...of Cabbages and Octopus balls...

We were given two heads of cabbage this past weekend as a gift. One was the delightfully different purple cabbage and the other was a standard green cabbage. Last night for supper I made use of a small fraction of the latter. Japanese cabbage rolls are unique in that the soup they simmer in contains miso. Other than that, it is fairly standard: ground pork, egg, cornstarch, seasoning. Ketchup is a must for the broth, as well as chicken boullion, soy sauce and sake.

For lunch yesterday my husband made Tako-yaki or fried octopus balls. I know what you're thinking, but no. Just no. Tako-yaki uses a batter similar to Okonomi-yaki, the Japanese savory pancake. The batter has cabbage and bits of pickled ginger added to it. You place a bit of the batter into the indentation on tako-yaki pan and then add a tiny piece of octopus tentacle. More batter is then poured on top. The tako-yaki is turned within the round indentation on the cooker until it forms a solid sphere. There really does seem to be a technique to it. My husband is pretty good. The tako-yaki is then topped with mayo, okonomi-yaki sauce, seaweed and bonito flakes. Osaka in Japan is famous for tako-yaki. If you visit there, be sure to try it!

While my husband made octopus balls, I made a broccoli potato frittata. It turned out quite good and firmed up nicely. Sometimes I brown the top under a broiler, but this time I was too hungry to wait. ^_^

To finish everything off, a nice slice of leftover raspberry pie from Thanksgiving! The tea is a green tea called Candy Cane Lane made by Celestial Seasonings. It is my favourite! It combines green tea, peppermint and vanilla! So delicious!

Thanksgiving!

What is Thanksgiving without a turkey? We had a cute little turkey for our meal and it was delicious! I basted it with soy sauce, honey and sesame oil near the end of its roasting time. We have lots left over, even though we ate our fill!

We put one turkey breast in the freezer and we will eat the other for tomorrow night's supper!

I must admit I favour the dark meat. I do like the white meat too, but if I had a choice, I would always choose the dark. There is something about the texture that I really love! But for sandwiches, the white meat is best because it is less oily.

My mom took this photo of my raspberry pie with her iPhone. My camera was having issues... Anyway, it was more like a raspberry jam tart, but it was quite good. My husband pronounced it a tad sour, but he isn't a huge raspberry fan anyway. He did eat it though and said the crust was quite good. I have lots of filling leftover and am using it as jam for toast. Works great! You know, the crust called for 1 cup of shortening and I only used 1/4. It still worked great and the fat was greatly reduced. I did add a smidge of vinegar and baking powder to the crust, as dictated by my grandma's recipe. I think it improves the texture of the pie very much.

Well, Thanksgiving supper was great and we have leftovers to be creative with! Yay! ^_^

Ume Shiso Spaghetti

This has to be one of my favourite Japanese pasta dishes; Ume Shiso Spaghetti. Ume is of course refering to the pickled plum 'ume boshi' and shiso being the beefsteak plant. I had a little of my 'pink' roast chicken left over in the freezer, so I chopped that up along with some naga-negi onion and shiitake mushroom. I fried it in a bit of olive oil, then added fresh shiso leaves and mashed ume boshi. I did cheat a little and sprinkle some ume shiso furikake (rice seasoning) in as well. The spaghetti was tossed with this lovely mixture and was oh so delicious! It is a lighter version of pasta and does not leave you feeling heavy. We also had a hearty salad and some garlic toast. By the way, I broke the spaghetti in half and found it much easier to mix with the other ingredients in this manner.

Tomorrow we will have Thanksgiving dinner with my parents and I will prepare a raspberry pie. I made the crust today and froze it...here's hoping it is okay!

The delightful world of Omu-raisu

The dish you see here is in fact Japanese. It is called Omu-raisu (Omelet Rice). It is basically ketchup fried rice, covered with a thin omelet. Sometimes the Japanese top it with a demi-glace sauce but we usually just use more ketchup. In this case, I sprinkled and melted hot pepper havarti cheese (we also used ketchup afterwards). Mixed with the rice is a bit of onion, garlic, mixed frozen veg and cubed ham. In Japan they often add mushrooms to it. In fact, in Japan they have ENTIRE restaurants dedicated to this single item and all its variations. They keep the egg much more runny, but I prefer to cook it solid. It is really delicious when you taste it in its authentic environment. If ever you find yourself hungry in Japan, try Omu-raisu!

In addition to the omu-raisu, I made potato leek soup. First I boiled a couple of my mom's garden potatoes. I mashed them until they were super smooth. Then I made a roux using one tablespoon of margarine and one tablespoon of flour. I added about 1/2 cup milk and 1 cup chicken stock (I saved some simmering broth from last night which had chicken, soy sauce, sake, mirin and brown sugar). Once this mixture started to thicken, I added the mashed potatoes and a bit of chopped leek. I didn't need to add any extra seasoning, as the leftover chicken broth was very flavourful, if not a bit dark from the soy sauce. In any case, the soup was soothingly smooth, slightly sweet and very delicious. The moral is always save your chicken stock!

On a side note, I made bread today, but you have seen that before. Tomorrow I may tackle pie crust for a raspberry pie I am planning for Thanksgiving.

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...

Hot Pot for a cold day!

Well, last night (and all day today) we had our first snowfall of the season. Mind you, it is all melted now, but it was coming down fairly heavily last night and today. When my husband came home from work (yes, he worked Saturday) he declared how cold it was outside. You can imagine he was very pleased to find hot pot simmering on the stove. This hot pot is served in individual nabe bowls and you eat directly from the pot it was cooked in (saves on dishes!). Basically it is a thick chicken rice stew/soup with egg on top. Using leftover chicken, I prepared a broth and added some vegetables. Then I added rice before pouring egg on top. It warms you right to the core!

One of our side dishes was potato cakes. I boiled some potato, onion and sausage together in a pot. After draining, I mashed them together, added a bit of egg, shaped them into patties, coated in bread crumbs and fried. They were nice served with a bit of ketchup.

What is this strange looking blob, you may ask? Though it doesn't look like much, it is actually a nutritional powerhouse, all the while being delicious. This is a ham and cabbage casserole. It combines shredded cabbage, onions, garlic and ham, in a thick creamy saucy. The sauce is very very basic: milk and minute tapioca! First you shred and boil the cabbage...drain. Then you fry the onion, garlic and ham in soft margarine. Remove the ham mixture and add milk and minute tapioca to the same pan. Once that is thick, add the ham mixture and cabbage. Let it boil for a bit and then pour it into a greased casserole dish. Mix a small amount of bread crumbs with margarine and sprinkle on the top. I should say that black pepper can be added to taste. Salt is not necessary considering the ham. I baked it in the oven for about 40 minutes. It was really great! Nothing to look at, but quite good. It tastes richer than it really is. The tapioca is deceptive in that it mimics cream without the calories. I guess you could say it was comfort food for a cold day!

There you have it! Cold weather fare!

A little taste of autumn!

When October comes around, chestnuts start appearing in our local Asian grocery store. Chestnuts are very much an autumn food, though if preserved correctly, you can enjoy them all year round. Last week, my husband brought home a bag of chestnuts in their shell. I was very excited, because I just love the subtle sweetness of them. Chestnuts, when cooked, have a rather soft texture, sort of like a potato. They can be mashed or even made into flour. In fact, I had chestnut ice cream at a restaurant in Vancouver. It was great! Anyway, I let the chestnuts sit in boiled water for about 20 minutes to soften their shell. Then I spent about an hour cutting away both the outer and inner layers...the most annoying part. Once that was done I boiled the chestnuts again until they were soft. I froze them on a baking sheet before pouring them into a plastic container. Because they had been individually frozen, I can take out just what I need at anytime. So tonight I made chestnut mixed rice. The chestnuts are placed in the rice cooker along with the rice, water, sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar. Other nice additions (that I didn't have on hand) are mushrooms (shiitake or shimeji) and abura-age (fried tofu).

A real treat tonight! Last weekend my dad had given us some bone-in chicken breasts. We rarely buy white chicken breasts because they are insanely expensive. So this was great! I roasted them with fresh garden onion, garlic and grated ginger, along with a sauce of honey, sesame oil and soy sauce. It was very delicious and provided ample leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

This Japanese side dish is known as Kinpira, though it really should contain burdock (gobo) in addition to the carrot. But, seeing as burdock is scarce in my kitchen, it was made entirely of carrots. The carrots are lightly fried before adding sugar, soy sauce, mirin and sake (I have already said these are the magical Japanese flavouring ingredients). Sesame seeds are the highlight of the dish. As a side note, it freezes well, makes an excellent bento addition and can be eaten hot, cold or room temperature.

With the cooler weather coming, cooking is much more pleasant!