Egg Benedict (エッグベネディクト）

Egg Benedict again ! I recently found two things about this dish.
1- Need to put generous amount of vinegar into water to poach egg. Otherwise, egg does spread out all over in the water.
2- Mixture of TJ's Champagne vinaigrette and Japanese mayonnaise results in wonderful hollandais sauce.

Bloody Orange and Fennel Salad （赤オレンジとのサラダ）

I think I posted orange and fennel salad before. I made it with bloody orange this time.
Bloody orange has deeper flavor than normal orange, and most of all, it looks bloody read !

Yellow and Orange Turnip Salad (黄色と橙カブのサラダ）

These turnips are really great. I had turnip salad in two different restaurants around San Francisco, and I really love the taste of both of them. I was initially thinking, it must be the salad dressing which makes the dish so tasty, but then the distinctive flavor seems to be from turnip itself when I remember the taste.
so, I decided to give me a try to cook it by myself to know the actual taste of turnips.
I found some of good grocery stores actually are selling them, but they don't look so attractive. That's why I've never got it before.
I went home, and microwaved them till it got soft, and left them till they cooled down.
I pealed and diced them, and mix with lemon juice, mayonnaise, and salt/pepper.
It tasted sooo good just as it is ! and most of all, it looks cute when I put both yellow and orange ones. Happy Cooking- :)

I

Penne Bolognese (ペンネボロネーゼ）

My mom was stunned with this dish I improvised, and I decided to put it in my blog.
Photo did not turn out to be great, but the taste was authentic !
I've picked up a relatively expensive handmade style dried penne packet, and  I did not ruin it with regular pasta sauce, and I decided to make my own. (but it's easy as always)
  First, saute minced garlic and chopped onion, and put ground chicken to further saute the mixture. Then, add tomato paste, chopped dried tomato, and many kind of spices like cinnamon, paprika, nutmeg and you name it ! In the end, you put boiled penne to the sauce.

Easy Seafood Pilaf (簡単シーフードピラフ）

I love flavor of saffron. It's gorgeous and sweet.
Some people think it's hard to use because of  the strong flavor, and probably because  it's pricey.
I like to put it in milky sweets like yogurt, ice cream, or even hot milk, and dazzle a bit of cardamon seed.
For savory dish, seafood ,especially scallop, is definitely a good match to saffron.
This time, I simply put rice, saffron, butter, and frozen seafood mix in rice cooker, and finished it up with freshly grounded pepper and salt. Very easy and nice !
 

German Style Baby Shitake and Baby potatoes (新シイタケと新じゃがのジャーマンポテト風）

Hi ! Looong time no see !
I haven't been writing this blog for a while.
After the massive earthquake and Tsunami attack in Japan, my mom had been staying with me here in US, and I was really away from updating any sort of things like catching up with friends, planning summer vacation, and updating the blog ! However, I was still keeping records of some dishes I cooked for Mom.
I made German Potato style Baby potato sauteed with baby Shimeji mushroom. German potato is fairly common dish in Japan, and I am not sure if the dish is called as German potato in worldwide.
It's basically sauteed potato with onion and garlic, and put some vinegar in finishing. I like to put soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. This combination really works.

 

Bread Salad with Leak and Potato (ホロねぎとジャガイモの入ったパンサラダ）

I've been busy for sometime, and it's been for a while to cook !
As a rehabilitation session, I made a salad with leak.
So far, I have not been able to connect "Leak" with "Poireau" onion in France.
I liked boiled Poireau with creamy vinegrette when I was in France, but since we don't have leaks in Japan, I haven't had it for a while even in French restaurants in Japan.. We have white long onion which looks thin leak, but its taste is very strong like regular yellow onion.
I woke up with hunger this morning, and started browsing my fridge. While I was browsing left overs, I suddenly notice that I can use Leak in stead of Poireau ! However, in the end, they are exactly same thing.. It's just funny that I haven't noticed for such a long time.. 
Anyways, here it is. 
I microwaved sweet Yucon Gold potato, boiled leaks, and toasted diced Ciabatta bread with olive oil and garlic.  Then, I tossed them with cream dressing. It was delicious !

 

Clam and Green Pasta （蛤と菜の花のパスタ）

I was planning to make Clam Chowder, but canned clam I've got was too big for it. Then I decided to put into pasta.

Edible Chili Oil Noodle （食べるラー油麺）

This is another dish which uses the Edible Chili Oil

Boiled Pork and Vegitable with Edible Chili Oil (食べるラー油でいただくしゃぶしゃぶ）

The Edible Chili Oil is very handy. You can boil whatever you like, and put the oil on top of it.
It's just yummy !

Edible Chili Oil （食べるラー油）

This is very popular now in Japan. It looks very spicy, but actually it's not. It is just very tasty and can go well with anything like bread, rice, or noodle.

What you need:
- Garlic
- Green Onion
- Rice Topping  (Furikake)
- Korean Chili Flake
- Regular Oil
- Sesame Oil
- Soy Sauce
- Sugar

How to make:
- Slowly deep fry Korean chili flake, chopped garlic, green onion, and rice topping with oil and sesame oil.
- Leave the above till it gets cool down.
- Add soy sauce and sugar.

Chicken Soboro -Tricolour Rice (鶏そぼろの三色ご飯）

This is one of the popular lunch box menu in Japan. Soboro is Teriyaki Flavored ground chicken, and it goes well with rice. Usually, it comes with sweetened scramble egg and some sort of green vegetable.
I like to eat it with Japanese sour plum, Umeboshi.

Salmon Cream Pasta (サーモンクリームパスタ）

I really wanted to have this pasta today ! When I just started getting some allowance, going out to eat with my friends was new exciting experience. One of the restaurants which were popular in my high school days was Japanese style spaghetti shop where you eat pasta with chopsticks. They have this salmon pasta with a whole potato and butter in it. I loved it !

Spiced Fish and Doubly Tomato Salad （スパイシーフィッシュとダブルトマトサラダ）

I put dried tomato into dressing and marinate tomato with it, so here we make "Doubly Tomato Salad" !

Koya Tofu and Eggplant (高野豆腐と茄子の煮びたし）

I microwave eggplant and remove all the skin, and soak it into Dashi (Japanese soup stock).

Nuts Curry, Cauliflower Curry, Spinach & Cheese Curry (インドカレー色々）

I made three kinds of curry,  Nuts Curry, Cauliflower Curry, Spinach & Cheese Curry.
Among these three curries, I was especially excited about making Nuts Curry.
I had this one kind of Indian curries I really like in an Indian restaurant nearby, but I have never had it in somebody's place. So I did not know what it is. I could only guess it may have some ground nuts.
I decided to give me a try, and it worked ! I only used ground nuts and regular Indian spices such as mustard seeds, cumin, etc, yet it yields such complicated flavor.

 

Nuts Curry

 

Spinach & Cheese Curry (Palak Paneer)

Cauliflower and Tamarind Curry

Lentil Curry (Darl)

Angel Cake (シフォンケーキ）

This is my favorite cake ! It's called "Angel Cake" in the States, but we call it "Chiffon Cake".
"Chiffon" is a French word which means soft clothes.
This cake is as soft as sponge and heavenly good :)

What you need:

- Angel cake food pan  ( A pan which has hole in the center)
- 3/4 cup of cake flour
- 1 and 1/4 cup of powder sugar or confiscate sugar
- 3 egg yolk
- 4 egg white
- 1/2 cup of oil
- 1/2 of water

How to make:
- 1:  Shake flour into a strainer and keep it in a bowl
- 2:  Separate eggs into yolk and white.
- 3: Make egg mixture.
-- Put egg yolk and 1/3 of sugar into a bowl and beat it till the mixture gets whitish.
-- Add oil and water, and mix.
-- Add flour through a strainer into the egg mixture.
-- Adjust the texture of this egg mixture by adding milk so that it is as dilute as yogurt.
- 4: In a big bowl, put egg white and the rest of sugar. Beat till it forms quite solid melange.
- 5: Put 1/3 of melange into the egg mixture, and mix completely. Then, add the rest of melange, and mix roughly for several times. You still see some chunks of melange.
-6: Put the cake mixture into a angel cake pan. Slightly bring the pan and drop it so that air inside will escape. Repeat this process for three times. Stir the mixture with a skew or chop stick for few times.
- 7: Bake it for 50 min in 325degF oven, and then for 10~15min in 300degF till nothing will stick to a skewer when you poke it into the cake.
- 8: Keep the cake upside down till it gets cool down. (If you don't do this, cake will shrink)

Soup Spagetti (スープスパゲッティ）

My Mom made this when I was small.
As the name of the dish tells you, it's soupy pasta.
It , I believe, is a fusion dish, and not Italian at all, but if you know anything like this in Italian cooking, please let me know.
I first saute bacon and garlic, then add green pepper, tomato, seafood.  I used chicken soup stock to make soup, and added some soy sauce in the end.
After boiling pasta till 80 % in a separate pot, I added it to this soup to finish it up. This way pasta will soak the soup.

Soup Pot Pie (スープのパイ包み焼き）

I cover mushroom soup with pie crust. I tried it with cream tomato soup before, and it goes better with rich pie crust than mushroom soup.

Roasted Ram (ラムロースト）

This is another toaster dish. Just get a rack of lamb, and put it with various kinds of vegetables into oven !

Homemade Udon (手打ちうどん）

My friend suggested me to try to make Udon from scratch, and I finally tried it.
The process itself is quite a fun, and it tastes different from what I can buy from super market.
It should be fun to make it in a party !

Dip it into Dashi !

Savory Egg Pudding -Chawan Mushi （茶碗蒸し）

I had a lot of ingredients from Japanese New Year dishes, and put everything into this savory egg pudding. This is one of my favorite dish, and I can eat it endlessly :)

This is how it looks from outside

Japanese New Year Dish (御節）

Happy New Year of 2011 !
New year is the most important holiday in Japan, and we have special dishes for the first three days of January called Osechi (御節）. We have boxes of small dishes, and rice cake soup（Ozoni, お雑煮）.
Since it is quite pricey to get everything in California, I prepared simple version of it.

Ozoni has chicken, carrot, snow pea, bamboo shoot, and kamaboko (fish cake)

 

Osechi has fish cake, sweet omelet, and Koya Tofu.

Spanish Potato Omelette - Tortilla de Patatas (スペイン風ポテトオムレツ）

When I was small, I did not like to go to church on Sundays except for one thing.
That is this Tortilla de Patatas sold in the melinda in the church.
Even though it was in Japan, some of sisters of the church are from Spain, and they made unforgettable Tortilla.
Now I can make it by myself, and it turns out to be pretty good !
The key to make tasty tortillas is to use a lot of olive oil without any hesitation.
Potato needs to be boiled in oil which is almost like frying potatoes to get that sweet flavor.

Baby Buk Choy and Ham Soup （青梗菜とハムのスープ）

This is very simple, yet has a unique flavor.
The combination of baby buk choy and ham already bring up soup to a certain level, so you just need to add simple soup stock you like.

Chili Shrimp (えびちり）

This dish is one of the most popular Chinese dishes in Japan.
We call it Ebi-chilli, and it's basically hot and sweet shrimp with tons of green onion.
You can add some red chili, but I prefer not so spicy.
Sweetness comes from sugar and ketchup.

Truffle Oil Pasta (トリュフオイルのパスタ）

I've got a bottle of truffle oil as a souvenir from France, and I've been thinking about how to use it for a while. Truffle oil is flavored extra virgin olive oil with black truffle. Sometime you don't see the truffle inside, but it has very strong flavor of it. These day, olive maker in California started making truffle oil as well, and I think it's equally good compared to French ones.
The problem is truffle has so strong flavor that it dominates the dish completely, so I  need to use it carefully. I made very simple pasta dish with cabbage and string bean, and drizzle truffle oil in the end. It worked out very well !

Tofu Hamburg （豆腐ハンバーグ）

I was used to eating meat every meal before, but nowadays I don't feel like it after I started hanging out with vegetarian people. The problem about vegetarian dish is, it's very hard to make main dish out of merely vegetables. Tofu is made out of soy, and has good volume to be main dish. I made pate with tofu and egg, and baked it like normal hamburg.
I added sweet and sour sauce on it, and it was a hit !

Potato Gratin (ポテトグラタン）

This is a standard menu of home cooking in Japan. Many western dishes are converted to Japanese style from Meiji (late 19th) to early Showa(early 20th)  period.
Other popular Japanized western menus are hamburg, cutlet, croquette, omelet, spaghetti, etc.
Typical potato gratin has layer of white sauce, potato, and meat sauce which is potato version of Lasagna.

Fennel and Orange Salad (ファネルとオレンジのサラダ）

Fennel is a vegetable with licorice flavor to it. I sliced it very thinly using Japanese slicer, and make salad with orange and a bit of olive oil. The key is not to add so much salt.