Japanese Cuisine Adventure: Day 2

Hey readers,

Today is the second day of my japanese cuisine adventure. Just so you know, I removed the kombu after letting it sit in water overnight for kombu dashi (aka the following morning).

Big news, today I graduated!! Also, I met someone named Sho. Apparently it's a popular name.

Also, mirin was bought. It smells like sweet nothing.

Today I decided to make simmered taro, from the book I mentioned on the last post. I followed Shinojima's recipe:

• 12 taro roots (except here, I only had 6...)
• 1 heaping tbsp of salt
• 3 cups dashi (I used kombu dashi)
• 1/2 cup mirin
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 8 snow peas (I omitted this since I forgot to buy it  >__<')

Note: I simplified the instructions.

Mix everything except for the taro and snowpeas together, and if you mix them in this order, you will see some interesting science: 

Wash your taro and then chop off the ends. After this, make 6 vertical rounded cuts so that you have an inflated hexagonal cylinder...if you don't get me, this picture should help.

After you do this to all of your taro, place into pot of water and heat to a boil, rub stickiness off taro with hands, and repeat with fresh water. Then boil one last time until it is easy to pierce with a skewer, determined with a bamboo skewer in photo.

After this stage is reached, drain the taro and put the dashi mixture into a pot on medium flame. Once this boils, place taro into the pot, gently, and reduce heat so that it is simmering. Simmer for 5 minutes.

Turn off flame and allow it to cool in the liquid. When you are ready to serve, you may place it in a dish with some of the liquid from the pot.

Tasty <3

I didn't want to waste the rest of the stuff, but I didn't know how to use it either...so I made my own type of noodle broth with it!! And I ate some udon noodles.

Here's how to recycle the rest of your sauce:

1. Make a mix of 2 parts water 1 part sauce.
2. Boil udon noodles, or similar noodles to be eaten in broth. Follow package directions. When done, strain and place noodles into serving bowls.
3. Boil fishballs. I added a ladle of the sauce (used for boiling taro) to the water for flavor.

Frozen and little and still.

Ready to eat, and looks puffy when lid lifted...they roll around...even after the flame is off...you should see this.

Once this is done, add some of the fishball water to the noodle bowls, just enough so that it almost covers that noodles. Then add the fishballs and the watered down sauce (now I would say it's broth).

nom noms <3 so tasty

Itadakimasu!!

Sweet Pea

(PS-this post is a couple days late, sorry guys xP I actually wrote it monday)

Japanese Cuisine Adventure: Day 1

Hello readers,
It's officially summer. It's so hot. Thank goodness for the thunderstorm last night, otherwise I would have to resort to living in my cold basement for the rest of summer, and living on water.

I've decided to start making japanese food, following some recipe's of Sabi Shinojima's Authentic Japanese Cuisine: For Beginners.

I decided that I wanted to start with simmered dishes. So that starts by making Kombu Dashi.

All you need is some Kombu Dashi seaweed, and water.

She gives a helpful tip for measuring; if you know the size of your hand span, then it makes for easy reference. Mine is about 6".

I took 5" piece of the kombu dashi, wiped it down with a damp paper towel on both sides, then placed it in 6 cups of water. Then I put the bowl of water and seaweed into my fridge to sit overnight. It was that simple.

5 inches/12 cm of dashi kombu seaweed

wipe

let sit overnight

All I did today was prepare the Kombu Dashi, tomorrow, I will do some simmered dishes.

(Though it would be incorrect if I said that's all I did, I made sushi and tempura too. My tip is to use 3mm thick slices of eggplant, it tastes sweet and refreshing. Also, my mom used enoki mushrooms for tempura too, and it was good. Just separate them into little bunches of 3 or less stems, place them in tempura batter, and fry them in bunches like a nest of mushrooms.)

Enoki mushroom tempura looks like modern art :O
Or something from underwater

Cucumber triva: Cucumbers glisten when you cut them :D

The adventure continues...

Until then, stay hungry :)

Sweet Pea