All The Small Things

Lately, I’ve been wanting to make my dinners super Japanese. It’s not in the way that you may think. My food already tastes delicious and authentic according to my Japanese audience/family. No, it’s in the type of dishes I give them. I was raised on and slightly prefer the one dish meal with little to no side dishes other than bread/pita/tortillas. However, that is not the Japanese way and probably contributes to why they are not as heavy as us Westerners. Small dishes are the epitome of a Japanese meal where not one takes precedence over the other. There is also a way to eat and place each plate which I learned from the little Elementary School students I taught. It’s something about eating in a triangle and it’s supposed to improve digestion.

Each meal consists of rice (grains), soup (miso mostly), fish or meat (protein), vegetable (braised) and vegetable (pickled). Almost all meals, including breakfast, follow this pattern. Here is one of my attempts at making some of the dishes.

Again, the main dish extravaganza is my jam and so I am still trying to learn how to do all this. However, I have some bomb dishes that I think have made their way to my Yagi hall of fame of small eats.

My first is my homemade takuan or pickled daikon. I borrowed this recipe from a Japanese American Facebook post but I changed some things since I thought it was a bit too sweet and sour.

Ingredients (takuan)

Daikon (peeled and sliced in 1/4 in circles) 1

Rice Vinegar (unsweetened) 1/2 c

Soy Sauce 2 c

Sugar 2 c

Salt 1 tbs

Water 3 c

First, place the daikon slices in a plastic bag with the salt and massage it so that all the pieces absorb the salt. Place the bag for 2-3 hrs in the refrigerator. After the 2-3 hrs have passed you can remove the water and blot each piece with a paper towel to further remove any moisture. Place the daikon back in the bag and add the other ingredients but only 1 c of the soy sauce and 2 c water and then place in the refrigerator. You will need to let this stand for 2 days. After two days, remove the liquid and add the remaining soy sauce and water. After 4-5 hours you can eat the finished takuan. Make sure to taste as the days pass as you may need to adjust sweet, salty or sour depending on your preferences.

Next on my list is kinpira gobo or carrot and burdock root sauté. Burdock root is not widely used in some parts of the US. However, it is very common in Japanese and Korean cooking. It’s actually quite delicious and is worth the experience.

Ingredients (kinpira gobo)

Carrots (peeled and chunked) 3

Gobo (peeled and chunked) 6

Sesame Oil 1 tbs

Soy Sauce 1 tbs

Mirin 1tbs

Cooking Sake 1 tbs

Sugar 1tsp

Sesame Seeds (garnish) 1 tsp

Sautee over medium heat the carrots and gobo with the sesame oil. Add the mirin and sake first so that the alcohol can evaporate. As the carrots become softer add the soy sauce and sugar. You still want a little crunch so you don’t have to cook it that long. Toss with sesame seeds as you plate. You also can make this into a kinpira gobo salad by adding and tossing with extra sesame oil and kewpie mayonnaise.

The next one I do if I have made miso soup with my homemade dashi so I don’t waste the konbu (kelp) that I used. It is called konbu tsukudani. Oddly enough, tsukudani doesn’t need to be made only with konbu. It magically makes anything into a rice topping from katsuo bushi (bonito flakes) to daikon. So, if you have any ingredients or veg looking to almost go bad you can tsukudani it!

Ingredients (konbu tsukudani)

Konbu (kelp) (leftover from your dashi and julienned)

Soy Sauce 1 tbs

Sugar 2 tbs

Water 2 tbs

Sesame Seeds 1 tsp

You want the konbu to carmelize and soften if it hadn’t already in the prior cooking process when making dashi. Let the sugar and soy eventually evaporate on a medium heat. Stirring only occasionally. Again you want the liquid to caramelize and the konbu to be completely softened, not like a gummy bear consistency. This is really great on top of rice, btw.

The next is my favorite if you don’t want to fuss too much. It is also great during the right time of year. It’s kabocha nimono or sweetly braised pumpkin. A good kabocha during the right season is amazing for tempura but even better braised as it is buttery and sweet in it’s own right. The Japanese kabocha can be found at most supermarkets and is unique because you can eat the rind if it is fried or boiled, soooo good.

Ingredients (kabocha nimono)

Kabocha (chunked and seeds taken out) 1

Mentsuyu 3 c

Water 3 c

Ginger (sliced for garnish) 1 tsp

Mentsuyu is basically noodle soup stock and is used so you don’t have to make a soba or udon soup from scratch. It is time consuming if you do so this is just an easy way for you not to have to think about the dashi, soy sauce, mirin, sake ratio which makes up mentsuyu.

Anyways, what you are going to do is cut and chunk the entire deseeded kabocha which is fairly small. You can then drop it in the pot with the tsuyu and water and let it sit on a medium heat until the rind gets soft and edible. Remove the liquid before plating and add the sliced ginger on top.

There are still many things that I just buy rather than make and they mainly have to do with the pickles which take time. Salads are an easy way to add a healthy veg to the mix.

The Asian supermarket has so many treasures that can take your dishes to new heights. So, don’t be afraid and try them out! And, as always, お召し上がれ！

#smallplates #takuan #kinpiragobo #kombu #tsukudani #kabocha #nimono #japanesecuisine #japanesehomecooking #ouchigohan #jamerican_mama_yagi #oishii #cookinggram #instafood #foodporn

Tonjiru Know What I Mean?

Have you ever seen the Netflix show “Midnight Diner”? Do you see the dish the main character cooks in the opening sequence? That is tonjiru. It is a pork and vegetable miso soup that is so good after a night of drinking, during a cold winter’s storm or anytime, for that matter. It is one of my favorite dishes to make and eat because it so easy yet the flavors are so rich. Check out my recipe below and also my YouTube channel for how to make this fantastic soup!

If you haven’t had a chance to check out my video on how to make homemade konbu and katsuo dashi, don’t worry. I’ll run you through that right now too. For starters, let’s get the ingredients in order.

Ingredients

For Konbu and Katsuo Dashi

Dried Kelp/Dashi Konbu 2 4in x 4 in slice (cut in half)

Bonito Flakes/Katsuo Bushi 1/2 c

Water 6 c

For Tonjiru

Pork (cubed) 1/2 lb

Burdock Root/Gobo (1/4 in slices) 2 c

Daikon (1/2 in slices cut into 4th) 2 c

Carrot (same size as daikon) 2 c

Mirin 1 tbs

Sake 1 tbs

Soy Sauce 1 tbs

Miso 3 tbs

Homemade Dashi 5 c

Dashi

If you have time and you want to blow your socks off with this dish start with making your own dashi. You will first need to soak the kelp from 4-12 hrs in water. Sometimes it’s best to leave it soaking in the refrigerator overnight but you don’t really need to go any longer. Basically, once the umami is released it is moot to keep it soaking.

Once it’s softened, make slits in the konbu to release more kelp flavors. You can taste the water, at this point, to see if it’s to your liking. It does taste like the ocean so don’t think you made a mistake if that is what you taste. It’s kelp at any rate, isn’t it.

So let’s continue to bring more umami to our dashi table by heating the konbu until it almost reaches a boil. Once it does, turn the fire off and take out the konbu but don’t throw it away. You can make lots of things with it and can freeze it up to a year so put it in a ziploc and store til my next post. Now, add the katsuo bushi. Katsuo adds a smoky and salty flavor which really makes the dashi pop. Let the katso bushi sit for about a minute or two.

After the minute or so has passed, strain the dashi to remove the katsuo. You can keep that, as well, to add to rice or make okaka with (see previous blog). You now have this amazing dashi which you can use for miso soup, nikujaga, stews OR tonjiru!

Tonjiru

So now we have the dashi for our tonjiru, yay! Let’s start by making sure all our vegetables have been cut and peeled, even the carrots. Simmer the pork and onions in cooking oil until the pork is no longer pink. Then throw in the vegetables adding the sake and mirin to help them soften. After 10-15 minutes add the dashi and turn down the heat to medium. This will further help the veg to soften. You will leave this on a slow cook for another 30-40 minutes, depending on the softness of the vegetables.

After the veg has softened, place the heat on low and add the miso. You can, quintessentially, eat the soup now or you can keep it on a low heat until you decide to eat it.

If making the dashi, from scratch, is too much trouble you can use different dashi such as a powdered dashi which you can get from the Japanese or Asian supermarket. However this homemade way, even though time consuming, is something to explore. It really does change the entire way the dish explodes with flavor.

Check out the link to my YouTube video on tonjiru👉🏼https://youtu.be/Pyrfn2hmebk AND also the link to my video on dashi👉🏼https://youtu.be/EYCbi1U8hxs

Thank you for coming with me on this epicurean journey and, as always, お召し上がれ！

#tonjiru #dashi #umami #homemade #japanesefood #cuisine #japanesecuisine #instafood #instagood #homecooking #miso #yumm

Oyako-Don: The Perfect Combination

Oyako-don, roughly translated is parent and child rice bowl. If you think too much into it, maybe, it can seem a bit unappetizing. However, that is quite the contrary and the dish is a perfect paring of sautéed chicken and eggs. Why wouldn’t a parent and child be a perfect pair, right? Wait, don’t answer that. Anyways, if you want to find out how they can be the perfect combination, check out my recipe below.

This dish is extremely simple and can be a starter course to tackling other similar dishes, such as katsu-don.

Ingredients

1/2 c dashi

1/2 c soy sauce

1/4 c mirin

1/4 c sake

1 tbs sugar

1/2 c water

1/2 white onion

1/2 chicken thigh

2 eggs

1/4 c green onion

So to start, slice 1/2 of a white onion and cut the chicken thigh in to bite sized pieces. You can mix the dashi, soy sauce, mirin, sake, water and sugar in a bowl. You will use half of that mixture at the beginning of the cooking process and half at the end.

Cooking at a medium heat, add one half of the soy sauce mixture, onions and chicken to a fry pan. You will need to let this simmer until the chicken cooks. While the chicken and onions simmer, whisk the two eggs lightly in a separate bowl. You can also thinly slice the green onion at this time. You will use them later for plating.

Once the chicken has cooked, add the whisked eggs and the other half of the soy sauce mixture. Turn the heat down to low and top the pan with a lid or piece of foil. You don’t necessarily want the eggs to completely cook and you don’t want scrambled eggs so do not mix them.

When the eggs harden but are still slightly runny remove from the heat. You will have wanted to place your freshly made rice in to a bowl for plating by then. Let the chicken and eggs slowly glide off of the fry pan on to the bowl of rice. I imagine it to look like a figure skating move. Or a slow motion rendition of my 2 year old falling off of the couch and on to his stuffed animals on the floor. Anyways, we are almost done, yay!

Traditionally this dish has mitsuba or a plant that is similar to parsley. I add green onion, only because it is readily and easily available. Again, this dish is super simple, tasty and the basic soy sauce mixture is something you see throughout Japanese cooking. If you don’t want to bother with the soy sauce mixture you can use mentsuyu which is easily found at any Asian grocery and is a soup stock for noodle dishes. Pair with miso soup, and a salad or sautéed vegetable dish.

Have fun with this dish and try to see what else you can add to make it your own. As always お召し上がれ!

Here is my YouTube video showing how I made it:

https://youtu.be/PL3_vmm58OE

#oyakodon #chickenandeggs #ricebowl #japanesehomecooking #japanesecuisine #japanesefood #mitsuba #mentsuyu #ouchigohan #dashi #oishii #traditional