JAPANESE - Winter 2022 (Jan-Mar) Cuisine of the Quarter

Happy New Year HOs! We’ll be kicking off 2022 with a cuisine that is new (or at least not well known) to me - JAPANESE. I love sushi but know almost nothing else about Japanese food, so I look forward to learning from all of you. 明けましておめでとうございます!Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! Hopefully Google translate got that right!

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Ooh. I totally missed the process, but I’m excited by the result!

I don’t know how much leisure cooking I’ll have time for in the next few weeks, but I love that we go a whole quarter.

I may be able to get in easy and already familiar (ie that I cook at home) things like chawanmushi, yakitori, and teriyaki near-term.

Will look to add some new things to my repertoire with COTQ for inspiration!

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I use this site for inspiration a lot. https://www.justonecookbook.com/

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My husband B got me this beautiful cookbook last year or so which has sadly become a coffee table book. Perhaps I can finally get my butt in gear and actually cook from it.

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Me too! I also like Cooking with Dog (https://youtube.com/c/cookingwithdog).

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Chicken Katsu

Served with Tonkatsu Sauce ( Worcestershire, ketchup, soy, pepper flakes), shredded lettuce and rice.

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Try it with raw shredded white cabbage drizzled with tonkatsu sauce. It’s a traditional side and surprisingly delicious/refreshing.

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Thanks. Definitely next time.

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Mentaiko Pasta is a wafu dish, wafu is Japanese word for Western fusion. Mentaiko pasta is classic Japanese style spaghetti dish, made with spicy cod roe sauce and topped with shiso leaves.

Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t count mine in COTQ as I used ready made sauce. But since I don’t have time to go to the Japanese grocery this week, and anxious to start…

Sauce I used.

The tiny dots are roe.

Added some canned sea urchin. It was actually quite delicious as pantry cooking.

If you want to make the sauce:

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Anybody made onigiri/rice ball before?

I tried today, used short grain sushi rice, rinsed several times before cooking in a rice cooker. I wetted my hands with water as suggested in most recipes, and tried to handle the rice when it was still warm, the rice stuck to my hands instead. I tried to use a plastic film, didn’t work either, and fell apart easily. I’ve made sushi before, it didn’t fall apart like this, don’t understand what went wrong. From my understanding, onigiri rice ball doesn’t use vinegar like sushi rice.

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It took me a bit of getting used to, but I do from time to time. How wet/dry do you cook your rice? I tend to be a bit on the drier side, personally.

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I don’t make them very often but I have used some molds - you put some rice in there about halfway, and then the filling (if desired), and then fill up the rest with rice before pressing. I think I got them from Daiso which is a 99 cent store that sells Japanese products.

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I get a steady stream on Instagram of Japanese moms (presumably not dads, but I could be wrong) packing beautiful bento lunch boxes for their kids, including the most scary perfect-looking onigiri (lucky kids). They often mention using molds.

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Good to know. I think the rice was normal, maybe slightly more on the wetter side. I was wondering maybe it was not moist enough.

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Thanks. It’s practical if one makes them often and saves time from sticky hands.

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Shogayaki - ginger pork for lunch, with cabbage + sesame dressing, rice, miso soup, and takuan pickles.

Nijiya (a Japanese market) sells thinly sliced pork labelled specifically for shogayaki, quite easy to make.

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Ramen with chashu pork in a bresse chicken and beef clear broth, with shoyu tare, Mayu (black garlic oil) topped with , soy sauce egg, memna (seasoned bamboo shoots), Taokaenoi crispy seaweed and Shichimi Togarashi (7 spices blend).

Very good, but not a light meal with the fatty broth and oil. Need some time to prepare each element, but since I did that over days, so it didn’t feel too much work. The pork roast I bought wasn’t prime for this purpose, pork belly would be better. The pork was browned in all sides in a small cast iron pot and then added sake, soy sauce, ginger, water and cooked 2 hours more with small heat. I tossed the half-cooked eggs in this same cooled mixture to make the soy sauce eggs. I used canned bamboo shoots, sliced and cooked with dashi, sesame oil, soy sauce, sake, sugar and salt for 20 minutes.

Black garlic oil, tasted bitter on its own, it adds a smokiness and depth to the broth.

I mainly used Ramen Obsessions as my base of recipes, a great book for constructing a bowl you like! Also I checked from time to time Ivan Ramen, but didn’t use this time, as the recipes are more geared towards a ramen in his personal style, I think I would like to try especially to make the rye noodle and the slow-roasted tomato in the future.

Chashu pork recipe:

The black garlic oil recipe:

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Absolutely gorgeous bowl @naf !!

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Thank you! :blush: :yum:

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I don’t know that I will make this at home, but I enjoy Omurice when I visit Japanese restaurants offering brunch https://www.justonecookbook.com/omurice-japanese-omelette-rice/

I really like Japanese brunches and Japanese breakfasts.

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