hoikorou

Awhile back I tried to re-create a dish we had at a Chinese restaurant, but wasn't satisfied with the results.

I looked through a Chinese cookbook that I have and found a recipe for "hoikorou" (not sure of the spelling but this is the word phonetically.) It is a spicy miso stir-fry.

With my first try, I had used Japanese miso, but for this version I used tenmenjan (which is a red miso that is cooked with sugar) and used in Chinese cooking.

This version also uses tochijan (which is black bean sauce).

Here is the recipe for the sauce, add your favorite veggies and some protein.

Spicy Miso sauce : Adapted from Szechuan cooking "Tenyu"
Serves 2

1 tablespoon tobanjan (chili paste)
1 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
1 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
1 teaspoon tochijan (black bean sauce)
1/2 teaspoon tenmenjan (chinese miso)
1 tablespoon sesame seed oil

Combine first five ingredients and mix well.

Heat 1 tablespoon of sesame seed oil in a pan and saute protein and veggies until well coated.

Add miso sauce and cook until veggies are cooked to your liking. I cooked mine until the protein and eggplant were cooked through.

I used 1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 zucchini
1 eggplant
1/2 onion
6 thin slices of pork

NOTES: This was good and really close to the one we had, but the next time I will cut back the tobanjan (chili paste) to half a tablespoon. The heat from the chili paste came from the back of your throat until it made its way to your lips and then stayed there for a bit. (I coughed several times)

This dish is especially nice with rice.

We had this dish with Anchor's Summer Beer, which I found at the gourmet supermarket, Seijo Ishii...399 yen (about US$3.99). It supposedly goes nicely with spicy foods.

Yamaya, which normally has an assortment of imported beers, seems to no longer be bringing them in (boo!)

We liked this beer, it has a nice foamy top and was kind of fruity.

The weather has been quite gloomy, hope your week will be a nice one!