Japanese Food (mostly) and Recipes
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!
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!