Osechi ryōri (Japanese New Year Meal)

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.

Curry and Rice

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…

 

Simple yet tasty…

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.

Takoyaki (octopus ball) experiment

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)

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

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

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

Chilli-con-Carne in the Rice Cooker

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…