Kinpira - Gobo

Hello,

"Kinpira-Gobo" is sauteed and simmered vegetable, usually it's GOBO=Burdock Root. It is also made with carrots, celery root, and other vegetables too. Those are tasted with Soy Sauce, Mirin or Sugar, and Dashi Stock=Japanese Soup Stock, or Broth.

First, saute sliced vegetable in sesame oil. and then add all seasoning and simmered until vegetable get tender and liquid is almost absorbed. 

When you make this dish, sesame oil is a must ingredient I believe. This oil gives a great flavor to those earthy root vegetables, and well combined with all seasoning.

I usually make with Gobo and carrots, but since I got to know one of my friends makes with chicken in it, (and that taste was sooo good!), I really like the idea to add some kind of protein to this dish.

I used ground turkey instead of chicken this time, and also my favorite, Kiriboshi-Daikon (Dried Daikon Radish) with ground sesame on the top.

Another side dish high in fiber right there, and perfect side dish for my lunch box :)

Gyu-Don (Thin sliced beef with onion) - Revised

Hello,

Gyu-Don,
It is thin sliced beef and onion cooked with soy sauce, mirin or sugar, and dashi stock.

It's usually poured on over steamed rice, and one of the most famous DONBURI dish in Japan.

DONBURI is a rice dish with some kind of cooked dish over steamed rice in a bowl.

Yoshino-Ya, is one of the most famous Gyu-Don shop back in 80's - 90's when I was in Japan. There might be more chain shop or restaurant by now for this convienient, easy-to-grab rice bowl dish, and a lot of people love to eat this.

My revised version, I added Kiriboshi-Daikon=dried daikon which has high in dietary fiber, and sesame seed for nice crunchy texture with bean sprout at the very end.

I probably can eat 2 bowls (and Big One, too!) of rice with this.

Spicy Tuna Bowl

Hello,

I sometimes feel like eating spicy tuna, my husband as well. When we fell like that, I get nice piece of tuna fillet and chop it and make spicy tuna.

I usually like to eat putting on steamed rice and make a spicy tuna bowl; "Donburi" style.

Fresh chopped tuna with little mayonnaise, green onion, Japanese chili pepper, and chili oil.
Great thing to make this yourself, you can adjust the spiciness as much as, or as less as you want and make perfect spicy tuna every time. I barely order spicy dish from any restaurant until I know the taste, because you never know how spicy that dish is ;)

I added little ground white sesame seed, and matched up with clear soup.

Long Time No See!

Wow!
It's been 5 months since the last post!

Well, I have been occupied with my health issue, so I wasn't good blogging mood the past few months.
Now, it's clear (I hope, forever!) and the mood is getting back finally.

Since I was little away from blogging, facebook-ing, and hard-core food surfing, there are a lot to maintain and up date in the world (I still don't know well how I can manage sufficiently each of my SN account ;)

Also, I am not good at catching up all these fast technologies, so I've got little confused where to start and how first...

But, at the same time, I can't do much too, so I just post my daily blog day by day and enjoy reading other people's blogs or articles, and photos.

OKONOMI-YAKI

Hello,

OKONOMI-YAKI,
it's a easy lunch menu for me. It's easy, quick, and anything and you can use whatever you like.
Traditionally, we use flour, tempura flakes, cabbage, eggs, and a protein ingredient, such as sliced pork, shrimp, squid, cheese, etc...

My version is a little far from the traditional... I would say my version includes less white flour with more vegetables, still with a good protein of some sort in it.



And, instead of putting sauce on it, a lot of Aonori (Dried Seaweed flakes) and little Ponzu sauce work perfectly for me :)

Potato Pancakes

Hello,

Potato Pancakes, (sigh), this item I rarely make in my day to day cooking.

But, the other day I saw someone was making them on one of the food network shows and they looked so good! (My husband and I always get inspired by TV Cooking Shows so quickly and easily :)

Before I made potato pancakes myself, I had an image of potato pancakes; used as a appetizer or a side dish on a breakfast menu...

I realized that we have the same type of potato dish in Japan too. It's called Imo-Mochi. ( translated in English as Potato-Rice cake) We don't use butter to cook, or don't mix with grated cheese or jalapeno, but the gooey texture from their starch is exactly same.

It is fun and so interesting when I found out (re-realized) that there were the same types of dishes all over the world, using the local regional ingredients; Dumplings, Pasta or Noodle, Pickles, etc...

KOGOMI - Fiddelehead ferns

Hello,

I found fiddlehead ferns at Whole Foods Market the other day, and I just surprisingly took to my hand and put into the basket without any reason. ( I always have a shopping list in my hand and barely buy items not on the list)


I never expected that I can get KOGOMI (in Japanese) in the U.S.. This is one of the vegetables which tells us "spring has come" in Japan. It grows in wild mountain area, so it is sometimes transrated to "mountain vegetables", or "wild vegetables" in Englosh. I don't know they are all wild nowadays, it might be cultivated.

The package I got says it is distributed from Portland, Oregon. I can imagime that there must be from beautiful mountain area.


And then within a couple of days, I found a recipe of fiddleheads from one magazene, too! This is Indian Country Today that my husband recieves every issue. What a coincident, and I found out that fiddleheads sounds like pretty popular among Native American people, that was surprised to me too.

In the recipe, fiddlehead ferns are saute with butter and tossed with mixed greens. That is totaly different from Japanese cooking and that was very interesting to me too.




Oh, I made Tempura and enjoyed spring taste that night with my fiddlehead ferns.