Three otoshi #2 続お通し３品

We really like multiple "otoshi" drinking snacks. This is another example which I made one weekend. From left to right are: "Nattou, marianted chiai tuna with egg york" 卵黄入り鮪の血合い納豆, "Crab and cucumber dressed in vinegar" かにと胡瓜の酢の物 and "squid sashimi dressed in soy sauce and wasabi" イカ素麺.

"Chiai" is the very dark portion of tuna which I removed from the blue fin tuna toro block we got. I marinated the chiai in equal amounts of soy sauce and sake in the refrigerator. As before, I just mixed nattou, marinated chiai tuna, and egg yolk (Pasteurized shell egg). I garnished it with thinly cut perilla. Chiai usually tastes gamey and strong but this preparation makes it much more palatable.This dish is pretty high on the slime factor scale so it is not for the faint-hearted or for consumption by “J-Q public” particularly in the United States but Yamada Taro 山田太郎 (equivalent to John Q. Public in Japan) may like it.  But we (including my wife) certainly like it.

The second is a very standard "sunomono" 酢の物. The crab meat came from Catalina Offshore products. We have never tried this before but, again, because some items we wanted such as sea urchin or amaebi were not available, I decided to try this cooked crab meat. This was a great disappointment.  It was all claw meat of stone crab but it was not easy to remove the hard shell (only tip of the claws) and thin cartilage. It all came out as small pieces. We can get much better packaged lump crab meat at our local grocery store. In any case, we had a Japanese cucumber for a change and made this crab and cucumber sunomono. As usual, I thinly sliced the cucumber, salted it and let it stand for a few minutes and then wrung out the moisture. I dressed it with sushi vinegar with splashes of yuzu juice (from the bottle).

The below is another version I made the day before with addition of tomato and daikon threads which was dressed in ponzu (leftover from garish I used for tuna sashimi).

The below is a packaged and frozen sashimi of squid I got from our Japanese grocery store. I simply dressed it with soy sauce and wasabi and served on the top of water cress.

These are nothing special or new but good drinking snacks to start with your cold sake.

Barbequed pork fried rice バーベキューポークの焼き飯

We used to make fried rice チャーハン炒飯 all the time but it’s been a while since I last made it. The last time I posted fried rice was in 2009. I am sure many people have their own secret recipe for making the best fried rice such as mixing a beaten egg into the rice before frying etc. Some consider it important to keep the rice from not sticking together but, in my opinion, if that is what you want, just use long grain rice. I am inclined to stick to my old-tried-and-true method of making fried rice. One innovation I have made is to use frozen rice. (I keep any left over rice in Ziploc bags in the freezer). Freezing reduces the moisture and making it much easier to make fried rice.


Today, we had an end piece of hot smoked pork loin which we barbecued last weekend in the Weber grill. Since I also had blanched broccolini, I added that, too.



Since this was a lunch, I also quickly made "nameko" mushroom なめこ and tofu miso soup.



Ingredients (2 small servings):
Rice: about 1 cup, previously frozen, thawed by microwaving for 40-50 seconds, crumbled.
Barbecued pork: This is the end piece of hot smoked pork loin. I sliced and then cut into half inch squares (amount arbitrary).
Onion: Half of large onion, finely chopped
Garlic: 3 fat cloves, finely chopped
Ginger: Tip of pinky sized, sliced and finely chopped
Shiitake mushroom: 2 large fresh, cut into small pieces.
Broccoini" 4 stalks, blanched, the stalks cut into small pieces, the flowering end just separated.
Egg: one beaten and seasoned with salt and pepper for scrambled egg.

In a non-stick frying pan on medium flame, I added vegetable oil (2 tsp) and dark sesame oil (1 tsp). I added garlic and ginger and slowly fried until fragrant and added the onion. I kept sautéing for a few more minutes. I then added the shiitake mushrooms, the stalk of broccolini, and the pork, sautéed for a few more minutes and seasoned with salt and pepper. I set it aside on a plate, wiped the pan clean, added vegetable oil (1/2 tsp) and made scrambled egg and set it aside.

I again wiped the pan clean, added vegetable oil (2 tsp) and dark sesame oil (1/2 tsp) on high flame. I added still cold but thawed  (kernels separated) rice into the pan and started stir frying. After all the rice kernels got coated with oil, I flattened the rice to have some browning on the bottom and then stir fried again until rice was thoroughly hot and cooked, I added the vegetable/pork mixture and the flowering end of the broccolini, seasoned with salt and pepper. At the last moment, I added soy sauce along the edge of the pan (so that the soy sauce first hit the hot metal surface of the pan before getting mixed into the rice, which adds more flavor from the soy sauce) and stir fried some more.

I put the fried rice on the plate, garnished with roasted white sesame seeds, fried "aonori" 青海苔powder and the scrambled egg. For the miso soup, I used granulated instant "dashi", canned nameko mushroom, chopped scallion and tofu. Although "akadashi" 赤出し味噌 is most proper for this soup, we do not particular like akadashi (too bitter) and I used regular "awase"miso 合わせ味噌 (between red and white miso).

For a weekend lunch, this was pretty good. I particularly enjoyed the miso soup with the fried rice.

Decadent breakfast with caviar, scrambled egg and creme fraiche キャビアと卵の豪華版朝食

Caviar is  not an "Izakaya" item but we tend to get carried away sometimes. Since the last time we had real Beluga caviar was ions ago, we decided to get both American Sturgeon as well as Beluga for a taste comparison and to refresh our memories. As before we got these from Fine Caviar.

This is American sturgeon. According to the fine caviar web site;

"Hackleback Sturgeon - (Scaphiryhnchus platoryhnchus) is indigenous to the Missouri and Mississippi River systems"



So this one is from wild-caught sturgeon. As you can see the grain of the caviar is fine and the color is black. The flavor is very subtle but not fishy with a nice salinity. The crunch and pop are great.

This is imported Beluga caviar which appears to come from "farm raised" sturgeons in "Eastern Asia" (which ever country that may be). Again quoting form the website;

"The eggs of the Huso Dauricus Sturgeon are raised in advanced farms located in Eastern Asia."



As you can see the grain of the caviar is much larger and the color is gray. In terms of the flavor, the difference is very subtle. We are not sophisticated enough to say one is better than the other or Beluga is worth the extra expense.



In any case, here is Beluga caviar on blini, with homemade creme fraishe and chives, which was wonderful.



Next morning, we decided to go past just a scrambled egg breakfast. So we put the eggs on blini and added American Sturgeon caviar.



Fish eggs for breakfast may not be everybody's idea of a good breakfast but this combination was quite good and luxurious, at least, to us.

I think we had enough caviar to last us for a while.

Natto avocado cheese spring roll チーズ入り納豆アボカド春巻き

I am always looking for new nattou 納豆 recipes. I came across this one in E-recipe (in Japanese). It took sometime for me to finally try it.



This was shallow fried but the spring roll skin was very crispy and the combination of nattou, avocado and cheese (I used smoke mozzarella cheese) was quite good and even my wife (who is generally not a nattou devotee), really liked it.



The only problem with this recipe is how to wrap it. The Japanese recipe only said "cut the spring roll skin in half and then roll it into a triangular shape. I tried this by cutting the spring roll skin in half making a rectangular shape and also cut diagonally making a triangular shape but either way, I had difficulty making a neat triangular shaped package (upper left and right in the picture below).



This amount made 6 small triangular spring rolls.

Nattou: One package (frozen). I thawed and added finely chopped scallion and the contents of the seasoning package that came with the nattou. I also added 1/2 tsp of miso and mixed well with my usual nattou mixing contraption.

Avocado: Half of a ripe avocado cut into small cubes.

Cheese: I use smoked Mozzarella cut into small cubes (amount arbitrary).

Flour glue: I made wheat flour glue by mixing AP flour and water.
ttou
I mixed the nattou and avocado together. I spooned the mixture on half of the spring roll skin and added the cheese cubes. As I mentioned, it was not easy to wrap the contents into a neat triangular shape. Using the flour glue liberally, I managed to make some triangular packages (Upper right in the picture above). I shallow fried the packages turning several times until the skin turned brown and crispy (about 2 minutes). I then drained them on a paper towel. (Lower right and left in the picture above).

Since I mixed the nattou well and it was cooked, the nattou was not as sticky and its characteristic smell was much less. Once nattou is combined with avocado and melting cheese wrapped in crispy fried spring roll skin, this dish cannot go wrong. It was a perfect small snack for any libation.

Miso flavored ground pork donburi 豚肉味噌丼

I frequently purchase pork tenderloin. Although I sometimes make "Tonkatsu" トンカツor "Hirekatsu" ヒレカツ from it, my most common way of cooking it is to rub it with a combination spices (the combination changes frequently but the most common ones are either chopped fresh rosemary with salt and pepper or a mixture of smoked Spanish paprika, cumin, cinnamon, black pepper, and salt). I then bake it in a low-temperature oven (350F convection oven for 30 minutes) or grill it on the Weber grill. When I prep the tenderloin, I usually cut off the head and tail portions so that the rest of the tenderloin will be a uniform size and cook evenly.  I use these trimmings for many dishes but I most often hand chop them into ground pork. This is one of the dishes I made using pork tenderloin trimmings.



This is a variation of meat "soboro" 肉そぼろ. I posted one with chicken and soy sauce flavor. This one is pork with miso flavor for a change. I used this one night as a topping for cubes of warm tofu or 肉味噌豆腐 and from the leftovers, I made this donburi dish 肉味噌丼.



I just placed a runny yolk poached egg ( I used Pasteurized shell eggs) in the center of the bowl with warm cooked rice in it and then surrounded the egg with miso-flavored ground pork. I garnished it with chopped chives.

Ingredients:
Ground pork (Probably about half pound), miso (4 tbs), sugar (1 tbs) mirin (3 tbs) and sake (2 tbs), scallion (finely chopped, 4 stalks), ginger (finely chopped to taste) and Japanese single flavored red pepper flakes (to taste) .

The ratio of the meat to the sauce is rather arbitrary and depends of how you are going to use it. For a donburi dish, you may want to have a larger quantity and thinner sauce. For topping, you may want the sauce to be a bit drier. The amount of sweetness is also up to your taste.

I first cooked the ground pork in a frying pan with a small amount of vegetable oil (or sesame oil if you so prefer). Once the color changed, I took it off the heat and set aside.

In the same frying pan, I added more vegetable oil and sautéed the chopped ginger until fragrant (you can also add garlic here). I mixed the miso, sugar, mirin and sake in a small bowl and poured it into the frying pan. When the sauce heated up, I added the red pepper flakes and the meat. I constantly stirred on medium heat until the sauce thickened to my liking. I let it cool and kept it in a sealed container in the refrigerator for later use.

For this dish, I took the miso flavored ground pork which I made several days ago out of the refrigerator. I heated it up in a small sauce pan. The sauce was not enough and too thick for this dish so I added a mixture of miso, mirin and sake to make more sauce.

My wife is not particularly fond of the flavor of miso, red pepper and ground pork for some reason. The sauce was not too hot but she added a small mount of yogurt to hers. The combination of freshly cooked rice with salty, nutty, sweet miso flavor which were mixed with egg yolk is pretty good, at least, for me. We had this one as a "shime" 〆 or ending dish of the evening and was quite satisfying.

Squid stuffed with rice いか飯

A few weeks ago, I found frozen squid at our Japanese grocery store. I am not sure what the actual name is of this creature but I would say this must be "Surume-ika"スルメイカ or "Yari-ika" ヤリイカ. I have no idea what the English name would be. The only thing I do know is that this is a relatively large squid. While this type of squid is widely available in Japan we never see them at the regular grocery store in the U.S. Since many squid dishes can be made from the more commonly available small squid, I decided to make something different which requires the use of a large squid such as this one. I decided to make rice stuffed squid or "Ikameshi" イカ飯. Actually, in Hokkaido, this is the “star” of the most famous station-box-lunch or ekiben 駅弁 at Mori-machi 森町 station near Hakodate 函館 where squid is one of the famous local catches from the sea.



I served this as a small drinking snack with the side of blanched broccolini. We quickly switched to sake for this dish.



After serving 4 slices for both of us, this is what remained.

The frozen squid was about 10 inches long (just for the body or head portion). I let it thaw out at room temperature for a few hours since I did not have much time (upper left in the picture below). Since this was not cleaned, I had to clean it. I just separated the innards from the body using my fingers then gently pulled the legs until all the innards came out in one piece. I then removed the "cartilage" (transparent long and narrow structure) by just pulling on the end. I cut and separated legs and innards just above the eyes and discarded the innards. There was a hard "beak" in the center of the base of the legs which I removed. I then cut the legs into individual pieces*. I further cleaned and washed the cavity of the body of the squid (upper right in the picture below). I pondered whether I should remove the skin. In the end I did using paper towels to get traction.



* I marinated the legs in the 1:1 mixture of mirin and soy sauce and then grilled them over a charcoal fire when we did "Yakitori" the next day--but did not take pictures. The legs can be cooked with the rest of the squid or even used as a stuffing (cut into small pieces) with rice.

Cooking liquid: I made the cooking liquid with dashi broth (2 cups made from kelp and bonito flakes), sake (1/3 cup), mirin (3 tbs), sugar (3 tbs), and soy sauce (1/2 cup).

Rice: I washed and soaked  "mochi-gome" 餅米 or "glutinous" rice over night in the refrigerator  (1 cup, this can be had in a Japanese grocery store. It is sticker than regular Japanese rice. This is a particular kind of short grain rice from which "mochi" 餅 or rice cake is made).

I stuffed the squid with the drained glutinous rice. The amount of the rice is crucial. I just filled a bit less than half of the cavity (do not try to use up all the rice). I closed it using a toothpick. Not over filling is important since, when cooked, it will swell up and if overstuffed, it will burst.

I then placed the stuffed squid in a shallow pan and poured in the cooking liquid. I placed an "Otoshi buta" 落とし蓋 and a regular lid and cooked it on a very low flame for over 1 hour turning it once (lower left in the picture above). I took out the cooked squid and let it cool a bit before slicing.

This was a good dish. The rice is very sticky and absorbed all the flavors of squid and the cooking liquid. Just before eating I  poured a small amount of the cooking liquid over the rice. I could have made a sauce by reducing the cooking liquid but I did not.

For the leftover piece, a few days later I micro waved  it to warm it up a bit which worked well. I hope I can get this type of squid again but this happens only sporadically.

Sesame Mayonnaise Chicken salad 鳥胸肉のゴママヨネーズ和え

On a recent warm, spring-like weekend, we barbecued a whole chicken. From the leftovers, I made chicken noodle soup (using some skin and dark meat). I also made chicken salad (from the breast meat). I was going to make chicken gomaae 鶏肉の胡麻和え but at the last moment, I realized I was out of Japanese white sesame paste or "nerigoma"  練り胡麻. Instead, I made some sesame mayonnaise and used that to dressed the chicken.



Chicken: I used the breast meat of a barbecued chicken. I teased the meat, using my hands, along the grain to make thin strands.

Dressing: Goma-Mayonnaise is a rather common Japanese -style dressing. I dried roasted white sesame seeds (1 tbs) in a dry frying pan constantly moving them around until they became fragrant. I tipped off the roasted sesame into a Japanese "suribachi" すり鉢 mortar and ground it until the oil came out but it was not pasty.

I mixed the ground sesame into mayonnaise and mixed. I added light colored soy sauce to taste and just a splash of lemon juice (I used Yuzu juice from the bottle, which added a more assertive citrus flavor). I dressed the chicken meat with the dressing. The chicken absorbed the moisture and the dressing got a bit thick so I added a very small amount of water (optional) and mixed.

I served it with a garnish of watercress and roasted white sesame seeds. Actually, the flavor profile is very similar to the more traditional "goma-ae" with sesame paste. Perfect small "otoshi" dish.