丼ずけ-どん - Zuke-don

こんにちわ! I’ve been getting some positive feedback on some of my posts and every so often I’ll get a request to offer something basic that anyone with the least amount of cooking experience can make. Well to satisfy that request, we tried our hands at another Donburi using Tuna. For this Donburi you can use any sashimi grade Tuna but for this we are going to go native and use Hon Maguro (blue fin). Now if you have been reading the Japanese News lately, you have seen a lot of controversy over the use of blue fin tuna. I personally don’t have an issue with it for if it were so endangered I wouldn’t be able to find it so easily at the Japanese Markets here in Southern California. But if that is an issue for you I’ll repeat that you can always use any sashimi grade tuna as a substitute. We sure won’t object!



So here’s what you will need:
I pkg Hon Maguro – Tuna – Sashimi Grade
Japanese Soy Sauce
1 Cup of cooked Sushi Rice
Wasabi – according to taste!

If you are ready, let’s begin! はじめましょ!

To start we will first open our package of tuna. In Japanese markets you can get this pre-sliced but if this is not an option, no problem! Simply slice your tuna filet into bite sized one inch slices.

The next thing you will want to do is marinate your tuna in soy sauce as shown below. Refrigerate for one hour then turn over your tuna and refrigerate for another two hours.  Sounds simple so far? It is!

There's no need to drown the tuna. Simply pour enough soy sauce to around 1/4 inch to effectively marinate.

After one hour, turn your tuna and re-refrigerate for another two hours as seen here.

If you have read our previous post on how to make sushi rice and have already have your rice ready to go, simply fill enough rice in a bowl and leave enough room for your tuna. Serve your marinated tuna over the rice. For me I like to mix my rice up but that is your choice just as you can choose to spice it up with a dash of wasabi in your soy sauce. In any case, you’ll wind up with a savory dish full of nutritional value such as omega-3, iron, potassium, & vitamin b6 proteins you’ll enjoy on a hot summer’s day or anytime of the year.

If you are looking to cut calories, we suggest using a low sodium light soy sauce as we use. You can also substitute your sushi rice with brown rice. We’ve tried to make Zuke-don both ways and it came out おいいしい!!!

So once again, the Gaijin-Gourmet has brought you another simple easy to make dish you can make whether you are here in the U.S. or in Japan and with little or no trouble at all.

Enjoy!

ぎゅどん と もやし - Gyudon to Moyashi - Beef on Rice with Bean Sprouts

Konichiwa! It's the start of the Third Month of the Year of the Tiger and the Gaijin-Gourmet is back with another easy to make recipe for you to enjoy! Rice bowl dishes can make some great lunches and with some added variants can also do well for light dinners. So we thought we would try our hand at one of them that caught our eyes from NHK along with our own added touch by adding a side dish we learned from Soy Sauce Queen. In such we have combined two dishes to make one combined dish that we believe you will find as おいいしい as we did.

So here's what we made: Gyudon- which literally means Beef on Rice is something that looked easy to make. Now that the Shinkendo dojo that we train at has moved right across the street from the Nijiya Market in Little Tokyo, we couldn’t help but take advantage of special beef packages available there. Now we have used the thinly sliced beef before for other dishes such as Shabu-Shabu and other dishes, but we had not used it before but not in a rice bowl dish. Luckily, we came across a rice bowl dish on NHK’s Japanese Kitchen where we could put all these things together. So let’s get started! はじめましょ!

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 package of thinly sliced beef – This is best found in Asian Markets.

1 Cup of Cooked Rice

½ package of Bean Sprouts

1 Onion

1 Cup (or two depending on taste) of white wine.

1 Cup of Water

¾ Cup of Japanese Soy Sauce

½ Cup of Mirin

4 Tsp of Sugar

2 Tbsp Sesame Oil

I previously mentioned that the thinly sliced beef is best found in Asian Markets. If you are in Japan or near a Japanese Community. If this is not the case, You can improvise by working with Mexican Shredded Steak commonly used for my native Carne’ Asada. Once you have this little detail worked out, you’ll want to cut them in 5cm or 4 inch slices.

For these dishes, I prefer to use a white onion. Typically, you'll want to cut the top and the bottom off and remove the inner seed portion. From there make thin slices across the board. I recommend using the whole onion. Trust me, you'll thank me later!

Combine your 1 Cup of Water with a Cup of White Wine in a Wok or Skillet. Wok's work best for this. Bring the heat up until boiling point. Depending on how much beef you mat need to add another cup of Wine or Water depending on quantity and taste.  Lower the heat to medium. Add your beef and simmer until browned. You should leave it in there between five and ten minutes. Once browned, skim off any surface broth.

Once your beef is ready, add your Mirin, Soy Sauce, and Sugar. Cover it for a few minutes then add your onions into the mix and continue to simmer. Cook the onions until soft. By now your you should be getting hungry. We sure did!  

While your Beef & Onions simmer you can work on the Moyashi - Bean Sprouts. What you'll want to do is take a good handful of Bean Sprouts and put them into a smaller skillet. Use Sesame Oil and an additional 1/3 cup of Japanese Soy Sauce. Normally for cooking bean sprouts you'll want to use sugar and vinegar. If you are going to combine this with Gyudon this will over power the taste so I reccomend using only Sesame Oil and Soy Sauce to simmer for five minutes.

When everything is ready take your cooked rice and fill have a bowl, Top with the beef & Onions with a little room for your bean sprouts. Depending on your taste you can garnish with a little red sliced ginger. We didn't have any but we enjoyed this dish anyway! おいいしい!

When you have it all together you have what I call  ぎゅどん と もやし - Gyudon to Moyashi -

Beef on Rice with Bean Sprouts!

Enjoy!

おやこ どんぶり Oyako Donburi

Welcome back! Today I present to you an easy Donburi. If you are new to Japanese cooking, Donburi means rice bowl dish. Donburi's can be made with chicken, meats, or fish. For today I offer you an easy chicken donburi made with simple ingredients you can find pretty much anywhere. Now as we have stated in the very beginning of this blog , this is not my original creation or am I trying to deprive anyone of making money. My intention is to show you my cooking experience and how you can easily follow along to make both traditional Japanese meals or easy to make Japanese inspired meals. Wakarimasu ka? Okay then!

Now that I have my usual disclaimer out of the way let’s get cooking. よい? はじめましょお!

So let’s go over what we’ll need:

1/2 lb chicken breast - or more
4 eggs
4 dried Shitake Mushrooms – or more!
1 onion
¼ cup Water
1tsp Sugar
3tsp Mirin
4 tsp of Soy Sauce
Rice
Garnish - みつば - Optional

So the first thing you’ll want to do is unpack those dried shitake mushrooms and soak them in water. Soak them for no less than ten minutes. If there are any stems cut them off.

You’ll later slice the mushrooms in half before you are ready to use them.

Next, take your chicken breasts and slice them diagonally and then into to bite sized pieces. And then return them to the refrigerator until ready to use.
At this early stage you’ll also want to slice up your onion into thin slices. Now don’t be shy! You’ll want those onions in there. Trust me!

Depending on how much food you plan to make you may need to add an additional egg or two.
 
But if it’s just for two then stick with the program and beat four eggs together until they are ready for use.
 
 
 
 
So now if you have your chicken, mushrooms, and oinions sliced, you are almost ready to go. But first you'll need to mix your simmering sauce. I had made this Donburi before from Yukio Moriyama's book Japanese Cuisine. But as I have discovered there is always a slight deviation from her recipie when I am cooking. Sometimes, I stray from the measurements and just eyeball it to my taste. I think many people do this and in most cases it's ok. But if you are not sure of your cooking abilities then for the time being stick with the recipie.
 
So if you are ready to make your simmiring sauce, mix together 1.4 cup of water into a bowl. Do not go over a 1/4 cup as I ususally tend to do or you will end up having to drain the water midway during cooking. This can skew your results so try to avoid this. Mix your water together with the soy sauce, mirin, and no more than that tsp of sugar.
 

Next, pour your simmiring sauce into a good sized skillet and bring to a boil. Once boiling add in your chicken, onions, and mushrooms. Cook them until the chicken appears done and the onions tender.
 
This should take about 2-3 minutes.
 
 
 
 
 

 
If your chicken, onion, mushroom mix appears ready, pour the beaten eggs into the mix and cover for around one minute.
 

The optional part of the recipie calls for a garnish to be added in. The Japanese recipie uses a garnish called mitsuba but if you can not find mitsuba any regular garnish in small amounts will do. This is mostly done for presentation. This is of course entirely optional.
 
 
 
 
 
If you have your rice already cooked then you can serve up the contents of your skillet. Place rice into a bowl then place the chicken & egg mix over the rice. If you have any left over simmering sauce left over you can pour a small amount to sweeten your donburi. This makes for an easy meal suitable for lunch or a light dinner. Not to mention it is relatively inexpensive to make. And you know that's always a plus! So please come again! I hope you enjoy this recipie. Enjoy!
 

Gyūtsukune

Last week we posted our little experiment we got from NHK and it was a big success. Not only did our Sake no Ebi Tsukune came out OIISHII, but people wrote to me directly and loved the recipe! Given the popularity of our take on Salmon Tsukune, we thought we would try our hand at Gyūtsukune which is literally a beef version of what we previously made. Like with Sake no Ebi Tsukune, we rarely follow instructions to the letter for one logistical reason or another but we do our best to show you or at least inspire you to do on your own.

Remember, were not trying to deprive anyone of making a living or claiming credit for something we didn't invent but merely showing you how we did at making some of the best Japanese dishes we can get our hands on. So if you're cool with that and not calling your lawyer...let's get cooking! Hajime!

Gyūtsukune at a glance looks allot like our earlier stab at Sake no Ebi Tsukune. The preparation methodology is the same but the ingredients make this it's own Tsukune. Now earlier this week I had bought a thing of basil leaves and shitake mushrooms. What drove me nuts was that somewhere in the middle of my 101 distractions which are impeding the completion of my Samurai Novel I am writing, I forgot what the hell I bought the basil leaves for! Ok, now that our memory came back to us after a heavy workout in the Shinkendo Dojo, my delayed memory recalled researching recipes at NHK's cooking page. It was there that I was introduced to both the fish and meat Tsukune recipes. As I previously mentioned before, I don't always follow or in some cases understand some of the directions I come across but that never stops me from making a good meal and neither should it stop you. As in my subtitle for my page, I will give you both Japanese and Japanese inspired cooking.

So getting back to our Gyūtsukune.... as with any recipe you'll some ingredients. The original recipe called for ground beef and pork. I have a general distrust of pork in this country so I opted to make my Gyūtsukune without pork otherwise I would have to call it Nikutsukune(Niku=meat / Gyū=beef). So here's what we used:

1lb of Ground Beef


5 Shitake Mushrooms

3 Basil Leaves

1/2 Carrot

1/2 Onion

1 Egg

1/2 Cup of Mirin

1/2 Cup of Soy Sauce

2tsp of Oil ( We use Olive Oil but Vegitable Oil is ok too)

2tsp of Sugar

2tsp Flour

Salt & Pepper (to taste)

3 Basil Leaves

As with our earlier fish based Tsukune, we recommend prepping your main ingredients first and the sauce second.
 

 
So first thing is first.
Take your Shitake Mushrooms and cut the stems off first.
Take a good sized mixing bowl and be ready to throw them in.
Slice and dice your mushrooms into tiny pieces.
 
You will repeat this slice & dice process with the onions and the carrots.
 
 
 
 

 
The original recipe called for six basil leaves.
 
We used three so the basil wouldn't overpower our dish.
If you have ever cut fresh basil leaves then you'll know exatly what I mean!

 
Once you have your basil, mushrooms, carrots, and onions chopped up into little pieces throw them all into the same mixing bowl.
 
By this point this should be smelling pretty good and you haven't thrown in the meat yet!
 
 
 
 
 

When working with raw ground beef, I like to use Lawry's Seasoning Salt. No Japanese recipe I know calls for it but that's what I like to use it and it's never thrown a dish so far so we'll use it here. Throw in your ground beef and use a dash or two or in my case three of the seasoning salt. You'll want to add roughly around the same amount of pepper into your ground beef. If you happen to have a black peppercorn grinder bottle like me then you're in even better shape.I recommend them.
 
Mix your meat with the vegetables into the mixing bowl. Add one raw egg and two tablespoons of flour. Mix everything we've mentioned so far in the mixing bowl until your meat becomes sticky. You'll want it that way to shape them. With the addition of an egg and some flour those of you who tried to make the Sake no Ebi Tsukune will appreciate this. After you have all that mixed return your meat to the refrigerator to keep cool while we move on to our sauce.

Like before, you'll take your 1/2 cup of Mirin, 1/2 cup of Soy Sauce and your 2 tsp of Sugar and pour into a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and let simmer for about two minutes. After that you'll want to place your mixture in the refrigerator to cool down and retrieve your meat so you can move onto the next step.

The idea of this next step is to take your ground beef and shape them into a small flat hamburger like shape.


Once you have your meat shaped and ready to go, break out your sauce mixture and turn up that fire.



Add a tablespoon of oil into your sauce and stir it in before you add your meat.

Like with the previous tsukune post you'll want to fry them until evenly browned on both sides. This should take around five to six minutes depending on how big yours comes out.

After your Tsukune is browned and ready, serve it with a good Teriyaki sauce. We recommend Kikkoman Original for this dish and believe me it brings out a zesty flavor you are bound to enjoy. You'll never want to make teriyaki burgers the same way again!


So there I was, standing there with a handful of mixed ground beef when Tina suddenly goes over to Soy Sauce Queen's page and discovers she just happened to post a different variation of the same idea. Hers is called Hakusai Hamburger Steak. I was like oh shit! What's the chance of that happening! Seriously, I didn't see her blog until I was halfway done cooking. Hopefully Misa isn't going to think I'm trying to rip her off! We wouldn't do that to Misa Sensei. She has been very supportive in our endeavors as we are of hers so please visit her page if you'd like to see another way how to cook with hamburger meat the Japanese way.

We sure hope you have enjoyed this recipes and all the recipes we've posted here.
We appreciate all your comments!
Enjoy!
*L*

Kaki Gohan - Oyster Rice

I love oysters but some oyster dishes don't love me back.
But the only way you are going to know is to try. Part of my frustration with Japanese cooking is finding many of the specialty items that even the local Japanese market may not have. If you live where there are no Japanese markets than you know this frustration. This dish on the otherhand should be no problem regardless where you live.

All you need is:
2+cups of short grained rice
2+cups of water - note this takes some eyeballing!
1pint of oysters- without shell
3T of Soy Sauce
1T of Sake
1 Lemon for rinds
1 sheet of Nori

Most American markets in particularly in major cities have a small Asian section where you can find Nori. Or look wherever you can find sushi sold.

Of course if you are in Japan or near a Nihonmachi then this will be no problem.

So going back to Nori - You'll want to cut that in tiny strips for use later.

Next you'll want to wash and drain your rice and have it ready.
Now I have looked at the KakiGohan recipes from NHK World and Yukiko Moriyama's Japanese Cuisine books. In either recipes there is some amibiguity as to the part that follows next. Perhaps that's a language barrier or that's an asumption as to how to proceed next.

So unless you grew up with Japanese cooking or have your own Oba-Chan to answer your questions - the art of trial and error may apply. When in doubt experiment!
 
So here's what we did.
 
We went ahead and washed our oysters with running water and salt. This helps remove some of the muck you may encounter especially if you bought your oysters from a pre-packaged jar.
 
Next you'll want to mix that sake and soy sauce in a good skillet or wok and bring to a boil.
Once that's boiling throw in your oysters and simmer for a minute or two. Keep a good eye on them for depending on your oysters you may need to add some water and simmering time.
 
Once you are ready drain the oysters and throw them into the rice along with 2 1/2 cups of water and cover.
Cook on low heat for 15-20 minutes. Again, keep an eye on them. If your rice is ready in ten minutes don't wait until they are burning to turn off the heat. Reasonable so far? Wakarimasu ka?
 
As soon as your rice is ready gently stir and let stand for another few minutes.
If you are sensitive to oyster smell open those windows!
 

 
Now while that's standing you'll want to break out that lemon.
 
Thinly slice the rind. You can make them as small as you like.
 
When you are ready to serve you will garnish with the lemon rinds and the sliced nori.
 
When it's all done serve and enjoy!