Cook Japan

What I ate on my holiday: Japan 2010

2010-07-31T10:03:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone, just back from 2 great weeks in Japan – awesome food, great weather and a truly wonderful holiday.

As you’d expect, food played a big part of the trip, so here’s a glimpse at some of the delicacies we devoured along the way…

Hope you like it…

CookwareStyle – Kitchen Appliances and Cookware : LAUNCH!

2010-06-22T12:28:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of recipes of late emanating from Cook Japan Towers, we’ve had some technical difficulties with our camera, but a lot of time has been taken up with the launch of our new shop…

www.cookwarestyle.com

Cook Japan is still going from strength to strength and we’ll have lots of new summer recipes for you, plus a food rundown on our trip back to Japan in July, but following interest from customers we have now launched CookwareStyle which is a new online shop dedicated to great kitchen appliances and cookware…

We have an ever expanding range of wonderful appliances, so if you want high quality kitchen appliances and cookware that are great to use and offer bags of style then come and visit us at www.cookwarestyle.com

Our current range of items includes:

BBQ Grills - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Barbecue_Grills,i.html
Blenders - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Blenders,i.html
Deep Fryers - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Deep_Fryers,i.html
Egg Boilers - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Egg_Boilers,i.html
Electric Grills - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Electric_Grills,i.html
Induction Hot Plates - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Induction_Plates___Cookers,i.html
Juicers - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Juicers,i.html
Ovens - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Ovens,i.html
Raclettes - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Raclettes,i.html
Rice Cookers - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Rice_Cookers,i.html
Sandwich Makers - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Sandwich_Maker,i.html
Steamers - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Steamer,i.html
Warming Plates - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Warming_Plates,i.html, and
Yoghurt Makers - http://www.cookwarestyle.com/category/Yoghurt_Maker,i.html

We look forward to seeing you at CookwareStyle and will be back with more recipes soon at CookJapan.

Thanks

Cooking Nabe on an Induction Hot Plate

2010-02-21T14:41:00.001Z

A portable induction hot plate is a great addition to any kitchen. They are perfect for cooking a variety of Japanese nabe (one pot) dishes, where family and friends sit around the nabe, eating, cooking, talking and having fun.

In Japanese cooking the nabe pot is usually placed in the centre of the tables and shared by family and friends, not only is this considered a very sociable way to eat, but is the reason for the saying Nabe o kakomu (鍋を囲む"sitting around the pot"), implying that sharing nabe will create warm relations between the diners who eat together from the shared pot.

Nabe is a wonderful meal, especially in these cold winter months. Induction heating technology means that cooking with an induction hob is not only energy efficient, but time saving as well with up to 90% more efficiency, 50% energy savings and 30% faster cooking times.

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Steamed Chinese Dumplings in the rice cooker

2010-02-19T10:12:00.002Z

Hard not to love Cha Siu Bau; lovely chau siu pork filling and a light fluffy bun on the outside…perfect with on their own or even with a bit of soy sauce and chilli oil to dip…

As for the rice cooker’s part in this culinary master-snack…fill the cooking bowl with 3 cups of water, place the buns in the steamer tray and use the “slow cook” function for 10-20minutes depending on whether they’re fresh or frozen, and then enjoy…

I use the “slow cook” function as it creates the fastest boiling water from which to steam…in addition to dumplings, you can steam anything and everything in the rice cooker.
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Valentines Day in a Rice Cooker

2010-02-14T23:16:00.002Z

If I could have worked out how to make crab terrine in a rice cooker it would have been a clean sweep, but as it was Mrs Cook Japan had to make do with 2 courses from my favourite appliance…risotto (her request) and a dessert of strawberry and rhubarb compote…

…time for the sweetness later, with the terrine taken care off it was another run out for risotto in the rice cooker. On the menu this evening was Asparagus and Mushroom Risotto…an absolute breeze and very tasty (although could have perhaps been a tad moister)…

It really is so easy to cook risotto in a rice cooker…braise the shallots in oil and butter, add the rice and cook for a few minutes, then in goes the asparagus and mushrooms followed by chicken stock and pop the whole thing on the “Porridge” (or risotto setting depending on which machine) for 20-minutes and hey presto…

The dessert was made this morning to save some time, then served chilled with good quality vanilla ice cream. Again super easy in the rice cooker…first cook rhubarb with water and sugar for 20-minutes then add the strawberries and cook for a further 40-minutes or so…

Incredibly simple, but a great dessert full of flavour and amazingly refreshing…

Rice Cooker Ikameshi (Squid stuffed with rice)

2010-02-14T18:14:00.002Z

For squid fans out there – why not try ikameshi (squid stuffed with glutinous rice)

Its incredibly easy to do in the rice cooker, first up take a large squid and stuff it with glutinous rice (not to full, as the rice will expand), and we also added a few chopped up bits and pieces of squid, then close the end using a toothpick and pop them in the rice cooker…

…along with sake, mirin, sugar and a pinch of salt and a little bit of soy sauce. We also put a piece of baking parchment over everything then popped it into the rice cooker for 30-minutes…

…plate up with the sauce that its been cooked in, you’ll probably find a fair bit of rice has eked out into the liquid but that’s fine and garnish with some spring onion and a bit of grated ginger…

…or just slice it open on a plate and devour it…

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Rice Cooker Slow Roasted Pork with Cabbage and Beans

2010-02-13T22:22:00.001Z

Frugal freezing February – cheap, hearty warming food is most definitely on the menu this month…

This is a very simple and very tasty dish – and a bit of a recession buster as well. First up we cooked 2 pork fillet in early grey tea for about 45mins to tenderise the meat. The water was then thrown away and the pork went into the rice cooker along with a whole cabbage (chopped) and a rinsed can of baked beans. Rather than buying haricot beans or something similar, rinsing the tomato sauce of a can of baked beans was Mrs Cook Japan’s latest innovation. For added flavour in went some left over stock from the previous days udon, soy sauce, mirin, sugar, salt and pepper, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

Use the slow cook option on the rice cooker and once the cooking cycle is completed just leave it on keep warm until ready to serve. Alongside some nice jacket potatoes, ‘twas a delight…

Sausage and Chestnut Rice

2010-02-10T23:36:00.002Z

One of the joys of cooking in a rice cooker is the ease with which you can literally “dump” ingredients into the machine and come back later to a delicious meal. This time in went shiitake mushrooms, chestnuts and some “sausage-meat-balls”, along with a dash of soy sauce…

Admittedly making meatballs isn’t too difficult or time consuming, but why not just take some sausages, remove the casing, mix with soy sauce and a bit of seasoning then make into bite size meatballs? If you are lucky enough to be able to get fresh chestnuts then use those, but equally easy is just using canned chestnuts…
…delicious, simple and a joy to eat.
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Making Mochi

2010-01-15T10:17:00.002Z

I have to put my hands up and admit I’m not a big fan of mochi (rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded), but it is a mainstay of Japanese cuisine and served in soup (ozoni) is a traditional aspect of New Year…

So without entering into the mochitsuki ceremony how did we make mochi? (Well, when I say “we”, I mean Mrs Cook Japan and the 10 friends and countless children who had a great time making and eating it at our house.)
First up, mochigome (special glutinous rice for making mochi) was left to soak then wrapped in muslin and steamed in the Cook Japan rice cooker…

…and this is where the brilliant idea came into play…use a breadmaker!!!
Traditionally the rice is steamed then put into a huge mortar where it is a pounded to make a paste, whereas their plan was to put the rice into a breadmaker using the “dough” function and keep 20+ collective fingers crossed on the results….
…and what great results they were! About 30-minutes in the breadmaker produced a wonderfully sticky paste that could be easily moulded then devoured…

And what a feast it turned into, never before have I seen so much mochi in one place. Eaten with adzuki (red beans), natto (fermented soya beans), daikon oroshi (grated radish), kinako (soybean flour), and of course as ozoni, everyone had a whale of a time.

So if you’ve got a breadmaker to hand, start steaming your rice and start making mochi!

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Rice, Teriyaki Chicken, Burdock Root and (Eggy) Miso Soup

2010-01-14T11:25:00.001Z

…yeah you read that right, “Burdock Root” (gobo). Do you remember drinking dandelion and burdock as a kid, well this is the root it is made from…

We are really lucky because our friend Ikuko-san has a Japanese vegetable farm in Sussex so we can actually get fresh burdock root from her (by their very nature is a root fresh?). At the top of the picture is kinpira gobo (braised burdock root – the thin one) with renkon (lotus root). Alongside which is some lovely chunks of chicken in a teriyaki sauce and lightly tempura’ed leeks.

Alongside which was the obligatory bowl of Japanese rice…

…and a light miso soup into which a poached egg was inserted – delicious!! I can heartily recommend this combination for any lovers of miso and egg out there…

French Onion Soup a la rice cooker

2010-01-11T20:32:00.002Z

Pray tell, what could be easier…

…first brown 3 onions in the Cook Japan rice cooker using the “braise function” (or do it in a pan if your machine does not have this option…

…then add 4-cups of water into which you’ve dissolved 2tbsp of beef bouillon, a dash of Worcestershire sauce and a bit of salt…

…set the “slow cook” function for around 3hours and come back to it later, when its had chance to sit a little longer on “keep warm” to intensify the flavour and voila…

…top it off with a piece of cheesy toast and its a supremely easy way to cook a lovely heart-warming soup…

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Nanakusa-gayu (Seven herb porridge)

2010-01-07T22:12:00.001Z

Eaten and drunk too much over the past couple of weeks? Feeling a bit lardy, lethargic and lumpy? Have a bowl of Nanakusa-gayu (seven herb porridge)…

After indulging too much over ohshogatsu (new year), a long standing tradition in Japan is to eat nanakusa-gayu on 7th January. Not only is it a simple low-calorie food after all that richness over the previous few days, but importantly it is believed to bring longevity and health, and also intended to ward off evil for the coming year.

The tricky bit if you’re not in Japan (where you can actually special packs at this time of year in the supermarket) is how to get the 7 herbs, traditionally (but with local variations):

seri – Japanese parsley
nazuna – Shepherd’s purse
gogyo – Jersey Cudweed
hakobera – Common chickweed
hotokenoza – nipplewort
suzuna – turnip
suzushiro - daikon

Your best bet is to therefore replace these greens with whatever locally available green leaf vegetables you can easily get hold of, and more importantly like. So, armed with some lovely fresh greens how do you make this porridge?

Well, first things first, its not porridge in the western rolled oats sense of the world, this is an Asian rice porridge (in Japan referred to as okayu – but not much different from what you would find in China as congee or similar dishes elsewhere throughout SE Asia).

In a rice cooker its an absolute breeze to make…

…wash the rice thoroughly, then put 1 cup of rice into the rice cooker with 7 cups of water, press “Congee” and leave the rice to cook. Probably takes about 40-minutes or so and then it will have a nice porridge consistency (see top photo). At this point ,add your chopped greens and leave it on “Keep Warm” for a few minutes – but not too long as you don’t want everything to wilt too much. Add a little bit of salt and serve…how easy is that!

Sardines with Mentaiko

2010-01-02T19:07:00.001Z

What is mentaiko I hear you ask? Well, its marinated Pollock roe to the unitiated…

…but this isn’t any mentaiko, its karashi mentaiko or spicy fish eggs!

In case you’re not sure, the mentaiko is the orangey/brown balls on the outside of the fish. Of course the bowl of rice was courtesy of the dear old Cook Japan rice cooker, but what a wonderful combination for a quick easy healthy lunch…

The sardines have been cooked have a sweet soy sauce taste from their own marinade, which combined with the slightly spicy marinated mentaiko is a great fusion of flavour and texture. With a steaming bowl of fresh rice its a real treat along with a piping hot bowl of miso soup and a side of homemade gobo (burdock) salad…

Osechi Ryori Part 2

2010-01-02T17:32:00.001Z

Come on, you didn’t really expect me to allow the leftovers to go to waste did you?

A great end to the first day of the year!

Osechi ryōri (Japanese New Year Meal)

2010-01-01T18:08:00.001Z

あけましておめでとうございます! Happy New Year!

1st of January can mean only one thing in many Japanese households – osechi. Osechi ryori is the traditional Japanese food eaten on New Years Day dating back centuries, an array of delicate dishes presented in lacquered boxes. This year we didn’t get back to Japan so made it at home (check the bottom of the post for last years photos from Japan).

In addition to the traditional 3 jubako (lacquer boxes) we indulged in some homemade sushi and got some chu-toro (tuna belly) for sashimi…

…while not quite up to the standards of a master in Japan, this was really nice sushi (squid, octopus, prawn and saltwater eel)…

The jubako roughly followed the Japanese traditional one one being seafood, one from the land and one from the earth...

I couldn’t resist this little photo of one of the Cook Japan kids fave osechi dishes – ebi prawn) tempura on one of our “only to be used on New Years Day plates”…

Osechi wou;dn’t be osechi though without also having a bowl of ozoni – soup with “mochi” (steamed rice pounded into a sticky/elasticy rice cake) inside…but its not for the faint hearted! Each year there are a few small deaths recorded from people choking on mochi!"

So that was our attempt at making osechi and it was a wonderful meal and perfect way to start what will hopefully be a good 2010. Last year, we were back in Japan and this is the magnificent food Mrs Cook Japan’s mum rustled up…a true master of the kitchen!!!

…and yes, it did taste as amazing as it looked!

So with the osechi devoured, there’s only one thing left for me to do…relax and enjoy hatsuburo (the first bath of the year). Oh, and the kids will be expecting otoshidama – the traditional Japanese gift of money on New Years Day!

Happy New Year everyone…and don’t forget the Cook Japan shop is running a 10% discount on all stock through January.

Eintopf (German one pot stew)

2009-12-16T21:37:00.002Z

Following a chat about food with two German chums, Helge and Lasse, we thought we should try making Eintopf in the Cook Japan rice cooker:

For those new to this dish, that includes Cook Japan until 48-hours ago, Eintopf means literally “one pot” and is a traditional type of German stew which can consist of a great number of different ingredients. Technically, the term refers to a way of cooking all ingredients in one pot, not to any specific recipe.
Not knowing quite where to start we therefore followed Lasse’s lead and opted for the following recipe which we cooked with the “soup” mode (plus a bit of braising)…
…first up braise some bacon and German sausage in the rice cooker, once browned put this to one side, switch to “soup” and get on with the liquid component of dinner. In this case, we used peas, leeks, carrots, celery, potatoes, bay leaf, onion, some bouillon and seasoning. Once the soup was underway, the sausages and bacon were re-added to the rice cooker and left to cook…

Once cooked the dish sits quite happily on “keep warm” intensifying flavours until ready to be devoured by very cold hordes at dinner time…and the best thing is there just enough for a very small cold horder to eat some more tomorrow!

As with many great dishes this is Eintopf is about using ingredients to hand rather than rigidly sticking to a recipe, this was our first experiment and according to our German friends not a bad start either.
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Slow Cooked Pork (in the Rice Cooker)

2009-12-01T21:20:00.001Z

This is a slight variation of a firm Cook Japan family favourite…buta no kakuni (Japanese braised pork belly). Mrs Cook Japan is loving our local supermarket’s so called “forgotten cuts”, in this case pork cheeks…

…so it was still pork, just that it happened to be cheeks and not belly…I have to say if you are a fan of slow cooking pork cheeks are a wonderful cut of meat for this type of dish with a fabulous texture.

So the recipe…Mrs Cook Japan’s secret is to cook the meat in earl grey tea for 1-1.5 hours until it is really tender, she then changes this to fresh water and adds ginger, garlic,dried lily flowers and daikon (long white Japanese radish) along with soya sauce, mirin, sake and sugar which gives the dish its lovely sweet syrupiness. The whole thing is put in the rice cooker and left to cook for a couple of hours, after which a few spring onions and leeks go in and everything is left on “keep warm” until its time to eat.

One of the great things about this dish is the way the daikon soaks up the sauce, creating this wonderful marbling effect and making it absolutely delicious…

The finished pork just falls apart on your fork/chopsticks, the tenderness of the meat and flavour is superb and only increases with time (especially if there’s some left for the following day).

Served on a bed of rice (thankfully we have 2 rice cookers for when it comes to making meals like this), the only drawback was having friends pop round…once they’d had a bowl as well it meant was nothing left for me reheat tomorrow…

RICE COOKERS are BACK IN STOCK

2009-11-28T22:52:00.002Z

There is nothing more disappointing than realising that the rice on the stove is burnt or worse still has turned into a gooey mess. For so many people, the task of making rice is one fraught with difficulty and despairing hope…

…but help is at hand with a Rice Cooker from Cook Japan – http://www.cookjapan.co.uk

With a rice cooker it doesn’t have to be this way…in Japan, and elsewhere across Asia, a simple-to-use hi-tech computer controlled rice cooker is a sight in every kitchen, ensuring perfect rice at the push of a button every time…

…and not only can they cook perfect rice, but rice cookers from the Cook Japan shop can also be used as a slow-cooker or steamer, to make porridge, congee, soup, and also to braise. This makes it a great multi-purpose rice cooker so there’s really no limit to what you can make. In fact, Cook Japan rice cookers have the functionality and fuzzy logic technology you would expect to find in a Japanese rice cooker:

So does it do anything else?

Well, not only do Cook Japan rice cookers make great rice, with their range of other cooking functions and programmes, a 24-hour timer, and automatically switching to “keep warm” when the cooking cycle is finished, there is no limit to what you can cook. Some of our most recent dishes have included:

For more recipes and to see some of the culinary fun we have with our rice cooker read the rest of the blog or visit: http://www.cookjapan.co.uk/article/rice_cooker_recipes

Oh and with Christmas coming, you can even make mulled wine in your rice cooker!

“So, how does it work then?” I hear you ask, well…

…by using computer controlled technology, commonly referred to as fuzzy logic, the rice cooker is able to make adjustments to both temperature and cooking time to cook perfect rice, for example if the rice is too hot and heating too quickly the heating element will be turned down slightly to balance this. With fuzzy logic the cooking process is improved in 3 key ways:

The temperature sensor control is more accurate and can therefore allow for fine adjustments to the cooking temperature
The heat distribution and conduction around the entire bowl produces more evenly cooked food
The computer can instantly strengthen or weaken the heat ensuring a controlled cooking process

For more information about rice cookers and how to use them, please visit www.cookjapan.co.uk
Thanks, now, I’m off to make some rice…

Risotto alla Milanese (in the Rice Cooker)

2009-11-27T00:19:00.002Z

To celebrate Cook Japan’s little sister getting a new job, I thought I’d invite her round for one of her favourites dishes…Risotto alla Milanese…

This is a famous Milanese version of risotto cooked with saffron. The think is, I’ve never cooked risotto before in my life…so given that I also invited my risotto-cooking cousin as well it was a real gamble hoping that I could pull this meal off…
…but before I even started worrying about risotto I’d also decided to make a raft of antipasti dishes to get the dinner started.

So along with some olives, artichokes, sun dried tomatoes and Italian meats from the shops, I also opted to make a variety of toppings for some crostini. First up was grilled vegetables (easy), followed by a cannellini bean and garlic puree that was then topped with rosemary infused olive oil…

We also tucked into some porcini mushrooms grilled with herbs and mozzarella…

…and some lemons stuffed with mozzarella, basil, anchovy fillets and sun dried tomatoes which were really yummy!

So with all that taken care, it was down to the pièce de résistance…my first time at the hands of a pot of risotto, but this was not any old risotto, it was a double first as it was cooked in my trusty Cook Japan rice cooker!
First up, chopped shallots were braised in butter and olive oil then in went the Arborio rice which was cooked until translucent along with the wine…

…all that was left was to add the saffron infused stock and the remaining stock, switch the rice cooker to “porridge” mode and tuck into the rest of the food while we waited.
No need to constantly stir the risotto and pay attention to the stove, instead after 20-minutes it switched to “keep warm” so in went some more butter then just before serving a pile of grated parmesan to finish the dish off….

…of course I’m biased, but I thought it was really nice and more importantly my sister who lived for a few years in Milan, where she got her love for the dish, though it was great.

So next time you want to make risotto do it in the rice cooker!

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Rice Cooker Beef Stew

2009-11-23T21:49:00.002Z

Thankfully Mrs Cook Japan is over last weeks cold, but as the weather stays cold and miserable she still has a desire for hearty meals to keep the cold from the door. Working from home this afternoon, the smell of meat browning was wafting upstairs along with the sound of onions frying. As I left to pick up Cook Japan Jnr. from school, she was putting the finishing ingredients into the rice cooker for beef stew…

The onions and meat were both braised in the rice cooker and then in good stew fashion into went the vegetables, water, seasoning and whatever goodies she popped in for flavour. The whole shebang was then cooked using the “slow cook” function and then left on key warm until dinner time – what could be easier? Just leave it to one side and let the rice cooker work its magic…

On a cold day like today, it was the perfect warming meal…full of flavour, tender meat, and as the eagle-eyed readers may have noticed, some rice on the side.
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Kimchi Nabe

2009-11-21T23:02:00.002Z

You may already have come across our last night of Nabe action…

http://cook-japan.blogspot.com/2009/09/nabe-japanese-one-pot-stew.html

…but for those of you who missed out that particular delicacy, nabe is a one-pot Japanese dish consisting of various ingredients which is cooked in (obviously) one –pot in the centre of the table and shared by who ever has the good fortune to be dining with you.

In this case, it was the kids, but once they’d had their fill/got bored of the hassle we pumped up the volume so to speak and chucked in a pile of kimchi (Korean pickled cabbage) and gochujang (fermented chilli sauce) to give it some kick…and a distinctive redder look…

Cooked over a camping stove in the middle of the table, this is a wonderful dish as the weather closes in the nights get longer. In this case, we had the tofu, shiitake mushrooms, prawns, chunks of white fish, dumplings, pork mince balls, udon noodles and a range of Japanese green vegetables we were fortunate to receive today from a friend with a farm specialising in Japanese produce – but you could get away with some Chinese cabbage and rocket.

What makes it yummy is the chilli from the kimchi and gochujang.. definitely a cold-boosting dish and a great meal to share with friends (especially if you have a fridge of cold beers on hand)…

…one of the great things about nabe is that as the pot is kept warm on a portable stove in the middle of the table diners can pick what they want and generally graze. Eating together from a shared pot is considered as an important feature of nabemono; the belief is that eating from one pot makes for closer relationships. The Japanese thus say, Nabe (w)o kakomu (鍋を囲む、"sitting around the pot"), implying that sharing nabemono will create warm relations between the diners who eat together from the shared pot…

Curry and Rice

2009-11-19T11:32:00.003Z

Unfortunately Mrs Cook Japan has a cold at the moment…but is this a bad thing? Well to a degree, but that is until you realise her medicinal take on combating said lurgy is to indulge in a fiery curry. So in a way its true, “every cloud does have a silver lining”.

As regular readers will have realised by now, I’m a pretty honest and upstanding chap, so I won't pretend that I made the 3 curries – that would be just too extreme, but the trusty Cook Japan rice cooker was called into action for the accompanying rice…

…so basmati rice went in the rice cooker, along with a bit of salt and a drizzle of oil to keep its delicate grains firm and tender, and then for a bit of added vavavoom we added some mung beans and fresh herbs – yummy! Again another sterling performance by our favourite kitchen appliance.

Its a great rice combination and an absolute winner alongside this plethora of curry delights…chicken chat (below), prawn methi (bottom) and the house special which is a lamb meatball curry (top).

…i feel hungry again just blogging it…

Chirimenjako and Rice

2009-11-19T11:18:00.001Z

One other thing the recent care package contained was a huge bag of chirimenjako which are just perfect as a topping for a bowl of nice hot rice…

Chirimenjako are not strictly a variety of fish, but more a generic name for very small fish like baby sardines or anchovies that are simmered in saltwater, then dried in the sun. This particular batch had also then be covered in a nice sweet marinade – a kind of crispy soy and sugar glaze really.

Really tasty, and more than likely quite good for you as well…

Yakisoba

2009-11-13T20:15:00.001Z

The care package from Japan also had some really good noodles in it, so for tea we had yakisoba (fried noodles). Essentially it’s stir fried noodles with bite sized pieces of pork, vegetables, sometimes seafood, and then flavoured with yakisoba sauce and a bit of seasoning.

This is such an easy dish to prepare, just get yourself some good noodles (the better the noodles, the better the dish) and everything else is the type of stuff you probably always have around the house. The one thing you might not have is yakisoba sauce, although lots of asian supermarkets stock it nowadays. The other option is to make your own – try blending some oyster sauce, soy sauce, mirin, honey and a bit of sugar…

A very similar dish that is also great to try is yakiudon, where you simply replace the thin ramen-style noodles with the much thicker udon variety, both are extremely tasty and easy to cook. We make yakisoba a lot at home, but this dish with very good quality noodles was an absolute delight…

Buta-man and Hotate-man (Pork & Scallop Buns)

2009-11-13T17:47:00.001Z

A care-package arrived from Japan this morning full of delights, two of which were Buta-man (Pork Buns) and Hotate-man (Scallop Buns).

Buta-man is Japanese food made from flour dough, and filled with cooked ground pork or other ingredients. Across Japan they tend to be referred to as nikuman (meat buns), the term Buta-man is more common in the Kansai region. They are similar to the Chinese baozi.

The Hotate-man is a speciality from Hokkaido, this was the first time I’d tried it and as you can see its a very tasty little fella…

The buta-man has a fabulous minced pork filling and is a great snack food – many convenience stores sell these plus other fillings like curry, pizza and custard. Its great to be able to eat them here in England, only draw back is when food is this good they don’t last very long in the Cook Japan household…

Mabo Dofu with a twist…

2009-11-11T22:55:00.001Z

…well i say its a twist, but actually its just a sweet romano pepper, although having said that some do have a kind of twisty shape to them (not convincing ground i know but hey…) Oh, and a few lily flowers so i guess that’s not to common so counts as kind of twisted…anyway, enough about food contortions its extremely tasty…

Mabo Dofu is a very popular Chinese dish cooked in Japan – originally from the Szechuan province of China, the Japanese equivalent lacks some of the spice, heat and thick sauce of the Chinese dish, but still provides plenty of flavour, In essence its a dish of tofu, chilli and minced meat (typically pork or beef).

This is one of my favourite dishes and has become a traditional on my birthday – today’s variation had some finely chopped cabbage, rehydrated lily flowers and sweet peppers thrown in for added flavour along with the meat/tofu staple ingredients. The Japanese version tends to use miso paste rather than chilli paste, but either way its incredibly delicious served on a bed of rice (come on you didn’t really think I’d go through an entire blog without mentioning the wonders of our Cook Japan rice cooker did you?)….

Steaming hot bowl of noodles

2009-11-08T08:56:00.001Z

I could wax lyrical about this, but as they say “a picture is worth a thousands words” (not that there is any danger of me writing that much”, but perhaps this is one of the dishes to just look at without my incoherent ramblings…

Oh, go on then…just a few apt sentences then.

Homemade soup stock using very good quality dashi sent from Japan, ramen noodles, some chicken, a bunch of dumplings from our local Chinese supermarket and then topped with homemade pickled spring onions…

…delicious – wonderful on a cold day like today!

Playing with my new Teppanyaki Grill

2009-11-06T23:23:00.002Z

What a brilliant purchase, a nice new Teppanyaki Grill…
…anticipation in the house was at fever pitch waiting – vegetables were bought, steak marinated, squid cleaned, tofu diced, noodles cooked and homemade yakiniku sauce wonderfully made by Mrs Cook Japan (with grated apple as a zany, but magnificent secret ingredient).
A teppan is an iron griddle used to cook food, essentially frying it, hence teppanyaki…

So with ingredients ready to go, there was only one thing left to do – heat up the baby and start cooking…
…getting started…

…nearly ready…

… yummy!
Who needs sunshine and fine weather when you can bbq in the warmth and safety of your home on a cold winters evening?!?!
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Kind of like dry-curry (and a bit like kedgeree), but also a bit like neither…

2009-11-02T19:44:00.001Z

…you know how some days there’s nothing really in the fridge, freezer or cupboards from which to concoct dinner? Well that’s where this came from and thankfully was jolly tasty as well.

As you would expect, and know by now, there was the typical abundance of rice to be found in the cupboards. It wasn’t to difficult to find an onion, couple of beans and lentils, eggs and the random element in the dish, a frozen “chip shop” battered cod piece from the dark recesses of the freezer. As for seasoning, curry powder, cumin and some of the usual suspects from the spice rack were roped in for the task as well.

So the idea was something like a Japanese dry curry (basically a kind of curry-flavoured fried rice) and a bit like kedgeree.

Onions were fried, battered cod went in the oven and then was chopped up, and while all this was going on the trusty Cook Japan rice cooker was busy cooking up some rice with beans and lentils. Once the rice was cooked, in went the onions, fish pieces and some seasoning and the whole thing mixed up and left on “keep warm” until it was time for dinner…

…so as you can see its a bit like a dry curry and kind of like kedgeree, in fact a pretty good random combination that worked out really tasty, full of flavour and a great way to use up a bunch of bits and bods to make dinner…

…ooh, then I thought “i know”, and cooked up a nice hard boiled egg to give it a bit more of a kedgeree feel (well kind of, if you don’t look to closely)…

New improved octopus balls, and sausages with lentils!

2009-10-29T10:54:00.001Z

When you sit down and think about it…

“No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.”
John Stuart Mill
English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)

…which is why I took the bold move of altering my “modes of thought” for the production of takoyaki (octopus balls) and my rather yummy sausage with puy lentils dish.

I will leave you to debate whether this will lead to any improvements in “the lot of mankind” (I am too humble and modest to judge such things), but feast your eyes on these bad-boys and tell me they’re not tasty…

Toulouse Sausages with Puy Lentils

Stuck to a more French feel with the sausages this time going with some lovely smoked Toulouse sausages from the butchers and a monstrous glug of red wine, but also chucked in some finely chopped chestnut mushrooms and sweet romano peppers…

Takoyaki (octopus balls)

Last weeks balls were very tasty, but this weeks balls were balls that would be hard to beat!

Nothing much different in the recipe, perhaps the pan was now a bit more used to be using, or it could have been to do with the gas for the camping stove running out and having to make them on the stove rather than in the middle of table, but either way, tell me these are some of the tastiest balls you’ve ever seen…

Simple yet tasty…

2009-10-26T14:35:00.001Z

Sometimes just throwing together some bits and pieces in the kitchen is all you need to. At a loss as to what to make and without the ambition or desire to try and remedy this mindless state, grabbing a few things from the kitchen and fridge actually turned into a perfectly good lunch…

…of course there was some rice in the rice cooker, so that had to feature, but then I also remembered we have some yukari (dried red shiso/perilla leaves) which makes a great accompaniment to a simple bowl of rice with a lovely plum flavour…

…you can’t beat a bowl of miso soup with your rice, so out came the miso paste to which I added some shungiku (garland chrysanthemum) which is a beautiful leaf and full of flavour…

and my wife has recently been making pickles so it seemed rude not to have a plate of that as well.

what a great combination…

…so nearly a perfect lunch, but I kinda fancied some meat as well and as luck would have we’ve got a big joint of cha siu pork in the fridge so I chopped off a few pieces, gave them a quick heat-up in a pan and used a sauce made from soy sauce and honey to give it a bit more vavavoom…

…simple and yet tasty, just what you want for a simple lunch without much thought.

Cook Japan TV

2009-10-23T12:07:00.003+01:00

Not only do we have some great products at Cook Japan so you can have fun in the kitchen and some lovely recipes on the blog, plus an expanding section on the shop, but we are now launching Cook Japan TV…

…in addition to our own videos highlighting our appliances and recipes, we also have an ever growing content of some truly great food demonstrations and programmes.

You can watch a true takoyaki master at work, see demonstrations of all our appliances and we have also sourced some fabulous Japanese and Korean recipes – all of which make cooking great food incredibly simple and straightforward.

For sushi lovers, we also have the brilliant sushi episode of Ryori no Tetsujin (Iron Chef) - a superb cooking programme.

So have fun and we hope you enjoy Cook Japan TV – we are constantly adding more great content that we know you’ll love so “subscribe” to Cook Japan TV and stay up to date!

COOK JAPAN TV

Takoyaki (octopus ball) experiment

2009-10-19T22:26:00.001+01:00

If you’ve never had takoyaki they are delicious! Yes, I know the idea of octopus balls may sound a little icky, but trust be on this one, they are wonderful.

Unfortunately, much as I love them I am not fit to make takoyaki within a millions miles of this artist…

…tell me you’re not impressed by that!

Anyway, a friend recently gave us an old takoyaki pan so we decided to give it a clean and give it a try…with my 7-year old standing in for the takoyaki master. Unfortunately we had no beni shoga (pickled ginger) or katsuobushi (bonito flakes), but that wasn’t going to stop us once we were armed with our octopus and had made the batter…

…first task was oiling said paid and getting it up to the required temperature so we could pop in the batter, then add those cheeky little pieces of octopus…

…was you’ve got it hot enough and it looks as though the underside is cooked…

…the only think left to do was to flick them over (unfortunately not with the dexterity of the chap above), but still we did manage to keep the balls moving sufficiently that they ended up looking like this…

…which wasn’t bad for a first real effort from a 7-year old…so we popped them on the plate gave them a covering our sauce and crushed nori (in place of katsuobushi) and hey presto…

…luckily, we had enough batter and octopus for 4 batches, so everyone got more than enough!

Puy Lentil and Sausage Casserole (in the rice cooker)

2009-10-18T22:45:00.002+01:00

Yes, I’ve cracked it!
If you read the blog on Paris you will have seen the lovely dish of lentils and sausage we had in a tiny little bistro tucked away in a corner of Le Marais – half way through that meal I thought it might be worth experimenting with this in the rice cooker when we got home…
…having bought some puy lentils and Lincolnshire sausages (for an English twist) the experiment worked a trip and the meal was lovely.

This is so simple and easy to cook in the trusty Cook Japan rice cooker…first brown the sausages on the “braise” function, put them to one side and lightly fry an onion and 2 cloves of garlic. Then add the lentils, a pint of stock and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, put the sausages back on top and switch to the “Cook” function…

Keep an eye on the level of liquid and add more water if it looks to be going to dry and after an hour or so you have a fabulous lentil and sausage casserole…

Serve with a little side salad and some wonderful rustic bread and you have a great meal to sit back and enjoy on a cold evening as the nights draw in…

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Lily Flowers and Steak Slow Cooked in a Rice Cooker

2009-10-16T15:30:00.010+01:00

Yes, you read that correct the first time…lily flowers!

Dried lily flowers are a great accompaniment to a meal; they rehydrate when cooked and add a really nice flavour to your dish.

Do you remember the delicious ox cheeks from last week? Well the butcher had sold out, so opting for another cheap, but yummy cut of meat, the purchase of “chuck steak” was made.
But, what is Chuck Steak I hear you ask?
Well, chuck steak is a rectangular cut of meat that contains part of the shoulder bones and contains a lot of connective tissue, including collagen. Collagen melts during the cooking of the meat, making the flavour intensely stronger, which is one of the reasons this is such a great meat for stewing, slow cooking, braising, or pot roasting.

As for the lily flowers…also known as “golden needles”, the dried lily flower is usually left to rehydrate in water for 20mintues or so before cooking and is a common ingredient in many Asian dishes.
So…how to make Lily Flowers and Steak in a rice cooker…

First chopped onions and a bit of garlic go in the rice cooker on “braise” then in goes the chunks of chuck meat and when the braise function comes to and end (after a few minutes) add some water…
…give it a few minutes then in goes the standard Japanese base of soy sauce, dashi, mirin and cooking sake so you get some sauce when the whole thing has finished cooking…and some seasoning and the lily flowers.
Once the “braise” as run its course the rice cooker reverts to “keep warm”, leave the food on this function until its ready to eat – in our case it was a few hours before the kids ate dinner, and a couple more until I got home to polish off the rest….

All in all, a great cut of meat, lovely lily flowers on a bed of nice fluffy perfectly cooked rice. A wonderful dish.
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Monster Porridge Batch in the Rice Cooker

2009-10-16T14:30:00.003+01:00

What do you do with 2.5 litres of cold porridge?

Admittedly not the sort of question you usually find yourself having to answer on a Friday afternoon, but its something I need to ponder this weekend.

I was asked to experiment with the Cook Japan rice cooker to see how much porridge it would make; as a result we sat down to breakfast this morning faced with 3-litres of porridge. So if you ever want to know, there’s little trouble making 3-litres of porridge (7-cups of dried oats and a river of milk) as you can see…

…give me a sprinkle of nutmeg and cinnamon and lashings of maple syrup and I’m a contented porridge eater, but 3-litres of it!!

So, the question to you is, “What do I do with 2.5 litres of cold porridge?”

I’ll keep you posted on what happens next, at the moment i’m planning a crazy porridge cake…
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Sausage and Lentils (in the rice cooker)

2009-10-12T23:45:00.003+01:00

If you’ve had chance to see my recent blog on our weekend in Paris, you may have noticed Saturday’s wonderful lunch which included sausages and lentils – a wonderfully simple dish that was incredibly tasty.
Half-way though the meal I couldn’t help but turn to my wife and declare, “I bet you could cook lentils in the rice cooker”, so as soon as we got home and with few groceries to choose from we dug out the lentils from the cupboard, along with some stock, a bit of spice and several chunks of dried sausage…
…the ultimate plan is to get it looking something like this…

…and I will get there, especially after I hit the Brighton Sausage Company on Saturday for some good quality bangers and get the “right” sort of lentils.
Tonight was just a trial run to check the concept and see whether it would get filed away under “hair brained schemes” or whether it was an idea that might actually for all its craziness, actually work…
…and it does.
Green lentils (all the cupboards had to offer), water, stock, spice and sausage all got put in the Cook Japan rice cooker which we experimented with cooking on the “Porridge/Soup” option, it still needs a bit of fine-tuning, but by jolly it works…

…will keep you posted on how this develops, but lentils in the rice cooker is a definite option for all your lentil lovers out there.
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Long weekend in Paris (without a rice cooker)

2009-10-12T23:09:00.006+01:00

Back to reality…after 3-nights in Paris its back to the grindstone of work tomorrow and the normality of life. I’ve been to Paris several times over the years so its great to be able to just wander round the city taking in the atmosphere off the beaten track without trying to fit in the sights.

Staying in a nice little boutique hotel by Bastille the weekend was spent relaxing round Le Maris, the Latin Quarter and St.German where we also managed to find 5 fabulous restaurants and ate wonderful food – what more could you ask for?

Friday
Friday night, having arrived late afternoon and popping briefly into the Louvre, was spent in Pho 67, a truly wonderful Vietnamese restaurant on Rue Galande. Not content with devouring 3 starters between us of Prawn Spring Rolls, Pork Dumplings and RAW GOAT salad…we then ploughed into 2 mains washed down with Saigon Beers…

…so after demolishing these three wonderful dishes it was onto a bowl of Beef Pho and, as the owner told us his mother’s special recipe for, Noodles with Coconut, Prawns and Pork…

Saturday

Having turned down a little side street and ambled through a little square we found a quaint little restaurant off the beaten track in Le Marais for lunch where the plat du jour options included starters of duck terrine and the ubiquitous escargot (snails)…

…followed by delightful main courses of sausage with lentils and fish on a bed of finely sliced courgette and potato…

…just what was required to give me the fortitude to face an afternoon of shopping, before we found ourselves in a wonderful fish restaurant near St.Michel Metro for a super dinner.

I adore carpaccio so couldn’t resist the tuna and scallop option on the menu, while my wife opted for the fish soup – which was out of this world…

…we’d walked a long way that day, so even with our hearty lunch and these starters inside us there was nothing stopping us as we descended on a huge bowl of moules mariniere and a melody of raw fish french style – not what you’d expect back in Japan from a plate of sashimi, but without doubt 3 exquisite dishes of salmon, shrimp and … (a white fish that i’ve totally forgotten) oops!

…oh what culinary delights.

Sunday

The last day of our shopping and eating escape to Paris started with us once again hitting Pho 67 for much of the same at lunch, plus a thin noodle dish (not unlike ramen) that contained shrimp, wonton, minced pork and chau sui…

…our last meal was then spent in a lovely romantic dimly lit restaurant where i’d have looked more of a fool than usual to have been clicking away with my camera, so you’ll just have to let your imaginations conjure up images of frogs legs with a salsa verde and duck ravioli with a foi gras sauce for starters, followed by red mullet in a hericot-blanc and whisky sauce, and venison for the main courses…
…yummy!

Back to running tomorrow – have to shed the 1.5kg extra I found somewhere in the course of these culinary adventures. But, oh was it worth it!

Chilli-con-Carne in the Rice Cooker

2009-10-09T07:19:00.002+01:00

Still very cold, so after soup yesterday and with family round for dinner we figured a nice bowl of chilli would go down well with everyone. Rather than messing about with pots, pans and keeping an eye of stuff as well the chilli was cooked in the rice cooker in the early afternoon with us safe in the knowledge we could just leave it to one side on “Keep Warm” to let the flavours build and develop until we were ready to eat…

So how was this enterprising dish made in our trusty Cook Japan rice cooker…
…first, using the “Braise” mode we cooked the onions and garlic…

…then in went the mince and some of left over ox cheeks we had from yesterday that didn’t make it into the soup…

…with the meat nicely browned, in went some tomatoes, kidney beans, cheeky grating of chocolate, a glug of wine, salt and pepper, and some good old chillies and seasoning to give it that nice kick you want on a cold evening.

The rice cooker kicked into “keep warm” and it was left like this for about 5-hours until we were ready to eat dinner. All that was left to do was make some rice in our other rice cooker (yes, we have 2 of these divine appliances), get out the bowls and chow down…

…with a couple of cold beers, what more could you want on a cold evening…

…and the best part is there’s a good healthy portion left for tomorrow when the flavours will be even richer – time set the rice cooker for a quick 10-15 minute cook cycle and then leave it on “keep warm” until ready to eat at lunch…

Braised Ox Cheeks and Meatball Soup

2009-10-07T22:22:00.003+01:00

My word the weather here in Brighton is fast becoming rubbish – after a pleasant end to September the last three days have seen the skies open and buckets of rain descend…

…enough to make the most stout-hearted soul depressed, or at least take refuge in a hot bowl of soup.
Little admission…today was the first time we tried making soup in the Cook Japan rice cooker – it has a “soup function”, we just have not got round to trying it before. The plan was to get some shin beef, but the butcher didn’t have any…slight downer, but what he did have was ox cheeks – an absolute steal at £1.56 for 400g!

If you hadn’t noticed yet, I love my Cook Japan rice cooker, the versatility is great…the ox cheeks, lamb mince meatballs, onion and garlic were cooked using the “Braise” function then the water, tomatoes, root vegetables, seasoning, bit of wine and splashes of random sauce bottles around the kitchen all got chucked in and once the appliance clicked into “Keep Warm” mode the soup was left for several hours to develop its flavour…

(not a perfect picture but you get the idea)

Look at these cheeky chaps, don’t you fancy one? The flavour was so rich after 3 or 4 hours on a low heat, and really succulent and juicy…

Perhaps should have skimmed it before greedily diving into a bowl, but I quite enjoy the lip smacking aspect of the meat fat when its a thin soup like this – I like the way its adds more depth to the flavour when its not a hearty soup in its own right…

Very tasty and at £1.56 for 400g a true recession-boosting dish!

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

The best things in life are free…fresh caught mackerel

2009-10-06T10:27:00.002+01:00

Sometimes its the simplest freshest dishes that are best. Yes, we all love the fun of complicated recipes that “hopefully” taste great and wow are friends, but as well know you can’t go wrong with good fresh ingredients…

…so what could be better than a freshly mackerel!

This poor little fella had only just been caught an hour or two previously, and boy did he taste nice.

Mackerel is a real family favourite in our house, saba-zushi (mackerel sushi) is a huge fave of mine. I’d have loved to do that (although one of his friends did end of being eaten raw which was fabulous), but instead opted for popping the fish (having already gutted it) under a very hot grill until the skin starts to blacken and crisp (don’t waste mackerel skin its super tasty and definitely part of the enjoyment of the meal.

Once the skin has blistered, flip the mackerel open and lift out the bones in one easy movement and then just pour over a little soy sauce, and if you have it to hand also some grated daikon (radish). Lovely simple fresh tastes that don’t need anything more complicated…

To make the meal complete all it needed was a bowl of hot steaming rice from the Cook Japan rice cooker, miso soup and a nice cold beer…what could be better?

Yoshinoya – the best beef bowl in the world!

2009-10-05T18:40:00.002+01:00

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A care package arrived this morning from Japan, but this was not just any old care package it contained packets of Yoshinoya’s gyu-don (beef topping and sauce to go on rice). The those of you who’ve never been to Yoshinoya, its a classic of Japanese fast food. Founded in 1899 its now a normal site throughout Japan and sells cheap tasty gyu-don (beef bowls) that really is quite wonderful

I heard Yoshinoya had now started selling packets of their food so you can have it at home, even if home is thousands of miles away from the nearest restaurant.

What an easy dinner…pop the rice in the Cook Japan rice cooker, the packet into boiling water then when both are done empty the beef and sauce onto the rice.

It doesn’t get any simpler, just add a sprinkling of shichimi (Japanese chillil powder) and…

I can’t begin to tell you how much I enjoyed eating this and how much I resented having to give some to the kids – ha ha!

Basmati Rice with Mung Beans (topped with fried onions and hummus)

2009-10-05T14:05:00.003+01:00

Today, felt like a healthier more simple day after a bit of excess over the weekend – a bowl of miso soup did feature!

This was a recipe my sister very kindly passed on, she even bought us the Moong Dal/mung beans to go with it…

This is so easy to make, washed basmati rice is mixed with the mung beans (split green beans) and put in the Cook Japan rice cooker. All you then have to do is press “Start” and wait for it to finish cooking – talk about simple and my word is it tasty.

Rather than cooking my normal “x” number of cups, this was made with 2/3 cup of rice and 1/3 cup of mung beans as the ratio to which water was added. While the rice cooker was working its magic, I leisurely fried some onions and grabbed the remaining hummus from the fridge.

Hey presto, the rice is cooked, the onions go on top and hummus makes a great accompaniment…

…the rice cooker is sitting there on “keep warm”, think i’ll pop back to the kitchen and have a bit more!
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Miso Soup – Hangover Cure

2009-10-02T11:03:00.003+01:00

We’re coming up to the weekend, so in case you happen to accidently imbibe too much this weekend and wake with a head that feels as though a thousand elephants are stampeding through it, try this for a great hangover cure…

Miso soup is a cracking cure for a hangover…although this isn’t of course the only reason to drink it, after all you should never need a reason for a good bowl of miso soup coz its so delicious, but…

…it does work as a cure if you had one too many, in fact in Japan some companies even market special “hangover cure miso soup” like Nagatani-en whose packaging specifically shows a beer glass with the words “For people who like their drink”…

So there’s two ways to basically make miso soup, firstly using miso paste, and secondly using instant miso soup which reconstitute rapidly in hot water. Now I’m not a huge fan of instant food for the most part, but you can buy some absolutely fabulous instant miso soup – often coming in a huge variety of flavours. Giri-no-haha’s (mother-in-law) care packages often include boxes of very good quality instant soup. Here’s one I had last night (just with dinner, don’t worry I wasn’t hungover…)

It may not looking appetising yet, and I won’t tell you what my seven-year thought it looked like, but add boiling water and hey presto…

Your other option is to use miso paste which is dissolved into dashi stock then put in your additional ingredients like tofu, chopped spring onions, clams, wakame (seaweed) etc etc. Its really easy to make you just need to get hold of some good miso paste. Now don’t be put off my the large tubs this often comes in and wonder how you will use it all…

…it has a great shelf-life, but as well as using it to make gallons of miso soup, you can use it in a myriad of other recipes. One of my favourites which I’ll blog on one day is Miso Pork – smother pork in a miso sauce, ideally overnight, then scrape off the excess marinade and cook the meat (great on a BBQ). The great think about this dish is that you can reuse the excess miso you scrape off the meat a couple more times as a marinade (just keep it seperate from the rest of the paste), and even then rather than throwing it out if you finally use it to make soup you get a nice rich flavour which just gives it that little bit of something different.

Enjoy!

Tonkatsu (breaded pork) and Shishito (Japanese green peppers

2009-10-01T23:12:00.002+01:00

We are really lucky, one of our Japanese friends near Brighton has a commercial allotment where she grows Japanese vegetables – many of which are then sold to restaurants across the south-east.

As a result, we are able to get a plethora of great freshly grown produce, but without doubt one of my favourites, and one of the hardest to get in England, is shishito. Shishito is a short Japanese green pepper which we usually just grill, but tonight for a change we opted for tempura shishito…and I’m so glad we did…

Alongside this, there was a bit of last nights Oden still lurking in the pan, rice from the good old Cook Japan rice cooker, a bowl of miso soup and another big favourite tonkatsu. To make it all you need is a nice piece of pork loin or pork fillet which is then deep fried in a coating of flour, egg and fine breadcrumbs and then served in slices…

Unfortunately we’ve run out of tonkatsu sauce, but if you mix ketchup and HP sauce its a pretty good substitute…

Simple, yet delicious…if you can find shishito buy some!

Oden – a Japanese winter stew

2009-10-01T10:00:00.003+01:00

Oden is a classic winters dish in Japan – simmered over a low heat for hours its a wonderful warming dish that is also really good for you.

Its easy to make, all it needs is a bit of forethought so that you have time to really bring out the flavours of the ingredients. Quite simply, put some dashi soup stock in a large pot with water and then add sake, soy sauce and sugar. Pop your ingredients in, bring to the boil and then leave on a low heat for several hours – in Japan its not uncommon to make this the day before and leave it on a really low heat.

This dish was therefore a perfect experiment for the Cook Japan rice cooker; all the ingredients went in, it was brought to the boil then simply left on “keep warm” until we were ready to eat.

Yesterday was a simple oden, we didn’t have time to get to the specialist shops that would have other ingredients, so we just used tofu, daikon (Japanese radish), potato, boiled eggs and shin beef. Each mouthful was then dipped in a little plate of karashi (hot mustard) for extra taste…

With time to shop, or if we were back in Japan, we’d have tried to buy and use some of these common Oden ingredients as well:

Tsuji – beef tendons
Chikuwa – tubes of mixed processed fish meat (sounds weird, but tastes divine)
Konnyaku
Deep fried tofu, or fried tofu pouches (Atusage and Aburaage)
Tsukune – fish or meat balls
Pumpkin, and other Japanese regional twists on this classic stew

Ultimate Oden…

Tofu, Minced Pork and Cabbage

2009-09-28T21:23:00.003+01:00

One of my favourite dishes is Mabu Dofu, which I’ve loved every since I lived in Japan and always end up eating on my birthday. Japanese mabu dofu is much milder than the original Chinese Szechuan dish – although I’ll more than happily eat either.

This isn’t quite mabu dofu, but is not a million miles away and still extremely tasty…

While the rice was happily cooking away in the Cook Japan rice cooker, I turned my attention to rest of the dish…mixing a bit of water, miso, sugar, mirin and salt in a bowl, then frying the cabbage over a low heat with the minced pork. Once the mince starts to change colour in comes the mixed seasoning and then the tofu cubes for a final 10-minute simmer and the whole thing goes on top of a steaming bowl of rice.

Although the miso gives the dish a nice deep flavour, I love my mabu dofu a bit spicier than my children so in goes a really good dollop of gochujang (korean spicy miso paste) to give the whole dish a kick…

…as I say not really a “pure” traditional Japanese, Chinese or Korean dish, but one where having robbed bits and pieces from each kitchen the resulting dish is lovely.

Ottolenghi Roast Chicken and Three-Rice Salad

2009-09-28T12:27:00.004+01:00

We’re going a bit Ottolenghi crazy at the moment…the cookbook is amazing!!

Sunday night (and yippe, left overs for lunch today) was Ottolenghi’s Roast Chicken with Three-Rice Salad.

First up, roast a chicken that has been liberally rubbed with olive oil and salt and pepper then when cooked put to one side at room temperature and let cool, and keep the juices. While the chicken is roasting you start making the rice salad…first in the pan (or in our case the Cook Japan rice cooker) was the basmati rice which once cooked was then put to one side to cool, and into the rice cooker went the brown rice and wild rice to be cooked together, and then put the combined rice aside.

Carve the meat, or tear off in chunks, then mix lemon juice, sesame oil, thai fish sauce and olive oil and pour this dressing over the chicken.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry sliced onions until brown and let cool. Add the three rices, fried onion, spring onions, chopped chillies and coriander, mint and shiso (or rocket) to the chicken.

Absolutely delicious…

Three rice salad

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Nabe – Japanese One Pot Stew

2009-09-28T11:21:00.003+01:00

Nabe (or nabemono) is the pot used in Japan for one-pot stews, which are placed in the middle of the table usually on a portable stove so the dish is kept hot, but also allows you to keep adding more food and keep eating.

In Japan a “shared pot” is an important aspect of building closer relationships, hence the phrase Nabe (w)o kakomu (鍋を囲む、"sitting around the pot" which implies that sharing nabemono will create warm relations between the diners who eat together.

Their is a huge variety of nabe dishes, plus its the sort of thing you can adapt to whatever ingredients you have at home. Saturday night we opted for a pile of typical Japanese vegetables along with udon noodles and some meatballs made from pork mince, spring onions and ginger:

These were then all cooked in the nabe, the water having been already seasoned with konbu (kelp) and served in individual bowls with ponzu (citrus based sauce similar to soya sauce) and some more spring onions, plus grated Japanese white radish:

Of course no meal in house tends to escape the Cook Japan rice cooker, so at the end of the meal the previous days leftover rice was mixed with the remaining liquid in the nabe along with an egg to make zosui/ojiya, a fabulous end to any nabe…

A beautiful bowl of Kosheri

2009-09-25T13:03:00.003+01:00

We recently got the Ottolenghi Cookbook which is full of fabulous dishes, one we tried last night was KOSHERI…although we didn’t have all the ingredients so had to cut a few corners, but the result was still delicious. Kosheri is a traditional rice and lentil dish from Egypt that is usually served alongside a spicy tomato sauce…

What you should do is fry some garlic and oil then add tomatoes, water, vinegar, salt and cumin and bring to boil, then simmer seasoning with coriander and a bit of salt ‘n pepper. Then wash and cook lentils until tender, and then wash some rice, fry some vermicelli noodles in butter until golden brown, add the washed rice and cook. Leave to steam then sautee the onions and add these plus the lentils to the rice, garnishing with a bit more coriander.

Takes a bit of pan juggling, but is a simple dish to make and tastes wonderful.

What we did, was basically as above, but didn’t have any tomatoes to hand (and couldn’t be bothered to go shopping at night for more) and our lentils were more yellow than green, but other than that we did what the book told us – and anyway, good cooking is always about tweaking things a little…

Its a great dish and a great cookbook if you don’t already have a copy…

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Double donburi delight

2009-09-24T21:45:00.004+01:00

Yeah, not one but two bowls of food…double donburi delight!

I was still a bit peckish after my bowl of gyu-don…didn’t need to eat, but was suddenly given the glorious excuse of my wife also cooking up a batch of “buta no kakuni” – a real favourite. For those of yet to try this delicious dish, its essentially Japanese braised pork belly.

I’m a huge fan of this dish, its a brilliant way to cook pork belly…and it goes wonderfully with sake.

My wife’s killer recipe for buta no kakuni is to cook the pork belly in earl grey tea for 1-1.5 hours until it is really tender, she then changes this to fresh water and adds ginger, garlic, leeks/spring onions along with soya sauce, mirin, sake and sugar which gives the dish its lovely sweet syrupiness. The dish is then left to simmer on a low-heat for around 2-hours until the liquid is almost gone and reduced to a sauce.

Try this, its a fantastic way to cook belly pork – there’s a bit left in the pan, tomorrow I’ll eat these remnants and the flavours will be even deeper, yummy!

As for my "entree", by the time the pork belly was done I'd already tucked into a nice bowl of gyu-don for dinner – essentially a “beef bowl”. Its lovely thin slices of beef that are simmered in a sauce (made from soya sauce, dashi and mirin) and some onions – my wife then popped a dash of corn flour in to just thicken the sauce a little and make it stick to the beef. Throw some pickles, or in my case shichimi (seven flavour chilli pepper) and you can sit back and enjoy a lovely meal.

(Of course the rice for both was out of our Cook Japan rice cooker…where else?)

If you love a bit of gyu-don - check out my blog on the packet of "Yoshinoya Gyu-don" I was sent from Japan...oishii!!
For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Unagi-don (grilled eel) for lunch

2009-09-23T13:01:00.002+01:00

Had to some left over rice in my trusty Cook Japan rice cooker and thanks to my giri-no-haha (mother-in-law) back in Osaka one last packet of unagi (grilled eel) with sauce – perfect for making one of my favourite dishes…Unagi donburi.

In Japan the hottest day of the year is known as Ushi-no-hi, if you eat unagi on that day it will strengthen your body so you don’t get ill as the year starts to get colder. Unfortunately, here in England its already cold, but any day is a good day for unagi donburi…

A wonderful hot bowl of porridge…

2009-09-23T09:51:00.005+01:00

…blimey it was cold this morning, not that we had much of a summer but it seems autumn is fast coming upon us now.

Forced my tired limbs out on to the streets in the early hours for a heavy-legged 5km run (which I could say it was fast and furious), but plodding is probably the best I can hope for…

…got home and wanted a bowl of porridge to warm the bones and give me the energy for the rest of the day I was so obviously missing

So popped the oats and milk (1:2.5 ratio) into the Cook Japan rice cooker, along with a drop of vanilla essence, put it onto “porridge” function end hit START. Went upstairs for a shower and to get changed, came back down a little over 10-minutes later and the porridge was cooked and sitting on “keep warm”.
Gave it a swirl of maple syrup and a dash of nutmeg and…

…it was lovely

better still, the cooking bowl was a dream to clean…not elbow grease to clean out the usual congealed bits from a saucepan and no need to sit there constantly stirring it either. Simple and really yummy breakfast.

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Yummy Char Siu Congee

2009-09-21T22:20:00.006+01:00

Really tasty dinner tonight…was a little bit torn on what to do and make and too tired to put much effort into it, so opted for a lovely bowl of Char Siu Congee made in the rice cooker.

Simple to to make, popped in some cha siu pork with shiitake mushrooms, corn, soya beans and some asparagus topped at the end with some spring onions… what could be easier.

All you have to do is wash the rice, pop it in the rice cooker (i went for 1.5 cups of rice and 8 cups of liquid). Rather than going with all water I also used the water the shiitake had been soaking in and a good glug of soya sauce and ponzu.

Everything went in the Cook Japan rice cooker, stick it on “congee” mode and 45 minutes later it was all set to eat…delicious! Easy to make, really tasty and great for when you can't face slaving over a hot stove

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

Japan Matsuri – London, 19th September

2009-09-18T10:34:00.003+01:00

Really looking forward to the Japan Matsuri this weekend in London (http://japanmatsuri.com/), should be a great day…top entertainment and some yummy food no doubt.

Also looking forward to talking to people about Cook Japan Rice Cookers, be great to see the reaction to being able to buy an affordable and hi-tec rice cooker in the UK.

Hopefully the weather will stay nice and the day will be a great success for all.

Cooking perfect rice in a rice cooker…

2009-09-17T00:24:00.005+01:00

Here’s a simple easy to follow run down on how to cook rice in a rice cooker. Following these easy steps (or using the more detail guidance at www.cookjapan.co.uk) should ensure that you can make perfect rice everytime.
Happy eating…

For more information visit: www.cookjapan.co.uk

New Cook Japan Website goes live…

2009-09-15T23:27:00.003+01:00

The new website for Cook Japan as just gone live, check out www.cookjapan.co.uk
Cook Japan™ is a shop and community set up to help you find some of the key tools you need to make great Japanese, and other Asian, food.

One of the biggest problems for lovers of Japanese and Asian food is being able to make perfect rice at the drop of a hat. Finding high performance rice cookers in Europe like we have at home is extremely difficult and more often than not nigh on impossible.

Cook Japan rice cookers have all the functionality and technology you would expect from a Japanese rice cooker. We want to make it easy and affordable for you to find and buy top quality micro-computer controlled rice cookers utilising state of the art fuzzy logic and induction heating (IH). We'll also bring you great recipes and an increasing range of other Japanese cookware.

We are sure you'll have great fun and make great food with your Cook Japan rice cooker.

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