Japanese style breakfast

Experiment: Japanese Style Breakfast

Introduction:
Mr. Clam and I went to Marulilu Cafe (Cambie and Broadway) to have lunch yesterday. Well I guess I shouldn’t say lunch because, I actually had JAPANESE STYLE BREAKFAST! I love Japanese style breakfast. Japanese style breakfast usually have raw eggs and natto/tofu, a few of my favorite food! I guess that’s why I love having Japanese style breakfast so much. When I was in Japan, I tried to have Japanese style breakfast everyday (but in reality I couldn’t, because Mr. Clam couldn’t stand it). Here are a few pictures that I took when I was in Japan:

Japanese style breakfast is really easy to make. You just need a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, an egg, natto or tofu, and then… a dish or two of whatever you like. I decided to have it since I’m still on holiday and I have time to make it. I didn’t use a raw egg because of salmonella… I wish I could ship eggs from Japan!

Materials:
Here’s what I used… but of course you can substitute any of the following dishes with whatever you like.
A pack of seaweed
A pack of natto and a bunch of chopped green onoins
A bowl of miso soup
Sliced pig ears and cabbage
Baked salmon and a piece of lemon and Japanese mayonnaise
Sunnyside up egg
A bowl of rice

Procedure:
1) Open the pack of seaweed.

2) Open the pack of natto. Take away the film on top of the natto, then put the dashi sauce, mustard and green onions into the box, and mix, mix and mix until there’re a looooot of strings.

3) Miso soup – uh… refer to your miso package. For this particular miso soup, I used onion, tofu and green onions. 1 cup of water to 1 tbs miso.

4) Put the sliced pig ears on the left side of a pate, and boiled cabbage on the other side of the plate.

5) Bake the salmon until it’s cooked, then put it on a plate. Put the lemon and mayonnaise on the plate as well.

6) Pan fry a sunny side up egg then put it on a plate.

7) Put rice in a bowl.


Results:

Discussion:

1) Ok it’s actually a lot of food! I was REALLY full after finishing everything. And… Ok even though I said it’s breakfast, I actually had it at night time. Who actually has time to prepare so many things in the morning?

2) The preparation time for this meal isn’t really that long… The thing that actually takes the longest to make is the RICE! Unbelievable.

Basic Japanese style Hamburger patty (ハンバーグ)

Experiment: Basic Japanese style Hamburger patty

Introduction:
Hamburger patty is a very common dish in Japan. You can find recipes in many Japanese magazines or books. There’s this recipe book that I have that shows you what can go with you hamburger patties. Well… before I try those fancy recipes, I think I need to make sure that my hamburger patties taste good first. I’ve made it 4 times before… the first and third time tasted well, but the second and forth time were really bad. Not sure why! I guess odd numbers are good for me? Anyways… I tried a simpler recipe this time… and guess what, this 5th time that I make hamburger patties was good! (it’s odd number again though) Hmm… not sure about next time though… hahahaha!
Materials: (make 6 patties)
300 g minced meat (beef or pork or mixed)
1/2 onion, chopped
50g bread crumbs
1 egg
1 clove of garlic, minced
Chopped ginger
1/2 soy sauce
1/2 sake
Black pepper

Procedure:
1) Put the chopped onion, garlic, ginger, bread crumbs and egg in a mixing bowl, and mix well.

2) Put the meat in 1), and add soy sauce, sake and black pepper. Mix well.

3) Divide the mixture in 6. Put a portion in your hand. Make it into a round shape. Throw the patty between your hands to make the air out. (This prevents the hamburger patty from falling apart when you cook it)

4) Put the hamburger patties into the fridge for an hour for the flavour to come out. (Optional step)

5) Pan fry the patties or bake the patties. Depends on what you wanna make.






















Result:



















Discussions:
1) I use worchester sauce for the patties this time. It tasted well!

2) It’s better to chop the onion REALLY FINE. It’s easier for you to make the patties round. This time I made the onions a bit too big, so it acutally didn’t mix well with the meat… and then I couldn’t make nice round shape patties.

Miso Soup with Clams

Experiment: Miso Soup with Clams

Introduction:
I have always liked seafood, especially clams. I always see Japanese soup with clams in it, but I had never tried to make it. Since clams is on sale, so I decided to buy 1/2 pound and make this miso soup.
Material: (serve 2)
2 tbs Miso paste
2 cups of water
1/2 lb clams (I bought 8 clams)
2 tbs chopped green onion

Procedure:
1) Soak the clams in water for 30min – 1 hour. Rub the clams against each other.

2) Boil the water. Put the miso paste into the water, and dissolve it.

3) When the miso paste is well dissolved into the water, put the clams in. When the clams open, put the chopped green onion in. It’s ready!

Discussion:
1) I didn’t take many pictures coz I was being lazy…

2) It’s pretty easy to make… the only trouble is to get fresh clams… I usually do grocery shopping once a week… which means I can only have it once a week at most… acutally, can you put the clams in the fridge? Not sure if it’s ok…

Kimchi, pork and mochi okonomiyaki

Experiment: Kimchi, pork and mochi okonomiyaki

Introduction:
I have always liked okonomiyaki. When I first heard about okonomiyaki few years ago, I knew that people usually use pork or seafood as the main ingredients. I then usually only used pork or seafood (or just cabbage) as the main ingredients, and nothing else. Well, I wasn’t that adventurous back then…

When I went to Osaka, Japan last November, I went to a popular okonomiyaki restaurant. WOW! They had lots of different types of okonomiyaki and I didn’t even THINK of! We ordered a set meal that included the 3 most popular okonomiyaki in that restaurant – house special that included 6 or 8 ingredients, Yamaimo okonomiyaki (okonomiyaki that were made with yamaimo, not flour), and green onion-pork-kimchi okonomiyaki. They were all very delicious! I was so surprised that you could use so many different ingredients for okonomiyaki. After I came back from Japan, I started trying different ingredients in my okonomiyaki. Today, I decided to try a kimchi, pork and mochi combination.

Materials:
1 cup Okonomiyaki powder
1/2 cup water
1 egg
Lots of thinly sliced cabbage
1/4 cup chopped green onion
Thinly sliced pork (put as much as you like)
Chopped kimchi (just put as much as you like)
2 mochi, sliced

Condiments:
Bonito flake
Seaweed flake
Mayonnaise
Okonomiyaki sauce

Procedure:
1) Mix the okonomiyaki powder, water and egg together. Mix it well so that there’s no clump.

2) Put the chopped green onion, cabbage, mochi and kimchi in the batter, and mix well.

3) Heat up a frying pan and put some oil in. Then put the pork in and stir fry a bit. Put the batter in, then mix with the pork.

4) Make the batter into a round shape. Remember not to make it too thick! Turn the heat to medium.

5) When the bottom’s almost ready, i.e., you can flip the okonomiyaki, flip the okonomiyaki.

6) Check if the centre’s cooked, use a chopstick/skewer to poke the centre of the okonomiyaki, if the centre’s dry, it means it cooked.

7) Put the okonomiyaki on a plate, then put the condiments on as you like.

Result:

(Without the condiments)

Discussions:

1) Not sure if it’s because the kimchi has sauce in it, which makes the batter more watery, I find that this okonomiyaki is harder to flip.

2) AND not sure if it’s because of the mochi, which sticks to the pan when melted, it’s not easy to flip the okonomiyaki.

3) It actually tasted VERY GOOD! The mochi makes the okonomiyaki very chewy, the pork is quite crunchy, and the kimchi… I put too much kimchi in this time, Mr. Clam found it a bit spicy… I think I’ll put less kimchi in next time.

4) A few other ingredients that I really like with okonomiyaki are: corn, chopped konnyaku, ekoni mushroom. Give them a try! You’d be surprised! :)

Pork and Kimchi Rice Bowl (豚キムチ丼）

Experiment: Pork and Kimchi Rice Bowl (豚キムチ丼）

Introduction:
Last weekend, Mr. Clam and I went Downtown to watch some Olympic stuff. We went in a restaurant called “Ebi Ten” fo food. There I tried a rice bowl called “Buta-Kim,” and I REALLY LIKED it! When I was eating it, I thought to myself… “It shouldn’t be too hard to make at home…” So I gave it a try tonight.

Material: (serve 2-3)

200g thinly sliced pork
100g kimchi
1/4 onion, thinly sliced
1/2 tbs chopped garlic
2 tbs chopped green onion
Oil
Mayonnaise
Egg (optional)

Rice
Small pieces of lettuce

Sauce:
1 tbs mirin
1 tbs sake
1/2 tbs soy sauce
1/4 tbs sesame oil
1/2 tbs brown sugar
Salt

Procedure:
1) Mix all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.

2) Heat up a frying pan, put some oil and chopped garlic in. Then put the onion in. Stir fry until the onion is brown and soft.

3) Put the pork in. When the pork has changes colour, put in 1) and the Kimchi. Stir fry until the pork is well cooked.

4) Now it’s time for the rice. First put the rice a rice bowl, then put some lettuce on top. Ok, now it’s time for the trick – MAYONNAISE! I never thought of putting mayonnaise in a rice bowl until I tried it at Ebi Ten. So remember to put some mayonnaise in your rice bowl! It makes it taste SO much better! 

5) Now, if you like eggs like me, you can put a sunny side up egg on your lettuce. If you don’t like eggs, then you can skip this.

6) Of course, now you’ll need the kimchi pork! Just simply put the pork on the lettuce, and green onion on top of the prok. Viola! There’s your Pork and Kimchi rice bowl!



Results:

Without egg:

 

With sunny side up egg:

Discussions:
1) It was suprisingly good! And the good thing is it doesn’t take long to make! I think from cutting the onion to the finished product, it took me less than 20 mins.

2) I think I’ll start to put mayonnaise on EVERYTHING now coz it tastes so good!

Inari sushi

Experiment: Inari sushi

Introduction:
I usually cook noodles on weekend (noodles is quick!), but Mr. Clam complains that I cook too much noodles lately and he wants rice for dinner. I opened the fridge and see what I can make, and I found that I didn’t have a lot of food left. I saw that there’s a pack of aburaage (leftover from the mochi-kin from Oden.) So I decided to make Inari sushi.

Materials:
5 aburaage (Deep fried tofu pocket)
2-3 bowls of rice
White sesame

Sauce:
1 cup of dashi stock
1 tbs soy sauce
1.5 tbs sugar
1 tbs mirin

Procedure:
1) Boil a pot of water. When the water boils, put the aburrage in water and boil for about 2 minutes to get rid of the oil. Then take the aburaage out and drain out the water.

2) Cut the aburaage in half, and open the pocket. Be careful not to tear the pocket. (I tore one… >.<) You’ll then have 10 small pockets.

3) Put all the sauce ingredients in a pot and bring to boil. Put the aburaage in the pot and turn down the heat. Simmer for about 10-15 minutes, or until the sauce is almost gone.

4) Take the aburaage out and drain out the sauce.

5) Mix sesame seeds with rice. I like sesame seeds a lot so I put quite a lot in. Anyways. After you mix the sesame seeds and rice, put the rice into the aburaage pockets (be careful not to tear the pocket here!).

6) It’s READY!

Result:

Discussions:

1) You can put chopped carrots and shitake mushroom in the rice as well so that the inari sushi has more flavour.

2) One piece of inari sushi is actually quite a lot of rice! I was surprised how quick the inari sushi used up my 3 bowls of rice.

Oden (おでん)

Experiment: Oden (おでん)

Introduction:
The very first time I had oden was in a convenience store, Lawson, in Tokyo a few years ago. I really liked the oden back then… probably because I was really hungry at that time… A few months when I went to Osaka, I was looking for oden in convenience stores. I thought ALL convenience stores have Oden… but it turned out that, only Lawson carries oden. So when I saw Lawson at Kyoto station, I went in immediately to get oden.

I always thought that you can’t make oden at home (uhh… not sure why but I have the notion that you can’t make food that are sold in convenience store), so I didn’t even bother looking for recipes. Until recently, my co-worker and I were talking about oden. She thinks that we can make oden at home. So I went to

cookpad to look for oden recipes.

It turns out that… it can easily be made at home.



Materials:
(Soup base that I made today)
Dashi stock 5 cups
Soy sauce 1.5 tbs
Mirin 1.5 tbs
Sake 1.5 tbs
Brown sugar 1 tbs
Yuzu powder 1/2 tbs
Japanese mustard to taste

Food items:
Daikon (radish)
Tofu
Various kinds of konnyaku
Various kinds of fish cake
Egg
Mini sausages
Mochi-kin
(Pretty much whatever you like)



Procedure:
1) Peel the daikon skin. Cut into big pieces, rougly 3 cm thick. Boil a pot of rice water, and boil the daikon for 15 minutes. (I saw in a few recipes that you need to boil daikon with rice water. Not sure why. I did put in like a tbs of rice in the pot)

2) For the big black piece of konnyaku, put in boiling water for about a minute or two. Then cut in quater. (I cut into triangles)
3) Boil eggs, then peel the shell off.

4) Put all the soup base ingredients (except for Japanese mustard) into a big pot. Bring to boil, taste the soup, and see if the flavour is good enough for your taste. If it’s not strong enough, add more soy sauce, mirin and sake.
5) Put the daikon, konnyaku and eggs into the pot to boil first, as these 3 items require longer time for the flavor to get in. Let it cook for 30 minutes (at least).

6) Put the remaining food items in the pot. When they’re ready, then your oden is ready!



Result:

Discussion:
1) I find that 30 minutes isn’t quite enough for the daikon. So I’m leaving more daikon in the soup overnight. I’ll try it again tomorrow. I think it should taste better.

2) I thought I have bought Japanese mustard… but it turned out that it was actually ginger paste!!! I didn’t know that it was ginger paste until I squeezed it out. Sigh… (well both mustard and ginger paste packages are yellow… next time I know I should READ instead of just picking a yellow box)

3) I really like the yuzu taste in the soup! I think it’s like the “secret ingredient” for oden. Of course if you have fresh yuzu it’ll even taste better! (I forgot where I read about the Yuzu… I tasted the soup before and after I added the Yuzu. The soup with the yuzu powder tastes definitely more like those in restaurants.)

Tofu Steak with mushrooms (豆腐ステーキきのこあん)

Experiment: Tofu Steak with mushrooms　(豆腐ステーキきのこあん)

Introduction:
I’ve been craving tofu lately. I flipped through my recipe books and found this Tofu Steak with mushrooms. Yay! One dish with 2 of my fave food…


Materials:
1 pack tofu
1 pack enoki mushroom
1 pack maitake mushroom
1 tbs chopped green onion

Sauce:
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs sake
1/2 cup water
1.5 tbs corn starch
Salt, white pepper


Procedure:
1) Cut the tofu into big pieces.

2) Wash the 2 types of mushrooms. Cut the bottom part of the enoki mushroom, then cut the remaining part in half. Cut the maitake mushroom into small pieces.

3) Heat a frying pan. Add oil into pan, and put the tofu in. When one side is done, flip over to the other side. Put the tofu on plates when both sides are golden.

4) In a small pan, stir fry the mushrooms. When the mushrooms are half done, put the oyster sauce, soy sauce, sake and water in. Stir well. Sprinkle salt and white pepper as you like. When the sauce is ready, put the corn starch in. Mix well until sauce is thicken.

5) Put the mushroom sauce on top of the tofu. Sprinkle the green onion on top of the mushroom sauce.



Result:

Discussion:
1) It’s a quick and yummy dish!

2) You can try other types of mushroom as well. I just happend to have enoki mushroom and maitake mushroom at home. By the way, it’s my first time trying maitake mushroom… the texture is like oyster mushroom, but maitake has quite a “woody” taste. Interesting! Definitely will try again (too bad it’s quite expensive… otherwise I’ll buy it more often.)

3) Acutally 1 pack of tofu is not enough for me and Mr. Clam… I think I’ll make 2 packs of tofu!

Zakkushi on Denman

Mr. Clam and I went Downtown on Saturday, and we walked along Robson Street to look for food.  Both of us felt like Asian food that night.  For a moment, I was half jokingly telling him that if we couldn't find anything we wanted by Denman street, we'd go to Hon's.  Of course, he didn't like that idea.  (Nothing wrong with Hon's Wun-Tun, it's just that if we wanna have Chinese food, we'd go somewhere else.) So! We were at the end of Robson and Denman, and we still couldn't find anything we wanted.  In the end, he decided to try a restaurant on Denman St. - Zakkushi.

It was our first time at this restaurant.  We took a look at the menu... it has LOTS of grilled skewers.  It took us a while to decide what to eat. In the end, we ordered:
(sorry the pictures are taken from cell phone, so the quality is not good)

Asahi Black.  Mr. Clam it's hard to find in other restaurants.

Assorted Oden:

Ume Shiso Tsukune (Chicken meat balls with ume and shiso leaf):

Omochi maki:

Kushi set:

Chicken Gyoza:

Banana Gyoza:

Mr. Clam and I liked all the dishes!!!  I could eat the tofu pocket with mochi (もち巾 in Japanese, not sure what that's called in English) in the Oden dish, which made me SOOOO HAPPY!  I was surprised that the plum sauce (ume and shiso) tasted so well with chicken meat!  I'm definitely going to buy a bottle of plum sauce now!  The mochi was really crunchy on the outside - loved it!  Chicken Gyoza... I thought it was just regular gyoza, but it turned out to be chicken wings deboned and then stuffed with chicken meat.  Hmm... I"m thinking maybe I'll try it some time (when I'm really bored and have nothing to do).  Banana Gyoza... the idea is very new, but to be honest, it's just ok.  

We paid about $60 for 2 people, which is not bad for Japanese food downtown.  We also knew that they have 2 other stores in Vancouver.  I guess we'll try those 2 restaurants later! :)

Nikujaga (肉じゃが)

Experiment: Nikujaga (肉じゃが)

Introduction:

Ok technically this dish is not an experiment for me anymore, since I make it quite often.  But evertime I make it I could change something.  So this time, the new things are:  nugget potatoes and beef slices.

Materials:

150g sliced beef

1 big carrot, cut into bite size

12 nugget potatoes

1 white onion, cut into slices

1/4 cup frozen edamame

1 pack konnyaku

1 to 1.5 cups of water

Oil

Sauce:

3 tbs brown sugar

3 tbs soy sauce

2 tbs mirin

2 tbs sake

Procedure:

1) Boil water in a small pot.  When water boils, put the konnyaku in, and let it boil for a minute.  Turn off the heat and take the konnyaku out.  Cut it into small pieces.  (Or if you have time, you can curl the konnyaku like I did)

2) Heat up a medium/large frying pan.  Put some oil in, then put the onions, beef and konnyaku in.  When the beef changes colour, put the carrots and nugget potatoes in.  Stir.

3)  Put the water in. (water should just be enough to cover the food)

4)  Mix the sauce together and pour it into the frying pan.

5)  When it boils, turn the heat to medium.  Cover the lid and let it simmer for 20-30 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft. 

6)  Put the edamame in.  When the edamame is ready, serve.

Result:

Discussions:

1) It's my first time trying nugget potatoes.  I actually like it better than the regular potatoes! :)

2) You can substitue sweet potato with potato, chicken with beef, green peas with edamame... basically, any vegetables that you like!

3)  You can add some Dashi Stock powder in as well.  I'm thinking next time maybe I'll use Dashi stock instead of water!  Not sure how it'll taste though.  Will post it up! :)

Conclusion:

It's one of the very first few Japanese dishes that I learned to make.  After trying it the first time, Ijust fell in love with it!  It's good because it's easy to make and it has lots of veggies in it!  Me love eating veggies! :)

Refernce:

Bento - Jan 11, 10

I bring lunch to almost everyday, but I mostly have leftover for lunch.  When I have time AND when I feel like it (which is not very often), I make bento boxes. 

For today's bento box, I have 6 items.  From clockwise from the left, I have potato salad, sausages, tamagoyaki, edamame, cherry tomato and fishballs. 

The only new thing that I tried was potato salad.  I have some leftover boiled small potatoes, I mashed them, and added 2 chopped crab sticks, mayonaise and black pepper. 

The rest of the food?  Well, they're mostly in their original form, so I guess I don't have to write too much.  :)

Snow hot pot - 雪鍋

Experiment: Snow hot pot (雪鍋)

Introduction: I have leftover food from making Ozoni.  I flipped through a few Japanese cookbooks, and found that Snow hot pot has pretty much the same ingredients as the Ozoni! So I decided to give it a try.

Materials:
1/3 daikon/white radish
1/2 carrot
750g chicken thigh, cut into small pieces
1/2 Chinese cabbage
1 pack of Tofu
Chopped green onion
2 slices of ginger
1/2 tbs sesame oil
Oil

Soup:
2 cups dashi stock
2 cups water
2 tbs soy sauce
1 ts yuzu powder

Procedure:
1) Shred the daikon, and drain the water. 

2) Cut the carrot in thin slices, and the Chinese cabbage into small pieces.

3) Heat up the pot, put some oil in.  Put the ginger in, then add the chicken and sesame oil.

4) When the chicken changes colour, put all the soup ingredients in. 

5) Put the Chinese cabbage, tofu and carrots in. 

6) Bring to boil, then reduce to medium heat, and simmer for a few minutes.

7) Put the shredded daikon in the centre of the pot, then sprinkle the green onion on top of the daikon.


Results:

Rice with veggies and chicken:

Discussion:
1) 1ts of yuzu powder actually wasn't quite enough.  I couldn't really taste the yuzu.  I ended up adding some ponzu (yuzu vinegar) into my rice bowl... then it tasted SO MUCH BETTER!

Conclusion:
This snow hot pot is pretty good for winter!  It's quick and easy, and it's not much for clean up! Just one pot, 2 rice bowls and 2 pairs of chopsticks!  Love this!

Reference: