Hihi

I saw this recipe on line . According to the recipe, this was invented by a side-dish store (called "Sozai-ya" 惣菜屋 ) of  Kumamoto city 熊本市 on Kushu Island 九州, the southern most island of Japan. It was invented as a way to use up an excess amount of potato salad. Since I had frozen "chikuwa 竹輪" fish cake and leftover potato salad, I made this one weekend. The original recipe calls for chopped boiled eggs in the potato salad but I just used my usual potato salad  which included myouga 茗荷 in sweet vinegar (home grown, harvested and made) and rakyo ラッキョウ, Japanese cocktail onion in sweet vinegar (store bought). The recipe suggested tartar sauce or "chu-nou" sauce 中濃ソース but I only had "tonakatsu sauce". Ingredients : Three "chikuwa"fish cakes (frozen, I had one open package with three left), thawed (#1). Potato salad (enough to stuff the three chikuwa (#3) Oil for deep frying Tempura batter (3 tbs of cake flour and about 1/3 cup cold water ...

This is my wife's baking. Again this is from the "Beard on Bread" cookbook. It is rather unique in that it is made with "cooked" oatmeal.  The oatmeal isn't visible in the final product but the texture is nice and while raising and cooking, we can definitely smell oatmeal. Instead of making a loaf which was in the original recipe, my wife made it into rolls. Mainly because it is easier to take a roll to work for breakfast than a loaf or slice of bread. Ingredients : 2 packages of dry yeast 1 tsp granulated sugar 1/2 cup warm water 1 cup rolled oats (toasted, optional) 1 cup boiling water 1 cup warm milk 2 tsp salt 1/4 cup brown sugar 4 - 5 cups of bread four Directions : Bloom the yeast in the 1/2 cup warm water with 1 tsp. of sugar. Add the 1 cup water to a sauce pan. Dissolve the salt and brown sugar in the liquid and bring to a boil. Add the milk and the rolled oats and cook until the oats are softened and thick. Let cool to room temperature. Add 3 cups o...

Since I had Kabocha Japanese pumpkin カボチャ, shishi-tougarashi 獅子唐芥子 or shishitou (both were from our regular grocery store) and "Gobo" 牛蒡 burdock root (from the Japanese grocery store), I decided to make this simple vegetable fry. It came our a bit too oily for our taste but still it was still quite good. I precooked and seasoned the Gobo since I used a part of it for another dish . Alternatively, I  could have used raw gobo just salted in acidulated water and then drained. Ingredients (#3 below): "Gobo" burdock root, about 1/3, skin scrabbled clean with a food brush but not removed. Japanese "shishitou" peppers, 5-6, stem removed and slits cut in to the middle to prevent explosion in hot oil. Japanese "Kabocha" squash, 1/4, innards removed and skin shaved off, cut into half inch thick pices Oil for deep frying Kosher salt For preparing Gobo Rice vinegar (making acidulated water for initial cooking) Japanese dashi broth seasoned with soy sauce an...

This recipe is again from "a  Buddhist  Monk" which regularly appears in Asahi-shinbun Japanese newspaper . Since I got taro root or "sato-imo" 里芋 from our regular grocery store and saw this recipe video, making this dish was a "no-brainer". I did not follow the original recipe precisely since I only had oyster mushroom (it calls for shimeji mushroom). For  greens, I used blanched rapini instead of spinach just because I had it.  Of course, I did not used vegetarian broth and instead used bonito and kelp broth. I also did not have edible lily roots called "Yuri-ne" 百合根 or wood ear mushroom "ki-kurage" 木耳 which were called for in the original recipe. Ingredients (for 5 dumplings): Sato-imo "taro", 4 medium, peeled, parboiled and washed in cold running water (to reduce the slimy surface). Fresh mushrooms (Original recipe calls for Shimeji mushroom, I used oyster mushroom), arbitrary amount. Green vegetables (Original recipe ca...

This is a modification of a Japanese recipe. Japanese really like to wrap cylindrical vegetables in meat or ham. I read a recipe in which whole burdock root or gobo 牛蒡 was first simmered in seasoned broth and then wrapped in thinly sliced pork belly and cooked in "teriyaki" 照り焼きsauce. Since I bought a package of gobo which contained 2 good sized root stalks, I needed to come up with new way of serving it. So, inspired by the recipe I had read I made this wrapped gobo. Since I didn't have thinly sliced pork belly, I used prosciutto as the wrap. This was the first dish for one evening. It went fairly well with the red wine we were having. I used whole gobo cooked skin on. Since I also made my usual " Kinpira-gobo"金平ごぼう , I served it as well. Ingredients (for 2 servings seen above) : Gobo, three 3 inch lengths, skin scrubbed with a vegetable brush but skin not removed. For initial cooking: 3-400 ml of water 1 tbs rice vinegar For final cooking Japanese dash broth a...

I occasionally see Japanese pumpkin which is a type of winter squash in our regualr grocery store and when I see it I buy it. This time, I made pumpkin salad with the squash I brought home. I read the recipe somewhere but I could not find it again when it came time to make the salad so I made it from memory.  It came out quite good and its easy to prepare especially since I used the microwave to cook the squash. Since I had a "Kabocha"-shaped "hashi-oki" 箸置きor chopstick pillow that we bought in Kyoto last year, I used it in this picture to complete the Kabocha theme. I added cottage cheese on top (I remember this was a part of the recipe I read). I added freshly ground black pepper. Ingredients : Kabocha pumpkin, half, innards removed and skin shaved off but leaving some (or you could just leave the skin), cut into a bite sized pieces, microwaved in a silicon container for 3-4 minutes or until a bamboo skewer went through easily. Salt and pepper for seasoning while...

My wife has been making different kinds of  breads from a bread cook book entitled " Beard on Bread ". This bread is a very interesting bread with pistachio nuts. It is a kind of a sweet bread but not too sweet and perfect for breakfast. You can see pistachio nuts on the cut surface. One morning, we had a combination of the  blueberry bread  my wife made (it was frozen) and the pistachio nut bread. They went very well with a cup of cappuccino . Ingredients for bread  1 Package active dry yeast 1/4 cup warm water 1 Tbs. sugar (to bloom the yeast) 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1 cup warm milk 1/4 cup butter softened 2 tsp. salt 3 to 4 cups all purpose flour For filling  1/4 cup melted butter 1/3 cup (additional) sugar 1 cup shelled salted pistachio nuts roughly chopped 1 egg lightly beaten for egg wash Directions Bloom the yeast. In the bowl of a stand mixer with a mixing paddle add the milk, softened butter, salt and 1/2 cup sugar, yeast mixture and stir. Change to a ...

After a great success of making spaetzle using our newly acquired spaetzle maker , my wife made this spinach spaetzle. (What's the old adage, "the right  tool for the job"). She made this basically because we had a bit of spinach left over from another dish. This was light supper and I served spinach spaetzle with meat balls in tomato sauce and green beans. With the spaetzle maker, the size of the spaetzle is just right and it is much easier to make. By-the-way, it may look like there are peas on the plate in the picture above but it is actually the spaetzle as shown in the close-up below. I heated it up by sautéing in a bit of olive oil. Ingredients : 1/2 cup thawed, drained frozen spinach (we used fresh spinach cooked without any addition of water). 1 cup low-fat (1%) milk 1 egg 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg 2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon Kosher salt 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, for cooking spaetzle Directions : Bring a large ...

I found " Assorted Japanese Junk Food for Sake" at the Amazon website through a 3rd party vendor.  The advertisement said, "Japanese junk food to go with Alcohol"--a somewhat literal translation of the more polite expression  "drinking snacks". Somehow, for Japanese, "Junk food" or drinking snacks may not have the same negative connotation it has for the U.S. audience. In general Japanese don't drink without eating something, so at the very least, such a snack is a "must have" to go with sake. In any case, this product on Amazon is "known as "Kawaki-mono" 乾き物 or "dry drinking snacks". This type of snack or "otsumami" おつまみ is widely sold in Japanese convenience stores and stand-up drinking joints called " Tachinomi-ya " 立ち飲み屋 or "Kaku-uchi" 角打ち. Digression alert: On our last trip to Japan, in the evening, when we had a several hour train ride from our site seeing destination bac...

I again got silken tofu labled "Sincere silken tofu, just right firmness 誠実の絹" the last time I made a dish on a whim without following any recipe . This time, I used 1/4 of the tofu in mackerel ball soup . I decide to use up the remaining tofu the next day. This is based on the recipe but with some modification. It is sort of a soup with tofu, deep fried tofu, shiitake mushroom and seasoned with miso and sesame. Ingredients : Silken tofu 3/4 (this tofu come is a smaller package)which is roughly equivalent to 1/2 for regular size tofu) Fresh Shiitake, 3, stem end cut away, stem torn along it's length in thin strips and the caps sliced in thin strips. Deep fried tofu pouch or abra-age 1/4, cut into small strips. Japanese dashi broth, 400ml (I made this from my usual dash packs) Miso 2 tbs Roasted sesame seeds, 3 tbs, dry roasted in a frying pan and ground with a Japanese pestle and mortar or suribachi すり鉢. Egg, medium, beaten Directions : Add the mushroom to the broth and s...

This is another contribution from my wife. This is a dill onion wheat roll. Although this is a whole wheat roll, it is soft and moist with nice flavors of dill and onion. This roll can be eaten on any occasion but we really enjoy it for breakfast. Although, we put in lots of chopped fresh dill, you cannot see it in the cut surface yet the flavor is unmistakable. Since it is so soft and moist with lots of flavors no need for butter. Ingredients : 2 package of active dry yeast 1/4 cup warm water 1/4 cup honey 2 cups cottage cheese 2 Tbs. grated fresh onion 4 Tbs. butter melted 1 cup dill weed 3 Tsp. salt 1/2 Tsp. baking soda 2 eggs 4 - 4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour Directions : Put cottage cheese, honey, onion, butter, dill weed, salt and soda in the bowl of a stand mixer. Using a paddle beater mix thoroughly. Add the eggs and continue stirring. Dissolve yeast in warm water with 1 tsp. sugar dissolved to bloom. Add the yeast to the other liquid ingredients. Switch to a dough hook and add ...

This is the last of the salmon sashimi we defrosted for hanami . I served it with small baby arugula, tomato, and red onion salad. Just for variation, I made one portion as "Tataki". I seasoned the small block of salmon with Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper and using a kitchen torch, I seared one side and sliced. This treatment works well with oily fish in general and added nice flavor and texture. This was quite good and finally we finished the frozen salmon sashimi.

My wife really likes mackerel simmered in miso sauce or "Saba-no-misoni" 鯖の味噌煮. So,  every time we see fresh whole Spanish mackerel for sale at the near-by Whole Foods store, we get it to make this dish. This time we got two good sized mackerels. I had them gutted with heads off. I filleted them myself. If I do this myself, I can save more fish meat and I can scrape any remaining meat from the bone using a spoon. I also removed the meat from the tip of the tails since it is too narrow to make into "misoni". Using these scraps, I made fish meatball soup or "saba-no-tsumire-jiru" 鯖のつみれ汁. This was a lunch on one weekend. In addition to the fish meatball soup (lower left), I served blanched rapini with scrambled eggs (upper left), mackerel simmered in miso sauce with broccoli (upper right), and butter and soy sauce rice (lower right). I made clear soup with mackerel meatballs, silken tofu and sliced scallion and added (frozen) yuzu zests just before serving....

This is another baking project by my wife. This recipe is from the "Beard on bread" cookbook. "Beard on bread" sounds funny. I imagined a beard growing from the surface of the bread but of course "Beard" is the name of the late, famous "cook, cookbook author and TV personality" James Beard. The annual  James Beard Foundation Award is considered the "Oscar" of the culinary world. In any case, my wife looked through the book and decided to make this bread. Ingredients : 1/2 cup cornmeal 1 cup boiling water 1 Tsp salt 2 packages of active dry yeast 1/2 cup warm water (100 to 115 degrees) 1 Tbs. granulated sugar 1 cup warm milk 1-2 Tsp salt 1/4 cup dark brown sugar 4 to 4 1/2 All purpose flour Directions : Pour the cornmeal and salt into the boiling water. Stir vigorously until it cooks and becomes thick. (You are basically making polenta). Before the cornmeal completely cools and solidifies, add the cooked cornmeal, warmed milk, salt and b...

Pork chops are a rather popular cut in the US. Most popular are loin chops with rib attached (rib chops). One weekend, I bought a rather large pork loin without bones. Since it was large, I decided to cut off 4 loin chops before I trussed and seasoned the remaining loin for our usual   hot smoked pork on our Weber grill .  I wondered how I should cook the chops and decide to use a Japanese recipe. I grew up with simply sautéed pork chops in Japan but I wanted to do something a bit different. After reading through a few recipes, I made modified Japanese pork chops. I served them with sautéed pencil green asparagus and  corn shuffle  my wife made unmolded and cut in half. The sauce also included onion and shiitake mushroom. I probably over cooked it and it came out a bit dry but the sauce helped. Ingredients : (for 4 servings). Four Pork loin chops (or rib chops). Salt and pepper for seasoning Flour for dredging Olive oil For sauce One medium onion, halved and sliced 4...