bambucha

Boy, have we been lucky receiving so many bambucha (huge) veggies this year...

If you missed out the previous posts, check out this, this, this, and or this post.

We received this bambucha matsutake from Mayumi-san yesterday.

If you know about matsutake it is one of the most expensive mushrooms. One this size must've cost a lot.

Mayumi-san said she received two from her DIL, so she was sharing one with me.

It was earthy and with a squeeze of sudachi (type of lime), dusting of the zest from the sudachi and a little sprinkle of salt...it was a nice way to welcome autumn.

Thank you!

kashiwa-meshi

When I was learning Japanese, we learned the word for "chicken" to be "toriniku" ("tory-knee-coo"--literally bird meat).

Then while living here, I realized that it had a different name, "kashiwa". (I think even my Grandma used to call chicken, "kashiwa")

I had thought that most of Kyushu and the southern parts of Honshu called chicken, "kashiwa", but apparently, there are parts of Northern Honshu that call chicken, "kashiwa" too.

Anyway, since I had gobo and some leftover dashi in my fridge, I made some kashiwa-meshi for dinner last night.

I've made this once before and thought I posted about it, but couldn't find it on my blog...

Kashiwa-meshi adapted from "Bento no hon by Yorino Masami" makes 4 servings--more or less depending on your servings.

2 cups rice, washed
2 cups dashi (cold brewed stock)

150 grams chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
gobo (burdock root) 1 piece about 12 inches long, cleaned and whittled or peeled with peeler, soak in water after whittling/peeling for a couple of minutes
maitake (1 package), torn apart with hands

1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons mirin
1 tablespoon sake
2 tablespoons shoyu

Cook rice with dashi in rice cooker.
In a frying pan, heat sesame oil
Drain water from gobo
Add chicken and gobo, sauteeing in the oil
Add the maitake
Add the sugar, mirin, sake and shoyu, stir fry everything for about 5 minutes
When the rice is finished cooking, add the chicken mixture to the rice and mix gently without smooshing the rice.
Serve and enjoy!

NOTES: a bit tedious to make, but delicious. Plus, you can just add a salad like I did.
I actually made half the recipe of the rice (1 cup rice, 1 cup dashi) and the full recipe of the chicken mixture and am thinking to put the other half of the chicken mixture into oyakodon...

marinated sanma salad

After having that delicious salad at Echi Ponte Vecchio, I really wanted to re-create it.

Here's what I did:
1 potato, peeled & boiled
1 can sanma (pacific saury) in water, drained
1/2 package maitake (hen of the woods)
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dried dill
some grinds of pepper
baby leaf mix

Peel and boil your potato until soft, then slice into sticks.
Marinate your mushrooms and sanma in the vinegar, oil, dill & pepper.
Wash your baby leaf mix and drain well.
When you are ready to serve, top the greens with the potato and sanma mushroom mix.

NOTES: The vinaigrette wasn't exactly the same, but the combination was just as tasty. I think just the fish and mushrooms marinated might make a nice pupu (appetizer)...I'm making this again.

marinated mushrooms

It's kinoko (mushroom) season here, so there are many different types in the market these days.

I found this super easy recipe in one of my Mom's cookbooks, "Moosewood Daily Special".
Serves 4

1.5 cups sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon minced fresh tarragon or dill
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash of ground black pepper

Combine everything, coat well and let sit for 15 minutes before chilling.

NOTES: I used maitake (hen of the woods). I also used all olive oil. I didn't have cider vinegar so I used white wine vinegar. I also used 1/2 teaspoon of dried dill. I omitted the salt and put in several grinds of black pepper.

This was so easy, I'm definitely making this again.

white

I recently came across white maitake at the market.

I don't think it tastes any different from maitake and I'm glad we got to try this.

assorted mushrooms "bulgogi" style

I've been trying to make meatless meals for us during the week. Satoshi usually comes home late (after 9), so he really shouldn't be eating anything too heavy.

I was kinda craving bulgogi the other day, but decided to try it with some konnyaku (jellied devil's tongue) and assorted kinoko (mushrooms) instead.

I used the yannyomu (sauce) recipe for bulgogi but cut it in half.

Then, I stir-fried maitake, eringi, shimeji mushrooms, some konnyaku, a little onion & some red bell pepper.

And then I spooned over some of the sauce (about 2 tablespoons) and coated everything well, letting it caramelize a little.

The results, a little light in flavor, maybe I would used tofu instead so that it would soak up some of the sauce.

Overall though, I really liked this.

NOTES: I served this with some lettuce and some kim chee, sprinkling some pine nuts.

To use up the rest of the sauce, I sauteed maitake, eringi, shimeji & some konnyaku in the sauce from the beginning. The results were a little better (more flavor) than the first time.

maitake gohan

It is finally starting to feel like Autumn.

The daytime temps are still in the upper 20s (C) (upper 70s (F)), but the early mornings and evenings there is a little nip.

This recipe is so easy, I know I'll be making it often.

Adapted from Makuuchi Hideo's "Soshoku no susume-Autumn"
1/2 a package of maitake, cleaned & torn with hands
1 cup rice, washed
1 cup water (to cook rice)
1/2 tablespoon shoyu
1/2 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)

Put wet ingredients (rice, condiments) into rice cooker, mix.
Add mushrooms and cook.
Enjoy!

NOTES: not the most aesthetic, but so delicious. I'll probably switch out maitake and use whatever mushrooms I can get. You could easily double this recipe too.

shrooms!

I was kinda thrilled to find these mushrooms at the market the other day.

They are cultivated in Japan and I am eagerly waiting to see portabellos in the near future.

With these and some eringi, I made a mushroom sauce, sauteeing the shrooms in some olive oil then drizzling some tonkatsu sauce. At the end I added a nub of butter.

I served this over a hamburger patty and a side of sweet potato mash for dinner the other night.

With the leftover hamburger patties and mushroom sauce, I made "loco moco" for breakfast the other day.

No gravy but this version was pretty delicious.

millefeuille

You won't find many nabe (hot pot) dishes on this blog for three reasons...on weekdays, most times Satoshi and I eat at different times. On weekends, we mostly eat out. And I don't have a proper donabe (doe-nah-bay = deep ceramic pot).

After seeing a similar dish on television, I was itching to try this, but not wanting to go out and buy a donabe, so I made do with what I had...a 10-inch non-stick pan with a cover.

Millefeuille means a thousand leaves in French and is usually found as a dessert with layers of puff pastry and custard cream.

This recipe is a savory version.

Kat's Pork Kim chee MilleFeuille Style "Nabe"

300 grams pork belly, thinly sliced
100 grams kim chee
1/4 hakusai (chinese cabbage)
1 pack maitake (hen of woods mushroom), broken up into pieces
1 pack eringi (oyster mushroom), sliced thinly
1 chicken consomme cube
1.5 cups water

Cut the core of the cabbage and wash each leaf, leaving it as much intact as possible
If the base of the rib of the leaf looks thick, use a peeler and shave off some of it
Also, if the leaf is too wide, cut it to a 3-inch width

Layer cabbage and pork, then slice to about 3-inch squares.
Arrange the layers into your pan or deep pot
Add maitake, eringi and kim chee into the gaps.

On low heat, add part of the water and cover.
Cook for 10 minutes then add the consomme cube.
Add more of the water then cover and cook for another 10 minutes.

Check to see that the rib of the cabbage is at least a little cooked through, it doesn't have to be limp.

And as long as the soup comes up to near the top of your layers, the pork should be cooked through after the 20 minutes.

NOTES: this was so good! If I had a deeper pot or larger frying pan, this would have been easier to cook.

I know this blog has a lot of pork and kim chee combination recipes but the two go so well together.

The last picture is of what was leftover in a 4-cup Ziploc container, by the way, Satoshi had 4 servings and 2 bowls of rice.

I'm making this again.

It's Friday here, hope you have a good weekend!

eating "local"

Last Monday, after my dentist appointment, I went into Hanshin department store to pick up something for lunch.

I also needed some celery so I went to their produce area. Now, I don't usually shop for produce at the department stores because they tend to be on the pricey side.

Surprisingly, they were having a sale and everything was rather reasonable and an even bigger bonus was that the items on sale were grown in Japan.

I found a bunch of celery for 298 yen (about US$2.98). Usually when I buy celery, they have 1 stalk packaged and it is usually 158 yen (about US$1.58)...so I was excited to pick up 3 stalks for the 298 yen.

The zucchini was of good size too and were 2 for 298 yen (about US$2.98). Usually when I buy zucchini, they are scrawny and cost 298 yen for 1.

Lastly, the asparagus were unbelievably cheap also...189 yen (about US$1.89) for 11 stalks. Usually they only have 3 woody local stalks for ranging between 158 yen and 198 yen (about US$1.58-$1.98).

When I went to pay for them, the cashier said to me, "how shall I cut it?", pointing to the celery. I told, "just cut it in half." She immediately pulled out a produce knife and cut it in half, this actually surprised me.

The good/bad thing about shopping at the department store was that they wrapped everything in this brown paper, though I guess it was better than a plastic bag.

I've already used some of the celery and one of the zucchini for 3 bean salad and vegetable soup.

And I've used the asparagus with some eringi and shimeji mushrooms for a stir-fry with a little butter and tarragon. We've also eaten the leftovers for breakfast with a sunny-side up egg on top and toast.

I also tried Ellie Krieger's "Grilled Zucchini Roll-ups with Herbs and Cheese". This was delicious, only problem I had was getting the zucchini slices thin.

Though we aren't truly eating local, we are eating more items from Japan. Have you been eating local and/or more items from your country?

using more kinoko

Recently on La Fuji Mama, she posted about a creamy pasta that is a favorite in their household.

This reminded me that I hadn't made this recipe in awhile. I also had bought some Italian parsley that I wanted to use up.

Since kinoko (mushrooms) are in season here, I decided to adjust the recipe to accommodate some kinoko.

I lessened the amount of pancetta and added a package of shimeji (tricoloma) & a package of maitake (hen of woods).

We had the pasta with some carrot salad topped with marinated onions.

It was a great Sunday dinner.

kinoko

So far, every Thursday, Daiei has been having awesome sales on veggies. Almost everything was 99 yen (about US$.99).

I found a recipe in The French Market, that uses mushrooms or kinoko as they are called here.

This recipe was really easy and fast.

Adapted from "The French Market" : serves 2

2 pats of salted butter
1 tablespoon EVOO
1 package each of mushrooms (shimeji(tricoloma), maitake (hen of woods) & eringi), cleaned and separated
half a handful of dried, sliced garlic
5 tablespoons cooking sake (rice wine)
1 tablespoon milk
several grinds of fresh pepper
2 slices campagne bread, toasted
chopped italian parsley

Heat the butter and EVOO on medium heat.
Add the mushrooms and coat everything well.
After about 5 minutes, add the garlic, the sake and milk
Add pepper.
Bring the heat up to high, cook and stir until the liquid evaporates.
While waiting for the liquid to evaporate, toast your bread.
Serve directly on toast or in plates with toast on the side.
Garnish with parsley.

NOTES: This recipe calls for dry white wine, heavy cream, chives and brioche, but I wasn't planning to buy these specially for this recipe, so I subbed sake, milk & parsley and campagne. It was delicious with the bread coming straight out of the toaster.

kinoko and kaki

It is mushroom season here. The supermarkets are filled with all sorts of different kinoko (mushrooms).

Satoshi had to work on Saturday, so I made dinner. I used to meet him in Umeda for dinner, but his job doesn't always end on time, and sometimes I would have to wait until 8:00 pm or 9:00 pm, so instead of waiting around for him to finish, I started making dinner so that I can eat when I was hungry.

Saturday's dinner was beer clams...except that I used white wine and added some maitake (hen of woods) mushrooms. I served them on toasted french bread. (The best part was dipping the toasted bread into the sauce...)

I also made some carrot cucumber salad and marinated some red onion and red bell pepper in the mustard seed vinaigrette.

Monday's dinner was adapted from the French Market.

Pork with eringi and porcini mushrooms (Serves 2)
213 grams (7.5 ounces) thinly sliced pork
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 eringi mushrooms, thinly sliced
handful of dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted, saving some of the mushroom "juice" (strained)
pinch of dried garlic slices
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
salt & pepper to taste
flat leaf parsley

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and cook the thinly slice pork.
In another pan, heat the other tablespoon of oil and add the mushrooms.
Cook the mushrooms for about 4 minutes then add the vinegar and garlic.
Add the mushroom mixture to the pork after the pork is no longer pink.
Simmer for about 5 minutes.
Season with salt and pepper.
Garnish with flat leaf.

Serve on toasted french bread (again dipping the bread in the sauce was the best!).

Simple and delicious.

It is also kaki (persimmon) season here. Recently my MIL gave us 3 bambucha (huge) kaki...each was about 300 grams (about 10 ounces).

Actually, I've never purchased kaki in the supermarkets because I didn't really like them. I think I've had persimmon in the past that was not ripe and really hard.

But after eating them over the past couple of days, they sort of reminded me of ripened papaya. I'll try picking some up the next time I'm in the supermarket.

We've started the weekend early here, be back to tell you about it soon.

satsumaimo no gnocchi kinoko sauce

It is Autumn, though most of the days don't feel like it yet, the evenings and early mornings do. In Japan, there are many veggies in season right now, mainly satsumaimo (sweet potato) and kinoko (mushrooms). There are all types of mushrooms in the stores. The ones I have here are shimeji (on the left--tricoloma/tricholome) and maitake (on the right--hen of woods/grifola frondosa).

I found a recipe that showcases these ingredients of Autumn....Satsumaimo no gnocchi kinoko sauce (Sweet potato gnocchi with mushroom sauce).

The recipe doesn't take many ingredients, just making the gnocchi will take some time.

First steam your potatoes, the ones I steamed came out bright yellow.

Then you need to urakosu (strain) them. This part takes the longest.

Here's the recipe adapted from a local newspaper.

Serves 4 (about 50 gnocchi)

Gnocchi:
300g satsumaimo (sweet potato)
1 small egg
65g flour
35g grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Kinoko sauce:
15g butter
100g diced onion
50g bacon, thinly sliced
100g assorted mushrooms
100cc cream (about 1/2 cup)
20g grated parmesan cheese
parsley
salt to taste

1. Steam sweet potato (about 30 minutes). Peel while still hot. Strain to get sweet potato smooth.
2. Add the rest of the gnocchi ingredients to the sweet potato and mix well. Make into little balls and use the back of a fork to make ridges.
3. Boil some water and add 1 tablespoon of salt. Cook gnocchi for about 4-5 minutes.
4. In a pan, put the onion, bacon and butter and cook until onions and bacon are slightly brown. Lower heat then add the mushrooms. When the mushrooms start to wilt, add the cream and bring to a bubble.
5. Put gnocchi into plate and top with sauce, cheese and parsley.
6. Enjoy!

NOTES: the hardest part of this recipe was straining the potatoes, but it was totally worth it, all the fibers that are in the potato will be taken out when you are straining it and the result is smooth gnocchi. It was my first time making gnocchi, plus, I didn't read the recipe fully and ended up with larger and lesser gnocchi than the 50. When you put the gnocchi into the boiling water it will sink to the bottom, but after a couple of minutes it will come up to the top. Use a slotted spoon or net like spoon to scoop them out of the water. After the gnocchi came out of the water, I started the sauce. I didn't have bacon but had pancetta so I used that instead.

Not something to make during a busy weekday, but if you make it ahead of time, I think you could probably re-heat it during the week. I think this sauce would go nicely with regular pastas too.

I hope you will try some of the Autumn ingredients where you are. Enjoy the season.

trying to beat the humidity and rain

The weather here hasn't been too nice. It has been raining for the past couple of days, in Kyushu (southern Japan) they have been having major flooding. We have been having some rain and humidity too which makes going to get groceries not too fun, kind of depressing and non-motivating if you ask me.

I wanted to share with you some things I have been eating. Goya Champuru--I've posted about this before. We started eating this after our first visit to Okinawa about 4 years ago.

Hot and Sour Soup or Suanratan--I got the recipe from a book I have called "Tenyu"--it is relatively easy to make. It didn't taste exactly as I imagined it would, I think I may have to try making it again some time.

2 kinds of chilled tofu-this dish is perfect for warm days. A block of momen tofu (hard type soy bean curd) plus tamago tofu (savory soft egg custard), a little shoyu (soy sauce), the konbu (kelp) stock that the egg custard comes with and lots of okra on top.

Mushroom risotto made from dried mushrooms that Bourgogne sent me. (Thank you!)

Lastly, a cool dessert made by Seikanin. This one is called Kiraboshi (shining star). We had this on Tanabata. A clear ume (plum) flavored gelatin with yokan (jellied sweet bean paste)stars and sasa (bamboo leaf).

I hope your week is going well and you are keeping cool/dry where you are.