Inspired from news of a restaurant, we made this ourself.

Peel of all bean shoots, but big spring onion thick like hot pot and layer underneath, then bean shoot and pork slice, have seaweed and salt in water and steam for around ten minutes until pork is cooked. Serve with ponzu, didn’t have pepper and small spring onion. Need more flavor in bean shoot as darling commented. Could serve cold in summer maybe?

だし: stronger than udon dashi but less than tempura dashi.
500ml water, two bags dashi, sake 1 tbsp, sugar 4 tsp, salt 4 tsp, soy sauce 2 rounds. Check flavor. Cool down before soak fried eggplant.
なすび: 6 for 150yen from 道の駅. Normal small long ones. Cut vertically to quarter and fry with thin tempura paste, just enough to cover the eggplant. Soak into sauce soup after fried.
* small round ones are preferred, cut to half only, looks better with half white and half purple color, this time has too much white color.
* fresh eggplants skin keep nice purple color after cooked. Old ones skin color turns black after cooked.
Topping: 茗荷みょうが cut to half vertically and then thin slice. Add to eggplant after soak into sauce soup. And leave it fridge.

Topping 2: green shiso cut to thin string, spring onion cut to 3mm, add to dish before serving. Shiso color will get black if leave it in sauce or fridge for too long.

にんじん carrot only
Cut carrot to thin strings, spread on a plate and sprinkle with salt to take water out.
Pan fry with olive or sesame oil, dress with mirin, sake, soy sauce and lots of sesame.

Sushi ginger as commonly known in English, but it’s actually a pickle dish in Japan which does not limit to accompany sushi only 😉

The ginger used is new ginger, which is white in and out, and pink on the top. If it gets older, the pink part will turn darker and black, and it starts to grow white strings on the body. When cut it, new ones are juicy inside, easy to cut, less string, while old ones are dry, hard to cut and strings are thick and hard to cut, taste lot spicier too.

To make it, for around 400-450g ginger, vinegar 160ml, sugar 9 tsp, salt 1 tsp, sake few drops/1 or 2 tsp. This makes quite a lot of soup, but to make sure the flavor, and ginger was not super fresh, I made it sweetie so it doesn’t turn out too spicy. The first time I make it myself without help was totally failed since I underestimate the sugar we need for it even though I knew it need “lots” of sugar.

Scratch out ginger skin, and cut it to portions so it’s easier to slice. Cut by knife is better than slicer, though it takes forever to cut, and they might be in different thickness with not excellent skill.

In a small pot, add all ingredient for soup, melt the sugar and make it to boil, try the flavor by finger, should make sourness and sweetness balanced. When just boil, try one piece of ginger for the taste, it’s okay to make it a bit sweet since sweetness would turn milder after cooled down. Drop a handful ginger slices, when it turn boiling, reduce the flame, and mix ginger well with the soup. Always add ginger when it’s just boiling, and reduce heat after it boils again. Should be ready around 10-20 seconds, take the ginger out with a sief and make another round until all finish. Leave it in a bowl to cool down before put it to a container and store in fridge. First round ginger should be light pink color, later would not turn pink as first round, but as long as the flavor is okay, they will eventually mix together and become pink like a family. It should last for few weeks or more if keep it clean (always take it out with clean chopsticks) and cool.

五目飯
ごぼうburdock・にんじんcarrot・揚げ fried tofu

Although it’s call five, we usually only put three in the mix rice, optionals are dry mushroom しんたけ and bamboo roots 筍.

Wash burdock well, and shred (?like a sharpen a pencil) it to small pieces, smaller is better, but would take more time.
Cut carrot and fried tofu to very small pieces.
For three cups of rice, add 40ml mirin, a bit less water to make up 3 cup (say 200ml/cup, would be 540ml water, add the burdock, carrot and fried tofu, soy sauce go two rounds, and two tsp of salt. Ready to go.

大豆山椒飯
Soy bean, wash and pan fry before head in fry pan. Add to washed rice with sanshou (need quite a bit), with mirin and salt. Haven’t tried myself, but darling is not interested at all 🙁

里芋揚げ飯
Wash taro, peel skin and cut to balls or cubes? And age tofu to thin slice like for miso soup, cook with mirin and salt I think … Not darling’s food again.