Pork three ways

Nimono in Japanese simply means 'simmered dish'. It is a very popular and flavourful method of cooking, where ingredients are simmered in a small amount of broth with various seasonings. Throughout the course of cooking, the broth is reduced to almost nothing and the ingredients absorb the flavour. Often a drop lid is used to preserve the umami (deliciousness).

Pictured above is pork simmered with tofu, shiitake mushrooms, garlic and onions. The broth is a standard Japanese flavour combination of dashi, sugar, mirin, sake and soy sauce. The tofu is on the bottom so you can't really see it... The orange powder on top is called 'shichimi togarashi' or seven flavour chili pepper. It is a very popular condiment in Japan. Obviously it contains seven different ingredients, the main one being ground chili pepper. Added to this is usually mandarin orange peel, black sesame, poppy seed, hemp seed, nori and sansho (another type of pepper). Other recipes may use yuzu peel, rapeseed, shiso and ginger. It is quite powerful and only a little is needed for flavour.

This dish is pork simmered with ume boshi (pickled plum), ginger, garlic, onion and carrot. The broth is the standard Japanese mix, but added to this is rice vinegar and of course the ume boshi. The pink pickled plum gives the pork a distinct pink hue. It also preserves the meat and makes it perfect for leftover lunches. This recipe was originally intended for fish nimono, but it works just as well with pork or chicken.

Here we have pork stir fry with enoki mushrooms, carrot and green onion. It has been lightly flavoured with shiso ponzu sauce. The enoki mushrooms stay rather crisp and chewy, making for an interesting texture. If you can find some, I highly recommend trying them in soup or a stir fry. If you enjoy nabe hot pot, enoki goes well in there too.

Three Meals and a Snack

Yesterday the focus of our meal was a dish called "Buta no kaku-ni." It is a dish which consists primarily of braised pork, though here I added carrots for colour. Ideally good quality pork belly with some fat is preferred but I used a leaner cut. The fat, though not so healthy, gives excellent flavour. Enjoyed once in a while it is okay. ^_^ Since my cut was leaner, it was a bit tighter, but still quite tender due to the slow simmering. It is best enjoyed with a dab of Japanese mustard paste.

The other closeup photo is of vinegar wakame seaweed. It is a very refreshing dish and the bonus is that wakame contains more calcium than milk!

My husband was home today, so for lunch we made curry udon (again, I know I posted it once before). We used more curry roux this time and the result was a much more intense flavour. It was very nice!

Tonight was a meatless night. We ate a nabe of tofu, daikon radish and naga-negi onion. It was simmered in simply water with kombu seaweed. The kombu transforms the water into a dashi broth, which is healthful and delicious. The flavour is subtle, so when you scoop out your object of desire from the nabe pot, you can garnish it with finely chopped naga-negi and ponzu (citrus soy sauce). We also had some carrots cooked in butter and honey, as well as some edamame (green soy beans). It was a soy-ful night! Hahaha! ^_~

And to finish off, a few days ago I baked mini cookies. They are about the size of a dollar. Very tiny and cute!

It is storming outside now, so tomorrow will likely be something nabe again...

A day of comfort food...

I modified and combined a couple of different loaf recipes and came up with this: Chocolate Apple Loaf. The apple keeps it moist, while still retaining that sturdy loaf quality, suitable for afternoon tea or coffee. I topped it with vanilla yogurt and Cool Whip. Since quickbreads freeze well, I sliced it up and stored it away in the freezer for quick snacks.

Supper tonight was genuine Japanese home cooking fare. This dish is called Niku-jaga, literally 'meat and potatoes'. The Japanese often say that when they eat this meal, they think of their mother. It consists of either pork or beef, potatoes, konnyaku and carrot. Now, there are as many Niku-jaga recipes as there are mothers in Japan. Every home cook has their own recipe, but they will all have meat and potatoes in it. Some people add green peas. I usually do, but I forgot ^_^; All the items are simmered in water, sugar (brown), soy sauce, sake and mirin. It is slightly sweet, slightly salty and altogether comforting. Mustard is a nice condiment for eating it with.

This is a clear soup with beet leaves in it. Just delicious!

So simple, so good. These are the stems off of the beet leaves. I sauted them in butter, then added salt and pepper. That's it! I couldn't stop eating them as I was cooking. My mom says vinegar is also a nice addition to it.

Now I'm stuffed...time for a nap...-_-zzzz

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! ^_^

The Forbidden Seaweed

For a side dish tonight I made "hijiki no nimono". Hijiki being seaweed and nimono meaning various simmered things. While I didn't add many things to my hijiki (due to an empty fridge) it was delicious. It is one of my favourite Japanese side dishes. Hijiki is labelled a sea vegetable and while it contains a delightful array of vital minerals, it also contains traces of arsenic. My opinion is that you would have to eat a truckload of hijiki everyday for a year in order to build up detectable levels of arsenic, but Canadian Food Regulations deem otherwise. Though I am not 100% sure, I do not think Canadian retailers can import hijiki seaweed. I have yet to see it anywhere. My supply comes directly from Japan, thanks to my mother-in-law. Again though I am not sure, I think you can buy it in America. ANYWAY...I re-hydrated the hijiki and simmered it in the standard Japanese ingredients: sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar. I added a bit of carrot to it, but in an ideal world, I would have also added shiitake mushroom, burdock root, fried tofu, konnyaku and edamame. Unfortunately, financial circumstances being what they are, carrot was all I had on hand. See the re-hydration process below:

Almost all hijiki is sold in dehydrated form and must be soaked in water for about 15 minutes before simmering. A quick rinse through cold water before simmering eliminates excess salt. I have had success freezing cooked hijiki for a quick bento addition. Also, simmered hijiki added to rice is amazing and can be eaten as is, or shaped into onigiri (rice balls). An interesting note: while hijiki seems to not be imported by Canadian retailers, it was served to us on our Air Canada flight from Japan...makes you wonder.

The main dish of the evening was an ume shiso ground pork donburi. You may notice we ate a lot of ground meat this week... Ground meat is very inexpensive and versatile. Since I lost my job we are really having to be economical...thus ground meat. Luckily it is used extensively in Japan and so I have lots of ways to use it. In this dish, ground pork was simmered with...you got it--a certain ratio of soy sauce, mirin and sugar...no sake this time. I should mention the Japanese use sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar in varying concentrations for almost everything! It is the basis of true Japanese flavour. Items such as miso, ginger, garlic, dashi and sesame oil are also key. After simmering the pork I added green onion, mitsuba, shiso leaves, ume boshi (pickled plum) and ume su (ume vinegar). This mixture was used to top steamed rice. Very delicious!

We also have a cucumber tomato vinegar dish, salad and the ever present miso soup. And of course the forbidden seaweed. ^_^

Tamago update! This is the miso egg I made yesterday. You can see how it absorbed the miso and took on a nice golden colour. The flavour actually penetrates the yolk and needs no other seasoning. I made my husband's egg with spicy korean paste and put it in his bento, along with some spicy sausage:

Because the egg is sort of pickled from the salt in the miso, it keeps very well in a bento. When we go on road trips, I always pack us a bento lunch of onigiri and these miso eggs.

Tomorrow I will head over to Superstore and buy some food. I have my list and I am on a mission! ^_^