Tag: kelp

Bamboo Shoot, Chicken and Fried Tofu Mixed Rice Recipe
We know spring is here when fresh bamboo shoots start popping up from the ground. In keeping with the traditional Japanese concept of enjoying food during its peak season, why not try this tasty and easy version of bamboo rice to celebrate spring, the season of renewal. I know I am ready for spring….aren’t you?!

My very first blog posting two years ago was a bamboo shoot recipe, and so is today’s. This is one of my favorite mixed rice recipes. And if you can’t buy fresh bamboo shoots, this can still be delicious using precooked peeled and or canned bamboo shoots.
Bamboo Shoot, Chicken, and Fried Tofu Rice

Lucy Seligman

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Servings 4

Ingredients

1 piece of abura-age (fried tofu)
7 ozs. fresh*, precooked peeled or canned bamboo shoots, thinly sliced
3 ½ ozs. chicken breast, skinned and cubed
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
½ cup dashi (fish stock)
3 tablespoons low-salt soy sauce, or to taste
4 tablespoons sake
½ teaspoon salt
3 cups Japanese white rice, washed and drained
1 piece of kelp, wiped with a damp cloth
To garnish:
Dried seaweed, cut into thin strips

Instructions

Before starting, immerse the fried tofu in hot water for 10 minutes to get rid of the oil. Squeeze out excess water and slice into strips. If using canned bamboo shoots, boil for a minute or two and then rinse.
Sauté the cubed chicken and fried tofu in oil. Add the sliced bamboo shoots, dashi stock, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of sake. Cook until all the liquid evaporates, roughly 10 minutes. Set aside.
Place the rice in an electric rice cooker or large saucepan. Add the remaining soy sauce and sake, and salt. Place the piece of kelp on top. Add water and cook according to rice cooker directions or, if using a saucepan, until the water is fully absorbed. When the rice is done, remove kelp, add the chicken and vegetables and stir well. Cover and let sit a further 10 minutes before serving.
Place in rice bowls and top with a generous amount of dried seaweed. Serve immediately. Clam soup makes a nice accompaniment.

Notes
*If using canned or precooked peeled bamboo shoots, drain and rinse them thoroughly in cold water before preparation. If the shoots are fresh, cut off the hard bottom part and boil them in their husks – water left over from washing rice or rice bran is best for this – with a dried red pepper for about one and a half hours to remove bitterness. Let cool, then peel off the husks. Wash well in cold water and continue with recipe preparation.

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Oden: Japanese Hodgepodge Stew
When I was a college student in Tokyo, I would often pass mobile food stalls, called yatai, late on blustery winter nights and be completely overwhelmed by the powerful aroma of oden, or Japanese hodgepodge stew. Oden’s pungent smell and taste have made it a perennial favorite with drinkers, no matter the season. It is definitely a comfort food in Japan and can be enjoyed anytime by everyone.

The oden is derived from dengaku–grilled, skewered tofu topped with miso. The dish got its start in the late Edo era (1603-1867) when the people of old Edo (now Tokyo) began cooking many ingredients stuck on bamboo skewers in one pot. They used soy sauce as a base, which accounts for the murky darkness of the stock and the uniformly brownish color of the ingredients. Called Kanto-daki (Kanto-style oden), this dish was passed down to the Kansai area. There the people of Osaka changed the stock, taking out the soy sauce and substituting salt and kelp, or sometimes chicken stock or even white soy sauce, to create a clearer, more delicate broth. The variation, known as Kansai-daki, reached Tokyo and influenced the original oden. In fact, traditional soy sauce-based oden has become a rarity, even in Tokyo.

My version of Kanto-style Oden is slightly unorthodox, as it includes a relatively small amount of processed fish paste products. You are welcome to add as much as you like. The secret to making a great oden? Time (it definitely improves with age), a variety of ingredients, and the all-important condiment, karashi, spicy Japanese mustard. This Kanto-style recipe is just one of the collection of regional dishes featured on Thanks for the Meal.
Kanto-Style Oden

Lucy Seligman

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Course Main Course
Cuisine Japanese

Servings 4 persons

Ingredients

24 ounces (685 grams) daikon radish, unpeeled, cut into 1-inch (2-1/2 cm) rounds, simmered over low heat in water for one hour
5-1/4 ounces (150 grams) fresh shiitake mushrooms, washed, stemmed, and placed on bamboo skewers (three per skewer)
1-1/4 lb. (600 grams) white potato, peeled, and cut in half, simmered in water for 30 minutes and drained
To make Fukuro (stuffed, deep-fried tofu):
5 large pieces abura-age (deep-fried tofu), dipped in boiling water for 2 minutes to get rid of excess oil, squeezed to remove excess water, cut in half, then opened to create little sacks
3-1/2 ounces (100 grams) mochi (pounded rice cakes, cut into 3/4 ounce (approx. 20g) slices
8 ounces (225 grams) shirataki (devil’s tongue noodles), cut in half, parboiled, and drained
3 raw eggs
10 8-inch (20cm) long kampyo (dried gourd strips), washed and drained, to tie up the sacks
8 ounces (225 grams) konnyaku (devil’s tongue jelly) cut into triangles, parboiled, and drained
2 chikuwa (fish paste rolls) cut on the bias into thick slices
1 cake tofu, drained and cut into 8 thick squares
4-6 chicken drumsticks
Assorted cut-up fish paste products such as kamaboko and satsuma-age, optional
Dashi Fish Stock:
1 ounce (30 grams) konbu (kelp) wiped with a damp cloth and lightly slashed
8 cups water to soak the kelp in for 30 minutes; retain the water
2 small packets (1/5 ounce or 6g) katsuobushi (dried bonito shavings)
Prepared Dashi Stock:
2 tbsps sake
1/4 cup light soy sauce or to taste
2 tbsps mirin (sweet sake) or to taste
2 tsps salt or to taste
Condiment:
spicy Japanese mustard (karashi) to taste

Instructions

Place the kelp and water into a soup pot over medium heat. Just before it boils, take out the kelp (which can be cut up and added to the oden) and add the bonito shavings. Boil for a minute or two, then strain. Return the stock to a clean soup pot. Add the remaining stock ingredients, adding salt little by little until the flavor is to your liking. Keep the pot simmering.
To make fukuro, carefully stuff each pocket with either shirataki, pounded rice cake, or a shelled raw egg. Tie each pocket up with a dried gourd strip.
To make oden, place all the ingredients into the simmering prepared stock and cook for at least one hour. Bring the pot to the table and serve communally. Place a selection of the cooked ingredients in shallow bowls, serving the fiery mustard separately. If refrigerated, oden will be even tastier the second day. Reheat, adding more ingredients if desired, and serve.

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Photo © Pelican

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Chanko Nabe: A One-Pot Dish for a Pot Belly
A little unknown fact about me is that I love sumo! It is one of the few sports I’ll watch. When I lived in Japan, you couldn’t tear me away from the television whenever sumo was on. I even went to a live Sumo tournament in Tokyo with my then father-in-law and it was sublime! We dined on elegant and yummy bento boxes, drank a lot of beer! and watched sumo for hours. I’ve never had so much fun at a sports event in my life. To this day whenever I think of Sumo wrestlers I still giggle over their appearance and antics, but don’t be deceived, they are true athletes.

YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN SUMO WRESTLERS in action – remarkably fat, semi-naked, they spend a lot of time hitting themselves on the posterior and prancing around doing what appears to be a rain dance in a dirt ring, trying to knock each other down. At first it looks pretty ludicrous, but after a while you begin to find them rather endearing.

The secret of sumo wrestlers’ rotund figures lies in enormous helpings of chanko nabe, a one-pot dish that is their staple fare. It can, in fact, be just about any form of nabe (one-pot) cooking, but traditionally it is chicken-based.

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One story has it that during the Edo era (1603-1867) a group of wrestlers visiting Nagasaki learned to cook meals in a Chinese wok, or chanko – and brought the habit back to Edo (now Tokyo). Another theory holds that Hidekatsu Watanabe, a former wrestler who owned a restaurant in Tokyo, named the stew in honor of sumo stable masters, or “fathers” (chan), and their “sons” (ko), the wrestlers. But the most likely origin of the dish, although not the name, is that it was invented in the Meiji period (1868-1912) by former yokozuna (grand champion) Hitachiyama. On retiring he opened his own stable where, to save time, he introduced a simple one-dish meal.

The reason behind the preference for chicken is that chickens have two legs, like sumo wrestlers standing in a dohyo (sumo ring). For a wrestler to be on all fours means losing a bout, so it is considered unlucky to eat anything with four legs.

Chanko nabe stock can be flavored with salt, soy sauce, kelp, dried bonito shavings, or a combination of these. Each stable has its own special flavor: some add mirin (sweet sake), others butter. Since the stock is so flavored – good enough to enjoy on its own as a soup – a dipping sauce isn’t necessary. Many sumo wrestlers are diabetic, so chefs are careful about sugar, but otherwise almost anything can be added. The current fad is to add spicy Korean kimchi (pickled cabbage).

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Chanko Nabe: A One-Pot Dish for a Pot Belly

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Ingredients

1 ¾ lbs. chicken parts with bones
3 quarts water
A 6-inch piece of kombu kelp, wiped with a damp cloth and lightly slashed to release flavor
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
8 fresh shiitake mushrooms trimmed
12 oz. shirataki fine white konnyaku [devil’s tongue] noodles
7 oz. spring onion white part only, cut into 2-inch pieces
4 oz. mitsuba trefoil, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 block of grilled tofu drained and cut into 1-inch squares

Instructions

Pour boiling water over the chicken parts to get rid of the odor. Place the chicken, kelp, water, and salt in a Donabe pot or deep soup pot over high heat. When nearly boiling, discard the kelp, turn heat down to a simmer, and cook, covered, for about 20 minutes. Skim off any scum. Remove the chicken to a bowl with a little stock to keep it moist; strain the rest of the stock and, if you prefer, let cool to room temperature and skim off excess fat.
Arrange all the ingredients on a large platter. Half-fill a deep casserole with stock and heat to boiling. Prepare a heat source at the dining table, transfer the casserole to it, and add some chicken, vegetables, and tofu. When just cooked through, allow guests to help themselves to a selection from the pot. Continue adding more ingredients as needed.

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