Nasu Dengaku (or Eggplant broiled with miso) is one of the many Japanese recipes that combines both eggplant and miso paste. The two tastes go very well together, and make for a very delicious combinations. We have already posted some recipes that featured eggplant and/or miso-paste, and this time we will focus on Nasu Dengaku. It is a delicious, and also makes for a very nice looking side-dish.
Ingredients (2p):
2 tbsp miso paste
1 tbsp soya
1 tbsp suiker
3 tbsp mirin
2 eggplants
View the 'how to make'-video...
... or read the instructions with the photo's:
Cut the eggplants in halves lengthwise, and put them in the broiler (or oven) until soft. In our broiler it took approximately 5 minutes on 200 degrees.
Cut eggplant
Eggplant in the broiler
While the eggplant is in the broiler, mix the miso paste, soya sauce, mirin and sugar together. It will become a smooth, brownish mixture.
Miso mixture
When the eggplant has become soft, get them out of the broiler. Put miso-sauce-mix on the insides of the eggplants, and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Eggplant with miso-sauce and sesam seeds, ready to get back in the broiler
Put back into the broiler until the miso-sauce starts bubbling and the sesame seeds turn brown (should be around the same time). Serve as a side dish (preferably by a rice dish), and enjoy!
A new recipe in our very populair 'rice cooker cake'-recipe series: Japanese matcha cake. Matcha, fine powder green tea, doesn't only make for delicious tea but can also be used to make all kinds of sweets (matcha-taste chocolate is also one of our favourites) and desserts. And this time, we we share a recipe to make your own matcha cake!
Delicious pieces of matcha cake
Ingredients (makes a cake with approximately 19cm diameter, and 3 cm height):
125 gr flour
2 eggs
4 tbsp sugar
50 ml (coleseed) oil
100 ml milk
1 tsp baking powder
1,5 tbsp of matcha powder
The rest of the baking process is pretty much the same as all our cake recipes: mix all the ingredients together until the batter is smooth.
A tip for adding the matcha: add it little by little as the last step, so you can taste and adjust the amount of matcha powder if you think the taste is too strong (or too weak).
The cake batter mixed with matcha powder
Put the batter in the rice cooker, put it on cake-setting and let is bake for 30 minutes. After the rice cooker has finished, wait until the pan and the cake has
cooled down. Then you can turn over the pan and with a little shake the
cake will come out perfectly.
In part I of the gyoza update, we shared how to make your own gyoza. Now, in part II, we will share the best way to prepare gyoza
(home-made or store-bought), so you can enjoy them to the fullest.
Ingredients:
Gyoza
oil for frying
Raw gyoza
Heat some oil in a fry-pan, and add the gyoza. Fry them until the bottom turns brown(ish).
Add gyoza in the fry-pan
Then add some water, so there will be a low layer of water in the water
(around 1/3 of the height of the gyoza), and lower the heat till medium.
Add a lid on the fry-pan, and let the gyoza simmer until all the water
has evaporated.
Add some water, and let the gyoza simmer with lid on the fry-pan
When all the water has evaporated, remove the gyoza from the pan, and serve with some soy sauce dip. Enjoy!
We love eating gyoza, but -we will admit- up until now we would just buy ready made packages in the supermarket so we only needed spend a little time preparing them. But, since we like gyoza so much, we figured we should also try making them completely ourselves. And it was a big success! They tasted sooo much better than the store-bought ones, we even got to love eating gyoza even more :)
Home made gyoza
So, this time we want to share our favourite recipe for gyoza. And also, in part II of this update, we will share the best way to prepare gyoza (home-made or store-bought), so you can enjoy them to the fullest.
Ingredients (makes 30 gyoza):
200 gr ground pork
1/4 cabbage
2 tbsp soy sauce
clove of garlic
grated fresh ginger
pinch of salt
30 gyoza wrappers
(Optional) equipment:
Gyoza mold (used to fold the gyoza)
Our gyoza mold
We sometimes end up having to much filling to put in all in the gyoza. But, not to worry, it makes also for delicious meat balls you can enjoy the day after. On another note, you can make gyoza without the gyoza mold, just use your hands the fold the gyoza together en push to let it stick. Maybe it will not look perfectly, but it's the taste that counts of course!
Cut the cabbage in small pieces, boil for a couple of minutes, and make sure all excess water is removed.
boiling the cabbage
Then, in a bowl, mix the ground pork together with the garlic, ginger,
salt, soya sauce. At last add the cabbage to the mixture and mix.
gyoza filling all mixed together
Take the gyoza mold, and put a gyoza wrapper on top. Place a spoonful of filling in the wrapper, and close to mold to seal the gyoza.
spoonful of filling...
...put into the wrapper...
...and closed to seal the gyoza
Repeat this process 30 times, for 30 delicious gyoza
all 30 gyoza filled
For more clarification see our instructional-video:
