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.

Ginger tea (生姜の茶)

Last winter I randomly picked up a package of a powdered hot ginger drink mix for the hubby, who happens to love ginger.  I’m not too fond of ginger but I thought it would taste well mixed with yuzu tea.  He became addicted to it and I started to wonder what kind of interesting chemicals were in the powder.  Fresh off my yuzu tea success, I decided to try making hot ginger drink mix – called ginger tea on Japanese cooking websites.  The original powder was called 生姜温 – the first two characters are those for ginger and the last one is hot water.  I tried searching for a recipe using that combo and couldn’t find what I wanted.  I tried search for 生姜の茶 (ginger tea) and hit the jackpot.  This recipe was posted on Cookpad, a popular Japanese recipe website, in Japanese.  Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee that the instructions I write in English are exactly what is written in Japanese.  My Japanese is good enough to get the gist and that worked.  I don’t usually measure the ingredients with a scale but just put the sugar and ginger in two identical bowls and guestimate.  I did make it with mother-in-law last year and had to measure everything (even though she is never exact when cooking).  It was a hit with the parents-in-law.

Please note that I used brown sugar instead of white sugar and thus is much darker than usual.  The husband didn’t seem to notice a difference in taste.  Last year I used white sugar and honey and the color was lighter.

Ginger Tea

Posted on cookpad.com by キングスライム (king slime? king’s lime?)

150g ginger – grated, sliced or chopped fine (the picture is chopped fine in a food processor)

150g sugar

50-100g honey (i usually skip this and add more sugar)

1 tablespoon lemon juice (I used fresh and sometimes use yuzu instead)

Put all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil on low and make sure all of the sugar has turned to syrup.  Turn off the heat and place in sterilized jars.  Store in the fridge.  Add about one tablespoon to a mug of hot water to make ginger tea.  It also tastes good in black tea and hojicha.

Note: if you grate your ginger it will be quite a bit spicier than if you slice it.  You may want to add more sugar to compensate.

This will warm you up quickly.

Sweet Vinegary Red Kabu Pickles

Updated the pics.  This is the artistic shot.  I don’t know what happened buy my flash made the pickles look funky.  They are actually bright pink.  A proper picture is below.

Red kabu make the most beautiful pink pickles.  Last year I bought them for the first time on a whim and after a quick search on cookpad.com (a Japanese recipe site), decided on pickles.  These take a while to make so make sure you start the night before.  I started today and will update the post tomorrow.  Btw, I used brown sugar in the picture because I have run out of white sugar.  Usually you use white sugar.

Posted on www.cookpad.com

3 red kabus

2 teaspoons salt

300mL vinegar

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Day One
Peel off the very outer part of the skin but leave most of the pink on.  Cut the kabu into easy-to-eat pieces (I cut them in half and then slice them).  Put the kabu pieces in a ziploc bag with 2 teaspoons of salt.  Shake and leave overnight.

Day Two
Squeeze out the excess water.  Mix the rest of the ingredients in a sauce pan and heat until the sugar is dissolved.  Pour over the kabu and let sit until desired flavor.

I will post the results when they have sat overnight.

Irish soda farls for breakfast

Yesterday afternoon as I was wasting time on the internet (the whole day actually), I discovered a recipe for Irish Soda Farls on Allrecipes.com.  I have wanted to make Irish soda bread for a while so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try something similar out.  I was supposed to start work at 8am today so I decided to make them the night before.  My client called me early this morning to cancel so I could have made them fresh this morning.  Next time.

Irish Soda Farls

Posted by Ita on Allrecipes.com
Servings: 4

2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup wholewheat and 1 cup all-purpose)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk (I used a splash of vinegar and regular milk)

Get a heavy based flat griddle or skillet on medium to low heat.  I actually just used a regular non-stick pan and didn’t preheat.  Place flour and salt in a bowl and whist together. Make a well in the center and pour in buttermilk.  Mix the dough quickly and knead very lightly on a floured surface.  Press into a flattened circle about 1/2 inch thicke.  Cut into fours with a floured knife.  Sprinkle a little flour over the base of the pan and cook the farls for 6-8 minutes on each side or until golden brown.

I ate mine with raspberry jam and peanut butter.  I imagine they would taste great with any toast topping.

Asian-Mexican Soup

Yesterday afternoon I washed the stove, including the burners, and left them hoping they would dry enough by dinner.  I got home from the gym at 8pm and tested the stove out.  No go. I waited twenty more minutes and tried again.  No go.  One burner was a bit puzzling because the flame wouldn’t even light while the other front burner only lit half way around.  I took the cover off, put it on again and bingo, back in service.  I was relieved because for the entire way home from the gym I was planning an experiment – a tomato-base soup with taco seasoning, hamburger meat and Asian vegetables.  To be specific, kabu (similar to a turnip), enoki (long thin mushrooms) and Chinese cabbage.  I though it might be good.  I tried it and was pleasantly surprised.

1 kabu (turnip), cubed

1/4 head of Chinese cabbage, cut into small pieces

1/2 package of enoki mushrooms, cut into one inch pieces

1 can of diced tomatoes

2 1/2 tomato cans of water

1 packet taco seasoning mix

1 small onion, diced

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1/2 cup lentils

100g ground beef/pork mix

salt and pepper to taste

In a frying pan brown the meat, garlic and onions.  When cooked, add the taco seasoning mix and stir.  Add everything else and bring to a boil.  Simmer until the lentils are cooked.  It took about 30min.  I like Chinese cabbage when it is over cooked.  If you don’t, add the stalks at the beginning and keep the leaves until the last five to ten minutes.  Served topped with a bit of cheese.

Cod and Chinese Cabbage Nabe (Hotpot)

It’s cold out and it’s now time to bring out the nabe recipes.  Nabe is hotpot in English but since I first encountered it in Japan I can’t seem to refer to it by it’s English name.  There are such a variety of nabe recipes out there.  Last year I bought a cooking magazine exclusively devoted to nabe.  We don’t have a proper pot for nabe (see the magazine cover for a proper one).  You generally make hotpot in a clay pot called donabe (literally clay pot).  I am not allowed to buy a new one until after we move.  I have two individual sized ones but they always boil over on the stove.  I currently make nabe in a regular soup pot.  I also don’t make it on a portable burner that sits on the table.  It’s probably purely out of laziness because we have one somewhere, I think.

This is the nabe recipe magazine I bought last year.  It is from NHK (the national broadcasting corp) and is from a daily tv cooking show called きょうの料理 (kyou no ryouri – today’s food).  It’s a great book with variety and good pictures. Being a beginners book, it has lots of simple food – my favorite kind.

 

 

This recipe is an original recipe with the topping idea stole from a miso soup recipe from my miso soup cook book (yes, they do exist).

Cod and Chinese Cabbage Nabe

Masa & Kirsten Adachi

Serves two

1/4 Chinese cabbage

2 cod fillets

2 tablespoons grated daikon (giant white radish)

Soup

2 1/2 cups water

1 piece of dried kombu (kelp)

1 1/2 tablespoons cooking sake

1/2 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 tablespoon mirin

1/2 teaspoon salt

Put all the soup ingredients in the pot and bring to a boil.  Simmer for 15 minutes.  Add the stalks of the Chinese cabbage and cook for five minutes.  Add the cod and leaves of the Chinese cabbage and cook until tender.  Serve topped with grated daikon.  Soy sauce is a good dipping sauce if you want a stronger flavor.

Breakfast Pizza

UPDATE: Added two new flavors at the bottom. (11/13/2009)

I woke up this morning wanting pancakes but didn’t have any milk.  Then I thought of muffins, same problem.  After about an hour of lazing in bed, I remembered about breakfast pizza.  A while ago I found The Easiest Pizza Dough in the World on everybody likes sandwiches and tried it out. It is a great no-rise pizza dough.  Great for a lazy day off.  I changed it a little for breakfast pizza.

Breakfast Pizza using the easiest pizza dough in the world

based on the recipe from everybody likes sandwiches

1 1/2 teaspoons yeast
1 cup warm water
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cooking oil
cornmeal (optional)

Breakfast pizza toppings:

1-2 tablespoons butter, either cold and cut into small pieces or warm and spreadable
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 large apple sliced thinly
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Preheat oven to 200C (400F). In a large bowl, add in the yeast and warm water and stir until the yeast dissolves. Add the flour, salt, honey, and oil and stir with a wooden spoon vigorously until combined. Let dough rest for 10 minutes.

Sprinkle cornmeal onto a walled baking sheet and press dough into it until thin (I used a silicon baking sheet and skipped the cornmeal). Spread butter over top, sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon over top. Lay sliced apples over top and mist with oil. Bake for 20-25 minutes until pizza crust is golden.

***Btw, my camera has finally been fixed so there should be a marked improvement in picture quality from now.

 

Update

I tried making two new flavors last night for breakfast this morning.  I had to do my favorite toast topping combo first; peanut butter and banana. It wasn’t proper peanut butter it was peanut sofuto (ピーナツソフト) which seems to be a sweetened spread similar to peanut butter but much lighter and creamier.  The second pizza I topped with ripe persimmon slices and cinnamon, no sugar or butter.  The persimmons were fresh from my MIL’s garden and delicious.  I this batch of dough with half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose flour.  I like it better than all all-purpose flour.