basics

The role of alcohol, onion and ginger in Japanese meat dishes

maki — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:00:50 +0200

Periodically, someone asks a question about subsituting or leaving out sake or mirin from a dish (most recently to the chicken karaage recipe). This reminds me of how certain ways of thinking exist in Japanese and East Asian cooking, that may not necessarily exist in Western cooking. One of those is the perception of the flavor of meat.

Whenever meat is used in traditional Japanese cuisine (including Okinawan cuisine), it is almost always cooked with one or more of the following ingredients: leek or another member of the onion family; ginger; alcohol in the form of sake or mirin; or sugar. All of these ingredients serve a single purpose, besides adding flavor - to counteract the perceived gaminess of meat. This gaminess is quite disliked, so you don’t really see dishes that involve meat that’s just been cooked plain, as you see in Western cuisines. Dipping sauces also often serve the same purpose.

Here are some examples:

For chicken karaage grated ginger and sake both counteract any gamy quality in the chicken.
In this nibuta (poached and marinated pork) recipe, leeks, ginger and umeboshi in the poaching liquid all serve to counteract the pigginess of pork.
This panfried and poached duck breast recipe is not exactly traditional, but follows traditional methods and thinking. Here the alcohol (mirin, wine and brandy) in the marinade counteract the gamy quality of the duck, as does the wasabi the sliced meat is served with.

This principle is also true for many of the regional varieties of Chinese cooking, especially the Cantonese or Hong Kong style which is the most familiar to Japanese palates. In the pork filling for gyoza dumplings, grated ginger, green onions and garlic (or the more usually used garlic chives or nira) all counteract the pork’s pigginess. The vinegar or hot chili oil that’s added to the soy sauce for dipping also cut the gaminess. (Mustard serves the same function in the dipping sauce for shuumai dumplings.)

A very simple method of dealing with ground pork, a much used ingredient, in Cantonese style cooking is to add water which has been flavored by leeks that have been bruised and steeped in it for a few minutes. Sometimes freshly cut ginger is added to this water as well. One of the simplest and best fillings for wonton dumplings is ground pork that has been flavored with leek-water alone.

So, the next time you are looking at a Japanese (or East Asian) recipe with meat in it, and wonder about substituting or leaving out any of these ingredients, keep in mind that that will affect the outcome of the dish quite a lot.

How to cook taro root or satoimo

maki — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:17:45 +0200

When I write about some ingredients or vegetables, I am usually quite confident that most people will like them. Lotus root for example may look exotic to western eyes, but is are quite neutral in taste. Taro root, or satoimo （里芋）in Japanese, are a different matter though, because it has a texture that divides people sharply into like and dislike: sliminess.

Japanese people in general, unlike most peoples of the western hemisphere, love foods with slimy textures. Whereas in the American South okra is battered and coated and deep-fried to minimize the slime as much as possible, in Japan the sliminess is even enhanced and celebrated in many okra dishes.

Taro root is not as aggressively slimy as okra innards, but it definitely has it. (It’s the base ingredient in the Hawaiian speciality poi.) In Japan taro root is most often boiled or stewed in liquid, which dissipates the sliminess somewhat. It may however take some getting used to.

On the other hand, taro root is high in fiber, lower in calories by weight than white potatoes, and very filling. It’s a good alternative starch.

Incidentally, the Japanese word for taro root, satoimo （里芋）means “potato (or starch root) of the homeland (sato)”.

Where to buy taro roots and what they look like

Taro roots are eaten all over East and South Asia, so you can find them at Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and South Asian groceries. (I get mine at an Indian grocery store in Zürich.)

Taro root looks rather hairy and intimidating, sort of like Hell’s Angel versions of potatoes.

(The top left one has just started sprouting. This can just be cut off, but try to get ones that aren’t sprouting.)

How to prepare taro root or satoimo (as they are prepared in Japan)

You will usually need to scrub them fairly well - a stiff vegetable brush does this job the best, or a tawashi if you’re in Japan - because little bits of dirt tend to get trapped in the hairy bits.

Once they are scrubbed, you can peel them as-is with a peeler or knife. However, some people with sensitive skin react to the slime of raw taro root and get itchy. (This also happens with yamaimo and nagaimo, as I explained briefly previously.) To avoid this, you can also try this microwave method:

Wash and dry the taro roots. Put on a plate and cover loosely with plastic wrap.
Microwave on HIGH for 4-5 minutes if the taro roots are small or about the size of golf balls, longer if they are bigger.
Peel each root while holding it in a paper towel or kitchen towel, since they’ll be hot. The root inside will firm but cooked through more or less. You can then put them into soups, stews, etc.

The itchy substance goes away once the roots are cooked.

Recipe: Satoimo (taro root) cooked in miso with tofu

This is an extremely simple dish where the taro roots are cooked in a miso sauce, with crumbled tofu. Actually I originally wanted the tofu to stay in neat squares, but it goes crumbled during cooking. It tastes good (if you like taro root’s texture) in any case.

5-6 small to medium taro roots, peeled with the microwave method
1/2 block firm tofu
1 cup dashi stock (traditional or vegan or water
2 Tbs. white miso
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. maple syrup or 1/2 Tbs. sugar

Cut the taro root into bite-size pieces if necessary - for small ones just cut in half. Put into a pan with the dashi stock, mirin and sugar or maple syrup. Crumble in the tofu.

Bring to a boil and cook down until the liquid is almost gone. Add the soy sauce. Thin out the miso with a little water or dashi until liquid rather than a paste, and add to the pan. Let simmer for a few minutes. Serve hot or cold.

Garnish with something green to perk up the beige.

Other ways to enjoy taro root

You can add taro root to stews, soups, and so on. You can also try making taro root chips. They are very nice in a Japanese style curry, instead of white potatoes.

Other slimy foods that Japanese people love

Natto
Nameko - slimy small mushrooms
Okra - even raw! Usually boiled or deep-fried though.
Nagaimo and yamaimo - root vegetables that are slimy when raw. Often eaten grated and raw, with a raw egg for more slimy goodness.
Mekabu, a type of seaweed
Moroheiya, a tropical green vegetable, touted in recent years for its health benefits.

Cooking whole dried soybeans

maki — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:53:24 +0200

Until fairly recently I had a blind spot when it came to the humble soybean. I regularly consume soy products like soy milk, tofu and okara, not to mention fermented soybean products like natto and tempeh. And green soybeans or edamame are always a great snack.

But for some reason, I didn’t really get into eating the whole dried (and cooked) soybean. It’s not that they are that much harder to cook than other dried beans either.

In any case, I’ve rectified that situation and now I cook up a batch of soybeans quite regularly and store them in the freezer. Plain boiled soybeans are amazingly delicious, and just packed with nutrition. The cooking liquid is so rich that it can be used as a very nutritious stock or dashi for making soups and such.

There are a couple of points to watch out for when cooking whole soybeans, which are noted below in copious detail.

Step 1: Wash and pick over

Rinse the dried soybeans, rubbing them together gently to remove any surface powdery residue , and pick out any dark or discolored beans. These will not cook properly. If any of the hulls work themselves loose while you’re washing, pick those out too.

Step 2: Soak overnight

Soak the beans in water to cover for several hours or overnight. You may need to soak them a bit longer than other types of beans. Also, the bring to a boil then let sit for an hour method of speeding up bean cooking does’t really work well for some reason.

After soaking, you can optionally split the beans by squeezing them gently. (An alternative is to use a food mill to split the dried beans, but I don’t have such a device so if I want the beans split I do it after they are saturated with water.)

Step 3: Use a big pot

Just like soy milk foams up like crazy while it’s being cooked, soybean cooking liquid will bubble up quite enthusiastically, all over your stovetop if you don’t watch out. So the dried soybeans should not come up to more than 1/4th of the height of your cooking pot, and the cooking water should only come up to about 1/3rd of the height maximum. In other words, use a big pot, or cook less. This is particularly true if you’re using a pressure cooker - the viscous cooking liquid may even clog up the works, so be careful. (My pressure cooker can handle about 3 cups of dried beans.)

Step 4: Bring to a boil, then skim off the grey stuff

Whether you are using a pressure cooker or a regular pot, you should first bring the soybeans to a boil, then skim off the greyish stuff that will rise to the surface of the water.

Step 5a: Using a pressure cooker

After you’ve skimmed off the initial grey stuff, put a heat-safe plate that is a smaller than the circumference of the pot on top of the beans. This plate helps to keep the beans from dancing around, and also prevents any loose hulls from rising up and possibly clogging the pressure valves. Once it’s reached pressure, lower the heat and cook for 20-25 minutes. Turn off and let cool naturally until de-pressurized.

Step 5b: Using a regular pot

Heat up to a boil, then put a heat-safe plate or an otoshibuta on top of the beans. Cooking time is about 3 hours, but don’t worry, you don’t have to watch it continuously for that time. Top up with additional water from time to time if it seems to be cooking off, and skim off any grey stuff. A slow cooker would work too. The beans are done if you press one between your finger and thumb and it’s soft, not crunchy. (Or just eat one!)

Step 6: Draining and removing the hulls

Once the beans are cooked using either method, stir then let them sit a bit - the loose hulls will rise to the surface. Skim these off. Strain the beans, reserving the liquid to use as a vegan stock. (Don’t get too concerned about a few loose hulls left in. Removing those hulls is just a good idea because they tend to end up undigested and loose in your innards, which may cause you to rooty-toot-toot a bit more than you may want to and such.)

Step 7: Optional oven drying

The beans at this stage are pale and rather soft. You can use them as-is, but one thing I like to do to at least half the beans is to slow-dry them in the oven. This makes the beans firmer and meatier, and more suited to use as a meat substitute.

Just spread out the well drained and cooked beans on a baking sheet, and put into your oven at the lowest possible heated setting. On my oven that’s 50°C or 122°F. Leave the sheet of beans in there for about 2 hours, turning occasionally. They will shrink to about 20% and turn a light reddish brown. If you taste one it should be just a bit chewy but not hard.

You can use these dried soybeans coarsely ground in a food processor as a ground meat substitute in pasta sauces and such, or to make soy burgers and so on. (You can dry canned soybeans in this way too.)

Storing and freezing

I store un-dried soybeans in freezer bags with a little bit of the cooking liquid. These are used in stewed dishes, soups and such. The dried beans are stored on their own in freezer bags. The cooking liquid can be frozen too.

So there you have it. It may seem complicated, but it really isn’t once you’ve done it once. And the results are worth it especially if you are a vegan/vegetarian. And it’s wonderfully cheap too.

Now, of course you can turn these boiled soybeans into fun things like tempeh and natto. That’s for another day….

How to cook lotus root (renkon)

maki — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:53:53 +0200

Lotus root (renkon in Japanese) is actually the rhizome of the lotus plant. It’s a popular vegetable throughout southern and eastern Asia, but it’s still not that well known in the west. Lotus root is full of fiber and various vitamins and other nutrients. In Asia it’s believed to have various medicinal qualities, but in macro-nutrient terms it’s best to think of it as a starchy vegetable, like potato. Visually of course, it’s very appealing with all those little holes. Here I’ll explain how it’s prepared and eaten in Japan.

How to prepare lotus root

First off, this is how a raw lotus root looks like. You can buy them at an Asian (South or Eastern) grocery store. More often than not they will be vacuum packed. A nice fresh one is a light orangey-brown. The older the root the browner and darker it is.

Mature lotus root has a sort of slightly bitter or tannic quality, so should not be eaten raw. (Apparently young lotus roots can be eaten raw, but I’ve never encountered them unfortunately.) The bitter/tannic substance is most concentrated in the skin, so you should peel it. Inside, it’s a light flesh color.

(Another way to deal with a raw lotus root is to steam it whole, but peeling and slicing is easier for beginners.)

Raw lotus root will start to darken almost right away, rather like raw potato. To prevent this, put the peeled lotus root in water with a little vinegar in it. If I slice it up, I put the slices in the vinegar water.

If using the slices for a salad, or for any dish that has no further or very little more cooking, they should be boiled for a couple of minutes in vinegared water. This retains the crunchy texture but gets rid of that tannic-ness.

You can also buy lotus root in cans, which can be used straight away. However, many canned lotus roots have been bleached to make then whiter, so I prefer to use raw lotus root if I can find it. (The natural color of lotus root is a very light flesh-orange.)

Changing textures

Depending on how long it’s cooked, the texture of lotus root varies from crunchy to very starchy and a little sticky. I like it either way. Here are two ways of using lotus root in its crunchy stage.

Recipe: Lotus root, cucumber and Serrano ham salad

1/2 lotus root, sliced very thinly and the slices cut into halves
1/2 English or seedless cucumber, de-seeded and sliced thin
1-2 slices of Serrano or other dried ham, cut into thin slivers
1/2 Tbs. rice vinegar plus additional for cooking
Dash salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 Tbs. mayonnaise

Put the sliced lotus root into vinegar water as you slice it, as described above. Bring a pot of water to a boil, and add a little vinegar. Boil the lotus root for a couple of minutes. Drain and cool under running water; drain well.

Mix the vegetables and seasonings except the mayonnaise together well with your hands, scrunching them a bit to let the flavors penetrate. Add the mayonnaise and ham and mix well. Serve immediately, or cool in the refrigerator until dinner time.

Recipe: Stir-fried lotus root with sesame and green onions

1/2 lotus root, sliced very thinly
1 piece of fresh ginger about 1 inch / 2 cm or so long, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloved, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 cups of roughly chopped green onions
2 Tbs. hot red chili pepper, finely chopped
Oil
Vinegar for the lotus root water
1 Tbs. sesame seeds
Pepper
1 1/2 Tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. sesame oil

Put the sliced lotus root into vinegar water as you slice it, as described above. Drain well just before cooking.

Heat up a large frying pan with the oil. Add ginger and garlic, and stir fry until the oil is very fragrant. Add the drained lotus root slices in a single layer. Cook until the lotus root slices start to change color - they turn a bit translucent looking. Turn over and cook a couple more minutes.

Add the chili pepper and green onions, and stir-fry. Add the sesame seeds, pepper, soy sauce and sesame oil. The lotus roots should get a bit caramelized from the soy sauce. Serve hot or cold. This is very nice for bento.

Other ways to eat lotus root

Lotus root mini-cakes with sweet chili sauce. This uses the starchy, sticky quality of grated cooked lotus root.
Lotus root slices poached in dashi and vinegar - a very traditional Japanese dish
Cut up and put into soups or stews - the longer it’s cooked, the more starchy it gets
Deep-fried or baked as chips (these baked ones on jugalbandi look great)
With a batter as tempura
Sandwich some meaty filling inside and pan-fry (hasami-age)

Basics: Cold soba noodles with dipping sauce

maki — Wed, 30 May 2007 18:56:51 +0200

Most of Japan gets very hot and humid in the summer. To combat the heat, a number of dishes meant to be eaten cold have been developed. One of the main cold summer dishes is cold noodles.

Soba noodles, made of soba (buckwheat), are available all year round but are really popular when the heat turns unbearable. As with other cold noodles, they are prepared in a way that may seem strange if you’re used to pasta and other Western-style noodles. Unlike pasta, most Japanese noodles, including soba, are rinsed rather vigorously in cold running water. This not only cools them down but gets rid of excess starch, which adversely affects the flavor of the noodles. Many recipes written in English omit this critical rinsing step: you don’t just plunge it in cold water, as many directions incorrectly state, but you actively wash the noodles. Once you’ve done this once, you will definitely notice the difference. I’ve given detailed instructions for this procedure below.

Dipped into a properly made sauce or soba tsuyu, with plenty of spicy condiments or yakumi, there’s nothing more refreshing to eat on a hot summer evening.

Cold soba noodles with dipping sauce (Zarusoba)

Note: zaru means basket - so these are soba served in a basket.

To serve 4 people

For the sauce (soba tsuyu):

1/2 cup of kaeshi
1 1/2 to 3 cups of dashi stock or vegetarian dashi stock

Combine the two in a pan and bring up to a simmer. The less dashi you add the more intense the sauce will be, so add the dashi a little at a time, and start tasting after you’ve added about 1 1/2 cups: keep adding if it’s too strong. Simmer for 2-3 minutes, then let cool. You can do this a day ahead of time, and refrigerate the tsuyu.

Quick and easy version: Buy a bottle of concentrated tsuyu or mentsuyu, such as this one from Kikkoman, and thin out with water.

The noodles:

400g soba noodles, or about 100 grams per person (See note below about selecting soba noodles). Most soba comes in 100 or 200 gram packets.

Condiments, or yakumi:

Select at least one from:

Finely chopped green onions (this for me is essential)
Grated wasabi
Seven-flavor pepper (nanami tohgarashi = see this list for a description)
Toasted sesame seeds
Finely shredded green shiso leaves (another favorite for me, if it’s available)
Finely cut nori seaweed (cut with a pair of kitchen scissors, or just shred with your hands)
Grated fresh ginger
Finely julienned myouga (a kind of onion-like bulb: hard to find outside of Japan)
Finely grated yuzu peel

Cooking the soba noodles

Bring a large pot of water up to a boil. Unlike Italian pasta, you do not need to salt the water. Once it’s boiling, hold the noodles over the water and sprinkle them in strand by strand.

Once all the noodles are in, stir gently so that they are all immersed in the water.

Bring the water back up to a gentle boil, then lower the heat so that the water is just simmering. (This differs from the ‘rolling boil’ that’s recommended for pasta.) If the water threatens to boil over, add about 1/2 cup of cold water (but if you lower the heat to the gentle simmer, and have a big enough pot, this shouldn’t be necessary). Cook for about 7 to 8 minutes, or following the package directions (for thinner noodles 5 to 6 minutes may be enough. Test by eating a strand - it should be cooked through, not al dente, but not mushy either).

Drain the noodles into a colander. Immediately return them to the pot and fill the pot with cold water. When you’re draining the hot water you may notice that it smells quite ‘floury’. This is what you want to get totally rid of.

If the noodles threaten to flood out over the pot, put the colander on the pot to hold the noodles down. Leave the water running for a while over the noodles.

Once the water and the noodle are cool, start to ‘wash’ the noodles. Take handfuls and gently swish and rub them in the water. Your goal is to wash off any trace of starchiness or gumminess on the noodles. When you’re done the water should run clear.

Make ready a flat sieve - a bamboo one is ideal and looks pretty. (You can use a nice looking colander instead, but flat sieves like this aren’t expensive - look in Asian markets.) Take a few strands of the noodles at a time.

Loop the strands onto the sieve to make a nice little bundle. This is one portion.

Allow for about 10-12 portions or so per person, if you’re using individual sieves. Arrange each bundle separately, to allow for easy pickup with chopsticks.

To serve the noodles: place a plate under the sieve or sieves to catch any drips. Put out small bowls filled with the condiments of your choice, which each diner can pick from. (Remember to put out small spoons and things if needed for the sesame seeds etc.)

The dipping containers can be anything that can hold about a cup or so of liquid. A rice bowl or a small soup bowl, or even a tumbler, can be used. Here I’ve used some small pudding molds that were a flea market find. (In Japan you can get special soba bowls or sobachoko.)

Fill each dipping bowl halfway with the cooled dipping sauce or soba tsuyu.

To eat, each person puts in the condiments of their choice, take a portion of the soba, and dips it in the sauce briefly - then, immediately eats the soba. Don’t let the noodle soak in the sauce or overload it with condiments, otherwise the delicate flavor of the soba will be overwhelmed.

Types of soba

The purest kind of soba noodle is made of 100% soba or buckwheat flour, plus water and salt. That’s really my favorite kind. There are other kinds of soba noodles though. Here I’ve used one made partly with konnyaku powder (which makes it quite sturdy, and supposedly lower-calorie).

Another popular kind of soba noodle has some green tea powder in it, which makes it a pleasant green in color. You don’t really taste the tea much though.

The best kind of soba noodle is freshly made (te-uchi), but this is a bit tricky…I haven’t actually mastered it yet. Maybe one day…

What to have with soba noodles

One of my favorite summer meals is cold soba, cold tofu or hiyayakko, some not-too-salty pickled cucumbers, and ice cold mugicha to drink. Another favorite soba accompaniment is tempura, which can be dipped in the same sauce - for some reason ika tempura (squid tempura) seems to fit particularly well. But tempura is a rather hot and sweaty thing to make, so I usually stick to the cold tofu.

Vegetarian / Vegan dashi (Japanese stock)

maki — Thu, 17 May 2007 13:11:11 +0200

As I’ve stated many times here over the years, the basis of most Japanese savory foods is a good dashi, or stock. Dashi is not just used for soups, it’s used for stewing, in sauces, batters, and many, many other things.

The regular way to make dashi was one of my first entries on Just Hungry. It uses kombu seaweed and dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi). Some people use niboshi, small dried fish, in addition to or instead of bonito flakes.

Katsuobushi and niboshi are both fish-based, so not vegetarian. So how do you make a good vegetarian, even vegan, dashi?

Mizu dashi (water dashi) with kombu

My preference is for a simple kombu based stock, which can be made quite easily by soaking a piece of good quality kombu in water in a closed container overnight in the fridge, as shown in the photo. (See this post for more about kombu.) I put about a 30cm / 12 inch long piece of kombu in about 2 litres (8 cups) of filtered water. This is more kombu than for the regular kombu and katsuobushi stock, since the kombu has to produce all the umami on its own. If you don’t have time to soak it overnight, you can soak it for a minimum of half an hour at room temperature.

To use, bring the dashi up to a simmer (not a full boil), then take out the kombu. This produces a light colored, subtly flavored dashi. The soaked kombu can be cooked further until soft, and used in stewed dishes and the like.

Dashi using shiitake mushrooms and kombu

If the kombu dashi is too subtle for you, you can try tossing in a couple of good quality dried (never fresh) shiitake mushrooms in the water. This needs to be soaked for at least a couple of hours, or until the shiitake are quite soft. This will produce a light brown colored dashi with an assertive shiitake flavor, which is especially suitable for dishes that will include the shiitake. The soaked shiitake can be used in your dish.

Saving the soaking liquid from shiitake mushrooms

Finally, if you are using shiitake mushrooms for a dish and reconstituting them anyway, save the soaking liquid to use as dashi in the future. I keep the cut off hard stems in it to extract a bit more flavor. It will keep for a few days in the fridge, or can be frozen. (I freeze it in small ziplock bags, laid flat.)

Soybean cooking liquid

If you cook whole dried soybeans, the cooking liquid is full of umami and makes an interesting rich vegan stock. Use on its own or in combination with one of the other stocks.

Basics: Kaeshi, soba and udon noodle soup or sauce base

maki — Mon, 14 May 2007 17:18:14 +0200

When the weather gets warmer, we eat a lot of cold Japanese noodles: soba (buckwheat noodles), hiyamugi (thin wheat noodles), so-men (even thinner wheat noodles), Sanuki udon (thick wheat noodles- Sanuki is the name of a region famous for udon) and harusame (bean or ‘glass’ noodles). For most cold noodle dishes a salty sweet soy sauce based soup or dipping sauce called mentsuyu is used. You can buy pre-made mentsuyu concentrate, but to me most of them taste too sweet or are overwhelmed by a too-strong MSG or similar artificial tasting umami flavor. Making mentsuyu at home from scratch is not so difficult, and the difference in taste is quite worth the little extra effort.

The base of mentsuyu is a mixture of soy sauce, sugar and mirin called kaeshi (or hon-gaeshi: hon means “real” or “authentic”). It can also be used as a flavoring base for many other things. You just need good quality dark soy sauce, white sugar, and good quality mirin. It keeps for months in the refrigerator, or even in the freezer (where it will stay liquid) so I like to make as big a batch as I can afford to price-wise and fridge-space-wise.

This is similar to the Japanese essence mix, but doesn’t include the kombu seaweed or bonito. If you are a vegetarian you can use kaeshi safe in the knowledge that it’s totally vegan, and combine it with a vegetarian stock. Kaeshi also lasts a lot longer since the basic ingredients are indefinite keepers.

I’ll be talking about cold noodles and such in upcoming posts, so if you’d like to follow along, you may want to make some kaeshi to be ready.

This is a very traditional basic recipe.

Kaeshi

This makes about 6 cups.

4 1/4 cups (or 1 litre, the standard size for a soy sauce bottle) good quality dark soy sauce
3/4 cup / 180ml mirin (hon mirin, the kind with alcohol in it, is preferred)
3/4 cup / about 150g granulated or superfine white sugar (see notes)

Put the mirin in a pan and bring up to the boil; lower the heat and let simmer a bit to evaporate much of the alcohol content.

Add sugar and stir until melted. Add the soy sauce, and let it warm up slowly, stirring. It should never boil - once it starts barely bubbling, take it off the heat.

If any cloudy scum has accumulated on the top, skim off carefully. I t can be used right away, but is best when allowed to rest for at least a day.

Let cool and store in a glass or other non-reactive, airtight container in the refrigerator. (I keep it in preserving jars with screwtop lids.) It will keep for several months under refrigeration.

Notes

I like this to be not that sweet, but I am from the Kanto (Tokyo) area. People from the Kansai area would use 1 cup of sugar for this instead of 3/4ths. You may want to adjust the amount of sugar to your taste.

In Japan, use san-on-to- (三温糖) or cooking sugar.

If you are sugar-intolerant in any way, a heat-safe sugar substitute should work, though it’s not tested here.

Honmirin (本みりん）is regular mirin, which is a fortified sake, with alcohol content. There is also mirin cho-miryo- or mirin flavoring, which is alcohol-free mirin. I mostly just buy and use hon mirin, especially since the better quality mirins only come as hon mirin.

Poached and marinated pork (Nibuta)

maki — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:34:52 +0200

With summer just around the corner, I like to think of food that can be made well ahead and tastes great served cold, or at least cool, to keep me out of a hot kitchen. The vegetable part of this is usually taken care of with seasonal vegetable salads and the like. If the protein part means meat, I like to have pre-cooked pieces tucked away in the freezer.

One of my favorite cold meats is poached and marinated pork, or nibuta. (Ni means to cook in liquid, and buta is pig.) It’s very easy to make, stores beautifully in the refrigerator for about a week or much longer in the freezer, and of course, tastes great - savory, slightly sweet, and very juicy. It can be sliced very thinly or julienned for one-dish meal salads or in sandwiches, or chopped up and added to stir-fries, wraps, and so on. It’s a great addition to a bento box. It can be cubed or coarsely ground and used instead of char siu (roast pork) in steamed buns or bao. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

There’s one unusual ‘secret ingredient’ in the poaching liquid, umeboshi or pickled plum. You can omit this if you like, but adding just one umeboshi seems to de-fat the meat a bit more than just poaching, plus making it taste a bit cleaner and fresher in an interesting way.

Poached and marinated pork (Nibuta)

One 1 kg (2.2 lb) or so lump of pork roast that is not too lean

It’s best to make this with a cut of meat that isn’t totally lean, so don’t use an expensive cut like tenderloin or filet. It should have a little marbling, just like ham. Quite a lot of the fat will end up in the poaching liquid, which you can just throw out or skim off.

Kitchen twine to tie up the meat (optional)

For the poaching liquid:

1 bunch of green leek tops
1 big piece fresh ginger, sliced
1 umeboshi (pickled plum) (somewhat optional)

For the marinating liquid:

2 cups regular dark soy sauce
1/4 cup sugar (or sugar substitute)
1/4 cup mirin
1/4 cup sake
1 tiny bit (not a whole piece) of star anise

If you want your pork to be nicely shaped, tie it up with the kitchen twine neatly. You don’t have to do this if you can’t be bothered.

In the meantime, put the green leek tops, ginger slices, and umeboshi in a pot with enough water to cover the pork. Bring to a boil, then put the meat in. Lower the heat until it’s barely simmering, put on a lid, and poach for 90 minutes. Let cool a bit in the liquid.

In the meantime, combine the marinade ingredients in a smaller pan and bring to the boil. Let cool.

Put the marinade and the still warm, drained pork into a plastic bag. Close tightly, and place in a bowl to catch any leaks. Let marinate, turning every so often, for about an hour or more. Store in the refrigerator until cold.

It can be kept like this in the marinade in a tightly closed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. Or, take out of the marinade and store in the freezer (optionally cut into smaller pieces for easy use and defrosting). Best served cold and thinly sliced.

Notes

The marinade itself can be defatted (put it into the refrigerator until the fat has congealed, then strain) and used as a sauce, either on the meat or for other dishes. It keeps for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

You could try to use the poaching liquid as a soup base, but I don’t find the flavor that good somehow (the ginger and leek combo make it too strong) so I just throw it out.

[Edited to add:] Ideally defrost nibuta in the fridge overnight, rather than in the microwave which can dry it out.

The umeboshi idea is one I originally read in one of Katsuyo Kobayashi’ many cookbooks.

Basics: Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki Tamago, Japanese sweet omelette

maki — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:07:13 +0100

Tamagoyaki is such a integral part of Japanese food that I am rather kicking myself for not having posted a recipe for it before here. The name tamagoyaki means “fried egg”, and the alternate name, atsuyaki tamago, means “thick fried egg”. (Some books or restaurants erroneously called it just tamago, which just means “egg”.) A slightly sweet, moist square-shaped egg concoction, tamagoyaki is a bento box staple, as well as being a popular sushi neta (topping). It’s also great as a side dish for any meal.

You don’t really need a special tamagoyaki pan for making this. A regular small non-stick frying pan will do. The one advantage of having a small tamagoyaki pan like this one is that the size is good for making small, thick tamagoyaki without using extra eggs. Conversely, a big square tamagoyaki/atsuyaki tamago pan is used for making those thick tamagoyaki served at better sushi restaurants. (Cheap sushi places use manufactured tamagoyaki, which is an abomination.) However, I’m assuming most people are likely to own a small frying pan, so that’s what I’ve used for the photos here. The one I have is an ordinary (pretty cheap) Tefal model that I got at a sale somewhere.

Once you get the hang of making the multilayers of egg, it’s very easy to do. A 2-egg tamagoyaki takes less than 5 minutes to cook, and a 4-egg one just a bit more. 4 eggs is the maximum that’s practical to cook in a 20cm / 8 inch standard frying pan.

I prefer my tamagoyaki to not be too sweet so there isn’t much sugar in this - I’ve seen recipes that add up to 3 tablespoons for 4 eggs. You can add more or less to your taste.

Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki tamago

Halve the quantities for a 2-egg tamagoyaki

4 ‘large’ eggs
1 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. mirin
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. light soy sauce (usukuchi shoyu); you can use regular soy sauce instead
Oil for cooking

Equipment:

20cm / 8 inch (small) non-stick frying pan
A heat resistant brush OR a wad of cotton wool or kitchen paper, for spreading the oil
1 or 2 forks, or 1 fork and a pair of chopsticks - or if you are skillful one pair of chopsticks
Sushi rolling mat
Optional: a fine-meshed sieve

Heat up the pan on medium-low heat. Make ready a small bowl of oil, and the brush or wad of cotton wool or kitchen paper.

Beat all the ingredients together with a fork or chopsticks. Don’t use a whisk since you don’t want it to get foamy.

Optionally, strain the egg mixture through a sieve to even it out. (I usually don’t bother with this step but it does make for a finer and more even egg mix.)

Brush the heated pan with a little oil. Put in about 2 to 3 tablespoons worth of egg mixture in the pan. Cook gently (lower the heat if necessary) until it’s not quite set on top, but not runny. Roll it up with a fork or chopsticks to one side of the pan.

Brush the exposed part of the pan with a little oil.

Put another couple of tablespoons of egg mixture in the pan. Spread it around, lifting the cooked egg so that the uncooked egg flows below it.

Cook until this layer is almost set, then roll the whole egg to the opposite side of where it is.

Brush the pan again with oil. Add another couple of tablespoons of egg mixture in the pan, and spread around the pan and under the cooked egg.

Keep repeating this procedure until the egg mixture is used up.

Put the tamagoyaki on a moistened sushi rolling mat, seam side down.

Roll it up tightly. If you are eating this right away you can take it out and serve immediately, but if you’re making this for an (o)bento, leave the whole roll in the mat over a raised rim plate or bowl until it’s cooled to room temperature. This allows air to pass under and over it, cooling it faster.

And here is the finished tamagoyaki. Slice with a sharp knife and enjoy. (If you just want even pieces, just leave off the ends. These usually end up in my mouth right there.)

A 2-egg omelette is just thinner, making smaller bits, but is just as good. You will only probably need 3 layers of egg for 2 eggs, so it goes quickly. The picture here shows some slices of 2-egg tamagoyaki to the left, and 4 egg tamagoyaki to the right.

Notes

If you really want a purely yellow tamagoyaki, cook it over low heat and use light soy sauce. Using light soy sauce makes your omelette slightly lighter in color, if you want to avoid any browning. But I usually just use regular soy sauce since browning doesn’t bother me. Keep in mind that light soy sauce is not lower in salt content, just lighter in color. (It’s different from low-salt soy sauce.)

Vary the flavor and look by adding finely chopped green onion or garlic chives, or small bits of nori seaweed. To achieve a black-and-yellow spiral effect, put torn pieces of nori over each almost-set egg layer before rolling.

If your tamagoyaki seems a bit too runny, you can firm it up by nuking it in the microwave for about a minute. Don’t over-nuke or you’ll end up with a firm rubbery thing.

The ideal accompiment when serving piping hot tamagoyaki is some grated daikon radish, with a tiny bit of soy sauce.

A variant of tamagoyaki is dashimaki tamago, where some dashi stock is added to the egg mixture. This makes for very thin layers, and thus requires some patience.

Soy sauce based dipping sauces used in Japanese dishes

maki — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 14:30:53 +0100

A lot of Japanese dishes are quite subtly flavored to start with, and are eaten dipped in a simple soy sauce based dipping sauce. You’re probably familiar already with the wasabi + soy sauce combination used for most kinds of sashimi and sushi, but there are a few others. Which sauce goes with which dish really seems to depend as much on tradition as anything, though certain combinations just fit better than others. The ratio of flavoring to soy sauce is a matter of personal taste in most cases.

Whenever using a dipping sauce, try not to dunk whatever you are eating into it. The common sushi eating mistake made is to dunk the rice side into soy sauce - this not only makes the rice grains go all over the place, often down your front, but absorbs way too much soy sauce. Turn the sushi over and dip the fish just a bit instead. (I tend to think that this rice-dunking is why a lot of the finer sushi restaurants nowadays serve their sushi pre-seasoned, needing no dipping.)

Here are the most commonly used dipping sauce combinations:

Wasabi (preferably fresh grated) + soy sauce (wasabi jo-yu) - used for most kinds of raw fish
Grated ginger + soy sauce (sho-ga jo-yu) - used for “blue” or oily raw fish, such as mackerel, and bonito
Grated garlic + soy sauce (ninniku jo-yu) - used sometimes for meat, and instead of ginger + soy sauce (my stepfather swears by garlic + soy sauce for bonito or even tuna sashimi)
Reconstituted mustard powder + soy sauce (karashi jo-yu) - perhaps the most widely used combo; used for many things ranging from steamed pork buns to shuumai to meats. English mustard powder is the one to use, and never ever substitute pre-made French-style or other (hotdog-style) mustard. (In the movie Tampopo, as the gangster lies dying in his girlfriend’s arms, he tells her about hunting wild boar whose intestines are filled with yamaimo (Japanese yam) in winter, how good those intestines are and how he wishes he could have shared them with her. She sobs back to him, “they sound like they’d be great with mustard-soy sauce”.)
Chili sesame oil (ra-yu) and soy sauce - the most popular dipping sauce for gyoza dumplings.
Vinegar and soy sauce (su-jo-yu) - used for many things, to cut down on oiliness
Citrus juice, most often yuzu and lemon, and soy sauce (ponzu) - used for many things. This is available bottled.
Dashi stock, mirin and/or sake, sugar, and soy sauce (tsuyu) - this is the only sauce that’s heated after combining the ingredients, mainly to get rid of the alcohol in the mirin or sake and to melt the sugar. This is the standard dipping sauce for noodles, tempura and so on, and is used in different strengths depending on the usage. You can buy bottled concentrated tsuyu (often called mentsuyu, which means noodle sauce). The Japanese essence in a bottle is basically homemade concentrated tsuyu.

basics

The role of alcohol, onion and ginger in Japanese meat dishes

See also

How to cook taro root or satoimo

Where to buy taro roots and what they look like

How to prepare taro root or satoimo (as they are prepared in Japan)

Recipe: Satoimo (taro root) cooked in miso with tofu

Other ways to enjoy taro root

Other slimy foods that Japanese people love

Cooking whole dried soybeans

Step 1: Wash and pick over

Step 2: Soak overnight

Step 3: Use a big pot

Step 4: Bring to a boil, then skim off the grey stuff

Step 5a: Using a pressure cooker

Step 5b: Using a regular pot

Step 6: Draining and removing the hulls

Step 7: Optional oven drying

Storing and freezing

How to cook lotus root (renkon)

How to prepare lotus root

Changing textures

Recipe: Lotus root, cucumber and Serrano ham salad

Recipe: Stir-fried lotus root with sesame and green onions

Other ways to eat lotus root

Basics: Cold soba noodles with dipping sauce

Cold soba noodles with dipping sauce (Zarusoba)

Cooking the soba noodles

Types of soba

What to have with soba noodles

Vegetarian / Vegan dashi (Japanese stock)

Mizu dashi (water dashi) with kombu

Dashi using shiitake mushrooms and kombu

Saving the soaking liquid from shiitake mushrooms

Soybean cooking liquid

Basics: Kaeshi, soba and udon noodle soup or sauce base

Kaeshi

Notes

Poached and marinated pork (Nibuta)

Poached and marinated pork (Nibuta)

Notes

Basics: Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki Tamago, Japanese sweet omelette

Tamagoyaki or Atsuyaki tamago

Notes

See also

Soy sauce based dipping sauces used in Japanese dishes