Eatyet’s Weblog

I was inspired by Japanese ‘big rolls’, which are usually large (1 + 1/2 sheets of nori to wrap around) with an omelet center and other stuffing. This is a smaller, quicker, lazier version with all the fillings cooked together as one. Making nori rolls gets easier with practice and bamboo rolling mats. Also remember to use plastic wrap on the bamboo mat to help keep it clean.

Nori Egg Roll (3 rolls)

• 2 cups cooked sushi rice (1 cup raw)
• 3 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar (if unseasoned, add 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt)
• 3 sheets of nori
• 3 eggs
• oil for pan
• 1 1/2 cup raw baby spinach
• 4 shitake mushrooms
• 2 tsp mirin
• 3/4 tsp salt
• sesame seeds (optional)

1. Mix rice vinegar into warm (cooked) rice, set aside. Beat the eggs with half the salt in a bowl, set aside.
2. Cut mushrooms into thin strips and roughly chop up the spinach if the leaves are large.
3. Heat up a small pan (cast iron or nonstick 6-8in) medium high, add oil (2 tsp), then mushrooms, spinach, mirin and salt; cook until spinach is wilted.
4. Pour spinach mixture into bowl of beaten eggs and mix to combine.
5. Heat pan up again medium high, add more oil to coat pan. Pour eggs into pan, spread out the spinach and mushrooms.
6. When edges set after a minute or so, fold 2 opposite sides towards the center, ending with something rectangular in shape.
7. Turn heat low and finish cooking till it’s no longer runny in the center. You can try to flip it over or just put a lid on it for a minute or so. Cut egg into 3 equal long strips.
8. Spread 1/3 of the rice on 3/4 of the nori sheet.
9. Put a strip of egg on the part of the sheet with no rice.
10. Roll it up starting from the egg end, using the bamboo mat to roll and press.
11. Cut roll up into 6 or 8 pieces, and sprinkle on sesame seeds.

-L

Right now, I fear I will catch what the hubby has (fever, aches, and coughs). He never gets this sick usually. I’m keeping him hydrated, and made rice porridge (not the one pictured, that was from weeks ago). By the time he’s better, my immune system will probably give in. And this will be his instructions. I don’t expect him to be able to make anything more than just the rice porridge part.

Rice porridge

• Dashi:
• 2 quarts water
• 5×8inch piece of kombu
• 1/2 cup bonito flakes

• 1 1/2 cup white rice (long or short grain)

 small cooked piece of kombu, used bonito tea bag, pack of tea bags

Put water, kombu and bonito flakes (in tea bag/dashi bag/or tied up cheese cloth) in pot. Cover, bring to a boil on medium, let simmer for a minute or two, then turn off heat, and remove the kombu and bonito package. Kombu will expand when cooked. For a vegan dashi; use kombu and one dried shitake mushroom. Or simply make it with only water.

Rinse rice with cold water and add to dashi. If using a regular pot on stovetop, bring to boil and let simmer on low for 90mins to 2hrs. When using a rice cooker you can just put it in and let it run on porridge mode, but make sure you know what the maximum capacity for porridge is. If using a pressure cooker (making sure you are well with in the max fill line) secure the lid, and bring to a boil, locking in the lid. On medium low, let it cook for 20-25mins. After turning off the heat and letting the pressure dissipate, take the lid off, stir (add more water if it seems to be too thick) and simmer for another 5-10mins.

Kombu enoki relish

• Kombu leftover from dashi
• 1 large package of enoki (about 1 3/4 cup worth when chopped)
• 3/4 cup water
• 3-4 tbsp of soy sauce
• 2 tbsp of mirin
• dash of sansho pepper

Cut kombu into small 1/2 -3/4 inch pieces. Cut enoki into 3/4 -1 inch long segments. Combine kombu, enoki with water, soy, mirin in small pot and bring to a boil, simmer on medium till the liquid is mostly gone and you are left with a syrupy sauce. Sprinkle on sansho pepper at the end.

Nori sauce

• 4 sheets of nori, torn into small pieces
• 2 shitake mushrooms sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 1/4 water
• 2 tbsp of soy sauce
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tsp sake (optional)
• 1 tsp sesame seeds

Combine nori, mushrooms, soy, mirin, sake, and water in small pot and bring to a boil, simmer on medium till the liquid is mostly gone and you are left with a syrupy sauce. Sprinkle on sesame seeds at the end.

Spinach with sesame

• 2 cups baby spinach
• 1 clove garlic chopped
• 2 tsp oil (olive or canola)
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp sesame seeds
• 1/4 tsp salt

Heat skillet on medium high, add oil, garlic and sesame seeds, then add in the spinach. Stir and cook till spinach just wilts, turn off heat, add in salt and sesame oil, toss and mix well.

Addition sides

• ume (umeboshi)
• fish (hot smoked mackerel or salmon, fish cake)
• egg (hard/soft boiled)
• edamame

Wish spring was here already.

A stovetop fish grill (or roaster) is pretty cheap, you can get them for $10- $20 (possibly less) at Japanese or Korean markets. I use it often for mackerel fillets and it’s also good for grilling small veggies. It’s important you have good vents or be able to open up some windows; depending on what you are cooking it can get smoky (like with very oily fish).

Here I used some small sardines. The quickest way to prep them is to cut off the heads (optional, head on or off is up to you) and slit them down the middle, removing all the innards. Under running water you should be able to remove all the scales with your fingers alone. Over medium high heat it should cook about 3-4mins each side (maybe longer depending on size). It’s good to go with just some salt, pepper and lemon juice. It would go great with rice and miso soup with the addition of some scallions, (microplane grated) radish and ginger.

I’m still in the middle of working this week so I’m not writing out recipes. I found an unopened bag of herbal barley tea (from Japan) that my friend Tamaki gave me a long while back. It’s a mix of grains (seeds?) and herbs (grasses), some I’ve seen in Chinese herbal teas. It has a nice mild flavor and was good for keeping your sinuses clear during high pollen season. Unfortunately the bag had expired, I tasted to make sure. The bag list the company’s email and that led me to the Japanese site. I googled ‘murataen’ and found one English site that sell ‘Ban Noh Cha by Murataen; Japanese Herbal Mix’ but the ordering has to be done thru email or calling, I don’t like non-online ordering. Other Japanese barley teas I’ve tried never taste the same, and Chinese herbal teas have a similar flavor but also not the same.

I saw these at Jasmart yesterday and had to try them. The matcha one was really strong and rich, tasted exactly like matcha with a slight bitter finish. The strawberry was great and had a very natural strawberry flavor. The photos don’t really capture the deep colors; the green should be more of a deep olive and the pink darker.

I also picked up some chestnut and marbled Pocky.

My favorite squashes are Kabocha, a Japanese squash (with a thin skin that I can easily cut thru and leave on) and Butternut squash (if it’s the pre-peeled/pre-cut packaged kind). And my favorite way to cook squash is to roast them in the oven till they get crisp and caramelized.

Cumin Roasted Squash with Orange and Thyme

• 1/2 Kabocha squash or 1.5lb of Butternut squash
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp of coarse sea salt or kosher salt
• 1 tsp of whole cumin seeds or ½ tsp of ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp coarse fresh ground pepper
• 1 orange, juiced and zest
• 1 tbsp of fresh thyme or 1 1/2 tsp of dried thyme

Preheat oven to 425°.
Cut squash into one and a half inch pieces.
Pour oil into a large cast iron pan or roasting pan.
Add in squash and mix in pan till they are coated in oil.
Then sprinkle on salt and spices, mix thoroughly.
Place in oven for about 20-25mins, turn them every 10min with tongs or flip them with spatula.
Zest the orange, and then juice it.
Mix zest and thyme in the orange juice.
Put the hot squash and juice into serving bowl, stir to incorporate.

You can skip the orange juice as a dressing altogether. The roasted squash on its own is already perfect, a sweet interior with a savory crisp exterior.

  -L

Azuma is located in the heart of the Rice Village area ( 5600 Kirby Dr, Ste 5, Houston, TX 77005), right off Kirby. The decor is modern, with a hint of traditional Japanese flair. The wait staff, hostesses, and even the managers have been friendly and very helpful the past few times I’ve been. Azuma also has a nice wine & sake list, which I have yet to sample. I’ve been here 3 times in the past two weeks. I’m really loving this place.

Sushi. I’ve tried several times, and I must tell you, as much as I’ve tried to eat sushi, I can’t. Sushi and I just aren’t meant to be. So, I try everything else and this time around I tried their shrimp tempura, which is served with miso soup & rice. Their miso soup is delicious and I love the tenderness of the jumbo battered shrimp. They also have a variety of beef, seafood, pork, and chicken dishes. Another dish that you must absolutely try is the Azuma hot rock beef. You can choose from their standard beef or their kobe beef. Basically it’s about 6 oz. of beautifully sliced beef which comes with this extremely hot (so hot it’s red) rock that you in turn cook the beef on. They offer a side of their mango ginger sauce and their terriyaki sauce for dipping the meat in. It was inventive and the rock stayed hot until I cooked all my beef.

P.S. My friends who’ve had the sushi thought it was really good, so I’ll just have to take their word for it. And, when they say spicy tuna roll, they really mean spicy tuna.

Azuma also serves robata dishes. These are different meats, seafood, pork, chicken grilled on a hot plate. Now, the grilling is mainly done in the back and what comes out are these cute and tasty grilled appetizers. I’ve had a few of the items already and I would highly suggest the Japanese short ribs. Oh they’re my favorite. Also, my friend enjoyed the lightness & taste of the grilled calamari (pictured above).

I’m a little upset that I couldn’t get a better photo of Azuma’s friend banana tempura w/ice cream. It was good, but you can’t really go wrong with banana tempura, and ice cream makes everything taste better. I would have to say that the dessert menu could have more items on it, but what they do have, and I don’t have a photo of, is MOCHI ICE CREAM. For those who’ve never had mochi before, it’s a Japanese sticky rice dough with an ice cream filling (mochi wiki). At Azuma, they serve you with green tea, red bean, mango, and vanilla mochi. The green tea is my favorite. It’s light and cute and full of yum.

–Chelle

After the Green Tea Pound Cake, I wanted to bake something else with the green tea powder and it couldn’t be cake, and bread would require hours of rising. So I went with cookies, I was trying to make a shortbread type cookie but it spread out and is a bit on the crunchy side.

Green Tea Cookies

Preheat oven to 325°. Cream together shortening, sugar, salt, green tea and 1 tbsp of water, when incorporated, gently mix in the cornstarch and flour (it will fly everywhere if you turn on the mixer suddenly). It should look like wet sand when mixed. Try pressing the dough together in the bowl. And then grab a small handful and try to form it into a small ball, it should feel like Play-Doh (clay). If it’s too crumbly, add in another tbsp of water and remix till you can form the balls. It should make a batch of 20. Pat down the balls of dough a little (try not to form cracks on the sides), place on a lined cookie sheet. I made the indentations on top with a fork. I originally baked them for 25mins, resulting in a crunchy texture. I think that 15-20mins would probably work better with a finer texture, unless you prefer the crunchy.

 -L

I recently bought a green tea grinder after reading this. I’ve been using it nonstop all week, mostly for drinking. When you think of powdered tea you might think of matcha, which is an expensive tea made from specially grown dark tea leaves that are de-veined and grounded into a superfine powder. High-end matcha would definitely not be used for cooking; ‘house’ matcha (on the lower end) is more commonly used. I just bought some organic sencha from Whole Foods to grind up, making konacha (powdered tea). It’s more fibrous than matcha, most noticeably gritty when you try to drink the undiluted green slush that gathered at the bottom of your tea cup. But when it’s mixed into batter or dough, it’s not an issue. When I’ve used matcha for baking in the past, a little would make batters very green and impart a mellow bittersweet grassy taste. With this pound cake, the powdered sencha imparted a lighter green while adding a subtle clean green tea taste.

• 1 cup organic shortening or butter (I used a mix of Spectrum Organic Shortening and Earth Balance Whipped Spread)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/3 cup almond flour
• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp green tea powder (your own or store bought matcha)
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup raisins

 

(The top is messy because I tore it open with a skewer.) 

 -L

I usually just pack leftovers as a lunch for the hubby. When there are no leftovers, he sometimes leaves in morning with a banana and an orange and calls it a meal. With our families always insisting he’s too thin, I try feed him as often as I can. Usually in addition to dinner, he eats most of my baked goods and I pack him lunch when he’s substitute teaching. Here’s an example of my obento (not the cutest or most elaborate).

Cook rice according to package (I used a rice cooker and added some mixed grains). Cut mushrooms and peppers into strips. Heat up a small pan, add oil and then sesame seeds. Give it a few seconds for the sesame seeds to toast up and then throw in the mushrooms and peppers. Cook till mushrooms have shrunk and the peppers soften, then add the mirin and the spinach, stir till they wilt. I put the veggies in one corner of the dish, and the rice on the other half. With a hot pan coated in oil, pour the beaten egg in and swirl around. It should spread out thin like a crepe, and fold it over on itself twice to get a wedge. Stick in the egg and tomatoes, and sprinkle the rice with nori and furikake. You can make it completely vegan by replacing the egg with tofu or natto (for the adventurous). I think I got in a good chunk of the food pyramid, and I applied the principles of washoku (balance of colors and flavors). Made me feel like a Japanese housewaifuu.

 -L