Mini Tonkatsu

Tonkatsu is basically a deep fried pork cutlet. It is very popular in Japan and has a myriad of variations. For example, you could slice it horizontally and place a slice of cheese in the middle before breading it or stuff it with ume boshi and shiso. The tonkatsu we made tonight is just the basic version, which features pork coated in panko (Japanese bread crumbs). Normally you would fry the entire cutlet as a whole, but we sliced our pork thin to make bite-sized pieces instead. My husband wanted to use the leftovers in his bento and smaller pieces work best for that.

The pork is first dipped in flour, then egg, then panko. We deep fried it for about 6 minutes, before letting it drain on a paper towel. Actually, we made three batches of tonkatsu and froze it for quick lunches. It reheats easily in a toaster oven. In Japan, tonkatsu is often served with mounds of shredded cabbage and cherry tomatoes. The freshness of the vegetables offsets the oil. Condiments such as Bulldog sauce and mustard are a must, though occasionally tonkatsu is served alongside rice with curry drizzled on top. A delicious donburi can also be made using tonkatsu and egg.

This side dish is green beans with sesame dressing. It is extraordinarily delicious and quite healthy as well. The dressing is made by grinding sesame seeds in a mortar (or with a food processor) until they form a paste rather like peanut butter. Then, a tiny amount of sugar and soy sauce is added, as well as a dash of sesame oil. This is then mixed with blanched or steamed green beens. So delicious! Try it with spinach, asparagus or broccoli too!

P.S. We got a deep fryer for Christmas. ^_^

Simple Chicken Drumsticks

Cooking needn't always involve scores of fancy ingredients to be delicious. Here is a simple chicken drumstick supper, served on a bed of sauted vegetables. The chicken was pan seared in a bit of canola oil and butter (just a dab!). The seasoning is a standard chicken mix that you can purchase in large plastic containers at any supermarket. When the chicken was browned, I added a tiny amount of water for it to simmer in. Cooking wine is another option for simmering, but water works just as well. I am trying to limit the amount of cooking wine I consume right now, though I am certain the alcohol burns off when it cooks. Still, one cannot help but worry a bit. For anyone who knows me, you know why. The vegetables were sauted in a dab of butter, with a pinch of salt. That's it! For vegetables you really can use anything that is lingering in your refrigerator. I used shiitake mushrooms, green bell peppers, garlic, onion, carrot and a little hakusai cabbage (suey choy). This meal was served with rice, miso soup and a small fresh salad (small because there are a lot of vegetables in the meal already).

Sukiyaki!

Sukiyaki is, to put it simply, beef seasoned with sweet and salty sauce. Often other ingredients are added to increase the enjoyment of the meal.  Sukiyaki is cooked hot pot style, usually at the dinner table. We used an electric hotplate, as we do not have a portable gas one (which is preferable). An iron skillet with handles is utilized instead of a nabe cooking pot (a nabe pot is what comes to mind when one thinks of this cooking style). You can buy special sukiyaki pots but a nice deep skillet will work too. Non-stick is fine. The beef, vegetables and simmering sauce are prepared beforehand and placed on the dinner table for diners to add to the pot. You can see that I used shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, carrot, leek, hakusai (suey choy) and konnyaku (a calorie-free jelly made of yam that absorbs whatever flavour you place it in). Other ingredients I would have liked to include are tofu both fresh and deep fried, shungiku (chrysanthemum leaves) and shimeji mushrooms. My husband desperately wanted to raw egg to dip the cooked meat and vegetables into but the chance of food poisoning is too much. In Japan when sukiyaki is eaten, everyone is given a bowl with a fresh raw egg. When you take something from the pot to eat, you dip it in the beaten egg first. I never did this but my husband insists it is the best way to eat sukiyaki. Oddly enough no one gets food poisoning from raw egg in Japan... The simmering sauce is made from soy sauce, mirin, sake, water and sugar.

Forgive the blurriness of the photo! This is my husband oiling the pan with a bit of beef fat. Now I know that sounds really unhealthy, but it is just a little bit and it gives the sukiyaki a full bodied flavour, so be sure to use some!

Here you can see the beef is lightly fried. A tiny amount of sugar is sprinkled on top of the beef as it fries.

Eventually you add the simmering sauce and then start placing other ingredients on top. Here you can see the hakusai. Once everything is added, you put the lid on and let it simmer until desired doneness. It is really delicious and fun to cook! Sometimes if there is leftover sauce you can add some pre-cooked udon noodles. Steamed rice suits this meal perfectly!

And for dessert...shortbread!

Hamburger Steak/Salisbury Steak

In Japan a 'hamburg' (hamburger) is actually what we would call Salisbury Steak. It is an oval shaped ground meat patty complimented with a gravy or sauce. Granted they do have hamburgers in Japan--at fast food outlets such as McDonalds, as well as their own domestic joint 'Mos Burger' (which I must say is the gourmet of fast food hamburgers!). However, there are entire restaurants dedicated to serving hamburg in all its meaty glory. There are variations on flavour, but the basic idea is to mix ground beef with ground pork, bread crumbs and egg. I like to use onions and garlic in my hamburg. A bit of ketchup and Bulldog sauce goes well in it too. I like to experiment with the seasonings--sometimes spicy, sometimes savory.  Ketchup is always welcome as a condiment for hamburg, but a popular sauce is a mixture of red wine, Bulldog and a small touch of ketchup. For this photo I just made a  brown sauce. Steamed vegetables such as carrot and broccoli are often served with hamburg to contrast any oily flavour. It is a far cry from tv dinner salisbury steak!

We have a variety of meat again!

Having gone to Costco last weekend, our freezer is now absolutely full of a variety of meal--drumsticks, chicken thighs, pork, beef, salmon, ground meat and shrimp. I now have some choice again about what to cook. Tonight we had lemon asparagus chicken drumsticks. The lemon lightens the flavour and so though the meal is hearty, it is not heavy. Lemon pepper further enhances the flavour.

This is of course Gyudon or beef bowl which I posted earlier. Really the meat should be cut much thinner, but even with partially freezing the meat, I can't seem to get a thin enough slice. Ah well, it was still delicious! Some supermarkets will slice the meat thin for you, but often they require you to give them a day's notice.

And finally we have banana chip muffins. Though the recipe calls for three bananas, I found that two worked much better. The dough had moisture, but was not gummy. I substituted half the white flour for whole wheat and used Splenda instead of sugar. The chocolate was real though. ^_^

Tis the season for hot pot!

With our recent snowfall and blustery weather, we were in the mood for hot pot! Japanese hot pot is cooked in a clay pot called a "nabe." That is why hot pot in Japan is called simply, "nabe" (nah-beh). This particular nabe has chicken drumsticks, shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, naga-negi (Japanese leek), carrots, daikon (Japanese giant radish) and konnyaku (devil's tongue jelly). The broth is dashi stock mixed with about 1 tbsp of soy sauce. On top of all these goodies I placed...

A LOT of hakusai or suey choy. This cabbage goes on last, as it cooks very quickly. The harder to cook ingredients such as chicken, go in first. There are many different types of nabe and you can use almost any type of meat or seafood in it. As well, most any type of vegetable goes well in it. Tofu and fish cakes are also great additions. A particular delight is crab nabe...expensive though.

With some types of nabe, you cook the food yourself at the table using a hot plate or portable gas range. The broth is heated and each diner chooses from a plate of chopped vegetables and sliced meat. You can then cook your selection and eat it piece by piece. This is great for parties, but does not work if you are including chicken in your nabe. For safety reasons, chicken nabe is simmered beforehand. Tonight's nabe had chicken in it, so I simmered it for sometime and added everything at once. My husband and I each have a small bowl and we choose ingredients from the nabe to place in this bowl. We add a bit of the simmering broth and then a bit of flavouring such as ponzu or kimichi. It is always delicious and warms you right to the core! We will be eating nabe a lot more often now that the weather has turned cold. It is one thing to look forward to in the winter. ^_^

Japanese Gratin

Macaroni Gratin made Japanese-style was my husband's favourite food in elementary school. His school served all the students lunches and often Macaroni Gratin was one of the features. How is Japanese Gratin different from our Macaroni and Cheese? Well, for one thing, there is far less cheese. Secondly, there is less macaroni. A true Japanese Gratin uses ample white sauce and only a sprinkle of cheese on top. The bread crumb topping is made of Panko, which is what tempura is coated in. The ingredients within the gratin are mostly vegetables and protein (usually shimp or chicken).

The gratin I made above uses shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, broccoli, onion and garlic. There is of course macaroni in there too, but much less than macaroni and cheese. The white sauce is simply 3 tbsp margarine, 4 tbsp flour and 2.5 cups milk. The top is seared using a kitchen torch. It does look a bit black, but tastes amazing! I highly recommend making this dish--you may never go back to regular mac and cheese!

Last of the autumn bounty

The days are definately shorter and colder. It seems that autumn is fading out and winter is rolling in. Last weekend I received a box of apples, the last gasp of fall's bounty. Well, not quite, but it sounds dramatic, doesn't it? ^_^ I did, however, receive a box of slightly over-ripe apples. They were a bit soft for eating directly, but perfect fodder for applesauce! I made this sauce with very little sweetener and no spices. I plan on using it for baking and cooking things such as loaves and curry. After cooking it, I put it in the longest baking pan I had to cool it down faster. When it was cool, I divided it up into containers for freezing. My freezer is fairly bursting with pumpkin, zucchini and now, applesauce! By the way, you may notice I left the skins on the apples. Firstly I believe the skins, when washed, are very healthy for your digestive system. Secondly and most importantly, I am too lazy to peel that many apples. ^_^

Today's bento for hubby consisted of grilled salmon, rolled omelet, sesame pickled cucumber, berry tomato and mixed vegetables.

The day before yesterday's bento was a fried pork cutlet on rice with carrots. It is hard to see the rice in this photo, but it is there peeking out the side!

Last weekend my husband prepared ramen, making his own special spicy miso broth. We were lucky to get some Eringi (King Oyster Mushrooms) on Saturday, so we made great use of them. Some of the mushrooms went into this soup and were delicious! We don't get them often, so when we do, it is a great treat!

I made another pumpkin loaf last week. I know I posted one already, but this is a shot of the inside. When using fresh pumpkin you tend to get chunks rather than the smooth consistancy that comes in a can. Both have their time and place, but sometimes it is nice to actually feel like you are eating pumpkin. This loaf highlights that, I think.

Onigiri (Rice Ball)

These are the onigiri (rice balls) I made for my husband today. They are very easy to carry and are perfect for road trips. My husband had to travel to another city today to make some deliveries with his job and he requested onigiri instead of his regular bento, as he needed to eat in the truck. Onigiri is a shaped ball of rice with some sort of filling inside. Typical fillings include but are not limited to salted salmon, roe mixed with mayonnaise, ume boshi, tuna with mayonnaise, mentaiko, dried bonito flakes and pickled seaweed. You can get creative with this and try things like sausage and other types of pickles. Even canned chicken or ham would work. The point is to use something salted as it needs to last in your lunch. Onigiri is sort of like the Japanese answer to sandwiches. We use items like ham and pickles in our sandwiches because they don't go bad as quickly. It is a similar story in Japan--things like salted salmon and ume boshi work just like deli meat here. I shaped the rice with a small piece of salmon inside it. I then wrapped a piece of nori seaweed around it. Once the rice ball was cool, I packaged it up in tin foil and presto! A very portable lunch! Onigiri makes a satisfying lunch or snack anytime and it is quite healthy for you as well. Onigiri works best with Japanese koshihikari short grain rice (sometimes called sushi rice in the supermarket).

Supper tonight was another donburi. This is a pork cutlet on rice with egg and onion. Onions and garlic are simmered in sake, soy sauce, dashi and sugar. Then a sliced cooked pork cutlet is layered on top. Beaten egg is drizzled on top and simmered until cooked. This is placed on top of steamed white rice. Pickled ginger goes well with this dish. It is satisfying at the end of a long day of physical work (my poor man!).

Tomorrow is Friday and I am thinking spaghetti!

Sausage bento

I made this bento for my husband the other day. The sausage is a bit dark in the photo, because I couldn't get the flash on the camera to work. So we have rice with sesame, the mini sausage, broccoli and pickles. I do try to make the bento with three items--at least. This is a very easy and quick bento to make, provided you have the rice on hand already. We always set our rice cooker the night before, so in the morning the rice is cooked for breakfast and lunches. The sausages only take about 10 minutes in a frying pan and 3 minutes in a microwave. The broccoli takes 30 seconds to steam in the microwave. What I do is set the sausage cooking while I eat breakfast. Then when I am done, I just need to assemble the bento. Easy! ^_^

Last week's meals

In a previous post I demonstrated how the Japanese make curry rice using blocks of curry roux. There is another recipe for curry in Japan called 'dry curry,' I suppose refering to the fact that no roux or liquid is used. Packets designed especially for dry curry abound in Japan, but you can get the same results using plain curry powder and a bit of salt. The best meat for dry curry is ground meat, as it contains enough flavourful fat to prevent the dry curry from becoming, well, too dry. Other ingredients such as onions and garlic are excellent additions. You can be a bit creative with dry curry, adding whatever types of vegetables you prefer. In this instance I used canned corn for an element of sweetness. If you like, dry curry can be made into fried rice or served on top of plain white rice in the donburi style.

Salted salmon has many uses, from bento to onigiri (rice ball) filling. Over the weekend, I made an easy lunch of salmon mixed rice using two fillets of salted salmon. First I prepared the rice by washing and rinsing it. Then I placed the raw fillets on top of the rice with just a dollop of margarine and turned on the rice cooker. The fillets steamed along with the rice. After about 40 minutes I gently broke up the fillets with the rice paddle and mixed it into the steaming rice. I added a touch of sesame seeds for a bit of crunch. So easy and so satisfying! I really think that no kitchen should be without a good quality rice cooker. Of course you could use a saucepan but it is slightly more challenging to get the rice just right.

We do have A LOT of ground meat in our freezer, so here is yet another ground meat meal. This is stroganoff and once again it is an easy one. I simply browned the ground meat with onion and garlic. I then added a touch of sake and water, before adding a can of Campbells Cream of Mushroom Soup. When it was nearly done I stirred in some sour cream and it was complete! This recipe can be found on the Campbells Kitchen website. Just search 'Stroganoff'. I do encourage people to check out that site for a lot of easy economical recipes.

And to finish off, a whole wheat honey banana muffin! I am trying to eat really healthy right now for certain reasons ^_^ so I figured this slightly sweet muffin would help with that. There is no added refined sugar in it at all, only natural honey. It is more of a breakfast muffin than a sweet and helps when you don't feel like eating much in the morning. Plus, it is just right when you are craving something a bit sweet but not cloyingly so.

That's it for now! ~_^

For the love of bread

I made a rather large batch of bread dough the other day. Half of it I used to make regular buns but the other half became a large loaf of fluffy bread. It really is delicious! The only problem is the slicing...I seem to have inherited my mom's technique for slicing bread--which results in the top being thick and the bottom being thin. ^_^; Ah well, you can't win 'em all! Either way, the bread is great as-is, or lightly toasted. Like the edge of the bottle in the upper right of the background? It is cooking sake for those who were wondering. ^_^

And what suits bread more than chili? This batch of chili was made using a combination of ground beef and ground pork. There is a can of soybeans in there, as well as corn, carrots, onion and garlic--lots of garlic! A touch of Tabasco adds some heat, as does the spicy pepper cheese. I served the chili on top of fresh lettuce for a little crunch and to tame the heat. It's actually not that spicy though. The chili powder I have seems to be a bit on the mild side. In any case, it is a satisfying dish when the weather outside is frosty.

A new favourite loaf

An unexpected visit from my parents on Halloween yielded delicious results! They appeared at our door bearing a very seasonally appropriate gift--a pumpkin! And what a pumpkin it was! Huge! I let it sit on my kitchen counter for a day so I could bask in its glory for awhile, knowing full well I wouldn't see another like it for a whole year. Then yesterday, I finally worked up the mettle to break it down into pieces. I peeled and chopped it up for freezing, as it is a baking and cooking staple. Normally you should cook the pieces before freezing, but I couldn't be bothered (it was quite enough to chop it up!). I reserved a few pieces to make a new recipe, Pumpkin Loaf. I don't want to call it a bread, because that implies yeast and this is a quickbread. However, it acts very much like a bread and can be used as such. Let me say, delicious! I used a mixture of white and whole wheat flour to give it more of a nutitional punch and lessen my guilt for indulging. It has quickly become my favourite loaf! So moist and delicious, I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and snack! Bonus: pumpkin is good for you! So ha!

Here is a bento lunch I made for my husband yesterday. On the left you can see some salted salmon which I pan fried. The upper right is just some sliced cucumbers and below it is a tamago-yaki (rolled sweet omelet). Rice is of course standard. We made the salted salmon ourselves. It is super easy! We bought a huge piece of salmon from Costco and sprinkled both sides of the fillet with pickling salt (any salt would work just as well). We then let it sit in the fridge for an hour. Then we sliced it into individual servings and froze it for quick lunches. Salted salmon is also nice broken into flakes and mixed with steamed rice.

This is actually one of my husband's favourite dishes: ginger pork. Though it is not swimming in sauce, the flavour is very much there. The meat is sauted until the sauce soaks in and evaporates away. The result is tender, ginger infused pork with a hint of something sweet and salty. I served it on a bed of cabbage steamed with butter, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper.

Definately making pumpkin loaf again!