Tips from Jessica: Wilty Lettuce

This is a post from my personal blog, but since it applies to food I thought I would post it here, too.

Enjoy!

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It happens to all of us (perhaps a bit more often to me?).

We think, hey! Let`s be healthy! And then we make the resolution to EAT SALADS. Because they are healthy AND yummy, right?

So we buy lettuce.

And sometimes we use it. And sometimes we don`t. And sometimes we forget about it.

And then, after what seems like a short amount of time, we find out lettuce all droopy and sad. And we mourn, and throw it out.

But THAT is where you are wrong!!

I use this simple method to revitilize my lettuce, and I have kept lettuce for... probably way longer than I should have. But wilty lettuce isn`t poisonous (or if it is, either it is a weak poison or I have a strong tolerance, because I have eaten a lot of wilty and post-wilty greens).

Step 1: Take your wilty lettuce.

Step 2: Put it in a bag.

Step 3: Put a bit of water in the bag.

Step 4: Leave it in to the fridge.

Viola. Your lettuce will suck in the water and return to crispy, tasty, salad-bound deliciousness.

Nisemono Tsukemono - "Fake" Japanese Pickles

Do you like pickles? Honestly, I am not much of a fan. I have never liked pickles on my hamburgers, or hot dogs, or sandwiches, or basically anything else. Right before I came to Japan, I started to develope a liking for diced sweet pickles in my Tuna-fish sandwiches. But that was the only acceptable place for them, in my opinion.

Japanese pickles, however, are a different breed. According to Wikipedia, Japanese pickles, or Tsukemono, are usually "pickled in salt or brine," rather than vinegar. This gives it a very different taste from dill pickles back home. I tend to like Japanese pickles much better. They also pickle many other vegetables- daikon (Large, white radish), cucumber, turnips, cabbage, ginger, plums... A wide variety of tasty, crunchy pickles to dine upon.

Everyday Harumi has a quick and easy recipe for pickles that uses a mix of rice vinegar (I know, I know, I just spent a paragraph telling you how Japanese pickles didn`t use vinegar! I`m sorry, I will do better next time!), soy sauce, and sesame oil.

Prep was super easy. A few interesting tips: rub the cucumbers with salt for a minute or two. This helps remove any bitter flavors and helps the cucs maintain a lovely color. Also, remove the center seeds with a spoon. Add the broken-up/sliced up cucs to a bag along with some julienned ginger and the vinegar-sauce mix and let sit in the fridge for 2-3 hours. Pickles will keep for 2-3 days.

Overall, I was pleased with this recipe. Despite the use of vinegar, the pickles had a far more Japanese-pickle flavor. I did, however, feel that the soy-sauce/sesame oil ratio was a bit high. Next time I will experiment with less of those.

Also, next on the pickle-agenda... perhaps next time I will attempt something more like THIS.

Rice and Soy-Flavored Pork

I am going to have to change the name of this blog to "Cooking Everyday with Harumi" or something if I keep this up. Would you believe she is not even paying me to advertise her book? Guess that shows how much I am liking it!

Last night I made another recipe from the book linked above: Rice and Soy-Flavored Pork (any editing people out there? Should that flavor be capitalized? It looked weird lowercase).

It was a super simple recipe, and very interesting to me. Instead of water, she cooks the rice with dashi (fish stock!) mixed with a little soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. I`d never done something like that before, and the result was intriguing. In the end, I decided that, personally, I would like this recipe better with just plain rice (as the pork and carrots are cooked in a very similarly flavored sauce, and together it seemed a little too much), or perhaps cooked with vegetable or chicken broth instead.

The pork is sliced thinly (she suggested 1cm) and cooked in a fry pan with skinned and sliced carrots in a soy-sauce/mirin/sugar sauce. This sort of sauce is used in a lot of Japanese recipes, I`ve found. I really like the flavor, but do be careful not to cook too long/too high or it will burn. I was impatient last night and burned the sauce a little. It wasn`t disgusting or anything, but it definitely would have been better if I had avoided that.

Harumi gives some good advice on how to slice meat thinly, as well. In Japan, it is easy to find pork and beef sliced as thinly as bacon is. It`s super convenient and delicious. But in America, at least, it is nigh impossible to find it sliced so. Harumi suggests putting the meat in the freezer for a bit-- until it firms up but isn`t frozen through-- and then slicing it. I did this once with a gingersnap cookie recipe and was amazed at the slivers I was able to slice off. Hope this method can help you with your thin-meat needs!!

In any case, it was a simple, tasty meal that I will definitely use again. Perhaps next time, I will add some ginger or garlic to the pork, and use a different liquid for the rice, though.

Chicken and Celery Salad

This is another recipe from Everyday Harumi that blew my mind with how AMAZINGLY TASTY is was! I loved the contrast of the crispy celery with the chicken, and the flavors are fantastic together! The tangy, mayonnaise dressing with the garlic-soy sauce marinate for the chicken, topped with some fresh black pepper. Mmm. I am salivating just thinking about it.

Also, the marinate was so tasty you could use it for all sorts of other recipes, too.

And so I give you...
Chicken and Celery Salad
serves 4

300g celery (Or more. I think the celery-dressing ratio was a bit low)
300g skinless chicken breasts or mini fillets
1/2 tsp grated garlic
1-2 Tbsp light soy sauce (usukuchi)
1/2 Tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil (optional)

For the dressing
100g mayonnaise (Japanese Kyupi if you can get it)
1 Tbsp chicken stock
1-2 Tbsp white wine (I sub`d vinegar and sugar. (actually I didn't have regular vinegar so I sub`d rice vinegar and sugar... lol))
Light soy sauce - to taste
Wasabi - to taste (I hate wasabi so I didn't use any)
Salt and pepper - to season
pepper- to serve

1. Remove any stringy parts of the celery (I actually didn`t do this. Partially because I didn`t have a lot of celery. Partially because I am lazy. And partially because I actually like the stringy parts of the celery). Chop into 5cm-long strips and put into iced water for a couple of minutes to crisp, then drain.
(I cut the celery into 5-cm-long pieces and then cut those poses long-wise to make think splinters. That`s what it looked like in the pictures.)

2. Remove any gristle from the chicken then season by mixing the garlic with the light soy sauce and marinate for 5-6 minutes.

3. Cook the chicken in a non-stick pan until just cooked through. If using a regulat frying pan, use a little oil when cooking the chicken

4. When cool, shred the chicken into thin strips by hand and mix with the celery (When she says by hand, I think she literally means by hand. I tried shredding it with two forks and it was tough and took ages. Then I just grabbed it and started tearing it up and it worked great haha)

5. To make the dressing: mix the mayonnaise with the chicken stock and white wine then add the light soy sauce and wasabi, according to personal taste, and finally season with salt and pepper.

6. Dress the chicken and celery and put in a serving dish. Sprinkle pepper on top and serve. Please take care with the presentation of this salad, fluffing it up as much as possible.

And there it is. Super-duper-fantastic tasty.  I did the order a little differently; I cooked the chicken first, and then did the celery while it cooled, and soaked the celery in the ice water while I shredded the chicken and made the dressing.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it! And srsly, check out her book. So many good recipes in there!

Ciao!

Saba Soboro (Flaked Mackerel with Vegetables)

Hello the internet! Jessica here, signing in from frozen Hokkaido! I recently ordered a Japanese cookbook written in English- Everyday Harumi. Because it is a copyrighted book, I don`t plan on sharing many recipes from it, but I do want to share what I make, how I liked it, and even provide an alternative recipe from the depths of the internet. However, I have really enjoyed this book so far, and already have many recipes I`m planning to try.

And so, without ado:

Saba Soboro or  Flaked Mackerel with Vegetables

I am sort of picky about fish. Maybe it is because I grew up eating freshly caught trout and Salmon my dad brought back from Alaska. Even being in Japan, where fish are prized for being fresh, I am still a little nervous to try cooking with fish (part of this may be because I doubt I know how to cook it correctly). That being said, Saba Soboro was not my favorite dish, but it was still fairly tasty. To me, the flavor was a little shallow. I felt like it was lacking something, but I don`t know what.

It was tasty though-- using onions, carrots, and shiitake mushrooms, the flaked fish, and ginger, soy sauce, mirin, sake, sugar, and miso sauce for flavoring. It was a simple recipe, although deboning and skinning the fish was a time-consuming, frustrating process for me. It also takes time to peel/dice the vegetables, but all-in-all straight forward.

Here is a recipe for Saba Soboro from Cookpad:

こんなランチの日もいいです♪。そぼろに残り野菜を加えてもOK。簡単で、3、4日冷蔵庫でストックも可能♪娘ちゃん大好物    

You can also use this for lunches, and use other vegetables (whatever you have left in your refrigerator). Can store in the fridge for 3-4 days. Her daughter loves this recipe.

材料（4人分 ） Serves 4

さば（3枚におろす） 3 pieces of mackerel; one tail

1尾

鶏ﾐﾝﾁ

100ｇ

 100g minced chicken (My recipe did not call for chicken)

干ししいたけ

3個

 3 dried shiitake mushrooms (can also use fresh; I used about 6 fresh ones)

青ねぎ

1本

 1 green onion

酒

大さじ2+1

 2 + 1 tablespoons of sake

A：醤油

大さじ3

 3 Tbsp Soy sauce

A：砂糖

大さじ3

 3 Tbsp sugar

A:干ししいたけの戻し汁

大さじ3

 3 tbsp soaking liquid for dried Shiitake (omit if using fresh)

A:生姜（すりおろし・みじん切りOK)

ひとかけら（大さじ1）

 1 Tbsp chopped or grated ginger

A：塩

ひとつまみ

 Pinch of salt

A：味噌

小さじ1

 1 tsp miso

1

ビニ-ル袋に3枚におろしたサバと大さじ2のお酒、ネギを入れて1時間程おいておく。我が家は前日の夜からしてます。

Put the mackerel, 2 Tbsp sake, and green onions in a bag. Marinate for 1 hour. I think the last sentence says you can put in it overnight?

2

鶏ﾐﾝﾁもお酒大さじ1と一緒入れサバと同じくらいの時間おいておく。この1.2の下準備で臭みやパサパサ感をなくします。

Put the minced chicken and 1 Tbsp of sake into a bag and marinate for the same amount of time as the mackerel. This helps eliminate odors and helps it flake more.

3

干ししいたけはかぶるくらいの少ない水でもどしておきます。（こちらも前日からやっておくと便利）

Reconstitute the shiitake mushrooms (you can also do this the night before)

4

袋からサバのみ取り出してスプ-ンなどでぼろぼろっと、身をとります。中心部の骨のあたりはそのまま残すと綺麗に身だけとれます

Take the mackerel out of the bag and remove the flesh from the skin. (The picture here suggests you do this with a spoon, as did my book. But I think I did it wrong. Anyway, GOOD LUCK TO YOU HERE). To avoid bones, it looks like they are saying to scrape the flesh on either side of the bones in the center? In any case, you don`t want bones.

5

こうやって全体の身をとったら、サバの身と軽く水気をきった鶏ﾐﾝﾁをボ-ルかタッパにいれます。全体で約300ｇでした

Uhm. I think this is saying that all together you should have about 300 grams of mackerel and chicken?

6

5にAの調味量を全て入れお箸などでぐるぐるまぜます。練ってはいけません！これポイント！混ぜた状態で5分ほどおいたら・・

Mix seasoning (soy sauce, miso, etc) with the chicken and fish. (I think)

7

フライパンに6とみじんぎりにした干ししいたけを入れ弱火~中火でお箸でまぜながら、身をほぐしながら丁寧にそぼろ状にしていく

Cook the fish and vegetables in a frying pan. Yum yum yum

8

全体の水けがなくなってきたら火を止めてできあがり♪今回は干ししいたけと一緒に残り野菜の人参を入れてます

They also added carrots and stuff.

コツ・ポイント

POINT TIP

サバは臭みがあります。それをとるにはしっかりお酒に漬けこんでおくことと、生姜や味噌がポイントになります♪こうするとサバの臭みが随分消えてとっても美味しいサバそぼろができますよ。色々な残り野菜をみじん切りにして加えてもOK。

Mackerel is smelly. That is why she marinates it in sake. Also, you can add other vegetables to make it nummy numsters.

OKAY. So I got into some really hardcore paraphrasing at the end. Or maybe from the middle. ANYWAY. Hope that helps.

Harumi`s recipe has a slightly different order. Instead of mixing the seasonings with the meat, she heats a little oil in the fry-pan and adds the ginger and fish. Once the fish starts to brown, she adds in the vegetables. Then she adds the sauce/seasoning mix and cooks that until the liquid is absorbed.

My mackerel was a little smelly. Next time I use it I will try marinating it in sake.

And of course, serve with fresh rice. Yum!