I wanted to see how the marinade changed after I used it for both the diakon and the cucumber. I did this by weighing it. I weighed the marinade both before and after the daikon and cucumbers were done. Before I put in the diakon, the marinade weighed 170 grams. After the diakon had been in the marinade for 2-3 weeks I removed it and weighed the marinade. It was 343 grams; meaning that 173 grams of liquid were extracted from the daikon and replaced in the diakon by the salt and flavoring of the marinade. In essence the moisture extracted from the diakon doubled the total volume of the liquid. I then added 4 American mini-cucumbers to the 343 grams of marinade and after 1week I removed the cucumber and weighed the marinade. It had increased to 398 grams. (An additional 55 grams of liquid from the cucumbers were added to the marinade). I am not sure how many times I can reuse the marinade like this but it is good to know that I can use it for at least one batch of cucumbers after marinating the diakon and the cucumbers come out nicely.
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Pickled Cucumber キュウリの漬物
I wanted to see how the marinade changed after I used it for both the diakon and the cucumber. I did this by weighing it. I weighed the marinade both before and after the daikon and cucumbers were done. Before I put in the diakon, the marinade weighed 170 grams. After the diakon had been in the marinade for 2-3 weeks I removed it and weighed the marinade. It was 343 grams; meaning that 173 grams of liquid were extracted from the daikon and replaced in the diakon by the salt and flavoring of the marinade. In essence the moisture extracted from the diakon doubled the total volume of the liquid. I then added 4 American mini-cucumbers to the 343 grams of marinade and after 1week I removed the cucumber and weighed the marinade. It had increased to 398 grams. (An additional 55 grams of liquid from the cucumbers were added to the marinade). I am not sure how many times I can reuse the marinade like this but it is good to know that I can use it for at least one batch of cucumbers after marinating the diakon and the cucumbers come out nicely.
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Sweet Potato and Chestnut Rice サツマイモ、栗ご飯
This is a close-up of sweet potato chestnut rice. I sprinkled “goma-shio” ごま塩, a mixture of black sesame and salt.
For the miso soup, I added shimeji しめじand shiitake mushroom along with lily bulb 百合根 which sank to the bottom. We picked the lily bulb up with the chopsticks so they got their place in the photo op.
Ingredients:
2 cups (using the cup came with out rice cooker) of short grain rice (we used “Yumepirica” ゆめぴりかHokkaido rice we got form NY rice factory).
1 inch square kelp
1 Japanese sweet potato, peeled, diced and soaked in cold water
10 prepared chestnuts
1 tbs x4 concentrated “Mentsuyu” Japanese noodle sauce
Directions:
Wash the rice, place it in the rice cooker, add the specified amount of water, add the seasoning, sweet potato and chestnuts and turn on the switch.
When it is done (see below), remove the kelp and gently mix.
This is a very autumnal and nice rice. Nice sweetness from both the sweet potato and the chestnuts with contrasting texture of soft and somewhat crunchy. I just sprinkled the “goma-shio” and my wife, as usual, added butter and soy sauce. The soup also went very well. The nice sweetness and crunchy texture of the lily bulb and mushrooms worked well together. We were also pleased with the daikon tsukemono.
Saturday, October 7, 2023
Cucumber and Wood Ear in Mustard Sauce キュウリとキクラゲの辛子和え
Ingredients:
One American mini-cucumber, ends trimmed, cut into half length-wise, then sliced on bias
Wood ear mushroom (fresh or hydrate dry), cut into julienne (amount arbitrary)
Slices of roasted pork (or ham) cut into julienne (amount arbitrary)
For dressing:
1 tsp roasted sesame oil
2 tsp sweet vinegar (I used homemade which I keep in a bottle; the ratio of vinegar to sugar is 2:1 with a dash of salt)
1 tsp ponzu-shouyu
Japanese mustard (prepared from the tube) (amount to taste or for your liking)
Directions:
Knead the cucumber slices with small amount of salt, let them stand for 5 minutes and squeeze out excess moisture
Dress all the ingredients with the dressing. You could add more mustard. Adjust the taste to your liking
Refrigerate before serving.
This is a good small dish as an “otoshi” おとうし drinking snack. The wood ear adds nice crunch, the pork adds great flavor and the cucumber is refreshing. Spicy Japanese mustard also makes this dish. Best with cold sake but even goes with red wine.
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Matsutake 松茸
Classically, the soup contains a small filet of conger eel or “hamo” 鱧 or other white fish filet but, since we did not have any, I used “Hanpen“ ハンペン fish cake. Other items included tofu, carrot, “Hana-fu” 花麩 gluten cake shaped like a flower. Since I wanted a bit of green, I added small florets of blanched broccoli. I also topped this with frozen “yuzu” 柚子 Japanese citrus rind. I only cooked the soup a few minutes after I added the matsutake. The broth was made from my usual dashi packets, seasoned with mirin, salt and soy sauce.
Since I had old asazuke 浅漬け (3-4 week old) and one I just made the previous day, I served both side-by-side for comparison (the one on the left is 1 day old the one on the right is 1 month old). The old asazuke developed slightly sour but more complex flavors and the young asazuke is fresh tasting but a bit simpler taste. I adjusted the original recipe by adding a bit more salt (instead of standard 3% I add 5% salt) as well as a small amount of Vodka. This makes the asazuke last much longer so 1 month old asazuke is even possible.
We are glad we had matsutake to commemorate the start of the fall.
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Cold Thin Udon Noodle with Home-made Ponzu 自家製ポン酢、冷やし糸うどん
Since I made two kinds of pork a few days ago; Simmered pork and Barbecued pork, I cut some julienne pieces off of both kinds. We have a profusion of perilla in our herb garden and I added a chiffonade of perilla. My wife just harvested myouga 茗荷 and I made myouga picked in sweet vinegar. I included both fresh and pickled myouga as a topping (in the center). Other toppings included “Gari” ガリ pickled shouga ginger, cucumber and golden thread omelet or “Kinshi-ran” 金糸卵. For the sauce, I used my home-made ponzu-shouyu mixed with dark sesame oil (just a few splashes). I also added Japanese hot mustard and yuzu kosho shown on the rim of the plate (upper right).
Our myouga patch was doing well in terms of the foliage but the underground buds were slow to mature this year. But finally we had a good harvest. Myouga is such a unique herb/vegetable. We like to enjoy fresh as a topping or type of salad but pickled in sweet vinegar is also a very good way to prepare the myouga. At least for one or two weeks, the color of myouga becomes very red and sweet vinegar adds to the flavor. Then eventually the color fades to white.
I did not post about the home-made ponzu. This is just for my convenience. Since it is difficult to get fresh yuzu, I used bottled yuzu juice plus lime juice.
Ingredients:
100 ml yuzu juice (Either freshly squeezed or bottled) plus freshly squeezed lime of lemon juice to make 100ml
150 ml soy sauce
I small square of “konbu” kelp
I small package of bonito flakes
Directions:
Just mix the yuzu juice and soy sauce. In a clean sealable container (I used a clean and empty rakyo pickles plastic container) and added the kelp and bonito flakes.
Place in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks (I kept it for 2 weeks)
Strain the kelp and bonito flakes and transfer the ponzu in clear sealable container and keep it in the refrigerator.
I think my home-made ponzu is slightly better but not much better than the commercial one since I could not use freshly squeezed Japanese citrus such as yuzu. This was a cool refreshing dish for a hot day.
Friday, August 4, 2023
Quail egg fry and Scotch eggs うずらの卵の串揚げとスコッチエッグ
I skewered two fried quail eggs with a tooth picks (shown under the shrimp head) emulating “Kushi-age” 串揚げ, Japanese breaded fried items on skewer, which is a classic Izakaya item.
How to prepare boiled quail eggs:
Add quail eggs to a pan of cold water on medium flame, as the water gets warmer, gently start stirring the water which helps to center the egg yolks. Once the water starts boiling turn down the flame and boil for 3 minutes. Immediately cool in ice water
Quaril egg Scotch egg:
Ingredients: Made 5
8 oz ground chicken (or beef or pork)
5 boiled quail eggs
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
2-3 shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
freshly grated nutmeg, black pepper and salt to taste
1 tbs olive oil
2 tbs Panko bread crumbs
For breading
Flour or potato starch
1 egg beaten mixed with 2-3 tbs water
Panko bread crumbs
Peanut oil for deep frying
Directions:
Sauté the onion and mushrooms in olive oil for 2-3 minutes, let it cool to the room temperature
Add ground chicken, panko and the seasonings, mix well and knead by hand (if too loose add more panko and/or potato starch).
Coat each quail egg in potato starch
Divide the meat mixture into 5 parts and make an oval 1/3 inch thick on your palm.
Place the egg in the center and encase it with the meat mixture to make an oval sphere (or ellipsoid)
Bread the sphere by coating in the potato starch (or flour), the egg water and the panko bread crumbs
Deep fry at 180F for about 5 minutes or until the bubbles become small
Cut in half and serve
This was quite good. The fried quail egg had a nice crunchy outside and the inside yolk was velvety smooth. The overall flavor was very nice too. It would have been easy to eat many more. The little Scotch egg was just the right amount as an appetizer for us. (We find the Scotch eggs made with regular hens eggs are too big.
Friday, January 27, 2023
Fresh Wood Ear Mushroom and Chicken Salad キクラゲと鶏肉の酢味噌あえ
In any case, this is what fresh wood ear mushroom looks like.
I served this as a appetizer one evening. It was good but fresh wood ear is not as crunchy as the dried ones.
Ingredients:
1/3 cup or more, Wood ear mushroom, washed, blanched, and cooled. Remove the hard attachment part if present and cut into strips. If using dried, rehydrate first.
1 American mini cucumber, both ends trimmed and the seeds scooped out. Cut into quarters length-wise and then obliquely
1/2 cooked chicken breast (we used breast meat from a whole chicken which was barbecued in a Weber grill, cut into similar sized pieces as the cucumber.
Karashi sumiso からし酢味噌 dressing (japanese hot mustard, miso, sugar and rice vinegar)
Directions:
Just dress all the ingredients and serve. Because of the acidity of the dressing, sake goes best.
Wood ear does not have much flavor but does have a nice crunch. Actually, the Japanese name “Ki-kurage” キクラゲ means “tree (ki) jelly fish (kurage)” because of the similar crunchy texture. The fresh one is nice but not as crunchy as re-hydrated dried ones. I may prefer the dried also because keep for a long time.
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Ikura and smoke salmon appetizer イクラと冷製スモークサーモン前菜
We have been getting keta-slamon roe “Ikura” from Vital Choice. The available packages vary in size; sometimes only a tray of one kilograms is available and other time 6oz jars. In any case, we like keta-salmon roe the best among other trout and salmon roes. Our most common way to serve ikura is on blini with cream cheese and smoked salmon. This time, only small amount of ikura was left, so we made cream cheese wrapped with smoked salmon topped with ikura placed on a slice of cucumber.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
Cold cucumber soup and aspic addendum 冷製胡瓜スープと胡瓜ゼリー
Because we got 4 large American cucumbers instead of the 4 mini cucumbers we ordered for our recent groceries delivery, we decided to use them to make cold cucumber soup and cucumber aspic. We served the aspic with dill sauce. Although both dishes were very good and we ate each one individually for several lunches, my wife came up with the idea of combining the two. She placed the aspic in a bowl, poured in some of the soup and topped it with the sauce.
The result was an example of “the whole being greater than the sum of its parts”. The soup combined with the dill topping acted like a sauce which perfectly complemented the aspic. Cucumber was the predominant flavor but subtle differences in the flavors of the various ingredients that went into the soup versus the aspic added a pleasing complexity. In the future, we think this would be the preferred way to serve these two dishes so we decided to write this addendum to make that point. This cucumber combination also worked very well especially with the chicken curry we had with it for lunch.
Saturday, October 8, 2022
Cucumber aspic 胡瓜のゼリー
This is the second dish we made using the large American cucumbers we got through grocery home delivery by mistake. Since my wife is into anything “aspic”, this was “the dish” for her. It turned out to be remarkably good. For the picture I added slices of Japanese cucumber as a topping garnish and made an instant dill sauce. My wife later made a different sauce for this dish which is based on dressing for cucumber salad. and it worked well. The cucumber flavor of the aspic was very subtle. Most of the cucumber flavor seems to have come from the garnish of Japanese cucumbers but the aspic had a nice texture and fairly complex flavors.
Ingredients:
2 large American cucumbers, peeled and seeded, grated (I used a Japanese grater to get a fine grated texture)
1/2 c. cold water (We felt that plain water brings nothing to the “show” so we used lightly sweetened cold mint/black tea that my wife makes for the summer months because it was available. Chicken stock would probably work too).
1/2 c. boiling water
2 tbsp. Knox gelatin
1 tsp. grated onion (we used Vidalia onion)
2 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. vinegar (we used sushi vinegar)
2 tbsp. lemon juice
Dash of Tabasco sauce (we used Sriracha)
For sauce
Version 1
1tbs Greek yogurt
1tbs sour cream
1 tsp lemon juice
1tbs chopped dill
Version 21/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1/4 cup Mayonnaise
2 Tbs. sushi vinegar
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1tbs chopped dill
Directions:
Bloom the gelatin by soaking it in the cold water for 5 minutes. Then add the boiling water, stir until thoroughly dissolved, then add all the other ingredients. Put into molds and set in refrigerator to congeal. Yield 6 servings.
This was a very light refreshing dish perfect for a hot summer day. Although the cucumber taste was very subtle the entire refridgerator smelled of cucumber as the aspic was solidifying (which was a very pleasant smell). The flavors were subtle but complex. No single one stood out. For example there was a slight hint of the mint from the tea and a slight hint of the onion. We could have used a bit more hot sauce. The texture was very smooth and pleasing. The sour cream based sauce with the dill really finished the whole dish nicely. Maybe getting the wrong cucumbers wasn’t such a bad mistake after all.
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
Cold cucumber soup 冷製胡瓜のスープ
Getting home delivery of groceries is very convenient but one problems that the quality of the fresh produce may be quite variable since we cannot inspect the product before buying. Broken eggs are not uncommon as well the the delivery of wrong items. We have also disable the automatic option for substitutions if the item we requested is not available. This is because the substitutions may not be always appropriate. For example, the substitution of shallots for jalapeno. Talking of wrong item being delivered, we recently received 4 giant American cucumbers instead of a package of 4 mini-cucumbers. (We like these because they are the closest in taste and texture to a Japanese cucumber). Although we do not like regular American cucumbers rather than throwing them out, we tried to use them. This is one of such attempt. We made cold cucumber soup with mint and buttermilk. We had it as a lunch with our usual potato salad and coleslaw. I also served skinned Campari tomato with broccoli and pecan, apricot bread. This was certainly all home-made vegetarian salad and soup lunch which was quite good and filling
The recipe came from Southern Living on line.
Ingredients:
21 oz. cucumbers (in our case this was two big American cucumbers)
2 cups whole buttermilk
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (we used home-made)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint (from our herb garden)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon, plus more for garnish (we did not have fresh, we used 1 tsp dried)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice plus 1 tsp. lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Directions:
Peel, seed, and chop 2 of the cucumbers.
Process chopped cucumbers, buttermilk, yogurt, mint, tarragon, lemon zest and juice, and salt in a blender until very smooth, about 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down sides as needed.
Chill 1 hour or overnight.
We served with slices of Japanese cucumber and chiffonade of fresh mint leaves.
This was a quite nice cold soup. I usually do not particularly fond of buttermilk but for this soup, the buttermilk really tasted great. The slices of Japanese cucumber added nice fresh cucumber taste. One thing that was kind-of odd was that the soup was effervescent. You can see the little bubbles in the pictures above and interestingly the bubbles didn’t go away after the soup had been in the fridge for some time. The bubbles added to texture giving the otherwise velvety smooth soup and somewhat grainy mouth feel. Nonetheless it was a very good cool refreshing soup.
Saturday, July 30, 2022
Cucumber salad PA Dutch style PA ダッチ風胡瓜サラダ
Ingredients:
5 mini-cukes
1 medium sized Vidalia onion
3 Tbs. dill weed
For the dressing: (shown in picture below)
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1/4 cup Mayonnaise
2 Tbs. sushi vinegar (Yes. I know the Pa. Dutch did not have sushi vinegar…but we did.)
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
Directions:
Thinly slice the cucumber and onions. For the onion cover with several pinches of salt, knead it, let stand for several minutes to draw out moisture. Squeeze out additional moisture. Rinse under water to wash off the salt and squeeze it again. For the cucumber; cover with several pinches of salt, using less than for the onion. Repeat the steps used for the onion, but because I used less salt I did not need to rinse it. Add all the ingredients together for the dressing. Add the dressing to the onion, cucumber mixture. Add the dill and mix. (See picture below).
This was a very nostalgic taste of summer for my wife. You can't go wrong with a cream based dressing on fresh veggies. The overall taste of this salad is very refreshing and perfect for a hot humid summer day. The day we made this salad my wife had also made a chicken curry. They were both done at about the same time so we decided to taste the products of our (her) labor. We had a small bowl of each and were very surprised to find that the cucumber salad went perfectly with the curry. Then it dawned on us; this was the Pa. Dutch equivalent of Indian cucumber yogurt salad i.e. raita a customary side dish for curry. No wonder they went so well together.
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Octopus and cucumber in sumiso dressing 蛸のぶつ切りと胡瓜の酢味噌あえ
This is nothing new; just a continuation of frozen and boiled Spanish octopus from Great Alaska Seafood. This is a good example of how an octopus leg cut can make a big difference in texture. Boiled octopus can be sliced thinly with a wave cut or cut into chunks called "Butsu-giri" ぶつ切り. The cut that is used depends on the firmness of the cooked octopus meat. Firm texture octopus it is quite chewy. A thick slice would be too difficult to eat. The thin wave cut provides a manageably chewy piece and the wave pattern catches any sauce that is used. Alternatively if the octopus meat is soft, the thinly slice wave cut doesn’t have any texture and basically dissolves when eaten so cutting it into chunks is the better choice. Since this octopus was a bit on the soft side, I opted for the chunky cut and made this classic "octopus and cucumber sumiso-ae" 蛸のぶつ切りと胡瓜の酢味噌あえ. I served this with store bought squid shio-kara (right)
Since this octopus leg was more tender than ones from Japan, this "Butsu-giri" cut really worked. It is not too chewy but has nice texture.
Friday, August 6, 2021
Big eye tuna sashimi 4 ways めばち鮪刺身 四通り
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Four appetizers in new small bowls 御通し4種類と新しい小鉢
We have a good number of small Japanese-style bowls and plates but for some reason my relationship with breakable dishes ends up with them getting broken every-now-and-then. So I am always on the look out for potential replacement small Japanese style dishes/bowls. (Also, since enjoyment of food is visual in addition to taste, I just like different bowls in which to present what I make to complete the entire experience). I found these small bowls on Amazon. They came in four different patterns/colors in a set of four (i.e. total of 16 bowls) . I ended up getting all 4 sets. So, this is the first time I used this set to serve 4 appetizers. The first picture, from left to right, are "salmon nanban" 鮭の南蛮漬け, "hijiki seaweed stir-fry" ひじきと油揚げの炒めのも and Japanese "dashi-maki" だし巻き卵 omelet, "Wood ear"* mushroom, cucumber and wakame seaweed sunomono" キクラゲ、ワカメ、胡瓜の酢の物, and "shredded chicken tenderloin and asparagus in sesame dressing" 鳥のささみとアスパラの胡麻和え.
*Wood ear mushroom is so-called because it grows out of the surface of wood like an ear sticking out. Japanese call it "ki-kurage" meaning "jelly fish of the wood" because the crunchy texture is similar to dried and salted edible jelly fish. It is interesting, however, when it is written in "kanji" ideograms, it is 木耳 which means wood 木 ear 耳. There is no way you can pronounce 木耳 as "ki-kurage" but the meaning of these two ideograms indeed mean "wood ear".
Thursday, June 4, 2020
"Wu-zaku" eel and cucumber 鰻ざく
The refrigerator limped along for a day or two with the smell seeming to disappear only to return. One morning, I came into the kitchen and there was a puddle of water on the floor coming from the freezer side of the fridge. I realized it had happened; the fridge was kaput. I checked the frozen food. Many of the meats and fish luckily, were still frozen. Since the back-up freezer had not yet arrived, I quickly recommissioned a small stand-up freezer in which my wife keeps speciality flours for baking, from a baking freezer to a meat freezer. I removed all the flour and replaced it with the meat and fish. It all fit.
Unfortunately many of the Japanese items were on the top shelf of the freezer and had already almost completely thawed by the time I got to them. Among the Japanese fish packages was "eel" kabayaki うなぎの蒲焼. So, that evening we had unexpected "Eel" feast. I started with "Wu-zaku" 鰻ざく. This is warm grilled eel with eel sauce topped with cool slices of cucumber in vinegary dressing. I suppose the contrast of warm, oily, soft, sweet and salty eel with cold crunchy cucumber with vinegar dressing is the main attraction of this dish.
I first made cucumber topping.
Ingredients (2 small servings)
One American mini-cucumber, sliced, salted, left for a short while then squeezed to remove the excess moisture
1/2 inch ginger root, skin removed and finely julienned
For dressing
2 tbs Japanese dashi broth
1tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp light colored soy sauce
Chill the cucumber topping in the fridge until just before serving.
Frozen package of eel kabayaki, thawed (whether accidentally like this time or intentionally). I used half for this dish, cut into pieces shown below).
Assembly:
I heated up the eel pieces in a toaster oven (I used toasting function at the highest).
Put the eel pieces on a small plate.
Top it with the cucumber.
Of course, cold sake was called for. Although we still like "Mu" which has been our house sake for a long time, we switched to "Tengumai" as seen below. This daiginjou has a bit more complexity than "Mu" and, at Tippsy sake, Tengumai is less expensive than "Mu".
This was followed by a few more items and we had eel donburi or "unadon" うな丼 as a "shime" ending dish with golden thread eggs 金糸卵. My wife is often leary of the multiple small bones in eel. From experience she found that big pieces of eel such as the kind used in donburi often have numerous hidden small bones but usually the pieces used in sushi do not. She even went so far as to call eel donburi "toothbrush buri". And after several bad experiences in Japan actually stopped ordering eel dunburi. This time she was quite happy to discover that although the piece was quite large, it was sushi quality and didn't have any small bones. It was one of the best eel dunburies ever.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Gazpacho with pumpernickel bread ガスパチョ
As a result of using pumpernickel the soup is coffee brown in color. If she had used white bread, it would have been white. Toasted pumpernickel bread added toasted and additional flavors besides the color.
Ingredients:
1 cup toasted almonds
1/2 tsp. garlic powder (or roasted garlic cloves to taste)
1/2 tsp. salt
2 to 3 cucumbers peeled and chopped
1 1/2 chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
1/3 cup olive oil
2 Tbs. sushi vinegar
4 slices of pumpernickel bread toasted, crusts removed and torn into pieces (about 2 1/2 cups of pieces)
Directions:
Put some of the cucumbers, nuts and bread into a food processor and puree. Add some of the liquid as needed to get the puree going. Once it is a smooth thick consistency add the garlic, salt, vinegar, the rest of the cucumbers and the rest of the chicken broth. Puree until creamy and smooth. Then with the machine on puree, gradually add the olive oil in a steady stream to make a smooth almost mayonnaise like emulsion.
Serve garnished with sliced cucumber and remaining roasted almonds. If it is too thick dilute with milk, cream, buttermilk or chicken broth. (We found that we like the chicken broth best because it lets the combined flavors shine through. )
This soup is great for a hot summer day. It is rich and creamy. It has a pleasant nuttiness from the almonds and pumpernickel but the cucumbers give is a light freshness. The flavors get better over time. Next time we may try making this kind of soup using other nuts such as walnuts or pecans.
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Italian-style octopus salad and more small dishes イタリアンたこサラダ
For vegetables, thinly sliced Vidalia onion, American mini-cucumber, finely chopped celery, skinned Campari tomatoes, Kalamata olive on the bed of our home grown arugula. Like squid salad, this is a good combination and a rather healthy starter.
This is cold tofu or "Hiyayakko" 冷や奴. I changed the topping with bonito flakes, finely chopped scallion, "ikura" salmon roe and blanched edible chrysanthemum all dressed with concentrated noodle sauce.'
This is the last of Chinese-style squid salad 中華風イカサラダ (store-bought).
This is Spanish Mackerel simmered in miso sauce サバの味噌煮 I made a few days ago with a side of blanched broccoli. I just warmed them up by microwaving for 15 seconds. Once I make this, we can usually stretch it out for about 10 days storing it in the refrigerator. This is always a good-to-have item.
We still had left over gyoza 餃子 I made and store-bought fish cake. Sugar snaps are blanched, cooled in ice water and soaked in Japanese dashi broth seasoned with salt スナップ豌豆の塩びたし.
We really like to have many small dishes with many different taste and textures.