Summer inari-zushi

Inari is the type of sushi contained in a sweetly soaked pouch of fried tofu. The pronunciation is Zushi in this word, inarizushi.
With season produce, they make a pleasant plant-based lunch.

I told you that so far the rainy season was a dry one, but that’s changing as we are reaching the end : It rains seriously !

I bought this. 油揚げ, abura age. They are slices of tofu, deep-fried.

Cut and they become little bags to contain your sushi.

My rice is a mix of mochigome (sticky rice) and genmai (brown rice) . Flavored with kurosu (black rice vinegar), very little salt and grated carrot.

I rinsed the abura age pouches with hot water to eliminate the excess of oil, then simmered them in a little sweet broth (shoyu soy sauce, kurozato black sugar, chili pepper and laurel). I don’t want mine too sweet.
Toppings : edamame fresh soy beans, fresh sweet corn, sweet green chili, carrot.

Served with kaiware daikon sprouts.

Buri teriyaki, lacquered fish

Buri (yellowtail, Japanese amberjack) is a common fish here. I cooked it teriyaki , which means sunshine-cooked. The bottle sauce you may know is an homonym.

recipe of Japanese teriyaki

With baked kabocha pumpkin and radish sprouts.

Brown rice, with sansho peppercorns, the Japanese Sichuan pepper. It’s lemony taste is perfect with fish.

And a miso soup garnished with daikon radish, daikon greens and wakame seaweed. All that makes a light meal :
Cal 452 F18.7g C49.5g P26.9g

Soft and white inside. Delicious.

same recipe in daylight photos (click on text)

Pink sprouts and pink curry, with yaki tofu

A dish for Winter mood. I wanted to eat pink. And spicy. And crunchy. And vegan.

Winter’s garden is a sprout garden. They make some in pink too…

The pink curry is Thai red curry paste and lots of coconut cream that I simmer a few minutes with onion and garlic. The veggies are celery leaves, ninniku no me (garlic sprouts) and okra.

Yaki tofu , grilled tofu. It’s firm texture tofu, the surface was burned at the flame. That makes it more solid for hot pots. I still put a plate on it and waited 10 minutes to drain excess water before cutting it.

Added lemon juice and nam pla sauce (use soy sauce to make it vegan).

Serve on a bed of sprouts. I slightly steamed the bean sprouts (mungo beans). The pink stalk radish sprouts are called sakura kaiware. They are crunchy and have a very light flavor of radish.

Yummy and easy too digest. But it is fatter that it seems as the coconut milk and cream (from a can) are not light. Well we need that on cold days.

Cal : 489.5 F30.1g C27.0g P32.2g

Hamo no kabayaki, and magic sprouting season

Another dish of hamo, the long Summer eel. This time it’s prepared like unagi eel, grilled and lackered in a brown sauce. It’s called kabayaki.
It is said that kabayaki fish is a good dish for the hottest days of Summer, like now.

other dish with hamo (aburi)

The fish, prepared not by me…

Raw with first layer of sauce.
I am not sure it’s the traditional way. The addition of miso is not usual and the sake should be mixed to the sauce. And I add starch because I use less sugar. Well, it’smy “special kabayaki”.

For the sauce : I prepare a little caramel, add in soy sauce, mirin, water, bring to a boil, then cornstarch, then simmer a while, then hatcho miso.
Grilling : I paint the fish both sides with sauce. Grill softly in oven toaster. Paint with sake. Re-grill. A layer of sauce. Re-grill. A layer of sake.

Served hot with roughly ground sansho pepper.

Rice. With this weather, it germinates overnight.

Can you see the small germs ?
hatsuga genmai (healthy rice)

Soy bean sprouts (they need to be boiled, never eat raw soy). Goya bitter squash, salted.

The small leaves : kaiware daikon. Sprouted seeds of daikon radish.
They sprouted in 3 days (versus 10 in average). Crazy !

I recycle the boxes of herbs. I soaked the seeds 2 hours, then laid them on wet kitchen paper. Kept 2 days in a dark room till I got the whitish leaves.

After 1 more day near the window. It’s already ready to eat.

Triple sprout stir-fry

A good mood oyster sauce stir-fry with lots of fresh spouted grains.

This is my garden… : kaiware (sprouts of daikon radish) and behind broccoli sprouts.
I could tell you : “Sprouting your own grains makes you save so much money…” and that wouldn’t be true.

These are mungo bean sprouts that I bought. 200 g for 19 yen, and that’s not the cheapest deal I can get. For kaiware and alfalfa idem. Others are slightly less cheap.
In any case, the seeds cost me more. Well, my “gardening” is still cheap. That’s just not a bargain. I do it for the fun. I’ll try others for variety.
It’s nice to see plants growing, isn’t it ?