It’s been a long time since I published anything. Last year was pretty crazy and I hope to be more active with this site in the coming months.
Here’s a simple, yet delicious idea for smoked duck with udon noodle in a traditional Japanese soup broth.
Happy 4th of July!
If you have ever strolled through the Ikea Food Market, you’ve probably seen this stuff popping out at you from the refrigerator. It’s a mixture of smoked cod roe, potato flakes, oil, salt, sugar and a few preservatives. It’s usually squeezed on top of crisp-bread for a quick snack. I got to thinking that you should be able make easy sushi with this stuff as well. So I guess I will call this the Stockholm Roll, here goes…
1. Follow the instructions for making a sushi rice and get your roll ready for the fillings.
2. Add the creamed smoked roe
Add Smoked Roe
3. Add the other ingredients. In this version I used radish, cucumber and smoked roe. You can also just try smoked roe and cucumber as it is milder.
Add Radish and Cucumber
4. Roll it up.
A somewhat experimental recipe I tried that was inspired from a food calendar I saw. First fillet the sanma and remove the bones, and roll it up with fresh, green shiso. After it’s rolled up, it is then pinned together with a few skewers to hold its shape will frying and then sliced it into smaller pieces for serving. It’s good.
Sanma is the Japanese name for the fish known as Pacific Suary as well as Mackerel Pike. The name written in Japanese literally translates to autumn sword fish. September is considered the peak season for sanma in Japan as this is the time when the fish are fattest. The northern stocks, being the fattest of them all, command the highest price. Sanma is, however, a relatively inexpensive fish.
Thanks to improvements in fishing and distribution, sanma is now sometimes served as sashimi or sushi. One typical method is to briefly pickle the sanma in vinegar and soy sauce and make pressed sushi.
Simple Fried Sanma served with Soy Sauce and Lime
Wow! It’s been sometime since the last post. A little follow up to the onigiri post from a month ago or so. A short video demonstrating secret onigiri techniques by Koshiki Yonemura from Tanpopo (see the about page). This is definitely something that is not easily put into words, so it seemed appropriate to make a simple video.
Thanks to Vimeo for making this post really easy to do.
An easy recipe for refrigerator pickles. This recipe works best if you can find smaller cucumbers. These are the kind sold at farmers markets and grocery stores for making dill pickles.
Ingredients
cucumbers – smaller, young cucumbers are best
salt
Pickling Sauce
Chili garlic sauce….. 1/4 teaspoon
Sesame Oil……. 2 tablespoons
Soy Sauce ….. 3 tablespoons
Sugar ….. 1/2 teaspoon
Sake …… 3 tablespoons
cucumbers for pickling
1. Wash cucumbers.
cutting cucumbers
2. Cut cucumbers. In this recipe, the pickles are quickly cut into small wedge shapes by cutting the cucumber at angle and then straight across and then repeat.
3. Lightly sprinkle with salt and then apply pressure for several hours to draw water out of the cucumbers. I used a plastic pickling container with a screw top that will apply pressure to your vegetables. If you don’t have that, place the pickles in a plastic bag, lightly salt and then place a weight, like a heavy plate, on the bag.
make sauce
4. Mix together ingredients for the sauce. You can find Chinese chili garlic, tobanjiang, sauce in any Asian food stores. This is what I used in this recipe to add a little heat.
5. Rinse cucumbers with water to remove excess salt and then gently squeeze your cut cucumber to remove excess water.
6. Add sauce to pickles and let sit for a few hours before serving. Quick pickles like these are best eaten withing a week.
If you have some leftover rice and are looking to make a quick snack, try making some onigiri. It’s a very popular food in Japan that is found in almost every convenience store. It’s basically a ball of rice with a filling in the center that is usually wrapped in nori. The filling is most often a preserved food like salted fish or pickled vegetables.
In the version above, crushed bonito flakes are mixed with soy sauce and then this is mixed together with hot rice. There is no center filling, so it’s a little easier to make. However, the hard part is getting the proper shape. You’ll need to form a nice lightly packed triangle with your hands. Be sure to wet your hands first, otherwise you’ll just have hot rice stuck all over your fingers. Gombatte!
1. Not Everyone is Lovin Japan’s New McDonald’s Mascot | Time
2. Food Penetrates All Aspects of Life In Japan | The Japan Times
3. Ike-Jime 4 : How-To Pointers | Cooking Issues Blog
Avoid this link if you’d rather not see the insides of fish.
4. Strange Flavors in White Pepper | Curious Cook
5. Epic Sushi! Kyoto-Style Sushi Lesson at Kichisen | Kyoto Foodie
