Double Mushroom Soup

I discovered this recipe quite a while ago on Kalyn’s Kitchen.  It was originally inspired by Anthony Bourdain’s Mushroom Soup recipe on Serious Eats.  I always use all Asian mushrooms in this recipe since there are so many wonderful mushrooms here.  This recipe is dairy free and you don’t really miss it at all – it is surprisingly creamy by itself.  If you don’t have a blender, I think it would taste just as good with everything cut up really small.  This can be vegetarian if you skip the butter (I always do) and use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock.

Kalyn Denny of Kalyn’s Kitchen

1 cup dried shitake mushrooms
2 cup boiling water
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tsp. butter (optional, I always skip this)
1 large onion, cut into thin half-slices
2 packages fresh Asian mushrooms, thickly sliced (maitake, eringi, etc.)
4 cups chicken stock
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste (I didn’t use much salt.)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, for drizzling over soup when you serve it

Bring 2 cups water to a boil, then put dried mushrooms into a plastic bowl and pour boiling water over. Let mushrooms soak 30 minutes, while you prep other ingredients.

Peel onion and cut in half lengthwise, then cut each half into thin slices. Wash mushrooms, drain in colander, and then cut into thick slices. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil (plus 1 tsp. butter if you’re using it) in the bottom of a heavy soup pot big enough to hold all the soup. Saute onions about about five minutes, until they’re well softened but not browned. Add 1 more tablespoon olive oil if you think you need it (plus 1 tsp. more butter if you’re using it). Add sliced fresh mushrooms and saute about 8 minutes, until mushrooms have released all their liquid and it has mostly been evaporated.

Add dried mushrooms, mushrooms soaking water (strained through cheesecloth or a coffee filter if it needs it), chicken stock, and dried or fresh parsley. Bring soup to a very gentle simmer and cook uncovered for about one hour. After an hour (when soup should have reduced by at least 1/4) taste for flavor, and add salt and fresh ground black pepper as needed. If the soup doesn’t seem flavorful enough, cook a bit longer to reduce a little more. When soup has a good mushroom flavor, puree either by using an immersion blender to puree soup in the pot, or by carefully removing hot soup to a food processor or or regular blender to puree. (Be very careful if using food processor or blender. Puree in batches, and don’t overfill the container.)

Serve hot (reheat if needed after pureeing in food processor or blender). Drizzle a little good quality balsamic vinegar over each bowl of soup as you serve it.

Two new chocolate drinks

Last week on twitter reports of chocolate beer circulated in Japanese but I didn’t hear anything in English.  I was hoping for more info.  I hate beer and probably wouldn’t drink it but it might be a good joke present for the hubby. I was hoping to find it and luckily I did.  Won’t be able to review it but I will post the hubby’s review.

The second drink I found was Chocolate Sparkling – a type of soda pop I presume.  I will try it once it has chilled but I wanted post it right away because it is so intriguing.  I found it at my local supermarket for 99yen.

Spicy Miso Soup with Udon

My new favorite thing is to add Chinese chili paste (四川辣豆板醤) to miso soup.  I’ve made several variations over the last month or so.  This particular one has carrot, Chinese cabbage and udon noodles in it.  That is all.  I’ve also added ground chicken or pork and daikon.  It’s a simple, fast soup that warms you up quickly.

1 serving precooked udon noodles
400mL dashi (fish stock) per person
1/2 carrot, chopped, per person
1-2 Chinese cabbage leaves, chopped, per person
miso, to taste
chili paste, to taste

Bring fish stock to a boil and add the carrots and Chinese cabbage spines.  Simmer until almost cooked.  Add the udon and Chinese cabbage leaves and simmer until the leaves start to go limp.  Turn off the heat and add miso and chili paste.  Serve immediately.

Note: you can skip the noodles, add ground chicken or pork and/or add daikon and it still tastes great.

Chinese Chili Paste – found in the Asian import section of most supermarkets in Japan

The brand I got was Lee Kum Kee and the name of the sauce appears to be shisen raa toubanjan (シセンラートウバンジャン)

Kenchin Udon

Kenchin is a type of miso soup that has a lot of root vegetables in it.  It is a great thick miso soup for winter.  I decided to add udon noodles to it and make a one pot meal.  You can eat it sans noodles with rice but I love udon noodles in soups.

one serving of precooked udon per person
500mL of dashi (fish stock) per person
1/4 carrot per person
3cm burdock root per person
5cm daikon per person
5cm Devil’s tongue jelly (konyaku)
30g shaved pork per person (I used ground pork this time)
1/2 taro root (satoimo) per person
5cm negi (like a leek) per person
white miso to taste (I used red miso because that’s all I had)

Peel, quarter and slice the carrots, daikon and taro root.  Slice the devil’s tongue jelly, burdock root and negi thinly.  Put the soup stock, all vegetables except negi and pork in the pot and bring to a boil.  If you use ground pork like I did, brown it first.  Turn down the heat and simmer until the vegetables start to get tender.  Add the miso, negi, udon and devil’s tongue jelly.  Simmer for a couple of minutes and add the precooked udon.  The udon basically just needs to be reheated so you only need to cook if for a couple minutes. Serve.  Tastes good topped with shichimi (a Japanese pepper blend).

A tip on adding miso:

Put the miso into a ladle and partially immerse it in the soup.  Take cooking chopsticks and mix it with the soup in the ladle.  Replace the soup in the ladle frequently.  This prevents lumps.

German Red Cabbage

I spotted a red cabbage at the local farmers market (Japanese webpage only) and decided to make something for my friend’s boxing day party.  After looking online I came across this recipe posted by Ardis Stauffer on allrecipes.com.  It was absolutely fabulous!  I haven’t had this for a long time.  There are a lot of people of Germanic descent where I grew up and sweet and sour is a familiar flavor.  For the full recipe, follow this link.

Changes I made:

• used one small Japan-sized red cabbage – the size of two fists
• used have wine vinegar and half white vinegar
• used only one apple as my cabbage was small
• skipped the allspice because I didn’t have it

I didn’t have a cheese cloth so I used one of those fillable  teabags they sell here in Japan.

Jouya Nabe (常夜鍋)

I’m back!  I’ve been without computer internet access for two weeks.  I’ve been confined to the iPhone and haven’t been able to post.  I could have, but I didn’t want to go back to iPhone pictures.

So far I have been making good on my vow to try a lot of new nabe recipes this year.  Last year the hubby and I ate kimchi nabe two or three times a week.  This is not a problem but I thought I must be missing out on something good by not trying new things.  This is another recipe from the Kyou no Ryouri Beginners Nabe issue.  Every recipe I’ve tried has been delicious and this was no exception.  The soup is really simple – just water and cooking sake.  The taste of the vegetables is heightened and the dipping sauce is a great compliment to the ingredients.

Kyou no Ryouri Beginners (2008.01) p.8
Serves four (I made a half batch)
200g large pieces of thinly sliced pork (shabu shabu cut)
1/2 Chinese Cabbage
250g (one bunch) fresh spinach, washed
1 block firm tofu
1/2 cup cooking sake
1/2 teaspoon salt

Dipping Sauce
1 welsh onion (negi), sliced into 2mm slices
ponzu for the base

Cut the tofu into large cubes.  Cut the leaves of the Chinese cabbage into large squares and slice the spines thinly.  Leave the spinach whole.  Put four cups of water, the sake and the salt in a clay nabe pot or a soup pot and bring to a boil.  Add the tofu and Chinese cabbage spines and simmer for about five minutes or until the spines start to become translucent.  While the spines are cooking, slice the onion and place in individual dipping sauce bowls with ponzu.  Add the spinach and Chinese cabbage leaves.  Lay the pork slices on top and simmer on low until the pork is cooked.  Don’t forget to remove the scum.  When the pork is cooked, serve.

The recipe recommends using the leftover soup to make soumen and then topping it with the leftover dipping sauce. I didn’t have any soumen so we had rice with this nabe.  I will definitely try soumen next time.

If you are looking for more nabe recipes try ribbon vegetable nabe or cod and Chinese cabbage nabe.

The Feast Part Two: Daikon and Salmon Bites

I found this recipe on the Japanese food blog ごはん便り from すずキッチン (I can’t actually read the second word but the rest is – Meals ____ from Suzu Kitchen).  She seems to post daily and almost all of it looks really good.  I was really excited to make these because of the light flavor of the sauce.  I’ve renamed the recipe as well as a literal translation sounds kind of boring sometimes.  My methodology may not be bang on as I am not a fluent Japanese reader (can you use fluent for reading?).

Daikon Salmon Bites (サーモンと大根の甘酢漬け)

ごはん便り from すずキッチン

2cm of daikon sliced 1-2mm thin
75 grams sashimi grade salmon
1-3 green onions (this depends on your tying prowess – I needed more than three)
dash of salt
4 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 togarashi (dried hot pepper)
a little more salt

Sprinkle the daikon slices with salt and let sit until limp enough to wrap around salmon.  I was multitasking at the time and left them for about twenty minutes.  Wash off the daikon.  Cut the salmon into as many pieces as you have daikon slices.  Place each piece of salmon in the center of a slice of daikon, wrap the daikon around the salmon and tie with a piece of green onion.  I sadly have no tips for not breaking the green onions mid-tie.  When you have finished all of the tying, put the rest of the ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Turn off the heat once the sugar has dissolved.  Place the daikon salmon bites on a plate that can hold at least 5 tablespoons of liquid and pour the contents of the sauce pan evenly over the bites.  The outside of the salmon may cook slightly and it gives a good flavor.  The original recipe appears to cool the sauce first but I wanted the slightly cooked salmon flavor.  Serve when ready.  The salmon needs to be eaten that day and should not be left out for any given time.

The Feast Part One: Erigi Wrapped in Beef

Since I’m moving house this weekend we had a final feast at our house with the in-laws and an elderly couple in the neighborhood last weekend.

I’ll be posting more recipes in the coming week but here is one of the things I made.  According to the dictionary eringi are king trumpet mushrooms or king oyster mushrooms.  I use eringi in this post because I first encountered them in Japan and they are eringi in my brain.

Eringi Wrapped in Beef

Kyou no Ryouri Beginners 2008.1 p.76

8 large shavings of beef (about 150 grams)

4 eringi (about 200 grams)

1/2 teaspoon sake

1/2 teaspoon soy sauce

1 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 tablespoon sake

1/2 tablespoon sugar

1/2 tablespoon mirin

1 tablespoon salad oil

Sprinkle the beef with 1/2 teaspoon each of sake and soy sauce and let sit for five minutes.  While you are waiting, mix up the rest of the soy sauce, sake, sugar and mirin in a small bowl.  Wrap two pieces of beef around each eringi.  Put the oil in a frying pan and heat up over medium heat.  Put the mushrooms in, fry, and when the beef changes color, add the sauce.  Simmer on medium heat, turning the mushrooms, until they are cooked.  Serve hot.

Ribbon Vegetable Nabe (Hot Pot)

We are well into nabe (hot pot) season and I am trying to do more experimenting this year.  Last year we ate kimchi nabe a couple times a week.  That was a lot of days I could have been trying new things.  I even had a nice nabe cookbook at my disposal.  I have tried a few this year already (Cod and Chinese Cabbage Nabe) and I thought I’d share a good one that non-meat eaters could enjoy too.  I’m pretty sure that if you substituted vegetarian soup stock for chicken stock you wouldn’t find too much of a difference in taste.  As you can imagine, prep for this one takes a little while but it makes up for it in short cooking time.  If yo u are wondering about the color of the rice, I added a tablespoon of black rice to two cups of white rice in the rice cooker.

It was originally published in Japanese so I cannot guarantee what I did is exactly what the recipe called for but it worked and tasted great.

Ribbon Vegetable Nabe

Kyou no Ryouri Beginners 2008.1

1/3 carrot
15cm daikon, cut in half lengthwise
1/4 lotus root (れんこん)
1 potato (a longish one works best)
1/2 burdock root (ごぼう)

1 1/2 cups fish stock
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce (ナムプラー)

Put the fish stock, chicken stock, salt and fish sauce in a nabe pot (or regular pot).  Use a vegetable peeler to turn all of the vegetables except the lotus root into ribbons.  Slice the lotus root thinly.  Bring the stock to a boil and add the vegetables.  Boil the vegetables for 2-3 minutes and serve.  It’s that easy.

Kabocha Jam

I found this recipe last year when I was on a jam kick.  It is a blog called ‘atto recipe’ (あっとレシピ) and was posted in Japanese.    This was a surprise.  I was actually expecting to find this to be only mediocre but was pleasantly surprised.  My mother’s (and grandmother’s) pumpkin pie recipe uses orange juice so I was expecting to cinnamon and ginger missing from this jam recipe.  This jam is very fruity, a bit tart and sweet – altogether a great recipe and a future repeat. Also, a great color.  Me thinks it will be toast for breakfast tomorrow.

zucca-san from あっとレシピ

420g kabocha, peeled, deseeded and chopped into large pieces

1/2 cup granulated sugar (I used brown this time)

350cc orange juice

splash of lemon juice (I roughly squeezed half a lemon)

Add all ingredients to a large saucepan and bring to a boil.  Boil until the kabocha is tender.  Turn off the heat and puree everything.  Heat again and then put in sterilized jars.

I got 2 1/2 x 200mL jars and 2 x 100mL jars.  Giving the little ones away tonight.

As like all recipes that were originally posted in Japanese, I cannot guarantee that what I did was exactly what the author did.