Saba no misoni (miso mackerel)

鯖の味噌煮 saba no misoni, mackerel simmered in miso.
Mackerel is a smelly fish, isn’t it ? Not in this recipe. The rich sauce perfectly show-cases this rich fish.

I first bring to boil 1/2 cup of sake with a few slices of ginger and a piece of chili pepper. On low hear, add the fish, cover. When the fish is done, add 1 tbs of miso, 1/2 tbs of brown sugar, simmer a little.

Serve with fresh ginger on top.

Renkon, lotus root. It’s a common vegetable in Asia. It is sold fresh or pre-boiled. That’s very different.

It has to be well washed, peeled. Then you can cook like a carrot, in multiple ways.

I stir-fried it. I sprinkled on it sudachi lime juice, and cut skin of sudachi.

4 sides : steamed green peppers,
wakame konnyaku with fresh wasabi,
suimono (soup of shiitake mushroom,
hijiki seaweed and goji berries),
silky tofu.

A multi-dish quick lunch.

It’s hokke

A Japanese dish. Multiple dishes, but simple and ready in a few minutes.

Sashimi konnyaku. Slice seaweed flavored konnyaku, to be served chilled, like sashimi fish. Here with sweet chili sauce.

Genmai (brown rice) with sesame.

Hokke (arabesque greenling) that was salted. I simply grilled it under the broiler.
About hokke.

A water soup. As the rest was already very salty, there is just hot water, wakame seaweeds, carrot and nira (garlic chives).

4 sides : onion salad, mitsuba suimono…

That’s the second part of this meal. Here are the small plates that make the charm of the Japanese table and nicely balance the diet.

More about Japanese style meals and recipe list

Suimono is the soup-drink you find in any Japanese meal. A very simple Spring time version :
In a bowl, put thin carrot slices, stalks of mitsuba, shavings of dry fish (kezuribushi), a few drops of soy sauce, hot water.
You can replace the fish with a few seaweeds (dry wakame).

Garnish with a few leaves of aromatic :

Japanese onion. A country of rice is a country of onion as they are cultivated in the rice paddies to rest the soil. Let’s make a salad.

If you don’t want a pungent onion salad that gives you a breath able to kills flies, mosquitoes, wasps, hornets… well, cut them thin, add salt, mix well, let one hour and rinse well.

My fix of natto, with baby leaf mizuna.

Kabu tsukemono. Pickled Japanese turnip. I grated turnip, cut some leaves, added salt. That’s after 24 hours.

Ryori, a Japanese classic menu… (compilation by cooking techniques)

Quick list of Japanese “classics” to help you navigate on this site. That’s not complete at all. I tried to make it representative. I often make them with a twist, but I tell you in the post.

Short memo about the Japanese meal

-all dishes are brought at the same time, ideally served in individual dishes, one plate per item.
-there is rice + soup + three items. Or more.

The items, called okazu tend to be side-dish sized. On the menu in restaurants, traditional style was to present the okazu by cooking technique.

ONE :

GOHAN, rice
rice cuisine list ***** sushi list

and ONE :

吸い物,SUIMONO
A soup to drink !

DASHI (basic stock tutorial)
vegan dashi tuto
misoshiru (miso soup, in many posts)
shijimi miso soup
clear soup
O-zoni New Year soup
sake kasu Winter white soup

And THREE, FOUR, FIVE… many :

OKAZU LIST

お造り o-tsukuri
Normally, that’s a term for seafood sashimi, raw seafood. I don’t *cook* it of course.

scallop sashimi
calamari sashimi noodles
hamo no aburi (flamed sashimi)
hiya yakko (chilled tofu cubes)
konnyaku faux-sashimi

和え物,aemono
Cold dish with sauce.

shira-ae veggies
goma-ae kogomi (sesame fiddle heads)
snappy beans and shrimps in kimizu-ae (yolk sauce)

蒸し物, mushimono
Steamed.
egg tofu
dobin mushi (steamed soup)
okowa kabocha (steamed pumpkin with rice)
steamed scallop

御浸し, o-hitashi
Blanched.
mustard green o-hitashi
green leaf maki
reishabu (poached meat)

揚げ物 agemono
Fried dishes.

tempura (tutorial)
kakiage (mixed tempura)
karaage fish
agedofu, fried tofu DIY
kaki-furai (fried oysters)

焼き物, yakimono
Grilled dishes.

shioyaki (salt grilled fish)
kabayaki conger eel
yakiniku, beef BBQ
yakitori (chicken skewers)
teriyaki chicken(the “real” thing, recipe)
teriyaki fish
miso yaki chicken
miso yaki fish
dengaku (skewers)

鉄板焼き,teppanyaki
Grilled on the hot plate.
Beef liver teppanyaki
okonomiyaki (compilation)
ika-yaki (calamari)

煮物, nimono
Simmered.

pumpkin kabocha no nitsuke
kakuni (pork)
beef shigure
buri daikon (fish and radish)

炒め物 itamemono
Stir-fried.

champuru (Okinawan scramble)
kinpira

漬物, tsukemono
pickles
wasabi leaf tsukemono
daikon radish leave tsukemono
dashi’t, Obanazawa pickle
pink lotus root tsukemono

酢の物, sunomono
Quick vinegar pickles. Salads with lots of vinegar.

potato sarada
daikon ume sarada
kabocha sarada

Combi-meal French-Japanese ~Part 2~ Suimono, kinome, wasabi and sake.

Now the Japanese part of the meal. Cold suimono soup with shiitake mushrooms and yakko tofu. Natto with wasabi and half-boiled egg. And kinome leaves.

Suimono means “water thing”. It’s a light flavor watery soup, that comes aside a Japanese dish. A soup, a drink, both. I simply boiled the asparagus, then the mushrooms in that water. Added soy sauce. Refreshed with ice-cubes. Added mushrooms, cold tofu and kinome.
(more about kinome soon)

Rice, natto mixed with grated wasabi (from a tube), leaves of kinome, the yolk of an half-cooked egg. Topped by the egg white.

About wasabi. Did you know that the tube of green paste you buy in grocery store are mostly made of horseradish (colored in green) and rarely contain any wasabi ? Certain persons prefer horse radish (in Lorraine, most people I guess).
For others, in Japan, certain brands are a mix of horseradish and wasabi. I can still “taste” the horse turnip in it. A few contain mostly wasabi. Some refrigerated versions, 95% wasabi…
If you want the real thing, buy a root and grate it. But you can’t store it long. Frozen, it loses taste. So I still have a tube for when I don’t buy it fresh.

A tip : wasabi or horseradish are great to take away the bad smell in your fridge. My fridge has a high tech de-skunking device, but too much kimchi or fish can beat the technology. So a serving of wasabi…

(the whole meal with asparagus)
Cal 624.5 F23.0g C73.3g P30.5g

I received an omiyage (souvenir present) from Ishikawa. A fruity sake, to serve very cool. That was good with it. Even if I drunk a homeopathic amount (alcohol + me is not a good pair).