Week 5 - Nabe

We both used different nabe methods and ingredients this week as you can see from our posts, but with Nabe, pretty much anything goes. So I have chosen to list a recipe for 'Yosenabe' (from about.com), 'yose' implying putting lots of different things together. Feel free to vary the ingredients!

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cup dashi soup
4 Tbsp sake
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp mirin
1 tsp salt
4 or 8 hard shell clams, cleaned and sand expelled
2 salmon steaks, or salmon fillets, cut into 2 inch lengths and bones removed
1/4 head hakusai (Chinese cabbage), chopped into 2-3 inch lengths
1 negi, leek, rinsed and cut diagonally
1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch thick rounds
8 shiitake mushrooms, stemed removed
1 enoki mushrooms, stems trimmed
1 shungiku (chrysanthemum greens) *if available

Preparation:

Put dashi soup stock in a donabe pot or an electric skillet. Heat the soup and bring to a boil. Season with sake, soy sauce, mirin, and salt. Turn down the heat to low. Add salmon and clams in the pot at first. Place other ingredients and simmer until softened. Have diners take cooked ingredients into individual serving bowls to eat.
*makes 4 servings

The simplest, healthiest, yummiest dish for winter

It is particularly apt, I feel, that we had this winter warmer dish on a day that I woke up to a flurry of snow and a landscape of white roofs. The snow had melted by the time I had got out of bed however, and by lunchtime I was enjoying a ginger and lemongrass sparkling cordial in the sun at Iidabashi’s Canal Café. It was still cold enough though to warrant a nabe, or literally ‘pot’. It is a dish very much like a hotpot, although having said that I’m not sure exactly what constitutes a hotpot. It brings to mind bubbling dark liquid filled with sausage, potato and all sorts. Well, this is the Japanese equivalent. Basically you have a big ceramic pot (got it by now? A pot!), fill it with some sort of boiling stock into which you add at various stages your vegetables, tofu, meat, fish and udon noodles.

Being in the chilly months, my husband and I bought our first nabe pot a few weeks ago. Our first stocks were made by boiling the humble, all-purpose konbu seaweed. This does not leave much flavour, so when we fished out our bits of simmered food we plopped them into ponzu, a sort of citrus vinegar affair often poured on cold tofu. Delicious!

Nabe meals usually go on for a while and are often used for parties where food is added throughout the evening. This means that if you want to keep the pot bubbling, and if you don’t want to go to the stove every time you’d like a scrumptious morsel of tofu, you need some way to keep it hot on the table. Most households solve this by having a portable gas stove that as far as I can tell is another of those paraphernalia like the tamagoyaki pan from Week 2 that is used for one dish and otherwise is pretty redundant (it’s not so portable that you can take it camping). I heard an electric takoyaki maker where you could exchange the plate with the round holes for a nabe warming plate. I tried to make-do by putting our ceramic nabe on top of our electric takoyaki plate, which kept it warm-ish but was by no means ideal. So in time for the next nabe we bought what claimed to be an ‘eco-stove’ and a couple of gas canisters.

This week I was spoilt by having my Week 1 friend G show me her nabe technique. Arriving burdened with an armful of vegetables - carrot, spring onion, cabbage, daikon, potato and nanohana (rapeseed, a lovely herby strong flavour) – she cut them up, laid them in pretty pattern in the pot, and then added the stock. This was a ready made spicy Korean kimchi stock (Tesco brand! Yes, they have reached even Japan), so there was no need for another sauce to dip the food in. After a little bubbling we added bean sprouts and grilled tofu. It was delish, filling, warming and super healthy (there is a ‘nabe diet’ in fact). A remedial follow-up to last week’s fat-fest! We didn’t even need to add noodles to the stock at the end. Gochisousama deshita! Thanks G!

I Like Pot

This is my first home-made nabe ever - I have no excuse (except the usual) for never having bothered to learn how to make this most simple of dishes, but here we are with fish, veg and tofu and a big earthenware pot an hour before my friend Tamura arrives, hoping it's going to turn out alright. As it happens, I'm not the only one tackling a new diet at the moment. R. has just begun a seven-day ritual schedule at the temple and has been preparing his own meals for the first in a long time, as the ritual diet excludes all meat, fish, garlic, onion, dairy products and even - for reasons I have yet to discern - rice. It sounds somewhat stoic but his emails detailing the kitchen debutante's adventures hint at great, lavish, mouthwatering feasts. Another friend of mine has just completed a series of 108 fire rituals, throughout which he followed a similar, constant, shojin (pure) diet.

I'm not ready to go entirely pure and stimulant-free just yet as shojin requires :-D and I'm making nabe with salmon for the week's 'challenge'. Nabe is like a very down to earth sort of dish since it's normally cooked and kept bubbling at the table and shared between everyone at the table. There are so many variations, but the one I picked was a spin on Ishikari nabe from up north, with - along with the salmon - miso and dashi (staple stock ingredients), leeks, tofu, mizuna, carrots, shirataki (konnyaku) - jelly-like noodles made from the voodoo lily! And the 'dancing mushroom' - maitake. The whole thing seems rather illicit and black magic-like, especially when you are stirring your cauldron on the stove (OK, it's just a casserole dish. I like to fantasise).

Result: T was well pleased with dinner , and we had a jolly good time that cold, rainy evening, round the pot, catching up on a few months' worth of our respective lives. I've had nabe twice since then. In fact my daily diet is now largely composed of all the recipes I've been doing over the last couple of months for the blog which is a very good outcome for someone who used to exist for the most part on non-Japanese food. Meanwhile, the kitchen therapy also works wonders - refer to exhibit D to see why. And there's nothing like unwinding after a hard day with some nice pot, especially in the winter months.

A: Preparations (an English recipe can be found here)
B: In the pot
C: Yumminess on the table
D: Wading pool of documents (aka filing)

Week 4) Kabocha Korokke / Japanese Pumpkin Croquettes

The recipe, slightly adapted from this site.

Kabocha Korokke (Japanese Pumpkin Croquette)
Ingredients:
• 1 lb kabocha (Japanese pumpkin), seeds removed, peeled, cut into small chunks
• 1/2 onion, finely chopped
• 3 Tbsp heavy cream
• 2 oz. natural chunk cheese, cut into small cubes
• Salt and pepper to season
• *For coating
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1 cup panko (breadcrumbs)
• *vegetable oil for frying
Preparation:
Place kabocha pieces on a microwave-safe plate, cover with plastic wrap and cook in the microwave until softened. Mash the kabocha in a bowl and set aside. Heat 2 tsp of vegetable oil in a medium skillet and saute the onion until softened. Mix the onion and kabocha in the bowl. Add heavy cream and mix well. Season with salt and pepper. Make 8 to 12 balls by hands. Place one or two cheese pieces inside each ball. Coat each piece with flour. Dip in beaten egg, and coat with panko. Deep-fry in 350 F oil until brown. Drain and serve with tonkatsu sauce or Worcester sauce.
*Makes 4 servings

The Croquettes

Cooked both buri teriyaki and dashimaki tamago again this week. Both served with crushed, moisture-filled daikon – that is one wonderful, magical ingredient. And on Wednesday I took the day off to do a sake tasting tour in Kobe – four beautiful old breweries and many samples later, I learned quite a bit about sake-making and about taste. I know now that I like shiboritate sake, which is the very fresh, unpasteurised type. And, an evocative image that stayed with me - once upon a time the rice was mashed during the sake-making process to the rhythm of a song which not only functioned to regulate the workers’ movements, but also worked as a timer. Well, there is a whole lot more to learn about sake, but enough about that for now and onto korokke.

Korokke are not strictly speaking Japanese, but here they are usually made with potato or with a white cream sauce, so this is a seasonal variation. They are lovely and sweet and also a really beautiful colour and are not at all hard to make. The pumpkin and cream mixture is shaped into patties, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and deep-fried. I can think of a few nice variations on this which I want to try in the coming weeks. The problem I had with korokke is that it’s not so easy to team with other foods. There is always the ubiquitous white rice, and korokke are usually served in restaurants with this and a very simple salad. I have to admit I find these a little bit boring but I couldn’t come up with anything especially exciting instead and I made lotus-root 'steaks' (renkon suteki) and salad. Korokke are more suitable as a lunchbox kind of food, and would probably go very well with some of that buri teriyaki, some sesame-sprinkled rice-balls, and other bento staples.

My guest, M, was more than happy to imbibe a little sake brought back from the tour, pre- and post- meal. I didn't think korokke would taste great with sake; she suggested Guinness as a better alternative. I think that combination would probably be perfect for a plum-viewing picnic party, for which the season has just begun…

Artery attack! Various fried Japanese balls.

The Japanese diet is usually lauded as the paragon of a healthy diet, low in animal fat and dairy, high in fish and soy and not much frying (apart from tempura of course). Well, whilst this may be true of the ideal ‘traditional’ Japanese diet, many urban younger Japanese now subsist on cheap convenience food from chain restaurants and stores that are pumped with preservatives and leached of all nutrition. Japan is the home of fermented soya beans, but it is also the home of the instant noodle. My two dishes this week are of this latter ilk, both now lodged firmly in the repertoire of everyday Japanese food, but both only to be eaten in moderation if you are to stand any chance of becoming one of those fabled wisened grannies or grandpas.

First up is the dish of the week: Japanese pumpkin croquettes or kabocha korokke. We followed a recipe that had us make balls of mashed-up pumpkin, onion and cream, coat them in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, and then deep-fry them until cooked through, browned on the outside and a zillion calories a piece. Instructions were also to insert a melting fatty core into the centre of these obesity bombs– a chunk of cheese. My first korokke were a little underdone and resulted in a disappointing lack of oozing cheese – the oil temperature must have been to hot, browning the outsides faster than the inside could cook. Maybe the ball shape was to fault. Most korokke in Japan are sort of oval patty shape. The second batch was probably the best, and the third lot of balls were left languishing in sub-frying-temperature oil until they started to physically disintegrate. Remarkably, even these had been furtively gobbled up by the end of the evening by my guests. Although I found these croquettes generally disappointing, tasting of oily pumpkin and not much else, a little Worcestershire sauce on the side worked wonders.

The kabocha korokke served as a starter while drinking Kamikaze cocktails. The ‘main course’ was not pumpkin balls, but octopus ones. These takoyaki are a popular street snack eaten throughout the country but synonymous with Osaka in west Japan. No Osaka person should be without a takoyaki making set so I bought one for my Osaka-jin husband for Christmas. This was its first outing. You pour floury mixture into all the semispherical holes in the special electric hotplate, insert a piece of octopus, a piece of the ever-mysterious konnyaku (this is usually only added in Osaka), sprinkle with pickled ginger and spring onion, then as the dough rises swivel the lump around for the other side to cook, making a ball. Put on plate, cover with special brown sauce, mayonnaise, bonito flakes and powdered seaweed (aonori).

Voila! A delicious, if fatty, snack. I refuse to even touch such a horrible looking creature as the octopus, so we also made balls filled with prawns, which were even better. We provide some respite to our guests’ arteries by serving a nice green salad and apple (albeit caramelized and with ice cream) for pudding. Barring an alcohol-fueled self-slicing of my finger, a ball (or ten) was had by all!

Week 3: Yellowtail (buri) Teriyaki

This recipe is from Kihon no Washoku (Orange Page, 2000)

Ingredients (for 2 people)

Yellowtail slices – 2
Marinade – Half a tablespoon of sake and soy sauce each, 1 teaspoon of ginger root juice
Salad oil – 1 teaspoon
Sake – 1 tablespoon
Seasoning - 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and mirin each, 2/3 tablespoon of sugar.

Instructions:

1. Put the fish in a tray, add the marinade and leave for 10 minutes. Turn over half way through.
2. Mix the seasonings in a bowl
3. Cover the fish with a paper towel to soak up all the surplus marinade.
4. Heat the oil in a frying pan, and put the fish in with the side you will serve upwards (i.e. with the skin) facing down.
5. When the fish has browned turn it over. When both sides are browned, wipe up the remaining oil in the pan with a paper towel.
6. With the side you will serve facing up, sprinkle the sake over the fish, and put the lid on for 2-3 minutes.
7. Add the seasoning. While adding the liquid with a spoon, keep it on a low heat and let the liquid thicken.

Red face, Yellowtail

I know I’m the world’s worst procrastinator, but I didn’t think that would extend even to cooking challenges. Week three of the Japanese Cuisine Cook Off, and I found myself with even less time to prepare the meal than usual, despite making mental notes on the previous two occasions that I had been cutting it too fine (time wise – I wish I could say the same about my julienning). My guest was arriving for an early supper at 5.30pm; at 4.55pm I was still whizzing round our first floor supermarket swiping ingredients from the shelves.

Cycling back from university earlier in the afternoon, I could not help but stop at the bean throwing fun that was going on as I biked past Bishamonten temple in Kagurazuka. Then of course I had to stay until I caught some beans, and then a little longer to get some satisfactory camera shots. February 3^rd is Setsubun in Japan, when you throw roasted soy beans at someone dressed up as a devil in order to banish evil for the year to come, and eat long sushi rolls while pointing them in the auspicious direction of the moment. On my bike again, I cycled past a sushi shop selling these ehoumaki, and thought that they’d be an appropriate way to make up for the cooking time I had lost catching beans.

So we had ehoumaki (one traditional, a sort of sweet eggy filling, and one less so with fried pork) with this week’s buri (yellowtail) teriyaki, as well as simmered daikon with yuzu (a Japanese citrus) and konbu (the seaweed heavyweight), hiyayakko (cold tofu with seasonings) and good-old genmai (brown rice) again. The buri was simple to cook, although I wondered if the marinading step was strictly necessary. Could one not have just added the ginger juice in with the teriyaki sauce in the pan? I might try that next time. However, I was glad to find a use for the square dashimaki pan that I declared mostly redundant last week: the three buri slices fit in beautifully.

The buri and daikon dishes were both tasty, but as my guest C pointed out, we could have done with more buri: I agree - but when I think of Japanese meals I always picture the one solitary piece of fish on its own little plate. It turned out well to have a light meal as C arrived with a veritable smorgasbord of extravagant cakes for pudding, which were duly polished off. The chocolate cake was especially to die for, and I was very relieved to have done all of that cycling in the afternoon in retrospect.

I tried to get my guest and myself into the Setsubun spirit of things by wearing a paper devil’s mask (pictured) and jumping out at her into the hallway. Coming bean-less and unprepared, C was unable to pelt me into oblivion, so I re-entered my flat: not particularly auspicious. And we didn’t pay any attention to the sushi-roll eating direction. This perhaps does not bode well for next week’s challenge…

Yellowtail Midnight Feast

My guest R and I got home on the cusp of midnight, laden with a variety of new lamps for my future home, a teeny tiny baby hamster named Poppy, and two pieces of yellowtail fish (buri). As I was (stubbornly) determined to take up this week's challenge, we ended up dining until 3 a.m. Which was rather fun. It also meant we could make use of the lanterns I'd bought that day (of course one doesn't have to be eating in the middle of the night to permit the use of lanterns but it does make it feel like more of a feast).

Buri teriyaki - literally 'glazed and broiled yellowtail' - is really pretty simple. Yellowtail is a delicious fish, even unadorned with seasonings - it veritably melts in one's mouth. So it also constitutes somewhat of a barrier to my occasional consideration of the idea of renouncing fish (I already follow a meat-free diet). Though, needless to say, sashimi does the job just as well. So with respect to the tenderness of the fish, the main concern one has with this dish is not to over-cooking. Also to take care, as always, to measure out the correct amounts of mirin, shoyu (soy sauce) and sake - those three indispensable ingredients in Japanese cooking (along with dashi).

As a side dish I constructed this 'sosaku ryori' (original/fusion) confection - an impressive and slightly silly tower (which had to be repeatedly prodded back into shape for its photo shoot) of sesame seed-dotted rice and wilted spinach topped with mushrooms bound together with an oyster sauce, ginger and garlic goo. And also, a green baby leaf salad. The only thing lacking, perhaps, was a dessert of some kind, but it was all very good, my guest thought. And so did I.

We also had a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau 2009 which was a gift from R. I am not sure that red wine is the best alcoholic accompaniment for yellowtail teriyaki, and haven't ever got very excited about this wine mainly because of the absolutely over-hyped advertising campaign in Japan which is apparently the wine's biggest importer. But I have to admit we found it very drinkable :-) Japanese wine , and wine in Japan, is a whole 'nother blog, and one I'd not by any means be able to write but I'd like to know more about it. Still, despite loving this Japanese cooking (and eating) project I still cling to native habits of a glass of wine with dinner, and it does, unsurprisingly, seem dissonant.

The following morning brought big, fluffy flakes of snow to Kyoto. After a repeat performance of the Great Japanese Breakfast, during which I was informed, with some apologetic sorrow, that my dashimaki tamago was rather too sweet, and might qualify best as a dessert, R left for home with a nonetheless full and satisfied belly, and Poppy in a red travelling cage.

Speaking of dessert, a friend told me today of a miso castella cake sold not far from my home. Talk about sosaku ryori (castella is a Japanized version of cake introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century). That sounds absolutely delicious to me. I wonder if it could beat Zen Casutera, the mouthwateringly good castella made here in Kyoto? In the interests of public knowledge I plan to undertake a tasting and full disclosure of the merits of this product…