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.
| Suggestions to Combine |
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