When it comes to tempura, everyone loves it but some people don't want to bother making it at home because it looks too complicated.  But it really isn't it.  I wrote a story for the Los Angeles Times Food Section today that will give you further insight into the art of making Tempura. Enjoy! (here is the link to the LA Times story and recipes) 

Shishito peppers have pockets full of seeds. Make a slit and

remove the seeds before frying to keep them from popping

in the oil and creating unpleasant oil spills.

Asparagus is a good vegetable to practice making tempura.

For more, please read my story in the LA Times.

Eggplant, Age and Mitsuba Miso Soup

Serves 4

3 1/2 cups Dashi or Vegan Dashi or Sardine Dashi

3 Tbls or more of Miso to taste

2 eggplant, peeled and sliced vertically into 1/2 inch pieces

1 age tofu, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces, crosswise

4 mitsuba leaves, chopped

Bring the Dashi to a boil in a medium saucepan, and add the eggplant.

Cook for three minutes over medium heat, then reduce the heat to maintain a simmer.

Put the age and cook for another minute. In a small bowl, dissolve 3 1/2 tablespoons of the miso paste in a few tablespoons of the warm Dashi. Add the mixture to the saucepan. Taste and add more miso paste, Dashi or water, depending on how strong the soup tastes. Turn off heat. 

Pour the soup into individual bowls. Ganish with mitsuba leaves.

Serve immerdiately. Do not boil the soup.

If I get to choose one vegetable to have in the fridge to munch on, it is not a carrot or celery but kabocha squash.  I cook the cut pieces of Kabocha in a light syrup, just long enough to give them a hint of sweetness.  The syrup is drained so the kabocha is never sugary sweet or mushy.  I often serve this dish with soba to supplement the Vitamin A.  Soba offers the rest of the good stuff.

Recipe:

1/4 of small to medium size Kabocha squash

2 cups water

3/4 cup sugar

Cut the kabocha squash in bite size pieces.  Bevel the corners.

Bring the water and sugar in a medium size saucepan.  Add the Kabocha

and bring to a boil over medium heat.  Then lower heat and simmer for 12-15 minutes until the meat is cooked.  Test with toothpick.

Drain the syrup.  Serve in a bowl.  

Keeps for a week in the fridge.

1 cup dried hijiki, hydrated

3 -4  dried shiitake mushrooms, hydrated

1 large or 2 small pieces Age (deep fried tofu pouches) optional

2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into matchsticks, 1/8 thick

1 tsp peeled and thinly sliced ginger

2 tbls roasted sesame oil or vegetable oil

1 cup dashi, dried shitake mushrooms stock or chicken stock of your choice

2 tbs mirin

1 tbs sake

1 tsp sugar or honey (optional)

1/4 cup soy sauce, or to taste

Salt if needed

Garnish: 1 tsp roasted sesame seeds (optional)

Soak hijiki in cold water to cover for at least one hour. Drain.  Rinse a couple more times to remove impurities.

Hydrate shitakes in cold water to cover, about 20 minutes.  Slice shitakes into 1/8 inch pieces. Reserve soaking liquid for the stock if you like.

Put oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Stir fry the carrots, age, mushrooms and ginger first for 2-3 mintues. 

Add the hydrated and drained hijiki.  Stir a couple times; add the stock or shiitake soaking liquid, mirin, sake, sugar and soy sauce. Stir, turn heat to simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes until most of the liquid is evaporated. Mixture should not be soupy or dry. Taste, and make adjustments with soy sauce, sugar and salt, if needed.

Serve as a salad or appetizer, about 1/3 cup servings per person.  Garnish with roasted sesame seeds.

Kimpira Ninjin - Kinpira gobo

I found some rare heirloom carrots at the Farmer's market. This maroon carrot in particular was a beauty.  It happened to even match what I was wearing- my hand knit sweater from Uruguay.  I wanted to wear the carrot around my neck!

I knew these carrots would be delicious cooked with a little butter but then I was thinking, how about stir-fried Kinpira-style, with a little red chili pepper to spice it up?  Usually, Kinpira is made with carrots and burdock but I wanted to try it with just carrots. 

A little too thick but what the heck.

The carrots came in odd shapes, so it wasn't easy to peel them but I did the best I could. Then came the slicing. Even worse.  With Kimpira, I should have sliced them more thinly but I relaxed and some came out rather thick. The maroon carrots had a beautiful yellow interior. I sauteed the sliced carrots in sesame oil for a few minutes until they became tender, and then seasoned them with soysauce, mirin and sugar. The maroon carrots lost their bright red color in the cooking and turned beige. The yellow carrots were nutty and the most flavorful of the three. The cracked red pepper gave the dish a nice spice, the roasted sesame seeds another layer of texture and toasty flavor.  It was a nice dish.

Recipe:

5 cups of carrots, peeled and sliced into matchsticks, 1/8 inch thick.  (mine were thicker

because the carrots had odd shapes)

2 Tbls of soysauce or more to taste

1 Tbls mirin

1 Tbls sugar or less, depending on the natural sweetness of the carrots

1 Tbls sake

3 Tbls Roasted sesame oil

Garnish:

Red cracked pepper 

Roasted ground sesame seeds

Over mediumm heat, saute the carrots for 3 minutes, until they are tender. Add the seasonings and cook for another 3-5 mintues, until the carrots absorb most of the liquid. Taste to see if it needs more seasoning. Adjust sparingly with soysauce, and other seasonings.   

As a garnish, the cracked red pepper will give it a zing!  It's nice too with roasted sesame seeds.

  

Mix the flour into the egg mixture, and not the egg mixture into

the flour. This makes a crispier batter.

The Burdock root can grow to 3 feet (1 meter) long.   

Burdock tastes like a cross between a potato and an artichoke. It is particularly enjoyed for its crunchy texture. Burdock has a naturally brown color like a potato and the good earthy flavor is all in the skin, so don't shave or peel the skin all off. Gently scrub to remove the dirt and hairy roots.

These Burdock roots, GOBO, in the picture measure nearly 3 feet long. How can they grow so long? And for me the frequently raised question is how do I get these home from the market? It's always a challenge with the longer ones. You can buy water packed, peeled and shaven burdock but the flavor is inferior to fresh burdock, and contain additives, so I don't recommend them. When I get home, I cut the Burdock root in half, wrap it in a wet day old newspaper (Not the FOOD section!)  and plastic to keep them fresh in the fridge. When Burdock roots are old, they get pulpy, shriveled, and tough.  Make sure you find one that feels thick, firm and flexible. The fresher they are, the crispier the texture. You can eat them raw when they are very very fresh.  Burdock improves digestion and is full of fiber.

A whimsical display

It's good to have a reason to leave the city once in awhile, even if it is to deliver some boxes to put in storage.  Our storage is out in Oxnard, an one hour drive on the Ventura Freeway from Santa Monica.  We've made the trip countless times.  It is a long drive just to go and store things but today, I am enjoying this trip.  Who knows, I might find something I want to take out.

Open sesame. Lots of stuff in there.  As the old Japanese saying goes, dust collects and turns into a mountain.  But among the dust, there are some interesting things.  Boxes of Sakae's toys and baby kimonos, my grandmother's tea table that needs repair, an old mosquito net.  Half of the space is taken up by family stuff, the other half is Sakai's sculptures and paintings from another time, which I'd like to see out in the open air.  But where do we put them?  It's good to look through old things.  I found a box marked "Old Cookbooks."  I decided to take that back with me.  I wanted to see what cookbooks I put away. 

Before leaving Oxnard, we looked for a farmstand to buy some fresh produce.  Oxnard is mostly known for their strawberries fields.  Shortly after my family moved to LA from Tokyo in the early seventies, my parents took us to visit a strawberry farm that was owned by a Japanese American family in this area.  I could not believe the sheer size of the farm. They let us pick as many strawberries as we wanted.  Where we came from, strawberries were very expensive.  We only got strawberries on top of our birthday cake when we were lucky. Most of the time, we had canned peaches instead.  But here in America, it was strawberry fields forever.  That seemed incredibly promising.

We found several farm stands, selling the last strawberry crop of the season. The berries were still sweet and juicy. I bought a boxful for $15. The box was marked Fraises de Californie but these strawberries aren't going to France.

Besides strawberries, they had some beautiful pumpkins.  The owner had her foot in a cast but she got up to help me pick out a pumpkin.

When we got home, I opened the box of old cookbooks and found a couple that belonged to my mother. That made me happy.  I am cooking out of one tonight.   

The Oxnard pumpkin now sits at our doorstep.  Soon it will get a face.

Okay so it's October 1.  Opening day of Sakai's art Exhibition.  Eddie, Sakai's assistant arrived at 730am to wash the last stone sculpture and stone bases for the show.  I drove out to rent-a-wreck to return the truck. Sakai has been burning the midnight oil for the last three days.  The brochures and posters have been printed.  Having an art show is exciting and nerve racking at the same time. Sakae calls from Portland to wish his Dad good luck.  I can only hope for the best turn out and response. 

Last night was fast food night and this morning is the same too. That means rice balls for most Japanese people.  You can grab it like a sandwhich and run.  The stuffing can be anything from grilled salmon such left overs from last night to seasoned ground meat or grilled tarako- cod roe.  There is a little rice left over to make one rice ball this morning so I decide to make one and stuff it with a pickled plum -umeboshi.  There is an old Japanese saying - A pickled plum a day keeps the doctor away.  

There isn't much of a recipe for making Onigiri.  You just need steamed rice.  Use short or medium grain rice.  The fresher the rice, the tastier. The rice balls I made last night were great because the rice was steaming hot and fresh. This morning I am working with day old rice but it is still good.  You will need some salt, a pickled plum and a crispy sheet of nori seaweed to wrap the rice ball. Use about 3/4 cup of rice for each rice ball.

Fresh steamed rice tastess the best but mine is the leftover from

last night.  I want to use it up.  Have also a bowl of salt water, using

about a teaspoon of salt to 3 cups of water.  This is for wetting

your hands while you make the rice ball.

First wash your hands.  Dip you hands in the bowl of salted

water to keep it a little wet so the rice doesn't stick to your

hands while molding the rice ball.  Put a dab of salt to season

the rice ball (about 1/4 tsp).  Too much water on your hands

will make the rice ball soggy so don't over do it.

I put a pickled plum in the center of the rice ball.

Make sure you remove the pit from the pickled plum.

Using both palms and fingers, hold the rice and mold it into a

triangle. You can make a round rice ball if the triangle is too

difficult. But it really isn't.  Cup the pointed corners with your fingers

and press down to make the mountain shape.  Then turn the 

rice ball and repeat until all three corners have a nice peak.

A snow covered Mt. Fuji.

This is a small Onigiri.  I used 1/4 sheet of the nori and

cut it into smaller pieces to wrap it. You can sprinkle

the Onigiri with roasted sesame seeds or Furikake, if you like.

This onigiri is too small for the sculptors. 

So I eat it.  So good!  

Sakai has been going back and forth between Santa Monica and downtown LA, making art deliveries to the gallery. There are four more days left to the show.  We are passed the intense period. Last week it felt like a volcano was erupting right in our backyard.  This week it feels more like the calm before the storm. One more sculpture to go. Sakai is finishing up a huge wall piece.

I make lunch - just for myself.  I go for plain steamed broccolinis. Sometimes it is nice to eat vegetables with nothing on it.  Nothing can be everything.