Box Dinner?

Is there a word for this? I know bento is lunch box but what about dinner box? Meh oh well.

So tonight I’m fixing another ramen dish because they are easy. When I make ramen I usually just grab things to add to the noodles, this week I’m kind of merging different styles from Japan.

The ramen noodles I have easy access to are the cheap ones from Wally World. Money is really tight for me right now, what can I say? After lunch today I decided to boil the eggs to go with dinner. Even though there are only three of us living here I ended up boiling four eggs,

While the eggs did their thing I also began work on our dissert, Dorayaki. I’ve made this a few times before and again, this is another dissert from Japan that my mom’s not wild over so I mostly make this for dad and I. Still yummy though.

This is the anko (red bean past) that I used:

Mix the three eggs and the sugar together until well combined.

Add the baking soda to the water so it can dissolve. Once dissolved add it to the eggs and sugar, then gradually add the flour to the mix. 

Now generally you fry these in veggie oil but I prefer to just use non-stick spray. Cook them on the pan/griddle like you would a pancake. After all your lil’ pancakes are cooked it’s time for the sandwhiching!

After mom got home from work at 4pm I started on dinner. Firstly I cooked up the bacon, yes you read that right, bacon. Then I gathered everything else together for the ramen that night.

6 slices of bacon, cut in half so really 12
            1 leek
            ½ teaspoon garlic
            2 tablespoons red miso
            3 hard boiled eggs
            3 packages of ramen
            And a sauce consisting of 3 Tablespoons soy sauce, 2 Tablespoons mirin, 1 tablespoon sugar, and a half tablespoon seaseme oil

Start by boiling 8 cups of water with the sauce and miso. Once the starts boiling add in the leeks and garlic. Add the ramen then cook until noodles are done, adding in the bacon at the last minute.

Miso Nikomi Udon from Nagoya

This week we are eating a regional dish from Nagoya JP called Miso Nikomi Udon. A miso based udon dish with chicken, deep fried tofu (aburaage), and leeks/negi.
Here is a quick tip if you are frying the tofu at home: use firm tofu and dry it before you fry it. Do this by setting paper towels/naps on one side of a dish, then ontop of the tofu, set another dish on the tofu top. This lightly squishes out the water that tofu carries, be warned you'll be switching towels out frequently. This may take a while so start it as early as you can.
While the tofu was getting dry I decided to look up a few things about the city of Nagoya. Nagoya is located in the Chuba region on the Honshu island, on the Pacific coast, and is the capital city of Aichi Prefectur (a prefecture is like a state). Because of it's location on the coast line it's a major port of Japan.
This city is the third-largest incorporated city, fourth-most populated ubran area, and is the third largest metropolitan city of the Chukyo Metropolitan area. The last population count (01/2010) was a total of 2,258,804 people with a density of 6,919.3/km2 (17,920/sq mi). To say it's a big city in understating things a lot.
One of the biggest draws to Nagoya is the Nagoya Castle. It was built in 1612, and thanks to the fires of WWII a large part of the castle burnt, although it was restored in 1959. There are two Golden Orca (tiger-headed dolphins also called Kinshachi) on the roof and these are used as symbols of the city.
Now the original castle was built in 1525 (Muromachi Period-latter Sengoku period) by Imagawa Ujichika. Then in 1532 Oda Nobuhide took it from Imagawa, then abandoned it. I have yet to find out why. In 1610, Tokugawa Ieyasu (remember him, he's important) ordered some daimyo (lords) to help build a new castle on the site where Nagoya Castle stood. This was going to mark the new capitol of the Owari Province. The contruction was completed in 1612.
Fast forward a few centures later to WWII. Nagoya Castle was used as the district army HQ and as a POW camp. During the bombings, the castle was burnt by a USAF air raid on May 14th, 1945, thanks to the fire a huge portion of the historical artifacts were lost. However, there were a few paintings that survived the fire and have since been preserved.
Another big draw to Nagoya is the Atsuta Shrine, this is the second-most venerable shrin in Japan, Ise Shrine which is located in Mie Prefecture. Atsuta Shrine is believed built during the reign of Emperor Keiko (71-130), yet no one knows an exact date. This shrine was built to hold the great Kusanagi no Tsurugi, a legendary sword that is one of the three Imperial Regalia of Japan. The other two are a mirror, Yata no Kagami, and a jewel, Yasakani no Magatama.
Kusanagi no Tsurugi is NOT on display to the public. Why? This sword is very important to Japan and is often compared to Excalibur. Need I really say more?
Many important people have come from or have very strong toes this area of Japan, most notably three men who are called the "founding fathers". Oda Nobunaga who began the unification of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a daimyo that unified the political factions and was Oda's successor, and Tokugawa Ieyasu the first shogun of Japan, who was in a way also Toyotomi's successor.
Manga fans will enjoy this one. Two well known manga artists/writters are from the Nagoya area. Akane Ogura who's currently working on Zettai Heiwa Daisakusen for the shojo manga magazine LaLa DX. And Akira Toriyama who's best know for the creation of Dragon Ball, most of his works are published in Weekley Shonen Jump, a manga magazine.
To the food! YAY!
The only thing for this dish I couldn't find for the life of me was the kamaboko (a fish cake).
What you do is get your dashi stock in your pot (preferably earthenware-which I do not have) and bring it up to a boil. While it comes to a boil, in a small bowel combine 1 1/2 tablespoons of red miso (I used white), 2 teaspoons sake, and 1 teaspoon sugar. Once the dashi is boiling add in the miso mixture. Next you'll wants to put in 1 oz cut up chicken thighs, add 1 more oz for the number of people you are feeding.
Instead of thighs I used meat from drumbsticks that we had left over in the freezer from the fried chicken I made on x-mass eve. After adding the chicken you'll need o bring the soup down to a simmer on medium heat and keep it there until the meat is cooked. Then you can add the udon, the recipe only calls for one package and since they vary in size, just use what you think you'll need. Bring to a boil.
Add in the slices of deep fried tofu (aburaage), 1-2 chopped negi/leek, and 2 slices of kamaboko-if you have it, keep at a steady boil. Lastly, you take one egg and drop it into the soup, cover the pot and let the egg steam cook. This part I did not do because I was afraid I'd get scrambled egg in my soup, nor was I about to temper the friggin thing.
This all is suppossed to make one serving so double or triple it depending on how many you are feeding.

Japanese Style Christmas Pt. 2

With the cake done I got started on what turned out to be the easiest part of dinner. The Wontons. I bought the wonton wrapper/dough at the Japan-Sage Market for just under $2.00., now while it didn't come with directions, this was easy enough to figure out without the directions.
What you'll need is some wonton wrappers, cubed cheese, and a little water. Set out one wonton and put a tiny cube of cheese near the middle. Before you fold the corners to meet, forming the triangle, dip your pinkie in water and get the edges wet. This will hold the dough together better. Seal it up good because you don't want cheese getting in your oil.
It should look something like this when you're done:

Heat the oil in a non-stick skillet, or a wok if you own one. It should be around 300F before you turn it down to a medium-high. Put the wontons in but don't over-crowed your pan/wok. As they turn brown, pull them out so they don't burn.

Look yummy huh? Oh they were!

Then it was the chicken... This was not as fun as I hoped.

Poke holes in the thawed brumbsticks befor you put the drum sticks in a marinade of soy sauce, ginger, and sake. Let it sit in the fridge for an hour. When the time's up, dry them with a paper towel before you put potato startch on them.

Heat the oil in your pan/wok to around 400F then CAREFULLY put the chicken in.

Here is where my night took an interesting turn.

I fried the chicken as long as it said and damn things still weren't done. No we had to throw them in the ovan for almost an hour before they were done. Pissed off does not come cloud to how mad I got.

Over reaction? Yes. But things don't usually go that way for me in the kitchen so I over reacted.

And oh my god it was SO GOOD! Does anyone have good chicken frying tips?

Japanese Style Christmas Pt. 1

To those of us in America and/or Europe, Christmas is what December has become all about.
For better or worse.
Just saying Christmas brings images of snow, cookies, Santa Clause, decorated trees, hug credit card bills, car crashes, Secret Santa, and those god awful sweaters. Families gather for Christmas dinner (or in the case of mine, breakfast) and the munchkins run around the tree shouting, “Lookie! Lookie! I got just what I wanted!”
However! This is not exactly the case in Japan. Let me remind you all of something: Christmas is a Christian Holiday.
Christianity is in Japan, yes, although Shinto and Buddhism are the norms. So they view Christmas differently than you or I.
They have taken many of our traditions and adopted them in their own way. Christmas trees are brought into the home, holiday parties are held, and gifts are exchanged. I’ve read that they have Christmas Markets in many cities now that bring is a lot of crowds.
While we Westerners make Christmas a family event, in Japan it’s more of a couples event. Kinda like Valentine’s Day, couples go out to dinner and then maybe a hotel or someplace very romantic. And, just like V-Day, if you’re a single girl-be ready for constant reminders of it.
In most of the big cities, Tokyo and Sendai especially, they string out the whole downtown with lights. Trust me when I say this isn’t your next-door neighbors’ light display, oh hell no, google or bing ‘Christmas lights in Tokyo/Japan’ and just look at the pretty lights.
Christmas Even is a lot bigger in Japan than Christmas Day, too. I’ll save that post for New Years Eve here though so we can compare the two.
Onto dinner!
On Thursday after we closed early at my first job, mom and I drove over to the Sage Market to pick up some snacks an’ such for x-mass eve.
You know how on x-mass eve we usually eat a ham or something? In Japan they have KFC. Yes you read that right. Kentucky Fried Chicken (or Kitchen Fried Chicken, whatever KFC is calling it this year). It’s the busiest night of the year for that company in Japan and I’m not 100% sure why. I read somewhere that it was because a Japanese man said he liked eating KFC on x-mass eve so most of the country ran with that idea.
Although there is a KFC literally right across the street from where I work, joined with Taco Hell, I’m not stopping there on my way home. I like KFC and all but if I want fried chicken I’ll fecking make fried chicken.
But first is everything else.
After work yesterday mom and I drove over to the Japan-Sage Market to pick up some snacks for dinner.

Two kinds of squid, one is seasoned with sake and I couldn’t place the other flavor. If you aren’t sure what Pocky is then let me say it’s basically a biscuit with frosting on it, very yummy. And the shrimp flavored chips are the best thing ever! They aren’t very shrimpy and they are crunchy. You can usually find Pocky and shrimp chips in the Asian section of your grocery store.

The first seasoned squid was yummy to me, I'm not sure what dad thought, mom was so not impressed-she didn't like it at all! The sake squid we've had before, again mom's not a fan. However we all liked the shrimp chips and pocky.

On Christmas Eve, Macy's gave it's employees the best gift ever! There was NO music playing! Why do I call this the best gift ever? After Halloween we hear NOTHING but friggin' christmas music! I've grown to hate carols because that's all I've heard for the last two months. Over kill much? Yes.
Anyways.

After work on Christmas Eve I came home and began fixing dinner. The menue I selected was:

Ginger Flavored Fried Chicken (thank you about.com)

Fried Wontons
Christmas Cake (thank you joyofbaking.com)

And the only thing that didn't give me grief in one form or another was the cake. I really think I'm a better baker than a cook.

First thing I did was the cake because it would have to chill and the eggs would need to come up to room temp. Christmas Cakes in Japan are really nothing more than a sponge cake with strawberries and whipped topping. Sounds easy right? Well not so much, sponge cakes are known for being tricky because they have more eggs in them than your average cake. It makes it a lot easier for them to get flat or be over mixed.
What you do first is separate 6 eggs, then set the ovan to 350F (177C).

After they are separated you let them come up to room temp., to prevent icky things from happening to them I'd recomend covering with a towel, foil, or something of the like.
Once they come up to temp., it's time to break out the sugar and cake flour. I used wheat cake flour. Sift 1 cup of flour into a bowl with 1/4 cup of sugar. Set aside. In a mixing bowl add the 6 egg yolks to another 1/2 cup of sugar.

Now here it said to beat on high for 5 minutes or until thick, fluffy, and lightly colored. I decided to hand whisk this so the egg yolk didn't get over beaten... so if you do that, go at a medium-fast speed until the mix is lightly colored, fluffy, and your arm's ready to fall off. Then beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of water, until well mized in.

You'll know it's well mixed when it 'ribbons off' all that means is you scoop it up with something and it slides off consistandly, doesn't prip, but looks like a ribbon.

Set aside and pull out a clean bowl. Put the egg whites inside and be ready to whisk again! For this I do recomend a mixer. Use the lowest setting you've got and whisk until the whites are foamy.

Next, slowly add in 1/4 cup sugar and beat on low until it's shiny and stiff peaks show. That means as you turn the beater off and lift it out of the mix, there's a peak that won't melt/sink right away or at all.

Bring back over the other mixture and add in the white mix, very GENTLY fold them to gether. Those who don't know what this is: you take a spoon/spacula scoop up a bottom part of the mix and bring it over the top. Reapeat this until it's mixed/folded well.

So now it's all mixed together. Take out a circular cake pan and non-stick-spray the bottom only.

I put my cake pan over a cookie sheet just incase the cake batter went over the edge. I've had it happen with other cakse. Let the cake bake in the ovan for about a half hour or 35 minutes. When it's ready you should be able to stick a toothpick in and have it come out clean. I prefer to use a butter knife for this trick, though, because it'll go all the way through the cake.

If it comes out clean, leave the cake in the pan and let it cool completely. This could take an hour or so, one thing you can dso is start the frosting.

I forgot to take pictures of the frosting sorry.

Here's what you do. Put 1-2 cups heavy whipping cream in a bowel, add a 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, and 1 tablespoon sugar. stir lightly and put it in the fridge for a half hour, along with the whisk/beaters you want to use for this.

As it gets chilly break out the strawberries. I do not recomend using the frozen ones for this because they are too juicy. Get fresh ones! Cut about five in thirds and then the tops off another 5. Set asaide.

When you take them out start whisking on low speed. You'll know this is done because it will be thick and have stiff peaks. Set aside.

Once the cake is completely cooled, drop it once or twice to loosen it out of the pan. Put onto a plate and with a cake-wire or long kitchen knife cut the cake in half.

Add a layer of frosting on the bottom half of the cake. Next add the cut strawberries onto that later of frosting. Frost the other cut layer-bottom and then flip it onto the frosted strawberry half. Begin frosting the rest of the cake, starting from the middle of the top and working your way out and down. Save a little of the frosting and put it in five small mounds on the top of the cake for the five strawberries.

Ta da! You now have a Christmas Cake! Of course you can make it extra fancy by adding x-mass decoratios or a dusting of powdered sugar.

Wontons and chicken will be in Part 2

Niku Dofu

First off, I’m sorry about the long absence. Life got in the way and soon I’ll be starting back at school again.

I have been cooking though, mostly one-pot dishes to keep the family warm. Snow hit Utah just before Turkey Day (Thanksgiving), and the warmest we’ve been since then is like 50 degrees F.
Last night I cooked up Niku Dofu, which is simmered tofu and meat, I used a beef steak cut. You start off by boiling soy, sake, dashi and sugar in a pan then add the sliced beef/meat. It only boils until it turns color and you pull it out of the liquid then set to the side. Now here is where I had to substitute, not by choice, see you’re supposed to use enoki mushrooms; however daddy didn’t find any at the store. Button mushrooms got thrown into the pot instead.

After the mushrooms, a medium quartered onion goes in too. Followed by one block-firm, cubed, tofu. Simmer them all together for about five minutes before reintroducing the beef. Cook them all together until they are cooked through, serve immediately.

I didn’t cook anything else to go with that dish last night ‘cause I was very short on time. A few options could be the usual rice or maybe even some stir-fried veggies.


Next week, I’ll only be cooking one dish and I’m going to push for it to be the Christmas Eve dinner. I’ll be surfing the net in search of what is usually eaten, other than KFC, in Japan. Since x-mass isn’t a traditional holiday in Japan, I don’t expect traditional foods. XD

Made up Ramen #1

Shut up about last week. I simply forgot. So here's what I cooked on Monday, but first a catch up.

I've been mostly helping my mother with a horse show, and haning out with my friend Chel. On Saturday Chel and I went to the Pagan Pride festival in Murray Park. It was our second year going and while we had fun, we both agree they where low on real vendors this year. Everyone seemed to push for giving readings (tarot cards and runes) to others.

Later that night I went out and saw Resident Evil: Afterlife. It was okay and the only thing I wish the movie really put more effort into the siblinghood of Chris and Claire, since there was next to none.

Dinner on Monday was a ramen dish that I pretty much made up on the spot. Before daddy left for work, I asked if he had any requests on what I should cook this week for the dinners. He asked for a pork noodle dish. I chose to use ramen noodles since I know pork would go better with those than the udon I have hiding.

Here's a fact about ramen noodles. It's not a noodle dish that originates from Japan. Ramen noodles are from China. The Japanese really like their ramen and they eat it (as far as I can tell) more than the Chinese do.

In many bigger Prefectures/cities in Japan you can find whole streets dedicated to cooking ramen dishes. Tokyo unquestionably has the most in the country. There are also a few ramen centered eatteries here in the sates, you just need to know how to look for them. I suggest yellowpages or Dex.

Ramen is also cooked differently in the regions of Japan. Sapporo, for example, likes to put miso in their ramen dishes. While Tokyo you'll find more dishes that are onpar with soba dishes.

Onto my cooking! Our trip to Wally World to get what we needed was um... interesting. First off their leek selection was very EW! I took the two leeks that I could find that looked the best. The rest where slimey and looked like they'd been dragged down a rough road. Ew.

The other funny thing that happened was during checkout. The cashier looked at my leeks and said, "What the heck are those?!" She had never seen leeks before! I told her they where like onions and I used them when cooking Asian food, she was all "Oh...okay."

Then we got home and after putting away all the other groceries, I started on dinner. After giging the leeks the scrubbing of their lives, I sliced them.

Next I took the can on bamboo shoots and the can of water chestnuts, opened them and drained the liquid. Once the liquid was out of the cans I put the bamboo shoots and water chestnuts on a plate with a paper towel under them, to soak up any leftover liquid.

Next was the pork. I cut it into bite size pieces and only used to slabs (for lack of better turm).

I used two blocks of ramen noodles, throw away the packets, I don't use them when cooking like this. Add 2 - 3 cups of water to your pot of choice and let it come to a boil. As it heats up put in 1/4 teaspoon dashi powder, 1 tablespoon mirin, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and 1/2 teaspoon white miso. Once it boils them add the blocks of ramen noodles. After the noodles are loose enough that you can stir them away from each other (that make sense?) add the veggies and the meat.

Bring the heat down to a mideum-high and let everything keep cooking until both the meat and veggies are done. You can serve with other foods too, I didn't since it was just dad and I at the time.

^_^ Let me know what you think if you ever try it.

Where the hell have I been?

Busy. That’s where. A lot has happened since my last post.

Firstly, one of my laptops named Viking decided it was time to die a very odd epic death. See he had been acting slower than usual and I did all the normal scans for infections, took off the useless stuff, cleaned out my compressed files. That didn’t work so I asked my dad to give me the format and reinstall disk. Here’s where it gets odd. The format and reinstall didn’t work. We tried it like ten times with two different disk and the computer wouldn’t do it. It read the disk, it just didn’t come back up naked (for lack of better term) like it’s supposed to.

Viking is now in my closet on top of a box. There’s a brand new computer on my desk named Boo. And Boo is full of all kinds of awesome. I’ve had him a little over a month now and love it.
Secondly, I’ve been making lists and itineraries for the trip to Walt Disney World the first part of November. The only one in my immediate family doing so I might add! Sheesh. Mom screws around on facebook and dad does who knows what on his computer. At least I try to be productive.

Lastly, um we had a car get murdered this month. Dad was on his way to work last week when he got hit on the passenger driver side of my 2001 Taurus by a gravel truck. Dad’s fine! He just had minor whiplash (also injured his pride) and the truck driver was fine too, just glad dad wasn’t hurt. Mom was at work and I was off in dream land when this happened, so when dad called me he woke me up… and since it was just after 12-noon I needed to get up, but still! Mom got him and we were told two days later that my car was dead.

Down to one car for those two days was interesting. I called into Macy*s ‘cause we were still running around doing things, mom wanted to go car shopping after everything with the insurance was completely done, and there was no way in hell I was going into work by that hour then having them rush back to get me. No. Just no.

I haven’t been car shopping with my parents in years. I don’t think I’ve been there when they bought a car, I’ve been in several with them. Dad wanted a brand new car since he’s never had one before, mom was cool with that so was I. He asked me if I had any preferences on cars to which I responded “Um, an automatic with oh-shit handles.” I TRIED to drive a stick a few years ago, mom’s Passat is a stick and I ended up flooding the engine. …yeah I fail. The Taurus had no handles on the roof, just the hooks for hangers, which is bad when making sharp turns or slamming on the breaks should you be my passenger.

Anyways, we ended up getting a 2010 Honda Civic. I LOVE THIS CAR! Having a CD player is nice after just listening to tapes me whole driving life… only thing is all my audio books are on tapes…

This is what my last two months have been filled with and why I wasn’t blogging.
There will be a food blog update with real food either later tonight or sometime tomorrow. It will include pictures and my takes on some snacks I bought today at the Sage Market.