Yakisoba - Pleasant Memories Of The Summers Past

Hello,


Lately, I've seen a Yakisoba commercial on TV a few times.
I can say... Yakisoba is one of my favorite dishes to eat, and I always remember the summer time when I was a kid when I eat Yakisoba.....

(imagine if you will)


..... Our family used to go to the beach often during our summer vacation when my sister and I were in grade school. In Japan, there are always some beach house by the ocean, it's called "Umi-No-Ie"( 海の家 ), they have a rest room, shower, changing room, souvenir shop, and cafe and restaurant. In the restaurant, they sell grilled squid or clam, curry and rice, saved ice, corn dog...etc., and there is always Yakisoba in the menu. I don't think I never missed a day when i would ask my parents to have Yakisoba.

When I ate Yakisoba right after getting out from the ocean, I always could taste the sea water with the noodle, because of the sea water dripped from my hair to face and mixed together in my mouth. I still can remember that exact taste :)

It's usually added with a little bit of cabbage, carrots, and onion, that's it. So nutritionally Yakisoba is not a great dish by itself to get a lot of nutrients.

So, I added a lot of spinach, chard, carrots, and cabbage, almost same amount with noodle. I topped with dried shrimp, too.

I wish I had some Beni-Shoga! ( pickled ginger/ you will be surprised by it's bright red color )

Goma-Ae Recipe

Hello,

I am now placing Goma-Ae's sauce recipe up online today.


Ingredients:

Toasted Sesame Seed (white or black) 1/3 cup
Soy Sauce 1 tbsp.
Brown Sugar 1 tbsp.
Mirin 1 tbsp.
Salt 1/4 tsp.
Dashi 3~4 tbsp.


Directions:

1) In a Suribachi (Japanese mortar), put sesame seeds and grind untill their oil comes out.

2) Add all the other ingredients and mix well untill sugar is disolved and looks pasty.

* You can make the sauce with a food processor too. When you use a food processor, put sesame seeds in and pulse a few times and then add all other ingredients and blend it till pasty.


You can use this sauce with vegetables, but you also can dress up some noodles and seaweed with some veggies like this...

I tossed the sauce with Soba noodle, carrots, spinach, and Hijiki Seaweed. Make sure the creamy sesame sauce covered all ingredients evenly to be able to enjoy the full flavor in every bite.

Kohya-Tofu with ground turkey stuffing

Hello,

Have you ever eaten any KOHYA-TOFU before?

This is a tofu product which is first frozen then dried. When you prepare the tofu, you can soak it in warm water first to rehydrate it before you use or cook it. It will also get softer and absorb a lot of dashi / soup and umami during cooking.

I put some ground turkey and a green onion mixture with a lot of fresh ginger in the middle. Then simmered it in a soy sauce based-dashi soup stock. After it's cooked, I tied it with boiled Mitsuba twig around it like a ribbon for a little better looking presentation.

As same as other soy products, KOHYA-TOFU is also very high in nutrition, especially calcium, and iron. There is also an effect which lowers cholesterol in your system.

However, I don't think too many Japanese people eat this nowadays, especially young people. I would love to re-introduce this great food here in the U.S., too. But I also hope that more Japanese people will start cooking and eating KOHYA-TOFU more often as one of our great food.

Goma - Ae

Hello,

I have a chance to teach a cooking class at a local cooking school in June!

Now, I am preparing for that class.

One of the dishes I plan on teaching in the class is, GOMA-AE. This is a boiled vegetable dish usually made with spinach and tossed with a pasty Sesame dressing. It's a pretty popular Japanese dish in the U.S. now that I think about it. I plan on adding my own touch to make it a more tastier and healthier dish and give some useful tips on preparing this type of dish.

Nowadays, you can check out various types of recipes, pictures, videos. Everything you need to know about cooking on the Internet. But I still believe that the most important part of cooking is to see, touch, smell, feel, and to taste the food while cooking the dish.

I used spinach and carrots this time, but you can try other vegetable like; green beans, snack peas, snow peas, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower...any type of vegetable is healthy. Gives a great new way and flavor to some of you and your loved ones favorite vegetables.

Soy sauce and Miso For Kakushi - Aji ( Hidden Taste )

Hello,

Today, I will introduce to you a little trick for tasting.

I made a Spring Roll the other day, (it's called HARUMAKI in Japanese), with chicken, mung bean thread, garlic chives, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and fresh ground ginger. These Harumaki are wrapped with Harumaki Wrap Paper, it's much thinner than won ton wrappers and will get more lighter and crispier after it's cooked.

To add saltiness, I chose not to use salt. I used Soy Sauce and Miso paste.

Soy Sauce contains about 1/5 sodium compared to the sodium content in salt and regular Miso paste has about 1/6-1/7 of sodium content. So, if you wish to use here is the percentage of equal parts:
1 tea spoon salt = about 1.5 table spoons of soy sauce or about 2 - 2.5 tablespoons of Miso paste.

You will taste the saltiness, but the Soy Sauce and the Miso paste flavor will hidden / masked with a natural flavor that most people will not even notice. This cooking effect is called KAKUSHI-AJI (English: Hidden Taste) And soy sauce and miso are often used to that technique. I believe that this works for B.B.Q. sauce or marinade in American cooking too.

Also, Soy Sauce and Miso, both are fermented foods which give the dish an extra UMAMI taste.

Buckwheat Recipe - Corn Soup

Hello,

I have used buckwheat grout for oatmeal, tomato sauce, vegetable soup in the past few months.

The other day, I decided to make corn soup for dinner and got an idea to put some buckwheat into the soup.

I boiled the buckwheat grout for 15 min. and then added it to the soup at the same time when I put the corn, (one whole can and cream style one). Then, I used some flour to add some thickness to the soup, at the same time, the buckwheat gave a nice consistency at the end. I prefer to put some consistency to soup with flour instead of using corn starch.

Corn Cream Soup: 4-5 servings

*Ingredients:

Canned Corn・・・・・・・・・ 1 lb. each of whole and cream style.

Sweet Onion・・・・・・・・・ 1 cup

Bacon・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・ 4 oz.

Buckwheat (boiled)・・・ 1 cup

Soup Stock・・・・・・・・・・ 4 cups

All Purpose Flour・・・・ 5 tbsp.

Milk or Half & Half ・・・1 cup

*Canora oil・・・・・・・・・・ 4 tbsp.

Salt and Pepper for taste

Direction:

1.) Cook bacon until it gets crispy, add onion and saute for 5 min. with medium-low heat.

* If you don't want to use all the bacon oil, you can take it out and add 4 tbsp. of Canola Oil instead.

2.) Add some flour and cook for 5min. Add soup stock, corn, and buckwheat. If you like, you can add some dried herb at this point.

3.) Simmer for 15 min., and add milk or half & half.

4.) Taste with Salt and Pepper.

If you want to add some vegetables to this soup, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas, Brussel sprouts, etc...

With nice crusty bread, mmmm.............yummy!

Spring Cabbage

Hello,

There are lot of cabbages out there lately, those spring cabbages are tender and yummy especially when in season. I use cabbage often, for soups, salads, to saute and steam, to make a Japanese style pan cake ( Okonomi-Yaki ), rolled cabbage...etc.

I created a strawberry dressing and tossed with steamed cabbage. The dressing was so delicious it gives you that fresh spring feeling.


I have tried this dressing with broccoli, celery, and carrots and it was good, too. The consistency of the sauce is pretty thick, so it's good as a dipping sauce also.

Spring Strawberry Dressing:

Makes about 1/3 - 1/2 cup

Strawberry 3 medium

Red Onion 1.5 oz

Red Wine Vinegar 1 tbsp.

Olive Oil 2 tbsp.

Salt and Pepper for taste

Pinch of Sugar

Direction: Put all ingredients into a food processor and mix until combined well, that's it!