party food

Tamago dofu: Cold savory egg custard

maki — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:17:35 +0200

Previously, I explained how some dishes that are not tofu are called -tofu, because of the shape, texture or both. This is the case with tamago dofu　（卵豆腐） , a smooth savory egg custard that’s served cold.

You can make it in a square mold, to make it look tofu-like. But I prefer to keep it a lot simpler by cooking the tamago dofu in the serving container it will be served in. This can be anything as long as it’s heat-proof. Here I have used some sturdy glass cups made of pressed glass, but I’ve also used little pudding molds, tiny glass bowls made for holding ingredients while you’re cooking, and even coffee cups.

There are very few ingredients in a tamago dofu: dashi or soup stock, eggs, and a few flavorings. Because of this, each component should be of top quality, because you’ll taste each one quite clearly. Traditionally the soup component is dashi, but I don’t really like the fish flavor of dashi when it’s cold. So I prefer to make a simple vegetable stock instead.

Tamago dofu should be served ice cold. It’s a great appetizer for a summer meal, or an interesting and soothing snack. I have been guilty of making 4 cups and ‘hiding’ them so I can eat them all by myself.

Recipe: Tamago dofu in a cup

Makes 4 servings of about 3/4 cups each

For the vegetable stock:

1 medium onion
1 celery stalk
1 small fennel bulb
1 bunch flat leaf parsley
1 bay leaf
1 piece of fresh ginger, about 1 inch / 2 cm square
1 piece of kombu seaweed about 15-20 cm / 6-7 inches long

Chop up the vegetables roughly. Put everything in a pot, and add enough cold water to cover. Bring up to a boil them simmer slowly for about 20 minutes. Strain out the vegetables. (This makes more stock than you will need for the recipe; use the rest in a soup, stew, etc.)

For the tamago dofu:

4 ‘large’ eggs
2 cups / 440 ml vegetable stock or dashi
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. salt
grated fresh ginger
parsley leaves for garnish

Equipment needed:

4 heat-proof molds or cups or glasses
a fine meshed sieve, or a tea strainer
a large pan or pot with a tight fitting lid
plastic wrap
a kettle or something to boil water

Boil some water in a kettle while you assemble the tamago dofu. (I use an electric kettle.) You’ll need enough boiling water to come up at least halfway up the cups or molds you’ll be using when placed in the large pan.

Mix the soy sauce and salt into the stock. Taste and add a little more salt if needed (remember when it’s cool the flavors will dissipate a bit).

Beat the eggs with a fork or chopsticks, trying not to make it too foamy. Add 330 ml / 1 1/2 cups of the soup stock to the eggs, and mix thoroughly.

Strain the egg mixture through a fine meshed sieve. This smooths out the texture by getting rid of the bubbles and any bits of unincorporated egg white. You can skip this step if you can’t be bothered - it won’t affect the flavor, though the texture may not be as velvety smooth.

Pour the mixture slowly (so you don’t make any bubbles) into the 4 containers. Cover each with plastic wrap, then punch a few holes in the plastic with a skewer or knife tip. (The plastic prevents water drops from falling into the egg custard, and the holes allow excess steam to escape).

Put the containers into the large pan. Very carefully (don’t splash the water into the custard) pour boiling water into the pan so that the water comes at least halfway up the sides of the containers. Cover the pot with the tight fitting lid. Leave it there for 15 minutes.

At the end, the custard should be fairly firm and the color will have turned pale. It will still be wobbly. Very carefully remove the cups from the pot, take off the plastic film covers and slowly pour the rest of the stock evenly over the top of the custard. This prevents the surface from forming a film. Leave to cool to room temperature, then re-cover each cup with fresh plastic film and cool in the refrigerator until ice cold.

You can make this up to a day in advance. Serve with a little grated ginger and a parsley leaf garnish on top.

Notes

Normally tamago dofu is cooked in a steamer, or steam-cooled in a simmering water bath. Some people also make it in the microwave. For me, using any of these methods makes custard all bubbly and spongy instead of smooth. By leaving it in boiling water as specified the custard cooks all the way through but remains silky smooth. However, this method only works if you’re making individual portions as I am here - if you make a large square of tamago dofu, you will need to add heat.

If you serve this hot with some added ingredients like shrimp, ginko nut, etc. in it and serve it piping hot, it becomes chawanmushi, a classic winter dish.

(Sidenote: Sorry I took an unintended week off from blogging! What with a cold and being buried in boxes all of last week, I totally lost my appetite and my foodblogging mojo. Fortunately both seem to have returned somewhat. The cold is almost gone, though the boxes are multiplying like bunnies.)

Red, White and Blue Dessert

maki — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:48:36 +0200

(From the archives. If you’re planning a big Fourth of July party, consider this very colorful, cool dessert, which I made for a party 2 years ago. There are a lot of steps involved, but you can cut corners with storebought meringue and sugar cookies if you prefer.)

I love outdoor parties (except for the bugs!), especially when it means a barbeque. July the 4th barbeque parties are the best, and I miss them sorely when I am not in the U.S. This year though, we are going to have a July the 4th party on Sunday (since the 4th is not a holiday here), complete with grilled hamburgers, wurst, and chicken. Someone else is going to do all that grilling, so I am making the dessert.

A good dessert for a barbeque party is ideally something that you can make in advance - or at least, make most of it in advance and then just assemble it before serving. Ice cream or other frozen desserts fit the bill, but I wanted to do something a bit different. Since this is a July the 4th party, even if it will be a bit early, I needed to have something that looked all-American. And what’s more American than the flag? I think that the two nations most obsessed with their national flags are the Swiss and the Americans, so I’m sure my Swiss friends will appreciate the symbolism of red, white and blue.

Right now, local strawberries are in full season and really delicious. So that’s the red. The only edible blue I can think of short of using food coloring is blueberry, so though they are a bit early they had to do. And the white? Whipped cream and meringue. I even added a few star shaped cookies, made from a typically Swiss cookie recipe.

This red, white and blue bowl of fruity creamy goodness is a variation of a very English dessert called Eton mess. Eton mess is crushed strawberries and meringue folded together with whipped cream, and originated at the famous public school of that name where Prince William and (as far as I know) all royal family boys went to. I didn’t crush the strawberries - I sliced the big ones and left the little ones whole. I also gave them my favorite treatment: a short marinade in balsamic vinegar and a bit of sugar, which really seems to bring out the soul of the strawberry. Instead of dark balsamic though, I used white balsamic vinegar, which is mild, sweet and colorless. This left the redness of the strawberries without darkening it as the regular dark brown balsamic does. (If you can’t find white balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar is a good substitute.) Finally, instead of all whipped cream I used half whipped cream and half creme fraiche, just for a bit of added tartness and depth.

The most time consuming part of this is making the meringues. I’ve given a recipe for them which is easy to do if you have an electric beater. If you can find readymade meringues though, by all means use those.

The cookies are a type that is very popular in Switzerland called Mailander. I guess that means they originally come from Milan (Mailand is German for Milan), but they seem to be a part of Swiss culture now. They’re usually just served around Christmas, cut into little shapes. Here I have cut out tiny little stars and sprinkled them with sugar to give them sparkle. The cookies are so delicate that they crumble into the creamy, fruity, delicious mess.

The meringues and the Mailander cookies can be made way in advance (up to a week) of when you intend to make this. Here’s a rough schedule:

Day before or earlier: Make the meringues and the cookies, using the same eggs.
Night before: Prepare the strawberries and let them macerate in the balsamic vinegar.
1 hour before serving: Wash the blueberries and whip the heavy cream. Put them in the refrigerator.
Just before serving: Assemble.

The one I made and took a picture of is the rehearsal for the actual party - and of course, the model for this article! It’s not too sweet, and is really nice to eat. Don’t ask about the calorie content though…

Red, White and Blue Mess for July 4th

1 small carton of ripe strawberries
2 Tbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. white balsamic vinegar or rice vinegar
1 small carton of blueberries
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 carton creme fraiche
2 Tbs. powdered (icing) sugar
About 3 cups of roughly crushed meringues
Cookies for garnish

Wash and hull the strawberries. Slice the big ones and leave the small ones whole. Put in a bowl with the vinegar and sugar and mix. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form, then whip in the sugar. Fold in the creme fraiche.

Drain the strawberries, reserving the liquid.

In a large bowl, put in half the blueberries and strawberries, the cream mixture and the crushed meringue, and rapidly fold together with a large spoon. Put into a glass serving bowl and put the rest of the fruit on top. Drizzle with the reserved strawberry liquid. Decorate the top with the cookies.

Serve immediately.

Meringue Kisses

3 egg whites
3/4 cup granulated (or castor, or superfine) sugar
A pinch of cream of tartar (optional: I find I don’t really need this)

Equipment needed:

electric egg beater/mixer. Whipping meringues by hand may be a rite of passage in a fine French restaurant but not for a warm summer day in a home kitchen.
a plastic bag
scissors
baking sheet
parchment paper
mixing bowl, spatula, etc.

Preheat the oven to 120°C/250°F.

Line two baking sheets with silicon baking pads or parchment paper.

With an electric mixer/beater, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add the sugar a spoonful at a time, whipping all the time, until the whole thing is shiny and very stiff.

Put the meringue into a plastic ziplock bag, and squeeze the mix towards one corner. Cut off the corner with scissors to make a small hole. Pipe out the mixture into little mounds onto the baking sheets. (You can also make the little mounds with two spoons, but I find the bag method way faster.)

Bake for 40 minutes, then turn off the oven and leave there for an additional 5-10 minutes. Take out and let cool.

This will make more meringues than you need for the mess, but meringue kisses are great just as cookies.

Lemony Mailander Cookies

225g / 8 oz. unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbs. lemon juice
2 Tbs. grated lemon zest
2 1/2 cups plain white regular flour (all-purpose)
Extra granulated sugar (or if you can find it, decorating sugar is nice; it’s more sparkly than granulated.)

Equipment needed:

baking sheets
rolling pin
silicon baking pads or parchment paper
small star shape cookie cutter
mixing bowl, spatula, etc.

Note: I do this in a food processor - it mixes up in no time. You can mix by hand too.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks and mix. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest.

Add the flour gradually and mix until a soft dough forms. (If using a food processor, pulse to mix.)

Put the dough into a plastic bag and chill until firm.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F. Line two baking sheets with silicon baking pads or parchment paper.

Roll out the dough to about 1/4cm / 1/8th inch thick (or fairly thin..it’s not an exact science!) on a lightly floured surface. Working as fast as you can, cut out your star shapes and put on the baking sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes or until very lightly browned. Take them out and sprinkle with the sugar. Let cool.

This will make a lot more cookies than you need for the garnish - just pass out the rest, they are sure to disappear. Or, keep them for yourself to enjoy later.

Takoyaki with a great video

maki — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:55:35 +0200

Takoyaki is the small, round cousin of okonomiyaki, and like okonomiyaki it originated in Osaka. It’s basically a flavored batter with a tiny piece of octopus (tako) inside, and is a quintessential street food snack.

Since my family is from the Tokyo-Saitama area (the Kanto area), this puts me at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to making takoyaki. Sure I’ve had it dozens of times, but I can’t say I have had the chance of seeing it made really up close. With okonomiyaki, my ex-brother in law was from Osaka and we got to enjoy his okonomiyaki making prowess, which was one of his few redeeming features, quite a lot. But his tabletop cooking skills did not extend to takoyaki.

I do have some books and so on dedicated to the subject. But I didn’t really ‘get’ how to make takoyaki until I stumbled upon a terrific how-to video. It’s far better than anything I can come up with myself, so I would simply like to transcribe and translate it for your benefit, with my notes. The recipe and method described turn out terrific takoyaki - piping hot, slightly crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside.

Takoyaki maker or takoyaki plate?

Takoyaki making is quite time consuming, and the little balls are best eaten while piping hot, so I recommend a tabletop model over a takoyaki plate you put on the stovetop. Also note that if you have an electric, ceramic top or induction range (as I do), a regular takoyaki plate will not function properly since there won’t be enough contact surface. My takoyaki maker is a fairly inexpensive single-purpose electric model. You can also get fancier models with interchangeable plates for grilling, teppanyaki, etc besides the takoyaki plate.

Takoyaki makers are available at Japanese-oriented electronic or housewares stores. Cheap ones are also available on eBay, but be aware that most are Japanese 100W - 50/60hz models, which will not work as-is in Europe. They will work on U.S. 110W but could potentially be a fire hazard, so for safety you should use them with a transformer. (If you’re buying a takoyaki maker in Tokyo, be sure to let the salesperson know you will be using it overseas. If you’re shopping in Akihabara they’re used to dealing with this situation.)

It’s generally not recommended to use takoyaki plates on a tabletop gas cooker by the way, because the plate can trap heat underneath and potentially damage the cooker surface. So if you do get a takoyaki plate, just use it on your stovetop.

Other equipment you need

A brush or a wad of cotton wool or paper towel to oil the takoyaki plate. You can get a dedicated takoyaki brush, but I just use a makeshift paper towel ‘brush’.
A wooden skewer or two to flip the takoyaki. Never use metal skewers, which can damage the surface of the plate. Cocktail sticks are not good either since your hand will be too close to the hot surface of the griddle.
A small ladle to pour the batter.

The best takoyaki instructions ever

So, here is the video that teaches you all! It’s a segment from an NHK program called Takmeshite gatten （ためしてガッテン）, which sort of means “Try it out and be convinced”, a show that tries out various theories and methods (not just related to cooking) and sees what the best way is. Anyway, watch the video all the way through first. The title of the segment is “Make pro quality takoyaki at home!”

The batter recipe

(At 0:44): This batter is really easy to make, and yields great takoyaki! No fiddling about with grated nagaimo or anything, and no need to buy special okonomiyaki flour. They say it’s for 4 people. I’ve found makes about 60 balls in total (allowing for some mistakes).

300g / 10.5 oz hakuriki ko (low-gluten white flour): use cake flour (preferred) or all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1 liter (4 1/4 cups) of ice water, with the cubes strained out before adding to the mix
3 grams salt (about 2/3 tsp.)
1/2 tsp. kombu dashi stock granules
1/2 tsp. katsuo dashi stock granules
2 tsp. soy sauce

My adjustments: I made dashi stock using the cold water method instead of using the dashi stock granules, and increased the salt to 5 grams to compensate. The dashi was ice cold from being in the fridge anyway, so I just put in a few ice cubes. The water/dashi is ice cold to prevent the gluten in the flour from developping. If you are using dashi granules, you can just use a teaspoon of one type (such as Hondashi).

Procedure: Beat the eggs, and mix together with the ice water and dashi stock granules (or ice cold dashi) and soy sauce. Add the flour, and mix together lightly. Don’t worry about getting all the lumps out - it’s best not to overmix the batter. So easy!

The octopus (tako)

You just need a small amount of boiled octopus legs. The instructor lady (at around 1:30) says to cut them up so each piece gets a bit of the suckers, for texture.

Now, call me blasphemous, but I do not think you necessarily need octopus to make takoyaki. You just need a little bit of something to provide a change in texture. I have used things like cut up chikuwa, squid legs, or (gasp, horror) wieners instead of the octopus. (My experimentation in this area came about when the fishmonger refused to sell me a single octopus leg, and I didn’t want to deal with a whole ugly octopus.) Whatever you use, just have it cut up into little squares and ready to go.

The oil

You need some flavorless cooking oil to oil the takoyaki pan. I use peanut oil.

Making the takoyaki

(From 1:44 - 2:50) The people making the takoyaki in the video are ‘celebrity’ guests - all takoyaki neophytes. The points:

Heat up the pan before starting.
Oil the little sections (they are using a dedicated oiling brush, but you can use a wadded up paper towel or a wad of cotton wool held with chopsticks. Be sure to oil the top of the pan too.)
Pour in the batter - don’t worry if it overflows a bit. You don’t need to fill all the compartments either (I find that dealing with 14 or 15 compartments at a time is my maximum. If you are just starting out, try about 8 or 10. For some reason, all Japanese takoyaki makers have 18 compartments.)
As soon as the batter is poured, drop in the octopus bits, one per compartment.
When the outsides are sort of dried out, cut through the connected bits (where the batter ran out) and turn them over about 90 degrees with the wooden skewer. If you turn them too early the takoyaki will collapse and turn into a sad, ragged lump of goo. It takes a bit of practice to gauge when to turn the balls over, but you soon get the hang of it.
Turn the balls over all the way. Keep flipping then round and round with the skewer.
If the ball has a little hole, add a tiny bit of batter to an empty section and put the ball hole-side down into the batter (around 2:20-2:40)
The takoyaki are done with they feel lighter when you poke and turn them with the skewer, and are lightly browned a a bit crispy on the outside.
The key is for the takoyaki to be hollow on the inside. This allows the insides to steam, which cooks them nicely while retaining a creamy texture.

It only takes them a minute or so to make the takoyaki in the video, but it is edited down. I find it takes about 7-8 minutes per batch. Your results may vary.

Serve immediately with chopsticks or cocktail sticks, and dipping sauces.

The dipping sauces

When you buy takoyaki, they usually come smothered in okonomiyaki or ‘Bulldog’ sauce, sometimes mayonnaise, bonito flakes, powdered aonori (a green nori) and pickled red ginger. But I really like the light approach they take here. They have three dipping sauces:

Okonomiyaki or ‘Bulldog’ sauce, the conventional dipping sauce
Nihai-zu: 150ml (about 2/3 cup) dashi stock, 1 Tbs. soy sauce, 2 tsp. vinegar. This is my favorite - the slight sourness with the saltiness is very refreshing.
Osumashi (clear soup): 500ml (a bit more than 2 cups) dashi stock, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. soy sauce. This is good if it’s ice cold, to counteract the piping hot takoyaki.

Once you have had freshly made, hot off the griddle takoyaki, you will never buy those frozen dough balls again. Cold takoyaki can be reheated, but really - they are so much superior freshly made, that I never bother to make extra.

I do hope the video doesn’t get taken down - if it is I’ll replace the instructions here accordingly. In the meantime, watch it a few times and witha little practice, you’ll be on your way to takoyaki perfection!

(Footnote: At the end of the video, the celebrities each write a little poem (haiku-like but not quite) about takoyaki. A bit corny perhaps, but it made me think about writing little poems to some of my memorable meals!)

Quick take: Yogurt (yoghurt) cheese with garlic and olive oil

maki — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:04:06 +0200

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has an article about how to make yogurt (or as they spell it in the UK, yoghurt) in the Guardian. I did not want to go to the trouble of making yogurt from scratch, but I had a big pot of plain yogurt that needed to be used up so I made a sort of variation on the yogurt cheese balls further down on the page.

Yogurt cheese, in case you are unfamiliar with it, is just plain yogurt that has been drained of much of its liquid. To make it, just line a sieve with some porous cloth like cheesecloth, muslin, a coffee filter or even a couple of paper towels, spoon the yogurt in, and put the sieve with a bowl underneath in the refrigerator for at least a few hours. The more you let it sit, the drier it will become.

I strained about 2 1/2 cups of yogurt mixed with 1 teaspoon of sea salt from Friday evening to Sunday morning, by which time it had become the consistency of whipped cream cheese. I put this into a bowl, grated one garlic clove over it and drizzled on some extra virgin olive oil and mixed it up. It was the perfect spread for freshly baked hot savory scones.

I’ve never been a big fan of very sweet yogurt, so this savory yogurt spread may make more breakfast appearances.

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

maki — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:52:50 +0100

From the archives, originally posted March 2, 2007: I’ll be making these pretty egg-wrapped sushi again for hinamatsuri (Girl’s Festival) on Monday, March 3rd. The pale yellow and pink colors are like a harbinger of spring for me, besides being very girly. As delicate as they look, they are pretty easy to make. I have revised the recipe in minor ways. It’s a great way to use usuyaki tamago. Enjoy!

Tomorrow, March 3rd, is Momo no sekku or Peach Day in Japan. Peach blossoms usually start blooming around this time, signifying the coming of spring. It’s also the day for hina matsuri, the Doll Festival or Girls’ Festival. Households with daughters display hina ningyo-, traditional dolls that represent a princess’s wedding procession. This is because the ultimate happiness expected for a girl was for her to make a fruitful and comfortable marriage. Nowadays girls may be expected to do other things besides become happy wives, but on this day at least traditions still hold strong.

In Japan there is a long standing stereotype that girls and women like very sweet things, while manly men like less sweet and bitter things. So, for Hina Matsuri the guests are served sweet things like amazake (a very thick non-alcoholic hot drink made from the lees of sake, rather like eggnog in color and cloying sweetness), hishimochi (tri-colored mochi cake) and okoshi (colored sweetened puffed rice). Although there were three girls in our house, none of us liked amazake at all. However, my mother often made some kind of sushi for Hina Matsuri, which we really loved.

Here are two kinds of very pretty, girlie sushi in feminine pink, yellow and white with a touch of green. These colors fit the theme of Hina Matsuri perfectly: the traditional hishimochi is colored white, pink (or light red) and green.

The first is hamaguri-zushi or clam sushi, pictured here. It’s supposed to look like a clam, but to me it looks just as much like a little yellow flower. (Hamaguri are in season in March in Japan.) It can be filled with any kind of sushi rice, but here I have made a slightly pink-tinged sushi rice with lemony smoked salmon, mitsuba or flat-leaf parsley and white sesame seeds, wrapped in a usuyaki tamago or thin omelette. It’s related to chakin-zushi, where the omelette is wrapped in a bag shape and tied, but slightly less fiddly since all you have to do is fold it into quarters.

Besides making a very pretty spring party dish (for an appetizer maybe, or as part of a buffet), these work very well as bento items too since the sushi rice has good keeping qualities, and the omelette keeps the rice from drying out. Plus you can just grab them with your hands to eat.

The second sushi is smoked salmon temari zushi - the recipe is here.

March 3rd, is Momo no sekku or Peach Day in Japan. Peach blossoms usually start blooming around this time, signifying the coming of spring. It’s also the day for hina matsuri, the Doll Festival or Girls’ Festival. Households with daughters display hina ningyo-, traditional dolls that represent a princess’s wedding procession. This is because the ultimate happiness expected for a girl was for her to make a fruitful and comfortable marriage. Nowadays girls may be expected to do other things besides become happy wives, but on this day at least traditions still hold strong.

The second sushi is smoked salmon temari zushi - the recipe is here.

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

The rice:

4 cups of cooked plain white rice cooked with dashi stock
1/4 cup plum vinegar or raspberry vinegar
1 1/2 Tbs. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
About 60g/2 oz smoked salmon, chopped up into pieces
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 Tbs. toasted white sesame seeds
2 Tbs. chopped mitsuba or flatleaf parsley leaves

The wrapping: * usuyaki tamago using 6 eggs

Garnish:

Salmon eggs (aka salmon caviar) or ikura (which are salmon eggs marinated in a soy sauce mix)

Equipment:

Small non-stick frying pan
Rice cooker (will make your life a lot easier)
A heat-resistant brush for brushing the oil onto the pan, or a wad of paper towel
Spatula to turn the omelette
Rice paddle or spatula for mixing the rice

Make the usuyaki tamago. Dissolve the cornstarch in the water. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork or chopsticks (not a whisk or it will become too bubbly) with the sugar, salt and the cornstarch/water.

Heat the small frying pan over a medium-low heat. Brush lightly with oil. Put about 1/8th cup or 3 tablespoons of the egg mixture in the pan, swirl carefully so it coats the bottom of the pan but doesn’t slosh up the sides. Hint: use the same scoop or spoon to measure equal amounts of the egg - I use a 1/4 cup measure, half filled.

Cook just until the top is barely set, then carefully pick up the omelette with the spatula and flip over. Cook for about 10 seconds just until it’s set, then flip out of the pan. The omelettes should be yellow, and not browned.

Repeat for the rest of the egg. You should end up with about 12 to 14 omelettes.

The omelettes can be made the day before and kept covered with plastic in the fridge.

Make the sushi rice the day you plan to serve it. Cook the rice following the basic instructions. Turn the hot rice out into a bowl and break up lightly with the spatula. The sushi vinegar in this case is made with a red colored vinegar, either plum or raspberry (don’t worry, this won’t make the rice taste weird). Mix together the vinegar, sugar and salt in a pan and heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Pour over the rice, and mix/fluff the rice until it’s all a uniform pale pink. Let cool to room temperature.

In the meantime, sprinkle the chopped up smoked salmon with the lemon juice, and let sit for at least 10 to 15 minutes.

Fold the sesame seeds, salmon, and mitsuba or parsley into the rice, trying not to smoosh the rice grains too much. Here is how the rice looks. You can just make this into small rice balls and serve too.

Assembly

Divide the rice into as many portions as you have omelettes. Put the portioned rice on one quarter of one of the omelettes.

Fold the omelette in half, then into quarters.

Turn over so the rice part is on top (the weight of the rice helps to keep it stable). Squeeze the sides a bit so the insides can be seen.

Garnish with a few salmon eggs. This is optional but makes it really pretty. You can also sprinkle a bit of mitsuba or parsley instead.

Note that you do not need dipping soy sauce for this, since the sushi itself is already flavored quite well.

Mitarashi dango, rice dough dumplings with sweet-salty sauce

maki — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:28:55 +0100

Even if I am Japanese, I don’t like all Japanese food. And I must confess that I don’t like a lot of traditional Japanese sweets that are based on sweetened beans. For the most part they are way too sweet for me, and if I make them for myself I’m always adjusting the sweetness level, as with my ohagi or botamochi.

Mitarashi dango, however, are my absolute favorite traditional sweet. They are not really that sweet really - that shiny caramel colored sauce (which is called mitarashi sauce) is sweet and savory at the same time. It goes perfectly with the bland, slightly chewy dango or dumplings. (Dango is the name for unfilled solid dumplings.)

You may see the dango just plained boiled more often than not. But grilling the dango makes them so much better, in my opinion.

2 different rice flours

2 kinds of rice flours are used here. The combination makes a dumpling that is chewy and bouncy but not too sticky.

Joushinko is made from regular Japanese rice (uruchi-mai).

Shiratamako is sweet or glutinous rice flour, or mochiko, mixed with a little corn starch or potato starch. If you can’t find shiramako, you can use mochiko with about 1 tablespoon of cornstarch or potato starch flour added. You can find all of these flours at a Japanese grocery store. You might be able to find them at a health food store too, since rice flour is more popular nowadays as a gluten-free thickening agent for sauces.

Really, the hardest part of this whole recipe is finding the two rice flours. The rest is a breeze.

Recipe: Mitarashi Dango

This amount makes about 25 dumplings (5 skewers).

For the dango (dumplings):

1 cup (220ml) joushinko
1/2 cup (110ml) shiratamako, or mochiko plus 1 Tbs. of cornstarch or potato starch
1 1/2 cups (265ml) or so of hot tap water (water that’s hot if you put your hand in, but doesn’t burn you)
A pot of boiling salted water

For the mitarashi sauce:

1/4 cup (55 ml) sugar
1/2 cup (105ml) water, with 1 Tbs. cornstarch or potato starch or arrowroot dissolved in it
1/8 cup (28 ml) soy sauce
1 Tbs. mirin
1/2 Tbs. rice vinegar

Equipment needed:

a pot for boiling the dumplings
a bowl for mixing the dough
the same bowl or another one to cool the dumplings
a grill or grill pan
a small pan to cook the sauce
bamboo or wooden skewers

Mix together the joushinko and the hot water. Add the shiratamako. Mix until it forms a soft dough that feels a bit dry to the touch. It’s a very pleasant dough to handle.

Divide the dough into 25 pieces (you can do this by forming a long log and cutting it, or just divide it up in the bowl and eyeball it). Make each piece into a little round ball. It doesn’t have to be perfect in shape - a little bumpiness is fine.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and add salt, as you would for boiling pasta. Add the dumplings a few at a time to the pot. After a few minutes, the dumplings will come floating to the surface. Boil for a further 3-4 minutes, then scoop out with a slotted spoon or similar.

Immediately dump the dumplings into a bowl of cold water.

Put the dumplings on skewers, 4 or 5 per skewer. Try to pierce the dumplings in the middle.

Grill the skewered dumplings on a grill or a grill pan, turning several times, until nice burn marks form over them.

Here are some finished grilled dango skewers.

While you’re grilling the dumplings, make the mitarashi sauce. Combine all the ingredients for the sauce in a small pan and bring to a boil. Cook until the sauce has thickened. The more it cools, the more viscous it will get. You can make the sauce in advance too.

Pour the sauce over the still warm skewered dumplings. They are best eaten right away, but you can make them in advance too, as long as you bring them to room temperature before eating.

Variations

You may have seen these with a sweet azuki bean paste on them. I don’t like them that way, but if you do, you can use this tsubuan recipe, perhaps mashing up the beans a bit more to make it smoother.

The dumplings can also be eaten grilled and just brushed with soy sauce. Apparently, this is the way they were eaten until sometime in the 20th century. (Mitarashi dango as we know them now were invented in the 1930s at a dango shop in the Kansai area.)

Plain maple syrup is a nice sauce for these too, if not too traditional.

Lotus root mini-cakes with sweet chili sauce

maki — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:11:04 +0100

I’ve lived in Switzerland on and off now for more than a decade. During that time, I’ve slowly seen more Asian grocery stores open, and more Asian ingredients become available. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a great thing.

When I saw some fresh lotus roots at my favorite Chinese grocery store in Zürich, I did a little dance of joy. I could only find it frozen or canned before. Lotus root, known as renkon (蓮根）in Japan, is an interesting vegetable, that changes its nature by how much you cook it. When it’s raw it’s rather bitter; when cooked briefly it has a very unique, crunchy texture; when stewed for some time, it turns starchy. It’s packed with fiber and various nutrients, and even used for medicinal purposes in the past. (Wikipedia entry).

This is what a raw lotus root looks like:

The outer brown skin is peeled off (a vegetable peeler works great for this task).

You may be more used to seeing lotus root served in slices:

Sliced lotus root can be boiled or blanched, steamed, stewed, deep-fried and so on. The lacy pattern adds instant flair to your dish.

Here though I grated the raw lotus root to make little pancakes out of them. When lotus root is treated like this, the texture turns quite starchy and dumpling-like, a little like rice cakes (mochi). Generous amounts of chopped fresh coriander leaves and green onion are added, for a pan-Asian flavor. They are gluten-free, vegan, and generally quite healthy, but they taste great too.

Because they are rather dense and starchy, it’s best to make them quite small, about the size of a poker chip.

Recipe: Lotus root mini-cakes

1 lotus root about 9 inches / 25cm or so in length, to yield about 1 cup of grated root
4 to 5 Tbs. potato starch or cornstarch
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup chopped fresh coriander leaves
1/2 cup chopped green onion
Sesame oil for cooking
Sweet chili sauce or chili jam

Peel the lotus root and grate on a fine grater. Drain lightly in a fine-mesh sieve to get rid of excess moisture, but do not squeeze. Add salt.

Add enough potato or corn starch (use a gluten-free version if you are sensitive) to just hold the dough together sufficiently to form patties with. Add the chopped coriander and green onion and mix well.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan or griddle. Drizzle with a little sesame seed oil. Make little cakes or patties from the dough, and put in the hot pan. You should get about 8 to 10 little patties.

Leave to cook over medium-high heat, until the cakes move about a bit if you shake the pan. Turn each cake over carefully with a spatula. Drizzle in a little more sesame oil if necessary.

Continue cooking, flipping over more times if necessary, until the dough changes from an opaque white to transparent pale green, and the surface is browned and crispy.

Serve hot or at room temperature, with sweet chili sauce or chili jam for dipping. Great party food, or as a tasty carb component of a bento.

Okonomiyaki, Osaka style

maki — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:50:03 +0100

Okonomiyaki is getting slowly more popular outside of Japan. It’s often described as a Japanese pizza, but it’s more like a savory pancake.

Okonomiyaki was invented, they say, in Osaka, which is a city famous for cheap and good eats. Okonomiyaki is a snack more than a full meal, though it is pretty filling. It’s a quintessential yatai or streetside food stand food, though nowadays you’re more likely to eat it indoors than sitting at an outside stall. It’s a very communal type of food, especially if you cook it on a tabletop griddle.

This is a fairly authentic recipe I think, or as authentic as a Tokyo born-and-bred girl can get.

The essential ingredients

Okonomiyaki uses some very Japanese ingredients which may need some explanation. (Check out the ever growing reader-contributed list of Japanese grocery stores to find these ingredients.)

Nagaimo

Nagaimo is a starchy root vegetable, which can be known under the names taro root or under that annoying generic term for any starchy root vegetable unfamiliar to to the Westerner, yam. It is usually sold in cut up lengths wrapped in plastic. It looks like this:

You will use this grated into a gooey, sticky pulp, which looks like this. (This is where some juvenile surfer discovers this page and snarks about how it looks like spit, sperm, or a combination of both.)

A lot of people have a mild allergic reaction to raw grated nagaimo. I have that reaction - it makes me itch a bit. So I avoid skin contact with the raw surface by only peeling as much of the root as I need (for this recipe, about 4 inches or 10 cm) and holding the root in its plastic wrap while grating. To keep the rest of the root, let the exposed cut end dry off a bit then wrap securely in plastic.

The glutinous, gelationous quality of the nagaimo gives the okonomiyaki batter a certain bounce. I’ve tried substituting grated potato, which sort of works, but nagaimo is better. The only subsitutes for nagaimo are even harder to get outside of Japan, yamaimo or yamatoimo. I can get raw nagaimo in my tiny local Japanese grocery, so any decent Japanese grocery store should have it.

There is a dried yamaimo powder which can be used instead. (In practice though, I’ve found that if a store has dried yamaimo powder, it’s also likely to have the raw nagaimo root too, and I prefer to use the latter. If you can only get stuff by mailorder though, the powder is more handy. Japan Centre carries it.)

Aonori

This is a dried, very green version of nori seaweed. It’s usually sold in finely shredded almost-powder form. It’s quite inexpensive, so it’s worth buying. A substitute would be finely shredded regular nori, but aonori is usually a bit cheaper. Used as a topping.

Katsuobushi

Dried bonito flakes. One of the essential Japanese ingredients. Used as a topping with aonori.

Okonomiyaki sauce

This is a sweet version of tonkatsu sauce, which is described here. This is available at Japanese grocery stores. You can use tonkatsu sauce instead. It’s not essential to use this sauce - my mother for instance prefers a little drizzle of soy sauce on her okonomiyaki instead.

Japanese mayonnaise

Mayonnaise is used as the sauce on top of the okonomiyaki by a lot of people, though it does make the whole thing very rich. A Japanese brand like Kewpie is preferred, though Hellman’s or whatever works too. It adds richness and a touch of acidity.

Dashi stock

The base of Japanese food! Here is the basic recipe, but you can use a pinch of dashi stock granules (such as hondashi).

Beni shouga

Pickled and red dyed ginger. Colorful, cheap, and cheerful. Available at any Japanese grocery store.

Tenkasu

Tenkasu is little bits of batter that fall into the oil when you are frying tempura. It’s used as a flavoring ingredient in a surprising number of dishes. You can actually buy premade tenkasu in a well stocked Japanese grocery store, but I find it hard to justifying spending money for something which is just oily bits of batter. On the other hand, I don’t really make tempura often enough to have a stock of tenkasu around. So what I do is to make some of the okonomiyaki batter into impromptu tenkasu. I’ll show you how in the instructions.

Sakura ebi

Tiny dried shimp. This is an optional but nice ingredient to put in.

Thinly sliced pork belly

This is the part of pork that gets turned into bacon. In Japan you can get this part very thinly sliced, as a normal supermarket cut (butabaraniku usugiri). Elsewhere, you may have to ask your butcher to slice it for you. If you can’t get it pre-sliced, get a chunk of pork belly, freeze it until it’s quite stiff but not a solid ice block, and slice it yourself.

Cabbage, eggs and flour

You should have these around. Regular flour is fine - you only need a little bit of it as a binder.

Professional okonomiyaki stores may use beautifully finely shredded cabbage, but if your knife skills do not measure up, roughly chopping it (even in a food processor) is fine.

So, if you’ve managed to get all the ingredients together, let’s make okonomiyaki.

Recipe: Okonomiyaki

This makes 3 medium or 2 big okonomiyaki. A medium okonomiyaki would feed one person. A big appetite can handle one big okonomiyaki. You can also cut them into slices to serve many as appetizers or beer snacks. Increase the amounts proportionately for more servings.

120g / 4 oz. grated nagaimo, or the equivalent amount of reconstituted yamaimo powder
4 to 5 tablespoons of dashi stock, or water with a pinch of dashi powder
60g / 2 oz all purpose flour, sifted
3 ‘large’ (60g each) eggs
2 to 3 tablespoons of beni shouga
4 tablespoons of tenkasu
About 300g / 10 1/2 oz. (about 2 packed cups) roughly chopped cabbage
6 to 8 thin slices of pork belly
3 tablespoons of chopped green onion (optional)
1 tablespoon of sakura ebi (optional)
Oil for cooking

The topping:

aonori
katsuobushi
okonomiyaki sauce or tonkatsu sauce plus optional mayonnaise

Equipment needed:

a griddle plate or a large non-stick frying pan
a smaller frying pan
a wad of paper towels or cotton wool
a grater
a brush for the sauce (optional)

Peel and grate the nagaimo, following the hints above for protecting your hands. Mix with the dashi and flour, and add two of the eggs. It should be a rather loose batter.

At this point, if you don’t have any tenkasu on hand, heat up some oil in a small frying pan. Dribble some of the batter in the hot oil.

Cook until golden brown. Drain off the oil (you can use it to cook the okonomiyaki) and allow the tenkasu to cool.

Add the chopped cabbage to the batter.

Add the other egg. Stir with a big spoon or a spatula to combine.

Add the other ingredients except the pork. Crumble the tenkasu with your hands a bit before adding. Stir to combine.

Heat up your griddle pan or big frying pan. Take a wad of cotton wool or paper towels, and spread around a thin layer of oil.

The heat should be about medium-low. Spread 1/3 to 1/2rd of the batter in a circle on the pan. If this is your first time, go with the smaller size to make flipping easier.

Place 2 to 3 strips of pork as flat as possible on top of the batter.

Put on a lid, and let it steam-cook for about 5-6 minutes.

When the pork has lightened up in color, it’s time to flip the okonomiyaki.

Take two spatulas and flip the thing over carefully. Voila! Continue cooking without a lid for about 3-4 more minutes. Lower the heat if it’s cooking too fast, or turn it up a bit if it isn’t. Try to resist the urge to press down on the okonomiyaki at this point - doing so will squeeze some air and fluffiness out of the okonomiyaki.

Flip over once more, so the pork side is facing up. Brush with the sauce of your choice - straight okonomiyaki sauce, a mix of okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise, soy sauce, etc.

Sprinkle on some katsuobushi and aonori liberally.

To serve, cut into 4 pieces (the pro does this on the plate with a spatula, but you can use a knife on a cutting board).

The inside should be just cooked through, not doughy or runny. Eat while piping hot. (Okonomiyaki is edible enough when it’s cold, but it’s one of those foods that is so much better when it’s freshly made.)

Notes

A Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki is either two of these with some yakisoba (pan-fried noodles) in between, or one of these as a base, topped with a mound of yakisoba, and then a fried egg. One Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki comes in at around 1000 calories. Enjoy.

You can omit the pork belly slices. You can try substituting bacon, but that would flavor the whole thing.

You can get okonomiyaki mix, which has flour, nagaimo powder, dashi, and things already in there. You just add water, or water and egg, depending on the kind. But, that’s not nearly as much fun.

Ehou maki: Lucky long sushi roll for Setsubun no hi

maki — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:17:25 +0100

This year, setsubun no hi (節分の日)　falls on the 3rd of February (some years it’s on the 4th). It marks the start of the spring season or risshun (立春) in Japan according to the old lunar calendar. It’s not an official national holiday, but it is celebrated in ways all meant to drive away bad luck and bring in new, good luck. Most of the traditional rituals revolve around beans, because beans are considered to be very lucky. But there is another way of celebrating setsubun no hi, and that’s with a big, long, uncut sushi roll called ehou-maki.

I grew up in and around the Kanto region, which is the area around Tokyo, so I didn’t know about ehou-maki （（恵方巻き）growing up, because it’s a Kansai region (the area around Osaka and Kyoto) custom for setsubun no hi. Nowadays though the ehou-maki tradition has become popular nationwide. They are sold everywhere, especially at convenience stores, who take this as an opportunity to get people to celebrate, buy and eat in that awkward gap in between New Year’s feasting and Valentine’s Day chocolate gorging.

[Edit: ehou is pronounced eh-hoe by the way, not ee-haw.]

This made me react in So, what makes an ehou-maki different from a regular sushi roll? There are basically three rules:

It must contain seven ingredients, because seven is a lucky number.
It must not be cut, because it might cut (off) your luck.
You have to eat it while facing the lucky direction, which changes every year! This year’s lucky directly is hinoe (丙 (ひのえ)), which is a little bit to the south of south-south-east on a regular compass. If you can read kanji, this page has a good chart.
Finally, you must eat the whole roll in total silence.

A seven-ingredient sushi roll is basically a futomaki, or fat sushi roll, and that is what the directions are for. I’ve suggested several filling variations.

Since Sunday also happens to be a great American traditional event called the Super Bowl, with its time honored ritual of eating vast amounts of food (and imbibing drinks) while sitting in front of a big screen TV, I’ve included a New York-Boston filling combo below too. Line up your friends and have some lucky rolls before the game! Don’t forget to face south-south-south-east.

You can of course order a regular futomaki from your favorite sushi takeout, and ask them to put in seven ingredients and to not cut it. Then on Sunday, face the right away, and solemnly eat your roll in total silence.

Ehou-maki, lucky seven-ingredient sushi roll

The ingredients for one roll. Increase proportionately according to the number you want to make.

A bit less than 1 1/2 cups (about 300ml) prepared sushi rice
1 sheet of nori seeweed
Seven ingredients of your choice - see below for suggestions

Equipment needed:

a sushi rolling mat. In a pinch it is possible to roll a sushi roll with plastic wrap and so on, but for futomaki the support given by a sushi rolling mat is pretty useful. Besides, they are quite cheap and available at any Japanese or Asian grocery these days.
a bowl of cold water with a little vinegar (sumizu). This is used to wet your hands, rice scooper and other utensils, to keep rice grains from sticking.

Rolling a big fat maki

Put the nori sheet, shiny-slick side down, on your sushi rolling mat.

Spread about 1 1/2 cups (lightly packed into cup; don’t smoosh down!) of sushi rice evenly over the nori, leaving about a half inch or 1 cm gap on the far side. Use your fingers dipped in the bowl of vinegar water to spread out the rice.

Pile up your filling in the middle of the rice. Don’t try to pile on too much here if you are a beginner.

Grab the near end of the sushi rolling mat to start rolling. You may need to reach around with your fingers to keep the filling in place.

Roll over the filling in one go - stopping in the middle will make for a messy roll. Squeeze tightly, and finish rolling.

Unroll. (Practice does help, so do over if your first one didn’t work.) If the roll looks a bit uneven, gently squeeze again to even out.

Optionally serve with wasabi and soy sauce for dipping.

Remember that for a ehou maki you must not cut the roll. But if you’re making a futomaki for a regular day, cut off the ragged ends (which go in your mouth) and cut the rest into 5 or 6 even pieces. Having a very sharp knife and wetting the blade before cutting helps.

Lucky seven ingredient combination ideas

Traditional Japanese

All ingredients can be bought at a well stocked Japanese grocery store.

1 dried shiitake mushroom, soaked in water until softened, then cooked in 2 cups of the soaking liquid with added 2T mirin, 1/2 cup soy sauce, and 3T sugar until very tender (about 20 minutes or more)
1 piece of kanpyou or dried gourd strip, soaked in water until soft, and cooked with the shiitake. Larger Japanese groceries like Mitsuwa often have precooked kanpyou - look in the refrigerated section.
Tamagoyaki or usuyaki tamago (Japanese style omelette)
A small piece of sushi-grade tuna or other sushi-grade fish, cut into thin strips
Some denbu （でんぶ）- pink flaked cod - found in the refrigerator section. It looks like bright pink fluff (the bright pink comes from food coloring, if that concerns you)
Grilled anago eel (kabayaki, 蒲焼き), cut into thin strips　- found in the freezer section usually
Thin stick of cucumber

The fillings I used

This rather turned into a Japanese meets Swiss sort of combo. It tasted good!

1 dried shiitake mushroom, cooked as above
Kanpyou, cooked with the shiitake as above
Finely julienned carrots
Smoked salmon (could not get sushi-grade tuna!)
Datemaki - a fish-egg combo tamagoyaki. I’ll give the recipe for this very soon, but you can use tamagoyaki instead. Datemaki is often sold at Japanese groceries (it looks like a bright yellow rolled cake), so you can use that instead.
Thinly julienned cucumber
A mild local cheese called Bachtel-Stei. You could use something like Monterey Jack or Fontina.

A vegan combo

Shiitake
Kanpyou, both cooked as above.
carrots cut into sticks and cooked with the shiitake briefly
Thin fried tofu (aburaage), blanched in hot water then cooked with the shiitake. You could also use prepared inari zushi skins.
Blanched and slivered green beans
Blanched and well squeezed out spinach
Thin stick of cucumber

A New York/Boston combo for Super Bowl Sunday

If you want your team to win, make sure you’re facing the right way when you eat the roll, and don’t say a word!

Smoked salmon or better yet, belly lox
Cream cheese mixed with mayonnaise
Thin stick of cucumber
Chopped cooked lobster (or, imitation crab sticks if you are on a budget)
Finely chopped chives
Thinly julienned pickled jalapeno peppers
Boston lettuce, cut into long thin strips

Ham and cheese combo

Almost like a Subway sandwich in a sushi roll.

Julienned boiled ham…or even spam, maybe
Avocado, cut into thin strips
Thinly julienned cucumber
Cream cheese
Thinly julienned pickles
Shredded iceberg lettuce
A couple of watercress sprigs

The Mediterranean combo

Cooked and flaked salt cod
Mayonnaise
Finely chopped olives
Boiled shrimp, finely chopped
Salt-cured anchovies, de-salinated a bit
Toasted pine nuts
Arugula

The poor student’s combo

Canned tuna mixed with mayonnaise
Finely chopped hardboiled egg
Thinly sliced onions, sprinkled with a little salt and massaged to soften, then drained
Thinly julienned carrots
Thinly julienned cucumber
Shredded lettuce, any kind
A few capers or chopped up pickle

Think up your own combinations! Just come up to seven and your karma factor is set.

More about setsubun

The way we celebrated setsubun when I was growing up was with beans. We’d go to a nearby jinja or Shinto shrine (Buddhist temples also do this), where the priests would throw toasted soybeans wrapped in paper at the crowd while everyone yelled oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi! (Demons outside, luck inside!) Traditionally you are supposed to eat as many beans as your age, but the paper-wrapped beans often had about 10 to 12 beans. So, when as a 10 year old I ate 10 packets of beans, I got quite a tummy ache. Depending on the shrine or temple, the priests also throw little gifts at the crowd, and that can make things a bit scary as everyone shoves and pushes to grab them! I never caught a gift but I did get hit square in the face with something hard once at one of those things.

As I said earlier, ehou-maki is really a Kansai tradition. In the Kanto area the only real food tradition associated with setsubun is those toasted beans. Basically, raw soybeans are slowly roasted until they are crunchy and edible. Nowadays, peanuts are often substituted for the toasted beans. Some families might make some osekihan, azuki (adzuki) beans and rice which is a sort of an all-occasion celebratory dish.

A final way of celebrating setsubun no hi is to take a nice long relaxing bath, with some slices of yuzu in the water. Bathing in hot yuzu-infused water is supposed to get rid of bad spirits. At least it smells nice! In Japan you can get bath essences with yuzu oil. I’m guessing that theoretically any citrus would work, but who am I to try to play with old superstitions.

Here’s the Wikipedia entry on setsubun no hi.

For your 4th of July party

maki — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 16:52:40 +0200

If youre in the U.S. or anywhere in the world celebrating the 4th of July tomorrow, I hope you’re having better weather than we’re having here, where it’s cold and rainy! If you’re having a party, here are some useful recipes from the archives:

Japanese potato salad, which in my opinion is the best kind of potato salad - rich tasting, not too vinegary. With homemade mayonnaise it’s heaven - though be careful to refrigerate it properly before serving, and to eat the leftovers (if there are any) as soon as possible.

For a much lighter, refreshing salad (no fat added!), Scandinavian cucumber salad goes very well with the rich flavors of grilled meats. It’s sort of like a fresh relish. Serve this very well chilled.

By saving calories with the salad you can then splurge on the Red, white and blue mess for dessert, which looks quite spectacular and even feels sort of virtuously healthy because of all the fruit.

Happy 4th!

party food

Tamago dofu: Cold savory egg custard

Recipe: Tamago dofu in a cup

Notes

See also

Red, White and Blue Dessert

Red, White and Blue Mess for July 4th

Meringue Kisses

Lemony Mailander Cookies

Takoyaki with a great video

Takoyaki maker or takoyaki plate?

Other equipment you need

The best takoyaki instructions ever

The batter recipe

The octopus (tako)

The oil

Making the takoyaki

The dipping sauces

Quick take: Yogurt (yoghurt) cheese with garlic and olive oil

Shell-shaped sushi (Hamaguri-zushi) for Girls' Festival

Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) or yellow flower sushi

Assembly

Mitarashi dango, rice dough dumplings with sweet-salty sauce

2 different rice flours

Recipe: Mitarashi Dango

Variations

Lotus root mini-cakes with sweet chili sauce

Recipe: Lotus root mini-cakes

Okonomiyaki, Osaka style

The essential ingredients

Nagaimo

Aonori

Katsuobushi

Okonomiyaki sauce

Japanese mayonnaise

Dashi stock

Beni shouga

Tenkasu

Sakura ebi

Thinly sliced pork belly

Cabbage, eggs and flour

Recipe: Okonomiyaki

Notes

Ehou maki: Lucky long sushi roll for Setsubun no hi

Ehou-maki, lucky seven-ingredient sushi roll

Rolling a big fat maki

Lucky seven ingredient combination ideas

Traditional Japanese

The fillings I used

A vegan combo

A New York/Boston combo for Super Bowl Sunday

Ham and cheese combo

The Mediterranean combo

The poor student’s combo

More about setsubun

See also

For your 4th of July party