Pork and leek soba

In America, maybe almost people are having a Halloween party tonight o already did this weekend.  Despite this, I was too busy to have time for party because I moved to a new room this weekend.

 Do you know "Hikkoshi-soba"?  Soba means close in Japanese and looks long so in the past, people who moved to new house gave soba to neighbor and landlord to appreciate ongoing the help, support and relationship and tell the happiness to be close from now on.

Of course it's only Japanese culture so I didn't give soba to neighbor but still I wanted to feel like having hikkoshi-soba that's why I made not halloween food but soba!

Pork and leek soba (2 serves)

• soba for 2 people
• 1/3 pound of thin sliced pork
• 1/3 leek
• 10 pieces of shiitake mushroom
• 1 Tbs of sesame oil
• 2 Tbs of ground daikon radish 
• 800 cc of dashi (☆)
• 2 Tbs of mirin (☆)
• 2 Tbs of soy sauce (☆)

1,  Cut leek into thin sticks and pork into easy-bite sizes.  Heat a pan and sesame oil and stir-fry until pork's color become light brown and leek become pliant.

2,  Cut shiitake mushroom into thin slices then boil until soft.

3,  Boil a lot of hot water and boil soba for the time package says.  If it starts boiling over, you can add about 1/4 cup of water to stop it.

4,  Put boiled soba up to a colander and make it cool down with cold water.

5,  Put  (☆) in a pan and heat until hot.

6,  Put soba in a bowl and put stir-fried pork and leek, shiitake mushroom and daikon radish then pour soup.  Add Japanese red pepper powder if you would like.

I really enjoyed this soba hoping my good luck in this room.

By the way, maybe already you know but a devastating hurricane is arriving in Boston.  I hope nothing will happen tomorrow.  Take care!!

Daikon radish cake

I had dinner with my roommates tonight.  We ordered a home delivery pizza.  The pizza company said they could deliver in 20 minutes or so but actually we waited over 40 minutes but still pizza didn't come.  No way, thats too bad!  We were too hungry to wait so I made some appetizer quickly to stave off hunger.  We needed something to eat seriously!!

Daikon radish cake (4 pieces)

• 1 cup of ground radish
• 4 tbs of corn starch
• 1 tbs of dashi powder
• 1/2 cup of edamame
• 1/2 cup of shrimp
• 3 Tbs of cut green onion
• 1 Tbs of sesame oil
• Ponzu
• White sesame seed

1,  Squeeze ground radish lightly

2,  Add corn starch and mix well.  Add shrimp, edamame, green onion and dashi powder then mix well again.

3,  Make 4 pieces of round shape and add a bit of corn starch on surface

4,  Heat a pan and sesame oil until quite hot.  Grill daikon radish cakes with medium fire pushing to make flat with a spatula until brown

5,  Remove from the pan to a plate.  Add ponzu and white sesame seed before eating

I was not sure if it's taste okay but actually it's really tasty!  The texture of surface is crispy but inside is soft chewy.  I think it's pretty similar to chinese radish cake but normally they use not corn starch but rice powder.  More than that, this recipe is much easier than traditional Chinese recipe!  I was glad to be able to make this recipe :)  Actually one of my roommates really hate any vegetables but even he could eat it because he didn't notice I used a radish.  I highly recommend this recipe for people who dislike vegetables.  

When the pizza came to home, we were so satisfied.  But of course, we enjoyed the pizza also.  Ummm... maybe too much??

Mushroom chicken ginger donburi (rice bowl)

One of my seniors gave me a request to Poppin' kitchen!  It was the first request from someone except my family.  Thanks my senior, I am so happy:)  She wanted a recipe for mushrooms.  Sure!  I LOVE mushrooms also♡

Unfortunately it's difficult to find a lot of kinda mushrooms in Boston actually and in addition except normal mushroom, almost mushrooms are kind of expensive.  In Japan, I could find several kind of mushrooms especially in fall and buy one pack of mushroom at less than $1 usually but here normally the price of mushrooms is about $3!  I don't know why but anyway it's so surprising!!  Fortunately a neighborhood grocery store had a couple of kind of mushrooms at cheap price and I found an oyster mushroom called Hiratake (平茸).  It's pretty similar to grifola frondosa called Maitake (舞茸).

This is an oyster mushroom.

This is a maitake mushroom.

You see!  looks similar!!

Maitake mushroom is one of the popular mushrooms in Japan.  Maitake means "dancing mushroom". (Mai means dance.)  I think it literally looks dancing, don't you think so?  Both oyster mushroom and maitake mushroom have thick body and crispy texture.  Maitake has stronger taste than oyster mushroom but both taste not so strong like shiitake mushroom so they go well with any food.  Mushrooms are kind of fall ingredients so the cold day like today is a good day for having mushroom dish!


Mushroom chicken ginger donburi (rice bowl) (2 serves)

mushroom chicken ginger

• 2 rice bowls of cooked rice
• 4 oz of oyster mushroom
• 0.3 lb of eggplant
• 0.3 lb of chicken thigh
• 1 green onion
• 1 Tbs +1 tsp of sesame oil (☆)
• 3 Tbs of soy sauce (☆)
• 2 Tbs of mirin (☆) 
• 1/2 Tbs of sugar (☆)
• 1 Tbs of ground ginger (☆)

Omelet

• 3 eggs
• 1 Tbs os mayonnaise
• 1/2 Tbs of butter

1,  Cut eggplant and chicken thigh into small cubes and soak eggplant in water for 10 minutes to remove harshness.  Tear oyster mushroom to appropriately sized pieces.

2,  Put all of  (☆) in a small bowl and mix them well
3,  Heat a pan and 1 Tbs of sesame oil with medium fire until quite hot.  Add chicken thigh and stir-fry until light brown.
4,  Add eggplant and stir-fry until brown and soft then add oyster mushroom and stir-fry quickly.
5,  Add  (☆) and stir-fry until dry like this picture then add 1 tsp of sesame oil and 1 tbs of white sesame seed.  Stir-fry quickly and remove from a pan.

6,  Make an omelet.  Mix egg and mayonnaise.  Heat a pan and butter until butter melt and change color a bit of brown and add egg mixture.  Wait for 5 seconds and stir quickly.  After there is no uncooked egg left, remove from a pan.

7,  Put cooked rice in rice bowls and put mushroom chicken ginger and omelet on each bowl.  Put green onion on it.

The mushroom chicken ginger has strong taste so it's better to eat mixing mushroom chicken ginger and omelet.  The omelet tastes pretty mild so they help each other's taste!  I even add a bit of Japanese red pepper, which was also nice. 

I recently prefer to have hot drink more than iced drink at table.  For me, it's a sign that it's totally autumn now. Tomorrow will be a cold and windy day in Boston like today.  It seems like that Tokyo and my home town Nagano are much warmer than Boston.  Ummm... I'm jealous!!

Anyway, please take care of yourself not to catch a cold!!

Images are from eHOW home and Blob perriconeMD.  Thanks.

Broil salmon wrapped in foil (Hoiru-yaki) with miso and mayonnaise sauce

Broil something wrapped in a foil (called Hoiru-yaki, ホイル焼き) is a traditional Japanese cooking method.  In the past Japanese people wrapped with paper instead of foil but paper can burn easily so now we use foil normally.  I like Hoiru-yaki so much because I don't have to use a lot of stuff and after I put it into a oven, I don't have to pay too much attention.  It's super easy!!

Unfortunately I couldn't use a gas stove in my house because it was under construction today.  So I made a Hoiru-yaki because I could thought of only it as what I could make without gas.

Broil salmon wrapped in foil (Hoiru-yaki) with miso and mayonnaise sauce (2 serves)

• 1/2 pound of salmon
• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 potato
• 2 Tbs of mayonnaise
• 3/4 Tbs of miso (☆)
• 1 tsp of sesame oil (☆)
• 1 tbs of sugar (☆)
• cheese
• 1 green onion

1, Remove the scales from a salmon and cut into a half then add a bit of salt then leave for 10 minutes

2,  Cut onion and potato into thin slices and put it on the microwave for 2〜3 minutes until soft

4,  Mix (☆) very well in a small cup and cut green onion into thin slices

3,  Spread a foil and put onion and potato, salmon,  (☆) and cheese in order

4,  Fold a foil into three like this

then fold both sides tightly like this 

5,  Bake it in a oven at 400°F for 20〜25 minutes and then put green onion and red pepper (If you have)

This miso and mayonnaise sauce's taste is rich so it goes well with not only salmon but also light food like cod, sea bass, scallops… and more!

I remembered that when I was in Japan, I often made so many kind of Hoiru-yaki, especially in winter. Maybe I'll show you other kind of Hoil-yaki this fall and winter :))

Stir-fried Japanese mustard spinach and shrimp with sea salt sauce

Have you ever tried Japanese mustard spinach (小松菜, Komatsuna)?  It's a traditional Japanese vegetable and has thick leaves and firm stems.  It's a kind of Brassica rape and the origin is white turnip.

The reason which the name has "mustard" is that it has a little bit of sharp-tasting.  That's why I didn't like this vegetable so much when I was a little kid but now I love it!  Even if you don't like sharp-tasting,  you don't taste at all if you heat enough.  

Not only taste good but also it has a lot of nice nutrition. Vitamin A, calcium, iron, potassium, fiber and more!  Nutrition of Japanese mustard spinach are really similar to spinach's one but the amount is much bigger than spinach!  Actually the amount of calcium is 5 times of spinach.  How excellent it is!!

Unfortunately I have never had it since I came to Boston.  But today I found it at a grocery store finally!!  I would like to cook Japanese mustard spinach with shrimp which is my favorite food!!

Stir-fried Japanese mustard spinach and shrimp with sea salt sauce (2 serves)

• 1 pound of japanese mustard spinach
• 12 pieces of shrimps
• 1 Tbs of chopped garlic
• 1 Tbs of sesame oil
• salt 
• pepper
• 1 Tbs of chinese chicken soup stock
• 1 Tbs of potato starch (☆)
• 4 Tbs of water (☆)

1,  Mix (☆) in a small cup.  Peel shrimps.

2,  Wash japanese mustard spinach and cut into 2 inches length

3,  Put sesame oil in a pan and heat with low fire until quite hot.

4,  When you smell garlic, add peeled shrimps to the pan and stir-fry until shrimps change color and add a little bit of salt

5,  Add extra sesame oil and stems of Japanese mustard spinach and stir-fry well then add leave and stir-fry again

6,  Add chinese chicken soup stock and add chinese chicken soup stock then stir-sry

7,  Put out the fire and add  (☆) then mix them very well

8,  Turn on fire and stir-fry again until the sauce become thick and season the sauce with salt and pepper

The best season of Japanese mustard spinach is from autumn to winter.  I hope to have a lot from now!!

Seaweed ginger soup

I got a cold last week and it seems like have a cold still now... it's terrible to be having a cold for over one week!!  I have no appetite even me who is always hungry.  I remember that when I caught a cold, my dad recommended to have something make me warm up, especially ginger.  Well, I'll try to make something which has ginger and also I can make easily!

Seaweed ginger soup (2 serves)

• 3+1/2 cups of water  (700ml)
• 3〜4 tsp of chinese chicken soup stock
• 2 green onions
• 2 tsp of chopped garlic
• 2 tsp of  grated ginger
• 1 seaweed sheet
• 2 Tbs of sesame oil
• white sesame seed

1,  Cut green onion into thick slices and beat an egg and tear a seaweed sheet into pieces

2,  Boil water in a small pot and after boil add chinese chicken soup stock and green onion

3,  Heat a pot with high fire and add pour egg evenly in soft spiral motion

4,  Turn heat lower and wait until egg coagulate

5,  Serve it on a deep bowl and add seaweed sheet and pour sesame oil and and sprinkle white sesame seed

Not only when you have a cold but also at cold weather which is coming from now on, I highly recommend this soup!  I am sure it makes you warm up.  Because of this soup, I feel much better now, thanks dad!  I am sleeping from now and sure that I will completely recover from sick when I wake up tomorrow.

Have a good night♡

Eggplant miso sandwich

I bought a lot of eggplants at sale!  But unfortunately, these are kind of old so I think I should use in 3 days or so.  Japanese people often cook eggplants with miso.  Eggplants go together very well with miso and they gets along extremely well with white rice!  I was thinking maybe which means they go with bread also??  So this noon I tried to make an eggplant miso sandwich for my brunch.

Eggplant miso sandwich

• 2 slices of white bread
• 1 eggplant
• 1 green onion
• 1 tsp of chopped ginger
• 1/2 avocado
• 1 Tbs of sesame oil
• 2 tsp of miso (☆)
• 2 Tbs of mirin (☆)
• 2 tsp of sugar (☆)
• 1 Tbs of sake or water (☆)
• 1 tsp of sesame seed
• 1 handful of cheese
• mayonnaise

1,  Cut a green onion and avocado into thick slice, an eggplant into cube

2,  Mix all of (☆) in a small bowl

3,  Toast breads and spread mayonnaise

4,  Heat a pan until quite hot and add sesame oil and chopped ginger and then stir-fry with low fire

5,  Add green onion and eggplant and stir-fry well with medium fire

6,  After eggplant become pliant, add (☆) and stir-fry until extract water and add sesame seed

7,  Turn off fire and add cheese and melt it after-heat

8,  Put avocado and cooked eggplant on the bread and sand with another bread

Actually, the reason I made not rice bowl but sandwich was just I was too hungry to wait making cooked rice lol  Anyway, it was so delicious and all right in the end :))

By the way, so beautiful outside!!  Oh, I should have eaten the sandwich outside!!!  I think this sandwich goes with green tea more than coffee or tea.  Next time, definitely...

Pork stir-fried rice

My roommate came back to home so hungry and tired and he asked me can you make something for me quickly?  Sure!!  That's my pleasure and I would be happy to do that for you!!  Fortunately I had cooked rice and pork in freezer so I said him I would make dinner for you in 15 minutes! I was sure that I could make delicious dinner so easily because I remembered I had a green onion sauce just yesterday I made and would work very well!


Pork stir-fried rice (1 serve)

• 1 bowl of cooked rice
• 1 slice of pork lion
• 1 egg
• 1 green onion
• 2〜3 Tbs pf green onion sauce
• 1 Tbs of sesame oil
• 1/2 Tbs of soy sauce
• salt 
• black pepper

1,  Cut a pork lion in cubes and add a little bit of salt and pepper

2,  Cut a green onion thin slice

3,  Beat up an egg and mix with cooked rice

4,  Heat a pan until quite hot and add sesame oil with medium fire

5,  Add cubed pork and stir-friy until brown and then add sliced green onion

6,  Add rice and egg and stir-fry well

7,  Add green onion sauce and then pour soy sauce evenly and draw a spiral pattern and add salt and pepper as much as you like

Actually it was less than 10 minutes to be done with my cooking.  My roommate was so surprised I was able to make dinner so quickly in addition it was so yummy for him to my delight!  He said that it was the best stir-fried rice.  I was so glad to hear such a word.  The green onion sauce can be a special seasoning which act like magic I think even if I do say myself.  But only one thing I am sad is that there are no more green onion sauce in my fridge because he ate all surprisingly.  Ummm... I need to make more.  Maybe I should make double amount next time!!

☆☆Related recipe☆☆

Green onion sauce

Green onion sauce

I was talking with my friend about the yakiniku restaurant which will open in Boston this fall.  The restaurant's name is "Gyukaku".  It is very popular in Japan and of course I do love it!!  My friend and I would like to go there as soon as possible but we think that maybe it is better for us to go there  after a while because otherwise we have to wait in a so long line.  But I can't wait and wanna eat yakiniku right now!!  So tonight I made green onion sauce which tastes like a yakiniku restaurant!!

Green onion sauce

• 4 green onions
• 2 tsp of chopped ginger
• 2 tsp of chopped garlic
• 2 tsp of chinese chicken soup stock
• 1 tsp of soy sauce
• 1 tsp of sugar
• 1/2 cup of sesame oil

1,  Cut green onions into very tinny pieces

2,  Put all ingredients except sesame oil into a heat-resistant container

3,  Put sesame oil and heat until you can see white smoke

4,  Add the sesame oil to the hear-resistant container and mix them very well

     (Sometime sesame oil spit o be careful!)

I just put this sauce on the grilled pork.  It was simple and easy but taste really good!  I am sure this sauce is much better than the yakiniku restaurant one even if I do say myself :)  Also this sauce goes with everything, like tofu, chicken, beef, rice, soup, scallop and shrimp.... You can keep this in the fridge for one week or so.  So please try to use for various ways and find your favorite combination!!

☆☆Related recipe☆☆

Pork stir-fried rice

Tofu with vegetable ponzu thick sauce

Do you know "Ponzu"?  It is a citrus based Japanese sauce which is mainly made from citrus juice, soy sauce and dashi (Japanese soup stock).  It is widely used for Japanese food, for example, grilled fish, shabu-shabu, steamed vegetable and tofu etc.  I like ponzu so much because it makes any food delicious so easily.

I was so tired today and wanted to make something quickly!  That's why I was so happy when I remembered that I had a bottle of ponzu in the fridge because I could make dinner without so many seasoning and I was sure more than that it would be definitely taste so good!!!

Tofu with vegetable ponzu thick sauce (For 2 people)

• 1/2 pack of tofu
• 1 Tbs of sesame oil
• 1/2 carrot
• 5 pieces of snow peas
• 1/2 pack of enoki mushroom
• 2 Tbs of ponzu (☆)
• 4 Tbs of water (☆)
• 1 tsp of potato starch (☆)

1,  Cut tofu in thick slices and cover all side with potato starch

2,  Mix all of (☆) in a small bowl

3,  Cut carrot, snow pea in thin slices and cut enoki mushroom half

4,  Heat a pan until quite and add sesame oil with low fire

5,  Add sliced and covered with potato starch tofu and grill with medium fire until brown

6,  Heat another pan until quite and add oil with low fire

7,  Add cut vegetables and stir-fry them quickly

8,  Add mixed (☆) and boil until thick

It took less than 15 minutes to make this dish including clean up time.  That's great!!  Ponzu flavor always makes me feel fresh and I can forget tiredness.  Actually ponzu has a lot of citric acid more than normal vinegar.  That's why I wanted to eat ponzu tonight I think!  I recommend ponzu when you are tired so please try!!

Teriyaki eggplant

I went to a grocery store and found a huuuuuge eggplant!  I know american eggplants are much bigger than Japanese one but the eggplant I saw there was enormously huge!  It was almost as big as a Japanese radish seriously!  I bought it immediately because it deserved to be a main dish.

Teriyaki eggplant

• 1 eggplant
• flour
• 1 Tbs of sesame oil
• 2 Tbs of soy sauce (☆)
• 2 Tbs of mirin (☆)
• 2 Tbs of honey (☆)
• green onion
• white sesame seed

1.  Mix all of  (☆) very well in a small bowl

2.  Cut a green onion in thin round slices

3.  Cut an eggplant in round slices and cover both side with flour

4.  Heat a pan until quite and add sesame with low fire

5.  Add eggplants and grill both side of them with medium fire until brown

6.  Add mixed (☆) and boil down 

7.  Serve it on a plate and put cut green onion and white sesame seed

It was first time for me to make any vegetable teriyaki and I realized that teriyaki flavor went with vegetable also.  I would like to try to make other kind of vegetables teriyaki sometime soon!

Oh by the way, I forgot to take some pictures of the huge eggplant!  I really regret about that!  I should have taken a picture and showed how big it was...;(


☆☆Related recipe☆☆
Teriyaki chicken and eggplant pizza

Minced Tofu with lettuce wrap

Oh, I have a lots of lettuces in the fridge but it's kind of difficult for me to eat lots of lettuces at a time.  Umm... that's why I was thinking how to cook lettuces for dinner from last night and then Korean lettuce I had at a broiled meat restaurant came to my mind suddenly!  When I went to Korea and a broiled meat restaurant there, I wrapped meat with Korean lettuce and ate.  It was nice because I could ate a lot of lettuce with meat and I didn't need to order salad or some vegetable.  Alright,  I tried to make something like Korean lettuces dish tonight.  I think it's healthy!!  In addition, I didn't use any meat and used Tofu instead of meat. (Actually, I just noticed that I didn't have any meat in the fridge after I started cooking...haha ) Anyway, I think it's much healthier and better for health maybe, don't you think??

Minced Tofu with lettuce wrap

Minced Tofu

• 1/2 pack of extra firm tofu
• 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts
• 1 tea spoon of chopped ginger
• 1 tea spoon of chopped garlic
• 1 Table spoon of sesame oil
• 1 Table spoon of miso (☆)
• 2 Table spoons of mirin (☆)
• 1 tea spoon of soy sauce (☆)
• 1 tea spoon of sugar (☆)
• 1 tea spoon of Gouchujang (☆)

Gouchujang and mayonnaise sauce

• Mayonnaise (★)
• Gouchujang (★)

• Lettuce

1. Wrap Tofu with kitchen paper and put heat in a microwave oven for one minute for draining excess liquid
2. Put (☆) into a small bowl and mix them very well
3. Put (★) into another  small bowl and mix them very well
4. Heat a pan until quite hot and add sesame oil, ginger and garlic and stir-fry with low fire
5. Add Tofu and mix and stir-fry over medium fire chopping Tofu with a wooden spatula
6. Chop Tofu until it is chopped in tiny pieces stir-frying
7. Add mixed (☆) in the pan and keep stir-frying over medium fire
8. Add chopped walnuts and stir-fry quickly
9. Put minced Tofu, Gouchujang sauce and washed lettuces on the plate

Actually, you can eat any vegetables with this wrap if you would like.  I wrapped avocado and it was really nice combination!

I felt like I was at a broiled meat restaurant even thought I didn't have any meat!  I ate so many lettuce with this minced Tofu.  I am so full up to the throat now but I believe it's healthy health healthy.....

☆☆Related recipe☆☆

Minced tofu with zucchini