odds & ends

Yesterday's dinner was ikuradon (salmon roe bowl). The salmon roe is soaked in shoyu (soy sauce) and mirin (sweet rice wine) for at least a day (I took the easy route and bought the roe pre-soaked). Put some rice into a bowl, chiffonade some o-ba/shiso (perilla), then place the roe on top. Serve with wasabi (Japanese horseradish).

Today was my first time to use puff pastry! It is quite expensive here. 4 sheets for about $5. The market I go to has different items on sale throughout the week. I found out that Saturdays is 50% off all frozen items...which means...puff pastry!!

Awhile back, I picked up a supermarket recipe flyer which gave a recipe to make pumpkin turnovers. (In Japan, puff pastry is called pie sheet. And turnovers are called pie.) Instead of the pumpkin filling, I decided to put my favorite filling: apple and blueberries. (Earlier in the week, I had bought some Australian blueberries.) I made the filling, then took out the puff pastry. I was surprised because every sheet is separated with a non-stick paper (is that normal?)

Anyway, I took one out and thawed it for 10 minutes. I was doing fine until it came time to put the filling into the pastry dough. I guess I didn't roll it out thin enough, or maybe I had too much filling. It was kinda messy when I baked it, because I couldn't really seal it up (probably because I didn't roll it out enough?) and the bottom came out soggy because of all the liquid that came out. Still the aroma was heavenly and it tasted delicious!

Another surprising thing was how big Stargazer lilies bloom. I got these with some other flowers for helping at Satoshi's university baseball event. Bloomed, they are about 8 inches in diameter and are very fragrant.

It's been rainy and cold the past couple of days, hopefully it will clear up tomorrow.

moderation, moderation

According to an article I read on Delicious Days, the cinnamon in Lebkuchen can damage your liver, so you should watch the amount you eat at each sitting.

When I was growing up, my mom would always limit my brother and my treats to "2"--two cookies or two pieces of candy. Of course, now that we live apart, I have no one to "police" the amount I eat--that is both good and bad.

Anything in excess is usually a bad thing...moderation, moderation...sigh.

Have a nice weekend!

okara "potato" salad

Part of tonight's dinner, a "potato" salad made with okara (soy bean curd lees). I found this recipe on the okara package and changed it here and there. It is really easy to make.

Okara "Potato" Salad :serves 4

120g okara
1/2 cucumber, sliced thinly
1/2 a carrot, sliced thinly
1/2 teaspoon salt
pepper
A few slices of ham, cubed
1 tablespoon plain yogurt--no sugar added
1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1. Put the cucumber and carrot in a bowl and sprinkle salt on to it. Let sit for about 3 minutes to draw the liquid out 

2. Take veggies, rinse and squeeze out as much of the water as possible.

3. Add ham, okara, salt, pepper

4. Add yogurt and mayo. Mix well.

Enjoy!

NOTES: You can use whatever veggies you usually put into your regular potato salad (if you use frozen peas and carrots, just omit the salting (Step 1)). This recipe is good because okara has no distinct flavor of its own so it actually tastes like there are potatoes in the salad, even if there aren't! Oh, and if you make it the night before, you can come home from work and just heat up your main dish....Dinner is served!

I also wanted to share with you something that occurs during autumn--A lot of people dry their kaki (persimmons). I've often seen them hanging off their lanais, but this was the first time I got to actually try some. My student, Kazumi, gave me some yesterday, her friend's mom dried them. Apparently, they had so many kaki, that her friend's mom was peeling kaki almost everyday!

It was interesting to see up close, they use nylon type rope and stick the stem of the kaki through the rope to "string" them up. The kaki is sweet and reminds me of dried apricots. Just be careful of the pits, they are quite hard!

lebkuchen

With Christmas only 19 days away(gulp...19!), I was flipping through one of my baking cookbooks to figure out what to make. I also wanted to try the recipe at least once before actually making a lot of them. I came across a cookie called Lebkuchen. Looking at the ingredients, it seemed like a type of gingerbread. After reading Wikipedia's definition, I found out that it is a type of gingerbread.

Here is the recipe from "the Essential Baking Cookbook": makes 35 cookies

2 1/3 cups (290g/10oz) plain flour
1/2 cup (60g/2 oz) corn flour
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
100g (3 1/2 oz) unsalted butter, cubed
3/4 cup (260g/8 oz) golden syrup
2 tablespoons milk
150g (5 oz) white chocolate melts
1/4 teaspoon mixed spice, extra

1. Preheat the oven to moderate 180C(350F/Gas4). Line two baking trays with baking paper.

2. Sift the flours, cocoa, and spices into a large bowl and make a well in the centre.

3. Place the butter, golden syrup and milk in a small saucepan, and stir over low heat until the butter has melted and the mixture is smooth. Removed from the heat and add to the dry ingredients. Using a knife, mix with a cutting motion until the mixture comes together in small beads. Gather together with your hands and turn out onto a sheet of baking paper.

4. Roll the dough out to 7mm (3/8 inch) thick. Cut into heart shapes using a 6 cm (2 1/2 inch) biscuit cutter. Place on the trays and bake for 25 minutes of until lightly browned. Leave on the trays to cool slightly, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Place the chocolate in a small heatproof bowl. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil, then removed from the heat. Sit the bowl over the pan, making sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate has melted.

6. Dip one half of each biscuit into the chocolate and place on a sheet of baking paper until the chocolate has set. Sprinkle with mixed spice. These biscuits can be stored in an airtight container for up to five days.

NOTES: I forgot to add the cocoa and need to get the thickness right--I think some were too thick. Since I couldn't find golden syrup, I used molasses, which I found out is called kuromitsu in Japanese. Also, I didn't dip them in white chocolate because if you've been reading this blog for awhile, you'll know that I'm not a fan of it. Still, they were surprisingly easy to make and the smell of these cookies baking were very Christmas-y and tasted really good!

never....

Note to self: NEVER, do more than two kitchen related tasks at the same time, especially in the teeny kitchen that you have...

I was baking bread while making dinner tonight...talk about praying to the kitchen remodeling gods to give me a bigger kitchen or at least a larger counter!

Anyway, here is the bread I made, flax seed rolls--hot out of the oven they were light and fluffy!

And dinner, my revenge attempt at okara hamburger patties. These came out really well this time. I realized the last time, that I had forgot to put in milk and put in too much okara.

So, here is the revised recipe: Okara Hamburger Patties Serves 2

150g minced pork or beef
100g okara (soy bean curd lees)
1/2 onion, minced
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
salt & pepper to taste
1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 tablespoon salad oil
1.5 tablespoons margarine
50 ml kombu dashi (kelp stock)

Sauce:
50 ml chuno sauce (a mixture of tonkatsu & worcestershire sauces)
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
1 teaspoon sugar

1. Mince onion and put into bowl with meat and okara.
2. Add egg and milk, mix with hands.
3. Add salt and pepper.
4. Then add mirin and oil and mix well with hands.
5. Form into patties
6. Add margarine to heated pan and cook patties until golden brown.
7. Flip over and add stock to steam patties.
8. Add in sauce mixture and heat sauce with patties.
9. Enjoy!

NOTES: I don't buy margarine, so I used olive oil instead. Also, I used ground beef. I also used tonkatsu sauce (pork cutlet sauce) instead of chuno sauce (mixture of tonkatsu and worcestershire), if you can't find chuno or tonkatsu, use worcestershire. To top the patties I put some daikon oroshi (grated radish) with some chopped green onions.

I served them with some namasu (thinly sliced vegetables soaked in vinegar). The recipe is here.

NOTES: This time, I also added sliced cucumber and chopped wakame (a thin seaweed)

Hope your week is going well.

dashimaki tamago

Well, the weather has turned wintry overnight. I think the temperature dropped 5 degrees yesterday. The blustery winds didn't help either...Brr.

I had some dashi (stock) left over from my okara (soy bean curd lees) "creations", which I posted about here and here, so to use up some of it, I made dashimaki tamago (a type of rolled omlette).

Here's my recipe:
1 ladleful of dashi (stock)-can be either katsuo (bonito) or kombu (kelp) or combination of both
1 teaspoon of shoyu (soy sauce)
1 teaspoon of mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
2 eggs

1. Put all ingredients into a bowl and beat with fork or chopsticks
2. Heat special egg pan, when ready, add 1/3 of egg to the pan
3. Rolling the egg from the rounded end of the pan (pink arrow on photo), in the direction of the other end of the pan (green arrow)
4. Move completed roll back to the rounded end of the pan and pour a little more of the egg mixture into the pan.
5. Re-roll the omlette.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all of egg mixture is gone.

NOTE: If you add sugar to the mixture, the egg mixture will brown quickly, so you'll have to keep an eye on it.

I didn't add sugar to the omlette today, instead I added chopped green onions. You can also add iwanori (a soft type of seaweed) or shirasuboshi(Kanto name)/chirimenjakko(Kansai name) (dried young anchovies (Eastern Japan)/(Western Japan)).

Also, I grated daikon (long white radish) and put it on top of the omlette.

Before eating, I poured a little shoyu (soy sauce on top). It went well with rakkyo (pickled shallots), ume (pickled plum), iwanori (soft seaweed) and rice.

A note about the rolling technique: I think you are actually supposed to be able to roll the omlette along with just a pair of chopsticks, but since my chopstick skills are a bit lacking, I usually use a spatula in one hand and a pair of cooking chopsticks in the other to guide it along.

Hope you have a great week!

world aids day

Today is World AIDS Day. If you don't know about AIDS, you should learn about it, here. Let's do our part to stop this disease.