Washism: January 2009

Friday, January 16, 2009

New year decorations were taken down this week.
We brought the one on our main door to the shrine to burn.

As for the mochi, i cut it up n popped it into miso soup that day

Sauteed squid, hijiki and dried daikon simmered dish, and mochi miso soup.

Rice is what i bought last week. Called hitomebore (love at first sight), this species is from Iwate and is quite chewy, but not as chewy as i wanted it to be.

There is this rice shop a stones throw away from our place that sells various types of rice from all over Japan in its original unpolished version and will dehusk it on the spot when requested. Each time i go, i try to buy a different type. So far, we have tried Aizu koshihikari, Akita komachi, and this time Hitomebore which has komachi parentage.

Unsciously, i was cooking chinese style all week. Making use of oyster sauce pretty often.

Prawn balls in sticky egg soup

Daikon steak drizzled with oyster and shiitake sticky gravy

Together with daikon leaves rice and kimchi soup on the side

Tonights dinner was hong kong style wok fried white cabbage in 8 treasures gravy (gingko, maitake mushrooms to replace black fungus, shiitake, prawns, scallops, crab meat, chicken and pork slices). Oh, and since it is friday night, i made curry salted fried potatoes (beer mode).

Bento this morning was fusion style, with simmered chicken from one of the nights dinner, and soya sauce simmered eggs with the half runny melt-in-your-mouth yolk that goes well with rice

After making those eggs, i am craving ramen! cos ramen is usually topped with that kind of eggs. I am craving ramen with really good char siew(roast pork)!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Coq Au Vin

The first time i had Coq Au Vin i fell in love with the dish.
Basically a red wine chicken stew, it is a winter dish popular in France.
It didnt snow today, but it was so rainy and cold i decided to make chicken stew.

Coq Au Vin with my favourite pearl onions

Coq Au vin in Japan (shimeji mushrooms was added instead of the brown button mushrooms so this version is not really the French version, but a Washi one =P),
with mustard marinated enoki, and mizuna and scallion salad with ginger soya dressing.

Dessert was black sesame oshiruko (red bean paste dessert soup) mades from scratch

Topped with black sesame mochi balls

I think this might go well with vanilla ice cream too!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

1st bento of the year

This was J bento on monday.

Pumkin and beef croquette, radish and ham salad, and mini pasta.

Remember the Dutch spiced cake i made a few weeks ago? Searching for the recipe lead me to find out that the Dutch eat croqettues pretty often too. Called Kroketten, it is pretty much the same as the Japanese version. Goes well with beer i guess. Decided to make croquettes after reading about Krokettens.

Tried making roast beef today~

Garlic black pepper roast beef with carrot glaces, New year egg roll (called datemaki>read as dah teh mah key), kimchi salad, and stewed purple cabbage. Together with rice topped with tororo.

Tororo is basically grated mountain yam. And on traditionally, on the 3rd day of the new year, it is believed that eating it will give you a year of health.

There are many ways to eat tororo. We had this on monday, a bit late, but as long as you eat this within the 1st 10 days of the new year, you should be fine =P.

Mondays toro was topped with soy beans, together with soy sauce, ginger and nori.

お好み焼き伊達巻

So this was the okonomiyaki flavoured datemaki i tried making today.

七の草　Seven types of grass

Well, not really grass, just vegetables. 7 different kinds, topped on porridge, eaten on the 7th day of the new year. Believed to help you prevent a year of flu. =)

So on wednesday, we had brown rice porridge topped with the 7 vegetables (sold in a set usually).

together with ginger sesame oil stewed pork and eggs, salad and fried burdock.

The pork was indeed warming. It is getting colder each day, and according to the news, it might snow in Tokyo tomorrow. brrrrgh

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Goodbye 2008...

HELLO 2009!!!

Ahh... the year end break was indeed a pleasant one...

We managed to go to quite a few places that i have always wanted to visit but dared not to venture on my own because of my amazing non existant map reading ability.