Tag: Japanese food

Omurice – オムライス

I am lucky to work with one of my students on the development of a system that proposes variations to things someone do depending on preferences… for developing such a system we decided to chose a concrete example, and the first idea that came to our mind was a system that could help you in making new recipes by trying adding popular ingredients. And to do a first real life experiment we needed something easy enough to prepare and with many possible variations. We picked omurice. The whole time we were meeting and discussing it reminded me how much I live omurice, and how little I cook it.

I also remembered that a long long time ago I promised to post the recipe of this popular wa-yo 和洋 recipe. But for some reason it seems I never did… so let’s fix this right now!!!

First of all let’s talk wa-yo food a bit. While Japan opened to the west for many things in the 19th century, it had continually had this very specific way of not copying but adapting to its own taste or resources the cultural elements of another civilization, such that in the end it creates a genuine Japanese part of culture. Food has many examples: curry-rice, castella, dorayaki, and omurice. It seems to be born in a cafe in Ginza in the early 20th century.

The first time I heard about omurice was when reading one of Murakami Ryu‘s novel: “coin lockers babies”. The translation and the way it was presented was that of a rice omelette. In my mind I imagined a batter of eggs with cooked rice in it, cooked in a frypan. How far from the truth I was!!! Omurice is a simple preparation for sure but with many variations. Each place that serves om-rice has its own recipe. It consists in three parts: the rice, the omelette and the sauce.

The rice: usually plain white rice, but can be also sautéed with green peas (my favorite) and small bit of pork… tomato sauce or tomato ketchup can also be added to the rice to give it a nice pink color. Mushrooms, chicken are also other options.

The omelette: it can be a rather straightforward omelette, or a more runny one, or something like very runny scrambled eggs. Usually plain. It is nice to have it a bit runny in any case as it mixes well with the rice.

The sauce: that’s where most of the creativity is, and often too much for me. One popular sauce in fancy om-rice recipe is the demiglass sauce デミグラスソース, made from red wine, beef consommé etc… but my ultimate favorite is just a splash of tomato ketchup. The simplest the better.

This time, I made omurice with brown rice and that was super delicious. A runny omelette on one side with 2eggs, a splash of tomato ketchup, and a side of blanched komatsuna.

Burdock – 牛蒡

With the fall, burdock 牛蒡 gobou is back in season. This long root that looks like a salsifis but is firm and ressembles in texture artichokes, and a bit in taste too… is a classic flavor in Japanese cuisine. Probably because of a rather country style strong flavor and its fibrous texture, it often appears in simple recipes with other strongly flavored ingredients: chilly pepper in kinpira for example, or in very small quantities. Given that a burdock root is quite big, and one can keep for rather long, it is a very handy vegetable!!!

I love to cook it in different preparations. Creamy soup is one of my favorite but it takes quite some time and requires a blender. Last night I came up with a simple recipe that mixes daigaku imo recipe inspiration with gobou in a light version. I’ll talk about daigaku imo later… The recipe with burdock is really simple and super tasty. It is perfect with a bowl of rice or whatever you like.

Burdock & sweet potato (2 servings)

  • 1/2 burdock
  • 1 sweet potato not too big (fits in the palm)
  • 2tbs of sesame seeds
  • 1tbs of sesame oil
  • 2tbs of soya sauce
  • 1tsp of sugar

Wash and peel the burdock. With a peeler make kind of gobou flakes. Boil in water until it softens. About 15min probably. Drain. Wash the sweet potato and cut in sticks not too big.

In a pan greased with the sesame oil, start cooking the sweet potato. Add the burdock drained. Stir well. When the sweet potato changes to darker yellow or golden, add the sugar the soya sauce, and the sesame seeds, stir well again. Cook another 2 minutes while stirring. And serve. Eat warm or chilled.

Negimiso – ネギ味噌

There are plenty ways of eating miso in Japanese cuisine: miso soup of course but not only! I have quite a lot of miso remaining from the past years I made some and in 2-3 months the miso I made last year will be ready, so it is time to start emptying a few pots.

One thing I like very much is grilled miso, either on onigiri or on vegetables. Turnips and daikon are great for that, and the season is now starting. So when I bought a cute purple daikon at the farmers market, I decided it would be eaten with miso. Normally it would have been plain miso but I happened to have bought also leeks, and it reminded me that there is a nice recipe called negimiso ネギ味噌 of miso with leek, and I decided to make some. Negimiso can be eaten as a dip, or as I did here, to be grilled with rice or vegetables. It is really delicious and easy to prepare. Here is my recipe. You may find others with more ingredients, but this one fit my liking: no uncooked sake, and no mirin.

Negimiso

  • 1/2 leek
  • 2tbs of miso
  • 1tsp of sesame oil or flavorless vegetal oil
  • 1tsp of sugar
  • Optional: a bit of katsuobushi

Cut thinly the leek and cook it at low heat in a pan with the oil until soft bug not golden. In a bowl mix the miso, the sugar and the katsuobushi. Add the leek. Stir well. It’s ready!!!

Now to use like me, you need a piece of daikon and dashi of your choice. Peel the daikon and cut 2-3cm slices. Boil them in dashi until soft. Drain and pat dry, spread negimiso on top and grill until the top starts to become golden brown. Enjoy! Alternatively replace the boiled daikon by plain onigiri.

A twisted “nimono” recipe

I love nimono, that is not new… I learned how to make them right with Japanese cookbooks and when I was going to cha-kaiseki classes, but for some reasons, I often wrongly thought that it takes time to make a nimono dish, and so not cook some as often as I should. But as my cooking evolves with time and changes subtly every month, every year, nimono has been more and more often on the menu. Enough often for me to test twisted versions of nimono, using different ingredients for flavouring and always managing to get it right. I also understood clearly that it can be really quick to make depending on the ingredients chosen. One ingredient that goes really well with nimono is green bell peppers. They fit perfectly the recipe and also are a good match with any white fish. And for white fish, we are lucky, in Ohara it is easy to find delicious local fresh ones: snappers of all sorts, sea bass, flounder…
As I don’t often cook with sake, I recently replaced the sake in the classic recipe by my ume-dashi pickled soya sauce. It adds a bit of sourness and a delicious flavour and when in season I love to add a few slices of lime, or of green yuzu, or any other green citrus fruit. So here is my twisted nimono recipe for a simple Japanese preparation that everyone can make!

Twisted nimono recipe (for 2 servings)

  • a nice piece of fresh white fish
  • 4~6 green bell peppers depending on size (red, yellow, orange can work as well but not as good…)
  • 1/2 lime or 1 green yuzu…
  • 2tbs of soya sauce, better ume pickled in soya sauce
  • 1tsp of cooking oil
  • 1/2 cup of water

Wash and cut in rough pieces the bell peppers. Cut the citrus fruit in large pieces. Clean the fish and cut in large byte size. In a wok or pan, heat the cooking oil, add the fish and wait until half cooked, add the bell peppers. stir gently. Add the soya sauce, the water and the citrus fruit. Cook at medium-high heat until the liquid starts to reduce significantly and thicken a bit. Stop here the cooking and serve not too hot, with some white rice ideally.

Tonkatsu!!! No, hirekatsu!

What the heck!!!

Tonkatsu is the famous, and usually most beloved by foreigners, Japanese fried pork cutlet. It is a fatty part of pork, further rolled in panko and deep fried. It’s heavy, fatty and honestly the rice and the shredded cabbage on the side cannot help pumping the fat!!! We never eat it. But there exist slightly better version of it: hirekatsu – ヒレカツ (filet katsu…). Instead of the fatty cutlet it is the most meager part of pork: filet. That makes thing more bearable and not without reminding me the veal escalope my grandmother was making. My father and A. are big fans of it and I would usually (before it closed) buy hirekatsu at Genji in Isumi, and we would have it altogether. So about once a year or so!! Another option would be Saboten, a chain store in Tokyo that prepares on the spot a variety of fried meat and fish and croquettes.

With the travel ban, my parents didn’t come in March and so A. didn’t have had much a chance to eat hirekatsu in the past year… so the now that it is rainy and chilly, I could venture in making some richer food, and just had a nice piece of pork filet from Isumi. All set!! Of course I don’t deep fry, so it is a panfried version, but it works as well… and here is my recipe, but really you don’t need one for making this!!!

Pan fried hirekatsu

  • A piece of pork filet
  • 1 egg
  • Panko
  • Frying oil

Cut the pork filet in 5mm~1cm slices (count 4 slices per person). Break the egg in a bowl and make and egg batter. Set the panko in a plate. Heat sufficient oil in a fry pan at high heat. Dip one pork slice in the egg batter the in the panko until fully covered and fry in the pan. Continue until all done. Turn the piece on all side until golden. There’s really nothing special about that preparation in fact!!!

Serve with some shredded cabbage for Japanese style, or anything else if you prefer: I served with steamed carrots.

Koyadofu – 高野豆腐

There is more than one ingredient in Japanese cuisine that is intriguing, konyaku, fu and koyadofu are some of them. So let’s talk about koyadofu this time…

Koyadofu 高野豆腐 or freeze-dried tofu is a product that has been used in temple vegan cuisine and for traveling warriors for about 500 years. It is a way to preserve tofu for long times in a compact way, and very rich nutritionally. Indeed koyadofu is packed with proteins and fat. It’s a kind of space food in a sense, or one of its ancestors. To be honest, at first koyadofu doesn’t look like an attractive food: it is truly like a very thin sponge, and usually served soaked after simmering or in some kind of bouillon. For those that find tofu insipid, and I know many may think so, they should probably pass on Koyadofu because taste is even thiner and lighter. However, when well prepared it is a very nice ingredient to use and it adds an interesting texture to dishes. Most recipes of koyadofu will be found in buddhist and macrobiotic cookbooks. I find my inspiration from my two favorite of the kind: “good food from a Japanese temple” and “玄米と野菜のワンプレートごはん”. And the recipe I present today is inspired by both, it’s a curry with seasonal vegetables koyadofu served with brown rice. It is really simple and delicious.

Koyadofu curry-rice (serves 2)

  • 1 cup of brown rice, cooked
  • 6 blocks (2cmx2cm) of koyadofu or one large
  • seasonal vegetables of your choice: carrot, potatoes, butternut squash, tomatoes
  • a handful of peanuts (it’s a seasonal and local product in Isumi, so I used fresh ones simply boiled)
  • 1tsp of curry powder
  • 1tsp of ground coriander
  • 1tsp of ground turmeric
  • 1tsp of cumin seeds (carvi seeds or anis seeds can work…)
  • 1 pinch of ground red pepper
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 1tsp of cooking oil of your choice

Koyadofu always needs to be returned to a moist status. So put the blocks in tepid water for 5min, then drain by squeezing gently, and rinse/squeeze under running water until the water turns clear. It’s basically like washing a sponge… now it’s ready to use.

Peel, wash, cut the vegetables. In large pan or wok greased with cooking oil, toss the vegetables in order of cooking time. And stir once in a while. Add the koyadofu. Stir. Then cover with water, add all the spices, and the peanuts. Cook at low heat until the liquid is almost gone, by then the vegetables should be just cooked. You don’t want to overcook them, to keep an interesting mix of texture. You can serve with the brown rice and enjoy!!!

Have a good day!

Japanese simplicity

Who said that cooking Japanese cuisine was complex???

I have the simplest and most delicious recipe of miso soup for you today and an ultra easy ochazuke recipe. Of course both require basic Japanese ingredients: dashi, and miso for the first one, and Japanese rice, dashi and umeboshi for the second one. Indeed now is the time rice harvesting in Isumi is just finished new rice of this year harvest is now available. Delicious brown rice, slowly cooked to be just perfectly soft goes perfectly well in ochazuke recipes I find, almost better than plain white rice.

For the dashi of both recipes you can choose from katsuobushi, ichiban dashi, konbu dashi or shiitake dashi. Personally I love ichiban dashi. Ichiban dashi 一番だし is a basic in Japanese cuisine and particularly in cha-kaiseki 茶懐石, so I mostly make ichiban dashi, so let’s start with its recipe.

Ichiban dashi – 一番だし

  • 1L of water
  • 15g of katsuobushi blakes (not too thin)
  • 15g of konbu

In a pan set 1cm of water, add the konbu and bring to a boil at low heat for 10min. Add the bonito and the rest of the water. Keep boiling at low heat for 5 minutes. Let rest and filter. Your ichiban dashi is ready, you can use it as a base for soup, cooking vegetables, fish, tofu, rice etc…

With the dashi made, we can then move to the other recipes. First the eggplant miso soup. Then below the ochazuke.

Eggplant miso soup (for two servings)

  • 2 little Japanese eggplants
  • 1 tbs of miso
  • 600ml of dashi
  • a bit of neutral frying oil

Wash and cut the eggplants (see top picture fir cut). In a frypan greased with the frying oil, cook the eggplants until just golden and soft, serve then evenly in two large miso soup bowls.

Heat your dashi if it was prepared ahead, or use the one you just prepared. Top the eggplants with the dashi. Set half a tbs of miso in each and stir gently. That’s it!!!

Simple ochazuke (2 servings)

  • 1 cup of Japanese brown rice or white rice cooked
  • 400ml of dashi
  • 2 pickled plums
  • 1 bundle of komatsuna or other green (water spinach, spinach…)

Serve the rice in a large bowl. Heat the dashi. In the meantime wash the green vegetable, cut in 5cm long and blanche. Drain well.

Top the rice with the vegetables, then serve the dashi, add the pickled plum. That’s it!

Have a good day!!!

Edamame and eggplant

Whether on weekdays, when we have little time to have lunch or on the weekends when we are busy with surfing/bodyboarding, playing tennis or gardening, having a good lunch easily ready is important. Moreover, if that can be prepared in advance it is even better! Fresh pasta have been quite a good candidate as they can be accommodated easily, be eaten warm or cold… and since it it is the end of the summer we want to continue enjoying the summer vegetables a little longer, in particular, enjoy the last edamame of the season. I know that we will have eggplants and tomatoes for quite a few weeks or even months but they add a real summer touch to a dish. So I came up with a recipe of edamame pasta with eggplant that is all creamy and divine and I couldn’t wait sharing that recipe with you, as if you want to try you’ll have to hurry!

Edamame, fava beans, and similar are a good match with eggplants and are traditionally used together in Japanese cuisine. I revisited this classic combination in a more western style.

Edamame and eggplant creamy pasta (2 servings)

  • a handful of edamame
  • 2 eggplants
  • fresh pasta
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • grated Parmigiano (optional)

Boil the edamame, grill the eggplants to be able to peel them. Once the edamame have cooled down peel them completely and in a mortar puree them. Add a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Peel the eggplant and add to the mix and pure roughly. Boil the fresh pasta, once drained add the mix, stir well ad serve. Add grated Parmigiano if you like.

Yes! that’s it! Isn’t that simple? And you’ll see it is truly delicious!

Super easy pickles

In the summer it is nice to enjoy refreshing pickled vegetables. After many attempts of different methods to make pickles there are a few that I find particularly not adapted to our life style, and some others that require too much equipment. But there are two that I really like and that are very simple, can be done everywhere, require little ingredients or equipment and work in a few hours. Today I want to introduce the simplest and most efficient way, that works with many of the green summer vegetables such as cucumber, uri, or togan, but also with radishes and daikon. It is called shiozuke 塩漬け in Japanese, and as the name suggested it is a method of pickling vegetables in salt. As a matter of fact it is the same method as making umeboshi or pickled Chinese cabbage… expect that with summer vegetables it takes only a few hours instead of several days or weeks! Today I present the recipe with uri 瓜 a kind of melon/cucumber that is very popular in summer in Japan and that just made its entry in the glossary.

Shiozuke summer vegetables

  • 1/2 uri or 1 Japanese cucumber
  • 1/2 tsp of salt
  • a little piece of konbu (optional)

Wash and cut the vegetable. It is not really necessary to peel them. Slice them thinly. Cut the konbu in thin pieces. in a bowl large enough, add the sliced uri, the konbu, sprinkle the salt on top. Use a piece of wrap to top and set a weight the size of the inside of the bowl (I used a honey pot filled with water) on top to press the mix. Wait for a few hours before enjoying, and keep in the fridge in the liquid for a few days.

Beware that the liquid when pressing may overflow the bowl, so set the bowl in in a tray or the sink, or use a rather large bowl compared to the amount of vegetable that can receive all the liquid. Another option is to make them in a sealed plastic bag (ziploc…), but I don’t use such plastic bags…

 

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