dadacha mame

Dadacha mame are a type of soybeans.

They are grown in the Tsuruoka area of Yamagata prefecture.

Dadacha is apparently an old and casual way of saying "father" in Yamagata dialect...mame is bean.

Apparently this variety is one of the most famous (they may have also been sold them in Osaka, though I've only discovered them this summer).

The membranes around the bean are darker than edamame almost black.

It is cool that we live so close to Tohoku, because we get to taste a lot of different foods from there.

After cooking them, I think they have a more smoky roasted taste than regular edamame...delicious.

My favorite way to cook them is laying them flat into a shallow pan, putting a cup of water, cover it and cooking them on high for 7 minutes.

The beans are still a little firm but it cooks super fast because they are laid out flat on the pan....my kind of cooking these days.

p.s. we have another typhoon approaching, it is supposedly a super typhoon (bigger than the one that hit last week)...it is forecast to hit Shikoku & Kansai tomorrow lunchtime and we will probably get high winds in the afternoon...stay safe everyone.

edamame hummus

Have been waiting for edamame (soy bean) season to come around so that I could try making edamame hummus.

I didn't follow a recipe just whizzed some ingredients together.

Soy beans (cooked and shelled)
bagna cauda sauce
lemon juice
a little water

NOTES:This was super garlicky but so good on corn chips.

I'm making this again.

myogazushi

My student and friend Kazumi loves to cook, so she is always sharing new food ideas and recipes with me at our lessons. At a lesson last week, she gave me some pickled ginger, pickled myoga and a recipe for myogazushi (ginger shoot sushi). She said that her family eats this dish in the summertime because it is so refreshing.

Myoga is a type of ginger and I think it may be the shoots of the ginger. In Hawaii, the only time our family ate myoga was for special occasions. It was served raw and usually accompanied cooked tako(octopus) and a miso (soy bean paste)sauce as a pupu (appetizer).

Since Kazumi gave me all of the pickled items (photo of the pickled myoga), all I had to do was cook the rice and edamame, then assemble the sushi.

Shinshoga no Amazuzuke(Pickled Spring Ginger)
600-800g shinshoga (spring ginger)
150g sugar
20g salt
2 cups vinegar

1. Wash the ginger and wipe dry.
2. In a bottle, put the ginger. Heat the other ingredients and cool.
3. Pour over the ginger and store in the refridge.

Myogazushi (Ginger shoot sushi)
3 cups rice
3 cups water
2 tablespoons sake (rice wine)
60g myoga (ginger shoots)
60g shinshoga amazuzuke (pickled spring ginger)
1/4 cup edamame (soy beans), cooked and shelled
1/2 cup vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
kelp

1. Put the vinegar, sugar & salt together, set aside.
2. After blanching the myoga, place into the mixture in #1.
3. Cut the pickled spring ginger into 2 cm slices
4. 1 hour before cooking the rice, wash it and drain well. Put some konbu (kelp) into 3 cups of water to make "kelp water". *leave the kelp in for about 30 minutes. Add the kelp water to the washed rice and add the sake. Let the rice soak in the kelp water and sake for about 30 minutes. Cook the rice in this water mixture.
5. Take the myoga out from mixture #1 and slice thinly, save this mixture.
6. After the rice is cooked, lay the rice out into a hangiri (bamboo tub) or anything that can spread the rice out flat to cool a bit.
7. Use 80cc of mixture #1 and sprinkle onto the rice while fanning with an uchiwa (hand-held fan) and fluffing the rice with a shamoji (rice paddle).*it helps if you have a helper fan while you fluff, if not, just take turns at fanning and fluffing.
8. After the rice is seasoned, add the sliced ginger and mix well. Top with sliced myoga and edamame.
9. Enjoy!

NOTES: I didn't have konbu, so I used wakame. I think the flavor is similar but not as strong as konbu. This dish was very sappari (a term we use when describing food or action meaning refreshing), the sourness from the pickled items matched nicely with the seasoned rice. I served it with some grilled salmon and veggies. (Thanks Kazumi!)

Have a nice week!

trying to beat the heat (part 2)

So now that summer is here, and it is WAY to humid for my likings here in Japan, I've been in a salad kind of mode and looking for nice, refreshing ways to dress them up.

Here's a recipe I found today while reading Gourmet Magazine's April 2006 edition.

Lemon Oregano Vinaigrette : Adapted from The Signature Room at the 95th, in Chicago. Makes about half a cup

1/2 garlic clove
1.5 teaspoons finely grated fresh lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar
1.5 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1.5 teaspoons mild honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)
2 tablespoons canola oil
1.5 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano

Blend all ingredients except oregano in a blender until combined well. Transfer to a bowl and stir in oregano, then season with salt and pepper.

Notes: if you are using a small food processor, like I did, make sure to slice up the garlic clove before pulsing or you will have a mess in your kitchen (because the garlic moved the blade up and leaked some dressing)--like I did. Also, I used 5 Tablespoons of EVOO, since I didn't have canola oil. And I used about a 1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano.

This dressing was really good! Lemony, not too garlicky really refreshing. Definitely worth making again!

Another food that is popular in Japan, especially during the summer, is edamame (soy beans). I like it because it is really easy to prepare, and I don't have to stand near the stove as it cooks. In Japan, they come packaged--still in their pods, and sometimes they are even still attached to the plant!
Get a saute pan with a lid, or any shallow pan with a cover will do.
Snip the bean pods (where it was attached to the plant), I think this is to allow for even cooking and seasoning.
Rinse them.
Lay them as flat as possible into the pan.
Add a cup of water and cook for about 7 minutes on high heat. (You can add some salt before turning on the heat, or after cooking, whichever you prefer.) After the 7 minutes check to see that most of the pods have opened a bit, if not, you can cook for a minute or two more, take them off the heat and run under cold water.
Sprinkle with some kosher salt and enjoy!

Notes: try to make this ahead so that you can chill them in the refrig before eating!

Gaban, a spice maker in Japan teamed up with House Foods, a company which makes curry rues and other "quick food" items and came up with a black peppered potato chip. The chip is a "fake" potato chip (formed into a chip shape like Pringles), but the taste is great--nice and peppery! They also have a chili pepper version, in a red container, for you thrill-seekers!

Today, my student, Tomomi, brought me some onions which her parents got from some of their friends. They are huge! Will definitely be roasting some of these in the next couple of days. (Thank you!)

Here's another bead stitch project which I just finished. I still need to get it graded by the teacher. The 3 similar rings are the actual project. The "Louis Vuitton" marked ring was an extra project. Boy, those seed beads are tiny!

Hope you are keeping cool where you are and enjoying the weekend!