koromogae

It is that time of year to take out your Spring/Summer clothes and to put away the Fall/Winter stuff. This is called koromogae. Koromo is clothing and is also the outer batter of tempura. gae/kae means to change. So, it is like taking your outer shell and changing it for a lighter one. Koromogae also occurs after summer before Autumn starts. In Hawaii, we don't have this changing of clothing because we don't really have seasons. This is one of the fun things I look forward to in Japan.

I washed my fluffy Hello Kitty slippers and put them away.

And took out these lauhala (pandanus) ones. My great-grandma used to make these type of lauhala slippers to sell. I'm not sure if others still make these, but I figured I should use them instead of leaving them un-used in my box. They have something quite hard in the middle, so it is a bit raised... I guess I need to break them in.

Another thing I love about the change in seasons is that a lot of the Japanese cookbooks are arranged amongst the seasons too. I have quite a collection of these and love that the recipes feature the shun (in season) ingredients.

As I was looking through a cookbook, I came upon this easy recipe. It was perfect for dinner and aside from the seasonings only took 2 ingredients!

Here is the recipe if you'd like to try it. Onion wrapped in pork-teriyaki style-- Serves 4
translated from "Orange Page Haru ni Oishii kondate"

1 onion
1/3 teaspoon salt
240g (8 slices) thinly sliced pork thigh
cornstarch
2 tablespoons salad oil
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablepoons sake (rice wine)
2 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)
1 tablespoon ginger juice

Take the onion and cut it into 8 crescent pieces.
Put the pieces on a plate and cover gingerly with plastic wrap.
Zap in micro for 3 minutes. Sprinkle with salt after it comes out of the micro.
In a frying pan, put oil and heat on medium.
Take the pieces of pork and sprinkle cornstarch on them then place a piece of onion on each piece and roll up.
Put the end of the roll onto the hot pan and cook on both sides until it turns golden brown.
Add the sugar, sake & shoyu and cover for 2 to 3 minutes to steam.
Take the cover off and turn the pieces over. Cook until most of the sauce has cooked away, turning every so often.
Squeeze the juice of the ginger over the pieces and serve.

NOTES: I put the amount of oil that the recipe called for and ended up with way too much oil in the pan from the pork and had to sop it up with a paper towel before starting the sauce. Also, I put a piece of ginger from the freezer into the sauce as it cooked and when it got softened, I squeezed it over the pieces at the end. This recipe is super easy and showcases the tender onions that are in season here.