More negishio: Chicken & sugar snap peas with Japanese leek and salt dressing

Chicken & sugar snap peas with Japanese leek and salt dressing

My earlier post on negishio has been the most popular here at Miso and Yuzu since I posted it. There was even a spike of interest in it a couple of weeks ago after a debate about scallions broke out on eGullet!

In this take, the chicken is stir-fried with the peas and the dressing stirred in right at the end. You don't get crispy chicken skin, but it is a deliciously moreish mouthful anyway.

We had this with a tuna and pea rice dish, and it was a wonderful spring meal to coincide with the earlier-than-usual arrival of the cherry blossoms!

Chicken & sugar snap peas with Japanese leek and salt dressing

Serves 4

For the dressing
4 tbsp finely chopped Japanese leeks (negi)
2/3 tsp salt
4 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

2 boneless chicken thighs
4 tsp katakuriko potato starch
200 g sugar snap peas, topped and tailed
2 tbsp vegetable oil, separated

1 Mix the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl. Slice the sugar snap peas in half on the diagonal.

2 Cut the chicken into bite-sized chunks and place in a bowl. Sprinkle with salt, katakuriko and 1 tbsp of the oil, tossing to mix after each addition.

3 Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan over a medium-low heat. Add the sugar snap peas and stir-fry for about 1 min. Add the chicken and continue stir-frying, breaking up the meat as you go.

4 Once the meat changes colour but is not quite cooked through, add the dressing and turn up the heat. Stir-fry for 1-2 min longer until cooked through. Transfer to a serving dish.

Enjoy!

Recipe source: Orange Page April 17, 2010 edition (no longer available for sale)

Korean-style egg & wakame soup

Korean-style egg & wakame soup

Ready in under 10 minutes, this super-quick egg and wakame seaweed soup is good to have up your sleeve in case you need a little something extra to round out a meal. It is on fairly regular rotation at our house, in preference to miso soup, actually. It is our go-to soup for serving with the sashimi rice bowl with ginger, garlic and sesame, below. Both recipes were on the same page of the August 17, 2010 edition of Orange Page (no longer available for purchase).

Every ingredient in the soup is a staple of the Japanese kitchen so I never need to shop specially to make it, but outside of Japan, you may need to get hold of cut wakame seaweed (which is also excellent in salads like this one), toasted sesame oil and torigara soup chicken stock granules.

Kankoku-fu kakitama-jiru: Korean-style egg & wakame soup

Serves 4

1/2 a negi (Japanese leek), sliced into thin rounds
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
2 cups (400 ml) water
2 tsp torigara (chicken bone) soup granules
1 tsp Japanese soy sauce
2/3 tsp salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 g cut wakame seaweed
2 tsp ground sesame seeds

1 In a small pot, heat the sesame oil over a medium heat. Add the negi and cook briefly until wilted. Add the water and torigara soup granules and bring to the boil.

2 Add the soy sauce and salt and stir, then pour in the beaten egg in a circular motion. Once the egg becomes fluffy and cooked, add the dry wakame and cook for a few moments. When the wakame has reconstituted, ladle the soup into bowls and sprinkle with the ground sesame.

Enjoy!

Sashimi rice bowl with ginger, garlic and sesame



 Sashimi rice bowl with ginger, garlic and sesame

This is one of the Young Man's favourite quick dinners. He can even make it, and the Korean-style soup we always have with it, all by himself!

With ginger, garlic, negi and sesame, the flavours are bold but fresh. Shredded perilla brightens the dish, but you could use basil instead, if that's what's available.

We usually make this with maguro (tuna) sashimi, but it was not available on the day, so I used buri (yellowtail) instead.

Domburi are a larger sized rice bowl used for oyako-don and other rice-and-topping dishes suffixed with a don! They have a capacity of around 550 ml, compared to 250-350 ml for regular rice bowls. It doesn't really matter how much rice you use in this dish, however, and you could certainly make it in one big bowl to share, if you don't have domburi.

This recipe is from the August 17, 2010 edition of Orange Page (no longer available for purchase).

Sashimi no zuke-don komi-dare: Sashimi rice bowl with ginger, garlic and sesame

Serves 4

700 g warm, cooked rice (about 4 domburi bowls full )
400 g block of sashimi (tuna, for preference), cubed
2 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
10 shiso (perilla) leaves

For the dressing
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and grated to a slush
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp finely chopped negi (Japanese leek)
1 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
1 tsp ground sesame seeds
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 sheet yakinori (laver), torn into small pieces (optional)

1 Place the cubes of sashimi in a bowl, pour over the soy sauce, mix well to coat and leave to marinate for about 5 min. Cut the stalks off the perilla leaves, cut in half lengthwise, and slice into fine strips. swish in a small bowl of water and drain on kitchen paper.

2 In a small bowl, mix the dressing ingredients together. Fill 4 domburi bowls with rice and top with the marinated sashimi, including the juices. Pour over the dressing and sprinkle over the perilla and yakinori, if using.

Enjoy!

Shimeji & beef pepper fried rice



Shimeji & beef pepper fried rice

We are finally getting some colder weather in Yokohama, so it is time to dust off a favourite autumnal rice recipe. With meat, veggies and rice, you could just about get away with calling this a one-dish meal, but we often have it with a soup of some sort. Either way, it comes together in about 30 minutes (less if you have already cooked the rice), so it's great for those nights when  you can't be bothered with too much faff and bother in the kitchen.
The pepper here is quite full-on, so adjust the amount to your family's liking. Shimeji mushrooms are one of many great varieties of mushroom in Japan. The most readily available variety here is buna shimeji, but other varieties, or even other mushrooms will work well, too. The beef should be the thickness of bacon, or slightly thinner.

The original recipe, from the October 17, 2008 edition of Orange Page, calls for shungiku (chrysanthemum leaves), but any green will do really, so ring in the changes, as I have here with the komatsuna greens. The original recipe also calls for 200 g of rice per person, but I usually do 2 rice cooker cups of rice for 4 people, which comes out at around 700 g cooked.

Shimeji to gyuniku no pepper chahan: Shimeji & beef pepper fried rice

Serves 4

700 g of warm, cooked rice (enough for 4 domburi bowls)

40 ml toasted sesame oil, divided

4 packs shimeji mushrooms (about 400 g total)

200 g thinly sliced beef (kiriotoshi)

1 bag komatsuna greens (about 200 g), stalks only

2 tsp crushed black pepper

2 tsp Japanese soy sauce

1 Place the cooked rice in a bowl. Pour over 2 tsp of the sesame oil and 1 tsp salt and mix thoroughly. Remove the base from the shimeji and break the mushrooms apart. Cut the beef into bite-sized slices if large. Wash and slice the komatsuna stalks into 7 mm pieces.

2 Place the remaining sesame oil and black pepper into a wok or large frying pan and heat on a medium flame. Add the beef and shimeji and stir-fry for about 3 min. When the shimeji soften, add 1 tsp salt and the soy sauce and quickly mix through.

3 Push the beef and shimeji to the side of the wok and put the rice and komatsuna stalks in the middle. Using a wooden spoon to "cut" through the rice, stir-fry for about 2 min. Once the rice separates, mix the beef and shimeji through. Continue to stir-fry until the komatsuna stalks are done and the rice and other ingredients are well incorporated.

Enjoy!



Japanese-style carrot salad with ginger soy sesame dressing

Japanese-style carrot salad

This little vegetable side packs a punch and comes together in a snap. With a few speedy side recipes like this up your sleeves, cooking a Japanese meal on a weeknight is a much more do-able proposition.

Carrots and the spice ginger are a classic pairing in Moroccan cuisine, as in Claudia Roden's eye-opening carrot spread. Here, the ginger is not the dried spice, but fresh ginger juice which, if anything, is even more of a palate wake-up call!


Ceramic grater



The intention here is that you will serve this salad with a main dish, another small side dish and rice. The recipe is easily scalable, though, if you will be making fewer dishes.

The ginger-soy-sesame dressing would also be good with pan-fried broccoli or in place of regular soy sauce on hiyayakko (chilled tofu).

To get the juice from the ginger, I use a ceramic grater like this one, which pulps rather than grates the ginger. Squeeze the pulp and the juice comes right out. Since grated ginger and ginger juice are often called for in Japanese cooking, I wouldn't be without this neat little gadget in my utensil drawer.

The nori (dried laver seaweed) called for here is the plain kind, but use what you have or just skip it if you don't have any.

Wafu ninjin salada: Japanese-style carrot salad with ginger soy sesame dressing



Serves 4 as a side dish

1 carrot (about 160 g)

ginger juice from a piece of ginger the size of a man's thumb

1 tsp Japanese soy sauce

2 tsp Japanese toasted sesame oil

yakinori

salt

1 Peel the carrot and either continue shaving it into strips with the peeler or cut into fine strips with a mandolin. Place in a bowl, add a pinch of salt, mix with your hands and leave for 5 min to release some of the juices.

2 Meanwhile, peel and grate the ginger, preferably with a ceramic Japanese grater, and squeeze the juice out. Discard the ginger pulp. Squeeze the juices from the carrots by hand, tip out any juices remaining in the bowl and return the carrot strips to the empty bowl. Add the ginger juice, soy sauce, sesame oil and toss. Tear the yakinori by hand and add to the salad. Toss again and serve immediately.

Meshi-agare!

Recipe source: Orange Page March 17, 2012 edition

Bulgogi-style beef and veggies

Bulgogi-style beef with veggies

Bulgogi, according to a CNN survey, is one of the world's top 25 most delicious foods. It's pretty popular here in Japan as well. This recipe uses ingredients found in almost every Japanese kitchen to approximate the Korean original. It might not be authentic, but it is very tasty, and the Young Man can't get enough of it.

The recipe uses a "bunching" technique, where the meat is placed in a hot pan in mounds and left to cook for a few minutes undisturbed. This keeps the meat juicy and stops it from becoming stiff. I am happy with the results, so I do it this way, but you could probably just stir-fry in the normal way.

The meat itself comes pre-sliced in Japan. There are two types: usu-gire (thin-sliced) and koma-gire (a-hem, thin-sliced). The difference between the two eludes me, but with koma-gire, the slices are not uniform in length. As koma-gire tends to be cheaper, my guess is that it's odds and ends left over from butchering other cuts. It has around 15-20% visible fat, cooks quickly, and when cooked with plenty of vegetables as it is here, allows you to reduce the amount of meat you eat without feeling cheated (g).

Once the veggies and sauce are prepped, this is on the table in under 10 minutes. However, if you need to slice the beef yourself, you will need more time. That sounds like madness-making work to me and is probably best left to your butcher, but if you insist, you are looking for shabu-shabu-thick slices.

Recipe source: Orange Page June 2, 2009 edition (no longer available for purchase)

Bulgogi-style beef and veggies

Serves 4

600 g koma-gire (thin-sliced) beef
1 small red pepper
1 onion
1 bunch (100 g) garlic chives
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp flour
For the sauce
1 clove garlic, crushed
4 tbsp miso paste
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
1 tsp tobanjan (doubanjiang) chilli paste, or to taste

1 Peel and halve the onion lengthwise and slice thinly. Halve the red pepper lengthwise, remove the stalk, seeds and membranes, and slice lengthwise into 2-3 mm strips. Remove the root from the garlic chives and slice into 5 cm lengths. Mix the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.

2 In a large frying pan, heat the vegetable oil on medium heat for 2-3 min. Dust the beef with the flour, divide into 8 portions and place each mound in the hot frying pan. Cook, undisturbed, for 2-3 min.

3 When the meat has changed colour to about half way up the mounds, flip and layer the onion, red pepper and Chinese chives on top, then pour over the sauce. Turn the heat up a little and cook for around 3-4 minutes, breaking the mounds up as you go. When most of the liquid has gone, transfer to a serving dish.

Meshi-agare!

Oysters with lotus root and garlic chives

Oysters with lotus root and garlic chives

Oysters are a common winter treat in Japan. They are enjoyed both raw (of course!) and cooked, and most supermarkets (in my part of Japan, at least)  have a stock of both kinds--ready shucked--during the season, which runs until around April.

I've been meaning to incorporate oysters into my winter menu for a few years, and have been collecting recipes for a while. This recipe, from Korean-Japanese food writer Koh Kentetsu, is a real find. Far from overwhelming the plump brininess of the oysters, the assertive ginger-garlic-garlic chive sauce and lotus root crunch really complement and enhance the tender mollusks.

This recipe appeared in the Orange Page column Koh Kentetsu's yasai de otsumami (vegetable dishes to enjoy with drinks). Koh recommends Shaoxing wine, beer or shochu with this dish. I say it is too good to save just for drinking parties. Why not have it for dinner tonight, while oysters are still to be had!

Renkon-iri kaki-nira itame: Oysters with lotus root and garlic chives

Serves 4

1 lotus root bulb (around 240 g)
1/2 bunch garlic chives (around 50 g)
16 shucked oysters

2 tsp Japanese soy sauce
2 tsp cooking sake

For the sauce
4 tbsp (60 ml) cooking sake
4 tsp Japanese soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp Japanese rice vinegar
1 tsp katakuriko potato starch

2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
piece of ginger the size of 2 thumbs, chopped finely
2 tsp tobanjan (doubanjiang) or other chilli paste, or to taste (optional)
dribble of toasted sesame oil

1 Place shucked oysters in a sieve in a bowl. Wash gently to remove any grit in water to which you have added a little salt. Drain, pat dry with kitchen paper and place in a bowl with the Japanese soy sauce and cooking sake. Mix gently to coat and set aside. Wash lotus root well and peel with a vegetable peeler. Cut in half length-ways and cut each half cross-ways into slices 5 mm thick. Wash the garlic chives and cut into lengths 4-5 cm long. In a small bowl, mix the sauce ingredients.

2 Heat 1 tbsp oil in a frying pan or wok over medium heat. Add the oysters and stir-fry quickly until plump. Remove and set aside. In the same frying pan or wok, heat the remaining 1 tbsp vegetable over medium heat. Add the garlic, ginger and tobanjan, if using, and stir-fry until fragrant. Add the lotus root and continue stir-frying until it becomes slightly transparent.

3 Return the oysters to the pan. Stir the sauce ingredients and pour into the pan in a circular motion. Mix and continue stir-frying until the sauce thickens. Dribble toasted sesame oil around the edge of the pan, stir once and place on a serving dish.

Recipe source: Orange Page

Meshiagare!

Grilled chicken marinated in garlic, ginger and basil



Grilled chicken marinated in garlic, ginger and basil

Here's a bright and snappy dish for a dull winter evening. The fresh tomato sauce is made with cherry (mini) tomatoes, which are flavoursome even in the winter months.
In Japan, chicken thighs are probably more popular than breast, and I have to admit the darker meat is all that I buy. They come ready boned and open up to about the size of a man's hand. You don't want to skin them--there's a lot of flavour in the skin--but remove any visible fat lurking under the skin.

The chicken is cooked in an uncovered frying pan, then covered and steam/fried on low heat until cooked through. This is a common method of cooking chicken in Japan, but you might just as easily  grill it and get crispy skin!


3 "vats"

I made an interesting discovery when doing some desk research for this post: Just about every kitchen in Japan has little rectangular stainless steel or aluminium pans that are used for marinating, draining deep-fried foods and keeping things together during food prepping. These pans are called batto in Japanese and written in a way that indicates the word is of foreign origin. Often such words are are loans from English, but since I couldn't think what that might be I assumed it was from another language. Surprisingly, it turns out the word is vat!


Recipe source: Orange Page, January 2, 2009 (no longer available for purchase). Batto photo source: http://marve.shop-pro.jp/


Toriniku no marine yaki: Grilled chicken marinated in garlic, ginger and basil

Serves 4

2 large boneless chicken thighs (around 600 g)
For the marinade
2 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 clove garlic, crushed (or to taste)
1 tsp garlic juice
1/2 tsp dried basil
1 parsley stalk (optional)

For the fresh tomato dressing
5 cherry tomatoes, hulled and chopped coarsely
1/6 white onion, chopped coarsely
1/2 clove garlic,  crushed (or to taste)
leaves from 1 stalk of parsley, finely chopped
2 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper

1 pack (about 25 g) mixed baby leaves or rocket

1 Remove any visible yellow fat from the chicken thighs and prick the skin side here and there with a fork. Halve the parsley stalk (if using). Mix the marinade ingredients in a container large enough to hold the meat and marinade. Add the meat and coat well. Cover with wrap and refrigerate for 2-3 hours or overnight, turning the meat from time to time.

2 In a medium sized bowl, mix the chopped cherry tomatoes, onion, garlic, parsley leaves, Balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

3 Remove chicken from the marinade, shaking off the excess liquid. Season generously with salt an pepper. Place in a cold frying pan skin side down and turn the heat to medium. Turn once the skin browns nicely. Cook the other side until browned, then cover with a lid and steam/fry over low heat for 6-7 minutes or until the liquid runs clear when the meat is pricked with a skewer. Leave to cool slightly in the pan.

4 Arrange the baby leaves or rocket on a serving dish. Slice chicken and place on top of the leaves. top with the fresh tomato dressing and serve.

Meshiagare!