Showing posts with label japanese. Show all posts

Chirashi Sushi & Teriyaki Salmon  

Posted by: anna* in , , , , , ,

Yes, I´m still alive. School has been eating me and life is everything but kind in general. Actually I should be sitting somewhere reading and writing stuff for my paper about Taisho Culture, due next week, right now. But I don´t want tooooo....
So I´m telling you about my cooking adventure from last weekend.
I went to my lovely friend Mako and her lovely husband´s place and we cooked tons of extremely yummy japanese food.
Here´s what we made:

Chirashi Sushi. Basically seasoned rice with whatever you want mixed in it. It´s as easy as it is delicious. You cook the rice, then dress is with vineagar and sugar or with readymade Sushi-Seasoning (available at any asian supermarket). We fried two pieces of fresh salmon and then chopped it into smallest pieces, added green onions and peapods.
For the topping we took one egg, scrambled it up, added a tiny bit of salt and sugar and made a very thin omlette. Which, after it colled off, was rolled up and cut into very thin strips. Also on top of tis delicious dish went nori strips. Mako had those readymade at home but since they´re not available over here (why, oh why?)i usually cut my nori at home myself.
And that´s pretty much it. We had way too much and I would have loved to eat the whole bowl.

Next was Teriyaki Salmon. Very easy as well. We took a piece of fresh salmon (with skin) for each of us and fried it. No fat, mind you. Salmon is greasy enough by itself, really. We did use Japanese non-sticky-tinfoil in the pan, though. Something I really need!
After frying the fish until it was crispy from all sides, we poured some Soysauce into the pan, added sugar until it was sweet enough for our tastes (maybe one Tablespoon?), then some water. We should have added some sake as well but I don´t think we did. Did we add Mirin? Not sure, sorry.
Then we put the Salmon into the sauce and let it simmer until the sauce got thick and syrupy. Don´t forget to turn the fish around so that every side gets its share.
What else?
We cooked string beans. And then grinded some roasted sesame in one of those fantastic bowls that I keep forgetting the name of. Suribachi. That´s the name. I love them. I need one!
When the sesame was just a paste I added some misopaste until it was a very light, not too thick sauce. Together with the beans it makes a great salad.





Mako had some selfmade Tofu prepared and we put some green onions and some katsuobushi (bonito flakes) on top. This eaten together with a little bit of soy sauce is gorgeous.









We also had some tiny fishes that noone of us knew before, called smelt. Doesn´t sound too yummy, right? But they are. They´re only about the size of a small hand and very good. We shortly thought about what to do with them and then decided we´d salt some, rub the others with misopaste and just put them in the oven.
Two of them even had eggs inside. Mmmmh. We just put that in the oven as well. It kinda burned but even crispy it was good. A little soysauce and it´s perfect with a sip of Sake.

For dessert I made some purin, japanese custard pudding with caramel sauce. My sensei´s recipe. It´s very easy. I´ll post it here, soon. Unfortunately I tried out new molds to make them and since they were made of some kind of metal I guess I´d better reduce the temperature next time when I steam them. This time I got unwanted bubbles on the edges. But it was still good.



Everything took us about two hours to make and it was so worth it. Everything was very yummy. Very! And since all of it can be eaten cold or lukewarm there´s no need to hurry. I´ll sure cook all of that again, just because it´s tasty and easy and I´m thinking that even for western tastes the Miso-fishies are still good.







眞子、竜さん。超楽しかった! We´ll cook again sometime soon, right?
Now back to reading. And then some writing?
Anyways. I hope I´ll be back soon.

Chawan Mushi  

Posted by: anna* in , , ,

Happy The-Day-After-Christmas, everyone. I hope you all had a good one.

My Christmas was nice. And a few days before I had a Japanese day with my lovely friend Mako.
First we went out to lunch to a Japanese Restaurant called "Akari". I had the Teishoku menu, chicken katsu, which came with Miso soup, pickled veggies, rice and tea.

It was really good. Mako had yakisakana (grilled fish) and that was good too. It was not cheap but still under 10€ each which I think is doable every now and then.
After that we went to Mako´s place. She and her husband live about a five min walk from where I used to live with my mother so going there was already fun and I even felt a bit nostalgic.
We had tea, cookies and then M proceeded to teach me how to make perfekt Chawan Mushi, a traditional japanese dish that I once tried to make and kinda failed.
Ingrediences:

4 Eggs
about 500ml water
Dashi (japanese Bonito Soupstock)
Sugar
Soysauce
You can put in whatever you feel like, we went with:
Shitake Mushrooms
Prawns
fake crab meat
we also sprinkled Yuzu, a japanese citrus fruit and herbs called "Mitsuba" on it.
What did we do? Well, actually, Mako did. I just stood around, got in the way and tried to memorize everything.
Soak Shitake in water unless you can afford to buy fresh ones. Then let them simmer in a pot on low heat in soysauce and a bit of sugar. This, once again, is according to your tastes. It was a lot of fun to see Mako cook the same way I do, just throwing things in...
Stir the eggs together.
Bring the water to a boil and mix in the Dashi (which should be available at any asian supermarket. It´s pretty essential thing in the japanese kitchen). Mako also saltened the Dashi which seems like a good idea to me.
Once the water has cooled down add the eggs. It should still stay liquid, so the water can be warm but really not hot. Get off any foam you get. No bubbles allowed!
Take small bowls (unless you have proper cool Chawan Mushi Bowls), place whatever you want inside in. We had those yummy, yummy Shitake (mmmh), fake crab meat and Prawns.
Fill the bowls with the egg-Dashi-mixture.
Cover bowls with tinfoil.
Steam for 15 Minutes.
Eat & Enjoy.
Sounds easy, right? Well, the trick is, to get the royale like stuff to not get bubbly inside. When I tried I had a gazillion bubbles in it and even though it was tasty enough, the housewife that´s hiding inside me wasn´t satisfied at all. I guess, the trick is, how you steam it. I´m guessing some kind of device to keep the bowls above the water instead of putting it in helps. Here you can get chinese steaming baskets for cheap at asian supermarkets. Or you do it the fancy way and buy a pot with a steaming basket like the ones they have at IKEA.
Don´t let any water touch your food while steaming. That makes bubbles on the surface. Not altering the taste but stealing satisfaction.
I´ll be sure to try this at home very soon. It´s easy, doesn´t take a lot of time, and you can vary as much as you like. Add chicken, salmon (or any other fish), other veggies...
And I was told not to let the egg-Dashi-mixture get too watery or too eggy. Mmmhhh... Okay.
まこ、茶碗蒸しの作り方を教えてくれて本当にありがとうございました





Shitake simmering & being yummy!












Eggs being whisked.













Mitsuba. I haven´t seen it here so far but I´ll keep looking.











Eggs and fake crab meat. Yes, I am aware that this stuff is probably made out of fish heads or something but hey, it´s so good!










Bowls halfway filled.











Bowls filled.














The one perfect, non-bubbly bowl we got. And we forgot mitsuba and yuzu. :/

Excuse the rather crappy pics, I had to take the small camera instead of the DSLR...
I hope I can make another post while I´m off because, hey, it´s the holidays, right? Food galore!! I´ll try my best.^^

Nikujaga & Gyouza  

Posted by: anna* in , , , , , , , ,

Finally some cooking again.

Ingrediences:

Nikujaga (Beef-Potato-Onion-Stew)
750g Potatoes
400g Onion
200g thinly cut Beef
Vegetable Oil
400ml Dashi
75ml Soysauce
3 TS Sugar
2 TS Mirin
1 TS Sake
Gyouza (Potstickers)
"Japanese Style"
250g Groundbeef
Springonion
Soysauce
1/2 big Mushroom
Ginger
Corn

"Korean Style"
250g Groundbeef
Springonion
1/2 big Mushroom
Kimchee
So I had lovely Gesa over last weekend. We hung out, watched silly stuff on Youtube, saw "The Good The Bad The Weird" (my sixth time), cooked and had an overall good time.
We made Nikujaga, one of my favorite japanese homecooking dishes ever. I´ve been told that you can get married for a good Nikujaga so... I´m trying.
I got this recipe from Kurihara Harumi`s book but everyone should know by now that I hardly ever follow instructions properly. I always use way more potatoes because I love the way they suck up the sweetness from the sauce. They´re even better the next day. It´s also pretty hard to get thinly cut beef around here so we usually use Gulash-Chops and cut them even smaller. I´m also pretty generous with the soysauce, the dashi and the sugar...
Here´s what you´re supposed to do:
Peel potatoes, wash them, get rid of the starch.
Peel onions, cut into 6 wedges each.
Cut meat into small pieces.
Heat up oil in a big pot, put in potatoes, then onions and beef. Fry for a few minutes.
Add Dashi, Soysauce, Sugar, Mirin and Sake (all of which is just NECESSARY for cooking japanese stuff and should be available at any respectable asian supermarket).
Get rid of the foam if any builds up. Let simmer until Potatoes are done.
Add more sugar or soysauce if wanted. Always remember: You have to like it, it´s yours, you decide. (Yeah, this is me trying to get everyone into wildstyle cooking again)
We usually eat Nikujaga on rice which is apparently not what the japanese do but... whatever. It´s good.
We also made Gyouza. This time I forgot to buy Cabbage and thought it would surely end up in epic fail but it didn´t. I just added tiny chopped mushrooms (well not that tiny but small enough), chopped springonion, a few tablespoons of (leftover) corn, and some grated ginger to the groundbeef, threw some soysauce on top, mixed well and put it in and it worked.
Gesa did pretty much the same with her ingrediences: ground beef, mushroom (her´s was smaller than mine), springonion and Kimchee. Tug in, done. Yes, it´s that easy. Well, you might have to practise folding a bit but that´s not hard, either. Gesa did it without folding, she just glued the Gyouza-thingies together with water.
Should I do a tutorial on how to fold Gyouza next time?
The folded dumplings go into a pan, get fried a little bit, the you pour water over them, put on a lid and let them steam. I usually let them fry some more after the water is all gone to get the underside of them crispy again. Because I like it.
And that´s it.
My only good note for this one is that if you keep ginger in the freezer it grates much easier than it does fresh. It peels really easy and you don´t have to fight the fibre-thingies that usually are a pain in the ass...



My gyouza filling.













Gyouzawrappers. This time not homemade but bought.









Gesas gyouza filling. Mmmhh, kimchee! Next time I´ll try Kochujang-Gyouza...










Ready to be fried and steamed. Gesa´s to the left, unfolded, mine to the right.





















We had grated daikon, soysauce and soysauce with lemonjuice to go with it. And Takuwan, yellow pickled radish, a korean speciality. Very good!









Fried and all. I didn´t manage to get them out of the pan prettily so this is the best pic I could do.










So Gesa: anytime again. It was delicious and fun. We´ll try baking next, right? Yay!

Weekendfood! Wochenendessen!  

Posted by: anna* in , , , , , ,

Quite a weekend, foodwise. I didn´t cook much myself... Yay! It started out on friday:
Was für ein Wochenende, essensmäßig. Ich hab nicht viel selbst gekocht... Yay! Es fing am Freitag an:
With my tandem partner, the lovely M, I went to the "Matsumi", a good but fairly expensive japanese restaurant in town. It´s affordable for lunch, though. Had teriyaki salmon. With tsukemono, salad, rice and miso. Mmmh.... 12€
Mit meiner bezaubernden Tandempartnerin M war ich im "Matsumi", einem recht teuren aber guten japanischen Restaurant. Man kann es sich zu Mittag durchaus leisten. Wir hatten teriyaki Lachs. Mit Reis, Tsukemono, Salat und Miso. Mmmh... 12€
M brought me carob chocolate from Sicily. Very chocolaty. Yum!
M hat mir Johannisbrot Schokolade aus Sizilien mitgebracht. Sehr schokoladig. Mmmh. 12€
持って来てくれたありがとうございました!:)






On saturday we had our 11yr old babysister over and dragged her to this lovely café called "Prinsessan". It´s really cute and in the afternoons you can get a 3 course dessert set menu. Nice. I had this Cheese-Pear-Cake and a fresh Mint-Tea.The cake was good. Not too sweet and very fluffy. I´m going back for the set Menu.
Am Samstag hatten wir unsere 11jährige Babyschwester zu besuch und haben sie in dieses niedliche Café namens "Prinsessan" gezerrt. Es ist wirklich süß und am Nachmittag kann man da drei-Gänge-Dessert-Menüs essen. Cool. Ich hatte diesen Käse-Birnen-Kuchen und einen frischen Minz-Tea. Der Kuchen war gut. Nicht so süß und sehr fluffig. Ich geh nochmal hin für das Menü.

We also bought these macarons there. Vanilla, Mango/Passionfruit and Chocolate. Haven´t tried them yet. Making macarons myself is on my to-do-list, though...
Wir haben da auch diese Macarons gekauft. Vanilla, Mango/Passionsfrucht und Schokolade. Haben sie noch nicht probiert. Selber Macarons machen ist aber auf meiner To-Do-Liste...
Last but not least: Dina`s food! Brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes, beef, green beans and two kinds of gravy, one with chanterelles (still sounds italian to me...:D) and one made from the beef juice with garlic and chilli. It was gorgeous! Dina stayed at C&A`s place and we were invited over for her magic food and fun. Thanks again, guys.
I hardly get the chance to eat brussel sprouts because the sister (that I live with) hates them so...even better.
Zu guter Letzt: Dinas Essen. Rosenkohl, Kartoffelbrei, Rind, grüne Bohnen und zwei Soßen, eine mit Pfifferlingen, eine aus dem Bratensaft mit Knoblauch und Chilli. Es war traumhauft! Dina war bei C&A zu Besuch und wir waren eingeladen zu ihrem magischen Essen und Spaß. Danke nochmal, Leute.
Ich bekomme selten die Gelegenheit Rosenkohl zu essen weil die Schwester (mit der ich lebe) sie hasst, also... noch besser.
And: Happy Birthday Brother!!

School`s out for summer...  

Posted by: anna* in , ,

No recipe today. Yesterday we went to the local Japanese School`s annual Fair.
It´s a mixture of kids playing piano, taiko drum shows, pre-schooler ballet, heavenly homemade food and a fleamarket. It´s great.
The past years we went to the gymnasium for food and shows first but this year we started out with the fleamarket. boy, it was crowded. But I scored a bunch of comics I really like, some books, bags and stuff... Ooooh, I love it.
Then we stood in lines for several kinds of food. We had Yakitori (grilled chicken on a stick) and an Onigiri, then bought some more to take home... I would have loved to let pictures speak for themselves but my computer ate them.

So I can just tell you about the stuff we had: Onigiri (tuna- and salmon-filled), Mochi, Inarizushi, Korokke (croquette), fried rice balls, Melonpan, cold springrolls (filled with lemongrass, glassnoodles, cabbage and prawns). It was all small pieces, so don´t worry. And it was all so good...





The only pic remaining. And it was all dirt cheap! The spatulas? 20ct each!
Das einzige Bild das übrig geblieben ist. Und es war alles superbillig! Die Spachtel? 20ct das Stück!



Here`s the kitchen stuff I bought:
Hier ist das Küchenzeug, das ich gekauft habe:

Pink bunny plates. Too cute to resist. They were half off, too...
Pinke Hasi-Teller. Ich konnte nicht widerstehen. Zum halben Preis noch dazu...





Onigi molds. They´re tiny and perfect for bento.
Onigiri Förmchen. Sie sind winzig und perfekt für Bento.





Green Chopsticks. I only saw at home that my friend Doraemon was on the case. Yay!
Grüne Stäbchen. Ich hab erst zu Hause gesehen, dass mein Freund Doraemon auf der Schachtel ist.


Kein Rezept heute. Wir waren gestern beim jährlichen Schulfest der Japanischen Schule in der Stadt. Das ist eine Mischung aus Kindern die Klavier spielen, Taiko Drum Shows, Vorschul-Ballett, himmlisches hausgemachtes Essen und einem Flohmarkt. Es ist toll.
In den letzten Jahren waren wir immer zuerst in der Turnhalle zum essen, aber in diesem Jahr haben wir mit dem Flohmarkt angefangen. Junge, war das voll. Aber ich hab einen Haufen Comics gefunden auf die ich stehe, ein paar Bücher, Taschen und Zeug... Uuuuuuh, ich liebe das!
Dann haben wir uns für verschiedenes Essen angestellt. Wir hatten Yakitori (gegrilltes Hühnchen am Spieß) und ein Onigiri und dann haben wir noch anderes Zeug gekauft zum Daheim essen... Ich würde gerne die Bilder sprechen lassen, aber der Computer hat sie gefressen. Also kann ich nur von dem Zeug erzählen, dass wir hatten: Onigi (mit Lachs- und Thunfischfüllung), Mochi, Inarizushi, Korokke (Kroketten), frittiete Reisbällchen, Melonpan, kalte Frühlingsrolle (gefüllt mit Limonengrass, Glasnudeln, Kohl und Garnelen). Es waren alles kleine Portionen, also keine Sorge. Und es war alles so lecker...
PS: Today is my sister`s birthday. (Happy Birthday!!), so watch out for the cake!
PS: Heute hat meine Schwester Geburtstag (Happy Birthday!!), also kommt bald ihr Kuchen...