Chicken Katsu

One of the most famous Japanese chicken recipes, is Chicken Katsu. Not surprisingly, you can order it many small restaurants and it is often put into bento boxes. During our last vacation to Shibu Onsen we ordered some chicken katsu at a small (little run-down) restaurant owned by an very friendly old man. Because the restaurant had a half-open kitchen we were able to see some of the cooking. And when he brought us our meals (really big), and we tasted it, it was really good! Definitely one of the best Chicken Katsu we had ever eaten. So, because we wanted to eat it again (and Nagano is a bit far for Tokyo) we decided to try and make it ourselves.

Ingredients (2p):

• 300 gr chicken breasts*
• pepper and salt
• 1 egg (beaten)
• bread crumbs
• frying oil

* you can also use pork or beef, then you will get respectively tonkatsu or beefkatsu, also very nice!


Preparation
First you need to pound the chicken breast until they are approximately 1 a 1,5 cm thick.

Then, you need to prepare to egg and bread crumbs. Beat the egg, and place it in a shallow bowl. In another shallow bowl, place a handful of bread crumbs

beaten egg

bread crumbs

 Season the chicken on both sides with salt and pepper to taste, dip it briefly in the beaten egg , and press it in the bread crumbs so the chicken breast is covered (both sides) with crumbs. Repeat for the other chicken breasts.

Heat around 0,5 cm of oil in a fry-pan. Put the chicken in the fry-pan and let it cook in the hot oil until the outside has a nice brown colour. Turn the chicken halfway through the cooking.

Chicken Katsu with rice

Serve it as side dish, or serve it with rice (and lettuce) as Chicken Katsu-don. Tastes best when topped with tonkatsu sauce.

Sweet potato (Satsuma imo) rounds

Japanese sweet potatoes (satsuma imo) can be used in many recipes. Since we really like the taste of the potato, we have tried many of these recipes (and have uploaded already quite a few). Recently we tried another Satsuma imo recipe, which was a great success so we want to share it today.

The recipe is for making sweet potato baked rounds. (we are not sure how to name it.. maybe it can also be sweet potato cookies, or sweet potato cakes, anything will do!)

Ingredients (2p):

• 1 Satsumo imo
• sesame seeds
• oil for frying

First, peel the potatoes (this will make it much easier to purée them and shape them into rounds later on) and cut them into small pieces.

Next, we are going to steam the potatoes till they become soft. Bring a small amount of water to boil, and place your steamer with the potato on top. You will probably need to steam for around 20 (-30) minutes for the potatoes to become soft.
If you don't have anything to steam with, you should also be able to soften en potato if you put them for around 10 minutes in the microwave (but we have personally never tried it, so double check the time and stand needed)

Let it cool down a bit and mash the potatoes. You can use a masher, but otherwise we have found that a normal fork also works just fine.

For the next step we shape the mashed satsumo imo into flat rounds (around 1,5 cm thick), and we add sesame seeds on both sides.

Heat some frying oil in the pan and bake the potato rounds (on both sides) for a couple of minutes.
Serve as a side dish with some soy sauce (or mayonnaise for a the less-healthy variant). Goes great with almost all rice-based meals.

Soy fried Mushrooms

You can buy a great variety of mushrooms in Japan, and they can be used for a great variety of recipes. One of our favorite mushrooms is the shiitake-mushroom. However, the recipe we are preparing today can easily be made using any kind of mushroom you like.

Today's recipe is for a side dish of mushrooms, stir-fried in soy sauce. Very nice to add some onions and finish it with sprinkled sesame seeds on top.

Ingredients (2p):

• Your own favorite mushrooms for 2 persons
• Soy sauce (around 4 tbsp)
  
• Optional: extra flavoring, for example half onion and/or sesame seed

First, wash the mushroom and cut them in desired size pieces (really, any size you like is good for this recipe). Also cut the onion in small pieces.

Heat some oil in a fry pan and fry the onions for a couple minutes. Then, add the mushrooms and fry again for a couple of minutes.

Add the soy sauce in the pan. And let it simmer until the mushrooms turn into the brown soy sauce color. The liquid should have (almost) completely disappeared from the pan.

Serve on a plate, and add some sesame seeds on top. Very easy, tasteful and healthy side dish.

Daigaku-imo

Daigaku-imo is recipe made with Japanese sweet potatoes (satsuma-imo), that have been given a sweet caramelized taste. The name of the recipe literary means 'university potato'. Originally this was a recipe that was popular among university students, because it is a cheap, sweet recipe full of calories. And I have to agree, it is a great snack (or meal) to eat when you are studying all day for your next test.
It's pretty easy to make. Which student would want to spend a long time in the kitchen while you need that time to study anyway?



Ingredients (circa 2p):

• 1 Sweet potato (Satsuma-imo)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 50ml water

Originally, most recipes call for more sugar and less water. We prefer it this way: sweet, but not overly sweet; and easier to make since you don't have the risk of the sugar caramelizing too fast and getting hard before it is on the potatoes. 

Cut the potato into small, bite-size pieces. Heat some oil in a fry-pan and bake the potatoes till they are soft.

Mix the soy sauce, sugar and water together and heat in a small saucepan.
When it starts simmering, add the potato-pieces in the saucepan. The saucepan will now be really full, no problem, you just have to stir really well so that the sugar-mixture will attach to all potato-pieces.
When all of the sugar-mixture has been attached to the potato-pieces, you put off the heat, and serve the daigaku-imo. Put them on a plate and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

It tastes good warm, so perfect as a side dish. But it also tastes good cold, so make some extra and put the rest in your bento-box (for when you are studying at the library the next day ;)

Daigaku-imo

 

Simmered Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin)

Now that is has become autumn, and with Halloween getting near, we just had to make some pumpkin recipes! We still love our Kabocha  cookies recipe, but we also wanted to try some new recipes.
This time, we tried 'simmered kabocha'.

Ingredients (2p):

•  1/2 kabocha (Japanese pumpkin)
•  circa 180 ml water
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp soy sauce

Cut the kabocha into small cubes.

In a pan, mix together the water, soy, and sugar and bring to boil. When it boils, add the pumpkin pieces and turn down the heat. Now let the pumpkin simmer for about 15 minutes.

 Serve with rice for a light lunch, or eat as a side dish. This dish has a perfect taste for cold autumn days.

Seasoned boiled Okra

We see packages of Okra all around in Japanese supermarkets, and although it is not a Japanese vegetable, it can be used in many Japanese style cooking. For example, try adding it to a Japanese style curry! But this time we want to share a recipe of a Japanese side dish that uses Okra. It's ridiculously easy to prepare, so there is no reason not to try it. Seasoned boiled Okra can easily be adjusted to your own taste, and is a very nice side dish by any (rice) meal.




Ingredients (2p):

• 1 bag okra
• Soy sauce
• Bonito flakes (Katsuobushi)
• (optional) fresh grated ginger 

Japanese bag of Okra

First, boil the okra for a couple of minutes.

Boiling

Cut off the top and bottom, and throw those away. Cut the remaining of the okra into small pieces.

Add the bonito flakes (kutsuobushi) on top, add soy sauce and (if you like) the fresh grated ginger, and mix together.

And your side dish is already ready to serve, very easy and quick!

Nasu Dengaku

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!

Nasu Dengaku, broiled eggplant with miso

Gyoza part II - cooking

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!

Gyoza, ready to eat!

Gyoza part I - making your own

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:

Uri melon

Recently we came across a strange looking fruit (or was it a vegetable, we were not sure when we saw it) in our local supermarket. Looking at the sign, we learned that is was a 'uri' or うり in Japanese. Which still didn't bring us any further in knowing what kind of food it was. However, is was on sale and therefore very cheap, and the friendly lady of the supermarket ensured us that it tastes very good and was a very popular product today among customers. So, we decided to buy it.

Our uri

At home, we looked it up in our dictionary, and it turned out that it is a kind of melon. We therefore decided not to prepare it but just eat it raw as a side dish. We peeled the skin, and cut is into bite sizes pieces. You can either remove the seeds or eat them just as you would with a cucumber.

After we had tasted it, it turned out the taste and the texture is actually like a mix between a cucumber and a normal melon! Very surprising, but very delicious indeed. It makes for a very good and refreshing (especially in summer) side dish, so from now on, every time our supermarket is selling uri's we will buy them

Stir-fried goya with eggs

Now that the summer is getting warmer and warmer, it's time to try some seasonal recipes specially for hot days! This time we bought a goya (bitter melon), a vegetable that looks like a strange cucumber with bad skin, but tastes very different! It's has an extreme bitter taste, so beware when buying/tasting.

It's full of vitamins and therefore very healthy, and it is said that it helps your body withstand the heat of the summer. Most recipes with goya come from Okinawa, Japan's most southern region, so they should know what works best against the heat.

This time we tried making a simple variation of Chanpuru, a stir-fried dish from Okinawa that normally contains vegetables, tofu, and/or some meat. It is very often made with goya, which is therefore (not surprisingly) called 'goya chanpuru'. Because is has such a bitter taste, we prefer not to eat a whole meal of it, but rather prepare it as a side dish.



Ingredients (2p):

• 1/2 Goya
• clove of garlic
• 2 eggs

the outside of the goya

Cut the goya in half lengthwise, and remove the inside and seeds with a spoon. Then, slice the goya thinly.

Goya slices, with seeds removed

 Heat some oil in a fry-pan. Add the goya slices, and season with pressed garlic. Fry until the goya softens. Then, add two eggs to the mixture, and stir till the eggs are baked.

Stir-fried goya with egg

Serve, on a plate. If the taste is still to bitter, it can help to add (a little bit of) mayonnaise, because that will soften the taste. It also took us a while to get used to the taste, but once that happens it actually tastes quite good.
Now you are ready to survive the summer heat :)

Steamed eggplant with mayo-miso

Combining our Japanese study and our wish to try some new Japanese foods, we decided to study some Japanese cook books in the library! Ok, we will admit, sometimes the recipes were a little hard to follow/read, so we just use our own imagination and taste to complete the recipes and fill in the blanks :)

During this process of reading, and trying we have come to make some nice dishes of our own. This time we want to share a recipe that combines the joint love of the Dutch and Japanese for mayonnaise! While we Dutch are known for putting mayonnaise on everything, the Japanese also use it as topping on many recipes. (who would want to eat Okonomiyaki without mayonnaise??) This recipe is for steamed eggplant with a mayo-miso sauce! In the Japanese kitchen eggplant is combined with miso in a lot of recipes, but we liked this recipe for it's full, creamy taste the mayonnaise adds.


Ingredients (2p):

• 1 (big) eggplant
• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp (red) miso paste

 Cut the eggplant is slices of around 1 cm thick. And steam the slices for about 10 - 15 minutes. (In our previous recipe we described how you can steam easily with just simple kitchen tools: pan with lid and a colander)

In the meanwhile, mix the mayonnaise and the miso paste. You might want to taste a bit and adjust the ratio to your preferred taste. Too much mayo can make the taste too fatty, but too much miso will make it too salty.

Put the steamed eggplant slices on a plate and add the mayo-miso sauce mix on top. Very easy, but tastes great!

Steamed eggplant with mayonnaise and miso sauce

Pumpkin (kabocha) cookies

This time we want to share a recipe that can be enjoyed in many different ways! It's nice to eat as a snack, a great taste and healthy cookie. But we also enjoy it very much to eat as a side dish in our bento boxes. Easy to make a bunch of cookies and then take them with you on several days.



Ingredients:

• half Japanese pumpkin (we have never tried it with non-Japanese pumpkin, so we don't know if it will work just as good)
• flower
• topping: sesame seeds

Japanese pumpkin

Remove the seeds from the pumpkin (easily with a spoon), and cut them to small pieces. Let them cook for about 10 minutes.

Cut into pieces

Cooking

Put the cooked pumpkin pieces in a bowl and add the flower. You will need enough flower so that the flower mixed (smashed) together with the pumpkin will feel very soft and kneadable. We normally use around 7 (big) table spoons of flower to reach this. But you can just try and add more flower till you're satisfied with the result.

Cooked pumpkin

Result of mixing the cooked pumpkin pieces with flower

Then, make round flat shaped cookies from the pumpkin-flower mix. It will be much easier if you keep your hands wet, so it doesn't stick to your fingers to much. Add sesame seeds on top, and make sure stick to the cookie.

Put on over roster (maybe use a sheet of baking paper first!)

Put them in the oven, and bake them till they turn a little brown. In our oven, it takes approximately 10-15 minutes on 200 degrees C.

Baking the cookies

'How-to-make' video :)

 Let them cool down, and enjoy!