Best Chicken Soup Ever!

Organic whole chicken was on sale!

I had to pick it up even though I didn’t have any  plan to use it.

By the way, if you get a whole chicken, what would you like to cook?

Of course, roast chicken is the first thing everybody comes up.

In Japan, roaste  chicken is a special occasion meal, but not here.

We here have relatively many chances to have roast chicken since many restaurants have it in their menu, and also most of grocery stores sell them.

So, that is not exciting option for me.

Then what is it?

CHICKEN SOUP!

Is chicken soup exciting?

YES!

Chicken soup is also ubiquitous and not special occasion food, but I think the best chicken soup is made at home, not at restaurants or any grocery store’s pre-cooked section.  That’ why it could be very special!

OK!  I will make a very special chicken soup today, but in Asian way!

 

What a nice smell!

I made this in the oven, roasting slowly.

 

 

So delicious with tons of Umami flavor!

Besides, don’t you think this looks  elegant?

It is easy to prepare if you have time for the usage of oven.

So, let’s begin!

 

 

Here are the ingredients for this soup.

• 1 whole chicken (3-4 lb)
• salt (1% of the weight of the chicken)
• 5-6 dry shiitake mushrooms (Soak them in the water overnight.  Don’t throw away the water. We will use for the soup.)
• 1 -2 green onion
• 3 inches of kombu
• 1 cup of shaoxing rice wine ( if you couldn’t find one, replace with sake)
• 1 Tb spoon of soy sauce
• 1 Tb spoon of fish sauce
• celery leaves
• 2 star anise
• cilantro

First rub the chicken with salt (1% of its weight) and ground white pepper.

Leave it in the fridge at least one hour, but no more than 4 hours.

 

Squeeze the liquid from shiitake mushroom and take the axis of hydrated shiitake mushroom and set aside.

 

Cut the green onions by  2 inches lengthwise (I used green parts only), and set aside.

Set the oven at 350 F.

 

Cut off the stems of cilantro and tie them with twine.  We will use the leaves for garnishing.

Likewise cut the leaves of celery and tie them.

 

The spice we use today  is star anise.  They have strong flavor and play an important role for this soup, so if you don’t have them in your pantry, run to a store!

 

In the large dutch oven pot, put the chicken (if you don’t like saltiness, wash it with running water quick and wipe it with paper towel).

Then put the shiitake mushrooms, kombu, green onions, celery leaves, and cilantro stems.

Pour total 8 cup of water, including the shiitake water, and then,

 

add soy sauce, fish sauce and the star anise.

Bring  the pot to a boil .

Take off the scum, and put the pot in the preheated oven with lid.

Cook about one hour and half to two hours, depending the size of the chicken.

That’s it!!

I think mine is ready after 2 hours.

 

 

Good smell!

Take the leaves of celery and stems of cilantro.

Don’t you think it looks delicious?

I want to this soup very clear, so I strained the soup to take the residue of the vegetables.

 

The meat fell off easily.  So tender and juicy!

 

 

This is such an easy cooking and delicious meal!

You could put some noodle in there like Ramen.

Enjoy the soup! 

Next time you  cook CHICKEN SOUP, remember there is another type of flavorful chicken soup!

I start waiting for the next chance already!

 

 

 

 

Daizu Gohan ( roasted soy bean rice)

 

Setsubun , a throwing beans event, is gone.  We use soy beans for that, so my mom sent me soy beans far away from Japan.

I know we could get them here as well, but the  quality is different.

How could I throw these beautiful soy beans outside even though it was for the luck?

Besides they are purified by the prayer of the shrine.  That is why I pretended throwing them, and saved them for cooking.

Every year after this event, I look forward to making roasted soy bean rice with this intentionally left over soy bean.

This is not a fancy food at all and a  kind of a comfort food for me, so we needed it to rest our stomachs.

Yes, after Setsubun ,,,

we enjoyed fried chicken for super bowl!

It was my first time to make American style fried chicken, but it was a fun!

 

I don’t know the best way, but I brined them in the buttermilk mixture, and then steamed with a lid during frying.  It was a little scary, but successful.  You could imagine how much my husband enjoyed them.

So we needed some kind of gentle food like this not-fancy but delicious comfort rice.

Some of you may not like this rice because it has lots of UMAMI flavor including sardines, but this is definitely a strike for us Japanese.

Here are the ingredients for today’s dish.

• 3 cup of white rice
• 3.3 or a little more cup of water
• soy beans
• small dried sardines (niboshi)
• kombu
• shirodashi (salty umami liquid)
• 2 teaspoons of sake

 

If you are not sure how to wash and rinse white rice, please check here.

After washing, drain for 30minutes, and then put dried sardines if you have.

The ones I used this time were small, so I didn’t need to take their guts and bone off.

If you use regular size dried sardines, you might want to take heads, remove the guts and bones because they are bitter. Then, split them lengthwise like the photo above.  When I opened a new package of dried sardines, I always do it at once, and store them in a canister in the fridge for the future convenience.

Ok, back to the rice.

Roast the beans in the pan until they get fragrant, and add them on the top of  the rice.  Then add kombu.  I had shredded kombu, but if you use regular one, just cut 2-3inch, and put it on the rice.  After cooking, you can julienne it and return to the rice.

Then add water and sake.

I had enough umami flavor already, so it would help the rice t0 be flavorful without too much salt.  However if you want, you could add 2 teaspoons of shirodashi (if you want) or salt or soy sauce.

Then cook rice like we do for the regular white rice.

I waited enough for the rice to get steamed, so I think it is ready!

 

Nice aroma!

 

Fluff the rice, and that’s it!

I put this rice in my husband’s obento.

 

 

I hope he liked it!

This is the comfort food for us…..

Oh, by the way,  could you see the meat ball behind the rice in the lunch box?

I will talk about it next time!

 

 

 

 

 

how to make KAKIAGE (Tempura)

What do you think is the most known Japanese word?

SAYO（U)NARA, ARIGATO（U), FUTON, SUSHI, RAMEN, SOBA, TOFU,,,and,,,

 

TEMPURA!!!

 

Today I would like to show how to make tempura.

To be honest with you, I didn’t cook tempura often in Japan because we have tempura specialty restaurants.

 

Like sushi, frying tempura needs lots of experience and technique.

 

 

We make chirashi zushi (sushi) at home, but we don’t make regular sushi since we know we couldn’t do well like sushi chefs.

 

Chirashi zushi is sushi rice in a bowl mixed with lots of ingredients, most of which are vegetables.

I made sushi rice, using black rice this time.  Black rice reacts with vinegar and turns to be pink, so I wanted to make this pink rice in spring, thinking of cherry blossoms in my country.

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!!

I think chirashi sushi is like,,,

this, isn’t it?

Yes, this is also called chirashi sushi.

I should probably write more about sushi in near future.

Today’s topic is TEMPURA!! (REMEMBER??!!)

The reason I wanted to make tempura today was because I had a bottle of frozen water, which was forgotten in the freezing car.

We need ice cold water to make good tempura.

The reason is because we don’t want batter of tempura to be gooey with gluten.  The higher the temperature is, the more gluten is produced.  Using ice water, we can make minimize the production of gluten.  It might be much better to chill flour until we use.

So,

when I found this poor bottle, I said, OK, I could use that!

 

I decided to make tempura soba, which is a hot noodle soup with tempura.

That is also one of the popular soba dishes in Japan.

Today I focus only on tempura. (Please remind me!  I often go to the other direction!)

Among a variety of tempura, I would like to make kakiage style, which is a mixture of vegetables and other ingredients fried in batter.

I wish I had shrimp, but I didn’t, so I went vegetarian.

Here are the ingredients for today’s kakiage.

 

• 1 small carrot
• about 1/4 of medium size onion
• flour
• ice water
• egg
• canola oil
• hijiki (optional)
• ao nori (optional)

You could use regular onion here.  The reason I used purple onion today was because it was too pungent!!  I tried several methods to get rid of this pungency, but I failed, so I decided to use this onion not for eating raw but for cooking.  The heating process changes the pungency to sweetness.

By the way, do you know what the green bottle is in the picture right?

That is AONORI, green laver.

Aonori has strong flavor, so I often use this when I want to add some punch to dishes.

I would like to put aonori in the batter.

For vegetables, you also use corn, bamboo shoot, snap peas, asparagus, green beans and even carrots leaves!

I also add some seaweed called hijiki with vegetables.  That is one of my favorite food.  I put this in my salad almost every day!

It is sold dry, so we need to hydrate this before using.

Once you prepare the vegetables, start heating the oil, and let’s move on to the batter.

 

As I mentioned above, the water  has to be very cold to make tempura crisp.

For the batter, water and flour is 1:1 ratio.

I only make 4 small kakiage this time, so I only use 1/4 cup of water and the same amount of flour.

When you mix them together, use chopsticks to avoid over-mixing.

Open chopsticks wide, and mix roughly.  Some flour has to be remained.

Remember?  We don’t want to produce gluten here.

 

I should have added aonori before mixing with water, but it is fine.

Add aonori if you have ,and now you put this batter into the vegetables.

 

Before adding, coat 1/4 egg with the vegetables , and then add just a little bit of flour to cover them.

This makes vegetables stick together and makes frying easier.

(I used egg white in the bottle.)

Then add some of the batter into vegetables.

Heat the oil until it gets 340F.

 

 

It might be easier using the shallow pan, that way you could slide the vegetables from the side.

Spoon some vegetables  and slide it into the oil.

Don’t overcrowd the pan!

Otherwise they get soggy.

 

The tempura chef often say “don’t look!  Listen the sound!”.

You may be able to recognize the change of the sound.

The sound gets high and short when they are ready.

 

Do they look delicious to you?

Usually we eat this with dipping sauce, but this time I will put this into soba noodle soup, so I didn’t make dipping sauce.

If you want to eat this as it is and you don’t have dipping sauce, you can try this like I did.

 

 

Can you guess what the green powder is?

 

This is Matcha Salt!

I just mix matcha powder and salt.  This is very simple but very good.

We decided to eat some with mathca salt, and some in the soba noodle in the soup.

 

 

What do you think?

You might want to add some shichimi (Japanese seven spices) like we do.

 

Would you like to try to make tempura at home?

 

It is simple and easy.  Just experience.

 

everyday obento

I have been preparing my husband’s OBENTO for more than ten years.  Before that, I was working as well, so I didn’t prepare, and even didn’t think and worry what he would have for his lunch.

Now I am so worried if I couldn’t prepare.

I am a full time house wife, and to take care of my husband and my furry kids is my job.  After these ten years as a housewife, I have been improving. (Lucky my husband!  or the previous me was just not good.)

Some people think “housewife is not a job!”.

I would like to say loud  HOUSEWIFE IS NOT A JUST HOUSEWIFE.  IT IS A FULL TIME JOB!!!

As far as I am at home, I am at my working place, so I couldn’t feel relaxed.  Poor me..

However I love my job.   That’s why I am keep working!  I couldn’t earn money, but I could get reward by words.

As I said in my previous article about OBENTO, obento is very special for me.

Even though I couldn’t put anything special, I try to make it, thinking the balance of the nutrition, and more over thinking and wishing that my husband would enjoy it.

I woke up this morning at 5 AM as always, and stood in the kitchen and thought.

Well, what could I put today in my or his ( ? ) obento?

 

Today I would like to introduce a very easy side dish, using celery.

Also I will introduce a Japanese flavored boiled egg.

I always have those two in my fridge, so they are my last resort!

 

Before showing the instruction, I want to mention why I cook celery like this.

Have you ever heard of FUKI, a butterbur?

I didn’t know fuki in English, so I had to look up in the dictionary.

I don’t know if you have fuki here, but at least you have the word.

FUKI is a very fibrous vegetable, and also we have to pre-treat  in a certain way otherwise it remains harshness.

(the photo borrowed from here)

Fuki is not common vegetable even in Japan, that’s why when I have fuki at my parents’ house, I feel like I am eating something very special.

Usually kids don’t like it or wouldn’t eat because of its humble appearance.

There are tons of dishes cooked by my mom which I strongly remember  and feel nostalgic about, but I don’t remember fuki at all from my childhood memory.  Probably I had fuki for the first time when I was over 30.

Then its taste reminded me of one vegetable, which was celery.

That’s why I come up with this dish.

Very simple.

I prepare dashi stock and put some soy sauce and sake.

Cut celery, and add into the dashi soup.

If you have bonito flakes, finish it with the flakes.

THTA’S IT!

( in my case, I used one stalk of celery root, and 3/4cup of dashi stock with 2 teaspoons of soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of sake.)

It might be slightly blunt for you, in that case, you could add more soy sauce or even Japanese seven spices, shichimi, to give it a punch.

 

On the other side of the obento,  I have cooked egg.

Egg is very popular ingredient for obento because every house has eggs in the fridge and it is easy to cook.  In the busy morning, it is necessary.

I could put just boiled egg with some salt and spice, but this morning I did cook a boiled egg for it to be more delicious.

 

Prepare a boiled egg.  Cut in half, then put some katakuri ko, potato starch, on the cut side.

If you don’t have katakuriko, you could use flour instead.

In a small bowl, prepare approximately 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of unseasoned rice vinegar.

 

Heat a pan with some oil, and put egg, cut side down.

After a minute or so, add the prepared sauce in the pan.

Be careful!  It splashes sometime.

Cook for just a 10-20seconds, and,,,,

THAT’S IT!

This is very good for obento because it has strong flavor. (we usually make foods a little salty or rich for obento to satisfy the appetite even they are small portion.)

 

I hope my husband enjoys today’s obento.

 

Then I got a message from my husband in the middle of the day.

GOCHISO SAMA DESHITA! (It was delicious!)

MY REWARDS!!

Don’t throw carrots’ leaves!

I wanted to purchase daikon radish, but I reached carrots instead because daikon didn’t have leaves and carrots did.  I wanted leaves.

 

We Japanese have a tradition to have NANAKUSA GAYU,  porridge with Japanese seven herbs on the 7th of January.

After the Thanksgiving, would you like to continue eating rich meals?  I am sure that lots of people are tired of turkey and gravy, and go to Asian restaurants to find something different . (I would say something differnt, not “something light”.)

The New Year holidays are relatively long holidays for us, and after the hard work of the previous year, everybody want to feel relaxed, just staying at home with family and eating,,eating,,,eating,,,,AND,,,,,EATING!!!

YES, it it time for the stomach to feel relaxed next!

That is one of the reason to have porridge on the 7th.

However originally this custom was brought from China in the Edo period, and its original intention is to protect ourselves from evils and invite good luck and longevity by eating the seven herbs that endure the cold weather.

Even though I have been living here for more than 15years, I want to follow each Japanese events in each season.

Every year I try to make seven herbs porridge, but of course, it is hard to find seven of them.

Sometime I only find one, and make one herb porridge, which I couldn’t call NANAKUSA GAYU.  (“NANA” means seven in Japanese.)

What is NANAKUSA then?

I was taught them when I was in the elementary school, so I could utter like incantation.

SERI NAZUNA GOGYO HAKOBERA HOTOKENOZA SUZUNA SUZUSHIRO

Probably this sounds like true incantation to you.

They are water dropwort ( seri ), sheperd’s purse (nazuna), cudweed (gogyo), chickweed (hakobera), henbit (hotokenoza), turnip (suzuna), and daikon radish (suzushiro) in English.

Are they familiar to you?  I have to ask somebody.

 

I gave up finding all these unfamiliar herbs here from the beginning this year, and tried to collect any seven greens this year.  This is American version of NANAKUSA GAYU!

What I got were,,

as an opposite clockwise, carrots’ leaves, wild arugula, kale, baby spinach, arugula (rocket), shungiku (crown daisy), and chard.

What do you think?

Then the porridge turned out to be so GREEN!

We all including my lovely dogs enjoyed this, wishing our health all year long.

Happy Ending!

BUT,

it wasn’t END!

 

I had tons of greens in my fridge.  I had to use them before they went bad.

 

Then ,,,

 

 

I made TOFU SAAG with spinach and kale!

 

It was DELICIOUS!

HAPPY ENDING!

BUT ,

it wasn’t END yet!

 

Carrots’ leaves were dominating my fridge!

Then I decided to make THAT.

I will cook all of them!

Today I will introduce my way to use carrots’ leaves in Japanese style.

They were so fresh and beautiful.  I wonder for what you would use carrots’ leaves.

Smoothies?  Pesto? Garnishing?

OK, let’s show how I use them.   So simple and so easy.

 

Here are the ingredients besides a bunch of carrots’ leaves for this side dish.

(you can adjust the quantities of each ingredients depending on your favor.)

• 2 teaspoons of sake
• 2 teaspoons of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
• 1-2 teaspoons of mirin
• white sesame seeds
• bonito flakes
• sesame oil

First cut the carrots’ leaves.

I don’t want to throw even the harsh stalks because they look so  good for the health.

When I cut them, they were so fresh that they danced out from the cutting board!!

Heat a pan with a little oil, and saute the leaves, the stalks first.

When they wilt,

 

add sake and sugar.

Remember? Always the sweetness first!

Then add 2 teaspoons of soy sauce. (Use the left 1 teaspoon of soy sauce at the end.)

Add a little bit of water and close the lid for them to get tender.

After a few minutes, take off the lid and,,,,

 

add 2 teaspoons of mirin and the remaining soy sauce.

Add sesame oil from the side of the pan, and stir.

Stir well and add bonito flakes and sesame seeds.

Saute them until most of the liquid evaporates.

That’s all!

 

You could keep this in the fridge for a few days.

This goes well with white rice, and also you could cook with beaten eggs.

I put some in my husband’s OBENTO as well.

 

 

Would you throw carrots’ leaves?

I hope you say NO!

 

Kiriboshi Daikon (cooked dried daikon radish)

Christmas is coming!!

I am not ready for Christmas yet ( I don’t want it pass quickly), and I haven’t decided our Christmas menu yet, but my Santas are already coming to our home every day!!

Thank you, Santas!

 

Today I have received  traditional Japanese foods from my dear friend in my country.

We love American dishes and I love to cook those, but when we continue having them several days in a row, we miss OUR food badly, so before I prepare Christmas dishes, I decided to prepare very traditional Japanese side dish to enjoy the coming American Christmas dinner.

 

Have you ever seen dried daikon radish?

Regular daikon radish is very familiar these days, and I think you can see them at any grocery stores, but not dried daikon radish.

We call dried daikon radish as Kiriboshi Daikon, and “kirigoshi” means “slice and dry”, so they are the daikon which is sliced and then dried under the sun.

The sunshine makes them sweeter, and also it enhances the nutrition!

I appreciate the sunshine even though I hate I got burned myself…

Anyway, dried daikon radish has more calcium, iron, and vitamin B compared with raw radishes, and it has lots of fiver as well.

I know some of you, or even some of Japanese people, don’t like the smell of daikon radish.  I totally understand.

It is very strong, and when I cook daikon dishes , the smell stays long in the house.

Sorry,  I have a bad news.

Kiriboshi daikon has stronger smell than raw daikon radish.  So sorry.

However  I have to introduce this dish because this is one of the most popular side dishes in Japan.

It might be difficult to get the dried daikon radish , but if you go to Asian grocery stores, I believe you could find them near dried food section along with seaweeds.

OK.

Are you ready?

I will cook this as one of the side dishes for tonight’s dinner, and ,,,

YES, I will freeze some of it!

This is a busy housewife’s wisdom.  It freezes very well, so I can just thaw when I need one more side dish or have space for my husband’s lunch box.

 

Here are the ingredients for kiriboshi daikon.

• 1 package of dried daikon radish (1.5 oz)
• 3-4 pieces of dried shiitake mushrooms (hydrated in the water overnight, or you could put them in hot water with a little sugar when you are in a hurry.)
• 2 small carrots
• 1.5-2 tablespoons of sugar
• 2 teaspoons of shiro dashi ( if you have)
• 1.5 tablespoons of soy sauce
• bonito flakes (preferable, but optional)
• dried red pepper (optional)

First wash the dried daikon radish briefly, then put them in the large bowl with enough water for about 30-40minutes.

Drain the water (squeeze the radish), but keep the water.

This is dried shiitake mushrooms.  Like dried daikon radish, after hydrating those, drain the water, but keep the water.  It has tons of flavor, so we want to use it.

As dried daikon radish, dried shiitake mushroom has lots of nutrition.

The drying process gives shiitake mushrooms much more hearty aroma and UMAMI.

Before using dried shiitake mushroom, if you have time, put them under the sun for a few hours, the backside of mushrooms upside.

They get more vitamin D, which is very important for calcium absorption.

Even after hydrating them, they have very stiff stems, so take it off from the body. (you could use the stem for stock.)

Julienne the mushrooms and carrots.

Heat a small amount of vegetable oil, and put some red pepper (optional).

Be careful.  They get burned easily and leave bitter taste, so watch not to burn them.

Then add carrots and saute, and add shiitake.

After sauteing for a few minutes, add hydrated dried daikon radish, and saute them together.

 

Add reserved water from shiitake, and add reserved water from dried daikon radish, enough to cover the vegetables.

 

As I mentioned several times in the previous articles, when we do cooking, add sweetness first because once saltiness gets into meats or vegetables, they don’t absorb sweetness.

Add the sugar ( I used brown sugar because I like their flavor which gives the dish depth), and then if you have, add shiro dashi.

Can you read the word VERSATILE DASHI BASE on the label of shirodashi bottle?

YES, that is so true!

Shirodashi is very versatile, and you can use them in place of salt or soy sauce, and it gives UMAMI flavor into the dish.

If you don’t have shirodashi, it is OK.

You can increase the amount of soy sauce.

 

Add soy sauce, and boil it, and let it simmer with lid (loose) for about 15minutes.

After 15 minutes or so, take the lid off, and cook until the liquid almost evaporates.

You could enjoy now, but I like put some bonito flakes for further UMAMI.  They absorb the left-over liquid, so it would be very good for a lunch box, too.

 

What do you think?

This dish really goes well with white rice.

 

Now smell so good, and

 

looks so good to me!

I hope you try even you are not tempted.

This is JAPANESE, and this is so good!

 

Now I have to think about the Christmas menu…

 

Have a wonderful holiday season!

 

 

HAYASHI RICE

Every time I am  asked what my favorite Japanese dish is,   I couldn’t answer because there are tons I could choose from.

Most of you think Japanese food is VERY Japanese such as sushi, sashimi and miso soup. Even though I could or would eat sushi or sashimi every day, of course, we do have more varieties of dishes.

Some Japanese dishes may not be traditional, but they are VERY Japanese  in a sense and very popular like tonkatsu. We call Japanese dishes influenced by western dishes as YOSHOKU, which literally means western food.

We Japanese like yosyoku.   We have Japanese style hamburger steak (we eat this with rice! but often with a fork!) , omu-rice (omelet rice -pilaf covered with egg), menchi katsu (minced beef croquet) ,korokke (potato croquet), and karaage (Japanese style fried chicken).   I think I could call them as Japanese food even though they are not traditional.

In the previous article, I introduced CURRY RICE.  It is one of the popular yosyoku.  If you use store-bought roux, it is so easy to make it and it is foolproof. (we also could make this without store-bought roux,  here.)

We have another similar dish which we could use store-bought roux .

(This was our Thanksgiving table.)

The Thanksgiving was over, and I had been using my cooking brain at full power, so I need to rest my brain.

OK, I have to use this!

I reached the HAYASHI RICE roux box in my pantry.

WHAT IS IT?

Are you familiar with hashed beef?

That is HAYASHI RICE in Japan.  We modified in our way.

When hashed beef came to Japan,  Japanese people couldn’t pronounce HASHED well, so we call HAYASHI  instead of hashed.

(There are other stories about the origin of the naming, but this is the most common one.)

 

Like Curry Rice, this dish always comes with rice, and we eat with spoons.

Today I would like to introduce this dish briefly, but I would like to make this dish in my way, not in typical Japanese way.    I may not be able to call my dish  “hashed” beef since I use a block of meat, and also I modified this with some ingredients which don’t appear on the instruction on the box.

Anyway I will show my way!

Ingredients

• any brand’s HAYASHI RICE roux
• about 3 lb of beef chuck roast, trimming and cubed by 1 inches
• 1 28oz can of whole tomato
• 2-3 medium size  onion, sliced vertically
• 3-4 carrots, peeled and cut diagonally
• 1/2 head of cauliflower
• brown mushrooms
• 1 cup of green peas (frozen)
• thyme
• 1 cup of red wine (depends, I explain it below)
• black pepper
• hot sauce (optional)
• Japanese rice

 

Let’s start!

First sprinkle salt and pepper on the meat, and then brown the meat by several times.  Don’t overcrowd the pan!  Set aside the meat on the plate.

Use the same pan, saute the sliced onion and carrot.  When they get soft, add the browned meet together with dripping on the plate.

According to the box, we need about 30 oz of water, but I want this dish to be flavorful, so I try not to use pure water.  I am going to use the juice from the can of tomato, so I drained it, and I use it as a part of the liquid required.  Also I want this stew to be rich, so I am going to use red wine.

I scaled the juice and the wine, and make it match to the required liquid quantity.  Add the mixture of the juice from the can of whole tomato and red wine, and scrape the bottom of the pan to take off UMAMI flavor.

Then add the tomato and thyme.

Once it boils, turn the heat low ,and close the lid and simmer about 1 hour.

 

 

Then add mushrooms and cauliflower florets.

I like cauliflower a lot, especially in this kind of stew. They get sweet and tender.

Continue cooking with the lid closed for 30minutes.

Turn off the heat.

Add green peas, and then break the roux and put them into the pot.

Stir gently.

Then turn on the heat low and continue cooking about 10 minutes.

TA DA~!

Does this look delicious or what?

After 15 years of the life in the US, I found the Japanese food is sometime too sweet, so I add some acidity (wine and tomato) to this HAYASHI RICE, and add hot sauce if you like ( I like!) before serving.

 

Usually we use thinly sliced beef and only onion in Hayashi Rice, so it doesn’t take much time to be cooked, so if you are in a hurry, Hayashi rice could be your choice!  You could find this roux at Asian grocery stores.

It goes well with bread , so you don’t need to have rice, but this is Japanese food, so we need GOHAN!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

O NASU and SHIO KOJI ( Eggplants cooked with shio koji)

When I go to the grocery store,　there are certain vegetables  I always purchase.

Lettuce, tomato, onion, carrot, broccoli, peppers and sometimes mushrooms and green beans.

I always see big eggplants sitting next to zucchini, but I seldom reach them.

WHY?

Because they are too big!

I think they are really good in lagsania or eggplant parmesan, but when I think about Japanese dishes, I only come up with one dish, BEINASU no DENGAKU.

We call big eggplants  as BEINASU, literally means “American eggplants”.

This dish is “cooked eggplants with sweat miso sauce”.  It is delicious!

Maybe I would introduce that someday!

Today I will introduce a dish using Japanese eggplants.

When I go to the farmer’s market, I sometimes find them, but it is difficult to find at regular grocery stores.

Japanese eggplants are relatively small like Italian eggplants, but the shape is thinner than Italian’s.

Japanese eggplants have thin skin, so you don’t need to take off peel.

The eggplants I got this time are from Suzuki Farm, and they are gifts with purchase.

When you purchase value pack at Suzuki Farm, you could get OMAKE (small giveaway)!

How nice!

They have some scars, but they are as delicious as the regular ones.

By the way, I read an article about ugly produce.

The farmers used to compost them to landfill since  they don’t look perfect and not qualified as grocery stores’ produce even though they are as delicious as the regular ones.

Some farmers started donating those ugly vegetables, or selling to the restaurants where chefs don’t care what they look because they eventually turn into soup or mashes vegetables.

I am glad to know that they are saved!

Today I would like to save this a little ugly but  delicious vegetables in Japanese style.

I found this recipe in a Japanese magazine, and modified a little.

Here are the ingredients.

• 2-3 medium size of Japanese eggplants
• bonito flakes
• 2 tablespoons of shio koji
• 1 tablespoon of mirin
• 1 cup of water
• 1 small piece of ginger
• sesame oil

Let’s preparing!

Cut eggplants in half in lengthwise.

Then,,,

give slits diagonally, but not cut through.

Eggplants have some strong AKU (harshness), so once you cut them, they get easily darken and they give dish bitter taste, so put them in water for about a few minutes to get rid of AKU.

Then save them from water, and towel dry them.

Next prepare the condiments we use.

I have already introduced SHIO KOJI several times.

They are salt with fermenting koji mold, and they have lots of UMAMI.

It smells sweet and also it has a SAKE flavor.

Also we need bonito flakes to get more UMAMI into the dish.

Let’s start cooking!

Heat the pan and put generous amount of sesame oil.

As you know, eggplants absorbs oil well, so don’t hesitate ( forget about calories!).

Put eggplants.

Then flip over and cook both sides well.

Meanwhile mix shio koji  and mirin with water.

Then, when eggplants are cooked,

pour the shio koji mixture and,,,,,

bonito flakes into the pan.

Then cook this for a few minutes.

THAT’S IT!

How simple is that!

Take this from heat and cool it down.

Put them in a container, and keep it in the refrigerator.

They are delicious in cold.

When you serve this, grate ginger, and put it on top of eggplants.

Eggplants and ginger are a good match.

Just grilling eggplants with soy sauce and grated ginger is also a delicious dish!

Next time when I go to the grocery store, let’s reach BEINASU (American eggplants) and cook in Japanese way.

SATOIMO no NIMONO ( how to cook taro)

Japanese people love O ＩMO.

We collectively call starchy root vegetables such as regular potatoes, sweet potatoes (not like the one here, ours are purple outside and golden inside), yam (yamaimo), and taro(satoimo) as IMO.

Other than regular potatoes, it is difficult to get here, but fortunately thanks to the Suzuki farm, I could get satoimo, which is one of my husband favorite vegetables.

What should I cook with them, then?

Japanese like simple dish, taking advantage of vegetables’ freshness and flavors.

My husband and I also like simple dishes.

OK.

Let’s make SATOIMO no NIMONO, the very basic Japanese dish!

It is SATOIMO version of KABOCHA no NIMONO.

Here are the ingredients.

• 6-7 of medium size of satoimo (taro)
• 1.5 cup of dashi
• 1.5 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 tablespoon of mirin
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of soy sauce

By the way, what beautiful satoimo!

Usually they are covered with dirt, but this time I didn’t need to wash them vigorously with vegetable brush.

Let’s start cooking!

Peel the skin thick.

Be careful!  They are very slippery!

Cut into bite sizes.

Then,,,

cook them for about 2-3 minutes in the boiling water to take their sliminess.

Drain the water, and then wash them well.  (you can do this under the running water. )

Drain, and we need to prepare dashi stock.

I have a secret weapon.

This is dashi pack, and there are 30 packs which has bonito flakes and dried powdered sardine.

I know you don’t have this, so you can use instant dashi you could get at any Asian grocery store.

If you use instant dashi, prepare 1.5 cup.

When we cook potatoes, we always need to cook them from the water, so,,,,

I put one pack in the water, and then,,,

heat with prepared satoimo until it boils, and cook them for 3-4 minutes under medium flame.

After 3-4 minutes, put sugar.

Remember!  Always sweet agent goes first.

Then add salt.

I added ,,,,

shiro dashi (concentrate dashi stock with saltiness) instead of salt to enhance dashi flavor.

Cook them with lid ,or  you can put  UCHIBUTA (literally inside lid.  You could cut parchment paper into circle, and poke it several spots, and then you could put it directly onto the satoimo.).

The UCHIBUTA method is traditional way, but since my pan does a great job, I didn’t do UCHIBUTA.

Cook 7-8 minutes.

Then add mirin and

soy sauce and ,,

cook extra 7-8 minutes until the satoimo absorb most of the soup.

Not yet.

Almost there!

THEN,,,,

They are waiting for my  husband to enjoy.

They soaked up all dashi flavor, so they are good in OBENTO  like KABOCHA no NIMONO!

As soon as my husband came back home from work, he peeked the table and found SATOIMO on NIMONO, and,,,

OF COURSE!

He danced!

Anniversary OBENTO!

We celebrated our 19th anniversary a few weeks ago.

Time flies so fast, and I could still remember our first date like yesterday.

My husband and I were in the same tennis club, and our first date was at the tennis court.

We decided to enter for the tennis tournament as mix doubles.

Everybody in the club was excited, thinking who they should ask as a partner.

Luckily my husband asked me to go to the tournament as a partner! BUT,,,there was one problem.

This is very Japanese, but girls were supposed to prepare OBENTO for boys.

It was like MUST.

ME?

NO!!!

I was living with my parents at that time and my mom was a really good cook, so I had never prepared meals for my family…

SHAME ON ME!!!!

So, when I was asked from my future husband to entry the tournament, I warned that I couldn’t and wouldn’t prepare OBENTO.

I didn’t have confidence to make a good OBENTO.

On the day, even though I warned I was not going to bring OBENTO, he expected I brought OBENTO.

He was so shocked when he found out there was no OBENTO, and we went to Seven Eleven to get pastries and rice balls….

However still he chose me as his wife, so I have to thank him!

Now I prepare OBENTO almost every day with strong confidence that I could please him with my food.

Even though I have to wake up early at 5AM, I really enjoy and love preparing OBENTO for him.

What should I make for him on our 19th anniversary?

When I make OBENTO on his birthdays or anniversaries, I decorate with some surprise or put number or alphabet made from carrot on rice, but for this time, I wanted to  make really ordinary OBENTO, remembering ordinary but happy  each day of our life.

I didn’t want please him with letters for this time, instead I wanted him to feel relaxed with my comfort OBENTO.

Very Japanese.

I put grilled sword fish marinated with UMEBOSHI (I will show you how to prepare at the end), KABOCHA NO NIMONO, sautéed Japanese green pepper, sautéed snap peas with KATSUOBUSHI (bonito flakes), and ,,,

TAMAGOYAKI (Japanese style omelet)!  The black thing in the egg is HIJIKI, a kind of sea weeds.

When I close the lid of the box, I always wish he loves it.

I wish he loves this ordinary OBENTO.\

YES!  He enjoyed it!

He expected the numbers “19” on the rice, but he couldn’t find them.

He said It surprised him.

I explained my intention after his coming back home, and he told me that he could feel my heart.

That’s why I love to make OBENTO.

In such a  small space, I could put all my heart, and he could feel it!

The best thing is I couldn’t see him eating.

I have to use my imagination, hoping he is enjoying it.

That was an ordinary OBENTO, but very special OBENTO.

Thank you very much for praising me I am a good cook for 19 years with saying GOCHISOSAMA!

Thanks to you, now I have a strong confidence in me.

HAPPY OUR 19TH ANNIVERSAY!!!

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UMEBOSHI flavored sword fish

Since the OBENTO box is small, I purchased a small slice of sword fish.

small but a little bit thick, so,,,,

I butterflied into two pieces.

I only use one piece for OBENTO.

Prepare about 1 Tb spoon of soy sauce and sake in a bowl, then dip the fish.

If you have time, you could do it overnight.

This is UMEBOSHI.

UMEBOSHI is a really sour pickle, and I think this flavor is similar to rhubarb.

Don’t you think?

Of course, UMEBOSHI is a pickle, so it is sour and salty.

Then prepare the finishing sauce.

1Tb spoon of soy sauce, 1Tb spoon of SAKE, 1Tb spoon of MIRIN, and 1/2 Tb spoon of sugar.

UMEBOSHI has a pit in the middle, so take it off, and chop the pulp, then,,,

add into the prepared sauce.

UMEBOSHI has very refreshing flavor, so it really goes well with  fish.

It kills the smell of fish!  Besides it has antibacterial effect, so it is good for OBENTO.

After a while, take the fish from the soy sauce and sake mixture, and wipe it with paper towel.

Then heat the pan with medium flame, and grill the fish 2 minutes per side (depending on the thickness of the fish).

Then pour the prepared UMEBOSHI mixture into the pan and saute until most of the sauce evaporates.

THAT’S IT!