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.

2014.11.11
** these days I go with 1:0.85 for normal rice, need to minus another 120ml water for vinegar for three cups of rice

2014.07.19

For two cups of rice. Usually I do 1:1 for rice and water to make the hardness that darling prefers. For sushi rice, 2 cups of rice: 40cc mirin + 1 cup and 80cc water, rest 80cc vinegar for later. (I thought it would not be enough and it turns out quite hard, try more water next time). Add mirin water to rice, and small piece of 昆布, a tsp of salt to rice cooker. When rice is nearly cooked, mix 80cc vinegar and two tsp of sugar, because 玉姫 vinegar is quite sweet and mild, only put two tsp sugar. Heat with low fire until fully melted, add to rice when it is cooked, and mixed well with fan cooling down. Serve with tasty seaweed, fish, and soy sauce.

might try more water and less vinegar next time.

2014.08.04 鮭アボカド
Bake salted salmon and break into small pieces, doesn’t have to be super small. Cut avocado to big cubes, add wasabi and soy sauce, smell like cheap tuna. When 寿司飯 cool down a bit, add salmon and a bit of roasted sesame, topping with avocado.

2014.02.06
Ingredients: 柚子皮・唐辛子 (red and green, very small ones), ratio around 10:1, not sure, need to taste to see -.-

Wash well before head, wipe water off with paper towel. Zest the yuzu skin only (save lots of time when blending), we had 50-60 this time. White part will make it bitter, don’t want that. Cut chillies to small pieces, blend well with yuzu zest.

* It ends up bitter somehow, not sure whether it was because we zest it first.

Pantry skin taste better than Life skin, flour makes taste quite different, even handmade skin with Japanese flour are whiter and more chewy than Chinese ones. The machine made skin are very thin and quite chewy, if cook too much at once, they would blow up like balloons and stick together.

2014.02.02 (prepare fillings)
Filling – 500g バラ豚ブローグ・200gもも豚肉・200g若鶏 chicken mince
half Chinese cabbage, few pieces of cabbage, one block of ginger (darling loves ginger in fillings), salt, sesame oil, soy sauce a bit, しそ (optional for Japanese preference)
Steam Chinese cabbage first and cut to small, squeeze out water.
* Too much meat and not enough vegetable. Cabbage didn’t get boiled beforehead, sa bit hard after cooked.
* Need more salt for flavor, but filling get tastier the next day.

2014.02.03 (cook)
Skin – 250g – 300g flour makes 3 x 20 dumpling, roughly 3 big plates. Should make it harder so it turns more chewy, and add a bit of salt at the beginning.

Pan fry – Telflon pan is easy to kook. But still need a little bit of oil, add dumpling before it gets too hot, cook for a bit, and add water (1 cup of water + 1 spoon of flour), enough for 60 pieces, add top with sesame oil at the end.

Tomato Onion – Onion, garlic, tomato can, salt, pepper
Thin slice onion into pan, coat with olive oil, add some salt so it get softer quicker. Panfry until golden brown, thin slice garlic and add in, low fire for a long time. Add tomato can, and some catchup maybe, and salt and pepper. Simmer for a long time until it’s ready. Serve with any pasta.