Royal court tokpokki

Gungjung tteokbokki (궁중 떡볶이) were the tokpokki prepared for the Korean royal courts. They were served long before hot chili reached Korean peninsula, so they are much less spicy than the street stall version.

This is a simple interpretation of the dish using soy sauce and sesame oil as main flavoring and what I had in my pantry.

Nira (garlic chives), carrot, onion and soaked dried shiitake mushrooms.

The tokk (rice cakes) need 8 to 10 minutes boiling, then refreshing under fresh water. Then stir-frying and wetting the sauce with the mushroom soaking water. I only added black pepper.

Decorated with a little yuzu peel.
The balance of flavors is perfect. I think the mushrooms bring a lot, so don’t skip them or replace them with something strong in flavor. Beef is a possibility.

The same yuzu was used to flavor a few blanched green beans. I also added a little fragrant sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds.

Kimchi from this pot (read here) :

Salad. So a dish and 3 sides, I have a lunch !

Japanese tea, moffle and tsubuan

3 p.m. Tea time in Japan. On a dark afternoon.

The season of moffles is starting…

I’ve bought kiri mochi.

And made the moffles.

Fork mashed azuki beans and kurozato black sugar (melted in syrup) to make tsubuan anko , the chunky bean paste.

To spread on the moffles. And enjoy with a cup of genmaicha green tea with roast rice.

The ozone layer of the New Year…

This is a bowl of O-zoni.
First soupe du jour, well soupe de l’an of the year. First lame pun of the year. Yes, Miss 49th, you were right to expect it.

Ozoni is a New-Year soup that is eaten…. half of the year in Kansai. Clearly, when you empty your fridge in a pot of broth, you get one. No, no, I don’t want to break the romantic image. Today’s zoni is the first of 2012. This year’s first time. The maiden soup.

The recipe of ozoni is totally defined by the name. BTW, this year. you are all reading nihongo.
So お雑煮 means literally “da n’importe quoi stew“. And n’importe quoi can be anything. Like here :

Japan having 30 millions of families, I have in my data base 30 millions version the true and unique zoni recipe. Plus one per year, for myself.

The soup is either water or broth (usually fish, many variations) :
-salt
-shoyu soy sauce (many types)
-miso (many types)
-azuki beans
-natto (fermented beans)

Gourmande’s 2012 zoni : duck broth and standard beige miso. I’m not the only crazy ozonist. You can read about curry soup ones on the big internet…

Then, you can put meat, seafood, fish, kamaboko fish cakes, meat bowls… I had tofu.

And veggies. These blue things are kuwai (arrow-heads, read more here), I peeled them. Flower yaki fu (gluten croutons). A ring of negi leeks. Bits of rind of a yuzu for the citrus fragrance.
Carrot.
Also threw in chrysanthemums, wasabi leaves, small green asparagus.

And MOCHI. Unless, you are really poor and no rice is produced in your mountain village, so you use a taro instead. That’s unlikely in 2012.