Corn Rice cooked in corn broth とうもろこしご飯

Since we are still in the midst of corn season (early September) and piles of corn in husks are plentiful at the market, we, again, ended up with 10 ears of corn. Without having any specific plan of what to make with them, my wife went ahead and cooked the corn by briefly microwaving the ears covered with a paper towel for 4 to 6 minutes. I removed the kernels and my wife then made her famous corn broth from the corn cobs and onion. So we ended up with corn kernels as well as corn broth. Instead of making regular corn soup, I decided to make a Japanese style corn rice. After we made the corn rice, we made corn potage from the corn kernels and the broth.

Unlike the traditional Japanese recipe which uses sake, kelp or Japanese broth, I used my wife's very concentrated corn cob broth to make this rice.

Because the broth was not totally clear, the rice got slightly brown/yellow in color.

I served the corn rice with hot smoked trout cooked in our Weber using indirect heat and hickory wood chips. My wife skillfully deboned the fish for me and I served it with a side dish of cucumber, onion and dill salad.

This is how our hot smoked trout looked. The meat was very succulent with a nice smokey flavor and we liked it.

Ingredients for corn rice:

Corn kernels, raw or cooked about half cup (#1).

Rice, Japanese short grain, 2 cup (using the 200 ml cup that comes with the rice cooker)

Corn cob broth, reduced, (about 2 and 1/4 cups).

(You could add salt or light colored soy sauce but I did not. These can be added later jut before you eat).

Direction:

1. Wash rice until water runs clear and drain.
2. Add the washed rice and the corn kernels to the rice cooker.
3. Add the corn cob broth to the mark (#2).
4. After finished cooking let it stand for 10-15 minutes (#3).
5. Gently mix and serve.

Using the concentrated corn cob broth made this corn rice very special. It had a very lovely corn flavor and a slight sweetness. We first tasted as is and then added butter and soy sauce which made it even better. This will be a regular seasonal dish from here on. 

Spanish Mackerel dishes, two kinds サバの味噌煮と竜田揚げ

We bought a whole Spanish mackerel from our nearby gourmet grocery store. Again, the exact Japanese name for Spanish Mackerel is unclear but  I will just call it "saba" 鯖 さば. Certainly it looks and taste like one. I asked the fishmonger to just gut the fish. I made miso-ni 味噌煮 simmered in miso sauce (left) and tatsuta-fry 竜田揚げ.

I made the miso simmered mackerel in the morning and reheated it just before serving. Then I fried up the marinated tatsuta mackerel. This one was well seasoned and did not require any sauce just a bit of lemon juice.

I garnished the miso simmered mackerel with thin julienne of ginger or "hari shouga" 針生姜 and thinly sliced scallion.

Preparation of the fish:

This was a rather large mackerel. I filleted it "sanmai-ni-orosu" or sliced it into three layers (two layers of fillets and one layer of backbone and head). I removed the belly portion and also removed the meat under the fins since there are many small bones under the fins. Using a Japanese bone tweezer, I removed any small bones which remained.

I cut the pieces into rectangles and scored the skin so it wouldn't break during cooking. I divided the pieces into two groups. I simmered one group in miso sauce and the other I fried into tatsuta.

1. Mackerel braised in miso sauce サバの味噌煮

Ingredients:

Mackerel, one fillet, cut into rectangles with the skin shallowly scored. 

300 ml water

100 ml sake

5tbs miso

3tbs sugar

4 slices of ginger

Directions:

I placed the water and sake with the ginger slices in a frying pan and brought it to a boil. I placed the mackerel in with skin side up. I removed some liquid and used it to dissolve a mixture of miso and sugar. Once dissolved I added it back to the pan (#1) and turned down the flame to simmer. I placed the otoshibuta (my usual silicone lid) on top (#2).

I simmered it until the sauce became thick and clung to the fish (for about 45 minutes to 1 hour) (#3).

2. Mackrel tatsuta fry 鯖の竜田揚げ

Ingredients:

Mackerel, one fillet, cut into rectangles.

Soy sauce and mirin (1:1 ratio)

1 tsp grated ginger

Potato starch for dredging

Oil for deep frying

Directions:

In a Ziploc bag, I marinated the mackerel for several hours in the refrigerator. 

I blotted the excess marinade using paper towels and dredged the pieces in the potato starch (#4).

I deep fried it in 350F oil for a few minutes turning once (#6).

Both dishes were quite good but we liked the miso flavored one best. Although these two dishes are good drinking snacks, we had them with rice. Especially the miso-ni was best on the rice (OTR). We were pleasantly surprised that the Spanish mackerel we got was very fresh and the resulting dishes were great.

Chilli cheese shortbread 唐辛子とチーズのショートブレッド

This is my wife's savory cookie/shortbread which belongs to a similar category as the anchovy black pepper cookie she made before. This is seasoned with red pepper and worchestershire sauce.

This is not sweet at all and clearly calls for wine or some other drink to accompany it.

Ingredients:

2 cups AP flour

12 Tbs. butter

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp  red pepper flakes

1 1/2 cup shredded cheese (cheddar and gruyere)

Blend all the ingredients in a food processor. (Word of advice: This is a very dry flaky dough. Don't panic if it looks like it is not coming together. We had to dump it as crumbs out of the food processor and my wife worked at it diligently. Eventually she was able to make the ball shown in #1 below.) Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. Roll out dough as shown in #2. Cut out cookies whatever shape you want and put on a cookie sheet #3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and cook for 15 to 18 minutes until golden. Put on a rack to cool #4. 

This is an ethereal cookie. It dissolves on your tongue leaving behind a slight saltiness (from the Worcestershire sauce) followed by a pleasant buzz from the red pepper that slowly kicks in and builds. Although anchovy is the main ingredient for Worcestershire sauce, this version of savory shortbread is much more subtle compared to the anchovy black pepper cookie.  Despite all the butter in this shortbread the texture is somewhat grainy and some libation helps nicely to wash it down. We had it with Spanish red wine which went really well.  

Negitoro-don ネギトロ丼

I (again) made negitoro (or more precisely pseudo-negitoro ネギトロもどき) from frozen yellowfin tuna sashimi block and decided to make "donburi" 丼 as a shime 〆 dish. Besides negitro, I added Japanese style scrambled eggs or "iritamago" 炒り卵, strips of nori sea weed and perilla.

I made the negitoro as before (#1). I also made scrambled eggs seasoned with sugar and light colored soy sauce (#2). For garnishes, I prepared a chiffonade of perilla leaves (#3). I placed sushi rice in the bowl first (#4) and added strips of nori (#5) which was followed by negitoro and eggs (#6).

This combination cannot go wrong. This was a quite nice small donburi perfect to complete the evening.

Pocket stuffed with chicken and craisin チキン、チーズと干しクランベリーのポケットパイ

This is a continuation of my wife's "pocket" dishes. This started out as a question about what to do with the extra barbecued chicken from the previous weekend. I am not sure where she found this recipe. My contribution was chopping Jalapeno pepper and leftover barbecued chicken. Here is the end result pocket just out of the oven.

Nice buttery pie crust and smokey and cheesy stuffing.

I asked my wife to fill in the rest.

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped cooked chicken

2-3 Tbs. Mayonnaise

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup craisins

2 diced jalapenos (or to taste)

1/2 cup grated smoked mozzarella

Directions:

Mix ingredients together using just enough mayo to blend then stuff pockets. Cook stuffed pockets at 400 degrees for 18 minutes or until golden brown. 

We found this type of dish perfect starters when we come home. The smokiness comes from both barbecued chicken and  smoked mozzarella cheese and craisin add sweet and sour taste. Just pop in the pockets in the toaster oven and heat it up. This tastes great and fills the hollow in your stomach just long enough for dinner to arrive.

New Macro lens, Broccoli, tomato and white asparagus マクロレンズとリングLEDライト、ホワイトアスパラ

I just got a new sony macro lens E 30mm F3.5 Macro (SEL30M35) for my Sony Alpha a6000. Before this, I was taking my foodie pictures mostly using a kit lens (16-50mm zoom) which I bought with the camera body.  Real close ups were difficult with the kit lens. I also get an LED ring light for macro lens. The below are the first pictures I took with this set up. I happened to have blanched broccoli and took this picture.

The LED ring light has a bluish color temperature and unless, you are taking really a really tight shot, the periphery gets dim and only the center gets well lit. But I am happy with the close up I took.

For these two pictures, I adjusted the color and exposure using a Mac photo program. The below are taken with natural light from the windows.

I also made white asparagus with a Bearnaise sauce variation. Instead of tarragon, I used concentrated  white asparagus broth.

The sauce is another variation of Beanaise-like sauce.

As before I peeled and cooked white asparagus in water with all the peels until soft and cooked. I then removed the asparagus but left the peels and further simmered it until only a very small amount of liquid was left which has a concentrated flavor of white asparagus. I added rice vinegar and reduced it further (2 tbs of liquid left). In the double boiler, I then added two egg yolks to the concentrated liquid and whisked. Since the sauce appeared a bit runny, I decided to add pats of cold butter while whisking (about 1-2 tbs). I seasoned it with salt and white pepper.  For color, I garnished it with chopped chives. 

Hope I can take better pictures in the future but since I do not spend enough time to set up the lighting or to compose good pictures (after all, we need to eat), the quality may not really improve but I am having fun with my new toy.

Dashimaki with tarako wrapped in nori 海苔巻きたらこのだし巻き

Although I have posted similar dishes. this one came out rather nicely (visually). This is an example of stuffed Japanese "dashimaki" omelet だし巻き. The most famous/popular is stuffed with eel called "U-maki" 鰻巻き. This time, I stuffed it with tarako cod roe which was wrapped in a nori sheet. I bought this "tarako" たらこ code roe, to make "tarako" spaghetti たらこスパゲッティ (actually using thin udon). I had one sac left over so and few days later, I made tarako dashimaki for the evening.

I removed the tarako roe from its sac (by cutting the sac open and scraping the content using a knife blade leaving the membrane) and wrapped it with a nori sheet (cut to match the width of the rectangular Japanese omelet pan). I just rolled this into the center of the dashimaki omelet.

The tarako was just barely cooked underneath the nori.

Salty cod roe, nori and sweet omelet went so well together. This type of dish really calls for sake.