All posts filed under: Recipes

Spam, Umeboshi, and Egg Musubi

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Spam musubi are rice balls (onigiri or omusubi) that are topped with Spam and wrapped with nori; they are different from sushi because musubi rice is plain or seasoned with salt, whereas sushi rice is seasoned with vinegar, sugar, and salt. They are a popular in Hawaii and are great as breakfast or a portable snack. They are easy to bring along for a hike. The simplest Spam musubi are made from rice, salt, spam, and nori, but many variations can be made. Musubi Cafe Iyasume, which was just around the corner from the hotel I stayed at in Honolulu, offers avocado egg bacon Spam, umeboshi cucumber Spam, teriyaki Spam, egg cucumber Spam, and shiso Spam. The umeboshi version is my favorite since it is salty from the Spam and sour from the umeboshi. The recipe below combines Spam, umeboshi, and egg; it makes 6 musubi using a “mini” 7 oz can of Spam. If you’d like to use a regular 12 oz can of Spam, then double the recipe but make 10 musubi. Tare is a Japanese term for a sweetened, thickened soy sauce; each …

Quick Pickled Cucumber With Umeboshi

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“Fortunately, canning is not a prerequisite for pickling. In fact, as long as you can commit to eating them within a week or two, there are countless pickles that you can make quickly and store in your fridge.” — Mark Bittman Quick pickles, also called refrigerator pickles, are unfermented pickles made by marinating vegetables or fruits in a vinegar or salt solution for a short period of time, usually several minutes to a few days. They don’t require canning if they won’t be stored for more than a few weeks, though they should be refrigerated. Usually recipes for quick pickles are simple and require minimal effort — often just cutting, mixing, and waiting. Slightly more complicated recipes may require blanching or may require the brine to be heated to dissolve sugar or salt, infuse flavorings, or lightly cook the vegetables. Examples of quick pickle recipes can be seen here (Mark Bittman), here (Food52), here (Smitten Kitchen), or here (The Awl). This quick pickle is recipe is one of the simplest types; it requires only cutting and mixing ingredients. These pickles …

Okonomiyaki

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Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake. The word okonomiyaki means “what you like, cooked”. Accordingly there are many types and variations — most have cabbage and some sort of batter; often pork is included, though sometimes seafood is used. The recipe below is for a type invented in Osaka which is the most commonly found type throughout Japan. Lots of toppings are added, most commonly: a sweet-salty sauce (okonomiyaki sauce or tonkatsu sauce), mayonnaise, bonito flakes, and aonori (seaweed powder). You can draw designs with themayonnaise or marble the sauces with a toothpick . When the tissue-thin bonito flakes are put on top of the hot pancake, they appear to “dance” — they move about from the hot air rising. The version below uses thinly sliced pork belly (available at Japanese markets) — the notes at the end of the recipe explain how to substitute ground pork or minced shrimp. My favorites are the pork belly and the ground pork versions. I don’t recommend substituting bacon because its flavor is very strong; it overwhelms the pancake and tends to make the entire …

Japanese Black Sesame Sauce (Goma-ae)

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There are very few sauces which are black-colored. Squid ink is one of the few well known ones. Japanese black sesame sauce (goma-ae) should be another; its shiny black color is mysterious and dramatic. Since the sauce is nutty and slightly sweet, it complements many types of blanched or cooked vegetables such as: fava beans, green peas, spinach (shown above), broccoli, broiled and peeled eggplant, edamame, and string beans. This sauce is made from just a few ingredients: raw (untoasted) black sesame seeds, soy sauce, sugar, and dashi. The first step is to toast and then grind the sesame seeds. The recipe starts with raw sesame seeds because once they are toasted, the oil can quickly become rancid. Raw sesame seeds stay fresh for much longer, so sesame seeds should be bought raw and toasted as needed. Japanese cooking almost always uses unhulled sesame seeds; thus tahini can’t be substituted for the sesame seed paste made by this recipe since it is made from hulled sesame seeds. The hulls give the sesame paste a coarser texture, a richer flavor, and a darker …

Potato Salad with Smoked Salmon

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I first tried the combination of smoked fish and potato salad at David Wilcox’s popup (which sadly ended early due to a small fire that broke out in the building’s flute). It is a natural pairing — the smokey and salty flavor of the fish accents the creamy potatoes. My potato salad pairs the land and the sea, with the sea represented by the fish and seaweed, in the form of aonori (powdered seaweed flakes), and the land represented by creamy potatoes, crunchy onions, chives, and shichimi togarashi (a Japanese blend of seven spices including red pepper). The fish should be the hot smoked type (wiki) which means it was smoked at a temperature hot enough to fully cook the fish and the fish can be eaten as-is with no further cooking. Unlike cold-smoked fish such as Nova-style, Scotch-style, or Nordic-style lox (wiki) which is cured with salt and smoked only long enough to add flavor but not to cook it (wiki), hot smoked fish has the texture of cooked fish because the heat of the smoking cooks the fish through. My source …

Shiso Tobiko (Flying Fish Roe) Spaghetti

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This summer, I ate at Basta Pasta in NYC, which is a restaurant that makes pasta the way that it is made by Italian restaurants in Japan. Although many of their dishes are classic Italian, there are a few surprising dishes that top Italian pasta noodles with a mixture of Japanese and Italian ingredients. In other words, it is Japanese-style spaghetti; in Japan this is called wafu pasta or wafu spaghetti since wafu (sometimes also spelled wafuu) means “Japanese-style”. As JustHungry.com explains, this style emerged in the 1970s when “essentially, things that are usually eaten with white rice were mixed into or put on top of spaghetti and other [Italian] pastas”. The resulting flavor combinations are a fun and unexpected mix, which strangely go well together.

Onigiri Burger

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Mos burger is a Japanese fast food chain which offers Asian-style fast food. Instead of hamburger buns, several of their “hamburgers” are enclosed by rice pressed into a bun shape. When I was in Taiwan, I went a to baseball game; Mos burger was one of the stands in the stadium so I got to try them. I was disappointed in the taste of their fillings, but I was captivated by the idea of a rice bun for a hamburger, so I wanted to make my own version. My “onigiri burger” or “rice burger” is loosely inspired by Mos burger; however the flavorings are quite different than what Mos burger offers and I chose to season my rice with furikake, which is a Japanese condiment that is often sprinkled on top of rice. These onigiri burgers are a messy but fun and satisfying dish. The recipe below offers two variations: one made with a hamburger patty and one made with thinly sliced leftover roast pork. You could also experiment with other meats or fillings–Mos burger offers several …

Taro Chips and Sweet Potato Chips

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Taro chips uses the same technique as making potato chips and sweet potato chips, but there are a few additional details that should be pointed out. Taro skin and the liquid it emits contains an irritant that makes some people itchy, so try not to touch it. If it bothers you, use a plastic bag or plastic gloves when handling it and wash your hands after handling raw taro. Taro must be eaten fully cooked; it is toxic when raw. Taro skin should be peeled off before the taro is eaten; depending on the recipe the skin may be peeled when it is raw or after it is cooked. Discard the skin; taro skin is not eaten. The Chinese variety of taro (also called “Bun Long”) is best for taro chips; other types of taro don’t work as well. Choose a mature taro (not “baby taro”) which is a few inches wide (example, second example). This type of taro has purple fibers when cut crosswise. Source: Taro Chips (inspired by University of Hawaii’s recipe) Source: “Fingerling or Sweet Potato …

Salmon, Salmon Eggs, and Scallop Chirashi

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Chirashi means “scattered sushi”. It is usually presented as sushi rice and other ingredients mixed together or as sushi rice topped with a decorative arrangement of ingredients. Displayed here is sliced raw salmon, raw scallops, salted salmon eggs, and shiso (full leaves and julienned). To make ikura: Gently rinse salmon eggs (0.15 lbs) in cold water (be careful to not break the eggs). Mix with 1 tsp sake and 1 tsp usukuchi soy sauce with the drained salmon eggs (normally the soy sauce and sake would be heated until simmering to reduce the alcohol and then let to cool before mixing with the eggs, but since this is such a small quantity of sauce this small this isn’t necessary). The salmon eggs can be eaten right away but they will be better if you let them marinate for half a day. If you are luckily enough to find a sack of salmon eggs instead of pre-separated salted salmon eggs, you can prepare them like this. To make this chirashi bowl, rinse sashimi-quality fish and sashimi-quality scallops briefly in cold water …

California Roll

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From about December to April, it is Dungeness crab season in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. I usually eat my first boiled crab of the year simply cracked at the table and plain except for quick dip in apple cider vinegar or brown rice vinegar. It’s hard to resist–when it is in season the seafood section of supermarkets in this region feature large displays of freshly cooked crab on ice, ready to eat. It makes an effortless meal. Later in the season, I like to make dishes that feature crab. One of my favorites is California rolls since it is comfort food for me; they were the first type of sushi that I tried, and I ate them often when I was a teenager before I would try raw fish. Source: “Classic California Roll”, “Master Recipe for Sushi Rice”, and “Sushi Vinegar Dressing” from “The Sushi Experience” by Hiroko Shimbo. I think these rolls are best when Sriracha mayonnaise is included in the roll. The sauce brings out the flavor of the crab, similar …