Cold Noodle with Meat Dipping Sauce

つけ冷麺

Summer is here! ‘School’s out’ I can almost hear the memorable Alice Cooper (my husband’s favorite song) singing…not so excited about summer break now that we don’t have school age children at home…on the other hand I’m glad that that stage of our life is gone too. Aging comes with some sadness and definitely relief.

The sadness comes from usual ‘should have, would have, could have blah blah  blah’ Regrets, I’ve had a few…But then again, too few to mention…I did it My Way (this is not on my list of top 10 favorite songs but perhaps in the top 100… perhaps). I got a little melancholy  because of Father’s Day last Sunday thinking about my late father and father-in-law…sob…I hope you had a fabulous Father’s Day!

Factoring in the rising temperature outside, the evening meal gets cool treatment too. The perfect summer dish recipe…I saw in a Japanese magazine…was it Today’s Cooking?… forgetful as you age?…oh no, oh no not me!…I did it my way.

Ingredients and Instruction for 2 servings (Print Recipe Here)

For dipping sauce -

• 1 teaspoon Chinese soup base (comes in granule or powder form) dissolved in 1/2 cup hot water and cooled.
• 5 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 Tablespoons sesame oil
• 6-10 shiso leaves chopped small 
• 1 stalk of green onion minced

Whisk Chinese soup base, soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil. Add shiso leaves and green onion. Chill it in the refrigerator. Set aside.

For Seasoning sauce -

• 1 and 1/2 Tablespoon red miso paste
• 1 to 2 teaspoons tobanjan (豆板醤)
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 Tablespoon minced ginger
• 1/4 cup water

Mix all of the above ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.

For meat –

• Approximately 1/2 pounds of thinly sliced pork belly, cut in 1 inch strips.
• 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
• Seasoning sauce (see recipe above)

1. Heat oil in a large non-stick skillet at medium heat, add meat and sauté until it is a little crisp and nicely browned. I used paper towel to remove excess oil(optional).
   
2. Turn down the heat to low. Mix in seasoning sauce and continually sauté until liquid is mostly evaporated. If it’s too salty for you, add water and cook for few minutes. Set aside.

For noodle – 2 packages of instant ramen noodle, cook noodle in plenty of water, pour in 1/4 cup of water 2-3 times during cooking…this gives the noodles a nice chewy, firm texture. Cook slightly shorter than the package directions. Drain the water through colander, rinse the noodle well under cold running water. Shake off excess water, plate (cut noodle in 2-3 sections with kitchen shear for easy consumption if you like) I used green noodle( made with moroheiya  leaves) as well as regular instant noodle. Somen noodle or udon noodle is another good choice.

Assembly – divide dipping sauce into two individual bowls. Mound the meat in the middle. Dip the noodle in the sauce to eat!

 I love cherry pie!…Homemade by our neighbor…mmmm good!

On Father’s Day, I made my husband Frazier (French style strawberry short cake). It was good but there were so many steps to this recipe…I don’t know why I didn’t go the ice cream sundae route?

Today’s TAPAS, the Instagram post (#todaystapas) is on-going still. I think I’m getting better with filtering app on iPhone…plating leaves much to be desired though. The below picture is cheesy stuffed shiitake mushroom.

And someday, Tapas is not actually tapas…carrot smoothie for cleansing…phew…that’s a lot of beta carotene………………..that……………………I…

(ate it up and) spit it out…  I must say, excellent lyrics to the song ‘My Way’ don’t you agree?

Chicken Miso Hot Pot

鶏みそ煮込み

Here we are in the middle of May, having iffy weather…particularly  last Saturday, Trying to decide whether I should grab the jacket or not when we head out the door…a bit nostalgic, almost melancholy for the perfect 82 degree Ishigaki weather.

This simple hot pot (basically miso soup with chicken) dish seems like it has comfort agent and is soulful…how blessed we are to have made the trip to my home country though…phew…to do list is getting lengthy and wish to linger in residue of the memories rather than to tackle it.

Our weekend is packed with errands and yard maintenance…dang! Those noxious weeds are overtaking our yard!…once again!

Ingredients and Instructions for enough for two people (Print Recipe Here)

• 3 cups water
• 2x3 sheet of dried kelp, wipe the surface with damp paper towel
• 1-1/2 cups bonito flakes
• 2 chicken thighs bone-in, skin-on, roughly cut
• 3-4 Tablespoons white miso paste   Note: I used Koji Miso in the bottle – handy, has rich yet mild flavor.
  
• 3 cups Chinese cabbage roughly chopped
• Seven spice red pepper (optional)

1. Pour water in a stone pot or thick bottom pan. Soak kelp in the water for say…30 minutes? Put the pan on the burner and start to boil at medium heat. Remove the kelp and discard just before full boil.
2. Put bonito flakes in mesh sieve which fits in the pan you’re using. Cook to extract flavor about 3-4 minutes. Lift mesh and press with wooden spatula to get the juice into the pan. Discard bonito flakes.
3. Place cut chicken in the pot and cook for 30 minutes (or so) at lowest heat setting.
   
4. Dissolve miso paste into the pot, check the flavor, add more miso to suit your liking. Add water if it’s too salty but remember that the cabbage will dilute the saltiness later.
   
5. Mound the Chinese cabbage on but not disturb the chicken with stirring and cook at lowest heat until the cabbage eventually cooks down. Have as is or add a few drops of ponzu soy sauce, seven spice red pepper (optional).
   

I bought the award winning  Nitamai(仁多米) rice at Shimane Fair (products on sale that were made in Shimane prefecture 島根県) at Japanese Supermarket. 2kg(4.41lb) for $15.99. Holy macaroni! Gleaming white rice I think has great flavor!

Here is the Shimane’s yurukyara (mascot), Shimanekko…right.

More pictures from our trip – We took a walk near the Japanese style Inn we stayed at on the outskirts of Fukuoka.. We saw this orange tree in someone ‘s back yard…naturally we click, click over the fence…what kind of orange is that? asked my husband ‘I dunno…’ I crooked my head slightly to the left and appealed with my cuteness…just kidding, of course.

‘ May I help you?’ an older gentleman opened the back sliding door hearing our commotion. We’re just admiring your orange! said my husband  apologetic. ‘Would you like to have some? Why don’t you come in?  My husband and I looked at each other Really?..’Should we?’ my husband said telepathically. ‘He seems harmless’ I beamed back.  And he was. Musician/composer nearing his retirement, offered us coffee which we declined…his wife was in a care home, he was perhaps a bit lonely. 

We found out that this is called Amanatsu orange(甘夏みかん). He cut open the hard skin and put it in a bowl for us to have…interesting, cross between grapefruit and pomelo? He put four more in the plastic bag as a parting gift which we lugged all the way to Tokyo.

From Today’s TAPAS (#todaystapas)– As a Mother's Day gift, my daughter sent us a box full of beautiful apricots from Frog Hollow Farm. Apricots? Not really my usual go-to fruits… I made an apricot and sesame seed mini pie. It was very successful pie, this could be a future blog post…I was thinking…Thank you for your visit to my blog. Have a wonderful week!

Wafu (和風)

Pumpkin Soup With White Miso Paste

Something about warm soup on a chilly night, so comforting, loving…it’s like someone put a blanket over someone who dozed off on the couch…oh, thanks honey…no, I’m not sleeping…just closed my eyes for a second…that show is so fascinating to watch…what? it’s over?

Wafu means Japanese style. And this very successful remake of western pumpkin soup done by NHK’s Today’s Cooking. OK, basically it’s pumpkin miso soup but it’s more done than that. It has surreal deep umami flavor, pairs well with naan or rice. My husband adds a dollop of sour cream into the soup to westernize it…a little … So tell me whodunit? Really? … wow that’s wicked.

Ingredients and Instructions for 4-6 servings (Print Recipe here)

• 600g of Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin, recommended)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3-1/2  to 5 cups dashi stock -  I used 2 No-MSG dashi packs to extract strong dashi soup. See picture below. Option: Of  course you could make your own dash stock. I like Alton Brown’s version  I found it uncomplicated.
  .
• 130-160 g of white miso paste (Saikyo 西京 miso is preferred)
• 1-2 teaspoons of Tamari light soy sauce
• Mitsuba 三つ葉 (Japanese honewort or Japanese parsley) for garnish if you have it
• Seven spices 七味唐辛子 (optional)

1. How to cut pumpkin - Remove top and bottom stems by notching with knife heel around stems first then inserting deeper with the knife tip. Wrap in plastic wrap and microwave 4-5 minutes on 60% power. The pumpkin is still hard but much easier to cut than raw. Cut in half and remove seeds and the stringy part with large spoon. Cut in sections, cube and peel off skin with vegetable peeler. See video on other method.
2. Place 600g of pumpkin  in a pan and pour plenty of water and
3. salt to cook for 15 to 20 minutes until soft. Option: cook and puree all pumpkin and use 600g for this recipe and keep rest in refrigerator for later use.
   .
4. Drain the water. Put cooked pumpkin back in the same pan, puree with hand held mixer while it’s still hot.
   
5. Gradually add dashi stock stirring constantly until the desired thickness is achieved. I used 4 cups of dashi stock 
6. Cook for 5-7 minutes. Whisk in half of miso paste and do a taste test. Add 1 Tablespoon miso paste at a time to adjust flavor. I used about 150 g of miso paste.
7. Add soy sauce, top with mitsuba, sprinkle 7 spices if you like. Serve warm. I used only 1 teaspoon of soy sauce

Variation – Make it hearty – add pork, burdock roots and matsutakeWith connections, we got cheaper (almost $20 per pound less than in store) Matsutake mushrooms. Lucky!

Pumpkin JOY! Since we were left with plenty of pumpkin puree, I made a pumpkin pudding…FABULOUSE! And my husband tackled Salted Caramel Pumpkin buns…Touchdown!

Hi Punkin….

My daughter just had a birthday. Here she was a year old, observing my husband at a church basketball game.

That was many years ago…time flew by way too fast.