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 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! ^_^

A Saturday by myself...

This morning my husband had to work, so I packed him a special bento lunch to cheer him on. There is simmered pork from last night (pork cooked in soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar and water), along with some salad and steamed rice. The gimped word 'love' is written using pieces of nori seaweed. The little black dots are black sesame.

At roughly 5:00pm, I decided to make whole wheat buns. I had run out of home made bread at lunch time, so I got motivated and whipped up another batch. My husband does not eat whole wheat bread, so these should last a long time in the freezer. They are 100% whole wheat and SUPER light. I attribute this to a couple of tricks. One of which is my grandma's trick of adding vinegar to the dough. The other trick is my own--vital wheat gluten. Wheat gluten is a yellow-ish powder that adds height to bread, which is perfect for whole wheat goods. I added about half a cup vital wheat gluten for these buns. As well, I added a lot more sweetener than the recipe calls for, which is for no purpose other than I like sweet bread. A quarter cup sugar was added, as well as a quarter cup Splenda. These buns rose quickly and were done by 8:00pm exactly. Delish!

Notice how the one bun on the right decided to be unique in shape. ^_^

Just a look at the raw dough before rising. I make all my bread by hand--no food processor or mixer and definately NO bread machine. Kneading dough is a good way of taking out your frustrations!

For supper I prepared 'Mabo Dofu'. This dish is made of minced pork, simmered with tofu, green onion, garlic, ginger, 'to-ban-jan' (spicy Korean paste), chicken broth, sake, sugar, soy sauce and miso. It is really delicious and oh so inexpensive to make! You can purchase the sauce in asian food markets, but it is ridiculously easy to make it from scratch.

Tomorrow my husband wants to make sushi. Stay tuned for that!

On a hot day, tofu is best

When the temperature outside rises, the temperature inside our apartment becomes almost sauna-like. On such days turning on the stove is the last thing I want to do. Hooray for tofu which can be eaten without any cooking. This is the salad I made for supper yesterday. It consists of mixed seaweed, sliced cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, shiso and soft tofu, with vinegar dressing and sesame seeds. Delicious, refreshing and easy!

The dressing is very simple and very all purpose. It consists of 3 parts rice vinegar, 2 parts Splenda or sugar and one part soy sauce and sesame oil. You can increase and decrease the amount as needed. Just keep in mind the 3:2:1:1. Try it on lettuce salad or on sliced cucumbers!