A Fish Out of Water

Spring Dinner

So here's some food. I don't do a lot of proper cooking these days, but I try to do some nice seasonal Japanese food once in a while.

Clockwise from the top:

Takenoko gohan (bamboo shoot rice). From a mix. I was all set to make it from scratch, which is a huge deal because fresh takenoko takes ages to prepare, needing to be peeled, carefully simmered with komenuka (rice bran) and peeled again. Usually, at least in the past, takenoko is sold together with a little bag of komenuka but the two places that were carrying bamboo shoots didn't have it, just a sign saying you can simmer the shoots in rice washing water. Well guess what? I use musenmai, rice that doesn't need to be washed. So I just bought a takenonko gohan mix. So why does anyone bother making takenoko from scratch? Because it is a thousand times better freshly cooked than pre-cooked, and it only shows up for a short time in the spring. I used to make it at least once each spring but haven't attempted it in years.

Snappu endou (sugar snap peas). Shuma has gone through a few phases where he eats tonnes of these. On this occasion he would only eat the peas inside, leaving the tasty pods for me.

Miso soup with tofu, wakame, beans and shiitake. That's kind of a big variety of stuff for miso soup, but you never know what Shuma will eat, and also I was lacking side dishes. 

Fuki (butterbur) with chicken meatballs and wakame seaweed. Fuki is another spring vegetable with a unique, fresh flavour. It is somewhat similar to celery, but needs a bit of work to prepare. You have to cut it down (the stalks are almost a metre long), rub it with salt, parboil it, pull the strings out, then cut it again and cook it. The huge leaves are also edible and clever cooks make use of them, but I just threw them out this time. These meatballs are Japanese style, so very very soft and lightly flavoured. The wakame is a favourite with Shuma. The three are simmered with dashi (Japanese stock) flavoured with soy sauce and sake.

It doesn't look very fancy but is more work than I usually put in. Only possible on a weekend, when Hideaki can distract Shuma. Frankly I'd usually rather be with them as cooking in my tiny cupboard of a kitchen is not much of a break. But this meal was good enough to be worth it.

丸ごとトマトの味噌汁

Here's a nice early-autumn dinner we had recently. From top left: maitake-niratama (maitake mushrooms and garlic chives stir-fried with egg); umeboshi (pickled ume plums); tori no kurozu teriyaki (chicken teriyaki with black vinegar, served with green peppers); simmered mystery squash; marugoto tomato no misoshiru (miso soup with whole tomato); steamed rice; kabu to abura-age no nibitashi (simmered turnip roots and greens with fried tofu).

The last time I posted about a meal with the soup I had a few questions about it. It's actually really easy to do and very yummy, with the tomato adding a pleasent sweetness, amplifying the umami of the miso and dashi, and giving an unexpected but nice kick of acidity. Plus if you use really good tomatoes you get that lovely garden-fresh tomato flavour. Try it for yourself: the recipe follows.

丸ごとトマトの味噌汁 (Marugoto tomato no misoshiru: Whole Tomato Miso Soup)

2 small tomatoes
400 ml dashi (instant or freshly made)
2 Tbsp regular miso, or to taste
1 or 2 stalks of hosonegi (thin long onions, also known as bannou negi or konegi- substitute thin green onions)

Prepare the dashi in a small pot. Wash and core the tomatoes.

Pierce the core of one tomato with a fork.

Holding the tomato over an open flame and turn to evenly char skin.

It is not necessary to completely char the skin; it should be blackened in some areas and have a crack or two. It shouldn't take more than half a minute.

Set aside to cool, repeat with other tomato.

Peel the skin off of both tomatoes, taking care not to damage the flesh.

Add the tomatoes to the dashi, bring to a simmer over medium heat, then turn to low and cook until tomatoes are soft, about five minutes. Do not boil or overcook, or tomatoes may disintegrate. Meanwhile, thinly slice the hosonegi.

Stir in miso and taste, adding more if needed. Transfer each tomatoe to a soup bowl, ladle broth over and garnish with the hosonegi.

Note: if gas range is unavailable or if using a large number of tomatoes, peel them in the usual way: dunk into rapidly boiling water for a few seconds, remove to a bowl of ice water, and peel.

Serves 2

Dinner

A nice late summer dinner: chikuwa to ingen no itame (sauteed green beans with chikuwa, a fish paste product); steamed rice; kabocha no nimono (simmered kabocha squash); asupara no nikumaki (asparagus pork rolls); and marugoto tomato no misoshiru (miso soup with a whole tomato). Shuma got rice, plain boiled pork, plain green beans and a piece of the kabocha (the same as we had, seasoned with soy sauce, sake and sugar which explains why he only got one little piece).

The tomato soup is a new favourite. Tomato and miso go surprisingly well together, and the resultant broth is full of sweetness and acidity from the tomato, saltiness from the miso, and umami from both.

 

 

アボカド鮭丼 (Avacado sake don)

A typical summertime weekday lunch, requiring no heat (thanks to frozen rice, reheated in the microwave): hiyayakko (cold tofu) topped with sliced okra, katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and soy sauce, and avocado sake don (rice topped with salmon sashimi and avocado). For Shuma, rice, avocado, tofu and shirasu (partially dried baby fish).

To make the avacado sake don: Slice a chunk (about 100 grams or so) of salmon sashimi, add to a bowl with a cubed avocado half and about five shiso (perilla) leaves, thinly sliced. Splash with soy sauce and ponzu, to taste. Fill a donburi (large rice bowl) with hot rice, top with salmon avocado mixture. Done!

 

Maboudoufu

Hideaki mentioned it'd been a while since we'd had maboudoufu (tofu in spicy meat sauce), and since it's his birthday month I took the hint and and made it. Here it is, served with rice, cucumbers dressed with black vinegar and sesame oil, and tsuru-murasaki no nibitashi (simmered malabar spinich, my new favourite vegetable). Shuma got rice, tofu, raw cucumber and plain ground pork- he ignored the tofu, not surprising since it was his first time trying momendoufu (cotton tofu, the firm kind)- he's only just started to like kinudoufu (silken tofu).

Here's the maboudoufu recipe I posted a few years back. It's a bit spicier than the Japanese version, closer to the Szechuan original.

Nerima Blueberries

A few Saturdays back we took Shuma for his first fruit-picking excursion (also our first in Japan). He's ten months old now, and that might seem a little young to be putting him to work, but we believe it's time he started earning his keep.

For years now we've been noticing little blueberry patches here and there in our area but never seemed to find the time to go picking during the short season. I've also seen the berries themselves on sale at the local JA (Japan Agriculture, the national farmer's co-op) store and at little honour-system roadside stands, but balked at the price: 600 yen for a tiny 200 gram package. Outrageous!

And then this year at the JA there were posters and brochures for Nerima-ku blueberries. Nerima is the ku, or ward, that we live in, and was famed for its daikon in the Edo era, and is recently known for producing the most cabbages of any ward or city in Tokyo. Not exactly exciting stuff, so apparently the ward is trying to re-brand itself with blueberries.

There are now 25 blueberry farms (orchards?) spread throughout the ward, mostly concentrated in the west end. And aside from selling the berries at JA shops and farm stands, each farm is open on certain days of the week for picking, at the price of 200 yen per 100 grams. Still pretty outrageous but cheaper than buying them already picked and possibly cheaper than imported berries. And after trying it for ourselves, it's totally worth the money when you factor in the entertainment value and the fact that they are a million times more delicious when freshly picked.

The brochure is unfortunately only available in PDF format, page by page (scroll down and click the page with 7 and 8, which shows the farms nearest to us- we picked at number 7, Konishien). But it's nicely down, with lots of information about blueberries and maps of the farms including local sights. And this being Japan, Nerima blueberries have their own "image characters": Blueberry Kuma Sankyodai (The Three Blueberry Bear Siblings). Big Brother Bear is named Burun, he's cheerful and good at making jam; Little Sister Bear Rirun is a bit shy and loves fireworks; Little Brother Bear Berun is a mischevious glutton who loves climbing trees.

So back to picking. All farms charge the same price, but they all vary on days and times they open (and I think you need a reservation to pick at each one). Some places provide plastic tubs, some ask you to bring your own; some farms have a 1 kilogram limit and some don't. At all farms it's strictly picking only, with no eating allowed (unlike traditional fruit picking in Japan, in which you a heavy entrance fee and eat everything as you pick it). But I did see plenty of other pickers eating, and we snuck a few too.

Shuma was a really good picker, and even grabbed and ate a few when we weren't looking. He just knew exactly what to do, it was amazing. Maybe because it was early in the season (some bushes looked like they hadn't yet been picked at all), but it was really really easy, and within a few minutes we had this much:

Which doesn't seem like much, but knowing how much they cost we were trying not to go crazy. The other pickers, who were equally divided between families with kids and lone obaachans (grandmas) were totally filling their buckets, and probably paid two or three thousand yen for their takes. I can only guess they were making jam or giving them away to friends and family. We ended up with 400 grams, for which we paid 800 yen. My inner cheapskate protested, but it was fun and provided a week's worth of breakfasts for all three of us (especially Shuma, who is in a blueberry phase and will eat nothing else in the morning) and a few desserts. And they were really good, in that Japanese fruit way: very very sweet. I still prefer the more tart and intensely flavoured Canadian berries (especially wild ones!) but it was very hard to complain about these.

Here is what I made with the last of the blueberries: a no-bake cheesecake.

It's made with mascarpone, cream cheese and yogurt, with a standard graham cracker crust and a simple topping of blueberries lightly cooked with sugar. So, so good! Oh, and that was a total lie up above- we ran out of Nerima berries before I could eat dairy (I've just started the gorging-on-dairy phase of an elimination diet to see if the dairy products I eat effects Shuma), so I had to buy more blueberries at Costco. But I fully meant to make this with our freshly picked berries, and I will someday. I will also work on presentation, but it's only my second time making (and liking) cheesecake and there no complaints.

Spring Supper

I've been in Japan so long I forget what people eat for Easter, so last night I just made a dinner that celebrates spring: green pea soup; sauteed gyouja ninniku (Japan's version of ramps); and pasta with shrimp in meyer lemon cream sauce. Dessert was a strawberry crisp with too much soupy juice to bother taking a picture.

The pasta was made with this recipe from the Toronto Star, with the only substitutions being cavatappi pasta instead of linguine and a splash of chardonnay to make up for the paltry juice of my little meyer lemon. What a fantastic recipe! Maybe it's because it's my first encounter with Meyer lemons (I finally found one, a tiny little thing grown in Shikoku), but yum.

The gyouja ninniku was simply sauteed in butter and flavoured with salt and pepper, my first time giving it such a simple treatment. Now I know why there are so few recipes for ramps out there: they don't need much done to them. The soup was just frozen peas breifly cooked in stock made from the shrimp shells, pureed and garnished with a dollop of homemade yogurt. (That "homemade" is not meant to be show-offy, by the way- yogurt is one of those products, along with nattou and orange juice, that is very hard to find these days, thanks to the earthquake.)

 

Nikomi Ramen

Nabe (hot pot) is my favourite thing to eat in cold weather, but we didn't eat nearly enough of it this winter- and how could we? A squirming baby in our laps does not go well with a konro (portable gas range) at the table. But once Shuma was big enough for a high chair it was safe to cook at the table once again. We were all about nikomi ramen this season, a simple nabe using unfancy ingredients and instant ramen noodles. What's special about this dish is that while nabe is usually finished by cooking noodles (usually udon, but ramen is occasionally used) or rice in the leftover broth, nikomi ramen involves cooking and eating the noodles together with the other ingredients. No waiting until the end for what many people consider the best part of the meal.

In this case we used chicken thigh, carrot, kombu (kelp), shiitake and maitake mushrooms, shungiku (chrysanthemum greens), atsu-age (fried tofu), and cabbage. And for a taste test, two kinds of ramen noodles: the regular dried instant kind, and fresh.

Here it is being cooked in a broth of dashi (kelp stock), sake and soy sauce.

And here are the fresh noodles: nice, fat and toothsome, but with the disadvantage of clouding up the broth a little.

And the instant noodles, perked up with a topping of chili peppers and sesame. A little on the mushy side, but with the advantage of being, well, instant.

The verdict: the fresh noodles were way better, and the extra time needed to cook them is not much of a drawback considering nabe is supposed to be a slow, leisurely meal. But the instant noodles didn't suck either.

This is one of the coldest springs ever, so I don't think we're done with nikomi ramen quite yet.

Happy Pancake Day/International Women's Day/Birthday!

On the phone with my parents this weekend, my Dad asked if I knew what was coming up this week. "Pancake Day?" I asked, enjoying the few seconds of silence as they tried to figure out if I was joking or not. I was, of course, because yesterday was my Mom's birthday.

But I'm rather proud of myself for remembering Shrove Tuesday, a holiday that isn't celebrated here in Japan so I tend to forget about. We did Breakfast For Dinner (actually Breakfast For Breakfast for Hideaki, who's on night shift), with pancakes and lazy strawberry compote (strawberries + sugar, mixed in the morning and left to sit all day). There was also bacon, and would have been eggs if I hadn't been overwhelmed by the amount of pancake batter I wound up with by following this recipe. I mean, just looking at the ingredient amounts I knew I was in for a big batch, but I was totally unprepared for the ridiculous amount of pancake batter I got. We ate until we were stuffed and then I filled the freezer with pancakes and there's still a bowl of the damned batter in the fridge to use in the next few days.

And what happens to old pancake batter? Will I end up with crepes? Won't be much different from these pancakes, which were much less fluffy than promised (not complaining- I like thin pancakes too, and these were very soft and light). I don't know what went wrong- did something get lost in translation when converting those ridiculous Imperial measurements into metric? Should I just admit that the homemade substitute is a pale imitation and stop using recipes that call for buttermilk?

Anyway. Happy Pancake Day, and Happy Birthday Mom, and also Happy Birthday Cuzzin Jen, Nephew Aaron, Friend Emi, and (oh shit who am I forgetting?) everyone else who has a birthday around now.

Also, speaking of holidays not celebrated in Japan, Happy International Women's Day!

 

Spontaneous Nap

A few days ago Shuma had his first unplanned nap. He's never been much of a napper and instead sleeps really well at night and takes very short little catnaps after feedings during the day. I do try to put him down in his crib or swing chair a few times a day to encourage napping; sometimes it works and usually it doesn't. But this time I had just put him down for a minute while I went to do something, and after a minute of crying he suddenly went quiet. When I went to see what was wrong, this is what I saw:

Yes! Expecting it to be a short sleep, I made use of my unexpected free time in the kitchen:

Making cookies. I'm such a good houswife! Really though, what else could I do with a short amount of free time? And it did turn out to be short, and thanks to my stupid tiny Japanese convection oven, which can only take one tray at a time, I only managed half a batch before Shuma woke up, crying even harder than before.

But that only meant there was another tray of cookies to bake during the next nap. Yay! And lots to eat. These are double chocolate walnut cookies, and I don't quite have a proper recipe but basically just take your regular chocolate chip cooke recipe, add a tablespoon or so of cocoa powder and some chopped walnuts, and that's it. Very yummy.