A very nutritious and delicious Okinawan style dish. It’s plant based, and easy to prepare… if you have the ingredients.
Well, go and fish that green caviar sea weed :
It’s very firm momendoufu (cotton tofu). I have pressed it with plate, slightly to extract excess water. The natto (fermented soy beans) is mixed with mustard and black rice vinegar. Around, you see bits of negi whites and shishito green pepper.
海ぶどう umi-budo is an Okinawan delicacy. The name is literally a “sea grapes” and it’s a tasty seaweed. No, it’s the tastiest seaweed I’ve eaten so far, and I’ve tried a few in Japan.
It’s caulerpa lentillifera. It’s also called the “green caviar“. It’s not cheap for a sea produce here, but still affordable. Yes, the taste and mouth feel are caviardesque. It has some resemblance with salicornia or samphire too.
It is loaded with nutrients, particularly minerals like iron and others vitamin. That’s one more Okinawan super-food. But anything they graze there would have magic powers, so they have no merit to still look like kids in their 90′s… You can feel it is loaded with iodine, and very salty too. If you like strong taste seafood you’ll love it, but that’s surely not for everybody. It’s usually eaten raw, with some sour or vinegar sauce to contrast it.
with tofu (coming soon)
in sushi (coming soon)
Try it some day !
Veg burgers again, but new ones. They are never the same.
The carrot and romaine are the byproduct of juicing. I have added a little potato starch as a binder, and spicing is very light, salt, black pepper, a pinch of curry spices.
They had to be “lightly flavored”, because I have put some Bulldog sauce on them…
Bulldog sauces
That’s a brand of Worcester-like Japanese sauces, that is relatively classic now as they started in 1905 it seems. Click here and follow the arrows. It’s in Japanese but thanks to the photos, you can see the ingredients of the sauce, fruits, veggies and spices, plus vinegar and salt. The 3 sauces are relatively similar but more or less liquid. I have the 中濃 (chuno) which is medium thick.
Well, I should make mine someday. They are usually called “so-su” (sauce) in Japanese conversation, as that’s the sauce by default.
Heated rounds of bread to make sands.
I’m equipped for the cherry blossom season that is looming… It’s really early this year. I’ve seen only pink ones so far, but within a few days, the country will be white.
Japanese sakura sweets are flavored with pickles made the year before. I should make mines maybe, but well I’ve bought some. さくらの花(塩漬け), cherry blossom, pickled in salt.
The leaves are also pickled but less salty.
The flowers in the bin.
They need a rinsing.
Then you add petals to some food, let a pair of hours and they are magically flavored. You’ll see that in future posts.
干菓子higashi (dry sweets) to go with matcha. I didn’t make those either.
Wagashi Saga : Japanese sweet posts and tutorials.
黒豆
This is a compilation about ideas to cook kuromame (black soy beans). First, you need to boil them, go to the end of this post for instructions.
SIDE DISH
As a side dish for :
kare raisu (Japanese curry)
Korean wind lunch
Rum vanilla apple black beans, in fragrant tortilla
WITH RICE
Black rice
Same recipe as seki-han, red rice (red rice), but with kuromame…
BEAN BALLS
A variation to burger or croquette.
Tama (green lemon big bean ball)
Swedish bean balls
Dark green curry with bean balls
OTHERS :
Marron berry chunky terrine (France)
Feijoada with pig trotter (Brazil)
Enfrijoladas frescas (Mexico)
also in :
Japanese garden creamy Winter soup
four bean gumbo
‘lumaca’ soup
SWEET :
Recooked in a syrup of sugar and grated fresh ginger.
Sweetened with syrup of kurozato (black sugar). They are floating with black sesame on top a bowl of sweet potato okayu
PREPARATION OF DRIED BEANS :
Cooking them is quite long, that can take 3 or 4 hours, after soaking them 24 hours. The time is hard to “predict” as it depends on the size of beans and their age (this year’s crop, or older…).
Process :
-Anyway, rinse them and soak them. You can add baking soda or not (I don’t but Japanese water is not harsh).
-Bring them to boil, you use the soaking water or change. In the first case, color will be more vivid. Boil them at least 10 minutes and take away the foam on surface (the toxic substance of beans).
-Continue on low heat, in a crock pot if you want. Beans are cooked when they are soft.
I cook a batch of 250g without any flavoring, and I freeze most in cups (silicone cupcake molds) for further use.
Tip (that I don’t use) : to keep the color, you can add some nails or other iron objects that are rusted.
Japan’s most common recipe is to cook them with sugar (same weight as the beans) added from the soaking water, or from the low heat simmering… or like I do later. The sweet black beans are one item of the New Year good luck dishes. For savory recipes, you can add a piece of kombu seaweed in the water.
