Japanese New-Year count down (-4)

Let’s continue our walk to the Japanese New Year meal…
It’s about nuts, fish and caramel today. This taste maybe a little challenging for foreigners.

田作りtadzukuri means “building a rice paddy”, it’s the name of these baby caramelised fish served for Osechi Ryori. But such snacks are available year round.
It’s obviously made to favor an abundant production of rice. The slender fish look like a rice paddy in herb, in the making.

Quick dashi from scratch… or from fish flakes (via Gourmande in Osaka)

LY : the first step of Japanese cooking

Fish flakes… I am cheating, I could start with a block of dried fish and shave it, but I don't do that. You can buy this "kezuri katsuo", bonito flakes in Asian grocery stores. Dashi is the stock. It will take 2 minutes of your time to do it. That's a basic for decent Japanese cooking. What's wrong with instant dashi ? Not much, only MSG, preservatives, flavoring and higher price. This is one recipe, among others. I use a combo of 3 ingredients … Read More

via Gourmande in Osaka

Summer greens on bibimbap

As I had the Korean ingredients…

Then the classics : kimchi, shiso, gochijang. Daikon radish is here under the form of sprouts.

Brown rice with the hot weather favorites : moloukhia and goya (bitter squash). And Awaji island red onions. I have slightly steamed that. Too many raw veggies are hard to digest.

Egg yolk. The white is cooked and hidden under, I don’t throw away.

Korean Gourmande (photo compilation of my Korean posts)

A crispy side chat-wan. Iriko (small dried fish) toasted with sesame and curry mix.

With a cup of sencha green tea. Now mix and enjoy !

In the mist of nishin-soba… iwashi-soba (sardine soba soup) (via Gourmande in Osaka)

This is my image of traditional food of Japan… but probably certainly not one of the dishes most Japanese people would present you. When you travel in the misty lands on the West coast of Kyoto Prefecture, going down to the pittoresques villages of fishers, you see many many fish being dried with a lot of care in front of the houses. And most small restaurants propose "nishin soba", a simple bowl of dashi (fish broth), with soba buckwheat noodl … Read More

via Gourmande in Osaka

Osechi 3 : building a rice paddy

田作りtadzukuri means “building a rice paddy”, it’s the name of these baby caramelised fish served for Osechi Ryori. But such snacks are available year round.
It’s obviously made to favor an abundant production of rice. The slender fish look like a rice paddy in herb, in the making.

These small dried fish are called “gomame” (small beans).

kurozato tadzukuri

NB : This is not the classic recipe. They do it with white sugar.
It’s simple. Take the gomame dry fish (and not the dust in the bottom of the pack) and roast them in a pan without anything, while stirring well during about 3 minutes. That won’t smell too good.

In another pan, heat very slowly 2 tbs of soy sauce, 2 tbs of powdered kurozato (black sugar) and a little water. When the sugar is dissolved, pass on high heat. You should get a bubbly very sticky sirup. Out of the fire, add a tbs of water in order to have just the texture to pour it on the fish. Let cool.