Frozen Matcha Yoghurt

This is a great Japanese dessert, delicious for warm summer evenings. It's easy to prepare, but will need some time in de freezer, so plan ahead and start in the afternoon if you want to make it for dessert.

Ingredients (2p):

• 250 ml yoghurt
• 1,5 tbsp matcha powder
• 5 tbsp sugar

You can adjust the amount of matcha to your liking, and add a little more or less depending on how strong you want the matcha taste to be.

Preparation:

Add the 250 ml yoghurt and 1,5 tbsp of matcha powder in a bowl and mix together. Add the 5 tbsp sugar, and make sure everything is mixed together, using a hand-held whisker or mixer. When it is mixed, cover it with plastic, and put it in the freezer for approximately 3 hours.

The yoghurt mixed with matcha powder and sugar

After those three hours, remove it from the freezer, and whisk it together till it is creamy. Then, cover it up again and put it in the freeze for another hour.

After one hour, remove the frozen yoghurt from the freezer, and serve in two cups. Enjoy!

We filmed the preparation-process to make it even easier to prepare:

 

The frozen matcha yoghurt, ready to be served as dessert

Omelet Rice (Omurice)

 
A recipe that is very popular with kids (and with us!) is omurice (オムライス) or Omelet Rice. We usually eat it for lunch but since it's quite a filling meal you can also prepare it for dinner. Like the name suggests, this recipe is a fusion between an omelet and rice. The distinctive presentation style makes it an icon of Japanese cooking, and it looks pretty cool too! It takes about 15-20 minutes in the kitchen and you only need a little skill to make it look really good. So where do we start?

Ingredients (2p):

• Any mix of vegetables you like, this time we used:
• 1 small broccoli
• 4 big mushrooms (shiitake)
• carrot
• white rice for 2 persons (normally; 1 cup of rice makes 2 servings) 
• ketchup  
• For the omelets:
• 1 tbsp soy sauce 
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 4 eggs

Omelet Rice can be made with al kind of ingredients and you can experiment with different vegetables. It is very good meal to use some left-over vegetables from you refrigerator! We like to eat this meal vegetarian, but you can easily change that and add chicken to ingredients. Feel free to do whatever you like but keep in mind that all has to fit in your egg roll in the end :).

Preparation:

Prepare the white rice in your cooker or pan. The rice will be fried afterwards so make sure it's not too sticky or wet. Cut your vegetables and boil the broccoli and carrots for +/- 5 minutes (or other vegetables you use that need boiling to prepare).

2/3 of the carrot was already boiling, but this should give you an idea of how much ingredients you need

When the broccoli and carrots are almost done, heat some oil in the frying pan and fry the mushrooms. (Here you can substitute for other vegetables or chicken) Pour off your boiled vegetables and add them to the mushrooms. Stir fry for 2-3 minutes then put it on low heat while you prepare the omelet.


Put 4 eggs in a cup and add 2 tblsp mirin, 1 tblsp soy sauce and 1 tbsp of sugar. Be careful not to add more because your omelet might become to thin. The mirin gives the omelet a nice even light yellow color, while soy sauce adds a little salty taste and the sugar makes it a little sweet. Stir and divide into two portions

Of course, if you find this too much of a hassle you can leave the mirin, soy sauce and sugar out, and just make a normal omelet. However, we do think the taste of the original omelet does give this recipe that little extra to enjoy!

The omelet with soy sauce and mirin

 Now it's time to add the rice and ketchup to the vegetables and mix together, stir fry for 2-3 minutes.

Add ketchup to your own taste

Presentation

Step 1: To present the omurice in the typical Japanese way, put the edge of the omelet in the middle of the plate.

Edge of the omelet is in the middle of the plate

  
Step 2: fold the omelet and put some more ketchup on top.

Step 3: enjoy!

Mushroom Rice (Kinoko Gohan)

The first recipe we want to share with you, is Japanese mushroom rice (Kinoko gohan). We just tried this recipe ourselves last weekend and loved it! It is very easy to make, takes a little preparation time and after that you just wait till you can enjoy a nice meal.

Ingredients (2p):

• mushrooms (300 gr)
• 6 tbsp soja
• 4 tbsp mirin
• white rice for 2 persons (1 cup of rice, makes 2 cups of rice serving)
• dashistock (we use instant-dashi powder)

You can use any variation of mushrooms for this recipe. This time we used Bunashimeji and Shiitake, but the recipe tastes very good with different kinds of mushrooms too.

The Bunashimeji (right) and Shiitake (left) used in the Mushroom Rice

Preparation

Cut the mushrooms into smalls pieces and put them in a big bowl. Add the soja (6 tbsp) and mirin (4 tbsp) to the mushrooms and firmly mix together.

The result of the mixed mushrooms with soja and mirin

In the meanwhile, wash the rice as normal. Take the amount of water you will need to cook your rice (This will depend on the rice you are using. Typically, this will be in the ratio 1 cup of rice: 2 cups of water) and mix this with the dashi-powder. We used a small tbsp amount of dashi-powder to get the desired light-brown coloured water.

Put the rice and the dashistock (the result of water mixed with the dashipowder) in the rice cooker. Add the mushroom evenly on top of the rice, and cook the rice as usual. The nice smell of mushrooms will soon fill your kitchen while you're waiting for your meal to finish cooking.

The mushrooms added on top on the rice in the rice cooker

When finished, mix the rice and the mushrooms together and divide on plates. Optionally, it tastes very good seasoned with sesame seeds.

 

The finished Mushroom Rice, enjoy!

It tasted very good, and makes for a great lunch or light dinner. It's also very easy to put in a bento (lunch) box, to take with you and enjoy some place else.