The YM's favourites 4: Shoga-yaki and Italian-style egg & tomatoes

This duo is a classic combo in our house whenever we have a Japanese food week. It is normally a trio (with a yummy simmered eggplant and tofu dish), but time is short these days as my commute has blown out to 70 minutes (on 3 "lovely" crowded trains) due to the company's relocation to down-town Tokyo. Other full-time working mothers out there will know that every minute counts in the mad after-work dash to get food on the table, dishes done and everyone bathed and ready for bed. Sadly, my new regime now puts some of our favourite dishes out of reach during the week.

However, both these dishes do not take long once you start cooking, so it is best to have everything ready before you start. Also, if you are having rice, make sure you start it first (g).

Shoga-yaki is sliced pork quick-fried in a ginger, miso and mirin flavoured sauce. It is very flavourful, but you do need to be careful that you don't leave it undercooked or let it get too dry by overcooking it. It is a matter of seconds between the two, so give this your undivided attention--and have your serving plate at the ready--to avoid disappointment. This is my interpretation of the dish, based on a cooking demonstration I once saw at my supermarket here in Japan .

Sliced meat of various types and thicknesses is readily available in all supermarkets in Japan, but if you have to slice it yourself, a semi-frozen block of meat is your best bet. You don't need paper-thin pork for shoga-yaki, just aim for as close to 1--1.5 mm as you can.

You could probably use any kind of miso (Japanese fermented bean paste), but if you have it, white miso (which is actually more mustard-brown than white) works best.

Mirin is a syrupy-sweet Japanese sake used in cooking. Many places on the Net have it that can substitute with sweet sherry, but I think this substitute will give you a better result. If neither of these is suitable/available, sugar syrup will work at a pinch.

The Italian-style egg and tomato dish is so named in the original Japanese recipe. I guess the addition of Parmesan cheese makes it so (?!?). I like to boost the garlic quotient and, although it's not in the OR, add some nice Italian herbs (I use the mix here). I had some leftover fresh basil this time, and it supplemented the dried herbs very nicely. Sometimes I also add a finely chopped spring onion or two as well.

Shoga-yaki: Japanese pork slices in ginger-miso sauce

2-3 tsp miso paste, white for preference
2 tbsp mirin
1/4 medium onion, finely sliced
3 cm fresh ginger, finely julienned
oil
400 g sliced pork, trimmed into bite-sized strips

1 Blend the miso and mirin in a small bowl and set aside.

2 Heat 1 tbsp oil in a frying pan until hot. Add onion and ginger, and fry over medium heat until the colour changes. Add pork quickly, one slice at a time, to ensure even cooking. Pour over miso-mirin mixture and stir-fry quickly until no longer pink. Immediately remove from pan into a serving dish.

"Italian-style" egg and tomatoes

4 eggs
1 tbsp Italian herb mix (I use the one here)
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1/3 tsp salt
1 tbsp oil, divided
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 Lightly beat the eggs and add herb mix, Parmesan cheese, salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

2 Heat half the oil in a medium frying pan until hot and add the egg mixture. Cook on high, and when eggs begin to set, stir quickly with cooking chopsticks or a wooden spoon. Remove to a plate while still not fully set.

3 Heat remaining oil and add garlic. Stir-fry for about 30 seconds, or until fragrant, then add the tomatoes. When the tomatoes are cooked to your liking, add the cooked eggs back into the pan and stir-fry for around 30 seconds, or until well mixed and heated through. Remove to serving dish and eat immediately.

Enjoy!

Gastro this and gastro that

I had the day off work today. Lucky you, you might be thinking; Valentine's Day off work! But there was a catch. I only got the day off to go for my annual physical (or "human dock" as it is called in Japan). Depending on your point of view, Japanese companies are either very generous in giving you a paid day off to get a check-up once a year, or very pushy in requiring that you actually do so. I'm in the former category, and why wouldn't I be as, in addition to checking that all my bits and pieces are in good working order, I get funny money to spend on lunch at one of around 20 nearby restaurants!

Normally I just go to a cheap and cheerful Italian chain restaurant that is actually pretty good. But seeing as it was Valentine's, I though I would splurge and go for "Modern Mediterranean" at a cafe in a swanky hotel. The restaurant itself was very classy, with massive windows offering post-card views of Yokohama Bay, the ferris wheel, and other Minato Mirai area landmarks. Being a crisp but sunny day winter's day, the view was lovely.

As it turns out, the place does a buffet lunch, which looked very yummy, but wasn't really something you would enjoy on your own. So I went the a la carte way with some spaghetti pescatore.

Bearing in mind that nothing had passed my lips since 9 pm the night before (nothing I would choose anyway; I did have to suffer through a humongous beaker of barium). And hunger is the best sauce, right? You wouldn't think there'd be any complaints from me, would you?

Things were certainly looking good when they brought round two rolls and some mildly peppery olive oil for dipping them in. Lovely!

Unfortunately, though, I have to say that I was decidedly underwhelmed by my pasta. It certainly looked good, but it was not a patch on the marinara I used to get as a staff dinner at the food court I worked in as a student. Tosca's effort was just kind of flat, and no amount of parmesan or chilli oil seemed to lift it beyond mediocre. Damn. I just don't see the point of eating out, really, if the food's not better than I could make myself. But that's just me.

There was good news on the the other gastro front, however. After all the pin-pricks and x-rays, eye tests and rolling around on the barium x-ray machine, the doctor told me that my stomach has "lovely clean lines", and pronounced it to be "beautiful". Hooray!!! (Or something (g).)

Let's hope it stays that way, because I plan on giving it gastronomic workouts for many years to come (g). But hopefully not with food that disappoints. Life's too short for that.

Saffron

Couscous with herbs & chickpeas

I've been sending the Young Man out before dinner just about every night this week to get more fresh herbs for our ongoing foray into Southeast Asian flavours. How lucky are we to have a supermarket that almost always has a stock of the usual herby favourites not more than 30 seconds outside our door (okay, I admit that I did choose our flat for its proximity to the "super", but that was way back in the day when parsley was about the only "foreign" herb you could expect to find fresh there).

Although this lively salad doesn't hail from Southeast Asia, the herb theme continues, so I'm sneaking it in anyway (call it blogger's prerogative (g)). The couscous, preserved lemon and chickpeas give it a Middle Eastern feel, but this salad is born and bred in Australia. It is from Marie Claire Kitchen, and is a total doddle.

I used brown chickpeas this time, as I seem to be out of the normal kind. They are slightly smaller than regular chickpeas, and only took 1 minute 40 seconds in the pressure cooker (after soaking since the morning)!

I also upped the ante with the lemon juice. I never can get enough of the stuff. That is on top of the preserved lemon (I used a quarter of a lemon, both peel and pulp).

We had this with pan-fried boneless chicken thighs that I had marinated for a bit in the juice of a lemon, 1 tsp of cumin, 2 crushed garlic cloves, a glug of olive oil and some S&P; a trick I picked up from Nigel's The 30 Minute Cook, a cookbook I could can't recommend highly enough (mine is falling to bits from use and it's only a couple of years old).

Couscous with herbs & chickpeas

(Note that Australian tablespoons are used in this recipe. Add an extra 1 tsp for ever tbsp if using non-Australian measures)

175 g couscous
1 tsp butter
400 g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed [S: or the equivalent of cooked chickpeas]
2 large, ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 handful mint leaves
1 handful coriander leaves
1 handful Italian parsley
2 tbsp lemon juice, or to taste
3 tbsp olive oil [S: you can get away with quite a bit less]
2 tbsp diced preserved lemon

Put the couscous in a large bowl with the butter and cover with 250 ml boiling water. Leave the couscous for 20-30 minutes, from time to time separating the grains with a fork. Before adding the remaining salad ingredients, rub the cooked grains between you fingers to break up any lumps.

Toss the couscous and all the salad ingredients together and season with salt and ground black pepper.

Enjoy!

The spice of life!

Some time back, I was asking my dear Turkish friend Se about a Turkish spice blend whose name translates as "hot spices". She hadn't heard of it then (Turkish cuisine varying significantly from area to area), but recently got back to me to say that a friend of hers had, and had just brought some of that very mix back from Turkey. Better still, she would even give me some! Wahoo. I can't wait to try it in some kofte that I am planning to make soon.

I have been collecting herb and spice blend recipes found on the Net for a couple of years. Mainly because I can't let a tasty-sounding mix I come across in a recipe go un-researched, and also because I regularly use 2 US cookbooks--Saving Dinner and Saving Dinner the Low-Carb Way--to make up my weekday menus. Both of these contain lots of herb and spice mixes that I may only use once or twice a year; not enough to warrant buying a bottle (assuming I can find one), particularly when I have just about all of the required herbs and spices loose in two cupboards, a drawer and on the counter top--the places a foodie must stash her spices when she has a kitchen the size of a shoe box (g).

So, to keep all these recipes together and allow me to declutter the little bits of paper I have them scribbled down on, I am retyping them here so that others can also enjoy them as much as I have. Naturally, I tip my cap to the kind people who shared them on the Net to begin with.

Taco seasoning mix
1 tbsp mild chili powder (reduce amount if using cayenne; perhaps a couple of shakes)
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp each cumin, garlic powder, paprika, oregano and sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Italian herb mix
2 tsp each basil, marjoram and oregano
1 tsp sage

Mixed spice (this seems to be a Commonwealth mix as it is almost unheard of in the US, apparently)

1/2 tbsp each allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg
1 tsp mace
1/2 tsp each cloves, coriander and ginger

Cajun seasoning mix
3/4 tsp ground white pepper
1 tbsp sweet paprika
2 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp each onion powder, garlic powder and ground red pepper
3/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano

Non-hot curry powder (a de-fanged mix; you'll probably need to use more of this than regular curry powder)

3 tbsp sweet paprika
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp each ginger, turmeric and coriander
1/2 tsp each cardamom and garlic powder

Fragrant sweet spices (excellent in porridge and sweet things in place of cinnamon)

1 1/2 tsp coriander
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp each poppy seeds, cloves, cardamom and rose petals (rose petals are not essential, but if you have them, put in as much as you like; they're very subtle)

Middle Eastern 7-spice (also known as sabah baharat; interestingly, this recipe has 8 ingredients)

1 tbsp each ground black pepper, paprika and cumin
1/2 tbsp each coriander and ground cloves
1/2 tsp each nutmeg and cinnamon
1/4 tsp cardamom

Tagine spice blend (I haven' t tried this Moroccan blend, but it sounds delish. It comes from what looks like an authority on spices, from a recipe that is begging to be tried--if parsnips ever show up in downtown Yokohama (g))

2 tbsp paprika
2 1/2 tsp coriander
1 tsp each cinnamon and chili powder
1/2 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp each ground cloves and cardamom

Turkish baharat (from an excellent online spice resource. You'll also find the kofte recipe I'm going to use to test-run my new "hot spices" in on this site)

2 tbsp each ground black pepper and cumin
1 tbsp each coriander, ground mint and cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cardamom
Pinch of cinnamon

Spice it up and enjoy!

The YM's favourites 5: Potato and meat sauce gratin

I can't tell you the number of times I've made this yummy "gratin." I use the quotes as gratin is probably not the right word for this, as it is actually closer to a cheese-topped layered shepherd's pie. Anyway, language policing aside, this is a cold-weather standard in our house, and the Young Man is always pleased whenever it makes an appearance on the table.

The original recipe is from this Japanese book on 100 yen side dishes (although you can probably take the 100 yen with a grain of salt; I bought the book a good number of years ago now (g)). This little treasure holds a great many of the YM's favourites, a few of which I will showcase in the next few posts.

Rather unorthodoxly, the potatoes in this recipe are cooked by microwaving them in cling wrap (check to see that yours is microwave-safe; not all are). Do this step in advance, if you can. The jackets come off really easily, but you need to have asbestos fingers! I'm usually in a rush, so I keep a cup or bowl of cold water handy to plunge my fingers in if they get too hot. If that all sounds like too much of a pain (!), just peel and boil them as usual.

Although you're essentially making smashed potatoes, you don't add any butter or milk (good job in these days of empty Japanese butter shelves). Don't worry, though, the meat sauce is moist enough to ensure lovely luscious and moreish potatoes without half the dairy case... Which allows you to up the cheese quotient. How good is that?!

I like to make my own tomato sauce, but you could just as easily use a bought one. Probably 600 ml should do it. If you go that way, you might want to add an extra half onion, chopped, when you cook the mince.

Potato & meat sauce gratin

For 4

Tomato sauce:
1 onion, chopped finely
1 tbsp oil
2 cloves garlic (or to taste), pressed
1 400 g tin of tomatoes in their juice
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1 tbsp dried Italian herb mix (I use the one here)

3 medium potatoes, scrubbed
1 1/2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
300 g mince
Grated cheese (cheddar, mozzarella, or another favourite)

1 Wrap potatoes in cling wrap and microwave on high until soft. Peel, smash roughly and add Parmesan and salt and pepper to taste.

2 Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce. Heat oil in medium pot and fry onions until color changes over medium heat. Add garlic and continue to fry until fragrant. Add tomatoes and their juice, salt and herbs. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

3 Heat a large frying pan until hot and cook the mince, stirring frequently, until the fat runs. Blot with kitchen paper, then add the tomato sauce. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

4 In a large ovenproof dish, layer half the potatoes, then half the meat sauce and repeat. Top with cheese and bake at 200 C until the cheese melts.

Enjoy!