Sweet Potato and Tuna Salad サツマイモとツナのサラダ

This is dish is on the theme of using up a can of tuna. We had one more can of albacore tuna which we bought during the Covid protein shortage, aging in the pantry. The idea for this dish is very similar to the tuna and daikon salad ツナと大根のサラダ but I replaced the daikon with sweet potato. Again mayo saved the canned tuna. This is also a good dish for a small appetizer.

The recipe came from e-recipe.

Ingredients:
1 small Japanese “Satsuma-imo” sweet potato, microwaved for 3-4 minutes until soft in a silicon container, peeled and mashed leaving some small chunks
1 can of tuna
1 tbs mayonnaise
1 tbs Greek yogurt (strained home-made yogurt my wife made)
salt and pepper to taste
chopped parsley

Directions:
Add the tuna and mashed sweet potato in a bowl, add the yogurt and mayo and mix
Season with salt and pepper and mix in chopped parsley.

This is another good dish using canned tuna. It is quite different from the tuna and daikon salad I posted before. The sweet potato has nice soft texture and sweet taste which went very well with tuna containing dressing.

Tuna and Daikon salad ツナ大根

We found two cans of albacore tuna in our pantry. We are not a fan of canned tuna and I am not sure why we have it; something to do with the start of COVID and the various food shortages, particularly of protein that occurred at that time. In any case, I saw a recipe on YouTube which combined daikon 大根 and canned tuna ツナ缶. I was not sure how this would work but I had just got two whole daikon from Weee. So I had to try this recipe. We first tasted the tuna as is. It was very dry and not great tasting but my wife said the only way to save this tuna was with the addition of mayonnaise.  This made me think that  this recipe could work after all. I slightly deviated from the original recipe.

Ingredients:
1 can of tuna (I used albacore tuna in water but the original recipe used tuna in oil)
1/4 daikon, peeled, sliced and julienned
salt

For dressing
2 tbs mayonnaise
2 tbs Greek yogurt
1-2 tsp soy sauce or x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce
1/4 tsp yuzu kosho (optional)
1/2 tsp “aonori” dried sea weed flakes (optional)

Directions:
Add salt to the daikon, knead and let it stand for 10 minutes
Squeeze out as much moisture as possible
Add the mixture of the mayo and Greek yogurt
Add the soy sauce and taste. If needed add more.
Add aonori and yuzu kosho if using..

This is a surprisingly good dish. If you are not told you couldn’t guess it has daikon in it. Even the tuna added some flavor helped by the dressing. This is definitely a very easy dish to make as well. Perfect for a drinking snack or a small side dish.

Quail egg fry and Scotch eggs うずらの卵の串揚げとスコッチエッグ

We started using quail eggs ウズラの卵 from fresh eggs that we boil rather than using canned ones since the quality is much better. We can get fresh quail eggs from three sources; Weee on-line Asian grocery delivery service, our local Japanese grocery store (not always) and Whole Foods. Fresh quail eggs have their own problems, however. 1. It is difficult to judge if any eggs are cracked unless it is leaking the white or otherwise quite obviously damaged, 2. while boiling some quail eggs develop the cracks and 3. It is not easy to peel the shell without taking off some of the white. So the yield is 70-80% on good days. In any case, we got a dozen eggs and ended up with 10 boiled quail eggs (that is 83%!). I made mini Scotch eggs with the quail eggs and ground chicken. I also made “fried boiled eggs” (i.e. boiled quail eggs that are breaded and then deep fried). As a starter for one evening, I served half a Scotch egg, fried boiled quail eggs, fried shrimp heads from our Tako Grill take out and marinated or “zuke” tuna and hamachi sashimi. As a vegetable, I served “asazuke” 浅漬け of cucumber, nappa, daikon and carrot. I initially served with green tea salt and wedge of lemon. My wife requested “Tonkastu-sauce” as well.

I skewered two fried quail eggs with a tooth picks (shown under the shrimp head) emulating “Kushi-age” 串揚げ, Japanese breaded fried items on skewer, which is a classic Izakaya item.

How to prepare boiled quail eggs:
Add quail eggs to a pan of cold water on medium flame, as the water gets warmer, gently start stirring the water which helps to center the egg yolks. Once the water starts boiling turn down the flame and boil for 3 minutes. Immediately cool in ice water

Quaril egg Scotch egg:
Ingredients: Made 5
8 oz ground chicken (or beef or pork)
5 boiled quail eggs
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
2-3 shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
freshly grated nutmeg, black pepper and salt to taste
1 tbs olive oil
2 tbs Panko bread crumbs

For breading
Flour or potato starch
1 egg beaten mixed with 2-3 tbs water
Panko bread crumbs
Peanut oil for deep frying

Directions:
Sauté the onion and mushrooms in olive oil for 2-3 minutes, let it cool to the room temperature
Add ground chicken, panko and the seasonings, mix well and knead by hand (if too loose add more panko and/or potato starch).
Coat each quail egg in potato starch
Divide the meat mixture into 5 parts and make an oval 1/3 inch thick on your palm.
Place the egg in the center and encase it with the meat mixture to make an oval sphere (or ellipsoid)
Bread the sphere by coating in the potato starch (or flour), the egg water and the panko bread crumbs
Deep fry at 180F for about 5 minutes or until the bubbles become small
Cut in half and serve

This was quite good. The fried quail egg had a nice crunchy outside and the inside yolk was velvety smooth. The overall flavor was very nice too. It would have been easy to eat many more. The little Scotch egg was just the right amount as an appetizer for us. (We find the Scotch eggs made with regular hens eggs are too big.

Hanami with Latest Blooming Tree 遅咲きの桜で花見

This year’s cherry blossoms have been a bit unusual. Our three cherry trees bloomed at different times.  As a result, while hanami arrived early, the staggered bloom made the “hanami” season really long. The last cherry tree to bloom was the oldest we have in our backyard. It was here when we moved in.  I am not sure what type of cherry this is but it’s blossoms are a more classic old fashioned variety such as those that appear in old Japanese wood cuts and painting. This cherry tree can be admired from the second floor window (as shown in the picture below.) As an aside; the spring cherry blossoms are a contrast juxtaposed to the Poinsettia shown in the bottom left hand corner. This plant is several Christmases old. My wife tends the plant through out the year (trimming it, feeding it, finally in the fall putting it through the required 12 week darkness setting by placing it in a closet where it is not exposed to any light for at least 8 hours at night) all to get it ready for it’s display of red, as shown in the picture, the next Christmas.

We moved to our deck and started hanami.

I just thawed a block of yellow-fin tuna. In the pic below on the left is marinated (zuke) 鮪のずけ and on the right is also zuke but one side has been torched. We used a beautiful crane-motif plate to serve this. Unfortunately, the face of the crane is covered up. The green is blanched edible chrysanthemum in Japanese noodle sauce with bonito flakes.

The second dish was cubes of tuna and avocado鮪とアボカドの角切り.

We had psuedo-negitoro 擬制ネギトロ after this.

Tuna, avocado and nagaimo cubes まぐろ、アボカドと長芋の角切り

One evening, we defrosted Chutoto bluefin tuna まぐろの中トロ from Great-Alaska-Seafood. I divided it into 4 parts thinking that I will make 4 different dishes. I served one part of it as straight sashimi, and second part as imitation negitoro 擬制ネギトロ. I made the third part as “zuke” marinated slices of tuna 漬けマグロ.  I planned to make the 4th part to our usual Yamakake 山かけ but we had freshly cooked rice, so instead, we went for a small tuna donburi using the marinated tuna sashimi or “Zuke”  漬け鮪丼. This was quite filling and we decided to keep the tuna prepared for Yamakake for the next day. This was cubes of tuna marinated in x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (short-cut version of “Zuke”).  Next day, instead of making Yamakake, I came up with this hybrid of Yamakake and tuna avocado cubes マグロとアボカドの角切. This turned out to be quite good with similar soft consistency of tuna and ripe avocado and crunchy refreshing cubes of nagaimo 長芋.

Ingredients:
Tuna Sashimi, 1/4 block, cut into small cubes and marinated in x4 concentrated Japanese noodle sauce (few hours but in this case 24 hours).
Half ripe avocado, cut into similar sized small cubes and dressed with lemon juice to prevent discoloration.
I inch nagaimo, peeled and cut into small cubes
One clove of garlic finely chopped
two scallion, finely chopped

Dressing:
1/2 tsp dark sesame oil
1 tbs soy sauce with dissolved wasabi
I topped with dried nori strips.

This was a quite good appetizer with cold sake.

Take-out sashimi from Tako Grill タコグリルからのテイクアウト

We have been taking out omakase sushi and sashimi 刺身と寿司おまかせ from Tako Grill since March of 2020 after it closed for dining-in. I have posted a few of these take-out sashimi and sushi dishes. I usually re-plate them on two plates for one serving each. I usually use rectangular plates but this time, I used round plates we got recently which are currently our favorite.

Today’s sashimi was Oo-tro tuna 大トロ, hamachi はまち and botan-ebi ボタン海老 (could be Argentinian red shrimp). All were quite good. I also use all the trimmings such as the daikon or perilla from the take-out box.

I re-arranged the uni and squid sashimi  rolled in perilla leaves ウニとイカの刺身大葉巻き into a small dish with julienne of perilla 大葉 and nori 刻みのり, dressed with wasabi-jouuyu ワサビ醤油.

We also got 4 deep dried shrimp heads (extra benefit of Botan ebi sashimi) which were also great. We got nearly filled up with these assorted sashimi but we finished with the serving of sushi  (including one California roll with real lump crab) that was the last part of the take-out. We really enjoy this sashimi and sushi feast at home with cold sake. It is a great to kick back, relax and enjoy our meal with sake libation in the comfort of our home without having to worry about a drive back from the restaurant through traffic. 

Fatty tuna sashimi from Catalina 大トロの刺身

Some time ago, I got a small block (5 oz.) of frozen fatty tuna from Catalina Offshore Products. I was not sure if this was chu-toro 中トロ or Oo-toro 大トロ but upon thawing, this turned out to be very fatty Oo-toro. I tasted a small slice and it was very rich. You cannot eat too much of this but the portion we had was just right amount for two of us. Sometimes, oo-toro has layers of sinue between the fatty meat. Visually this piece appeared to have some. So I made shallow cuts across the sinue to make it easier to eat. But it turned out the sinue was not any botheration. In any case, I served this oo-toro three ways.

The first two slices were served as is (left and below). As mentioned, I just made several shallow cuts across the sinue.

The second piece I tried to make as "Aburi" 炙り but when I tried to fire up the small kitchen torch I use for this purpose, it did not ignite. So, I used a hot frying pan instead which did not add any char marks or char flavor. I seasoned it with Kosher salt before searing and then squeezed on some lemon juice.

 

The last one is cubes of the tuna dressed in mayonnaise, yuzu-kosho 柚子胡椒, x4 Japanese noodle sauce and chopped perilla. Yuzu-kosho flavor cut through the fat.

This was just the right amount of fatty tuna for one luxurious sitting. Perfect for cold sake.

Frozen bluefin tuna block from Great Alaska Seafood 冷凍オーストラリア産の黒鮪

 We have purchased quite a few items from Great-Alaska-Seafood. We tried frozen sashimi-grade yellowfin tuna or "kihada-maguro" 黄肌マグロ blocks which were on a par with the ones we can get at our Japanese grocery store. Recently we received an email from Great-Alaska Seafood about a special offer for Australian aqua-cultured sashimi-grade blackfin tuna, "Hon-maguro or Kuro-maguro" クロマグロ. In general I am a fan of any tuna but I tend to like blackfin a bit more than yellowfin. Great-Alaska’s advertising was pinpointed targeting. They clearly “had-my-number/Knew-where-I lived”/had-me-dialed-in”. I instantly succumbed to the offer and ordered the tuna. If I recall correctly I had to call a special number (rather than order on the internet) and the offer was good for only one day. The offer consisted of a total of 8 lbs made up of 8,1 lb packages,  half-and-half chu-toro 中トロ and akami 赤身.  As you can see below, the blocks were irregular in size and inconsistent in shape. I surmise that because they were not cut like Japanese “saku” blocks which are neatly of equal size and shape they probably could not be used in a Japanese sushi bar for example. 

Each packages are marked either  “akami” (left) or “chu-toro” (right) .

We first tried the smallest package which was marked as “akami”. I served two small dishes.

The picture below shows a dish of straight forward sashimi with cucumber sunomono きゅうりの酢の物 with tomato garnished with “ikura” salmon roe. The akami was certainly better than the frozen yellowfin tuna and good enough but not great.

I also made it into cubes of tuna and avocado 鮪とアボカドの角切りon a bed of arugula dressed with soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil.

So bottom line is that this is not bad. It is certainly better than yellowfin tuna but it was not truly great. Nonetheless we are satisfied that we have this choice and will have absolutely no trouble “choking” it down .

Bluefin tuna chunks 黒鮪チャンク

Recently while browsing online purveyors of sashimi-grade tuna I noticed advertisements for bluefin sashimi tuna "imperfect cuts" or " chunks". I surmise this may be something to do with increased popularity of "poke" which, unlike Japanese sashimi, does not require uniform sized blocks of fish. Since I myself make dishes such as "imitation negitoro" 擬制ネギトロ, and "namerou", which do not require perfect cuts, I decided to try it. This one came from our old, tried and true Catalina Offshore products. As you can see in the picture below, there are several chunks of frozen bluefin tuna. The majority is “akami” red  meat and some are “chu-toro” medium fatty. I divided the shipment into three portions. I thawed one in the refrigerator and vacuum packed the other two and put them in the freezer. Since they are chunks, it is very easy to apportion whatever amount I would like to thaw and prepare.

I decided to taste the tuna as sashimi first. I sliced one chunk which looked like chu-toro 中トロ and another which looked like akami 赤身. Since the shipment also included Ikura salmon roe いくら and my wife made blini a few days ago, we served a blini topped with cream cheese (home made), smoked salmon, ikura and chopped chives.

Both the toro and akami were very good. For us, this is just perfect, just a little bit of tastes.

This blini with ikura is one of our favorite appetizers. We tried caviar but we like ikura better. This ikura (came frozen) also from Catalina tasted very good and fresh.

  

This combination of appetizers can go well with both red wine or sake but on this occasion, we had cold sake. After this, we had imitation negitro made from akami chunks with cucumber slices and nori. I also served our usual “yamakake” after marinading the akami cubes for 30 minutes. The yamakake was quite filling. 

So our assessment of the bluefin sashimi-grade tuna chunks is very positive. They are very reasonably priced and tasted good. They can be served as sashimi. Even though the slices are not perfect, they tasted perfect.

One of the cherry trees in our backyard bloomed almost overnight. This particular cherry tree has really grown since we removed the enormous ash tree that over shadowed it. We had to remove the ash because it succumbed to the "emerald borer". This cherry tree always blooms first (we have three cherry trees including the replacement for our old tree which was destroyed during the Nor'Easter storm in 2018). As the "first bloomer", it is in step with the cherry trees at the tidal basin; blooming at about the same time. The remaining trees in our yard are more leisurely in their approach; blooming about 1 week later. These blossoms are really a treat. Finally Spring has sprung.

Riviera Seafood Club sashimi リビエラシーフードクラブからの刺身

This is my on-going effort to find retailers where I can get sashimi-grade fish. As I have mentioned previously some of the on-line places like "sushi at home" or "fish for sushi" which sold sashimi fish have come and gone. The good and reliable Catalina Offshore Products is still going strong and we still get occasional shipments of sashimi fish from them. When it comes to Uni うに, Maruhide 丸秀 is the place to go. We have gotten frozen blocks of sashimi-grade tuna from "Great Alaska Seafood" and although it is yellowfin tuna, it is better quality than the frozen yellowfin tuna blocks we got from the  Japanese grocery store.  Recently I became aware of another vendor called  "Riviera Seafood Club" (according to the website it was launched in July 2019, and is family-run).  I finally decide to get some akami 赤身 (8oz), chutoro 中トロ (8 oz) and hamachi はまち(8 oz) sashimi from them. Unlike some of the other vendors we have tried, they offered smaller portions which is nice and makes it easier to manage use of the shipment. The chutoro block had one half almost akami and another half of toro. I divided up the block and served the toro part the evening we received the sashimi. The reaming akami was used to make imitation negitoro and cubes of avocado and tuna next evening. The hamachi still had the skin attached which needed to be removed. The picture below shows the serving of the various sashimi.

The quality of akami was good. The chutoro was good in terms of texture and taste but had some sinew (which happens sometimes especially in the toro parts of tuna). The hamachi was ok but didn’t appear to be super fresh. I marinated it in sake, soy sauce and grated ginger juice for the next evening, which made it more palatable.

I think this is a good alternative source of sashimi. It came exactly as they suggested (ordered on Wednesday and arrived on Friday). The only odd thing was that there was no communication. No order confirmation email or shipping notice aside from a text message I received from FedEx concerning expected delivery date.We may try this place again. It is good to know we have more than one place where we can get sashimi.

Negitoro from "nakaochi" tuna 中落ちでネギトロ

 Our Japanese grocery store "Maruichi", gets a bluefin tuna for sale once a month (I assume from NY).  The date is not fixed and you have to look it up on their website. Since it often arrives on a Friday and because of my work schedule I shop on a Saturday I usually get there the day after they received the tuna. As a result I have the “pick” of what is left over from the previous day and the types of tuna portions and quality available are a bit unpredictable. Nonetheless, I was able to get some pretty decent tuna sashimi. On one of such expedition, I got a segment of tuna back bone with some meat attached. We had a similar item at "Maguro Ganchi" まぐろがんち in Kanazawa 金沢 some years ago. The dish called "negitoro" ネギトロ is supposedly made from "nakaochi" 中落ち and "sukimi" すきみ tuna meat. Sukimi is the fatty meat just under the skin. I made "negitoro" from this nakaochi tuna.

Using a spoon (or more traditionally using a shell), you can removed most of the meat from the back bone and ribs. As you can guess, this is very reasonably priced but tastes good. Many Japanese Izakaya often serve this nakaochi as a sashimi or Korean style marinaded tuna called "Yukke".

Since this nakaochi was not really fatty, I made my usual pseudo-negitoro with the addition of mayonnaise. 

As usual, we had this with a slice of cucumber wrapped up in small rectangle of nori. We had this with "Otokoyama hiyaoroshi"男山ひやおろし...a perfect match!

Potato salad with tuna and pesto ペストとツナのポテトサラダ

We made pesto and froze it when we had a bumper crop of basil sometime ago. My wife found two small plastic containers in the freezer recently and tasked me to use it. I made two kinds of garlic mozzarella bread, one with original garlic scallion butter and another with the pesto. The one with pesto was quite good. That left me with the 2-3 tbs of pesto. From the depth of my memory I remembered a recipe for potato salad with tuna and pesto from the “Frugal Gourmet*" cookbook. I sort of remembered how this was made but I decided I needed to find the recipe. After going through a number of his cookbooks which we have in our collection, I found the recipe in "Frugal Gourmet cooks with wine". It was called "tuna and potato salad" which was introduced as an "American Italian" dish. In any case, I made this salad and finished up the pesto. It was definitely very distinctive and very good; quite different from my usual potato salad.

*When his show was popular on PBS in1980s, it was our routine to watch it on the weekend and we bought most of his cookbooks. Looking back, however, we think our cooking has advanced since then but at the time his recipes were quite inspirational. 

I made a few modifications as usual.  

Ingredients:

2 medium russet potatoes, boiled with skin on and then skin removed, cut (crumbed) into bite size chunks (original recipe calls for 6 small red potatoes).

One can of tuna in water, drained.

Blanched green beans, arbitrary amount (I prepared from fresh green beans, the original recipe calls for a 10 oz. package of frozen green beans, thawed, cooked and drained).

2 tbs pesto

3 tbs mayonnaise and 3 tbs Greek (strained) yogurt* (The original recipe calls for 1 cup mayo)

3 flat anchovies mashed (optional). I did not used them.

Salt and pepper to taste

3 tbs chopped parsley (I skipped this since I did not have fresh parsley)

* My wife prepared this from Dannon yogurt.

Directions:

I seasoned the potatoes with salt, pepper and sushi vinegar while they were hot and I them cool in a bowl (my addition)

Cut the green beans in half inch length and add to the potato.

Add the pesto and tuna.

Add the mayo and Greek yogurt and mix.

Taste and season it with salt and pepper if needed.

This is a good salad to have. We really liked it.

Big eye tuna sashimi 4 ways めばち鮪刺身 四通り

When we got firefly squid from Regalis food, we also got 3 lbs. of fresh bigeye tuna sashimi メバチマグロ (akami 赤身). Since this was too much tuna sashimi for us to finish in one sitting, I divided it into 4 portions. We finished one portion fresh. The remaining three portions were vacuum packed and frozen.  Over time we have been enjoying the frozen portions and finally we came to the last one. Although this tuna tasted fairly good, certain portions, including this last one, were very “sinewy”.  So I had to tailor the dishes I made to make the sinew less noticeable. The dishes I made are shown in the next picture. The upper row from left to right are “yamakake” やまかけ, “sashimi” 赤身刺身, tuna with avocado cubes マグロとアボカドの角切りand the lower row is imitation “negitoro” 擬制ネギトロ. I did a similar combination of dishes using frozen yellowtail tuna but these made with big eye tuna were much better.

 

For the yamakake, I marinated  cubes of tuna for several hours in concentrated (x4) Japanese noodle sauce and also added soy sauce with dissolved wasabi to the grated nagaimo. I topped it with thin strips of nori. This is a classic and also sort of filling because of the grated nagaimo.

I chose the portion with the least sinew and made a small serving of straight sashimi. It was quite good.

This is another dish I make often. The dressing contains chopped garlic, soy sauce, sake, and dark sesame oil. The similarity of textures of tuna sashimi cubes and avocado works well. Since I did not have fresh chives, I used the green part of scallion for garnish.

Finally, imitaion negitoro. The combination of mayonise and tuna cannot go wrong. As usual, I left a half portion of tuna in small cubes and mixed it with the more finely chopped tuna with mayo, Japanese noodle sauce and chopped scallion. I served this with slices of cucumber (American minicucues) and small rectangular  sheets of Korean nori 韓国海苔. We made small nori rolls with the cucumber and negitoro. This is really great and also filling.

After finishing these 4 tuna sashimi dishes, we enjoyed  “edamame” 枝豆 and assortment of Japanese rice crackers and few more cups of cold sake and we were quite full.

Nagaimo dressed in cod roe 長芋の鱈子和え

I started going back to our Japanese grocery store again. The last time, I got a fairly good hamachi sashimi. This time, I hit the jack pot! I knew that the Japanese grocery store gets sashimi bluefin tuna or “hon-maguro” or “kuro-maguro” once a month but I did not try to find out when and never went specifically to get sashimi maguro. Just by happenstance I went just a day after they got the maguro. So I had a choice of chu-toro or akami maguro sashimi. I chose a package of “akami” with two good sized portions and also, as an added benefit, some hamachi. That evening, we had a combination sashimi feast of tuna 鮪, hamachi はまち, vinegar cured mackerel しめ鯖 (frozen). I also made imitation “negitoro” 擬制ねぎとろ from this tuna sashimi because the tuna portions were not regular “saku” 柵 blocks for sashimi and I ended up with some odd pieces after slicing the sashimi pieces.  Compared to our usual imitation negitoro which I make from a frozen block of yellofin tuna, this was much much better.  I did not take any pictures, however. Next evening, I served the remaining sashimi, deep fried fish cake or “satsuma-age” さつま揚げ which I also got at the Japanese grocery store (heated in the toaster oven served with soy sauce and grated ginger). I also made a sort of new dish from cod-roe and nagaimo.

Here is the close up of the sashimi dish which I served with dashimaki だし巻き Japanese omelet and sugar snap in salt broth スナップ豌豆の塩びたし.

The next picture shows the “new” nagaimo dish I made. I did this because I had thawed “tarako” たらこ cod roe and found out the membrane in the back was already broken. So, I removed the roe from the remaining sac, mixed it with a small amount of sake, although I did not have a firm idea at the time of what I would make from it. I then remembered that we had a small segment of  nagaimo 長芋 in the refrigerator which had to be used soon. So I just combined the two.  I garnished it with a chiffonade  of perilla and nori. This was a good dish. This tarako was a bit on the salty side but the addition of sake in combination of the crunchy refreshing nagaimo, really worked.

Ingredients:
1 inch segment of nagaimo, skinned, sliced and cut into fat match sticks.
1 tsp sake
One sac of salted tarako, cod roe
Perilla leaves and nori chiffonade for garnish

Direction:
Soak the nagaimo sticks in water with a splash of rice vinegar and gently wash to remove surface sliminess. Blot dry using a sheet of paper towel.
Remove the roe from the sac using the back of the knife and mix it with 1 tsp of sake. Taste and if not salty enough, add soy sauce (mine was salty enough).
Dress the nagaimo and garnish it with the perilla.

So every time I go to our Japanese grocery store, we have a number of  “goodies” for dinner that evening.

Sashimi big eye tuna "akami" and "Hotaru-ika" firefly squid メバチマグロの赤身とほたるイカ

 Spring is the season for a species of small squid called "Hotaru-ika" ほたるイカ or Firefly squid. It is so-called because it emits a bioluminescent light like a firefly. Some years ago when we traveled to Kanazawa 金沢 and Kyoto 京都 in spring, we really enjoyed “Hotaru-ika” at various Izakayas 居酒屋. Because this squid has parasites, it must be cooked (boiled) or frozen at -30C for 4 days. That means a regular home freezer (-22 C or 0F) is not adequate. This is not a “ DIY (do it yourself ) home project”. The squid has to come from a commercial source with the resources to at least freeze it properly. While in Kanazawa, we learned, through multiple tastings that our favorite way to eat it is “Okizuke” 沖ずけ. Although this dish is made of uncooked marinated squid it is special to Toyama prefecture 富山県 (Kanazawa city is the capital) where they know to make it safe by appropriately freezing it before making it into okizuke 沖ずけ.  “Oki-zuke” literally means “offshore marinated”. Traditionally, fishermen took the marinade with them on the boat and as they caught the squid , threw it into the marinade. By the time, they got back to shore, it was perfectly marinated. Although traditional, this method is not safe since the parasites will not be killed in a marinade. 

In any case, recently, I mentioned to my wife (who is particularly fond of firefly squid), that  it was the season and I was reading that many of the food bloggers I follow, were enjoying this seasonal delicacy. We had hotaru-ika at Tako Grill some years ago so we thought we should be able to get this in the U.S. A quick search of the internet turned up a company called “Regalis food”. They sell boiled firefly squid among other gourmet food items. They are more geared up for supplying restaurants rather than individual customers, however, so the minimal amounts required for purchase are a bit large. Nonetheless we ordered the minimum 300 grams (or three trays) of boiled firefly squid (which was shipped from Long Island) and the minimum 3 lbs. of big eye tuna akami  (which was shipped  from California). Although coming from different places both shipments arrived at the same time; (over night delivery).

The first picture shows one of the trays of hotaru-Ika.

 

This picture of the tuna akami is the tail portion near the back with skin on. The piece arrived whole; I cut it into portions before this picture was taken. Since I did not have much time, I did not cut the tuna into sashimi blocks (or “saku”). I just removed “chi-ai” 血合い cut it into 4 portions with skin on.  I only prepared one portion for sashimi.  The rest, I vacuum packed and froze for a later time. 

I served the akami with some vegetables. After removing the hard “eye” or “beak” from the firefly squid, I served them with sumiso 酢味噌 dressing.

The Akami of big eye tuna is not too bad. Certainly much better than frozen yellowfin tuna we often have.

Serving the squid with sumiso sauce is certainly a very common presentation. The plate of hotaru-ika shown here is half of one tray (so, the two of us finished a whole tray or 100grams). I think what makes hotaru-ika so special is that the squid are very small and each squid makes one pleasant mouthful. The first part of the experience is the pleasing texture of biting into the soft squid body followed by the  release of the lovely taste of the squid meat then the rich flavor of the innards especially the slightly bitter taste of the liver. Trust me, it tastes much better than the description sounds. 

We feel very fortunate we can enjoy the firefly squid in U.S. Hopefully we can visit the Iizakaya in Kanazawa and enjoy local sake with okizuke firefly squid again sometime soon.

Hanami 2021 with healthy 4 Japanese appetizers 花見 ２０２１

This year the cherry blossoms were early. We read it was the earliest full bloom of cherry blossom in Kyoto in 1,200 years. We have three cherry trees in our backyard; two were here when we moved in and one we planted 30 some years ago which was destroyed by a Nor'Easter in 2018. We replace this with a small cherry tree and it has grown but is still small. Usually these trees bloom sequentially rather than simultaneously but this year all three bloomed with some overlap in timing. So we had a few days when all three trees were at various stages of blossom and we enjoyed "Hanami" 花見. One day was warm enough for us to sit outside on the deck. Other days were cold or rainy so we enjoyed Hanami from inside. 

In the early morning on March 28 it was still a bit dark but through the cherry blossoms I spotted the full moon in the sky. This was the "Paschal moon"; the first full moon after the spring equinox. It is the moon on which the date for Easter is based i.e. Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal Moon. True to form, Easter is next Sunday 4/4/2021. This moon is also known as "Worm moon". So named, supposedly, because worms start to emerge as the ground warms up. 

The picture below is of the cherry tree we planted in 2018 to replace the one that was destroyed in the nor’easter. It has grown a lot in the last 3 years but another 3 years will add to its role for hanami. Still it provided viewing enjoyment.

These are four appetizers I served one hanami evening. Before these dishes, we had Tuna sashimi made with frozen yellow fin tuna block from Great Alaska Seafood キハダマグロ.  As usual, I served it in marinated "Zuke" style ズケ; the surface charred with a kitchn blow torch in "Tataki" style たたき. I also  made a portion of it into imitation  “negitoro” ネギトロ,  We then had cold chawanmushi with marinated Ikura salmon roe 冷製茶碗蒸し. The four dishes shown below are the last dishes I served. They are vegetable rich and, hopefully, healthy items. 

This is a sort of salad made with dried persimmon 干し柿と大根の甘酢和え.  A recipe online was the inspiration of this dish but I did not follow the recipe. Besides the dried persimmon, which is cut into small bite sized pieces, I added daikon, carrot, sweet onion in sweet vinegar with added ground sesame and a splash of sesame oil. I garnished with roasted cashew nuts (or walnuts but the cashew happened to be available). The sweetness of the dried persimmon and the sweet vinegar dressing went well together. The dried persimmon got really soft and over time basically dissolved into the dressing.

This dish was a variation of the dish I made before from canned mackerel 鯖の水煮缶詰と大根. But in addition to daikon, I added cabbage and tofu and blanched broccoli just before serving.

This is “Hijiki” seaweed with carrot and deep fried tofu ひじきの炒め煮, exactly the same as I made before.

The last is a classic “mishime” 煮〆. It is simmered vegetables seasoned with soy sauce, mirin, and dashi broth. It includes shiitake, carrot, gluten cake “hanabu” 花麩. The rectangular pieces are freeze dried tofu or “shimidoufu” 凍み豆腐. I cooked this separately with much sweeter broth (I guess in Kyoto style). You cannot see it but there is renkon  on the bottom.

At this point, we were well fed and watered and gazing at the beautiful cherry blossoms. We were just enjoying existence.