Hakusai (Chinese Cabbage) Soup

Hakusai (Chinese Cabbage) Soup Inspired by a cooking magazine, "Lettuce Club" I seldom buy cooking magazines, because they are rather expensive but usually all I want is just one (or two at the most) recipe(s) per magazine. But when I visited my parents' house the other day, I got to the train station too early in the morning and I needed something to kill time. So I chose this latest issue (Jan. 25, 2009) of "Lettuce Club," hoping to find some good ideas to use up hakusai (Chinese cabbage) which I often end up wasting some. What caught my eyes in this soup recipe was the interesting combination of soup seasonings: instant Chinese chicken soup stock, miso (fermented soybean paste), soy milk, grated garlic, sesame seeds and red pepper. But when I actually tasted the soup, I found it a little too much for me... I'd like it much lighter. Maybe less garlic or less soy milk next time? The idea of putting meat between the layers of the cabbage was really nice, I would say. (Too bad, the above photo doesn't show much of the meat. I used ground pork.) I ate up a quater of hakusai at once and wanted more, even though the soup was not my favorite. Tomorrow night I'm going to visit my hometown again to try the data card there and to help mom with another tea ceremony event. Wish me luck.

White Stew with Walnut Raisin Bread

White Stew with Salmon Today was a nice, productive Sunday. After doing dishes and laundry, I went to nearby park and Kochi castle to take some photos. (They'll be posted on my another blog soon.) It was the perfect timing and the maple leaves were breathtakingly gorgeous. Oh, the real ones were much more beautiful than my photos. I wish I could take you there! It was a warm, sunny day but it turned cold in the late afternoon. My hands and feet were almost frozen when I came back to my apartment. It took a hot bath, tamagozake and this white stew to warm myself up tonight. The bread-like things in the background are walnut raisin bread I baked today. They are ... uh... edible. I'm pretty sure that they would be more like a weapon rather tan food tomorrow. Hahaha... I learned a lesson today: Never bake bread before going on a photo-taking excursion. :P Oh, BTW, today I spent such a long time looking for a gadget that shows the local time, weather and temperature here. Finally I found the one that's small enough for this sidebar. But I just noticed that it's working on Firefox but not on Internet Explorer on my laptop... Dec. 2 I replaced the weather sticker. The new one is working fine on my Firefox and IE. Thanks to those who left comments to let me know if the previous gadget worked on different browsers. :D Categories: Western-inspired

When I Need Healing -2

Chicken Curry @Masala in Ya-Shii Park, Yasu cho, Kochi, Japan No, it's not that chicken curry is included in my list of "things that heal me." This curry was a total whim. The main purpose of the afternoon was to try out the two things that are on the list: 1) listening to the sound of the waves and 2) lying on the grass (in the shade) and looking up the blue sky. Sounds good? But there aren't many places where I can do both 1) and 2) at the same time. I knew only one place, which was this seaside park called Ya-shii Park. From this angle, probably you can tell that I was lying on the grass when I took this shot. Onigiri (rice balls) Bento I brought to the beach This was not included in my original plan. I decided to bring lunch with me at the very last minute, and this was probably the simplest bento I've ever made. I just put chopped pickles in these rice balls, and pan-fried the pork after seasoning it with miso and mirin. You have to give me credit for making all these within approximately 5 minutes. Really. And you ask me, "You brought onigiri lunch AND had the chicken curry, too?" The answer is YES. Believe me, those rice balls were very small, and I got hungry again real easily after relaxing in the gentle breeze and taking these photos for about half an hour. Then I remembered that there was a good curry place there in the park. I peeked in my wallet and found just enough money to buy the cheapest most affordable chicken curry, so I thought it was the sign telling me to go for it. A view from the curry place. I love their naan. The breakfast the other day was certainly nice. And spending an afternoon like this also heals. :) Categories: Asian-inspired

Leftover From Last Night

Chige Soup (I used retort-packed chige soup base :P) I just had lunch and it was chige soup from last night. It was another cold and rainy day yesterday, and the rain didn't stop at night. It took two bowls of this soup and a can of beer, followed by a nice hot bath, to completely warm me up before going to bed. Today the soup tasted much milder. I'm going to throw some rice in it and make porridge tonight. ------- Last Sunday, I was with my parents in my hometown to help mom at her tea ceremony booth at a community event there. We (mom and her students incl. myself) did the same thing two years ago, and here is the post on that event in 2006, if you are interested. We were lucky about the weather, and luckly this time there was no squid hanging from a rope at the next booth. :P We had about 150 visitors, like last time. I didn't mind helping, and even enjoyed it, but doing a waitress work in kimono must have made me much more tired than I knew. (Kimono is our traditional costume that we wear on formal occasions (only), and it needs to be tied so tightly with many strings and belts.) On Sunday night, after coming back from the event, mom and I didn't feel like cooking. The three of us -- dad, mom and I -- just poured hot green tea over a bowl of rice and ate it with pickles, and went straight to bed around 9 pm. OK. I have a confession to make. The reason why I couldn't take any photos at the ceremony was that I forgot to bring... not my camera, not batteries, but... I forgot to stick a SD card into my camera! :O For those who might be interested, here's a photo of me from a few years ago. This kimono is very similar to the one I put on for the local event this time. Do I look very happy? Well, you never know what it is like to wear kimono until you actually give it a try... Hahaha... Categories: Asian-inspired

Oyster Chowder

Riding my bike back to my apartment tonight, I made up my mind to have a hearty soup for dinner. The temperature dropped more than I had expected, and I was almost frozen to death on my way back. At the supermarket I dropped by, I spent more time than I wanted to, because I couldn't decide what soup to make. Once I filled my shopping basket with ingredients for chanko-nabe. But when I saw oysters on the shelf, my inner voice said, "Oyster chowder! Juicy, plump oysters in hot milky chowder with black peppers sprinkled on top!!" AH! How could I resist? So when I finally had this nice, warm oyster chowder at my kotatsu, it was already past 10 pm. Now I'm warm and satisfied, and sleepy... Categories: Western-inspired

Long Weekend and My Stomach Needs a Break???

Obachan's Very First Boule It's a long weekend with lousy weather here in Japan. Perhaps it's the best chance for a new cooking/baking adventure, but for some reason, my stomach has not been feeling good since the day before yesterday. Udon noodles and rice porridge were my meals yesterday, and today I wanted something different. But what would be a nice dish that is fun to make (to kill time on this long weekend) and does not upset my stomach? Then I thought, "Maybe bread soaked in nice hearty soup would be kind to my stomach... And why not bake the bread myself?" So I picked a french bread recipe (in Japanese) which looked easiest to me and tried it out. The texture of my bread did not turn out exactly the way I wanted, perhaps partly because I used regular bread flour only while many recipes recommend mixing bread flour and cake flour at certain proportion, and partly because the recipe called for melted butter to add to the dough while most french bread recipes, I believe, do not. Yet my very first boule, especially the crust, tasted pretty good when soaked in the home-made vegetable soup, and my stomach seems to be satisfied and not upset after this meal. Categories: Western-inspired

What I Craved for on the Second Day Back in My Apartment

My "staple dish" in the post-op recovery period at home On the 2nd day after coming home (I mean, apartment room), I had this sudden craving for broccoli-- more precisely, broccoli potage -- and cheese. I had no idea why, though. My sense of taste was still messed up and I couldn’t stand the taste of some food I usually love – like apple cake. I had baked bunch of apple cakes and froze them before being hospitalized. But when I tried it first time after coming back, the buttery flavor of the cake and the slight sourness from the apple chunks almost made me nauseate. (What a shame!! I spent so much time baking them when I was terribly busy getting so many things done before going to the hospital.) Instead, what I really wanted was broccoli & cheese… and some good bread which is not too buttery or sweet. So, the 2nd day back in my apartment room, I took a taxi to a nearby supermarket (because I wasn’t sure if I could ride a bicycle then) and bought broccoli and grated cheese. After that, I spent several hours in the kitchen making a big potful of broccoli potage and freezing them in several ziplock bags, feeling slightly dizzy from time to time. But it was worth it! :D For a few days after that, I enjoyed broccoli potage topped with grated cheese (I know this may sound strange, but I really wanted cheese flavor added) again and again, and each time all I had to do was just defrosting and heating up the frozen potage. With onion, potato, garlic and soy milk added, I think the liquid food was pretty nutritious. But I still don’t know why I craved specifically for broccoli so badly and why I had no problem with garlic while the smell of ginger bothered me so much, and also why black pepper and bay leaves were OK when the smell of cinnamon, clove and celery almost killed me. .... Strange. Categories: Miscellaneous

With Best Wishes for the Coming Year...

Obachan's End-of-year Tomato Stew...? I don’t think anyone remembers this post from 2004, but yes, this is a comforting, nutritious fridge-emptying dish that I typically make at the end of the year. It has become almost like a ritual before I leave my apartment to spend New Year’s Day at my parents’ house with my parents, my sister and her husband and kids. It’s such a nice, sunny day today and the steam coming up from the soup is really comforting me now. (Hope you can see it in the photo.) It's a perfect lunch to have on the day before my busiest day of the year. Well, this is my last post here on this blog this year. Thank you for your support and friendship in 2006. Hope you keep coming back in 2007. I wish you all a happy new year! :D Categories: Western-inspired

Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken and Dumplings When the humidity proves the beginning of the rainy season here, my memories of the South come back and I always feel the urge to make some southern dishes. Inspired by the Chicken and Dumplings entry by Randi of Culinary Adventures, I made this for lunch yesterday. When in the States, I always used Bisquick for making the dumplings. But I have read somewhere that for a real chicken and dumplings dish, the dumplings should be made from scratch. And now I’m fully convinced! Thank you Randi for sharing the recipe (and kindly coming over to my blog to let me know)! I enjoyed this very much. :) Categories: Western-inspired

Bouillabaisse...? #2

OK, I have a confession to make. I’ve been sick for the past whole week. It was nothing serious -- just constant coughing and sore throat. But to me, constant coughing for one whole week with no sign of recovery is something totally unusual -- something never happened before. Unfortunately last week was my busy week; I had both daytime and night-time work back to back every day. No time to go to the hospital…(well, I wouldn’t have gone anyway even if I had time). All I did was feeding me with nutritious meals and trying all the common cold remedies I could think of, which did not make my symptoms any better. Finally, yesterday I gave up and bought the cheapest cough suppressant at the nearest drug store. Usually I’d rather stay away from the stuff with high codeine content, but no other choice this time… I got tired of coughing. Anyway, this morning I woke up still coughing a lot, and thought about what kind of special nutritious food I could feed myself with. Then I realized that I was feeling like nice, hearty seafood soup. So, here it is. Bouillabaisse...? This was my supper tonight. I don’t know if seafood is good for coughing (-- the only thing I remember is that my grandma boiled lobster shells and made me drink the soup when I had the mumps), but I felt like eating this today, so maybe there was a reason… or maybe not. Oh, well. For dessert, I made blueberry tarts to finish up the leftover frozen blueberries from the white wine jelly I made the other day. If I would be still coughing a lot tomorrow morning, I would go see a doctor. Categories: Western-inspired

Izakaya Menu #4 - Beef Tongue Stew -

Beef Tongue Stew I’d never expected to post an entry like this, but here it is… This was one of our Izakaya menu: Beef tongue stew. It was served with these toppings and heavy cream like this (but not with the bread and wine -- these were my additions). Now that our izakaya is closing in 2 days, they stopped serving this dish last night and gave me all the leftover beef tongue stew (frozen). So I had this HEAVY late-night supper last night. ;P And I still have some in my freezer. They also gave me some leftover frozen lamb chops and I’m wondering what I can make with them. Suggestions? Anyway, I’m soooooo happy that I have this nice, new refrigerator with a bigger freezer at the bottom in my kitchen now. If my old fridge had to break, it certainly broke in a good timing. ;) Categories: Western-inspired

Doll Festival

Hamaguri no Ushiojiru (Clear Clam Soup) We celebrate hinamatsuri (doll festival) in Japan today, and I thought about making some special dishes for that. I was almost going for these doll-shaped onigiri (rice balls) that many Japanese moms make for their daughters on hinamatsuri day. But I was tired after my izakaya work, and one of my colleagues gave me leftover sushi, so my enthusiasm for cooking just faded out on my way back from work. The only hinamatsuri-related dish I made was this clear clam soup. Why clams are associated with girls’ festival? Well, I heard that clams symbolize things like virtue and marital fidelity. (Why should these qualities required only for women?) BTW, there was one thing that I didn’t know until today. In my childhood, when my parents took out the special dolls to celebrate hinamatsuri for me and my sister, they always argued about the position of the obina (emperor doll) and mebina (empress doll) --- about which should be on the right and which should be on the left. I thought there was only one right answer, and my family was pretty stupid not being able to memorize it, but there was a good reason for the confusion: there was more than one answer. What I found out today was that in most areas in Japan, the emperor doll is displayed on the left (our left = the doll’s right) and the empress on the right (our right = doll’s left). But in Kyoto, they are displayed the other way around, and it is the traditional way. According to several Japanese websites I’ve read, in our ancient belief, the left side was considered superior, thus, about 1000 years ago, when the emperor and empress sat side-by-side, the emperor was always on the left side with empress being on his right. Hina ningyo (dolls for hinamatsuri) followed the same rule, so the emperor doll was on our right (doll's left) and empress on our left (doll's right). However in the modern era, when Japan adopted “international protocol” and the photos of the emperor and empress conformed to it, the hinamatsuri custom was altered accordingly throughout Japan, EXCEPT Kyoto. So today, in most of the TV commercials of hina ningyo, we see the modern way of displaying them, but when we see photos of very traditional hinamatsuri customs in Kyoto, often introduced in books about Japanese traditions, we see it the other way around. No wonder many of us are confused. I’m glad --- It was not that our family was exceptionally stupid. :) Categories: Japanese

椀/吸い物 Wan/Suimono (Soup Dish)

海老団子,里芋,海老,梅花大根・人参,羅臼昆布 Shrimp-Chicken Meatball, Taro, Shrimp, Daikon, Carrot and Kelp Some of you might have noticed by now that my soup dish in this kind of meal tends to be made with whatever ingredients left from other dishes. But I do make a good dashi stock from bonito flakes and rather-expensive rausu kelp for this kind of course meal, so you have to give me a credit. Isn’t this tiny mitsuba leaf cute? ;)

Freezer-Emptying Chowder

Freezer-emptying Chowder Is this something universal? Does this happen to you, too? I mean, when home electronic products break down, they break down one after another, don’t they? Isn’t this Murphy's Law? Or does this happen only to me? Anyway, I finally bought a new refrigerator today and it’s going to be delivered on Friday morning. Before I decided on which one to buy, I shopped around all afternoon till I was totally exhausted. What made me mad was that for having the fridge delivered, I had to pay extra 2000 yen, and what was worse, they charged me for another 5,355 yen for throwing away my old fridge that broke down. ※＃●Ｘ !!! ** OK, sorry, I was wrong. The 5,355 yen was for the cost of recycling, not the cost for them to throw away the old appliance. Now I need to empty the fridge I have now and clean the kitchen by Friday. Hence, this supper tonight. Maybe I should call it “chowder.” The quickest way to use frozen spinach, broccoli, corn, seafood mix, pork and chicken stock that were in the freezer. The taste? Edible, at least. OK, let’s see the bright side of it. On this coming Friday, I’ll have a new, slightly bigger fridge with a self-defrosting freezer AND clean kitchen! For that kind of joy, I should be happy to go through the hardship of cleaning my old fridge AND the kitchen. Oh, I hope I don't have to buy a new lanudry machine anytime soon!

Bouillabaisse ...?

bouillabaisse -- my very first try Shrimp and clams were on sale at a nearby supermarket today. Still craving for a healthy seafood-vegetable combination, I went for something adventurous for my supper tonight -– something I had heard of but never tried before. I made bouillabaisse! I knew that you use seafood like fish, clams, shrimp and squid for bouillabaisse, but I didn’t know what kind of fish. With clams and shrimp in my shopping basket, I wandered around for a while in the fish aisle, trying to decide which fish to pick. Then I found a terribly attractive, big pack of salmon scrap for 150 yen, and before I knew it, my hand immediately picked it up and threw it in the basket. Now, tell me... Is using salmon scrap for bouillabaisse something really off the wall? If so… well, it’s too late anyway. I already used it. :P Being totally exhausted from the izakaya work last night and the office work this afternoon, I didn't feel like doing conversion at all, so I just picked a Japanese recipe on the net. And I was happy that I found that recipe. Maybe what I made was far from the real bouillabaisse, but it tasted good. The broth from the seafood was so tasty that I didn’t even need to add salt, and I just LOVED the kick of the red chili pepper. I’m definitely going to make this fish stew a few more times this winter, trying different seafood ingredients each time.

Food I Enjoyed at My Parents' House #2

Miso Soup with Wild Boar Meat This entry may suit Esther’s Weird Food Series at her Food Mall. To be honest, I don’t think this is too weird, because to me it’s not too different from pork. It’s wild boar meat... It’s not really weird, isn’t it? People eat wild boar meat in other countries, too, right? But it is not very popular here in Japan, because here you have to have a proper license to catch wild boars. Last year my dad got the license to catch (not shoot) some wild animals, and when he catches wild boars, I think he asks someone with a proper license to kill/slaughter them. (This photo is wild boar thigh.) What’s different about the way they eat wild boar meat in my hometown is that they leave the skin on the meat, with the hair often not shaved off thoroughly. :( Though some gourmet people say that the skin is the tastiest part with an interesting texture, I can’t eat that part. But I have to admit that the fat layer right under the skin, which is not as soft as the fat of pork, is so tasty that I can’t resist. (And this kind of nutrition table makes me feel at ease ;)) The meat can be quite tough sometimes, but luckily this one was not… This must have been a younger boar. Cooked in miso soup with taro, daikon and carrots, the meat was very tasty. Old people here say that “You never burn your tongue with cooked wild boar meat,” and I guess that’s true. I wonder why… maybe it is because of the dense texture of the meat? Anyway, it was my first and last time eating wild boar meat this year, and for me once a year is pretty enough. :)

Sea Bream Soup

Sea Bream Soup Now for this kind of special meal, I didn't hesitate to use bonito flakes and top-quality kelp to make the broth, with a little shirodashi added. What’s in the bowl is a piece of sea bream, carrot cut out in the shape of a maple leaf, shimeji mushrooms, kamaboko (steamed fish cake), mitsuba leaf and yuzu rind.

Meet My Slow Cooker!

Pork and Tomato Stew?? I received it around noon yesterday, when I was getting ready to leave my apartment for work. After coming back from my daytime work at around 4:30 pm, I opened the box right away and took out my dear slow cooker! It was much bigger than I thought, which was good because I can cook a big amount at one time and eat it for lunch, supper and late-night supper on a very busy day. On my way back from work, I bought pork and vegetables for my very first slow-cooker cooking. This time I chopped the meat and vegetables into very big chunks. (For potatoes, I didn’t even chop them.) I sautéed, seasoned and threw them into the slow cooker, then added chicken stock, tomatoes (chopped and cooked briefly in a frying pan), bay leaves, thyme and more salt and pepper. I set the timer for 5 hours on “high” and left my apartment again for the work at izakaya. While working there last night, I was always thinking about how my slow cooker must be doing its job. Then I came home, riding my bicycle in a hurry, and this was what was waiting for me! It was a gloomy, cloudy day, with a little rain in the afternoon, and it turned pretty cold later at night. Riding a bicycle back to my apartment at around 11:30 pm was not a very pleasant thing to do. Can you imagine how happy I was with this dish? …. Everything was soooooo soft and tender, even the biggest potato! It was just absolutely heavenly.(I added a little butter about 5 minutes before eating it.) And this was my brunch this morning. :)

Just to Warm You Up

Chicken and Vegetable Soup?? It has been pretty cold for the past couple of days, and the pic of the ice cream in my last post was giving me a chill every time I saw it, to be honest. So, here’s more “seasonally correct”shot of my supper last night. (Uh…maybe not really correct for those living in the Southern hemisphere?) This is just a soup with whatever ingredients which were available in the kitchen yesterday. Nothing fancy, but at least, this is much more authentic than the retort pouch stuff I often depend on, I suppose. I used the chicken stock I made from chicken carcass (roasted ;)) and herbs from my balcony garden. To add some flavor, I used fresh tomatoes and a little wine. And more than anything, this was simmered for several hours to make all the ingredients really soft and tender. (Tell me, what's the difference betw. "soft" and "tender"?) What can be more heart-warming than hearing the sound of simmering food on a cold November evening? :)

Broccoli Potage Soup

Broccoli Potage Soup For the painful work of cleaning up the closet and kitchen that I did last weekend, I bought myself a reward today. It’s an electric blender, the cheapest kind that has been on sale at the mall for months. I had always wanted one, but it was not the price that kept me from buying one this summer. I simply couldn’t stand the idea of adding one more thing to the chaos in my kitchen. The mess was almost making me nuts and I repeated in front of the mirror hundreds of times, “No more kitchen utensils until I get rid of all the crap!!” Well, I finally did the major throwing away this weekend, and now this new, inexpensive electric blender is officially welcomed in my kitchen. Of all the things you can make using an electric blender, I chose “broccoli potage soup” as the first mission for this newcomer. The reasons were: 1) I like broccoli, 2) for some reason I like green-colored soup, and 3) there were some leftover boiled broccoli in the freezer that I wanted to use up. Even though I call it “broccoli potage,” I used other vegetables, too. Cooked onion, garlic and potatoes were thrown into the blender in addition to boiled broccoli. My home-made chicken stock I froze a few months ago was also used for this soup. The result was quite satisfactory! I knew I was supposed to strain the soup through a fine strainer or something, but this time I decided not to waist the rich fiber of the vegs. And the thick soup tasted good even without straining. I think I can call this a success : ) Too bad the photo cannot show the real nice green color of the soup! Green is always the problem with my digital camera... * Sorry, I replaced the photo on top because I couldn't stand the color of the previous one.