Ahi tuna from Catalina カタリナオフショアからのアヒマグロ刺身

We tried "Fresh Wild sushi-grade Ahi tuna" from Catalina. According to them "Ahi" tuna could be Bigeye (Mebachi メバチマグロ) or Yellowfin (Kihada キハダマグロ).  Quoting from the Website "Ahi sushi is one of the most popular items among sushi fans. In the Hawaiian language, “Ahi” (ah-hee) refers to two species of tuna: bigeye and yellowfin." The one we got appears to have been "Bigeye" which is good since we like bigeye much better than yellowfin as sashimi. We also got fresh salmon and one tray of Pacific Northwest "Uni" or sea urchin roe. Obtaining decent uni from Catalina (or anywhere else) is more and more difficult and this was the first time we tried Pacific Northwest uni.

The tuna was about one pound. I first removed the skin. The white line separating the meat (sinew or fascia) is visible in the picture.

I made the piece into "Saku" blocks. You can see the sinew separating the meat especially on the right two larger blocks.

The first dish I made was  "tuna and avocado cubes" dressed in a mixture of dark sesame oil, soy sauce, sake and garlic ( I posted this before).

Since I did not have chives, I used chopped scallion instead for garnish.

Since the tuna was cut into small cubes, this tasted good without much problems with the sinew.  But when I served it with the salmon and uni as sashimi, the sinew became very unpleasant. Usually, more noticeable sinew or "Suji  すじ is present in Ootro or a very fatty potion tuna but this red meat or "akami " 赤身 had lots of "suji".

The salmon* was very nice and was the best among the three sashimi items we bought. The uni was certainly acceptable but the consistency is a bit too soft or liquid. It also had a gamey taste akin to but even greater than Maine uni. It is far cry from the nice firm but creamy California Gold uni we used to get.

* Digression alert: Salmon sashimi or sushi did not exist while I was in Japan. The reason Japanese did not eat raw salmon was because of the parasite called Anisakis which produced acute GI problems if ingested. It is killed after the salmon has been frozen (-4F for at least 24 hours) but marinating with vinegar does not get rid of it. About 1995, Norwegian purveyors convinced Japanese customers that their salmon was safe to eat raw since anisakis are not present in their farm raised salmon. Pacific Northwestern salmon has anisakis (I am not going into the life cycles of anisakis but where seals and other sea mammals are present, anisakis infestation is a problem.) The one we got was from New Zealand. As per Catalina website "Mt. Cook Alpine salmon is pure king salmon. It is naturally free of parasites, GMO, antibiotics, chemicals, mercury and other heavy metals due to being sustainably farmed in the pure glacial waters of New Zealand’s Southern Alps. " The salmon as sashimi is not our usual choice but, among the three we got, I prefer the salmon (meaning the tuna and uni weren't that good).

Instant Gravlax 即席グラブラックス

This was the first  time we got sashimi-grade salmon from Catalina.  Since it arrived on a Saturday morning, I decided to make instant gravlax (instead of regular gravlax which takes at least 2 days to make) for lunch. I served it with my cucumber-onion salad garnished with dill and horseradish Greek yogurt sauce. I cured thinly sliced pieces of the salmon rather than the whole fillet to speed up the curing.

Since the curing was short, the flavor it added to the salmon was subtle. I splashed on our favorite Spanish olive oil.

This is based on the recipe: "Super Quick Gravlax" by Jamie Oliver. The original recipe used a filet of salmon and cured it for 4 hours. I used thin slices and cured it for one hour. We had this with lightly toasted pumpernickel bread.

Ingredients:
Sashimi grade salmon (#1, This was fresh New Zealand salmon) thinly cut on the bias from the belly portion of the salmon (#2).
Sugar (1 heaping tbs) with molasses (or brown sugar) and Kosher salt (1 heaping tbs) (#3).
Vodka (50ml)
Zest of one lemon and orange (I did not have orange so used frozen Yuzu skin)
Fresh dill, finely chopped (2 tbs)

Directions:
I mixed all the curing ingredients in a sealable plastic container (#4). I mixed but did not dissolve the salt and sugar. I coated each slice of the salmon with the cure (#5) and covered it with plastic wrap (#6) and let it stand in the refrigerator for one hour.
After one hour, I took the salmon out and removed the excess salt/sugar by patting with a paper towel (#7).
I sprinkled on more fresh chopped dill (#8).

The gravlax was very nice with lemony and citrusy flavors and a hint of sweet molassy taste. It is not as flavorful as a regular gravlax but it was great in its own right. The horseradish Greek yogurt sauce (mixture of homemade Greek yogurt, prepared horseradish, olive oil and salt) was a bit too assertive for this delicate dish. I made several small, open face sandwiches with the gravlax and cucumber onion salad on the pumpernickel bread.

Smoked trout spread, Greek yogurt and cheeses マスの燻製のスプレッド、グリークヨーグルト、チーズ

These are appetizers we had one day which included Greek yogurt my wife made using a special yogurt from a farm in Pennsylvania near where she grew up (left upper brown container) and smoked trout spread (lower right tan container). We also served two interesting cheeses; Blue castello (Denmark) (lower left) and Bucheron Sevre Belle (France) (upper right).

The picture below is a close up of the Greek Yogurt made from a special "high-octane" yogurt which was mixed with our favorite Spanish olive oil and seasoned with salt.

This picture shows the smoked trout dip. We used to make this smoked trout cream cheese spread often when we regularly bought artisanal apple wood smoked trout from a nearby gourmet grocery store. We haven't made it recently, however, because the smoked trout is no longer available.

The picture below shows the Blue castello (Denmark) cheese which was a nice, mild but not too mild blue cheese. It was a bit more assertive than our favorite "Cambozola". It is a bit more crumbly but has a nice blue cheese taste. Cambozola is more creamy and has "Camembert" characteristics.

Bucheron Sevre Belle (France) is aged but not too aged and even the rind was nice to eat. It is a nice cross between fresh and very aged (and fuzzy) goat cheese.

Smoked trout spread

Ingredients:

1. Hot smoked trout. We used to buy smoked trout from the grocery store but this one was made from fresh trout hot smoked in the Webber. I used soaked hickory chips and indirect heat for about 20 minutes (#1). My wife carefully deboned (#2) and flaked the meat (#3), of a whole trout.

2. One package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese, (#4).

3. Fresh dill, chopped, 1/4 cup (#5)

4. Lemon juice of one lemon

5. Horseradish to taste (we also added wasabi). 

Just put everything in the food processor and process it until creamy and homogenized (#6). Taste and adjust any seasonings you like .

Greek yogurt spread with olive oil

Ingredients:

Greek yogurt*

Olive oil (we use our favorite Spanish olive oil)

Salt

* The Greek yogurt was made using "Seven Stars Farm" yogurt from Pennsylvania which my wife found one day while cruising down the dairy isle at the local Whole Food grocery store. The name "Seven Stars Farm" and the picture of the star constellation on the package  jumped out at her from all the other packages in the cold case. She stopped dead in her tracks and exclaimed "I know where that is!!" This farm happened to be across the road from where my wife went to high school.  At that time, however, they did not make yogurt, it was just a dairy farm selling to milk wholesalers according to my wife.. We didn't have any choice but to get one--or rather, to be more exact, to get several. Although the the percentage of fat of this yogurt appears to be slightly above the usual 4% (we estimated 4.5% from their nutritional facts), it looks and tastes like it has much more fat content than that. It even has a thin layer or yogurt from cream on the top which gives it some yellow color. While we really like Danon 4% whole milk yogurt and regularly use it to make Greek yogurt, Seven Stars Farm yogurt definitely has a much "higher octane rev"; it is really something special 

Making Greek yogurt, my wife has really got this down to a precise and easy process.

First, we needed a deep conical strainer like the one you see below (#1 and #2). (if the strainer has a rounded rather than conical bottom the whey does not drain out as well and the resulting Greek yogurt will not be as concentrated.)

Second, you need a better quality cheese cloth called cheese muslin. The cheese cloth from the grocery store tends to be very fragile and coarse and lets most of the curd pass on through as a tithe to feed the "sink God" that lives in the drain.  She spreads the cheesecloth in the strainer and adds the entire container of yogurt and folds the edges of the cloth over it (#2).

Since a rather large bowl would be required to accommodate the deep conical strainer she saves space in the fridge by using the yogurt container itself (#1) to catch the whey. That container is then fitted into a small metal bowl to catch any drippings that may fall from the cloth (#2), then, the whole thing is placed in the refrigerator.

Overnight, Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese is made (#3). You will be surprised with the amount of whey accumulated (#4).

I would like to say these snacks are a bit too rich for us but, really, who would I be kidding? They went perfectly well with red wine. Although we have made Greek yogurt spread before from Danon whole milk yogurt, this Greek yogurt is in an entirely different class. You could actually see the layer of butter yogurt on the surface after it was strained. Adding the spicy Spanish olive oil and salt really makes it. The smoked trout spread was no slouch either. The horseradish and smokiness both worked well and really complemented the wine. The two cheeses were also quite good. We filled ourselves with these wonderful spreads and cheeses and the appetizers became dinner.

Cold simmered daikon with miso chicken sauce 冷製大根のチキン肉味噌のせ

This is another "using-up" leftover barbecued chicken dish. I found that leftover cooked chicken, especially dark meat, can be versatile when cut into small pieces and used in various different dishes. Here, I came up with a miso chicken meat sauce with yuzu citrus and served it on cold simmered daikon with other vegetables.

I could have served this warm (both daikon and sauce) but the weather was still hot so I served everything cold.

I added additional Yuzu skin (chopped and previously frozen came in a pouch), which added additional bursts of fresh yuzu flavor.

The campari tomato was served with the skin removed (by briefly dunking in boiling water, then into ice water to peel). I soaked the skinned tomatoes in dashi broth seasoned with light colored soy sauce. The broccoli was just blanched and cooled.

Daikon preparation:

I cut 1 inch thick round of daikon and peeled.

I placed the daikon in cold water to cover completely and added a pinch of uncooked rice.

I simmered it for 30 minutes.

I made a Japanese kelp broth (water and piece of kelp), seasoned with salt, mirin and light soy sauce and simmered the precooked daikon for another 30-40 minutes or until tender.

I let it cool in the broth and then placed in the refrigerator overnight.

Miso chicken meat sauce:

Ingredients:

Barbecued dark chicken meat (2 legs worth), deboned and finely chopped.

Ginger, finely chopped

Miso, 3 tbs or more

Sugar, 1tbs

Mirin, 2 tbs

Peanut oil with splash of dark sesame oil, 1tsp

Yuzu skin, 1/2 tsp (chopped, previously frozen)

In a small saucepan, I added the oil and sauteed ginger and added the finely chopped chicken and kept sauteing for several minutes then added miso, sugar, sake and mirin. I kept mixing on low flame until the consistency became thick (about the same consistency of the miso). I added a splash of sesame oil at the end and mixed well. I cut the fire and mixed in the Yuzu skin. I let it cool to the room temperature and refrigerated.

I served this dish cold. I placed the daikon in a bowl and added the chicken-miso sauce on the top and garnished with yuzu skin. The skinned campari tomato was kept in the same broth as the daikon overnight. The broccoli was simply blanched in salted water and refrigerated.

This is the good way to use the dark meat from barbecued chicken which can sometimes be a bit chewy. The smokey flavor goes well with the sweet, salty and nutty miso flavor. The fresh taste of Yuzu is also nice. We like this cold vegetable appetizer.

Raisin rolls レイズンロール

This is another baking by my wife. This recipe started as a loaf of raisin bread but she converted to rolls so that we could take them to work for breakfast.

She usually bakes several kinds of breads at one time and whatever we can't eat gets frozen. Frozen rolls can be readily microwaved to return their original glory (or very close to it). The bread rolls she makes are all in equal size because she weighs the dough before forming it. This is something I would never be able to do; I don't have the patience.

I asked my wife to fill in the recipe and the rest.

Ingredients:
1 cup milk
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup butter
4 cups flour (with 2 more in reserve to add make the dough the right consistency)
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs of sugar
1 1/2 tsp of salt
2 packages of active yeast
3 eggs at room temperature
several handfuls of raisins (to taste)(I used 4-5 handfuls; an amazing amount of raisins can disappear into this bread).

Put the flour in the bowl of a mixer with a dough hook attached. Put milk, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan and heat until salt and sugar are dissolved and the milk is scalded. Cool by adding 1/2 cold water. Dissolve the yeast in 1/4 cup warm water with some sugar added and wait for it to foam up (proof). Add the yeast and milk mixture to the flour with the mixer of speed 2. Add flour until a smooth dough is formed. Then knead for 7 minutes. Add raisins and continue kneading for 3 more minutes.

Put in a warm greased bowl turning to grease the top. Cover and let rise until doubled. Punch down (#1) and make rolls weighing about 2 1/4 oz (# 2).  Put into a heavily greased baking dish (#2 and #3) and let rise again while oven preheats to 375 degrees. Cook for about 18 to 20 minutes until golden brown (#4 and #5).

These are lovely breakfast rolls. The bread is slightly sweet with little bursts of additional sweetness from the raisins. These are particularly good slightly warm with some butter.

Cold tofu with fresh tomato sauce 冷奴の新鮮トマトソースかけ

We really like cold angel hair pasta with tomato sauce. We made this dish multiple times this summer. Since the tomato sauce is so refreshing and good, I used it for our cold tofu.

To give a bit of a different taste, I garnished it with real wasabi and aonori. I also added a bit more mentsuyu めんつゆ or concentrated noodle sauce.

The cold tofu I used was from "Otoko-mae tofu". This is called "San-ren-chan" 三連チャン  (mahjong terminology) with three square tofu containers strung together as one package. When it is unmolded, you can sort of see the Kanji character "Otoko" 男 on the surface.

I just poured on the tomato sauce (skinned Campari tomato with olive oil and  3x concentrated Japanese "Mentsuyu" sauce, please see the previous post for recipe)

This was really good. I think this will work with either basil or perilla as well. Nice cold refreshing dish for summer.

Dry curry/Keema curry, Sort of ドライカレーもどき

Whenever we barbecue chicken we cook two, so that we have enough for sandwiches during the week but often, we end up with excess chicken meat. I have used the cooked chicken meat in many different ways making curry, soup, salad, terrine and more. This is another new variation. It is a type of curry I came up with one day. It is similar to a type of  Japanese curry called "Keema curry" or "dry curry". "Dry curry" must be a Japanese modification of "keema curry". It is called "dry" as opposed to regular Japanese style curry which has a thick "wet" sauce. I had these type of curries in mind but I did not even look up recipes until I started writing up this dish for the blog. This was my attempt at finishing up the barbecued chicken dark meat. I served this over rice and topped with soft poached egg and a side of assorted pickles shown in the small square dish on the right. The pickle at the top of the dish is homemade pickled watermelon rind, the white one below that is store bought rakkyo らっきょう and the red one on the bottom is "Fukushin zuke" 福神漬け.

The poached egg had a nice runny yolk which is mixed into the curry and the rice. As per Japanese tradition, we ate it with a spoon not a fork.

The curry is made of finely chopped cooked chicken, and vegetables and I also include raisins which gives it a nice sweet taste. It does not have any sauce per se.

Japanese generally top this with chopped boiled egg, a raw egg or raw egg yolk but we like our egg soft poached.

Still the yolk is totally runny and almost same as using raw egg yolk (this is pasteurized Daividson's egg).

Ingredients (probably makes 4 servings):

Chicken meat, dark meat, barbecued (4 legs), meat separated and finely chopped

Onion, one medium, finely diced

Garlic, one fat clove, finely diced

Ginger, finely chopped, 1 tsp

Carrot, one medium, peeled, sliced on bias, julienned and finely diced.

Raisin, 1/3 cup

Japanese curry powder (SB brand) but any curry powder will do,  2 tsp or more

Garam masala, 1/2 tsp

Chicken broth (about 2-3 cups or as needed), I used Swanson no fat and low salt version

Olive oil for sauteeing (2tbs)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. In the pot, I added olive oil or any vegetable oil and when the surface started simmering, added finely chopped garlic and ginger.
2. When the garlic and ginger got fragrant, I added the onion, carrot and kept sauteing for several more minutes.
3. I added the chicken, the curry powder and kept stirring for a few more minutes and added the raisins. 
4. I added the chicken broth just enough to cover the ingredients and simmered for 10-15 minutes.
5. If the liquid is not enough add more chicken broth until everything is cooked and only some moisture left.
6. I added the garam masala, salt and black pepper.

Assembly:

I placed cooked rice in a bowl and layered it with the dry curry and topped with soft poached egg.

This was a good new way to use leftover cooked chicken. Of course you could make this from other ground meats such as beef, lamb, chicken or pork. The curry was spicy enough that you feel the heat but not too hot. The egg yolk makes the curry a bit milder and these pickles went so well with this curry. Since this curry is "dry", you could use it over a cracker or a piece of bread as well.