Variations on chicken...and some beef

On the lighter side of cooking, we have here a chicken salad with sesame dressing. For those of you who questioned the merits of my deep frying, this is for you ~_^. The chicken is simply poached in water and then sliced. The vegetables can be whatever pleases you or you have on hand. The dressing is a little something my husband whipped up. It contains, among other things, ground up sesame seeds, peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar and miso. It is actually a protein laden dressing that tastes very fresh. I do think it is necessary to use natural peanut butter which contains nothing but peanuts (no sugar, salt, etc). You will be glad you did.

This little dish is lemon chicken. It goes well on a bed of onions and red peppers, but since I did not have either of those on hand, broccoli became the partner. The chicken breasts are lightly dusted with flour and then seared until brown. They are then simmered in chicken broth and lemon juice with dash of salt and pepper. Cornstarch is used to thicken it up near the end of the cooking time. I threw in a bit of garlic as well. If you have fresh lemons on hand, I recommend added some of the zest to the sauce.

I have posted gyudon before, but here it is again--the delightful beef bowl. Who can resist the strips of beef and sliced onion cooked in a salty sweet broth? It is always a treat! The side dish shown above is a spur of the moment thing. It consists of sliced berry tomatoes with pepper cheese. It was melted with a mini kitchen torch.

Now for the record, it is not what you eat, it is how much. I am of the opinion that you can eat any type of food you want....in moderation. Portion size has been ballooned into proportions unheard of in other parts of the world. For instance in Japan, fried food is eaten (ie tempura) but it is not eaten everyday and only one or two pieces at a time. The most tempura I have ever seen served to one person in Japan was four. The vast majority of Japanese people are thin. This I think comes from portion sizes and daily exercise...not in the form a of gym, but rather from everyday walking and biking. They walk A LOT. Goodness knows, A LOT. And did you know that Japanese women love love love their sweets? Cakes, mochi, cookies, you name it! But again, portion size! They don't typically buy entire cakes, but rather, one piece. One piece of cake! Something to think about, isn't it? ^_^

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!

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. ^_^

Heart warming comfort food

Ah, banana bread! So many variations, so much goodness! This particular loaf does not contain any extra goodies (i.e. chocolate chips, walnuts, etc). I was rather in a hurry, so I just threw together a basic banana bread. It is super delicious toasted with peanut butter for breakfast! I sliced and froze the leftovers so I can enjoy the dense goodness for days to come! Next time I may indulge in a few bits of chocolate...mmm!

Here is a bento lunch I made a few days ago. The rice has ume shiso furikake for seasoning, as well as sesame seeds. The purple stuff in the left corner is sauted purple cabbage. Purple cabbage does have a tendancy to turn blue when cooked, though this can easily be remedied by adding an acidic ingredient such as lemon juice or vinegar. The carrots are cooked in vinegar, sugar, soy sauce and sesame seeds. Everything is rounded out by a hard boiled egg, cucumber slices and pickled onion.

This is a Japanese stew called Hayashi Raisu (should be eaten alongside rice). I forgot to take a photo the day I cooked it, so you get to see leftovers stored in Tupperware. ^_^; This stew is really so delicious! It combines thin strips of beef with carrot, onion, mushroom, tomatos, red wine and demi glace sauce. The demi glace sauce is really what makes it special!

Comforting food as the rain comes down!

A very hot day!

Today was a record setting day for temperature! The mercury soared above 30 degrees and it was certainly much more than that inside our apartment! Nevertheless, I cooked...and I cooked a lot today!

The above pictured dish is Japanese teriyaki chicken. The drumsticks are simmered in a mixture of water, brown sugar, sake, soy sauce and mirin. Sliced ginger, garlic, onion and carrot make nice additons. If there had been room in the pan, I would have added some konnyaku, but that will be saved for another time. Did you know that in Japan you cannot buy bottled teriyaki sauce? My husband had never heard of such a thing! Teriyaki flavour there is always achieved by the magic ingredients sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar.

This nimono bean dish utilizes dried soy beans. Cooking beans is a large task to be sure, especially soy beans which take MUCH longer to cook than other types of dried beans. I soaked these overnight and started cooking them at 10:00am. They finished around 4:00pm. This is a task for a day at home. Added to the beans was Splenda, brown sugar, soy sauce and honey. The honey gives it a distinctive taste and lovely glaze. Soybeans are an awesome source of protein and keep very well in the freezer. Also, they are a perfect addition to any bento lunch and can be eaten hot or cold.

Yes, the black stuff is the forbidden seaweed hijiki. I had frozen the leftovers from last day and took them out again to make mixed rice. I stuffed some "abura-age" tofu pouches with this mixed rice. Delish! Technically rice eaten in an abura-age pouch is classified as sushi. Abura-age is thin pouches of deep fried tofu which has been simmered in vinegar and sugar. They are sweet, salty and tangy.

I ran out of pouches and just served the remaining rice as-is. When I lived in Japan, there was a noodle house which served hijiki rice as a side dish with their soba noodles. I have never tasted such wonderful hijiki rice in my life! They make, hands down, the BEST hijiki rice ever! Of course the restaurant was a little noisy being underneath a railway track...

I had half an onion hanging around in the fridge, so I became inspired. I made cream of onion soup! I started by making a basic white sauce (butter, flour, milk, beef broth) and then added some chopped onion which I later strained out. My husband said it was very good and requested it again!

This odd looking substance is called 'natto.' This is a very healthy dish that only about half of Japanese people can stand to see, smell or eat. To be blunt, it is rotting soy beans. It is very sticky when mixed and forms strands than can only be compared to a spider web. Much to everyone's shock in Japan, I was able to eat natto and enjoyed it very much. I honestly don't smell anything... Because of the bacteria which are fermenting the beans, it is very beneficial for the digestive system. Though some claim it aids in weight loss, I think it is related to the high protein content which fills you up and makes you less hungry. Or maybe the smell alone makes you lose your appetite. The green flecks are green onion.

Natto stuffed into abura-age tofu pouches and then lightly fried is delicious beyond measure! My husband said it is a specialty to his home town Niigata.

Yesterday my husband made BBQ steak, Japanese style. He cubed the steak and marinated in sake. After grilling, he topped it with grated daikon radish and ponzu (citrus soy sauce). It was a fabulous treat, as we rarely eat steak. Seeing as we bought it for 2 dollars, it was great!

Ears of fresh corn were on sale for .59 cents so we bought a couple and grilled them. Cutting them this size is a Japanese custom and makes it much easier to eat.

These are not basic chocolate chip cookies. Actually they are icebox cookies, meaning you either freeze or refrigerate the dough. You can shape the dough into a log and slice (what I did) or roll it out and cut them. I prefer the sliced cookies because I can easily make them thick. I added cornstarch to the flour mixture because it gives the cookies a shortbread-like texture. These cookies are nice with glazed fruit, but all I had was chocolate (not a bad thing!) Chocolate is never bad! ^_^

Gyudon in a cute bowl!

My husband has most Tuesdays off, so that is his official cooking day (I love it!) This week he prepared the Japanese donburi (one bowl) dish called Gyudon. It consists of super thin slices of beef and onion wedges simmered in a sweet and salty broth of soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar and dashi (kelp and smoked fish broth) on top of steamed rice. So delicious when the broth soaks down into the rice! Pickled ginger and mitsuba are used to garnish the top.

The bowl is pretty cute too! My husband bought it from his Japanese tableware shop. It is almost identical to the bowls used by a shop he knows in Japan. It was such a deliciously authentic day! I teased him that he should cook everyday, but he promptly said one day per week is enough. ^_^