煮物 Japanese warm dishes

大根・黄金あげ
だし: Water, だし, soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar, salt, chillies (optional)
*黄金あげ we don’t usually get it overseas, it is a little bit thicker than the usual fried tofu we get, with little bit of tofu still left in the middle, use more in japan for 煮物 and noodle soup.
Same だし could be used for 白菜・黄金あげ, なすび

白菜・黄金あげ
1 tbsp sake, 1 tbsp mirin, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp salt and sugar, add 1 handful 揚げ豆腐 to make flavor, don’t need to add water since chinese cabbage is very watery.
Cut chinese cabbage and だし, leave on small fire until soft.
Add little bit salt and sugar if needed.

なすび – small ones cut to half, than into two/three blocks, make a few cuts on the skin so the flavor get absorbed easily.

茶碗蒸し Steamed Egg Custard

I like the name of Steamed Egg Custard, sound very sweet =)

This is just a notes from my diary, not a precise recipe, and it’s quite vegetarian since no prawn or crab was added.
Add mirin and a little bit sake, still taste like mirin, add good and a bit strong だし so it taste good even egg is not that good, and some ゆず yuzu for flavor.
Mix egg well, and filter until smooth, add to above だし and take any bubbles out. Distribute into small bowls, wrap it and simmer for 30-40min.
*bowls can not touch the side of pot, so it doesn’t get heated too much on the side and fail eventually.
Decorate with ゆず yuzu and 水菜 mizuna pieces.

和風前菜 Japanese entree

ほうれん草/春菊のごま和え Spinich/shungiku sesame salad
* Key point for ほうれん草/春菊 is not to add any salt, it would take out the flavor from the leaves. The root is hard, but sweet. Cut into 4 vertically to make it small and easy to get boiled.
Boil briefly for 30 seconds, squeeze water out and cut to small, and add little bit sugar, soy sauce, 焼きいりごま, かつお is optional.

ほうれん草かつお醤油
Boil, dry, and cut ほうれん草 to small, and season with かつお kazuo flake and soy sauce

水茄子ときゅうりの酢物
水茄子 is water eggplant, suppose to be a bit oval, and very watery that could squeeze water out.
Cut both to straight half and then thin slices. Soak 水茄子 to water, and squeeze out later.
Add vinegar 2tbsp, mirin 1tbsp, sesame oil 2tsp, soy sauce 1tsp, roasted and crashed sesame 2tbsp at the end. Measures are rough, double the amount if needed.

Cabbage salad
There are spring cabbage and usual cabbage(older or winter cabbage), spring ones are very juicy and sweet that can be served as raw, here we are talking about not that raw ones. Steam cabbage to soft and cooked, cut to slices and squeeze out water.
Sauce 1: mayonnaise and lemon salt.
Sauce 2: miso, vinegar, lots of sugar, roasted and crashed sesame (white sesame is better, more oily and tasty)

大根 Daikon

Bottom of daikon near the leaves is the best, sweet. Front near the root is not nice and spicy.

大根きんぴら Stir fry daikon?
Slice 大根 and にんじん into thin strings, pan fry with oil, add soy sauce, mirin, dry chilli (cutted) and 焼きいりごま

柚子大根 Yuzu daikon

Cut daikon into 1cm x1cm x 4cm (3 fingers wide/long) sticks, leave it in salt (use finger to try the flavour, a bit salty is fine) for 1-2 days.

Discard the water came out from daikon when it turn soft, add vinegar about 1/4 of daikon enough to flavor, a bit of sugar and thin slices of yuzu skin. Amount of sugar and yuzu changes with different daikon.

* this is last year note somehow, mom doesn’t remember she had done such thing. (Make だし – sugar, (milin and sake maybe), yuzu skin cut to small pieces, boil well and add to daikon and leftover yuzu skin.)

紫大根のおろし

Mash daikon and add かつお、ちりめんじゃこ、ポン酢や醤油

粕汁

Boil water with 昆布 on small fire, while grilling salted salmon. Slice daikon and carrot, cut ちくわ to half and then slice.

Break 酒粕, mix with だし by sift and make paste.

Peel salmon, take small bones out and put big bone in as だし source. Add meat daikon carrot and ちくわ.

Mix miso(?) by sift, serve with 水菜 in red bowl.

ふりかけ

大根葉・唐辛子・しんたけ・ちりめんじゃこ
This should be the recipe, but I’m not very sure when look at my own diary =(
Dry leaves first, cut to small pieces, then panfry with ちりめんじゃこ in oil with a bit of salt until soft in small flame. Add soaked and cutted しんたけ, and soy sauce, mirin, sake, looks quite dark color at the end.

大根葉・みそ梅・ちりめんじゃこ・桜えび・赤しそ・わかめ

赤ちゃんにんじんのふりかけ
This one, if it’s proper good one, they use baby carrots leaves only, since our resource is limited, we used all of the carrots.
Cut baby carrot to very big pieces, and boil with salt. Take it out in 10-15 seconds and cut to very small pieces. Boil leaves with salt as well and cut to small, add together with lots of mirin, bit of soy sauce and roasted and mashed sesame.

 

炒飯Fried Rice

Favorite omrice/ tomato fried rice <3

Oil in the pan, pan fry small dice of onion in low fire until it turns brown, add a bitnof salt to fastern the process if necessary, add capsaicin small pieces before add rice in, since capsaicin get cooked easily, then add tomato sauce, and finish. Simple but effective, not good but everybody loves tomato sauce, and caramel onion increase the flavor.

Ume shiso fried rice梅しそ炒飯 Darling likes it, I’m normal

油、ちりめんじゃこ、ご飯、梅ソース。上にしそ

大阪名物 焼きチーズケーキー Osaka “famous” baked cheesecake

image

りくろーおじさんの店

This “famous” Osaka cheesecake was said having people queing outside of store all the time, and we quite often see it on the TV shows. At the same time, every time I walk pass the store, I always ask darling to buy it for me and he always refuses me since he doesn’t think it’s worthy to try. Actually I might already had it once when some friend come home for visit, like today. My micro brain always forget what I have had so here I write it down to remember my future self 😉

Friend come home with it just baked and it was still warm, I like just cooked food more than cold ones anyway. But it was so soft, or too soft, rather like sofle even I haven’t really had a real one. Not too cheesy, but quite eggy as darling commented, he doesn’t like egg white flavor, always request me to reduce the egg from any recipe ;( Too soft to finish too fast, melt in throat type so I hardly feel I have had it. Darling doesn’t like raisin at the bottom too ;( oh well, I will try to remember I have had it next time, but I would be nice to have it come with our visitors. That’s one of the reason I love Japan too, most people always come to visit with gift, which is usually sweet, which is welcomed by mostly everyone 😉

漬け物 Pickles

Talking about 漬物 tsukemono pickles, first thing in my head would be ぬか漬けnukatsuke, while Darling’s mommy makes good one, I found quite a good source from 白ご飯.com, it looks similar to Mommy’s recipe, here I just write down few memo for myself from Mommy.

1. To check the quality of the base, every time after mix the base from bottom to top twice a day, if hands are not smelly after wash, it’s good. The hands remain smelly after few wash, the base turns bad already.

2. Mommy sometimes put yellow melon skin in the nuka base for overnight to make the base turn sweet and good smell. Some times use good pair skin,? Maybe? It really depends though… She is too randomly creative 😉

or ぬか漬け大好き.com looks not bad too, but I haven’t read it myself yet.

All can store in boxes in fridge, and vegetable should get ready overnight

–Alternatives–

大阪漬け
Should be pickles of leaves of 大根 Daikon or かぶ Kabu, the parts which people usually chuck.
1.Wash 大根・かぶ, cut 葉 off, cut 大根・かぶ into thick pieces, together with whole leaves, dry a bit outside before cut to small to marinate, to take out the water, so the flavor get in easier and faster.
2. Cut 大根・かぶ to strings, and 葉 to small pieces, salt it for one or two hours, pressure it if in hurry, wash a bit if it’s too salty, squeeze water out before serve.

*Mommy always make ふりかけ with different root-vegetable’s leaves like 大根・かぶ・ふき、など, which not many people do anything with it.

酒粕漬け
酒粕+塩+砂糖

味噌漬け
味噌+塩
Had tried Zucchini, carrot, red raddish
味噌+砂糖
名古屋の味噌, leave it outside will turn it black. Add sufficient amount of miso to vegetable, add sugar to surface and leave for 1 day before serving.
Tried やこん and はやとうり

白菜の塩つけ
Chinese cabbage, wash well and cut into size that could just fit in ziplock bags. Add salt and press by heavy bottles/bowls with water, add two or three red chillies and leave it in fridge before serving. Wash a bit and cut into small pieces to serve.

紅白なます
This is a traditional new year’s dish, Darling barely likes it though.
大根・人参 Daikon and Carrot slice to thin strings, add roughly pinch of salt, vinegar 3 spoons, and sugar 1 tsp.

ねぎ “Spring Onion”

In Japan, ねぎ have various types with different methods to serve, while there is only “Spring Onion” in English.

ねぎ is usually refer to winter big long ones, size and color similar to leek, but taste and shapes are different. Winter is the season, if it is good, it is juicy and sticky, even leak juice when cutting of any parts.
焼きネギ – cut white part of ねぎ to 5cm long, grill until surface is all black, peel of the first layer before add to だし sauce (all a bit of だしdashi pack、酒sake、みりんmirin、砂糖sugar、醤油soy sauce, make it caramel first, turn a bit bitter, can add water if its too thick, it looks soy sauce caramel, and taste a bit sweet)
ネギ豆腐 – We made this in the small red ceramic pot, which could go on fire straight. Boil だし、みりん、酒、砂糖、cutted ねぎwhite and green together, for around 1 hour, take ねぎ out, and put whole box of tofu in the left over だし soup for around 5-10 minutes, put back the ねぎ, and leave in small candle fire when serving. Serve with rock salt (we use lemon rock salt that mommy made herself). After had ねぎ and 豆腐, juice can be mix with rice and make a very good 雑炊, yummy.
蒸し野菜 – Probably only in winter when ねぎ is very good. “Boil” ねぎ and 人参 carrot in pot with 豆腐 in small pot, and simmer without water. ねぎ is very juicy and sweet, so would make lots of juice after. Serve with sea salt and ポン酢 ponzu.