gari

Awhile back, I saw someone on IG make gari, the pickled ginger that you often find at conveyor belt sushi or as a side dish in bento

Since most of the brands (that I have seen) that make gari use artificial sweeteners, I wanted to try to make it myself

So I waited until I saw shin shoga (literally new ginger) in the markets 

Shin shoga is usually a little softer/more tender than the ginger you find in the markets throughout the year

I used a slicer to get most of my ginger sliced thin.

The parts of the ginger that were thicker and tougher, I ended up slicing by hand

If you'd like to try this, here is the recipe by Kei Hamamura : translated

300 grams shin shoga

1 tablespoon salt

250 milliliters rice vinegar

100 grams sugar

Wash the ginger then cut off the red tips and with a spoon take off the dark brownish parts

Thinly slice the ginger

Par boil the ginger for about a minute and then drain

Sprinkle the salt over everything

After the ginger cools, squeeze out all the water

In a pot, put the vinegar and sugar and bring to a slight boil until the sugar is melted

Put the squeezed ginger into a clean jar and pour the hot liquid over the ginger

NOTES: this was so easy to do

I ran out of rice vinegar, so I used some rice vinegar and some ume vinegar

I didn’t weigh how much ginger I had, so had leftover pickling liquid

I usually enjoy the sweeter type of gari, this was puckery but I like it

we had this with sashimi

will see if I can find more shin shoga and make some more using the extra pickling liquid

shogayaki (pork ginger)

Here's the recipe I used to make shogayaki (pork ginger).

Adapted from Sirogohan.com Serves: 2

200 grams pork loin
1/4 onion thinly sliced
1/2 clove garlic, grated
1 large nub of ginger, grated
cabbage, julienned
1 teaspoon oil
1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
1/4 teaspoon liquid squeezed from grated ginger
2 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
pepper

With a knife, lightly cut the fat and muscles of the pork
Coat the pork with the liquid squeezed from grated ginger, mirin and sake, set aside for 10 minutes
Mix the garlic, ginger, shoyu, sugar, sesame oil and pepper and set aside.
In a pan, heat the oil and cook the onions and pork.
Add the garlic ginger sauce and cook in the sauce for about 2 minutes.
Serve on julienned cabbage.

NOTES: Of course, I didn't follow the recipe, so my pork turned out a bit "tough". If you lightly cut the fat and muscles, the pork should keep it tender.

I liked the flavor of the sauce...a little sweet-salty.

My sauce was a bit liquidy, so I took the pork and onions out and reduced the sauce a little before serving.

I'm making this again.

chicken ginger gyoza

Super easy minced chicken ginger gyoza that I made the other day.

200 grams minced chicken (thigh)
nub of ginger, peeled and minced
Chinese cabbage, 2 leaves finely chopped
2 teaspoons shoyu
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons honey
20 gyoza wrappers

After mixing everything together, I spooned a teaspoon of the mixture into each of the wrappers.
Cook to your liking.

NOTES: I froze half of the gyoza and we ate the other half in soup.
I actually had chicken mixture leftover, so I froze that too and will use it for the next time we make hot pot, or I'll make meatballs to put into soup.
Super easy and delicious...I'm making these again.

pickled ginger

If you can get your hands on some young ginger, this recipe is super easy and tasty.

As seen on a television program, "The Taikoban":

400 grams ginger
350 cc vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon honey

Clean & slice ginger (chunky) (or thin if you like)
Boil vinegar, salt & honey until honey and salt dissolve
Pour over ginger
Store in airtight jar

NOTES: this isn't too sweet so if you like the sweeter pickled ginger (like the types that are sometimes served with sushi), adjust the amount of honey.

I am glad I tried this recipe and would definitely make this again.

float lemon tea

I think I first heard about this tea from a television program.

Mitsuura Brewery makes several types.

Even one where the lemon is formed into a heart while it is growing, sliced and then dried.

That version is only available by lottery, so I was excited to come across this when we visited Miyajima.

We happened to check out a teeny knick knack shop and the tea caught my eye.

We got the ginger version.

After brewing the tea, place the dried lemon on top of the beverage.

The lemon stays afloat while you enjoy the tea.

The tea, lemon and ginger are all made in Japan.

You can even eat the dried lemon after you finish drinking the tea because it is organic.

Different but delicious.

I'm glad we got to try this and hope to order some other items from their online shop.

carrot ginger miso soup

The past couple of days were kinda gloomy.

One day, it rained all.day.long.

Yesterday it was just cloudy, so I got out and about and went to pick up a few groceries.

As I was walking to the store, I was thinking of soup, but wanted some color too.

I made this soup up...carrot ginger miso soup.

Make some dashi (I used one of those "tea bag" types)

Add some carrots (cook until soft)

Add some ginger (grated)

Then turn off the heat add some miso and whizz with food processor.

This really hit the spot with the color and flavor.

I'm making this again.

We have a 3-day weekend but the weather is supposed to be kinda iffy, hope we get a chance to see some fall foliage.

Hope you have a nice weekend.

brr

Soup weather! the past couple of days our temps have been single digits.

Yesterday it rained all day and it made the temperature go really low...this morning it was 3C (37F)

I've been making soups lately...like this one...

Pumpkin, carrot & ginger...all I do is cook the veggies until soft, add a bouillon cube and then whizz it with the hand blender.

Add a little sage, marjoram, maybe some pepper.

Super, fast and easy! My kind of cooking.

Hope the weather is warmer where you are! Have a nice weekend.

kikkodo

It is amazing what you come upon while walking around.

I recently found this tiny senbei (wafer/cookie) shop called Kikkodo.

Apparently they have been around for more than 100 years! And they do everything by hand. Amazing.

These ginger senbei caught my eye...700 yen for a package of 12. (I counted them, there are more than 12 in the package, more like 18)

Delicious, crispy with a lot of ginger flavor. Perfect with a cup of green tea.

Kikkodo (UPDATE: no longer in business)
4-6-9 Katsuyama
Tennoji, Osaka
Phone: 06.6772.4168

p.s. It's Friday here, I hope you have a great weekend!

konnyaku patties with ginger ankake sauce

Made this for dinner the other night using my food processor.

First I thinly sliced some sweet potato (like half). Tossed it with 1 tablespoon of oil and cooked it in a 220C (425F) oven for 15 minutes.

When it was through cooking, I sprinkled it with some salt and then stuck it under the broiler for 5 minutes.

For the patties, I put a tablespoonful of ginger from the ginger syrup, a 2-inch piece of zucchini, 1/4 onion, 60 grams of konnyaku and 90 grams of beef-pork mince and pulsed it until I got the consistency I wanted (finely minced).

Then I added one egg and mixed it well in a bowl.

In a non-stick pan, I added some oil and spooned out 6 patties. The mixture was quite wet and I think a lot of liquid came out from the konnyaku, but just be patient before flipping the patties over.

I also made a ginger ankake sauce. Ankake is a thick sauce.

For the sauce I combined 2 tablespoons of ginger syrup, 2 tablespoons of shoyu, 3 tablespoons sake (rice wine) and 1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine) in a pot.

I brought the mixture to a slight boil and added a slurry of cornstarch and water.

When the mixture turned clear and the consistency was like runny honey, I took it off the heat.

I added some diced carrots and red bell pepper when I served it.

For veggies, I steamed some broccoli and served it with some leftover sesame dressing.

NOTES: The sweet potato chips weren't all crispy, I think it may be because I didn't coat each one with oil nicely. The patties weren't all konnyaku, but they were delicious with a nice ginger flavor. The sauce would definitely be nice over some rice.

I'll definitely be making this again.

p.s. Have a safe & happy Halloween everyone!

hawaii reconnects

Reconnected with Revolution Teas recently...they were having a sale on these two teas at Safeway.

Been enjoying the Sweet Ginger Peach as an iced tea and will save the Earl Grey Lavender for lattes this Fall.

Have you reconnected with any foods/drinks lately?

words of wisdom

Tried Yogi Tea (Ginger Tea) for the first time.

Love these inspiration tea tags...the ginger tea is also delicious too.

a day of chocolate (s)

Today is Valentine's Day, for those of you who don't know, it's a little different in Japan, which I've written about here.

Here's what I gave Satoshi...

A box of baseball shaped milk chocolates...

Here are some other chocolate items we've enjoyed...this Choco-chofu.

A chocolate mochi covered with a chocolate crepe. Satoshi brought this back from one of his business trips to Okayama.

To enjoy this you need to "nuke" it for several seconds, if you nuke it for too long, it gets too oozy and turns into a blob.

Blobby or not, it was delicious, chocolatey but not too sweet.

Belgian Cafe-Tasse's lait & speculoos, milk chocolate filled with a cinnamon ganache.

Cafe-Tasse's noir & speculoos, dark chocolate (54%) with a cinnamon ganache.

Either one is delicious. The ganache is more like a cream with speculoos (spice cookies) bits in it.

Italian Vestri's Vellutata, 30 grams of creamy chocolate hazelnut goodness.

This was delicious on toasted baguette.

Not sure what "vellutata" means, but it sounds like "velvety".

From my host-sister, an assortment of ice creams by Jean-Paul Hévin. There were 5 different ice creams in the assortment, Satoshi and I ate half of each on separate occasions.

One with vanilla & salted caramel bits, one caramel ice cream, 2 dark chocolate and 1 milk chocolate.

All were rich and delicious. (Thank you!)

Lastly, France's Bernachon's 3rd generation, Phillipe, has a line called "B de Lyon", I tried their Gingembre (ginger) tablette.

Dark chocolate (maybe 65%) with ginger gelatin-like sticks...the chocolate and ginger match perfectly though Satoshi said he would nix the ginger.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

ginger ale

I know I was talking about soup weather but during the daytime it's been kinda summery. Still, you see people wearing boots and mufflers. Which makes me perspire just looking at them.

And I know they are looking at me weird because I am still wearing t-shirts and capri jeans...whatever...

For some reason I've been craving bubbles, but didn't want to buy soda, so I made...homemade ginger ale.

So easy, take a tablespoon of ginger syrup.

Add 200 ml (1 cup) of club soda.

Not as sweet as some of the ginger ales out there, but delish and refreshing!

variation

I wanted to use more of the ginger syrup I had made so I thought it would be good to use in sanshoku gohan.

I've written about sanshoku gohan before here.

I minced up the ginger from the syrup and cut the eringi up smaller too. Then followed the recipe and sauteed minced pork until the liquid evaporated.

Usually for the other parts of the sanshoku gohan, you add seasoning to the egg and veggies, but since the pork was very flavorful, I instead, just wilted some spinach and scrambled some eggs without adding more seasonings.

This was delicious as a bento and perfect for dinner.

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!

trying new recipes

It has been some time since I've made a main dish with fish, so I was thinking of doing some salmon.

Then I found a really old can of halibut in my pantry and decided to make Ellie Krieger's salmon cakes using the canned halibut.

According to my archives it has been awhile since I've made these patties and that time I used a canned of smoked halibut.

This time, the halibut wasn't smoked so I tried the creamy ginger-sesame sauce which is in her "The Food You Crave" cookbook (same page as the salmon cakes).

She says that the sauce "makes a fantastic dip for raw vegetables, especially snow peas."

So, instead of raw, I served steamed asparagus and carrots.

The sauce is really easy to put together, I think the thing that took the longest was draining the liquid from the yogurt for the sauce.

NOTES: The combination of ginger, shoyu & sesame oil matched these patties and veggies perfectly. I think this sauce would be perfect on an Asian-type of salad too, creamy without all the calories. The serving size for the sauce is 1.5 tablespoons but I only used 1 tablespoon. I would definitely make this again.

Since I only made half the recipe of the patties & sauce, I had 6 patties. We ate 4 for dinner and with the other 2, we had halibut sandwiches for breakfast...delicious.

ginger potato soup

I got the idea for this soup when I ate an instant version.

Knorr Japan has a creamy ginger potage which we tried and when I looked at the ingredients, I thought, "I could make this".

The weather is starting to slowly warm up during the daytime, but the nights are still cold, so I wanted to try making this soup before the weather totally warms up.

The potatoes really help thicken up the soup.

Here's the recipe if you'd like to try:
Kat's ginger potato soup :serves about 4

1 tablespoon canola oil
3 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1/4 can of SPAM, chopped
1/3 carrot, chopped
1 nub (about 1/4 inch thick) ginger, chopped small
1.5 cups water
1 consomme cube
1 small bunch of spinach, cleaned and chopped
2 cups skim milk
grinds of pepper, to taste

Saute the onions, spam, carrot and potato in oil until onions are transparent
Add ginger, water and consomme
Cook on high for 15 minutes or until potatoes are soft
Turn heat down to simmer and add spinach and milk
Cook on low for another 3 minutes, just to wilt spinach and heat milk.
Turn off heat.
Add pepper and whizz with immersion blender.
When serving add another couple grinds of pepper.

NOTES: I had some SPAM leftover so I used it in this recipe. If you don't like SPAM, I think bacon would also be nice in this soup. The original soup doesn't have spinach in it, but I had some and wanted to use it.

The original also had some cheese in it, but I didn't put any in it, though if you want a richer soup, adding some cheese or even some cream would be good choices.

Be sure to whizz your soup well, you wouldn't want to bite into ginger. If you want to strain this soup, you could, but I didn't, wanting to eat all the fiber and nutrients. This soup is spicy and will definitely warm you up. This is a keeper for winter.

I'm sending this to Deb for her Souper Sundays, a great array of soups, salads & sammies.

UPDATE: this soup is delicious served cold too, like vichyssoise.

inspired

Recently we had dinner at Pietro, it had been some time since we had been there.

When we lived in Hawaii, we'd always go to Pietro. I asked Satoshi if he'd ever been to Pietro when it was located next to McKinley Car Wash or the one on Kapahulu, guess it was before he lived in Hawaii for him to remember.

Among some other dishes, we ordered the seasonal salad (pictured above). This came with warm veggies and cool lettuce and a very delicious ginger dressing.

I thought the dressing tasted like the sauce I use for pork ginger, so I tried it on some veggies for our dinner the other night.

It came out pretty good, though I think the Pietro version was a little sweeter.

If you'd like to try it for yourself please do...

nub of ginger (about an inch or so), grated
1.5 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons sake (rice wine)
2 tablespoons shoyu (soy sauce)

Put some oil into a heated frying pan and make sure to coat your veggies well with the oil, giving the veggies a nice sear.

After the veggies have a nice sear and are nearly cooked, add a couple of tablespoons of the sauce, let caramelize.

For the two of us, I used 1 eggplant, 1 eringi, 1/2 a carrot & 1/2 a red bell pepper.

We liked this and I'll definitely be making this again for our veggies during the cold months. The ginger in the dressing will also help us warm up.

p.s. the next night when I made this again, I sprinkled some green onions on top of the veggies, delicious!

palau relaxing

One thing we did on Palau was get a massage at the Mandara Spa.

The Mandara Spa is a worldwide chain and Palau has two, each located on the grounds of two different hotel properties.

Check out their website for a spa nearest you. (I also found out that Hawaii has three and Tokyo has one.)

We had the chance to visit the one at the Palau Royal Hotel, where Satoshi tried their free 5 minute massage.

This was also where we were introduced to their ginger tea. A refreshing blend of ginger, black tea and some sugar. (you can kinda see it in the first photo, they give you a small cup and a large pitcher of the tea to sip while you wait for your massage time or just to relax.)

While Satoshi got his 5 minute massage, I browsed and bought a lot of spa products (actually this photo is only a portion of what I bought)--some to give away as omiyage and some for me.

Then, while we stayed at the Palau Pacific Resort, we went to the Elilai Spa which is also run by Mandara Spa.

Their massage rooms are located on a hillside overlooking the ocean.

Satoshi had their Balinese Massage, 50 minutes, a full body massage, US$85 and I got the Fancy Foot work, 50 minutes, a foot massage, US$85.

Talk about "melting"! There were some pressure points in my feet and calves that I never knew even existed. Kind of pricey but totally worth every penny!

Before leaving, I asked one of the massage therapists if she would share the recipe for their ginger tea...here it is...

Mandara Spa's Ginger Tea : makes 1 liter
1 liter boiling water
2 black tea bags
2 tablespoons sugar
6 slices of fresh peeled ginger (each one approximately pinky finger size)

Add sugar and ginger to boiling water and stir until sugar is dissolved.
Add the tea bags and leave to brew.
To extract all the ginger flavor, you will need to steep for 30 to 45 minutes, but you can remove the tea bags as soon as it reaches your desired strength.
Remove ginger slices.
Enjoy hot or chilled.

NOTES: You could use your sweetner of choice and adjust the amount according to your tastes. I made a batch as soon as we got back and used Assam tea to brew, it tasted just like what we had at the spa--the cup I have pictured is 3/4 cup.

The brochure says that ginger "stimulates blood circulation, calms motion and digestive sickness, relieves rheumatic joint pain, staves off fatigue and increases the appetite for healthy foods". I think we will be enjoying this during the cold and warm months.　

Palau Royal Resort (ask for Mandara Spa)
Phone: 680.488.2000

Palau Pacific Resort (ask for Elilai Spa)
Phone: 680.488.2600

For most of the week, the weather was quite windy and cloudy, especially during the early evenings. Since the Palau Royal Resort faced the east we weren't able to see the sunset, and while we stayed at the Palau Pacific Resort (which faced west), only one night was the sunset visible.

This ends my posts on Palau. Hope I didn't bore you and you enjoyed our adventure as much as we did.

"Mechikung" ("Goodbye" in Palau)

p.s. Have a good weekend!

salame del cioccolato di stile giapponese

In 2006, I had this delicious salame di cioccolato, which I had found on a foodie trip to Tokyo.

That same year while reading "La Dolce Vita" by Isabel Coe, I found a recipe for it. This one used butter and sounded similar to the one I had tried. It called for amaretti cookies, hazelnuts, dried fruits, and some mixed nuts. I put it on my list of things to try but never got around to it.

Last month, while reading a Japanese blog, I found a simpler recipe for it. This one only used chocolate and "stuff" for the filling.

Here is the recipe:
120 grams (about 4 ounces) of chocolate
120 grams (about 4 ounces) of nuts, cereal whatever you want to put into your salame.
about 50 grams (about 1.7 ounces ) of powdered sugar, you could also use cocoa powder

I looked around at the gourmet supermarket, but couldn't find amaretti cookies, so I decided I would try making it "Japanesey".

This is what I did.

I bought a package of my favorite chocolate covered kaki no tane to replace the amaretti cookies.

I chopped some candied ginger and some dried apricots.

I also chopped some marshmallows and took a handful of hazelnuts out of the freezer.

For the chocolate, I melted several different dark chocolates, but all about the same percentage of 60%.

After melting the chocolate, you are supposed to pour the chocolate into a plastic bag with the filling and meld things together.

This was really messy. I threw the bag into the freezer for 20 minutes and was able to get most of the chocolate off of the bag.

Then on parchment paper, I turned the chocolate out of the bag and formed it into a log. Then put it back into the freezer for 10 minutes.

The recipe says to roll it in powdered sugar, but I decided not to.

I sliced several pieces off with a serrated knife and had it for my afternoon tea.

Delicious. I can't wait to share this with Satoshi.

p.s. I got the title from Babelfish by inputting "Japanese style chocolate salami" and translating it from English to Italian, is it correct?

Hope you have a good week!