yakishisomaki

Been wanting to recreate this ever since coming across this at the market

I see them in the markets frequently so I've never tried the recipe I had bookmarked 

Yakishisomaki is a dish found in Tohoku, they eat it as pupu (appetizer), have it with Japanese tea, add it to their bento.

Each family has their own recipe so there are different ones all around the internet.

I made up this based on different recipes for the ingredients I had and for the amount I wanted to make.

Please adjust the recipe to your dietary needs and if you want to make more than the amount I made.

If you do use white miso, you might need to adjust the sugar since I feel white miso tends to be a little sweeter than other types.

Kat’s yakishisomaki : makes 2 skewers

6 shiso leaves, washed, dried, stems cut off

5 grams nuts, weighed then chopped medium fine

10 grams miso

7 grams sugar, I used brown

shichimi (seven spice mixture)

2 toothpicks

1 tablespoon of oil

Mix the miso with the sugar then add the nuts and shichimi

It will come to a thick paste

Portion the mixture into 6

Face the dull side of the leaf upward and put the point of the leaf pointing towards you

Put the miso mixture near the point then roll the point tightly upwards 

Skewer the roll with the toothpick

Repeat until you have 3 rolls on 1 toothpick

Heat the oil in a pan on medium and fry for about 30 seconds on each side

Drain on a paper towel

Enjoy!

NOTES: this was delicious and easy to make

Tohoku produces walnuts, so that is the nut that I used, but you can use whatever nuts you have on hand.

If you are allergic to nuts, you may want to use ground sesame seeds instead.

Also, if you want to freeze them, fry them first then put them into the freezer.

I’m not sure if there is a symbolic reason why 3 rolls are on a 1 skewer other than it just might be easier to fry many rolls at once.

I'll make this again.

hiyajiru

Hiyajiru (literally cold soup) is something eaten during summer when your appetite is supposedly not too great.

Luckily, I've never had a problem with my appetite during summer or any time of the year for that matter (ahem!)...

Anyway, I think we were watching a television show and it mentioned this dish, which Satoshi then requested me to make. 

Many prefectures in Japan have their own version and many families have their own versions too.

This summer, the heat has been pretty brutal.

Over the past week or so, sadly, many people, mostly elderly have died due to heatstroke because they were sleeping without their a/c.

In the past, I would set the a/c timer to turn off in the middle of the night, but this year we have had the a/c on all day and night...

The other night, I tried making hiyajiru.

Adapted from the internet : makes 2 servings

200 grams kinudofu (soft type tofu)

300 milliliters liquid dashi

2 teaspoons miso

1 cucumber, thinly sliced

1 can of tuna (75 grams)

1 myoga, thinly sliced

5 leaves shiso, chiffonade

2 okra, sliced thin

1/4 teaspoon ground sesame seeds

Break up the tofu into a bowl, add the veggies

Dissolve the miso into the dashi, pour over the veggies & tofu

Enjoy! with rice, somen or your favorite starch.

NOTES: super easy, tasty and definitely no cooking.

There are some recipes that ask you to heat the miso in the toaster or over an open flame to deepen the miso flavor, but I didn't do that.

You could probably use whatever veggies you have on hand since it is like cold miso soup.

Hope you have a safe weekend!

kabu

Found some nice sized kabu (turnips) at the market.

I used a little more than half of one for our dinner the other night.

I sauteed some pork belly and diced potato in olive oil.

Added 300 milliliters of dashi, 3/4 of the kabu (thinly sliced) and cooked for about 5 minutes.

Turned off the heat then I added 50 grams of kim chee and 2 teaspoons of miso.

Dinner was served.

It is definitely soup season.

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.

andasu

Have been wanting to make andasu (abura miso) for some time now.

In Okinawan, "anda" means oil or fat and "su" is miso.

It shouldn't be confused with nikumiso which is also made with pork and miso.

Nikumiso tends to have more "stuff" in it like onions, garlic and other goodies.

The recipe I found online was so easy and delicious.

Andasu (abura miso) : translated from "Okinawa's Cooking Book
100 grams pork belly
100 grams miso (soy bean paste)
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon sake (rice wine) or awamori (Okinawan sake)
1/2 to 1 tablespoons mirin (sweet rice wine)
ginger, grated (optional)*

Cover pork belly with water and simmer for at least 30 minutes or until tender
Let cool and mince
In a pan, put the minced pork in and on low heat heat up the pork
When the oil starts to come out of the pork fat, add the miso and mix the two together
Add the sugar, sake and mirin.
Cook everything thoroughly without burning.
*if you add ginger, add it a little at a time to taste

NOTES: I made this on a rainy day while making rafute, so I used most of the pork belly for rafute and used enough pork belly to make half of this recipe.

Instead of Japanese sake, I used awamori. I didn't add the ginger and made a mistake with the amount of mirin (adding too much).

This was really good on rice.

This was good in musubi also.

I'm making this again.

tomato onion miso soup

These tomatoes were super ripe, not mushy and only 300 yen for the 3!

I used most of these for a miso soup.

Make your dashi (stock).

Dashi (stock) from "Tanita Shokudo" makes about 900 mililiters
1000 mililiters of water
10 grams of dried konbu
10 grams of katsuobushi (bonito flakes)

Bring the water and konbu up to just before boiling.
Remove konbu, turn off heat and add the katsuobushi.
Strain liquid through a paper towel.

NOTES: this stock will last for about a week. Super easy and delicious.

For miso soup: adapted from "Tanita Shokudo": serves 2
300 mililiters of dashi
2 teaspoons miso (soy bean paste)
1/4 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1/2 tomato, diced

In a pot on medium heat, cook your onions in the dashi.
Add the miso.

In a bowl add your diced tomato, then pour over the soup, a little different from the usual Japanese miso soup, but really tasty.

By the way, this was the soup I served with the nasu kabayaki donburi.

NOTES: most people throw out the used katsuobushi and konbu after making dashi, though I have read that some make furikake out of it, I haven't tried this myself, but want to soon.

soup weather

Wednesday, it rained all.day.long.

Perfect soup weather.

I made a batch of Kim chee chige (minus the pork), using up what veggies I had in my refridge (a little kabocha, carrot, kinoko (shimeji & maitake)).

I think it may have been a bit too salty for Satoshi but it really hit the spot.

Is it soup weather where you are?

miso-ae

One of my mom's friends gave us some eggplant recently, so my mom suggested that we make miso-ae with it.

Miso-ae (mee-so-ah-ay) "ae" means to "coat it" in a miso sauce.

After washing and slicing the eggplant, I sauteed it in a non-stick pan, added a little water and covered it until it was tender.

Next time though, I will peel the eggplant because the skins were tough and bitter.

With the okra we received from another of my mom's friends, I used half of the miso-ae sauce on some okra and red bell pepper.

After washing and slicing the okra and red bell pepper, I also cooked this in a non-stick pan until it was tender.

Okra's slimy/sticky quality (especially when heated) is believed to help fight off heat exhaustion in Japan, which I've written about here.

Here's the recipe I used for the miso-ae sauce: makes about 1 cup
adapted from "The Legacy of the Japanese in Hawaii: Cuisine" by HJCC (Hawaii Japanese Cultural Center)

3 tablespoons mayonnaise
2.5 tablespoons miso (soy bean paste)
1.5 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons ground toasted sesame seeds

Combine and pour over cooled veggies.

NOTES: I really liked the okra version. I think this would be good with other types of veggies, maybe even as a dipping sauce for vegetable sticks.

I'm making this again.

yum

I mentioned that the first meal I made for 2012, was grilled wagyu with a miso dip, well, I remembered another blogger used the dip for shrimp and had to try it too.

With the leftover dip, I added some water until it had the consistency of a marinade then put in 10 cleaned, butterflied shrimp in and left it in the marinade for about 2 hours.

I cooked them on a non-stick pan, just watch how hot your pan is, with the sugar in the marinade, you may burn your shrimp if you aren't careful.

I served this with some kinpira and leftover kamameshi.

Love the versatility of this dip, we've had it with grilled steak, with pork, veggie sticks and now shrimp...yum!

nikumiso ra-yu

This recently caught my eye at the supermarket.

Nikumiso ra-yu. Nikumiso is made by combining pork with miso and other condiments. I've seen it used in musubi or eaten as is.

This particular product is combined with ra-yu (chili oil).

It is similar to gu-iri ra-yu, but with some pork in there.

The weather is still a bit too cold for hiyayakko (cold tofu), but this is delicious.

dinner

Thursday night's dinner...started off with making "furikake", a topping for rice.

This was daikon greens and jakko (dried small anchovy).

In a frying pan, heat about 1/2 tablespoon of sesame oil.

Add a handful of jakko and toss, then add chopped daikon greens and toss.

At the end I added a little dash of shoyu (soy sauce).

NOTES: I only had about 2 handful of chopped daikon greens and a handful of jakko, if you use more of either, I would suggest adjusting the shoyu and sesame oil.

For our main dish, daikon wrapped with pork.

This recipe was in Orange Page's "Fuyu ni Oishii kondate", which I adapted.

Serves: 2

200 grams of pork belly, thinly sliced
1 inch thick piece of daikon, cut into thin sticks

Sauce:
nub of ginger, grated
1/2 tablespoon roasted sesame seeds
1/2 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
1/2 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
2 teaspoons mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 teaspoon sesame oil

green onion, chopped
some canola oil to cook in

Put sauce together and set aside.
Wrap daikon pieces with pork.
Heat canola oil and cook pork pieces well.
Add sauce and let liquid evaporate a little.
Before serving top with green onions.

Top your rice with the daikon furikake, about 1 tablespoon.

Serve with some miso soup.

Dinner is served, a lot of green and a good way to use all of the daikon.

NOTES: the recipe for the main dish actually called for pork loin, but of course I didn't read the recipe well and when I went to the market I just got something that was thin.

I think if I had actually bought pork loin, the wrapping of the daikon wouldn't have been so thick. I should have also cut the daikon more thin and matchstick-like, so that it could cook faster.

I think this would be nice with other veggies inside also like carrot and/or green beans.

This was rather quick and easy. Would definitely make this again.

p.s. another adaptation can be found here.

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!

eating the rainbow

Lately for our dinners we've been trying to eat more of the "rainbow". Here is a dish that I made trying to re-create something we had at a chinese restaurant. The original dish had chicken, onion and eggplant, but I nixed the meat and made it with only veggies. My sauce was a little more savory than what we ate, but Satoshi liked this. If you'd like to try it, here are the portions for the sauce, use your favorite veggies. To give you an idea of just how much veggies I used, I'll list them up. 1 small eggplant 1/2 zucchini 1/2 carrot 1/4 white onion 1/2 red bell pepper Miso Stir-fry sauce : for 2 2 tablespoons miso 1 teaspoon sugar 1 tablespoon mirin 1 tablespoon sake 1/2 teaspoon tobanjan (chili paste) Combine well, so that the miso is dissolved into sauce. After sauteeing the veggies of your choice in some sesame oil, add the sauce. Serve with rice. Here are a couple more dishes we've been eating as part of the "rainbow". Nicoise style salad. Potato, beans, some grains (wheatberry & pearl barley), some marinated olives (unfortunately not Nicoise) and an anchovy vinaigrette with dill. A variation on the fragrant chickpea salad that I usually make. This time around I didn't have flat leaf parsley and added a can of corn. The weather here has been rainy, sometimes cool, sometimes humid. The weather guys have not announced the rainy season starting for Kansai yet (I think) but I believe it has.

miso dip

When we went to Kobe last Wednesday, I popped into Fine, a shop by Cerfeuil to see their jams and to see what was new.

I noticed some savory types and checked my cookbook written by them.

Inside the book they had a recipe for a miso dip with sesame seeds and garlic.

The recipe calls for you to fry the garlic, but since I was afraid I would burn the garlic thus getting bitter garlic, I instead roasted it. (425°F/220°C for 40 minutes with some olive oil)

It came out really good and reminded us of houba miso, which we've had in Takayama (pre-blog) and abura miso, which we've had in Okinawa.

A little sweet, a little salty, a little kick from the roasted garlic and nuttiness from the sesame seeds.

We had this with steak but I think it would also be nice with veggie sticks.

Great with beer.

Here is my adaptation of the recipe...makes about 1/2 a cup

40 grams awase miso*
1.5 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon sake (rice wine)
1/2 teaspoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
10 grams garlic, roasted (about a clove and a half), then minced
2.5 grams black sesame seeds
1 teaspoon sesame oil
green onions, chopped (amount to your liking)

*Awase miso is a mixture of miso made with beans and miso made from rice. Different makers combine the two in various ratios. I made my own in a 1:1 ratio. If you can't get the two types just use what you have on hand. Depending on how sweet your miso is, you may have to adjust the amount of sugar. Or if you don't want the dip to be too sweet and more on the salty side, you can cut back the sugar.

Mix everything well. Let chill.

Enjoy!

NOTES: The recipe didn't include this but I also added some chopped green onions for a spicy crunch.

The cookbook says that it would be nice mixed with some vinegar as a sauce for yakiniku (grilled meat), but we think it may not match.

It also said it would be nice in a musubi...so that is what I did and you know what? It was.

I had some leftover steak, so I cut it up into smaller pieces and heated it up with some green onions and a half teaspoon of the miso dip.

Put it into the musubi and lunch was served.

The book only talks about the dip matching with beef but I'm pretty sure this would work with pork and chicken too.

In fact, I sauteed some thinly sliced pork with onions in some sesame seed oil then added the miso (about a teaspoon), a scrambled egg and green onions.

Poured over rice, it was a great buta don (pork bowl).

We love it and I'm making this dip again.

soup weather

And here I thought that Spring was coming...not!

The other day the weather here took a 180 degree turn and went back towards winter.

In Tokyo, they even had snow! (those guys are so lucky, though they may not think so...)

It has been rainy, blustery and actually quite dreary weather.

Satoshi has been working late. Since he comes home at midnight or later, feeding him dinner can be a challenge.

I want to feed him well, but at that time of night, he really shouldn't be eating so much.

So, I usually end up giving him a bowl of soup or having him drink a glass of milk (if it is really late!) then feed him for breakfast what I would've fed him for dinner.

Here are two types of soups we've been having.

A miso soup with potato, onion & kabocha. My MIL made a miso soup for us once with just potato and onion in it. I cooked the veggies for about 10 minutes then added the miso.

Usually when you make miso soup, you need to make dashi (stock) first. I cheat and use a miso that already has dashi (stock) in it.

And since I had some kim chee in my refrige that needed using, I made a kim chee chige with kabocha, eringi mushrooms, carrots and gobo (burdock). Again, I cooked the veggies for about 10 minutes and then added the kim chee & miso.

Both were perfect for these chilly nights.

p.s. Thank you for all the wonderful comments the other day, the winner for the giveaway per random number generator is Jalna, who has a great photo blog, by the way.

Please email me your address so that I can try to get the box of "stuff" out to you a.s.a.p. Hope you aren't allergic to anything I've put in there. Thanks for participating everyone!

UPDATE to see what was inside the box, click here.

so...

So, the night before my physical, I had to fast, but before I did, this good sized boneless pork chop which we received from my MIL, was my dinner. (She gave us 5 pieces...Thank you!)

The label where she bought it from says it was marinated in shoyu, sugar, peanut butter, garlic, and miso. She said it was a "misozuke" but the taste reminded me more of pork ginger (though there was no ginger in it).

While cooking the chops, I added some sliced onion, red bell pepper & eringi mushroom.

I also made some kinpira gobo.

It was delicious, the pork was really tender and juicy.

The physical took half an hour and were the normal procedures. (And it surprised me at how fast they were, I didn't even get a chance to start reading the book I brought with me.)

Pee test, blood test, height and weight measured as well as around the stomach area for metabolic syndrome.

Some things kinda made me wonder about this hospital...For one, to take my blood pressure they used a digital machine, I thought it was kinda weird to rely on a machine instead of using the stethascope and manual blood pressure taker.

The scale was also digital, not the type that is connected to the thing that measures your height. And the part that almost made me laugh out loud was when the doctor pulled out a regular sized flashlight to check my eyes.

Since they don't have a mammography machine, they did an ultrasound of the area, thank goodness that gel was warmed!

As for the Ob-gyn stuff, they didn't have a department in the hospital so they drove me to and from a local clinic.

"That exam" took all of 5 minutes and was similar to what I wrote about here...eew!

So, it will take about 3 weeks to get back results, hopefully they will be good. Thanks for all your good vibes and words of support!

After my physical, I was really starving, and since it was closer to lunchtime, I bought myself this Texas burger which is being sold for a limited time at McD's...bacon, BBQ sauce, fried onions, the patty, as well as a mustard relish and cheese...big like Texas, don't you think?

This burger was delicious, though I wish the bacon was crispier. (Why is Japan so afraid to make bacon crispier?)

They also have a Hawaiian burger coming out in February/March...I know what you might be thinking, but no, there is no pineapple (I hate when restaurants think they can make foods "Hawaiian" by putting pineapple on them), instead, McD decided to try to make a loco moco in a bun, hope they are using brown gravy and not teriyaki sauce...

Hope your week is going well!

damasareta

Usually I buy "brand name" veggies...corn, potatoes from Hokkaido, red bell peppers from Kochi prefecture, onions from Awaji Island, fuji apples from Aomori.

I usually stay clear of onions from Hyogo (too much bite) and soy beans from Osaka (no flavor).

So, when I saw these corn from Nagano prefecture, I was kinda leery.

The corn was only 78 yen (about US$.78) an ear, thinking I could steam it and halve it between Satoshi, I bought one for dinner...wrong.

The nice side was the side exposed...but after peeling it...my fears were confirmed...I was damasareta (fooled/tricked/psyched).

I looked at the unexposed side and saw this...a whole section all dried up! (from the tip to almost half way of the ear!)

To take it back to the store would have been the right thing to do, but to go back out into the heat and humidity was a pain.

So, I ad-libbed on one of my favorite summer recipes...this one.

I added eggplant, okra, and some tofu in place of the green beans and minced pork. I also excluded the garlic since I was too lazy to defrost some.

Had I known about the corn earlier, instead of finding out just before cooking, I would have had some time to drain the tofu of its water.

So, the dish came out a little more soupy than usual, but it was still spicy and still tasted great over rice.

Will I buy corn from Nagano prefecture again? Probably not.

simple is delicious

Daiei had a great sale the other day. Almost all their veggies were 99 yen each! Sweet potatoes, eringi mushrooms, nasubi (eggplant), green beans...99 yen a package (about US$.99). Oh and gobo (burdock root) too. (There was more things on sale, but these were the veggies I bought.)

One of the benefits of having a hot, non-typhoon summer is that the veggies/fruit are plentiful...I'm so thankful that they are passing the lower prices down to the consumer, and not trying to be greedy to make a buck.

Friday was raining all day, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees. The guys from the window shop came to fix the window in the afternoon. Within 30 minutes (or less) they had changed the glass...zip...zap with their power tools...speedy! (Thank you!)

As it got closer to dinner time, I didn't feel much like cooking, but wanted something comforting, so I did something simple.

Did you know I only have one big pot? Everytime I cook something, I have to think of what order things need to be done. For example, if I make pasta, I need to boil the pasta before making the sauce, or I won't have a pot to boil the pasta in if I made the sauce first. Maybe a little troublesome, but I don't really have all that much space for a lot of pots or pans.

Anyway, I steamed the green beans first. Then I whittled some gobo, sliced a nasubi, cut up eringi and chopped some sweet potato. Threw everything except the green beans into the pot with some water, brought it to a boil and when everything was soft, I added several teaspoons of miso (soy bean paste).

The miso that I use has dashi (stock) blended in with it. Saves a step of having to make your own dashi before making miso soup.

Since I still had some green onion on the veranda, I cut some up to garnish.

This soup really hit the spot!

I also made a salad with the green beans and some leftover shredded carrots, heated up some leftover rice and topped it with a big umeboshi (pickled plum).

Simple is delicious.

UPDATE: I've sent this soup to join Deb's Souper Sundays. Check out her blog on Sunday for the full round-up.

easy dinner

I have a cookbook that gives variations of their recipes. Last year, I tried their recipe for Celery dressed with kim chee which was paired with a yakiniku bowl topped with oroshi daikon (grated daikon).

The other day, I made the same salad but with a miso flavored yakiniku bowl.

Serves 2 : from Orange Page "Natsu ni Oishi kondate"

200g sirloin, thinly sliced
150g kabocha (pumpkin) : about 1/8 of a kabocha
1 teaspoon butter
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
400g rice

Sauce:
1 teaspoon sesame seed
1/2 tablespoon grated garlic
1/2 tablespoon grated ginger
1/2 tablespoon miso (preferably akamiso (red miso))
1/2 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/2 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon tobanjan (chili paste)
1/4 teaspoon oyster sauce

Cut kabocha to about 5mm thin slices.
Cut meat into bite sized pieces.
Put ingredients for sauce into a bowl and mix well.

Heat pan and put in butter, "fry" kabocha until a toothpick goes through smoothly.
Take kabocha out and put in sesame oil.

Cook meat in oil, when it turns color, add the sauce.
After all the meat is coated well with the sauce, put rice into bowls, add meat and kabocha.

Serve with kim chee celery salad.

Enjoy.

p.s. there is another miso recipe that I love during the summer because it uses fresh corn.

dinners & breakfast

As you'll probably notice I've been hooked on "the carrot salad"--it is so simple to make and I love the refreshing flavor...

Friday's dinner was gyo-burg (gyoza burgers) with carrot salad and steamed green beans with a lemon oregano vinaigrette, rice and kurumi tsukudani.

Saturday's breakfast was egg salad sandwiches made with Best Foods mayo which I got from Nate (HwnPakeOkinawa). Growing up with Best Foods, there really is no other mayo. (Thanks Nate!) We also had carrot salad and steamed green beans, plus white peach.

Sunday's dinner buta kimchee (pork with kimchee) omlette, more carrot salad, the last of the kurumi tsukudani and rice.

Last night's dinner minced pork with corn in a miso butter sauce over rice with carrot salad.

This recipe comes from a cookbook I have called "Natsu ni oishii kondate" by Orange Page.
Serves 2
1/2 tablespoon oil
1 clove garlic
150g minced pork
1 corn on the cob
100g green beans

400g cooked rice

Sauce:
1 teaspoon tobanjan (chili paste)
1/2 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons miso (soy bean paste)
2 tablespoons mirin (sweet rice wine)
2 tablespoons sake (rice wine)
2 tablespoons water

ground white sesame seeds
1 tablespoon butter

Preparation:
cut the kernels off of the cob and rinse.
cut the beans into 1 cm pieces, rinse.

1. Heat the oil on low and add the garlic
2. When you can smell the garlic, add the pork, turn heat up to high and stir
3. When the pork has turned color, add the corn and beans and stir
4. Coat everything with the oil and add the sauce ingredients.
5. Turn heat down to medium and coat everything in the sauce.
6. When everything starts to turn thick add the butter to finish.
7. Serve over rice and top with a sprinkle of sesame seeds.

NOTES: You could use canned corn, but I'm not too sure on the portions. When you add the sauce ingredients, make sure that the miso is completely "melted" and the sauce is smooth. I didn't have white sesame seeds, so I used black ones. Also, if you are watching your calories you could probably omit the butter at the end.

Enjoy!