Showing posts with label tofu. 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.

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How to make Tofu/Wie macht man Tofu  

Posted by: anna* in , , ,

Welcome to the first of many "Basic"-Entries in which I explain how I do, well, basic stuff.

Today it´s tofu.
Making tofu is not as complicated as it may seem. Actually, it is not at all. All you need is soybeans, water and nigari. A bowl, clean cloth and something to shape and press the tofu. I found nigari on the internet, so if I can then you can. Nigari is basically magnesium and can be replaced by just that or lemon (I´ve never tried any of that, though). I have used dried soybeans so far, the kind that looks like dried peas and comes in huge bags. Easy to find at any asian supermarket I guess.
You have to let them soak in water overnight, they´ll stop looking like dried peas after that. At least two hours, better 24 hours. Make sure they´re more than covered in water. They really soak it up...
For one satchet of my nigari I use 300g soybeans.
I then puree the soybeans. Usually I add some water to it to make it easier, about 1/4l should be enough. The soybean-pulp has to be smooth and don´t let a single soybean live. Smash ´em all.
Bring 1 1/2 l water to a boil, then add the soybeans and boil it all up. Keep stirring.
Reduce the heat and let it simmer for 7-10 minutes without letting it boil bubbly.
Careful: don´t let it unattended, it´ll boil over and trust me, it´s no fun to clean it up! You can let the foam be foam if it doesn´t bother you. I don´t think it does any harm to the taste of either the tofu nor the okara.
Now put your clean cloth over the bowl. You might need a second pair of hands or something to fix the cloth. Pour the whole soybean stuff into the cloth, make sure all that gets into the bowl is the soymilk. Squeeze the leftovers for more milk. Careful: it´s SO hot!
Put the leftover Soybean pulp aside. That´s Okara. You can just put it into a bowl into the freezer after it cooled off. Lot´s of yummy stuff to be made with it. More of that later.
The soymilk you let cool a bit until it has about 158 to 176°F/70-80°C.
Mix the nigari with 50ml of hot water.
Pour it into the soymilk while stirring. It will start to look strange and flakey the minute it gets in.
Let it sit for about 15min. Stirr once again, then pour it into the cloth of the tofupress (I got two plastic baskets and drilled some additional holes into the bottom so the water can get out. Great "press" that. But it works.)
Put something heavy on top to get all the water out.
The more water you press out, the harder the tofu gets. Sounds like an easy principle but I admit I don´t have it all figured out yet, when to press how hard and all.
That´s it.
The Tofu easily keeps two or three days in the fridge, just put it into cold fresh water. Okara keeps for about a week.





Soybeans soaking in my kitchen cupboard.
Die Sojabohnen, die in meinem Küchenschrank einweichen.






The not so attractive looking soybeanpulp before cooking. I didn't take a picture of it cooking, probably because I was too busy keeping it from overcooking.

Der nicht so attraktive Sojabrei vor dem Kochen. Ich habe kein Foto vom kochen gemacht, vermutlich weil ich damit beschäftigt war, es vom Überkochen abzuhalten.






Soymilk dripping. The sieve was used to keep the cloth from going where it wanted.
Tropfende Sojamilch. Das Sieb hab ich benutzt um das Tuch davon abzuhalten, mir abzuhauen.








Almost there. Soymilk/Nigari in my "Tofupress".
Fast geschafft. Sijamilch/Nigari in meiner "Tofupresse".









My gorgeous tofupress in action. I added a can of peaches and a bottle of martini for heaviness after this.
Meine super Tofupresse in Action. Ich hab später noch ne Dose Pfirsiche und eine Flasche Martini benutzt um zu beschweren.







The lower half of my tofupress. The upper half is the same, minus the holes in the bottom.
Die Unterseite meiner Tofupresse. Die obere Hälfte ist das gleiche, nur ohne die Löcher im Boden.




Nigari.



Willkommen zum ersten von vielen "Basic" -Einträgen in den ich erkläre wie ich, nun ja, Basic-Zeug mache.
Heute gibt`s Tofu.
Tofu zu machen ist nicht so kompliziert, wie es vielleicht wirkt. Tatsächlich ist es gar nicht kompliziert. Alles was man braucht, sind Sojabohnen, Wasser und Nigari. Eine Schüssel, saubere Tücher und etwas um das Tofu zu formen und zu pressen. Ich habe Nigari im Internet gefunden, also wenn ich das kann, kann das jeder. Deutschsprachig helfen Bio-Läden etc. Nigari ist eigentlich wohl Magnesium oder so und kann dadurch oder durch Zitronensaft auch ersetzt werden (hab ich aber noch nie ausprobiert). Ich habe bisher immer getrocknete Sojabohnen verwendet, diese, die aussehen, wie getrocknete Erbsen und die man in großen Beuteln in asiatischen Supermärkten bekommt. Man sollte sie über Nacht einweichen lassen, dann sehen sie auch nicht mehr aus wie getrocknete Erbsen. Mindestens zwei Stunden, besser 24 Stunden. Sicher gehen, dass sie mehr als mit Wasser bedeckt sind, die saugen das wirklich ziemlich auf...
Für ein Beutelchen von meinem Nigari benutze ich 300gr Sojabohnen.
I püriere die Sojabohnen dann. Üblicherweise füge ich ca 1/4l Wasser zu um es leichter zu machen. Der Sojabohnen-Brei sollte glatt und cremig sein und lass keine Sojabohne am Leben. Mach sie alle zu Brei.
1 1/2 l Wasser zum kochen bringen, dann den Soja-Brei unter Rühren hinzugeben und kurz aufkochen.
Die Hitze reduzieren und 7-10 Minuten weiter garen ohne zu kochen.
Vorsicht: nicht unbeaufsichtigt lassen. Es wird überkochen und glaubt mir, es macht keinen Spaß, das sauberzumachen. Den Schaum kann man Schaum sein lassen wenn es nicht stört, ich glaube nicht, dass er den Geschmack weder vom Tofu, noch vom Okara verändert.
Jetzt ein sauberes Tuch über die Schüssel legen. Man braucht vielleicht noch ein zweites Paar Hände oder etwas, das das Tuch an der Schüssel fixiert. Das komplette Sojabohnen Zeug in das Tuch kippen. Darauf achten, dass nur die Sojamilch tatsächlich in die Schüssel kommt. Das Tuch ausdrücken um den Rest Milch herauszubekommen. Vorsicht: es ist SO heiß!
Den übriggebliebenen Sojabrei zur Seite stellen. Das ist Okara. Man kann es einfach in einer Schüssel im Kühlschrank aufbewahren nachdem es abgekühlt ist. Damit kann jede Menge leckeres Zeig gemacht werden. Mehr davon später.
Die Sojamilch etwas abkühlen lassen bis sie ungefähr 158 to 176°F/70-80°C hat.
Das Nigari mit 50ml heißem Wasser vermischen.
Unter rühren in die Sojamilch gießen. Die wird sofort seltsam und flockig aussehen.
Ungefähr 15 Minuten ruhen lassen. Erneut gut durchrühren und dann in das Tuch der Tofupresse gießen. (Ich habe zwei Plastikkörbchen gekauft und in eines extra Löcher in den Boden gemacht damit das Wasser ablaufen kann. Tolle "Presse", aber es funktioniert.)
Etwas schweres obendrauf legen um das Wasser rauszuquetschen.
Je mehr Wasser man rauspresst, desto härter wird das Tofu. Klingt wie ein einfaches Prinzip aber ich muss zugeben, dass ich noch nicht ganz raushabe, wann man wie doll pressen muss und alles.
Das ist alles.
Das Tofu kann man leicht zwei oder drei Tage im Kühlschrank in kaltem, frischen Wasser aufbewahren. Das Okara hält sich ca eine Woche.

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Food according to Mire. And me.  

Posted by: anna* in , , , , ,

Woohoo! First real post. And we worked pretty hard on this one. Us being me and my dear friend Mire. We wanted to start our Blogs with some kind of Bang!
Here´s what we spend the better part of yesterday with:

Guess what, it´s food. This is the filling for Gyouza, yummy potstickers. Originally these are chinese but the japanese adopted them, probably for their yummyness.
We both fill them differently usually so we went with something new. The filling consists of chicken ground beef (we used two breasts which turned out to be too much in the end), mixed with a Tablespoon of red Misopaste, some grated Ginger (as much as you like), some Oystersauce, a pinch of Salt. In the second Bowl there' s bok choy, chopped real small and sprinkled with salt to get the liquid out. It was mixed with the chicken stuff in the end before I filled the Gyouza.






I´m usually lazy and just buy the pre-made gyouza wrappers but Mire made the dough herself. She already had it prepared when I came so I only now that there was Flour and Water in it. She made a huge dough sausage from it, cut it into little pieces and then rolled these out into flat little tortillas.







I had the pleasure to fill and fold them. I love that, it´s almost Zen. And the dough felt so soft...





They didn´t turn out to be the prettiest Gyouza I´ve ever made but they had character. And maaan were they gooood! I´ll post a how to make Gyouza another time.
We also made a simple but very tasty Corn Soup, chinese Style. It was one can of corn, pureed. (i guess if you´re fortunate enough to live in a country that sells canned cream corn you can use that as well) We added four cups of water and 3 teaspoons of granulated chicken broth. To make it thicker we added starch. The recipe said one teaspoon, we had to take two. Then we whisked up two eggs and poured them into the whole thing, while stirring with a wire whisk. That´s it.


What else? Oh right, I made Tofu. Find out how to here: Tofu! We made a yummy tofu/bean salad with it, recipe basically by Kurihara Harumi.
The Tofu was dressed with 1 Tablespoon Soysauce, 1 Tablespoon Mirin, 1 Tablespoon of Sugar, 3 Tablespoons of Sesamepaste and some Dashi. Mix, pour over cooked beans, ready.




Last but not least: Fried Rice with RaYu. RaYu seems to be the lastest in Food in Japan. There are different types, we used a recipe from our japanese-food-bible "Orenji Page" (Orange page), a magazine. It´s called Umari rich RaYu.


It´s basically oil in which you fry garlic, onion, red chilli peppers, konbu and bamboo and then add honey and salt. It smells like a whole meal, so yummy and it´s perfect on fried rice (for which we only used two eggs, red bell pepper and some corn).





Wow, that was long. It´ll be shorter next time, I promise. And German, too.

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