Haraki Meshi- Salmon and Salmon Roe on Rice

This was my favorite when I was small.

This is a local dish from the northern part of Japan.

Ready in: 75minutes, without marinating time

Ingredients for four:
[Marinate over night, Prepare in a bowl]
100g salmon roe
1 tablespoon of Sake
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of Mirin

3 cups of uncooked rice
2 pieces of salmon
1 teaspoon of minced ginger

[Prepare in a pot]
Water
1 teaspoon of Sake

[Sauce, Prepare in a pot]
2 tablespoon of Sake
2 tablespoon of soy sauce
1/2 tablespoon of Mirin
1/2 tablespoon of sugar
Pinch of salt

Step 1: Marinate salmon roe more than 2 hours, over night is preferred

Step 2: Put water and Sake, and boil salmon pieces for 3 minutes

Step 3: Wash rice and drain water

Step 4: Cook salmon in the sauce for 10 minutes and remove the skin

Step 5: Add ginger in the sauce and heat up a bit. Add water to make the sauce 540ml in total

Step 6:  Add rice in the pot, sit it for 30 minutes. Or use a rice cooker to cook 3 cups of rice.

Step 7: Put a lid on the pot, boil it. Once it boils minimize the heat to 2 for 5-7 minutes. Turn the heat off and let it sit for 10 minutes.

Kuromame Juice- Black Soybean Juice

Happy Halloween!

When I was growing up, I didn't know what soda or juice tasted like. My mom thought (and still thinks) soda and juice were evils and would kill you. Sweet drinks I drank were Yakuruto (probiotics drink), hot chocolate, fresh apple squeeze and black soybean juice.

Black soybeans are one of the power food in macrobiotics. It helps blood flaw, smoothen your skin, recovering from fatigue, and contains full of protein.

Ready in: 60 minutes, after over night of soaking

Ingredients:
1 cup of black soybeans
Water
Sugar
1/4-1/2 lemon juice


Step 1: Soak beans over night in water, and remove beans (you can cook beans with its juice or use beans in a different dish)

Step 2: Boil juice and add lemon juice, and sugar as sweet as you like

Ceviche or Sebiche

Put Gyu no Tataki- Cold Roasted Beef, sliced onions, chopped coriander, and a pinch of salt in a bowl, and squeeze one fresh lime. It makes a beautiful summer salad!

You Ling Ji -Fried Chicken with Sesame Oil Dip

Just try this! It's very good.

Ready in: 10 minutes

Ingredients for two:

2 chicken breasts

Salt and pepper

1 tablespoon of sake or white wine

1/4 of corn starch

1/4 to 1/2 of frying oil

[Prepare in a bowl]

1 green onion, minced

1/2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoons of minced ginger

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of sugar

2 teaspoons of sesame oil

1 teaspoon of sake or white wine

1 teaspoon of honey or maple syrup

Chili powder, optional

Step 1: Prepare sauce. If you have time, leave it for 30 minutes.

Step 2:  Put salt, pepper and sake on chicken breasts.

Step 3:  Coat them with corn starch.

Step 4: Fry them, make them crunchy.

Chikin Namban- Battered Chicken in Sour Sauce with Tartar

There is a nation-wide Bento take out store in Japan. This is my favorite bento there. 

Ready in: 15 minutes

Ingredients for two:

2 chicken breasts

1/4 cups of corn starch

1/4 cups of frying oil

[Prepare coating sauce in a pan]

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 tablespoon of vinegar

[Tartar]

1 boiled egg, minced

1/4 onions, minced

A handful of parsley or coriander

2 tablespoons of mayonnaise

1 tablespoon of vinegar

Salt and papper

Required Equipment:

Pan

Pot

Step 1: Heat up coating sauce. No need to bring it to boil. Put it aside.

Step 2: Put all ingredients in a bowl, make tartar.

Step 3: Coat chicken with corn starch.

Step 4: Heat up a pan and put oil. Grill chicken. Make it crancy!

Step 5: Dip chicken in the sauce, and coat it well.

Step 6: Place chicken and pour tartar on top. 

Chokoreto Keki- Japanese Style Sponge Cake/ Shortcake

My mom teaches cooking and baking, but I've never took a lesson from her. When it comes with teaching and learning, mother and daughter are not very good match.

However, I decided to ask for her help to bake a whole cake because my cake doesn't raise at all!

It was mind-blowing! Just like a magic, my cake was puffy and so moist at my first try!

Before I put my mixture in the oven, mom said "It's gonna be a success. I just know it by my experience."

How annoying is that!! This is why I don't learn from her, except this time.....

Although the cake culture was brought from the West, I think Japanese cakes are better than others!

This is mom's recipe that she's been using over 40 years, and I've been loving it since I was a child.

Ready in: 80 minutes

Ingredients for 6" cake:
3 eggs
120g of sugar (40g and 80g)
100g of flour for a vanilla cake, 80g of flour for a chocolate cake
25g of coco powder only for a chocolate cake
1 tablespoon of milk, nuked
1 tablespoon of butter or coconut oil, melt
Strawberries
Strawberry jam, option
[Chocolate Cream]
200ml of 35% whipping cream
50g of chocolate
1 tablespoon of sugar, adjust as you like

Required Equipment:
2 super dried bowls, if there are water drops, your cake won't raise!
Flour sifter
Parchment paper
Cake pan
Hand mixer, it works better than a stand mixer, no water drops on this either!
Water spray bottle
Ice cubes

Step 1: Put parchment paper in a cake pan with some butter or coconut oil.

Step 2: Set your oven at 350F. 

Step 3: Measure flour, and sift it. Put it aside.

Step 4: Separate eggs into yolk and white, and put them in different bowls.

Step 5: Put 40g of sugar into white, and 80g into yolk. Using a hand mixer, beat yolk with sugar until it becomes cheese- cream-like. Do the same with white. The white should be hard meringue, doesn't drop or running. If baking in summer, you may want to dip the bowl in icy water for better meringue.

Step 6: Put white into yolk. DO NOT mix too well! Keep some white bubbles.

Step 7: Add flour into egg bowl. Drop the mixture from the high point, DO NOT mix it in the bowl. Make sure to add air into the mixture.

Step 8: From the high point, pour the mixture into a pan. Drop the pan a few times to get bubbles out of it.

Step 9: Spray water 3 times onto the mixture before placing it in the oven.

Step 10: Bake for 30-45 minutes.

Step 11: Remove the pan immediately from the oven when it's baked, and take out the cake from the pan as soon as possible.

Step 12: As soon as you can touch the cake, put it in a plastic bag to keep the moisture in the cake.

Step 13: Heat up chocolate cream mixture. When everything melts, remove the pan from the heat, and dip the pan into icy water. Whip it.

Step 14: Take out the cake from the bag, and slice it into two. Put cream or jam in the middle and place some strawberries. Assemble the cake.

Step 15:  Decorate the cake as you like.
  

Vegan Osechi- New Year Lunch in Japanese Lacquer Boxes

Cham Pon- Stair Fry on Noodle Soup (Ramen)

Do you like Ramen? What kind of Ramen do you like?

If your answer starts with a name of a city, yes, you do like Ramen.

My father is from a southern island in Japan, where poeple have serious passion about Ramen. In the island, there are streets with lines of noodle stands and people make lineups. The city is called Fukuoka, and there is a small part of downtown that people call Hakata. That's the Hakata Ramen (tonkotu pork soup stock) heven! In Fukuoka, there are also some diffrent types of Ramens, that contain soy sauce or fish stock in the soup along with tonkotsu. We don't call these Hakata Ramen. Hakata Ramen has a specific style in the soup; uses super thin and al-dente straight noodles, julienne red ginger and black fungus and a piece of seaweed paper and piece of pork belly on top of the bowl, sprinkled chopped green onions and white sesame seeds at the end. You may add cooked chili fravour mustard leaves, but nothing eles.

Chan Pon is one of famous noodles from a southern part of Japan. It's different from Ramen. It's often called Nagasaki Chan Pon. Nagasaki is a city beside Fukuoka.

Raised by a man who is very serious about good noodle soup, I think I do carry his passion.

Ready in: 15 minutes

Ingredients for two:
2 portions of Chinese egg noodles
Some sesame oil
Some mushrooms
1 carrot
1/2 onion
4 cabbage leaves
1 hand full of bean sprouts
1 hand full of garlic chives
Some snow peas
Some salt and pepper
<Prepare in a pan>
375ml of water
150ml of milk/soy milk/almond milk
1/2 teaspoons of worcestershire sauce
1/2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1/2 tablespoons of chicken soup


Step 1: Cut vegetables and cook them with sesame oil.

Step 2: Heat up the soup

Step 3: Cook noodles

Step 4: Put noodles in a bowl, put vegetables on top of it, and pour the soup.

Add salt and papper on top