Kibinago no nanban-zuke (fishbait in sour marinade)

Second visit of kibinago fish bait.

南蛮づけ nanban zuke. It’s fried fish, then marinated in a sour sauce. The result is very light on the stomach.

kibinago (silver stripe round herring) are these small mini-fish, often to small to cut them. Perfect for frying.
Wash the fish and drain well water. Sprinkle black pepper and chili pepper or other spices (optional).

Heat frying oil. Pass the fish in potato starch, fry them.

The fried fish, onion, carrot, ginger (grated) a chili pepper.

For the sauce : 1/2 cup water, 2 tbs mirin, 1 tbs soy sauce, 2 tbs sake brought to a boil. Then add 4 tbs of black rice vinegar. Pour on fish and veggies. Cover. Let 30 minutes minimum. I prefer overnight.

The next day.

Renkon (lotus root) in black vinegar with ginger. Green beans and edamame in yuzu citrus juice.

Genmai (brown rice) and miso soup with wakame seaweed.

Aonori kibinago no kara-age

kibinago (silver stripe round herring) are these small mini-fish, often to small to cut them. So frying is the way to go. I’ve seen addition of aonori seaweed for frying and retained the idea.

Kara-age :
Rinse the fish. Sprinkle salt and pepper. Heat frying oil. Mix flour, potato starch and aonori (seaweed flakes).
Pass the fish in the mix of flours and fry. Add a little more aonori on top.

Eat them whole, so you intake all the calcium in the bones.

Sides : lettuce with black rice vinegar, sesame carrots, salted goya (bitter squash) and polished germinated rice.

Calling the Spring with a green tempura

Japanese tempura would be related to Christian Lent. That sound weird but it seems the dish appeared when the Portuguese Jesuits visited the reclusive Japan of 16th century and brought many new things. The habit of frying food in batter is one of them. Particularly, the missionaries would do donuts for the Carnival preceding tempora (Lent in kitchen Latin), so the Japanese associated fried food and the word tempora, tempura~whatever and it became tempura. Maybe.

Greens. Fresh herbs and veggies.

Fried into tempura.
It’s totally plant-based as it’s a simple eggless tempura batter. The batter is flour, ice cold water and tempura baking powder that I bought. It is like ordinary BP with turmeric added for the color.

tempura tutorial

The freshly made tempura are excellent dipped in tsuyu (dashi broth, soy sauce and a little mirin, reheated together). I add chili pepper to mine.

It’s tsubomina (click here to read about this veggie).

Broccoli leaf.

The leaves of broccoli are excellent, don’t throw them away. That’s what you’d lose :

All herbs can be fried in small bunches. Dill.

Parsley.

Broccoli.

Sesame jewels. The Chinatown treat home-made.

Let’s continue with the Chinese festivities for Lunar New Year, click here for many ideas).
Now, 芝麻球 , zhimaqiu, pearls with sesame. Hot, golden, crispy, and the inside sweet and melting. Everybody buys them it seems. But they are really quick and simple to make. Also you will know what they are made of.

The inside is boiled azuki beans mixed with sugar (here kurozato black sugar), mashed with a fork.
The dough is made of mochiko, and you can also use shiratamako, both are processed glutinous rice flour. You really need this ingredient, or an equivalent, and not ordinary rice floor. (read here about these rice flours)
Add enough lukewarm water to obtain a sort of playdo.

Then shape the balls and roll them in sesame seeds.

Then fry about 5~8 minutes in oil at about 160 degrees Celsius.

Freshly made. They have to be served hot.
They are not as perfectly round as those you buy, but you’d solve that as doing like they do at the stalls : taking them out of the freezer into the oil. They hold their shape… I don’t think that’s necessary.

So you have a crispy thin crust around, soft white dough and creamy filling.

Enjoy with jasmine tea.

Simple nori okaki. Make your own Japanese rice crackers.

They are called okaki or sembei, and there are other names. Japanese rice crackers have been widely exported and they now have fans all over the world. It’s possible to make yours.

DRY MOCHI

You need dried mochi for this recipe. I guess it’s not so easy to find outside Japan If you can’t get them, just mochi rice blocks like this :

all about mochi

You can probably find some in most Asian stores.

Cut thin slices of mochi and let them dry in a room not too hot (it’s easy to find when you don’t heat your place in this season…). If you don’t see the difference :

Some are broken, they really look dryer. That took 3 days. That depends on weather. There are people that hang them outside, like these :

noshi mochi(click here)

The advantage is the dried mochi can be kept a long time, they don’t get molds on them. Then when you want to eat them, you can grill or fry them.

OKAKI or SEMBEI (rice crackers) :

Click here for grilled okaki

Frying them is an easy, quick and tasty method :

The oil was quite hot (180 degrees Celcius). After one minute, they change of color. Turn them. That takes 2 minutes.

On paper to absorb the excess of oil. That’s all !

Casual presentation : I’ve cut ribbons of nori seaweed and sprinkled salt. But you can stick the nori on the crackers. Another day, we’ll do that. Store them in a metal box. Unless you want to eat them…

You will see what I did with the cubes soon…

Crack… crack… crack…