Oden

With the winter coming (although we still have some nice warm days in autumn) it will be time to make some delicious Japanese winter dishes. Oden is a typical Japanese one-pot winter dish, in which all ingredients are slowly simmered in the soup. Preparation-time is very fast, but the dish will also require at least 30 minutes (more likely 40) waiting time.

Ingredients (2p):

• 1/3 daikon, peeled and cut into 3/4 inch pieces
• 2 boiled eggs, peeled
• 1 atsuage (deep fried tofu), cut into large slices
• 2 or 3 ganmodoki (fried tofu fritters), cut into halves
• 5 chikuwa (tube-like fish paste cakes), cut into pieces 
• hanpen (surimi fish cake), cut into triangles

for the soup:

• 700 ml water
• 2 tsp dashi powder
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 4 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar

Feel free to change the ingredients; add some potatoes (peeled) and konnyaku, substitute for other tofu or fish paste cakes.

View our how-to-make movie...

..or use the written instructions and photo's:

Top: Daikon & Boiled eggs
Middle: Atsuage & Chikuwa
Bottom: Hanpen & Ganmodoki

First step is the preparation: boil the eggs (around 5 minutes) and peel them. Cut all other ingredients as listed above.

Then, take a big fry pan and mix the ingredients for the soup together. Place the rest of the ingredients in the soup (do it the Japanese way and group the ingredients together). Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and put on the lid, then let it simmer for about 30-40 minutes. (the daikon should have become soft) Make sure you do not run out of soup, else add some extra dashi-water and soy sauce.

Ingredients arranged in the soup

Finished simmering

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.

Apple-cinnamon cake from the rice cooker

One again we would like to share one of our easy rice cooker cake recipes. This time it will be an apple-cinnamon cake!

Ingredients (makes a cake with approximately 19cm diameter, and 3 cm height):

• 125 gr flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 50 ml oil
• 100 ml milk
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 apples
• cinnamon

Peel the apples, remove the core, and cut them to small pieces. Cover the pieces in cinnamon.

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. Add some extra cinnamon to the batter for some more cinnamon-taste to your cake! Also add the apple pieces to the batter, and make sure they are evenly divided.

Put the batter in the rice cooker, put it on cake-setting and let it bake for 30 minutes. (or what your own rice cooker requires) 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.

Kitsune Udon

Kitsune Udon literary means "Fox Udon". According to old folk-tales, the favourite food of foxes (kitsune) is 'aburaage': fried tofu, which is the topping of this recipe!




Many area's in Japan are famous for their servings of Kitsune Udon. For example, the area around Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto. Fushimi Inari is dedicated to Inari, the shinto god of rice and business. His messengers are foxes (kitsune) of which there are many statues all over the mountain. Most of the foxes are depicted with a granary key in their mouth, a symbolic key to success and prosperity. Though their boss is the god of rice, the foxes are more into tofu. We visited Fushimi Inari Shrine last June, and off course we tried some Kitsune Udon!

Fox next to the torii gates by Fushimi Inari

Because we really liked the kitsune udon, we wanted to make it ourselves too!

Ingredients (2p):

For the udon-soup:

•  2 packs of Udon (are normally sold in packs of 3)
• circa 700 ml water
• dashi powder (out brand required 2,5 tbsp of dashi powder for 700 ml water to make udon soup, but check the box to see the amount needed)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp mirin
• 2 tbsp sugar

 For the topping:

• Aburaage*
• Naruto-maki (fish cake, in long round shape), cut into thin slices

* You can (apparently) make the Aburaage yourselves. However, we have never tried that and just go for the easy way: store-bought Aburaage. You can just buy the same tofu as is used for inari-sushi.

How to make video...

.. or the instructions:

Mix the dashi-powder with 700 ml water. While bringing up the heat, add the soy sauce, mirin and sugar.
When it gets to simmer, add the udon noodles and let it cook for about 3-4 minutes.

In the meanwhile, get the aburaage out of the packing, and cut the naruto-maki into slices.

Slices of Naruto-maki

Divide the noodles and soup in two bowls, and top with the aburaage and naruto. Enjoy!

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

Matcha cake from the rice cooker

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.

Finished matcha cake

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