Duck Tender Cutlet and Arancini 鴨ささみのカツレツ

Looking ahead to the up coming Easter dinner my wife ordered a bone-in forequarter lamb roast from D’ArtagnanShe also ordered lamb tenderloins (which we’ve had before) and something we have never had before but which she wanted to try; duck tenders. They came as a fairly large quantity frozen in a single package (picture #4). I was intrigued by a french recipe which I saw in D’Artagnan website entitled “Yakitori de canard” 鴨ささみの焼き鳥. It was in french and although I did not look at it my wife assured me she could probably translate it if I wanted to try it. Nonetheless I can easily imagine this would be made exactly like chicken tender yakitori. (Hence no translation necessary.) But that is beside the point because I also wanted to make “arancini” for this meal. So it was “cutlet de canard” on the menu instead. In the picture #1, the top are arancini cut in half showing melted mozzarella cheese and the bottom shows the duck tender cutlet.

The duck tender is dark meat as opposed to chicken tender (picture #2) and has much more flavor.

The arancini was made of leftover shiitake mushroom risotto.

There is nothing special about making duck tender cutlet. After semi-thawing this is the amount we had (picture #4). They were frozen in a big one mass. I had to separate each tenders and vacuum packed 5-6 tenders per bag. I left one package for immediate consumption. Initially I was thinking of marinating the tenders before cooking but taking my wife’s suggestion that since we have never had them before we should taste them as is without any flavoring that might mask the original flavor. I opted to just lightly salt and pepper then breading them and cooking them the same as any other type of cutlet.

I was afraid of the duck tender to become dry after cooking but that was not the case and had much more flavor than chicken tender. I will definitely try to make “Yakitori de canard” next.

Arancini and Mini-Scotch Egg アランチーニとミニスコッチエッグ

My wife ordered some small appetizers from Harry and David. We were already going to order dried fruit medley from them to make fruit cakes and bread. So she added an assortment of small frozen appetizers to the order which included “arancini” among the other items. I told her that arancini is typically made from left-over risotto and I could make it very easily as long as we had left-over risotto. We tried the arancini we had ordered. During the heating, the cheese came out and it was ok but not great. Since we had made shiitake risotto a few days earlier, my wife took me up on my boast about how easily I could make arancini as long as we had left-over risotto and challenged me to make some. So with my feet accordingly held to the fire by this challenge I made arancini from the risotto. Since I would need hot oil for frying to make the arancini, I decided to also make mini-Scotch eggs from quail eggs and ground chicken. The picture below is not a great presentation—the arancini with the melted mozzarella in the center is shown on the left and the scotch egg with the quail egg in the center is shown on the right. We ate this immediately hot out of the oil with some Tonkatus sauce. Both the arancini and Scotch eggs had fresh shiitake in them and both were great.  The arancini had the melted mozzarella cheese in the center, a crunchy outer shell and soft risotto with a strong shiitake flavor.

For arancini

Ingredients: (made 8 arancini as seen below, the round ones are arancini and oval ones are mini-Scotch eggs)
Shiitake risotto (left-over) about 2 cups
Mozzarella cheese, 10 small cubes, low-moisture
Flour, egg, and Panko bread crumbs for breading
Oil for deep frying (I used peanut oil)

Directions:
Moisten your hands and make a ball about 1 and half inches in diameter and insert the cheese and encase it completely. If needed lightly squeeze to make sure the cheese is completely encased.
Bread the balls as usual; first coat with flour, then egg water and then with Panko bread crumbs (see picture below).

Deep fry in 180C (350F) oil for 2-3 minutes or until the surface is golden (everything is already cooked inside). See below picture.

The arancini I made were great straight out of the hot oil but they also warmed up nicely in the toaster oven. I would say the ones I made were much better than the store-bought and accordingly my wife has conceded that I met her challenge and has now commissioned me to make arancini whenever we have left over risotto.

Quail egg fry and Scotch eggs うずらの卵の串揚げとスコッチエッグ

We started using quail eggs ウズラの卵 from fresh eggs that we boil rather than using canned ones since the quality is much better. We can get fresh quail eggs from three sources; Weee on-line Asian grocery delivery service, our local Japanese grocery store (not always) and Whole Foods. Fresh quail eggs have their own problems, however. 1. It is difficult to judge if any eggs are cracked unless it is leaking the white or otherwise quite obviously damaged, 2. while boiling some quail eggs develop the cracks and 3. It is not easy to peel the shell without taking off some of the white. So the yield is 70-80% on good days. In any case, we got a dozen eggs and ended up with 10 boiled quail eggs (that is 83%!). I made mini Scotch eggs with the quail eggs and ground chicken. I also made “fried boiled eggs” (i.e. boiled quail eggs that are breaded and then deep fried). As a starter for one evening, I served half a Scotch egg, fried boiled quail eggs, fried shrimp heads from our Tako Grill take out and marinated or “zuke” tuna and hamachi sashimi. As a vegetable, I served “asazuke” 浅漬け of cucumber, nappa, daikon and carrot. I initially served with green tea salt and wedge of lemon. My wife requested “Tonkastu-sauce” as well.

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.

New Divided Plate and 9 Otoshi Appetizers 9つ仕切り皿にのせたお通し9種類

This is on the theme of multiple small “otoshi” appetizers. Previously we used a 5 segmented plate to serve 5 appetizers. A few days ago, I found a 9 segmented square plate available on Amazon which was reasonably priced so I got two. I thought it would be hard coming up with 9 appetizers but I managed it with 8 dishes I made. The ninth dish was an exception since I didn’t make it. It was the fried shrimp head which came from Tako Grill when we had our sashimi/sushi take-out. (Shrimp head is a by-product of “botan-ebi” 牡丹海老 sashimi/sushi). In any case, I was surprised that once I started thinking otoshi I was on a roll and could have served two or three more appetizers if I wanted to. This was a nice start of the evening but even very small dishes are filling for us and we ended up with a  “shime” 〆ending dish after this.

In the 1st row, left, is a sugar snap in salt broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし. We used to be able to get decent sugar snaps from our regular grocery store but recently, we have had to go to gourmet grocery stores to get decent ones This was crunchy, sweet soaked in salt dashi broth.

In the 1st row, center, are cucumber onion salad and stir fried shirataki, jalapeño pepper and enoki mushroom.

In the 1st row, right, is the cheese curd my wife made  but instead of jalapeño pepper, she added “Yuzukosho” 柚子胡椒, soy sauce and cream. I added a dab of yuzukosho on the side to provide an added “schmear” of yuzukosho flavor if desired.

Tsukune on a slice of lotus root 蓮根つくね.

“Uni-shuto” ウニ酒盗 from Maruhide. As I stated before this is the best uni aside from fresh uni. I served it with cucumber and perilla leaves.

I refried the shrimp head kara-age which was part of take-out from Tako Grill a few days ago. Shrimp head has a good amount of meat and is very crunchy but you have to be careful how you eat the prickly legs so as to not injure your mouth.

Recently, we discovered that Whole Foods carries fresh quail eggs. We really like boiled quail eggs. Although we can get canned boiled quail eggs, boiled eggs prepared from fresh quail eggs are much much better. I served it with marinara sauce, basil and sprinkle of salt.

Blanched asparagus with sesame mayonnaise. The dressing is a mixture of mayo, Japanese sesame paste or nerigoma 練りごま and soy sauce.

Salmon salad. My usual. The dressing is mixture of mayo, Greek yogurt and Dijon mustard.

We really like our new plates. If I serve 9 appetizers for two of us in small bowls, we have to wash a total of 18 bowls but here we had to wash only two plates. We really like the many small dishes we had here; true Izakaya-style.

Crispy Roasted Porcelet Belly パリパリ皮のロースト(子)豚バラ

Some time ago, we bought a special pork belly called “Porcelet” from D’Artagnan. It is from a milk-fed piglet and arrived with the skin on. The quantity was quite large so we divided it into 3 pieces one of which we used right away and froze the other two. Since the pieces in the freezer generally will not improve the longer we keep them frozen, we decided to make something out of one of the pieces. We thawed a portion of about 2 lbs. After consulting many recipes on the Internet, I decided to use the recipe from “America’s test kitchen (ATK)” on YouTube. It is a modification of a Chinese dish called “脆皮燒肉”. Actually ATK has two versions of video posted; one by  “The Pangs”, a father and son (Kevin Pang) Chinese cook duo and the other by Dan Souza. After watching both (which are mostly the same recipe), I cooked this porcelet with crispy skin. I made two sauces; one by Dan Souza which is inspired by North Carolina BBQ sauce with mustard and vinegar and the other by the Pangs which is Hoisin sauce based. We had this with oven fried potato which my wife made (using white potato and a bicarb treatment but using olive oil instead of duck fat) served with ketchup (picture below). OMG! This is an excellent pork dish with very crispy skin, juicy and tender meat/fat.

Here is the appearance of the pork belly after it was finished. The skin is golden brown and has multiple bubbles and extremely crispy.

Ingredients (This made three large portions providing servings for both of us for several meals over several days):
2lb skin on pork belly (in our case, porcelet belly)
Salt (for salting the skin)
Vegetable oil (to add to the rendered pork fat to make it 1 cup of fat)

For dry rub
Brown sugar and salt (1:1) ratio, we used regular sugar with one tsp dark molasses and kosher salt (#2)
Chinese 5 spice powder, optional, but makes it closer to the authentic flavors).
We found this rub a bit too salty so we will change the ration when we make it again.

Sauces (the amounts are from the original recipe, I made a much smaller amount keeping the ratios of the ingredients the same)

For the Chinese sauce
1/2 cup Hoisin sauce
4 tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp grated ginger
2 tbs scallion, chopped

For the Mustard sauce
1 cup Dijon mustard

1/3 cup wine vinegar (I used rice vinegar)
1/4 cup brown sugar (I used dark buckwheat honey)
1 tbs Worcestershire sauce
Hot sauce (as much as you like, I used 1tsp Sriracha)

Directions:
Cut the pork belly into three equal portions (#1)
Cut the skin and underlying fat (but not the meat) every 1/2 inch interval (#1)
Put the dry rub (#2) on the meat side including the ends and sides but not on the skin (the sugar will make the skin burn while baking)
Salt the skin surface (about 1/2 tbs for each piece) (#3)
Refrigerate without covering for 12-24 hours  (To dry the skin surface) in a glass baking pan (liquid will come out while in the refrigerator)
Some juice accumulated in the bottom of the baking dish and the skin surface looks dry without residual salt visible
Place the pork in a baking pan with the metal rack
Bake at 250F for 2 and half to 3 hours (to the internal temperature of 195F, in my case the temp went over 200F) (#4)
Set the pork aside and pour out the rendered fat to the 1 cup measuring cup. Add more vegetable oil to make it 1 cup.
Pour the fat into a 12 inch frying pan and place the pork skin side down in the cold oil and then turn on the heat to medium (#5)
Fry for 5-8 minutes or until the skin is golden brown and develops multiple bubbles and crispy (#6)
Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before slicing using the slits on the skin as a guide.

This pork was fabulous; probably one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. The meat was tender and the skin was wonderfully crunchy. It had a delicate pork flavor. We tried both sauces but we probably like the hoisin-based sauce best with this wonderful pork. The mustard sauce is good but a bit too vinegary for our teste. In any case, this is an amazing dish and the skin was crispy beyond belief. We are glad we made this dish. Our only concern is that it tasted a bit too salty for us. I may reduce the salt and/or increased the drying time in the refrigerator.

Addendum:
For us, knowing how best to reheat the left-overs is often important (since this is something we often do.) Particularly for this dish when re-heating, we would like to have the skin crispy and the underlying meat juicy. So, I sliced two each for a small appetizer one evening. I wrapped the slices together, standing up and wrapped all sides and bottom with aluminum foil but exposed the top (skin). I placed this package skin side up in the toaster oven and toasted at 7 (darkest setting for toasting bread). This heating method worked very well. The skin was crispy and the meat/fat underneath is soft and juicy and nicely warmed up. The picture below shows how I served it with the two sauces; The dark one on the left is the hoisin-based and the one on the right is mustard and vinegar. We both agree that the hoisin-based sauce is much better. The next batch I may add Chinese 5 spice powder in the rub.

Shrimp and Avocado Croquette エビとアボカドのコロッケ

This is another variation of Japanese potato croquette. I have already posted quite a few variations on this potato theme previously. I got the idea of adding shrimp and avocado to a croquette from watching one of the YouTube episodes. Since my wife had made mashed potatoes when we cooked chicken in the Weber grill a few days ago and we also had a ripe avocado which had to be used quickly, this was a no-brainer. I served this as an appetizer one evening with a side of Tonkatsu sauce. On the cut-surface, you can see pieces of the shrimp and avocado.

Ingredients (this made 9 small croquettes):
6 large shrimp, thawed, shell and vein removed, cut into bite size, salted and sprinkled with sake (#1).
1 ripe avocado, skin and stone removed and cut into bite-size cubes, tossed in juice of a half lemon (#2)
Mashed potatoes (I used the mashed potatoes my wife made (#3). (The amount is uncertain but they were made from 2 russet potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil cooked in the Weber grill when we cooked two small chickens. We ate a small amount of the potatoes with some of the chicken for dinner the night of the barbecue. My wife added butter, cream cheese with onion and chive, and seasoned with salt).
Flour, egg and panko bread crumbs for dredging and breading

Oil (I used peanut oil) for frying.

Directions:
Mix the mashed potatoes, avocado and shrimp (#4)
Portion out the mixture (I used an ice cream scoop) (#5)
With hands wet with water, press and form an oval-shaped disk.
Coat with the flour, egg-water and Panko bread crumbs for frying.
Refrigerate for a few hours before frying (or freeze)* to prevent the croquets from exploding while frying.
Fry for 2-3 minutes each side (#6)
Drain and serve immediately or heat up in a toaster oven after placed in the refrigerator for later consumption.

*I made this twice. The first time, I just refrigerated the mixture for one hour before shallow frying. It was mostly OK but some of the croquettes crust did not remain completely intact. The second time, I froze the breaded croquettes overnight and deep fried them without thawing which produced a much better result.

The contrast of the shrimp’s firm and avocado’s soft and creamy textures makes this croquette very nice. The potatoes served as a nice creamy background for the shrimp and avocado. The breading provided a very satisfying crunch juxtapose to the creamy filling. We really like this croquette.

“Canned mackerel and hanpen” Satsuma-age like fish cake 鯖缶とはんぺんの薩摩揚げ

Canned mackerel or “saba-kan” 鯖缶 is a very popular canned fish item in Japan and is readily available in the U.S. Upon inspection, of the canned mackerel in our pantry, I realized that the “Best used by” date had just passed on one of the cans. (I thought canned food lasted forever but that is apparently not the case). I needed to use this can fast and I then saw a perfect  recipe of fried fishcake on the Japanese website I follow using canned mackerel and “Hanpen” fishcake はんぺん.  This type of fishcake is called “Satsuma-age” さつま揚げ, which is a very common dish served grilled in Izakaya. Although I attempted to make Satusma-age from scratch, it was not quite authentic due to the lack of appropriate kinds of fish. The current version is interesting because instead of using ground fish meat “surimi” すり身 which is the authentic way to make Satuma-age this recipe used a mixture of canned mackerel and hanpen.  I served this with the usual grated ginger and soy sauce. It does not have the texture of authentic Sastuma-age but this was good; crispy outside and tender inside with the firmer texture of edamame and carrot. It all worked. The inclusion of ginger and deep frying toned down the otherwise strong flavor of the mackerel. This is a perfect dish with sake.

Ingredients:
One can of boiled (Mizu-ni 水煮) mackerel (190 grams with the liquid, about 150 grams fish meat), drained and crumbled
2 hanpen steamed fish cakes, frozen, thawed (240 grams), cut into small pieces.
1 tbs potato starch
1 tsp sugar
30 grams julienned carrot(1/3 of medium carrot), boiled or microwaved for 30 seconds
60 grams cooked and shelled edamame
1/2 tsp grated ginger

Peanut oil for shallow frying

Directions:
Mix all the ingredients until completely incorporated (The original recipe placed everything in a plastic bag and hand massaged it to make the dough, I did not have the patience to do that so I used an immersion blender, #1).
Mix in the edamame and carrot and make flat ovals (I made 8) (#2)
Add the oil to the frying pan to the depth of 5mm and heat to around 350F and shallow fry for 3 minutes (#3)
Turn over and fry the other side for 3 minutes (#4)
Drain and serve immediately (or once refrigerated, toaster-oven to warm).

This is not Satsuma-age but it is a nice fishcake and we really like it. Since the ingredients (hanpen and canned mackerel) are easy to get, this is a good and easy dish to make.

Tempura 天麩羅

I have posted quite a few tempura dishes. But I have  not made tempura for a long time. My wife wanted to have chicken kara-age 唐揚げ and I had marinated chicken thigh for “Kara-age” but I needed  to use new oil since I discarded the old reused peanut oil the last time I made a deep fried dish. Since fresh clean oil is best for making tempura, as my wife’s suggested, I made a few tempura items before frying the kara-age. I made, shrimp, shiitake and green beans tempura.

I am a bit out of practice making tempura and I made the batter a bit too thin but it came out OK. (Although not great especially for the shrimp.) I also re-fried the shrimp heads we got as part of take-out from Tako Grill. They came out very nice and crispy (better than heating them up in the toaster oven).

I served this small assortment of tempura with green tea salt and a wedge of lemon. After this, I cooked up the chicken kara-age. For dredging, I used half-and-half mixture of rice flour (“mochi-ko” 餅粉) and potato starch (“Katakuri-ko” 片栗粉) which was really good and produced more crunchy crust as compared to my usual potato starch.

Renkon "hasami-age" with avocado and cod roe アボカドとたらこのレンコンはさみ揚げ

My wife found an interesting YouTube series called "Kimono Mom".  A former geisha retired early got married, had a daughter, and now became a YouTuber showing Japanese cooking. She has many followers. In any case, we watched some of her episodes. One of the dishes she showed was "Hasami-age" はさみ揚げ meaning stuffing sandwiched between two slices of renkon 蓮根 (lotus root). The “sandwich” is then battered and deep fried. This is a common way of using renkon and I have previously posted such a dish.  The stuffing is usually meat especially chicken. Kimono Mom used a mixture of avocado and spicy cod roe called "mentaiko" 明太子. I happened to have a fresh renkon which I got from Tako Grill (besides packaed and frozen Japanese grocery items, Tako Grill grocery section now has some fresh Japanese vegetables and even sashimi blocks). I did not have "spicy" tarako but I did have frozen tarako. I could make tarako spicy by adding Sriracha. So I have everything to make this dish.

I also had fresh Japanese "shishi togarashi" 獅子唐辛子 pepper. So I just fried it as a side. I served the renkon dish with a wedge of lemon and green tea salt.

This is a rather unique and good dish. The renkon remains crispy and the avocado creamy with salty and lightly spicy (I did not add too much Sriracha) tarako flavors come through.

Ingredients: making 6.
One segment of fresh renkon, peeled and sliced (about 1/2 to 2/3 inch thick, I got a total of 12 slices).
6 perilla leaves
One sac of tarako, roe scraped out from the sac (#1)
One ripe avocado, stone and skin removed (#2)
Sriracha or other hot sauce to taste

For tempura batter
1/4 cup cake flour plus a bit more for dredging the renkon slices
1/4 cup carbonated water

Oil for deep frying

Directions:
Mash and mix the avocado, tarako with the sriracha hot sauce to taste (#3 and #4).
Lightly dredge the renkon slices. Put on a perilla leaf and then 1/6 (2-3 tsp) of the stuffing (#5).
Top the stack with another slice of renkon. Press lightly to secure (#6).

Heat the oil to 320F.

Mix the cake flour and cold carbonated water to make a relatively thin (like crepe batter) tempura batter.

Dip and coat the renkon “sandwich” and deep fry (#7) for fa ew minutes on one side. Turn it over and cook another few minutes then drain (#8) and serve.

I served this cut in half with a wedge of lemon and the green tea salt. We really like this dish. This could be good with beer but since we do not drink beer, we had it with cold sake.

Mixed seafood fry 海鮮フライ

This is our effort to clear up some frozen seafood inventory that has been in our freezer “long enough”. Among the items in danger of exceeding their allotted time were  scallops we got from Great-Alaska-Seafood and Pacific Oysters we got from Vital Choice wild seafood. I added shrimp also from Great-Alaska-Seafood to these items so that I could make a mixed seafood fry.

The picture below is not one of my better jobs at presentation, but hot out of the oil, these fried items were great. I served them with homemade Pa Dutch coleslaw, Campari tomatoes and wedges of lemon.

Although the scallops had freezer burn, I carefully shaved it off before cooking. Despite that, they tasted good. We should not be eating this type of fried food too often but when we  do, we  really enjoy it.

Mint and pea kakiage ミントと豌豆のかき揚げ

Sometime ago, I saw this recipe in the web version of a Japanese newspaper. I thought mint and pea kakiage (a type of tempura made with several small food items) かき揚げ was very interesting and unique but was dragging my feet in actually making it. The mint crop is flourishing in our herb garden and my wife harvested some to make mint tea recently. She reserved some mint leaves for me to use for this kakiage (so I found myself fresh out of any excuses for not making it.) Finally, I made this dish one weekend evening. I served it with wedges of lemon and green tea salt.

I did not remember the details of the original recipe (and I could not find it any longer) but I used cake flour and carbonated water to make rather thin tempura batter and it came out very light and airy.

Ingredients (I did not precisely measure anything but it made four kaiage tempura).
About 1 cup of fresh mint leaves, washed and dried.
About 1/2 cup of peas (I used frozen petit peas, thawed).
Cake flour for dusting.
Peanut oil for frying.

For Tempura batter
About 1/2 cup cake flour
Cold carbonated water.

Directions:
Lightly dust the mint leaves and peas with the cake flour (#1 in the third picture)
Mix the cake flour and the carbonated water to make thin tempura batter and add the peas and mint leaves (#2)
Using a slotted spoon, I scooped up the mint and peas and slid the clump into the hot oil (350F) (#3)
Turning once, I fried them until crispy and slightly golden then drained them (#4)

We couldn’t taste much of the peas but this was very light, airy and crunchy with refreshing mint flavor. Perilla leaves, which are a bit similar to mint leaves, are a standard tempura item which I have used in several variations but mint leaves are certainly unique. Since we have a good supply of fresh mint leaves during the summer, we might try this in different combination...asparagus and mint immediately comes to mind.

Addendum
I made this dish again a few days later. I also found the original recipe and only thing I missed was adding potato starch (should equal 1/2 the amount of cake flour used). I also added fresh corn. I lowered the hot oil temperature to avoid browning. All worked better.

Firefly squid kara-age ホタルイカの唐揚げ

 This is the dish I served using the third and the last tray of  "hotaru-ika" ホタルイカ firefly squid. This is a standard "Kara-age" 唐揚げ. This also came from e-recipe.

It is a simple recipe but requires deep frying. Since the squid contains some moisture, it splatters when it hits the oil. But it cooked rather quickly. (It was already boiled).

Ingredients: (for 2 servings).
Firefly squid, boiled, 100grams
Flour and potato starch 1 tbs. each
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for deep frying.
Lemon wedges

Directions:
Heat the oil to 160C (or 320F)
Place the squid, flour, starch mixture, salt and pepper in a sealable bag and dredge the squid.
Deep fry for 1 minute or until the surface gets crispy. Drain and serve with wedges of lemon.

This is a great way to serve this squid. The surface and tentacles get crispy but the inside is soft.

The only problem of this dish is that the oil splatters.  Among the three dishes I made, we like the kara-age the best. Second was stir frying the squid and asparagus with butter and soy sauce. That one however, was perhaps a bit better than the kara-age in terms of ease of preparation in addition to great taste. 

The first dish of boiled hotaru-kia straight from the packing tray served with sumiso sauce was by far the easiest in terms of preparation but was not as flavorful as the other two preparations. Nonetheless we had absolutely no trouble “choking down” any of the 3 preparations. What a great way to celebrate spring.

Renkon balls レンコンまんじゅう

This dish is the result of an unexpected “silver lining” derived from the Covid epidemic. Because of Covid, we decided as a safety precaution, not to go to the grocery store but rather have groceries delivered. This forced us out of our usual routines and by necessity introduced us to new options. One of which was buying groceries from HMart Korean grocery store via the Instacart. As a benefit, we are now getting items which were not available from our usual grocery stores. One such item is fresh “reckon” 蓮根 or lotus root. (It is the floating stalk, not the root of a water lily). Even at our Japanese grocery store, the only reckon we could get was cleaned, boiled and sold in a package. It is easier to use than fresh renkon but it limits the dishes that can be made from it. For example, I could not have made this renkon ball or dumpling  dish レンコンまんじゅう shown below from packaged prepared renkon. But with fresh renkon available I could. I served the dumplings in a very gentle broth, with garnishes of edamame 枝豆, and simply fried reckon slices.

Reckon is an interesting vegetable. Even after cooking, it remains crunchy but grated and made into dumplings, the consistency changes completely into the consistency of “mochi-mochi” もちもち or like-fresh rice cake. I added shrimp and edamame to the dumpling. As a garnish I added simply fried renkon  which gave a nice contrasting  crunchy texture.

The other evening, I served three renkon dishes. From the left, Nitsuke 煮付け, the center is this renkon ball or dumpling dish but I added one fish ball made from blue fish, the right is renkon salad れんこんサラダ. 

In this nitsuke dish, renkon remains crunchy.

Boiled  renkon (again remains crunchy), blanched broccoli and skinned Campari tomato dressed in Yuzu mayonnaise. Since we used up the store bought Yuzu mayonnaise, I made my version by mixing Hellman’s mayo, yuzu juice (from the bottle) and a pinch of sugar . This really emulated the commercial Yuzu mayonnaise we got earlier.

Instructions for the renkon balls

Ingredients:
One segment of fresh renkon (#1) (after grated, #4, it was slightly more than 700grams)
2 tbs potato starch
3 large shrimp, thawed, shell removed and cut into small chunks then salted
10-15 shelled edamame

For broth
1 cup kelp and bonito broth (I used a dashi pack)
1 tbs of white dashi “shirt-dashi” 白だし seasoning or 1tbs each mirin and light colored soy sauce (or to taste).

Directions:
One segment of fresh renkon (#1).
Remove the ends of the segment of renkon and peel the skin (#2 and #3)
Finely grate the renkon and drain to remove excess moisture (#4)
Mix in the corn starch, shrimp and edamame. Make small balls about one inch in diameter.
Deep fry at 300-320 F for 7-10 minutes (#5)

I also fried sliced and quartered renkon
Drain (#6)

Assembly:
I cut one renkon ball in half and placed the halves in a bowl. I added the fried renkon and edamame and poured in the hot broth. You can also reheat everything in the broth and serve.

This is a very good dish. The contrast of elastic texture of the renkon balls and crunchy fried renkon is wonderful. The shrimp has similar texture to the renkon ball and since it was salted, it imparts briny salty burst of flavors. I made the broth very gentle and light which also went well.

Red wine miso sauce with tuna cutlet 赤ワイン味噌ソースとマグロカツ

I thawed a block "saku" of low-grade yellowfin tuna sashimi. As usual, I tried to make some variation dishes. First I made "zuke" marinated tuna cubes with avocado very similar to one I posted. The second dish was imitation "negitoro " ネギトロ. These two dishes are very good with cold house sake "Tengu-mai"  天狗舞大吟醸.  The third dish I made was tuna cutlet マグロカツ.  I gave a twist to this dish by making a red wine miso sauce and serving it with our relatively new house red wine DAOU Vineyards “Pessimist” Red Blend 2018. I saw the sauce recipe in a digital version of the Japanese newspaper “Asahi “ 朝日新聞. The recipe was written by a sommelier. It is a reduced red wine with miso and he claimed that, with this sauce, the food will go well with red wine. He also suggested fried food would be the best with this sauce. I served tuna cutlet with this sauce accompanied with cucumber and cabbage “asazuke” 浅漬け as well as the cauliflower I usually make and skinned Campari tomato.

The reason I made this sauce was because one of the bottles of red wine we opened recently had a bit  of a musty taste/oder and we decided not to drink it. It was not corked but somehow the handling was not right since other bottles of the same wine were ok. Also we have had this wine so many time in the past with no problems.  In any case, I used a portion of this wine to make a chicken liver dish, a stew of leftover barbecued chicken, and this red wine miso sauce to finish the bottle. Once cooked, the wine lost its mustiness.

Ingredients
Red wine 200 ml
Red miso 2 tbs (I did not have red miso 赤味噌 and used “awase” miso 合わせ味噌)
Mirin 2 tsp
Rice vinegar 2 tsp
light colored soy sauce 2 tsp
Honey 2 tsp or more to taste

Directions
Reduce the red wine in half, dissolve the miso and add other ingredients and adjust sweetness to your liking by adding more honey.

I added more honey than indicated. I had to strain the sauce since it developed some sediments (due to vinegar?). I served it on the fried tuna and the fried taste completely dominated. We actually couldn’t taste the sauce at all. My wife, who never skimps when it comes to the application of sauces actually took to soaking her pieces of tuna in the sauce and said she still couldn’t taste it. Finally, in desperation she slurped it with a spoon and conceded it tasted very nice. I would have expected to at least taste the miso flavor but it was completely muted. I am not sure this may have been because I did not use red miso. In any case, this sauce did not have much flavor but we enjoyed the tuna cutlets with red wine. Since more sauce is left, I may add more miso to see if that will improve the flavor.

Three "otoshi" appetizers お通し３種

There is nothing really new in this line up. These are the three starters we had one evening.

The left and below are Fried salmon in sweet vinegar 鮭の南蛮漬け.  I added salt-broth soaked snap peas スナップ豌豆の塩びたし.

Digression alert: because of social distancing during the covid-19 crisis I have not been able to go to the Japanese grocery store and I was running short of rice vinegar. I bought what I thought was rice vinegar at the regular grocery store but it turned out to be basil and oregano flavored rice vinegar (?!!) I used it in this dish anyway and it actually added a very nice flavor dimension that was an interesting twist on the traditional. We actually liked it. I may have to stock in basil flavored rice vinegar...heaven forbid.

In the dish below I used brazed crunchy cauliflower モンパルナスのカリフラワー炒め, blanched broccoli with sesame sauce ブロッコリの胡麻よごし, and Japanese style omelet with "aonori" 青海苔入りだし巻き.

This dish is braised cabbage, onion, and strips of agura-age or deep dried tofu pouch seasoned with soy sauce and mirin, I posted similar ones with daikon green.

All simple Izakaya affairs but perfect opening of the evening with cold sake.