Leisurely Cooking and Tender Oysters
18 November 2008
With all our weekend trips in recent weeks – Beijing, autumn leaves in Nikko, hiking in the Kiso valley, etc, etc – I started having the strange feeling of missing out a bit on my cooking. Of course I made plenty of food for our party a few weeks ago, and of course I’ve been cooking every-day-dishes out of my "usual repertoire", but that’s both not what I mean. I was really longing for a very leisurely session in the kitchen, playing around with new ideas, without any concrete outcome planned, and no concrete time-frame, either.
I decided to reserve Sunday afternoon for exactly that, as we had no specific plans for this day anyway, except that I had to study a lot of Japanese (my proficiency test is getting closer…), and I figured that cooking would be just the right distraction to take a break from too many tricky adverbial expressions, "respect language" terms and new kanji signs.
On Saturday Simon and I went shopping in Ginza (meaning, I needed (or wanted?) to buy autumn boots, and he kept me company), followed by a little tour though the delightful department store food halls, where (in addition to some irresistible little treats for Saturday afternoon), we bought some nice oysters and a very temptingly looking tuna steak for Sunday dinner (I will so miss the fantastic offer of seafood when we leave Tokyo!).
I thoroughly enjoyed the cooking on Sunday. I did it the very Japanese way and prepared a variety of small dishes, which I neatly arranged in different little bowls, each picked to best match its content. In the end we had slices of seared tuna steak, simmered lotus roots and an oyster and broccoli stir-fry with miso sauce, which was inspired by a recipe I had recently seen on a TV show. Other than in the programme, I used sour cream instead of mayonnaise (which I am not such a big fan of) for the miso sauce, and I added some of the (mild) chili mixture I had brought back from Seoul a few weeks ago. The oysters were wonderfully soft and tender – the trick is to briefly boil them before adding them to the stir-fry, as I had learned from the cooking show. I couldn’t really imagine what this somewhat unusual combination would be like, and I was surprised to find that oysters are such a perfect fit for the slightly spicy miso sauce!
Juicy Oyster, Broccoli and Miso Stir-Fry
| serves 4 |
| 300g fresh oysters (without shells) |
| florets of 2 heads of broccoli |
| 1 very large (or 2 small) carrots |
| 1-2 dents of garlic |
| some olive oil for frying |
for the miso sauce |
| 3-4 tablespoons miso |
| 3 tablespoons sour cream |
| 180ml dashi (alternatively: other fish stock) |
| 3 tablespoons of mild Korean chili mixture (or any other chili mixture, to taste) |
Chop the florets of the broccoli head, peel the carrots and slice them into mid-sized bits (whatever size you prefer). Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and briefly sauté the vegetables, then turn the heat down again. Very slightly salt them and let them fry at moderate temperature for about 20-30 minutes, while stirring regularly to keep them from burning. The vegetables should be neither overcooked nor raw.
In the meantime prepare the dashi (if you are making it yourself) and, once it has cooled down a little, combine with the miso, the sour cream and the chili mixture to your taste. Stir well until smooth and set aside. Bring a pot of water to a boil, add the oysters and boil for just about 5 minutes, then drain them well.
Increase the heat again on the vegetables, shift them to the side of the frying pan and use the free spot to slightly roast the mashed garlic. Before it gets brown, stir with the vegetables. Add the oysters as well as the miso mixture and stir-fry for another minute or so. Serve hot with Japanese rice or soba noodles on the side.
A Sense of Autumn
11 November 2008
Ok - this weeks recipe doesn’t actually have much to do with autumn, nor with the rest of this post. The curry flavoured meatballs were just one of the snacks I prepared for our party 2 weeks ago, and as our guests seemed to really like them, and I got a lot of inquiries about the ingredients, I decided to put the recipe online this week (there’s actually not much of a secret to it). Hot or cold, they can be enjoyed at any time of the year, of course.
So back to autumn, which is a really beautiful season in Japan. Everybody goes out to admire the fire-red leaves, and so did we. As if we hadn’t seen enough temples in China the weekend before, we took a day trip to Nikko, a 2-hour train ride north of Tokyo (on a tiny and really, really slow train - nothing to do with the high tech Shinkansen). The place accommodates an impressive complex of temples and shrines, beautifully bedded in the mountains, in an area that is particularly famous for viewing the autumn leaves. So no wonder Nikko was pretty crowded, but as we walked away from the most central sites the crowds dispersed and we found some calmer spots, too. Definitely worth the visit at this time of the year – the autumn leaves ARE beautiful (and this from two persons who are neither nature nor temple freaks).
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see more of autumn leaves in Nikko
Apart from that, we had a really nice restaurant experience last weekend. As days are getting colder, I am really getting into the mood for Izakaya food again. Originally a place to sample and buy sake, an Izakaya is now really what you could call a "Japanese style pub" – a cozy and popular place for drinks, accompanied by yummy home-style dishes.
At the one we went to on Saturday, "Chihana", we really had a particularly warm welcome – not only did the host very patiently help us to make our choice from the Japanese menu (my Japanese is making progress, but reading a menu with all the not-so-usual characters is still a bit of a challenge), he also suddenly came out with 5 bottles of sake, representing 5 different types of flavour, and gave us a sake tasting. It reconfirmed our so-far opinion (based on our very limited knowledge of sake): Simon and I both prefer the types which are between "smooth" and "fruity". As for the food, we had (among several other things) delicious seafood yakisoba (flat Japanese noodles stir-fried with a tasty sauce), a remarkably fluffy Japanese egg roll (you get this a lot, but not often as good as this one) and tasty little meatballs, which had an unmistakably Japanese flavour.
…which brings us back to my meatball recipe – the seasoning of course being very different from what we had in the Izakaya. This is admittedly a bit of an awkward transition. And sorry for the somewhat "messy" post anyway! ;-)
Curry-Spiced Meatballs
| yields 2 large plates full, as party snack |
| 600g minced beef |
| 120g dry white bread |
| 70ml milk |
| 2 eggs |
| 1 mid-sized to large onion |
| a big hand full of freshly chopped parsley |
| 3-4 teaspoons of café de paris spice mixture (or other mild curry mixture) |
| some garlic granulate |
| some olive oil for frying |
First of all, take some old white bread (or rolls, or toast), cut it into little cubes of 1cm max, and let it dry for another day or two until really crunchy. A hint for impatient persons like me: if you want to speed this process up, put the bread cubes in the oven for a while at moderate heat of 70°C or so, which will not bake them but just make them dry faster.
Once the bread cubes are really hard, powder them with the café de paris or curry mixture, soak them in milk, and let them soften up again. Finely chop the parsley as well as the onion and add to the soaked bread. Stir in the eggs, making sure they are well-spread (this will give the meatballs a firmer texture and prevent them from falling apart in the frying pan), and combine with the minced meat (I prefer beef for this). Season to taste with some garlic granulate and salt.
Once everything is well combined, shape the mixture into little balls (easiest using your hands). Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and add the meat balls, pressing them down a little with a turner when putting them in. Fry them at fairly high (but not too high) temperature on either side until they are nicely brown and crunchy. You can eat them warm or cold, and they are equally delicious the day after.
3 Splendid Days in Beijing
04 November 2008
We’ve just come back from a great long weekend in Beijing. Very unlike us, this time we had actually booked a private tour guide to show us around the city and its surroundings. Usually we take it fairly easy with sightseeing on our city trips - of course we have a glimpse at some of the main sights, but then we also enjoy just strolling though the steets, getting an impression of different areas, looking at the shops, trying the food (of course!), and just hanging out. But given the short time we had in a city as vast and grand as Beijing, with so much too see but everything quite far apart, we decided to do otherwise this time.
Our programme was quite packed during daytime (and I think we’ve had our fair share of palaces and temples for some time now...), but it was definitely worth it! In the evenings, though a bit exhausted, we still did our "usual stuff", checking out restaurants, bars and food markets.
The city is certainly impressive – everything is just so grand and magnificent! To our surprise, we found the atmosphere in Beijing quite different from Shanghai - clearly less hip and stylish, but not as rough and seemingly far more relaxed. I don’t know how much of this is due to stricter regulations since the Olympics – but, as opposed to Shanghai, public parks and places were filled rather with lots of people gathering for collective gymnastics or ballroom dancing than with obtrusive street vendors.
There’s a lot more to tell, but I’m afraid I’ll have to leave it there… After these leisurely days of travel I have to make an effort now to catch up with my Japanese studies and prepare for tomorrow’s lesson. But have a look at the pictures (including some comments on the food) – only a fraction of what we’ve seen, but hopefully still a nice impression (as you can see, we had bright sunshine throughout our stay)!
A Few Impressions of Beijing
Surprise, Surprise
28 October 2008
Last weekend we celebrated Simon’s 30th birthday with a little party at our home. Well, in the end the party was actually not all that little after all, measured by the size of our tiny apartment. It was really nice to see all the friends we've made during our past 8 months in Tokyo. We were quite a diverse and international bunch, including Japanese, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, Americans and British.
Other than at our parties back in Munich, where it was not unusual for the first people to arrive at least 45 minutes late, here in Japan everyone was strikingly punctual. The first guest arrived at 8:00 exactly, and then the doorbell kept ringing at 8:01, 8:02, 8:03,… Luckily we had kind of anticipated something like this, so we were actually on time, too.
The party itself was the idea of both of us, so I really wanted to have a surprise for Simon that evening, and I decided to bake a nice large birthday cake. However, actually keeping it a secret until the party was a bit of a challenge. Trying to conceal the smell of a cake in our flat (as I mentioned, the place is tiny, and we have an open kitchen) would have been useless – so I came up with the cunning plan to bake two cakes, the "real" one for the party, and another small one for the birthday brunch on Saturday morning, so he would think this was the source of the smell. The plan worked out perfectly, but wouldn’t have been necessary after all, as Simon was so jetlagged from his trip to Chicago that he didn’t pay attention to any smell at all. Anyways, this is how he got to enjoy two birthday cakes.
The "camouflage" cake was a spontaneous fusion of random ingredients, including (in addition to the usual ingredients of a cake) mascarpone, white chocolate chips, lots of vanilla, raisins, crushed walnuts and ground sesame. I gave a bit more thought to the "real" cake, based on the Swiss "Rüeblitorte" (carrot cake), to which I added some fresh ginger and which I covered with a yuzu icing. Although I love Rüeblitorte, I had never tried to make it myself before, so this cake was actually also a bit of a surprise for me, too.
A cake always feels a bit like a black box – you never really now how it’s come out before you actually cut it. And as I don’t bake very much recently, my experience in getting proportions and timing right is somewhat limited, making the moment of truth even more exciting. And this cake was just sooo juicy! Of course, the ingredients as such helped, too – with all the carrots and almonds involved you would probably have to bake the cake into submission to get it too dry. I love these kinds of cakes – the juicier, the better!
We had lots of savoury food at our party, too – paprika-chicken skewers, curry and parsley flavoured meat balls, spinach and mushroom filled crepe rolls as well as polenta slices. As usual, I was really worried it might not be enough and people might leave hungry, but (also as usual, as Simon would say), there was plenty, and we enjoyed the leftovers for brunch the day after (particularly the meatballs were just the perfect thing for a hangover breakfast…). Some of these recipes may follow in the weeks to come, but for the moment I’ll start with the carrot cake:
Ginger-Flavored Rüeblitorte
| for a 26cm cake tin |
| 300g sugar |
| 450g carrots |
| 450g ground almonds |
| 120g cake flour |
| 8 eggs |
| 3 teaspoons of finely chopped fresh ginger |
| grated zest of 1 lemon |
| 2 packages vanilla sugar |
| 1 teaspoon baking powder |
| some cinnamon |
| a dash of cointreau |
| a pinch of salt |
| some butter and extra flour to prepare the cake tin |
for the icing |
| juice of 1 yuzu (or ½ lemon) |
| 180g icing sugar |
| some crushed almonds to garnish |
Pre-heat the oven at 180°C. Grease the cake tin and cover with flour. Peel and finely grate the carrots. Very finely chop the fresh ginger (to tiny pieces of about 2mm) and combine with the carrots.
Separate the egg yolks from the whites and whisk the yolks together with the sugar, the vanilla sugar, the cointreau and the grated lemon zest until foamy, then stir in the carrot and ginger mixture. In a different bowl, thoroughly combine the grated almonds, the flour, the baking powder, the cinnamon (as much as you like) and a pinch of salt. Add to the egg batter and mix until smooth. Finally whisk the egg whites until stiff and carefully fold them into the batter. Fill into the prepared cake tin and bake for about 55 minutes. Check by briefly inserting a toothpick – when it comes out clean, the cake is done.
For the icing, mix the yuzu (or lemon, or lime) juice with the icing sugar until they form a thick, white, sticky mixture. Once the cake has cooled down, take it out of the tin and cover with the icing, using a brush. The "real" thing would be to garnish the "Rüeblitorte" with some marzipan carrots, but there was not chance I could get them in Japan, so I just sprinkled some crushed almonds on top instead.