Gyu-suji dinners

A dinner for a cold spring day: mugi-gohan (barley rice); asparagus dressed with sesame sauce; sauted daikon greens with soy sauce and sesame seeds; spinach salad with carrots, cherry tomatoes and walnuts; gyu-suji to tofu no nimono: beef tendon simmered with tofu, daikon and konnyaku (devil's tognue jelly).

After a day of simmering the tendon was soft and gave up a wonderful flavour, and the next day it was simmered more and the liquid reduced to deepen the flavour and further soften the tendon. It was great on the second day, but on the third day it was even better:

Okara to kyuuri sarada (tofu lees with cucumber); leftover gyusuji to tofu no nimono; fuki (butterbur) simmered with abura-age (deep-fried tofu); asari no akadashi (red miso soup with clams); sakura-ebi gohan: rice with sakura-ebi (tiny pink shrimp) and green peas).

It's amazing how just a few hundred yen's worth of scraps kept us fed for three dinners (and a lunch or two for me). Not only the tendon, but the daikon greens (which are often thrown out) and the okara (which is given away or sold very cheaply at tofu shops, with the remainder being thrown away or used for animal feed).

Comments

[Mama BoK]

Like I said.. you are an amazing canadian gal..!

[J.Panda]

The pink rice is really attractive. One major feature in Asia, especially South East Asia and Japan is the absolute necessity of rice in the menu. In a training set up in Bangkok I found the Japanese, Koreans, Indonesians, Filipinos, Thais, Chinese and Ceylonese all boiling rice the same way.

Rise could be flavoured with lime and other spices, but colouring it has not been widely experimented. There is a variety of delicate edible leaf which has red colour which makes the rice purple red. More experimentation is required in this area.

J.Panda

[kat]

what a lovely meal and you used everything so resourcefully :)

[Martin F]

Mama BoK, in Japan, the pink or red rice is not coloured, it gets its hue from the variety of rice. Traditionally eaten at special occasions. A box of sekigohan (celebratory red rice) is usually only eaten at festivals - or when a girl has her first menstruation.

Sometimes red beans are used, but that does not seem to be the case here.

No artificial colours, please!

[J.Panda]

Hi Martin,

The red colouring I mentioned was not artificial, nor was the rice meant to be so. When the dish of the the spinach like leaves would be served, its natural red colour would flow into the rice.

This incident might interest you. There is an expensive fish which breeds in estuaries called Tenualosa ilisha. Its available in monsoon when it enters in to the rivers. It has a milky taste. When I was buying the leaves, the vendor asked me not to complain about the price, stating that the white fish, even if bought for $100 would not add colour to the rice.

By the bye, I forgot to mention about colouring rice yellow with saffron filaments. It gives the rice a strong fragrance and colouring. But I agree with you that rice is best in its natural colour. The beauty is heavenly when the rice is pearl white, and it is aromatic. The smell would come wafting to the drawing room even when it is cooked in the kitchen.

Panda

[Amy]

Interesting comments today! Well, I'd hate to link rice with menstruation in my mind...yikes. But my mom says that in Chinese culture, women are supposed to eat more of the sticky rice, since it's "warming".

[Amy (Blue Lotus)]

Mama Bok, thanks!

J.Panda, you're right that rice is almost always served pure white in Asia, and that's interesting. When I read your comments I immediately thought of the two exceptions already mentioned (sekihan and Indonesian yellow rice), both of which are only served on special occasions. It also seems acceptable throughout Asia to colour mochi rice when used as dessert, as with the bright pink (artificially coloured) sakura-mochi.

Thanks Kat!

Martin F, actually regular mochigome, which is white, is used for sekihan, with the colour coming from the red beans. And I used regular white rice to make the sakura-ebi gohan above: the colour comes from the shrimp themselves. They are too small to stand out against the rice in the picture above, but trust me, they're there.

Amy, I'm not crazy about the concept of "warming" and "cooling" food (Japan has similar beliefs) but I like the fact that Chinese culture recognises that women need warming up. Here in Japan women are not allowed to be sushi chefs, with the standard reasoning being that our hands are too hot and would ruin the sushi. Despite the fact that women's extremities average a few degrees cooler than men's!

[Marijoe]

Hi Amy:
This is my kind of meal: easy, good and inexpensive...What else you could ask for?
I want to make this at home, could you please share with me the recipe for the gyusuji to tofu no nimono?. I have my mouth watering since I saw your post last night.
Marijoe

[Kharina]

I've been following your blog for a while and I have to say it: You have mad skills. Thanks to you, I've decided to have a yaki udon for dinner tonight. Can't wait!

[LINA]

you are such a wonderful cook!

[Martin F]

A wonderful cook, a great photographer, and needless to say, an exemplary blogger. This is really one of my favourite sites.

(And now I see the shrimp!)

[Amy]

Marijoe, I don't really follow a specific recipe, just simmer the hell out of it. But I found a link explaining a method very similar to what I do. It's in Japanese but there are lots of pictures: http://enenen22.hp.infoseek.co.jp/eatsuji1.htm
The basic steps in the link are:
Cover with water, boil for 5 to 10 minutes, throw away water and rinse the gyu-suji.
Cover with new water, boil 20 min, add sliced ginger and negi greens, boil 20 min, throw away water (personally don't think it's necessary to throw away the water twice). At this point you can cut the bigger pieces into bite-sized chunks.
Cover with new water, boil 30 minutes, add sake.
Simmer until alcohol burns off, add mirin, soy sauce, togarashi, negi whites and more ginger, simmer on low.
Add peeled boiled eggs and more water if necessary.
Simmer about 10 minutes, add tofu.
Simmer 1 hour. Skim off scum and fat.
Simmer 1 1/2 hours or until the suji is soft enough for your tastes.
Serve.
Save leftover cooking liquid in the freezer, re-use for simmering tofu.

That's what the instructions say. No amounts given, so just taste as you go. It seems to me that the tofu is added too early, I don't think it needs more than an hour.
It's better to make a day ahead (without the tofu--add before serving), and to make a huge batch so you can have leftovers.

Thanks Kharina, I hope you enjoyed your dinner!

Thank you Lina!

Martin, thanks a lot. And now that I think about it you were right: sakura-ebi are naturally pinkish beige, but it's often enhanced with artificial colouring. The cheaper the shrimp the more likely they are coloured, so I'm pretty sure that this rice was indeed artificially coloured:(