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…