Chilled miso somen soup

A very simply lunch, for a busy hot day.

Boil a bundle of somen noodles. with 1/2 onion. Refresh in cold water. Put in a bowl cover with iced water.

In a second pan, make a dashi stock with kombu seaweed and dry shiitake mushroom. Add veggies (okra, bell pepper, edamame). When they’re cooked, mix in a tbs of miso and refresh with ice-cubes.

Combine the noodles and the soup. I’ve let the shiitake and I’ve cut a few ribbons from the piece of kombu seaweed.
Add toppings :

Ribbons of nori seaweed cut from a sheet. The color is slightly purple as that’s raw nori (often for sushi, it’s grilled). I’ve also added sesame, chili flakes and sticks of peel of kinosu lime (the yellow bits).

Ninja onigiri

I simply wrapped the nori (sheet of seaweed) around onigiri (rice balls) like the scarf of ninjas. That’s not really a recipe. I’ve just thrown a fresh Summer lunch with lots of refreshing produce.

Molokheya leaves stir-fried with miso. That gives a nice salty condiment, ideal for filling an onigiri.

Brown rice (genmai) + sticky rice (mochigome) and sesame. I filled the balls and wrapped in a sheet of nori seaweed.

Daikon radish, goya bitter squash and mashed favas to make a green salad (with salt, black pepper, minced green hot chili and rice vinegar).

A Summer kabocha pumpkin. I steamed a wedge. The mashed flesh is the base for the second salad :

Garnished with minced onion, diced white cucumber. With black pepper, rice vinegar and salt.

A refreshing soup : chilled green tea + molokheya leaves in the blender.

Suika (water melon) is the dessert.

The 2 salads.

Causa maki. Lima-Osaka fusion.

A Japanese-Peruvian fusion. Causa rellena the Peruvian, stuffed mashed potato, and makizushi the sushi rolled in nori seaweed.

causa

PLUS

sushi

And that rocks. Of course, since the success of the food chain Nobu, Peruvian-Japanese fusion cuisine is famous over the world. Except here actually. There are many Peruvian residents (mostly people with Japanese origins that got a visa to come over the 80’s), but few Peruvian eateries and these tend to propose purely Peruvian dishes they may be nostalgic about, not a mix. That makes sense.

Normally you need yellow potatoes. I colored some with turmeric, flavored with grated onion, habanero chili powder, salt and grated onion. Let that chill a few hours.

Red onion : cut, salted, let a while, rinsed.

Then carrot, negi leek greens and avocado.

Rolled on a sheet of nori. That would need more support than a rice roll, so I’ll use 2 layers of nori next time but that was the last one.
Cut. I’ve eaten them like that, with nothing added, they were very tasty.

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.

Salade de crudités updated : veggie nori-maki

Once upon a time, we’d serve the crudités on a large plate, even with the sauce mixed in with each type of vegetable. For guests, Granny would display them on huge (imitation) silver trays.