Salmon salad sushi 鮭のサラダ寿司

After my wife had sushi made with tuna salad ツナサラダ (canned tuna dressed in mayo) in Japan, she was convinced that mayo and sushi rice are a good combination. We tried hand rolls of sashimi tuna dressed in mayonnaise which was quite good. I also made "imitation" negi-toro 擬制ネギトロ　from low quality frozen yellow tail tuna using mayonnaise. I then made a "donburi" with it  ネギトロ丼　which was also very good. One evening, my wife, all of the sudden, asked me to make sushi out of my salmon salad as an ending dish. I often make salmon salad from leftover salmon after we have a salmon dinner. The version of salmon salad we had was made from  flaked cooked salmon, chopped sweet onion, celery, and fresh dill dressed with mayo, Dijon mustard and the Greek yogurt my wife makes. We usually eat this as a sandwich or a canapé.  I complied with her request and made salmon salad sushi.

I garnished it with thin slices of cucumber.

I made it in "Gunkan" 軍艦 or battle ship style. I just used our frozen rice which I microwaved and then dressed with sushi vinegar. This is not the best sushi I have ever had but it was certainly quick and more than just edible.

Having this dish, further confirmed my wife's belief that sushi rice and mayo are an excellent match, and I have to agree. This was an impromptu "shime" 〆 ending dish and it was quite good. Now, she is lobbying me to make "egg salad" sushi, we will have to see.

Butter bit rolls バターロール

This is another of my wife's baking "specials". She is always on the look out for a new and interesting baking recipe. This is based on the recipe she saw on-line. It was a bit complicated but the end result was really good.

As you can see, there are some layers and butter bits were incorporated in each layers.

Ingredients (Makes: 24 rolls)
2½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1 (¼-ounce) packet instant yeast
¼ cup sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
6 ounces warm milk
1 egg
½ stick unsalted butter, softened, plus ½ stick, cold, plus ¼stick, melted, for brushing

Direction:
1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Use an electric mixer fitted with dough hook to mix on low speed as you slowly pour in milk. Once the dough pulls away from sides of bowl, add the egg and softened butter. Mix on medium until dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.

2. Place dough in a lightly oiled large bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and then with a kitchen towel. Set aside in a warm place until dough doubles in size, 2-4 hours.

3. Pull dough up, then press down to release air bubbles. Turn dough onto a floured surface. Roll out into a 9-by-12-inch rectangle. Slice cold butter into 8 pieces and arrange over dough, leaving a wide border all around (#1 picture below).

4. Fold one-third of dough over center, then fold opposite third over first. Lightly flour dough, then roll out into a 9-by-12-inch rectangle. Lightly brush dough with warm water, then fold dough in half. Cover and place in refrigerator for 30 minutes. (#2 and #3 in the picture below).

5.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough out into an 8-by-12-inch rectangle. Flour dough, then cut into 24 square pieces (#4, #5 and #6). Arrange on a parchment-lined baking sheet, at least 1 inch apart. Let dough rise, uncovered, until doubled in size, about 20 minutes. Bake rolls until golden, 13-15 minutes (#7 and 8). Brush rolls with warm melted butter before serving.

The butter ended up unevenly distributed. We think it might be better to cut the butter thinly and distribute more evenly.

Nonetheless these rolls are pretty good. With nice soft consistency with butter flavor. Certainly good for the holiday dinners.

"Sashimi at home" superfrozen tuna and salmon 超冷凍鮪と鮭の刺身

At the nearby Whole Foods grocery store, we saw a frozen case with packages of tuna and salmon sashimi. I immediately recognized the products which are from "Sushi At home". This company appears to be a fish whole seller. Although they advertise their tuna, salmon, imitation crab, butterfly shrimp, and wasabi products on their website, those products can not be purchased directly from them.  They have to be purchased from a retail outlet. Whole Foods in our area carried tuna, salmon, imitation crab  and wasabi. We bought the tuna and salmon to try them out. The picture below shows the tuna and salmon sashimi I served.



The difference between the frozen yellowfin sashimi block we get from our Japanese grocery store and this item are two fold; first, this is not carbon monoxide treated and second it is super-frozen* at -76F. To get the color right, the tuna needs to be thawed as per the instructions.

*"Fish for sushi" called the same or similar process "Proton frozen".

The Atlantic salmon was also super frozen.

The pictures below show both the tuna and salmon blocks thawed. The color of the tuna was more natural dark red instead of the bright red of carbon monoxide treated fish.

It was a very cold day (the high did not go above freezing) and we decided to have  warm sake.

As before we placed the sake container in hot water bath to keep it warm.

The tuna had a firm consistency and was better than the one we get from our Japanese grocery store. The salmon was very disappointing. It had a very soft mushy consistency and did not taste that good. The salmon sashimi from Catalina was much better. I decided to make carpaccio from the leftover salmon the next day rather than serving it as sashimi.  From the remaining tuna, I made tuna and natto.

Instead of "hikiwari" natto ひきわり納豆, I used whole bean natto. As before, using my natto mixing contraption, I mixed the natto very well and seasoned with the seasoning packets that came with the natto (this came frozen). The small cubes of tuna were marinated with soy sauce briefly before mixing.

We liked this dish. Somehow, the natto flavor was better and tuna in this preparation was quite palatable.

Crispy Mochi with cheese and nuts ナッツとチーズ入り餅せんべい

After New Year, it is always a challenge to finish the mochi. Although I bought the smallest bag of mochi available at the Japanese grocery store, we had several pieces leftover. We are probably not the only ones ending up in this condition because there are many recipes for leftover mochi. This is a variation of mochi and cheese I posted before. This one developed a more crispy crust than the previous recipe. This may be because I used too much heat. It may look better and a little less burnt if I used a very low flame and was more patient.  I served it with kinpira gobo きんぴらごぼう, my potato salad  ポテトサラダand datemaki 伊達巻 for a weekend lunch.

This one adds crushed nuts (the original called for peanuts but we used roasted pecan as per my wife's suggestion).

I made my datemaki again after the New Year. This time, I put the darker side inside the roll which looks better to me rather than the other way around.

The original recipe came from the Internet.

Ingredients (for 4):
Mochi cakes, 2
Melting cheese (I used smoke mozzarella), several slices, finely chopped (grating may work better).
Crushed nuts (original recipe calls for peanuts, we used roasted pecans), amount arbitrary.
Soy sauce and Japanese hot pepper flakes or ichimi tougarashi 一味唐辛子.

Directions:
1. Soften the mochi by microwaving for 20 seconds in the plastic wrapping.
2. Cut each mochi into small cubes (I cut one mochi into 8 cubes, wetting the knife blade to prevent the mochi from sticking).
3.  Place 4 cubes together in the pan on low flame (I used a small amount of olive oil, the original recipe does not use oil). Put on a tight lid.
4. When the cheese is melted and the bottom becomes brown, turn the pieces over (#1).
5. Put the lid back on and keep cooking for several more minutes (#2).
6.  pour a small amount of soy sauce mixed with Japanese hot pepper flakes over the mochi (#3).
7. I served two (one mochi cake equivalent) per serving (#4).

The visual could have been better. I should have used a lower flame. In any case, this was good. Very crunchy crust on both sides and soft and chewy center with the taste of cheese, soy sauce and nuts. This might be a reason to make left over mochi on purpose.

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.

Japanese yam simmered with grated apple リンゴとサツマイモのみぞれ煮

I saw this recipe for Japanese yam and grated apple. This is one of a series of vegan cooking or shoujin ryouri 精進料理 by a Buddhist monk in Kyoto which appeared in Japanese news paper on line.  Since we got Japanese yams and it is a very simple dish, I decided to make it. It is called "Mizore-ni" みぞれ煮 or "simmered in sleet". Usually "sleet" is grated daikon but in this dish, it is grated apple.

The grated apple looks like sleet accumulating on the surface.

This is very simple to make.

Ingredients:
1 Japanese sweet yam, satsuma-imo, cut into 1/3 inch half round.
1 apple, peeled, cored and grated (I used a fuji apple).
1 tsp sugar
water to cover the yam.
a pinch of salt.

Directions:
Melt the butter and sautee the yam until coated
Add the grated apple, sugar and salt
Add water to cover and cook until the yam is done (10 minutes)



This is a simple but nice dish. The mild sweetness of the potato and the apple went well together. In addition to sweetness the apple added a light acidity that made the dish taste refreshing. The butter flavor also went well with this. The red skin adds to the color but the consistency of the skin and the flesh of the yam are so different it is probably better to remove the skin next time.

Spicy Japanese sweet potato and burdock root さつまいもとごぼうの甘辛炒め

Since there were extra Japanese yams left over after we made yaki-imo 焼き芋, I decided to make something different with them. There is a classic candied Japanese yam called "Daigaku-imo" 大学芋 which is deep fried yam coated with a layer of candy (or melted sugar). I decided that is not something I would like to cook or eat. So, instead, I decided to make this dish which I saw the recipe on line, especially since I also had half a burdock root left over. I substantially changed the way this was cooked. I thought it would be difficult to cook the vegetable through just sautéing it as suggested in the on-line recipe.

I garnished it with white sesame. The spicy and sweet sauce clings to the surface.

Ingredients:
One Japanese "satsuma-imo" Japanese yam (#1), washed skin left on, cut into irregular bite sized pieces.
Half a gobo burdock root, skin scraped off and cut into bite sized pieces (cut on the bias as I turned it 45 degrees. This method is called "Ran-giri" 乱切り.
Garlic and ginger, skin removed and finely chopped, the amount is to your liking.
Potato starch for dredging the vegetables.
Oil for deep frying.

For the sauce:
1 tbs Sriracha (or more if you like spicy)
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp sake

Directions:
1. Soak the gobo in water with a splash of vinegar for 20-30 minutes, drain and wash.
2. Cook the gobo in water for 20 minutes. Drain and pat dry.
3. Soak the yam in water for 20-30 minutes and pad dry.
4. Dredge the gobo and yam in potato starch and deep fry for 5-8 minutes until the yam is cooked (#3),
5. Add 2 tbs of water to the pan and then add the sauce mixture.
6. Keep tossing the vegetables until, a thick sauce develops and coats the vegetables (#4).

The original recipe said to sauté all the vegetables dredged in potato starch. Gobo is rather hard, however, so I didn't think it would get cooked through if I just sauteed it, so I decided to precook it in water. In addition, instead of sautéing the vegetables in a small amount of oil, I deep fried them. I did not think just sautéing would work well especially if the vegetables are coated in potato starch, I also thought the yam would not cook easily that way. By deep frying, the potato starch made a nice crust (We enjoyed snacking on the deep dried yam which was very good as is.)  I added the sauce mixture and the crust added to the nice clinging sauce.

When we tasted it immediately after it was cooked and still hot (temperature wise), it was spicy but once cooled down it became much milder. This dish has a very good texture contrast between the yam and gobo. The salty, sweet and spicy combination of flavors really worked well. Although we had this as a drinking snack, this is perfect starch side dish.