheese mixture adding a creaminess. The onions and carrots in the potato salad were a nice dimension that was not present in previous versions of this loaf. The smokiness of the barbecued beef also added its "voice" nicely. (Although the roast beef was very nice, we decided that maybe we preferred the saltiness of the smoked salmon used in previous versions a bit better). Slices of the loaf heat up well in the toaster oven. This is nice to have after work with a nice glass of red wine of course.

Coleslaw with homemade buttermilk ranch dressing ランチドレッシング コールスロー

This is a variation of coleslaw. Since my wife discovered a high octane buttermilk, she wanted to make salad dressing using it. She found a Ranch dressing recipe on line. This is not our usual or favorite dressing but with this buttermilk, it may be worth it. We simplified/modified it (removing fresh herbs so that the coleslaw would last longer) and made this coleslaw. This post is mostly to document our modification for the dressing.

Using this buttermilk and home-made Greek yogurt, the Ranch dressing came out rather thick and creamy (and hopefully more healthy than if we had used the sour cream called for in the recipe).

First I prepared the cabbage and carrot.

Ingredients:
1/4 head of cabbage
2 medium carrots, skin peeled, sliced thinly on bias and then cut into thin julienne.
Raisin

Directions:
I hand chopped the cabbage and then soaked it in cold water for 10-20 minutes and drained.
I salted and massaged the cabbage and let it sit in a bowl until slightly wilted and some juice came out.
I pressed the cabbage and discarded the any juice accumulated. I mixed in the carrot and raisin.

Dressing:

(1/2 the original recipe)
1/2 - 3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk
2-3 tablespoons home made Greek yogurt (the original calls for sour cream)
1-2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, minced
1 red onion, finely minced
1 Jalapeno pepper, seeded deveined and finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Few dashes Sriracha sauce
(1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce and optional suggestion from my wife based on her previous coleslaw recipe)

(Original recipe) 

1 cup well-shaken buttermilk
4 tablespoons home made Greek yogurt (the original calls for sour cream)
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 clove garlic, minced
1 red onion, finely minced
1 Jalapeno pepper, seeded deveined and finely chopped
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Few dashes Sriracha sauce
(1tsp Worcestershire sauce and optional suggestion from my wife based on her previous coleslaw recipe)

This represented 1/2 of the original recipe. The original recipe also called for 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh tarragon, dill, parsley, chives or celery leaves (or a combination) but we omitted it since we thought these fresh herbs may make the dressing more perishable. Instead, we added finely chopped Jalapeno pepper. The original called for Tabasco. One of the things my wife said is important is to premix the buttermilk in a bowl with a whisk since it tends to separate. Just shaking the bottle, in her opinion, will not do it.

We dressed the cabbage misture generously and seasoned it with salt and pepper after we tasted it.

My wife's original coleslaw dressing had Worcestershire sauce which gave some zing to the dressing. This ranch dressing version is milder and creamer and I sort of like it but my wife said she likes the original.

Deviled eggs Version 2 デビルドエッグ

We posted deviled eggs before but since my wife acquired a new deviled eggs plate (originally to display a collection of  Easter egg decorations), we had another attempt at making deviled eggs. I have to admit the colorful plate, makes things look much more festive than our old white plate did.

Since I made guacamole (the avocado I had was on the verge of turning to over ripened mush) and this plate had a center well for a dip, I served it as well. My wife made three different kinds of deviled eggs this time.

This is the classic one.

2 tbs of Greek yogurt
1 tbs mayonnaise
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp mustard
a sprinkle of onion salt to taste
stuffed olive for garnish

Lightly season all the egg whites with salt. Mix all the ingredients into the mashed egg yolk, then put mixture back into egg white

This is one with Sriracha hot sauce garnished with smoked paprika (not cayenne pepper).

2 tbs of Greek yogurt
1 tbs mayonnaise
1 tsp Sriracha (or to taste)
smoked paprika to garnish

Lightly season all the egg whites with salt. Mix all the ingredients into the mashed egg yolk, then put mixture back into egg white

This one is with guacamole garnished with a cilantro leaf.

2 tbs of Greek yogurt
1 tbs mayonnaise
2 tbs of guacamole
cilantro leaf for garnish

Lightly season all the egg whites with salt. Mix all the ingredients into the mashed egg yolk, then put mixture back into egg white

This plate may have been perfect for a party but we were not going to have one. Obviously it was too much to eat in one sitting so we came up with a way to cover and save the eggs in the refrigerator. My wife found out that we had a small stainless steel bowl which perfectly fit the center well . This covered the guacamole in an air tight way and gave the dish some height so that we could cover the entire plate with plastic wrap without toughing the deviled eggs.  So we enjoyed our deviled eggs two (halves) at a time for the next few days.

Although this is such an old fashioned appetizer, we learned it is making a comeback with some fancy twists. Ours were not fancy but we like them very much. Actually we liked the original and classic one with mayo, onion salt and Worcestershire sauce the best. The taste of deviled eggs evoked the nostalgia of humid summer days and family picnics (for my wife).

Kabocha salad カボチャのサラダ

We regularly get Japanese/Asian groceries from Weee. This time we got a Japanese “Kabocha” かぼちゃ squash. It was larger than usual. I made my usual simmered kabocha and pottage かぼちゃの煮物とポタージュ but some still remained. I thought about tempura but that was too much work for such a small piece. So I decided to make this “kabocha salad”. I did not follow any particular recipe but sort of combined two different recipes. This is curry flavored and turned out to be quite good highlighting the natural sweetness of the kabocha.

This is just a note for myself.

Ingredients:
Kabocha squash, seeds removed, skin shaved off (optional), cut into half inch cubes
Raisins

For the dressing
Greek yogurt
Mayonnaise
Curry powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Boil the kabocha in salted water for 5-7 minutes until cooked but not too mushy
Mix the ingredients for the dressing (about the same amount of mayo and yogurt, the amount of curry powder is to your liking)

For an impromptu salad, this was much better than I expected. The natural sweetness of the kabocha was complemented by the curry flavor. The mixture of the yogurt, mayo and kabocha made a nice creamy texture with some tartness. I will make this again.

P.S. Hawk joins us for Hanami 花見!
This year was a bit unusual for the cherry blossoms. The trees bloomed early and the blooms lasted for a long time. Since we have three trees with different bloom timing, we had a very long time to enjoy cherry blossoms or “Hanami”. One afternoon, a hawk joined us for Hanami! We looked out the window and there he was in all his magnificence sitting not ten feet from the window on the railing of the deck. We marveled at the image of such an awesome creature juxtaposed to the delicate loveliness of the cherry blossoms.

Potato salad with tuna and pesto ペストとツナのポテトサラダ

We made pesto and froze it when we had a bumper crop of basil sometime ago. My wife found two small plastic containers in the freezer recently and tasked me to use it. I made two kinds of garlic mozzarella bread, one with original garlic scallion butter and another with the pesto. The one with pesto was quite good. That left me with the 2-3 tbs of pesto. From the depth of my memory I remembered a recipe for potato salad with tuna and pesto from the “Frugal Gourmet*" cookbook. I sort of remembered how this was made but I decided I needed to find the recipe. After going through a number of his cookbooks which we have in our collection, I found the recipe in "Frugal Gourmet cooks with wine". It was called "tuna and potato salad" which was introduced as an "American Italian" dish. In any case, I made this salad and finished up the pesto. It was definitely very distinctive and very good; quite different from my usual potato salad.

*When his show was popular on PBS in1980s, it was our routine to watch it on the weekend and we bought most of his cookbooks. Looking back, however, we think our cooking has advanced since then but at the time his recipes were quite inspirational. 

I made a few modifications as usual.  

Ingredients:

2 medium russet potatoes, boiled with skin on and then skin removed, cut (crumbed) into bite size chunks (original recipe calls for 6 small red potatoes).

One can of tuna in water, drained.

Blanched green beans, arbitrary amount (I prepared from fresh green beans, the original recipe calls for a 10 oz. package of frozen green beans, thawed, cooked and drained).

2 tbs pesto

3 tbs mayonnaise and 3 tbs Greek (strained) yogurt* (The original recipe calls for 1 cup mayo)

3 flat anchovies mashed (optional). I did not used them.

Salt and pepper to taste

3 tbs chopped parsley (I skipped this since I did not have fresh parsley)

* My wife prepared this from Dannon yogurt.

Directions:

I seasoned the potatoes with salt, pepper and sushi vinegar while they were hot and I them cool in a bowl (my addition)

Cut the green beans in half inch length and add to the potato.

Add the pesto and tuna.

Add the mayo and Greek yogurt and mix.

Taste and season it with salt and pepper if needed.

This is a good salad to have. We really liked it.