When we lived in Europe, we had a really hard time sourcing fresh lotus roots, but here in Montreal it’s no problem: they always seem to have them at Kim Phat. That means we’re able to make lotus root tempura, which is a particular favorite of mine, as well as braised lotus root (kimpira), which is also very good. But renkon manju is in a league of its own: a truly special delicacy.

Don’t let this recipe intimidate you, though: after you’ve done it once or twice you’ll find it’s much easier than you imagine.

Ingredients: (for four dumpling)

• Lotus roots -200g (Two medium ones)
• Shrimp -Four medium sized shrimps
• Shitake mashrooms (dry) – One or two
• Potato starch – One tablespoon
• Salt
• Oil for frying

sauce

• Water – 1.5 cups
• Konbu – one 5 cm. piece
• Dashi – 1 teaspoon
• Soy Sauce – 1 tablespoon
• Potato starch – One tablespoon
• Optional: Wasabi
• Optional: Grated lime rind

Preparation:

1. Put dry shitake mashrooms in water to recompose
2. Peel the lotus roots and microwave them for one minute. When you heat the lotus roots, they become stickier so this makes it easier to make the dumpling shapes.
3. Grate the lotus roots.
4. Add the potato starch and a pinch of salt to the grated lotus roots.
5. Clean the shrimp and dice it. Then cut shitake mashrooms, too.
6. Mix the shrimp and shitake in the lotus roots.

Cooking:

First, make the sauce

1. Place a piece of konbu in 1.5 cups of cold water in the smaller pot
2. Bring to a boil
3. Add dashi, then soy sauce and mirin
4. Keep on low heat

Fry the dumpling

1. Divide the mix into four. Shape the mix into little balls. If you use a frying pan like me, flatten the balls a little bit and  make an indentation in the center.
2. Fry the dumplings.
3. When the dumpling is fried, mix one tablespoon potato starch with a tablespoon of room-temperature water. Take konbu out the sauce and bring the sauce to a boil again. Then thicken the sauce by adding the disolved potato starch little by little, mixing the sauce all the time.
4. Place the dumplings in a bowl. (If you put more than one, heap them up in mountain shape. Don’t line them up.)
5. Pour the sauce over the dumplings in the bowl.
6. Garnish by placing a little bit of wasabi and grated lime peel on top of the dumpling.
7. Serve hot

If you serve one dumpling each, this recipe is perfect as a side dish. At our place, we make slightly bigger servings because we like the dish so much. With two dumplings per bowl, you can call this a main dish.

Classically, kabayaki is a way of cooking freshwater eel. If you’ve been to a Japanese restaurant in England you’ve probably run into Kabayaki as “unagi-don” or “unadon” - eel-on-rice. It’s great; a classic restaurant dish.

In this recipe, we use Pacific Saury instead of eel for two very good reasons. First, eel spoils almost as soon as it’s out of the water, making it virtually impossible to cook at home (unless you have a large fish tank, some sharp knives and a fair bit of gumption!) Second, eel is expensive. Sanma, on the other hand, is not only delicious but affordable, too: so Saury Kabayaki is kind of like poor man’s Eel Kabayaki.

It’s a powerful dish, sure to impress friends, and very good when served “donburi” style: in a large bowl over plain white rice.

Ingredients (for two):

• Whole pacific saury  - two (can’t find them? substitute another oily fish, such as mackerel or sardines.)
• Flour
• Oil – two tablespoons
• Sansyo powder

For the sauce

• Soy sauce – three tablespoons
• Sugar – one tablespoon
• Mirin – two tablespoons
• Water – two tablespoons

Preparation:
First you fillet the saury by cutting it into four parts ( two fillets, which you cook, and the head and the spine, which you discard). This technique is called sanmai oraoshi in Japanese.

1. Cut open the saury’s stomach and take out the guts
2. Run the fish (the inside too!) under a cold water tap to clean it
3. Pat off the excess moisture using kitchen paper
4. Cut off the head
5. Slice it open from the tail to the head along the spine
6. Slice the other side too
7. Cut the meaty part in half

Cooking:

1. Mix the ingredients for the sauce (soy sauce, sugar, mirin and water) in a bowl
2. Cover the fillets with flour
3. Heat the pan and add the oil
4. Sauté the fish, starting with the inside
5. When it turns brown, turn it over and sauté the skin side
6. When the fillets are cooked through, add the mixed sauce all at once
7. Let the sauce boil until it covers both sides of the fillets and reduces
8. Plate the fillets, or serve them as donburi (on deep bowls, over rice). Sprinkle with powdered sansyo pepper and serve.

Even if you don’t make donburi, I strongly recommend to serve this with white rice on the side. It’s not the same without it!

“Okra?! What’s that?” It’s a fair question. If you live in Europe, Latin America, the US North or Canada, you may have never seen this odd-looking plant. It has certainly spread unevenly around the globe: by now its fleshy pods are a staple in East Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, the American South and in Japan, but for some odd reason hardly used in China!

This recipe makes for a quick, very healthy and flavourful side dish.

It’s particularly tasty mixed together with natto (fermented soybeans) and served as a topping for white rice. But if like many people (including many Japanese) you are not a big fan of natto, you can serve Okra Aemono on its own over rice. Delish.

Ingredients

• Okra
• Soy Sauce
• Katsuobushi flakes

Cooking

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil
2. Boil the okra for 2 minutes
3. Drain and cool under cold water
4. Cut the okra into pieces, discard the ends
5. Season with soy sauce
6. Add katsuobushi and mix

Serve as a side dish, or over rice.

[Kanako's husband here, pitching in a cheeky little post without her knowledge.]

Back in November, we bought this monstruous, one gallon jerrycan of Kikkoman soy sauce at the big Angel Seafoods sale in Montreal. Just to look at the thing in our shopping cart, I couldn’t really imagine how we’d ever finish it.

And yet today, just 92 days later, that jug officially ran out!

That’s an average of 41.2 milliliters a day of soy-y goodness. Or, for the less metrically inclined among you, 1.38 fluid ounces – or 2.8 tablespoons – of the stuff each and every day.

Bliss!

The other day when I was talking with my mother on the phone, she told that she made Inari for dinner. This made me all nostalgic and I got inspired to make Inari, too.

Tradition says that the name inari came from a Japanese shinto divinity that is often associated with a fox. The favorite food of this sacred fox was Aburaage. Sacred foxes or no, historic documents show Inari was already a popular form of sushi in the mid-1800s.

• Aburaage -  20 pieces
• Sake – 1/2 cup
• Soy sauce  – 3 tablespoons
• Sugar – 5 tablespoons
• Mirin – 4 tablespoons
• Water – One and 1/2 cup

For the sushi rice

• Rice – 3 cups
• Water – 3 and 1/2 cups
• Konbu – one 5 cm long piece
• Rice vinegar – 5 tablespoons
• Sugar -  2 tablespoons
• Salt – 1 teaspoon
• Sesame seeds – 3 tablespoons

Note:
This recipe comes out better if you prepare the Aburaage before. It would be ideal that you prepare the Aburaage the night before and then, the next morning, prepare the rice to eat the whole thing for dinner.

Preparation of the Aburaage:

1. Place the Aburaage on a cutting board and flatten it with a rolling pin.
   In this way it becomes easier to open the the Aburaage as a kind of pouch.
2. Cut the one edge of Aburaage to make that pouch. Be careful not to break the Aburaage.
3. Boil the Aburaage in water for 1 or 2 minutes to get rid of excess of oil (Aburanuki)
4. Drain and cool the Aburaage with water.
5. In a pan heat the one and a half cups of water and sake, soy sauce, sugar and mirin.
6. When the sauce starts to boil, add the aburaage. Using two layers of kitchen paper towels, make a little dome over the aburaage to seal the moisture in.
7. Cook it for 20 minutes.
8. Take the pan out of the heat and let it cool down.
9. When it gets cold, keep it under the sauce in the fridge covered with plastic rap. This lets the aburaage absorb the sauce.
   (You can make a lot of Aburaage pockets at one time and keep them in the freezer.)

Preparation of Sushi rice:

1. Mix the vinegar, sugar and salt. Add a piece of konbu.
2. Wash rice and keep it under water at least 40 minutes.
3. Cook the rice. See how to make rice the correct Japanese way here.
4. When the rice is ready, place in a big bowl or handai (If you have a handai, a special plate for sushi, that will be much better. I don’t have one…) . Add the vinegar sauce (remember to take out the konbu first)  and mix thoroughly but DON’T SQUEEZE the grains of rice. While mixing, fan the rice to cool down it quickly. Cooling the rice quickly is very important to make the rice shiny and beautiful.
5. Add sesame seeds and mix them thoroughly.
6. Leave the rice to cool down completely.

Make inari:

1. Drain the aburaage
2. Make rice balls
3. Stuff the rice ball in a aburaage pouch.
4. Make the Inari shape.

Inari go perfectly with Osuimono.

Itadakimasu!

Simply seasoned with salt, pepper and fresh ginger, Ebi Lettuce Itame is a delightfully “assari” dish. This is one of those hard-to-translate terms: it means subtly flavored, delicately textured and light all around.  Japanese culinary culture puts a big premium on this sort of thing – subtle, refreshing dishes that won’t leave you feeling weighed down or overstuffed. I guess this isn’t necessarily that fashionable in Western cooking, but in Japan calling a dish “assari” is high praise indeed.

So when you want something light but still more consistent than a salad, try some stir-fried shrimp with Lettuce.

Ingredients: (for two)

• Lettuce – a half
• Ginger – a small piece
• Shrimp – ten
• Sesame oil – one tablespoon
• Salt
• Pepper

Preparation:

• Cut the lettuce and salt it lightly. Let it sit for about 10 minutes while it exudes water.
If the lettuce sweats too much, squeeze the excess moisture out.
• Slice the ginger in small pieces
• Shell the shrimp

Cooking:

1. Heat the sesame oil.
2. Stir fry the ginger.
3. When the ginger starts to smell, add the shrimps and stir fry.
4. When the shrimp change color, add the lettuce.
5. Stir fry until the lettuce turns soft.
6. Taste and add pepper and also a little more salt if needed. The lettuce is already salted, so don’t add too much.
7. Serve hot.

For today’s dinner we had ebi lettuce itame, hijiki nimono and white rice. Assari all around.

Pay no attention. Analogies fail. In any case, the point is not the pancake itself, but the special sauce, which is what makes okonomiyaki taste a lot like…okonomiyaki!

The recipe I’m sharing here is for Osaka-style okonomiyaki, the city’s signature dish. Though I’ve seen fancy London restaurants serve it as an exotic delicacy (and charge upwards of 12 pounds for one!), in Osaka there’s nothing fancy about it: it’s a cheap, filling, flavorful meal young people adore.

Having grown up in the Kansai region, okonomiyaki is definitely “home cooking” for me. I even went to university in Osaka, and considering college students probably eat more okonomiyaki  than anyone, I’ve certainly had more than my share. But you don’t have to be from Kansai: I’ve found that this is the one Japanese dish that just about every western person enjoys. Even Canadian children, who wouldn’t think of eating most of the weird things I put on this blog, love okonomiyaki.

Though it’s undoubtedly junk food, Osaka people take their okonomiyaki pretty seriously. In this recipe, I try to share a lot of secret little tips and tricks (marked in bold type) so you can make Okonomiyaki like a pro from your first try.

• Cabbage – one quarter
• Pork – 100 grams
• Optional: You could make it with squid, a mixture of squid and shrimp, or a mixture of squid and pork. Some restaurants go on to make any number of weird variations, but personally I stick to pork and squid.
• Optional: Beni shoga – pickled red ginger. Tenkasu – tempura detritus.

For the pancake batter

• All-purpose wheat flour – one cup
• Salt – half a teaspoon
• Sugar – one teaspoon
• Baking powder – one teaspoon
• Water – one cup
• Dashi – two teaspoons
• Eggs – two

Toppings

• Okonomiyaki Sauce – Buy this ready-made at the store. Look for Otafuku brand “Okonomi sauce”.
  (There are people who want to make the sauce at home, but don’t be ridiculous.)
• Mayonnaise – preferably tangy Kewpie brand Japanese mayo
• Aonori – Green nori seaweed.
• Katsuobushi – powdered is best, but flakes work well too.

Preparation

Make the batter

• Heat a cup of water in the microwave and dissolve the two teaspoons of dashi in it
• Let it cool to room temperature
• In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder.
• Add the dashi’d water slowly to the bowl, mixing thoroughly
• Let the batter sit for a good two hours

Prepare the other ingredients

• Chop the cabbage into small (but not tiny) squares – maybe 1 cm. by 1 cm.
• Wrap the chopped cabbage in plastic wrap, microwave on high for two minutes.
  For reasons I don’t really understand, the cabbage you find in the West is noticeably thicker and much harder than the kind sold in Japan, which is why you need to pre-cook it in the microwave. If you’re reading this in Japan, skip this step.
• Slice the pork very thin.

Cooking

1. Lightly beat the eggs and add them to the batter, mix
2. Add cabbage (and benishioga and tenkasu if you’re using that) to the batter. Toss the mix lightly, not too much.
3. Heat a large frying pan, add a tablespoon of cooking oil – you need oil even if it’s a non-stick pan.
4. Add a layer of batter 2 to 3 cm. high to the pan.
5. Place a layer of pork slices on top.
6. Cook, covered, over medium-low heat for 5 minutes.
7. Flip the okonomiyaki like you would a pancake. Resist the urge to pat it down – you don’t want it squished.
8. Cook over low-heat, uncovered, for ten minutes.
9. Place on a plate. If you’re sharing, cut it into squares.
10. Add a generous layer of okonomiyaki sauce on top. Then add some mayonnaise. Finally add your katsuobushi and aonori.

Today we didn’t have aonori, beni shoga nor tenkasu, but it was still very good.

When I was growing up, my mom was a typical, strict, health-obsessed Japanese mom, so we weren’t allowed to have Coca Cola or other fizzy drinks at my house. Mom would let us have Coca Cola only when she made okonomiyaki. It was kind of a family ritual, so you can imagine how special the combination of Coca Cola and okonomiyaki was to me.

Even today, I like having a coke with okonomiyaki…but I suppose the more typical way to serve it is with beer.

In this recipe, I show you how to make a kind of fancied-up hiya-yakko using sesame oil rather than soy sauce. Why the need to fancy it up? Because, while simple Hiya-yakko sure is delicious, it’s just a little bit too plain a dish to serve guests. If you want to make a fresh tofu dish that’s sure to impress, this recipe is the solution for you.

A note of caution: these uncooked tofu recipes will turn out impossibly light and delicious if you use the right kind of tofu. Really, they live or die on the quality of the tofu you manage to get. In Kyoto, where silken tofu is a prized artesanal specialty made fresh each morning by traditional craftsmen, it’s hard to go wrong. Here in Montreal, where the tofu is ok but not necessarily fantastic, results can vary. Wherever you are, you should only try these using the best quality, softest silken tofu you can find.

And a tip: in North America, some quite decent Korean brands market this type of tofu as “extra silken”. That’s the kind you want.

Ingredient:

• Extra silken Tofu (do not try this with firm tofu!) – one block
• Spring onions – a bunch
• Garlic – a small piece
• Ginger – a small piece
• Shiso leaves (Optional) – three or four leaves
• Sesame seeds – one teaspoon
• Sesame oil -three table spoons
• Salt (use fancy fleur de sel if you can get it) – a little less than one teaspoon

Preparation:

1. Take out the tofu from the pack, remove gently the extra water and put the tofu on a plate.
   (On the image below the tofu is crumbled, ooops!)
2. Chop the spring onions, garlic and ginger (and the shiso leaves, too) into small pieces.
3. Add salt and sesame seeds to them, mix well.
4. Place the relish on the tofu.
5. In a small pan, heat the sesame oil until it starts to smoke.
6. As soon as the oil starts to smoke, pour it on the tofu and relish.
7. Serve cold

click to enlarge

As my mom is from Kyushu, this isn’t something she would normally make at home. However, I remember Senmai-zuke very well from growing up near Kyoto, and I always liked it. The image of Senmai-zuke displayed in front of the pickles stores is something which always reminds me of Kyoto.

Ingredient:

• Turnips – one rather big one
• Salt – one teaspoon
• Rice vinegar – 50 cc
• Sugar – 3 tablespoons

[If you don't have rice vinegar, use 50 cc of apple cider vinegar and mellow it with 4 tablespoons of sugar.]

• Konbu – one 15 cm. long piece
• Dried red peppers – one small piece

Preparation:

1. Peel the turnip and slice it crosswise as thin as possible. (If you have a slicer, use it!)
2. Sprinkle the salt thoroughly over the turnip slices.
3. Leave the turnip in the salt for half an hour. In that time, it will start to “sweat” (give off excess moisture.)
4. Mix the rice vinegar and the sugar, then add the chopped dried red pepper. This is your pickling agent.
5. Clean the dirt off of the Konbu with a wet kitchen towell and slice in thin, long pieces using a pair of scissors.
6. After the 30 minutes are up, wash lightly the turnip to remove the salt and squeeze the slices to remove as much moisture as possible.
7. Place alternate slices of turnip and konbu in layers in a tupperware container.
8. Pour the vinegar-based pickling agent and let it sit in the fridge for at least one night.

click to enlarge

Serve in very small quantities as a side dish. (You can also eat the konbu.)

Though traditionally prized for the delicious taste you get when you seal in all of the fish fat, this method of cooking has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts as scientists have increasingly identified the health benefits of essential nutrients such as Omega-3, which are plentiful in mackerel and other blue-backed fish.

A secondary, but not inconsiderable, advantage is that this way of cooking mostly attenuates the strong, fishy-smell that’s typical of Blue-Backed fish. The result is a succulent fish dinner that’s nutritionally outstanding without the overpowering fishy taste you get from other ways of cooking mackarel.

Ingredients: (for four)

• One mackerel, which is easy to find. Frozen fish is ok.
• Sake – two tablespoon
• Soy sauce – two tablespoon
• Ginger – one small piece
• Potato starch – enough to cover the fish
• Vegetable oil for frying

Preparation

1. Place fish pieces on kitchen paper and pat dry to remove excess moisture.
2. Cut mackarel into 4 or 5 cm. thick slices.
3. In a deep dish, mix sake, soy sauce, grated ginger. (The ginger will remove the fishy taste.)
4. Marinade the fish pieces for 20-30 minutes.
5. Remove the mackarel from the marinade and again place on kitchen paper to remove excess liquid.
6. Cover fish pieces thoroughly with potato starch.
7. Heat oil in a large frying pan, withou letting it get too hot (about 170 °C)
8. Fry fish pieces until golden on all sides
9. Serve with something green on the side.

click to enlarge

Properly executed, the fritters will hold all of the mackarel’s fat inside, creating moist, delicious bursts of flavor that do not have a strong aroma at all.

Itadakimasu!