inose

I saw somewhere that Inose sells their beef stew every Tuesday.

So, since I was in a rut as to what to eat/cook, we walked over to Zoshiki and went to check to see if Inose had their beef stew.

They did.

500 yen (tax included) for 1 serving.

I should've taken the photo before covering the whole bowl with gravy.

Underneath the gravy there is half a potato, some carrots and very tender beef.

I added some broccoli for color.

The beef stew is rich and is a demi-glace base.

I'm glad we got to try this and we'll be back to purchase this again.

beef tomato

Not sure what made me crave beef tomato, but I did so, luckily there was a recipe for it in this cookbook that I have.

Beef Tomato : makes 2 or 3 servings, adapted from "Hawaii's Best Local Dishes"

200 grams thinly sliced beef

1/2 onion, cut roughly

3 small bell peppers, cleaned and cut roughly

2 tomatoes, cut into 6 wedges

2 teaspoons oil

Marinade for meat: 1 nub ginger, grated

1 clove garlic, grated

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)

several grinds of pepper

1/2 tablespoon cornstarch

Gravy:  1 tablespoon okonomiyaki sauce

Marinade the beef for 20 minutes.

Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a pan and saute the onion and bell peppers for about 2 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and cook for another minute.

Take the veggies out of the pan and cook the meat.

Put the veggies back into the pan with the cooked meat and add the okonomiyaki sauce.

When everything is well coated, serve and enjoy!

NOTES:  I didn't have all the ingredients for the gravy, which asked for worcestershire and ketchup, instead I added okonomiyaki sauce because it tastes like worcestershire and ketchup, kinda.

Also, I didn't have sherry to marinade the meat and used balsamic vinegar, but should have used sake instead.

This was pretty easy to put together and tasty, I would definitely make this again.

whew

We had a little "scare" over the weekend.

Friday, a co-worker in Satoshi's work group got a call from a family member.

Apparently the co-worker's father had a slight fever and also fell and hit his head.

They were both going to get tested on Saturday to see if they had COVID...

Luckily the co-worker and father were both negative and the father's head injury was nothing serious...whew!

This time around we were definitely lucky but this pandemic is definitely getting closer to home.

Changing subjects...during this pandemic, we've been trying all sorts of places for takeout.

Last night, we took out from Yoshinoya.

Their gyu suki (sukiyaki).

It was my first time to eat from here.

I liked the flavors, not overly sweet or overly salty and the rice wasn't mushy.

Eating takeout from all these places definitely haven't been good for our cholesterol, but at least this gives us some variation.

Have a safe week everyone.

 

trying new recipes

Tried some new recipes yesterday.

Mio's Sauce by Mio Matsui

6 tablespoons sesame oil

10 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)

6 tablespoons sake (rice wine)

4 tablespoons sugar

2 cloves garlic, grated

salt & pepper

Heat the sauce until the sugar melts.

Cool and put into an airtight jar.

I marinated 200 grams of beef with half of this sauce for 30 minutes.

NOTES: super tasty and easy, will try this sauce with chicken or pork next.

Hakusai and Kaki Amazu-ae from 3-pun Cooking

200 grams hakusai, weighed, cleaned then sliced thin

5 grams salt

180 grams kaki (persimmon)

Sauce

3 tablespoons vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon shoyu (soy sauce)

After slicing the hakusai, sprinkle the salt and set aside for 10 minutes.

Squeeze out the water from the hakusai after 10 minutes.

Peel the persimmon and cut the fruit into bite sized pieces

Add the hakusai and persimmon to the sauce.

Mix well and chill before serving.

NOTES: delicious! great as pickles or salad. Will definitely make this again.

 

mother meat plaza's curry

Tried Mother Meat Plaza's Beef Curry yesterday.

It doesn't look like there is much meat in there but there was a lot and it was melt in your mouth tender.

The spiciness was just right too.

At 450 yen (tax included) this was very reasonable.

It doesn't come with rice, I added my own when I got home.

I'm glad I tried this and will be back.

bambucha

Rainy season started Wednesday and it rained all.day.long.

Tuesday night though, we had this...globe zucchini stuffed with pearl barley, quinoa, parmesan and a tomato meat sauce.

I had seen others cooking with this type of zucchini online but this was my first time to actually find it at the market and try cooking with this.

I wasn't too sure if the ones I found were large or small...but think it was quite large.

This year, we sure have had been lucky with bambucha (huge) produce...here, here and here.

I hope to come across these again at the market...

Have you cooked with this type of zucchini before? How did you cook them?

mansaku

Saturday, after Satoshi's German class, we had lunch at Mansaku, which specializes in Miyazaki cuisine. Which if I'm not mistaken, is all things chicken.

Satoshi's not that much of a fan of chicken (unless it is fried), so he chose the Miyazaki beef bowl.

This was a nice sized serving topped with a poached egg. His meal also came with some salad and miso soup.

I chose the Tori Namban.

Fried chicken dipped into a shoyu based sauce then topped with tartar sauce.

Tartar sauce in Japan usually has hard boiled eggs in it.

This piece of chicken was huge!

I usually can't finish all the rice I'm given so I gave the rest to Satoshi.

The food was good here, and there were other items we would like to try...we'll be back.

Mansaku
Grand Front Osaka South Building 7F
Phone: 06.6485.7474
Weekdays: lunch 11:00-15:00, dinner 17:00-23:00
Weekends: 11:00-23:00
Open when Grand Front Osaka is

(not) rolled cabbage

We've talked about rolled or stuffed cabbage before...here.

Well, I saw a "not" rolled cabbage on a commercial and have been waiting for nippy temps to try it.

It also helps that my MIL gave us a nabe (nah-bay, clay pot), so I have something big enough to cook it in.

Take half a cabbage and hollow it out. Rinse as best as you can.

With the cabbage that you took out from the center, cut into bite sized pieces.

I added some barley (a couple of tablespoons), washed and uncooked.

Mix about 200 grams of ground beef with some minced onion, and pepper, then stuff it into the cavity.

Place the "stuffed" cabbage onto the cabbage bits and raw barley and add 4 cups of water and 2 consomme cubes.

Cover and bring to a boil (about 5 minutes) then turn the heat down to a simmer.

Cook for about 25 minutes.

Slice into 4 pieces (as photo shows above).

Serve with the soup, barley and bits of cabbage.

NOTES: this is definitely "stuffed" cabbage.

This was so easy to put together and took very little time to cook. I would recommend trying to get hamburger all the way to the edges of the cabbage so that when you cut it into 4, the end pieces will have some hamburger also.

If you don't have a clay pot, don't worry, just use something big enough to fit the whole half cabbage to cook it.

Also, you can use chicken stock in place of the consomme cubes.

I'm making this again.

sweet sour meatballs

The other day I was craving sweet sour meatballs, luckily, there was a recipe in one of the cookbooks I have.

Barbecued Meatballs makes 12 meatballs : from "Wisteria Delights"

Meatballs:
1 pound ground beef (turkey or chicken)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2/3 cups milk
3/4 cups oatmeal (uncooked)
1 tablespoon fat

Barbecue Sauce
1 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons vinegar
1.5 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
1.5 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)
2 teaspoons prepared mustard

Combine all the ingredients for the meatballs except the fat and mix well.
Shape into 12 balls.
Brown the meatballs in hot fat in skillet.
While meat browns, prepare barbecue sauce.

Combine all the ingredients for the sauce and pour over meatballs.
Cover pan and cook about half an hour more.

NOTES: First off, for the meatballs, I only used diced onions and a pork-beef mixture.

I should have added the milk and oatmeal to keep the meatballs moist, they were a little tough.

I cooked the meatballs under the broiler for about 10 minutes.

Instead of using 1 cup of ketchup, I used a can of diced tomatoes.

I cut the sugar back to 2 tablespoons.

I didn't have worcestershire sauce, so I used tonkatsu sauce instead.

I also should have added the mustard and shoyu like the recipe said because this turned out to be more on the sweet side.

Still this hit the spot, one of my favorite comfort foods.

UPDATE: nowadays I make the sweet sour sauce like this:
1 can diced tomato
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon vinegar
.5 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon shoyu
1 teaspoon grainy mustard

recreated

Sometimes when you taste something, you know exactly how to make it again when you get home.

Such was the roasted onion dish we had in Awajishima last month.

All you need to make this is:
sweet onions
your favorite bolognese sauce
shredded cheese
a little olive oil

Grease the dish you will be baking this in with some olive oil.
Peel your onions then make an "X", don't cut all the way through.
Drizzle a little olive oil into the "X"
In a 400F (200C) oven, roast the onions (uncovered) for about 30 minutes.
Add the bolognese sauce and cheese (amounts up to you), then put back into the oven for another 20 minutes.
The cheese should be a little browned at the end of the 20 minutes, if not put it in a couple more minutes.

NOTES: super easy and super delicious! Satoshi gave this a thumbs up. I'm making this again.

keema curry

Boy, the rain sure does make things dreary.

Not really wanting to cook, I flipped through my cookbooks and looked for something easy.

I found a rather easy keema curry recipe by Mizuno Jinsuke.

I didn't have all the ingredients he listed so ad-libbed here and there.

Keema Curry adapted from "Hajimete no Spice Curry #2" : 4 servings
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, grated
1 nub ginger, grated
1 onion, minced
15 grams butter
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon flour
200 milliliters hot water
2 tablespoons orange marmalade
400 grams ground beef
50 milliliters rosé
cherry tomatoes, sliced
sugar snap peas, blanched

Heat the oil in a pan on medium and add the garlic and ginger
When fragrant, add the onion and cook until the onions get a little color
Add the butter, turmeric, cayenne & cumin, stir well
Add the flour, stir well
Add the meat and cook until it has some color
Add the wine and let the alcohol burn off
Add the hot water and bring everything back to a boil, add the marmalade
Turn the heat down to simmer and cook for 20 minutes.
Serve over rice and garnish with diced cherry tomatoes and blanched sugar snap peas.

NOTES: the curry was a bit sweet with the marmalade so I would probably cut back the amount. Other than that, I liked the amount of heat the curry had and how easy it was to put this together.

I'm making this again.

Oh, and I served this with coconut flavored cabbage (sabzi).

Hope the rain stops soon...

beef bourguignon

You ever have a bottle of wine that you didn't really like? That was me the other week. We visited MIL and she had a box of wine that was made in Japan.

So far, all the wine we've had that was made in Japan, was too young. Not enough body, not enough oomph.

She "made" us take the bottle home with us. I didn't want to drink anymore of it...so I cooked with it.

I know you're supposed to cook with wine you'd want to drink, and yet couldn't see myself throwing it out.

I used a recipe I found on the internet by Sapporo Beer (their picture looks way more delicious!).

300 grams beef (for curry or stew), cubed
1/2 onion, sliced
6 mushrooms
1 clove garlic
salt
pepper
flour, to coat meat
1 tablespoon oil
bouquet garni (parsley stems, celery, dried thyme)
2 cups wine
1/2 cup water
parsley to garnish
snow peas, blanched

Thickener: mix together into a paste
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon honey

Blanche the peas, get parsley ready for garnish (leaves only), use the stems for bouquet garni
Coat the meat with flour, salt and pepper
Slice the onion thin, set aside
In a pot, heat the oil, garlic and meat on medium heat and sear
Take the meat out.
Saute the onion and return the meat to the pot
Add the bouquet garni, wine and water
Turn the heat up to high and cook uncovered for about 10 minutes, scraping the scum
Put the cover on and turn the heat to low
Cook for about 10 minutes
Add the mushrooms
Cook for 30 minutes
Add the thickener and bring everything to a boil
When the sauce thickens, turn the heat off
Garnish dish with parsley and snow peas and serve

NOTES: In Japan, they label meats for what they could be used for, "stew, curry", "katsu". So, if I ever needed to cook this in Hawaii, I probably wouldn't know what cut of meat to buy...
This dish was crazy! I was so close to burning it and us not having anything for dinner.
Not only that but the whole thing turned purplish from the wine...ew! For the bouquet garni, I didn't have any fresh thyme, so I used dried, I put all the aromatics into a tea bag, so I could retrieve it after cooking.
In the end, it tasted okay, the meat was tender and we used up the "junk" wine.
Dunno that I would make this again, though.

teriyaki sandwich

I had told you that Kirk's post, had me craving all things teriyaki.

And even though I had had a teri burger, it still wasn't the "local style", comfort kind of food that I grew up with...

You should know that teri beef sandwiches in our family usually don't happen the day the teriyaki is made (grilled).

Nope, it is the day (or two) after that the sandwiches are made.

The teriyaki is usually cold, right out of the refrig.

I usually toast my bread, I think I'm the only one in my family that does this for sandwiches.

Best Foods mayo is used, and for me, I always put lots of lettuce.

So anyway, since I still had teriyaki on my brain yesterday, I made some...unfortunately grating garlic and ginger (frozen or fresh) or any veggie for that matter almost always results in grating Kat's finger(s)...eep! and ow!

The sauce is super easy to put together and comes from "Popo's Kitchen". It's the recipe my mom used whenever she made teriyaki.

I scribbled this recipe down the last time I was home, so if you have the book, you may want to look at it for more "details"...

Teriyaki Sauce: "Popo's Kitchen"
1/2 cup shoyu (soy sauce)
1/3 cup sugar
ginger
garlic
1/8 cup sake (rice wine)
1 teaspoon sesame oil

NOTES: The shoyu I used is a less-salt type. I also used turbinado sugar (large crystal type brown sugar), 1 clove of garlic and a 2-inch diameter 1/2-inch thick piece of garlic.

I also added some sliced green onion.

Since I only used 200 grams (less than half a pound) of thinly sliced beef, I cut the sauce recipe in half.

In Japanese they call the cut of beef, "momo" which means thigh, but I think we call it "flank" or "shank" in the US.

I marinated the meat for 5 hours and cooked it on a non-stick pan　(medium heat).

Because the meat was so thin, it cooked up in no time.

The sugar in the marinade helps to give the meat a nice char.

For my sandwich, I used a malt-walnut roll, which I split in half and toasted. I also used mayo (Kewpie) and some lettuce.

Since I had this for dinner, I had it with some salad and this Orion beer.

This is their can at the moment. Did you know that in Okinawa, their sakura (cherry blossoms) bloom in late January-early February?!

Anyway, it was my first time trying Orion, and I think it matched nicely with this sandwich.

Talk about messy eats...teriyaki sauce dripping all over the place! at least the meat was super tender and marinated well.

The weather yesterday was crappy, gloomy and rainy, but this sandwich really helped to brighten things up (even though it wasn't eaten a day or two after the teriyaki was made).

the past couple of days

Sorry it's been quiet here.

Satoshi went back to work today, so I'm back blogging...

On the 2nd, we visited MIL, she was in good spirits and was very chatty.

I'm glad we got to have lunch (sushi) with her and spend some time with her.

On the 3rd, the weather was nice so we went to our neighborhood cafe, Hiro, for breakfast.

This is my favorite at the moment at this cafe...egg toast & salad. The bread they use for this is called "English bread". The slice is quite a long rectangle, the outside crisp, the inside is quite soft.

They add egg salad and toast it with a drizzle of mayo. It isn't overly goopy with mayo, just enough.

This was how the skies looked on the 3rd.

While walking home, we got to see a Kawasemi (common kingfisher).

I had often seen posters boasting that they were around near the Minoo river, but never saw one for myself. I'm glad we got a glimpse at one, they are quite teeny! and fast!

That night we had pizza. We bought the crust and I topped it with salami and lots of onion and cheese.

Before baking the pizza, I sauteed the onions and salami...so good!

On the 4th, the weather was cold but tolerable.

For dinner we had lemon chicken using my recipe for lemon sauce.

I used pre-made karaage (fried chicken) and served it on some broccoli, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, carrots & onions sauteed in olive oil.

Yesterday the wind was icy and it was overcast for most of the day.

I wished it would snow or at least have flurries but Mother Nature wasn't listening to me.

For dinner we had beef broccoli.

Can you believe it was the first time I've ever made this?

I found a pretty easy recipe in "Hawaii's Best Local Dishes" by Janet Watanabe Hee.

I steamed my broccoli and set it aside.

And then I marinated my meat in this:
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)
1 tablespoon ginger, crushed
2 tablespoons sherry or whiskey
2 tablespoons flour

NOTES: these measurements for the marinade are for 1 pound of meat and 2 pounds of broccoli and is supposed to serve 4.

I think I either marinated the meat too long (6 hours) or using whiskey was too strong or the amount of marinade was too strong for the amount of meat and broccoli I had because it tasted a bit boozy.

Before I cooked the meat, I sauteed some thinly sliced onion in some sesame oil, then added the meat to cook.

Since the meat was quite thick from the flour I kept adding water to keep things "loose".

Then I added the broccoli at the end just to heat through.

I would make this again but cut back the marinade to half.

So that's what we've been up to the past couple of days, how is your 2014 going so far?

omi gyu

The last item left in our fukubukuro from the mystery tour was the Omi gyu (beef from Omi). About 100 grams each.

I didn't read the instructions that came with the beef, apparently it had been soaked in their homemade sauce...

So, I served it with some sauteed brussels sprouts & dried cherries, garlic mashed potatoes and some mango chutney.

After cooking the beef and sitting down to dinner on Sunday, we realized the beef was teriyaki flavored...

Oh well, it was still delicious, really tender.

tajimaya grill

Luxe Tajimaya, which we visited back in 2009, opened a little counter inside the JR Osaka Ekimarche.

We recently tried their kurogewagyu sushi. Sweet and salty thin pieces of kurogewagyu (black hair Japanese beef), thick omelette, cucumber, a little lettuce.

Delicious.

Tajimaya Grill : UPDATE 12/2013 the shop is no longer here
JR Osaka Ekimarche
Phone: 06.4797.1129
Hours: 10:00-22:00
Take-out only

new recipes

I recently came across a recipe for ginger syrup in the September issue of "Elle a Table".

The first recipe showed how to make the syrup and then in the same section, there were recipes which used the syrup.

Take even parts of ginger and honey.

Cut off any dried out areas of the ginger and throw this part away.

Wash your ginger (with the skin on) and slice thin.

In an air tight glass container (a bottle is good), add the sliced ginger then add the honey, let sit for 20 to 30 minutes, stir once in awhile.

After the 20 to 30 minutes, put into the refridge to keep.

The magazine article says that it will keep for 5 days, but I think it may last a little longer (but not for too much longer).

You would think that this would be used for something "sweet", and there were some recipes that were for sweet dishes, but the one that caught my eye was a savory one.

Beef & Ginger "Shigure-ni" from "Elle a Table September 2011"
Serves 4

300 grams beef komagire (thinly cut scraps), bite sized
1 pack eringi mushroom, cut length-wise into fourths

Sauce:
3 tablespoons sake (rice wine)
3 tablespoons mirin (sweet rice wine)
3 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons ginger syrup
1/4 cup ginger slices from the syrup, cut into bite sized pieces if too large

Put the ingredients for the sauce in a pan at medium heat.
When it starts to simmer, add the beef and eringi.
Cook until the liquid evaporates, about 4 to 5 minutes.
Enjoy with rice or put into a bento.

NOTES: The piece of ginger I used was 80 grams, so I used 80 cc of honey.

I think if the ginger you can get in your area is matured (fibrous & hard, darker yellow in color), you should cut the ginger thin and finely instead of just thin slices.

Komagire is literally translated as scraps, just make sure to get thinly sliced beef (as thin as you can find).

Shigure-ni literally means "simmered drizzle" but it also means something simmered in soy sauce. And because shoga (ginger) is sometimes added, it is sometimes called Shoga-ni.

This took a little longer than 4 to 5 minutes for the liquid to evaporate, more like 10 minutes.

This dish was delicious, be prepared with lots of rice! Also, because it had ginger in it, it was a nice way to warm up on a cool night.

Even though I found this recipe in Autumn, I'm keeping this one for Winter too!

bo luc lac

While I was home (in Hawaii) last year, I read through several issues of "Saveur".

One issue, (April 2009) had an interesting recipe for "Bo Luc Lac" or "Vietnamese shaken beef" by the Slanted Door in San Francisco.

I've never had this, so I thought it would be interesting to make. I "jotted" down the recipe, which you can find online, here.

Bo Luc Lac (Shaken Beef) Slanted Door : Saveur April 2009

• 1 lb. beef tenderloin, trimmed and cut into 1" cubes
•  6 tbsp. canola oil
•  7 tsp. sugar
•  4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
•  Kosher salt, to taste
•  1 bunch watercress, for garnish
•  ¹⁄₄ cup rice vinegar
•  ¹⁄₄ cup soy sauce
•  1 tbsp. fish sauce
•  Juice of 2 limes
•  3 scallions, cut to 1" lengths
•  2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
•  1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
•  1 tbsp. unsalted butter
• Toss the beef with 2 tbsp. oil, 1 tsp. sugar, and 2 tsp. pepper in a large bowl and season with salt. Cover bowl and set aside to let marinate at room temperature for 1 hour, or refrigerate overnight.
• Dress a platter with watercress and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the vinegar, soy sauce, 2 tsp. sugar, and fish sauce to make a vinaigrette; set aside. In a small bowl, make a dipping sauce by whisking together the remaining sugar and pepper with the lime juice; season dipping sauce with salt and set aside.
• Drain beef, pat dry with paper towels, and discard marinade. Working in 2 batches, heat 2 tbsp. oil in a flat-bottomed wok or a 12" nonstick skillet over high heat. When oil begins to smoke, add half of the beef. Cook, flipping once, until well browned and medium rare, 3-4 minutes. Add half of the scallions, garlic, and red onions and cook, stirring constantly, until wilted, 30 seconds. Add half of the vinaigrette and butter; toss to combine. Spoon beef and vegetables over platter of watercress. Serve with lime dipping sauce.
• 
  
• My "jotting" sometimes turns to a shorthand of sorts and in this case, I missed what or where to put the garlic that the recipe listed.

I also couldn't remember how this dish looked in the magazine, so instead turned this into a salad.

Here is what I did.

I marinated the meat like the recipe stated for about 6 hours.

I heated my pan with some oil and cooked the beef on one side for 3 minutes.

When it was time to flip it over, I added the minced garlic and half of the vinaigrette. I also added some chopped green onions.

At the end of the 2nd 3 minutes, I turned off the heat.

For my salad, I washed some green leaf, watercress, cilantro. I also added some carrots and cucumber. I drizzled the vinaigrette over the salad.

As part of the recipe, there is also a lime dipping sauce, I instead drizzled this sauce over the meat after I placed it atop the salad.

NOTES: I didn't know what tenderloin was in Japanese and instead bought a really cheap piece of beef....big mistake, there was lots of gristle and fat. Next time, I will buy a better piece.

Since I bought half a pound of meat, I made half the recipe of the marinade, vinaigrette and sauce.

I didn't have red onion or scallions so left them out.

I loved the flavors, the watercress gives it a spicy bite and the lime dipping sauce brightens everything.

I am not sure how authentic this dish is, but I'm making this again.

Have a great week!

shin-jaga

Even though the weather is kinda wishy-washy, I know Spring is coming because there are shin-jagaimo or shin-jaga (new potatoes) in the markets. This particular variety is called May Queen.

The new potatoes here are tiny, only one or two inches, I think they maybe different from the new potatoes you see in the U.S.

When I first came to Japan, I had a hard time figuring out what types of potatoes there were. In Hawaii, the only types I've seen are red, yukon & russet, none of which are in Japan (to my knowledge anyway).

Anyway, here in Japan, certain types are good for curry and some good for croquettes (I think it depends on the texture of the potato, though I usually rely on the sign at the market to tell me which is good for what).

I bought this from a little yaoya (vegetable/fruit stand). A little less than a pound for only 100 yen (about US$1).

I thought I had posted this recipe before but looked through my archives and didn't see it.

The recipe is easy and delicious.

Shin-jaga to gyuniku no amakarani (Beef and new potatoes simmered in a sweet-salty sauce) adapted from Orange Page's "Haru ni Oishii Kondate": Serves 4

405grams (a little less than a pound) new potatoes, scrubbed, eyes removed
100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) beef, thinly sliced
1 carrot, cut into bite size pieces
2/3 cup dashi (stock)
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)
olive oil (about 2 tablespoons)

Cut potatoes in half, lengthwise
Fry cut-side down on medium in olive oil, tossing around for about 7-8 minutes
Add meat, cook until meat changes color
Add stock, carrot, sugar and shoyu
Cook uncovered until all liquid evaporates, stir once in awhile
Enjoy with rice

NOTES: I loved the sweet and salty combination and it came together quite quickly. Probably the thing that would take the longest is to make your dashi (stock), though I normally cheat and use dashi packets, which look like tea bags and are filled with konbu (kelp), katsuo bushi (bonito) & niboshi (dried small sardines).

If you can find dashi in these packets, I would highly recommend it, this method is fast and you don't have to go out to look for the individual ingredients.

It's Friday, hope you have a nice weekend!

luxe tajimaya

Saturday night, I met Satoshi in Umeda for dinner after his German class.

We had dinner at a wine bar called Luxe Tajimaya. Tajima-gyu is a brand name of beef, similar to Kobe beef.

The restaurant is actually a lounge, so we started out with some wine and some amuse bouche. Amuse bouche, in Japanese is called tsukidashi, this is something that is automatically served and charged for, though no one orders it.

The amuse bouche was a cold corn cream soup and spoonful of homemade beef tongue sausage. This sausage's flavor reminded me of the days when my mom used to make her own salami.

Since we were hungry for dinner and this place was a lounge, we ordered some pupus (appetizers).

Marinated olives. These were delicious. It was marinated in an agrodolce sauce (which I googled to mean sour-sweet in Italian).

We loved the sour yet sweet flavor plus the saltiness from the olives and crunch from the walnuts. I gotta try to re-create this, it was so good!

Bagna Cauda. True bagna cauda is an anchovy olive oil sauce, but this lounge uses dried beef as the base of their sauce.

The flavor reminded me of sukiyaki or nikujaga because it was a little sweet, different but delicious with all the different veggies to dip.

Then came our steak. A 100 grams of Ibaraki beef. I actually saw the chef drop part of the veggies on the floor then put them back onto the hot stone!! (5 second rule..sigh)

The filet steak was cooked medium rare and was so tender and juicy. Talk about melt in your mouth!

We ate it by itself, then with a squeeze of kabosu (a type of lime) and with then with freshly grated wasabi. We were amazed that the freshly grated wasabi was not hot/spicy.

Lastly we had a cheese plate. It came on a 2-tiered tray. There were so many different cheeses that I could only catch mimolette as one of the cheeses.

For the two of us, with 4 glasses of wine and 1 beer and all that food, it came out to just over 10,000 yen (about US$100).

We're not sure if we would go back regularly, maybe for a special occasion.

Luxe Tajimaya
E-ma 5F
1-12-6 Umeda
Kita-ku, Osaka
Phone: 06.6440.0029