Daikon no nimono

This is a great way to eat vegetables and even if you have a bowl full, it’s only about 120 kcal. I eat this for my fasting diet day.

Daikon no nimono 

(Daikon radish and other vegetable cooked in stock) for four

Ingredients:

300g daikon radish

100g carrot

100g shirataki

100g thinly sliced beef or pork
(you can get it at Japanese or Chinese grocer
 in frozen meat section
1tsp hondashi (soup stock)

2 stalks spring onion

5-6 dried shiitake

250-300ml water
(just enough to cover all ingredients)

Flavouring A:

• 1tbs sake
• 2-3tbs soy sauce
• 2tbs mirin
• 250ml water

Method:

1. Cut daikon 2-3cm thickness (see pic 1). Trim the skin generously (see pic2).
2. Cut carrot in rangiri. Wash and drain shirataki in a strainer and leave them aside.
3. Soak shiitake in warm to hot water in a deep bowl for about ½ hour (see pic 3).
   Put a lid on, to make sure shiitake is soaked properly (see pic4).
4. Take shiitake out of the bowl and squeeze liquid out. Slice in half. Do not throw away the water in which shiitake was soaked.
5. Place daikon, carrots, shiratake in a medium to large pot (choose a pot in which all the ingredients fit in nicely. If you have to stack daikon on top of each other, you have chosen a pot, which is too small. Add water and fish stock to the pot and the water in which the shiitake was soaked with (it gives it extra flavour) (see pic 5).
6. Turn the heat on high until boiling. Once it has boiled, turn the heat down then add beef. Cook about 20 minutes.
7. Do shake the pot from time to time. Then remove the lid and replace with use an otoshibuta. It sits on the food in the pot (see pic6). Cook for a further 30 minutes until soup is reduced by half.
8. Serve in a bowl and sprinkle with chopped onion.

1. Cut daikon

2. Skin the daikon

3. Soak shiitake

4. Put a lid on

5. Ingredients are in the pot

6. Put otoshibuta

Tip1: if you don’t have a otoshibuta, 
you can make it with baking
paper or aluminium foil.   
(Left) 








Tip2: When you choose daikon, pick the one has green neck.
It is sweeter compared to the ones has not.

Let's go back to the basics

Hi, I am back. I had the busiest year last year and I neglected my blog entirely (excuses, excuses, excuses). I am on school holidays at the moment, so before 

I return to my busy life I decided to put up a few Japanese recipes as my friend Miss K requested.  She recently went to Japan and is so keen to learn Japanese cooking. I selected a few simple traditional Japanese meals that anyone can follow.

These are ordinary Japanese grandmother’s recipes. I heard people in Japan are not eating home cooking as much as they used to. It’s kind of sad to hear, because I found that the kind of cooking my grandmother used to do is nutritious, easy to make, as well as low in calories. What more could you want for your daily meal?

This was my father in-law’s favourite Japanese dish, it reminded him of Irish stew. He was the biggest potato fan I know. My husband calls it Mickey Jagger instead of niku jaga.

Niku Jaga (meat and potato) for two

Ingredients:

2 medium sized potatoes

80g thin sliced beef (it can be pork or mincemeat)

1 medium sized 
   brown onion

½ carrot

50g shirataki

Adequate amount of oil (canola, olive oil 

or vegetable oil)

Flavouring A:
1tbs brown sugar
1-1/2tbs Soy sauce
2tbs Mirin
300ml water
Adequate amount of water
Adequate amount of soy sauce

Method:

1. Peel potatoes and cut potatoes in rangiri (see pic1), soak them in water for about 10 minutes then drain.
2. Cut the brown onion in half then in kushigiri (see pic2). Cut carrot in rangiri.
3. Cut beef into 4cm strips. Wash and drain shirataki in a strainer and leave them aside.
4. Pour oil into a medium pot and heat up. Add potato (1), onion and carrots (2) and shirataki, then cook with high heat. Add beef slices and cook further.
5. Pour in water until all ingredients are just covered and leave on high heat. Add flavouring A.  Once it boils, turn heat to low and keep checking the pot and gently shake the pot  from time to time to reduce the liquid in the pot.
6. Once the potatoes are cooked, taste test them and if you think it needs sweetening, add a bit of brown sugar. Before serving, pour say sauce over the niku jaga for flavouring.
7. Serve in a bowl.

*You can add chopped spring onions on top to add some colour.

1. Rangiri

2. Kushigiri

Usually, we have miso soup every day, and it is simplest soup you could ever make.

Tofu and wakame miso soup (makes 4 Japanese miso bowls)

Ingredients:

115g silken tofu

  2stalks of spring onion   chopped

3tbsp white miso

1tbsp dried wakame  (sea weed)

½tsp fish stock  (hondashi)

   Tip:  
  Never boil the 
  soup once
  you add miso.




Method:

1. Put water in a small to medium pot, bring to boil.
2. Cut tofu into small cubes approx. 1 cm square (see pic2).  Wash and chop spring onions.
3. Once the water boils, add fish stock then turn the heat to low. Add miso by straining through a small strainer (see pic3). If you don’t have  a miso strainer, use a small bowl to make the miso paste thinner using the water from the pot.
4. Add chopped tofu and wakame. Put lid on for about 2-3 minutes.
5. Serve in a Japanese miso soup bowl with chopped spring onion.

*You can substitute the main ingredients in miso soup for things like :potato (cook potato until soft before you add miso), or spinach (wash spinach leaves and chop in 4cm long and add after the miso) cook further 2- 3 minutes. I sometime add an egg with spinach miso soup. Once you add spinach leaves then add an egg, cook for further 2-3 minutes (to whatever the hardness of egg you like). It will be beautifully poached if you don’t touch once you drip the egg in.

1. 

   Ingredients

   

   2. Cubed tofu

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   

   3. Miso straine

   

   4. Ready

Zucchini slice

Christmas is hard work. I have been working hard since Christmas eve last monday.
We always do a seafood spread, for which we go to the fish market in the early morning of Christmas eve every year. I bought a whole fresh salmon (about 4kg), 
2 crayfishe, 1kg of prawns, 300g of salmon roe and 1kg of smoked salmon.
I prepare these for christmas lunch each year. After eating so much seafood and drinking a glass of that one too many glasses of Champagne you always wonder what to cook a few days after the Christmas? It's a good question. 
Yes, I want to have something gentle to my stomach and just simply yummy, 
if it's cold or warm. This recipe came from my friend Penny who is a great cook. 
We often share recipes. I love this one and I cook it quite often. 
Just recently, I was invited to go to my friend's place for a small gathering. 
I took this "Zucchini Slice", and it was well received. 
So, I decided to add it on my blog, which I haven't updated since April.

Zucchini Slice

Ingredients: 

3 cups of shredded zucchini (do not peel)
1/2 grated cheese ( I used tasty cheese here, You can experiment what you like)
1/2 cup of chopped onion
1 clove of garlic (chopped)
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2-3 rushes of bacon, sliced and cooked (I used Christmas ham for this time)
4 beaten eggs 
1cup self raising flour (Bisquick was used on original recipe)
＊1/2 cup of oil (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F/170C°. Prepare square tin (I used my bread loaf tin), 
Grease inside of the tin with oil spray and line the base with baking paper.
Put all ingredients except, eggs and flour in a large bowl.  
Mix well. Add beaten eggs and then add flour last and stir it in with spatular.
Bake for 45 minuets, I normally cook 30 minuets and turn the tin around and bake another 15 minuets (test with skewer). Serve either warm or cold with salad.



* For Japanese readers: link to bakewitherihttp://bakewither.exblog.jp/