Out Of Pocket

It's been a while since I whinged about my love for all things Japanese, and since my sister's been in Japan on a trip for the past week, I thought I was due a good whine. I also thought I was due some Japanese food (it always makes me feel healthy and redeemed, and I like to think it cancels out all the butterscotch pudding).

Inari-zushi is something I'd never tried before - basically it's seasoned rice in tofu pouches, and I'd been dying to give it a go for just about forever, but I had trouble finding the, uh, tofu pouches.

You see, when I made sushi I explained about living in a village overrun solely with alcoholics and the elderly, and inari pouches weren't much of an option (you can neither drink out of them nor... whatever it is that old people do). I'd more or less given up; unless tofu pouches dropped from the heavens and into my unresisting arms, I wasn't going to go too crazy over it. I could've always bought a block of tofu and cut a hole in it, but that wouldn't have been quite the same (not to mention that even tofu is probably a bit ambitious where I come from).

And then I moved a six hour drive away, to a university town where international students are common, and people think the North is some sort of widespread swamp over the entire upper half of England. Finding inari pouches wasn't really my main problem, haha, but all of a sudden I had options I'd never imagined.

And these are they! Weird crinkly soggy little things, but ohh they were delicious. I know I'd eat more or less anything if you told me they were Japanese, but these honestly took me by surprise - not to mention that I got to model them in my bento box with a rice ball from a batch I'd made and frozen a while back (a very poorly made batch: I don't think I was firm enough with them cause whenever I've had one they've collapsed all over the place).

These look nowhere near as impressive as regular sushi, but I think I enjoyed them even more - and damn, I'm proud of myself. I've come a long way. Literally.

Inari-Zushi

Japanese Cooking At Home - Hideo Dekura

-

Tofu (bean curd) pouches (abura-gea), available from Asian grocery stores. Prepare these by placing them in boiling water for a minute, draining and squeezing out the excess oil.

2 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water and finely chopped - I used regular

1/4 small carrot, peeled & finely chopped

240ml (1 cup) stock

120ml (1/2 c.) soy sauce

2 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp caster sugar

3 cups (720ml) sushi rice

1. Place bean curd pouches, mushrooms and carrot in a saucepan. Add stock, soy sauce, mirin and caster sugar, making sure pouches are submerged while cooking. Bring to the boil and simmer over a low heat for about 10 mins. Remove from heat and allow to stand while liquid is cool.

2. Remove bean curds and squeeze to remove excess water. Transfer to a chopping board and cut in half to make two pouches, then set aside (mine were already in half-pieces).

3. Mix mushrooms and carrot into the sushi rice with a rice paddle. Carefully open the pouches. With wet fingers, make a ball of rice and place it in the pouch. Press sides with fingers to make a pillow shape, and tuck the ends inside. Repeat with the rest.

Cake Or Shoes?

As a shiny new university student (I'll have been here two weeks tomorrow; can't believe it) my cooking and baking compulsion habits have had to change a bit. This is largely due to the fact that I'm now shopping for myself, and having to use my own - perfectly good Topshop money - to buy food and ingredients.

I have trouble prioritising between Topshop and eating, so I don't exactly have money to spare on baking stuff. And now that I'm feeding myself, I find myself browsing Tastespotting and Food Blog Search for savoury, rather than sweet, ideas now... definitely a new experience for me.

I'm getting old, aren't I? Don't tell me. I'm old.

Excuse me while I weep, a moment.

This dish is a bit of a last hurrah, then - it's what I made for tea the night before I left home, two weeks ago, and uses pretty much the most indulgent ingredient I could get my (economic situation-defying) hands on; black truffles. Credit crisis be damned!

...Well, okay, I found these relatively cheaply in Spain. My friends were filling their suitcases with new clothes and bikinis; I was filling mine with an angry coconut in a sombrero and a stash of black truffles. Sometimes I wonder where I went wrong.

Anyway, with less chance to bake, Happy Love Strawberry may change a little in future - I'll probably post more savoury stuff (I do stick the odd thing in every now and then, in a little salute to nutrition) and dinners, and there'll probably be a little less excess (I'll save it for my visits home; you'll know I've been back when I post chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake squares XD. We can make a happy game of it). But I think you know me too well to believe I can go longer than about four days without a sugar fix ^__^.

Black Truffle Risotto
Adapted from a recipe by Shannon Bennett
Found here.
Serves 2-3 (it did for three with us)

Chicken mushroom stock (around 5 cups/just over 1l)
Extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
200g risotto rice
100ml dry white wine
30-50g black truffles, shaved
50g Parmesan cheese
50g butter
Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Heat the stock in a large sauce pan over low heat. Heat olive oil in a heavy-based pan. Add onion and stir until the onion is soft. Add rice and cook until all grains are coated with oil. Deglaze with the white wine and cook until evaporated.

2. Add in ½ cup (about 125ml) of hot stock. Stir until the rice absorbs the stock. Keep doing so until the risotto is cooked to your liking. In the final ladle of stock, add in the truffles (save a few slice for garnish).

3. Remove the rice from heat. Add in the cheese. Season. Serve immediately on warmed plates. Garnish with truffles shavings.

...What d'you reckon? Sugar or Topshop; cake, or shoes?

A Rose By Any Other Name Will Taste As Sweet

Well I asked at the end of my last post if anyone had any suggestions for what rosewater was good for, and you - you lovely bunch - were full of ideas and flavour pairings, so if roses symbolise love, consider this post a bit of a romance novel for you all.

Do not consider it a horror movie. I'm just saying; because those splashes of raspberry juice and, sort of, scarlet splatters -- I'm sorry. My food often looks like a massacre, but not always this literally.

This dessert may be of uncertain genre, but one thing I'm sure of is that the flavours taste great together (thanks everyone who suggested rose/lemon, rose/raspberry, rose/rice pudding, &c. &c.). I wanted to finish this with a sprinkle of pistachio nuts, but we had none; hence the raspberry massacre you see before your eyes. (I can't get over this. They're not even heart shaped or anything. They're bloodstain shaped. Sigh.)

This was a rice pudding recipe I found here, which intrigued me due to the lack of pudding rice in it ('BUT WHERE IS THE RICE? THIS IS MADNESS.'); apparently I find it hard to get my head around minor changes in food habit. I believe I had a similar reaction when it came to a Japanese-style cheesecake with no crust. This uses ground rice instead, which seemed pretty radical to me.

'Aha!' I cried, feeling triumphant, 'yet another culinary first! A break-through! A twist, on a time-honoured theme!'

At this point, my mother came into the kitchen and peered over my shoulder at the puddings. 'Aww,' she said. 'I used to feed you this sort of thing when you were about six months old. You've regressed!'

Once again; thank you, mother.

This is a more grown-up version of what I used to eat when I was six months old. If that appeals to you (and it should, because this is good, okay? Ignore my mum. It bears no resemblance to baby food, and has, you know, bloodstains and everything. It's at least a PG or 12A in the pudding department) give it a try.

Raspberry & Rose Rice Pudding
Adapted from here.
Makes two generous portions

55g (2oz) ground rice
15g (1/2 oz) ground almonds
80g (3 oz) caster sugar
200ml coconut milk (you could use all coconut milk; it's just that we had half a can in the fridge that needed eating)
150ml ordinary milk
50ml evaporated milk (again, we just had some in the fridge; you could use about 3 tbsp of double cream as in the original recipe. But we had none of that, and it didn't make any difference to me)
60 ml (4 tbsp) rosewater
juice of half a lemon
To garnish: Raspberries (I used frozen ones that I'd zapped in the microwave, hence the bloodstains. But meant a nice juice)/pistachio nuts/whatever.

1. In a large saucepan, combine rice flour, ground almonds, coconut milk, milk and sugar, cooking over very low heat until thickened and gently bubbly, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or whisk. If mixture becomes too thick, add incremental amounts of additional milk. Cook for another five minutes.

2. Remove from heat then stir in evaporated milk/cream, rosewater and lemon juice. Adjust sugar to taste. Pour into individual bowls or glasses. Decorate with optional garnishes. Refrigerate until cool and firm.

Extreme Sushi

Perhaps, if you live in London or the middle of the city and wear black pumps and do yoga and read Vogue magazine, sushi isn't a big deal for you. Probably you go to sushi bars for lunch; maybe you order sushi without rice and watch your carbohydrate intake.

I do none of these things (well I do wear black pumps sometimes, but they're in about five pieces and should probably be replaced), and for me, sushi is a big deal. I live in a village consisting solely of about twenty pubs and thirteen old people's homes (no restaurants, or, you know, houses. Just alcohol and senior citizens. A deadly combination) and neither the pubs nor the old people are big sushi fans. So the first time I tried it was when I went to Japan last summer.

The idea of sushi existing in my village is quite radical, so in a rebellious, 'YES I'M EATING SEAWEED, MOO HAR HAR' kind of way I'm pretty proud of these. They're not fantastic in a London-sushi-bar way, and I didn't want to get ambitious with fillings or anything - firstly because their intended audience was largely vegetarian, and secondly because; old people, okay? They'd have had heart attacks and died, and that would be three quarters of the town's population down in one blow. Also thirdly because I would have FAILED. DISMALLY. and I couldn't bear the potential humiliation.

Hosomaki (Slender sushi roll)
Using guidance from Japanese Cooking at Home by Hideo Dekura

For the sushi rice:
150g medium or short grain/sushi rice
120ml rice vinegar
2 tbsp caster sugar
pinch of salt

1. Cook rice in a pan or rice cooker, then transfer it to a wooden salad/sushi bowl.

2. To make sushi vinegar, combine the rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a bowl; you might need to nuke it in the microwave for 20-30 seconds to help the sugar dissolve.

3. Gradually pour the sushi vinegar across the rice, and mix it evenly around the bowl using a wooden spatula or rice paddle in a slicing action. While mixing, cool the rice with a hand fan (I happened to have one!) or you could use a piece of stiff card or something. This helps the rice absorb the vinegar mixture and creates a glossy surface on rice.

4. When rice becomes lukewarm, cover with a damp teatowel.


To make the sushi:
Your rice, obviously
1 nori sheet, halved crossways (mine were half-sized, so I used two, obviously)
Wasabi paste (this is Japanese horseradish and not something we keep in our cupboards; I use regular English horseradish paste/sauce thingy.)
1/2 cucumber, cut lengthways with the soft bit cut off.

Use vinegar water to handle the rice (240ml water and 1 tsp rice vingear).

As a first time sushi roller, I'll point you to these two posts for rolling-guidance:
Soy & Pepper
Sushi Day

My first roll was not exactly sucessfull as I rolled it too loosely, and my knife wasn't sharp enough, meaning I couldn't cut through the nori very easily and everything got squashed X__X:

Oh dear. Please don't look at that too long.
Second attempt:

I was on a bit of a roll (*groannn*) and had been pleasantly surprised how low-stress the hosomaki was, so I also make smoked salmon nigiri-zushi ; basically rice with a topping. This recipe was in Good Food magazine, so I'm not vouching for it being, you know, genuine.



However, it's very simple: you basically prepare 300g of sushi rice as above (using 4tbsp rice wine vinegar and 1 tbsp caster sugar in this case, according to the article) and spread it into a 20x20cm baking tin lined with a double layer of clingfilm. You then cover the rice entirely with smoked salmon slices (200g, but I had a 100g pack cause it was reduced at Tescos, and I made it enough). Fold the clingfilm over the salmon to cover, pressing down well with your hands to mould everything together. To serve, just use a sharp knife to cut it into 16 (I went for 24) rectangles. ^__^

Crazy stuff.

Curry And A Hurry

Alright, so I may be a bit short on photos today, but this was such a nice (and healthy!) meal I thought I'd whack it up here anyway. I had an English exam this afternoon, so in theory that should mean I have some time tonight, but in fact I have homework and ironing to do anyway (and it's Torchwood at nine!). So rather than wax poetic... have a curry.

'Have a curry' sounds like it should be a saying, or a catchphrase or something. It isn't.

At least, I don't think so. I think the English exam made my brain melt.

Egg & Lentil Curry
Adapted from The Detox Health Plan Cookbook by Maggie Pannell

Serves 4. Vegetarian.
202 cals per serving (not including rice)
Takes about 35 mins

75g green lentils (you could use proper lentils if you wanted to simmer them for 15mins with the stock beforehand, but I used ones from a tin. Huzzah)
750ml hot vegetable stock
4 eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
2 fresh green chillies, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1in piece of fresh root ginger, peeled & chopped
2 tbsp curry paste
400g can chopped tomatoes
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp garam masala

Serve with about 200gish of basmati rice, and mango chutney if you like (I recommend the mango chutney, seriously)

1. Put the eggs in a pan and cover with tepid water. Slowly bring the water to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 7-8 mins. Get to your chopping and whatnot here (onions, chillies, garlic etc).

2. Remove the eggs from the pan of boiling water with a slotted spoon and place them in a bowl of cold water to cool. When they're cool enough to handle, peel the eggs and cut them in half lengthways.

3. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the onions, chillies, garlic and ginger. Fry the mixture for 5-6 mins, stirring frequently. Stir in the curry paste and fry for another 2 mins, stirring constantly. Add the chopped tomatoes and sugar and stir in 175ml water.

4. Simmer for about 5 mins until the sauce thickens, stirring occasionally. Add the boiled eggs, drained lentils and garam masala. Cover and simmer gently for 5 mins, then serve with basmati rice.

A Rice Ball Doesn't Belong In A Fruits Basket...

The part of a person that's remarkable is like the umeboshi on the back of a rice ball. All around the world, there are different colors, shapes, and flavors, but because it's stuck to the back, they might not be able to see their precious umeboshi. 'I'm not special,' each one would think, 'just plain ole rice.' Even though that's not true, and there is an umeboshi on the back. The reason people get jealous of one another is because they can see the umeboshi on other people's backs. Even now, someone might be feeling envious of something you don't recognize in yourself.

Before this summer I'd been dying to try onigiri, ever since I saw the Fruits Basket anime. Sometimes at home I feel a bit like a rice ball in a fruits basket, and I wanted so much to go to Japan and photograph eat all the amazing food and try out my (very basic) self-taught Japanese on real people (there's no one to practice the language with here, so I had no idea if I was speaking it properly or not).

This is where all the Asian people laugh at me a bit, I think.

Anyway, long story short, my friend has an aunt who is an international teacher in Japan so after exams I raised £812 for the flight, and we went and stayed with her in Yokohama for ten days. Best ten days of my life, no joke ^__^ And finally I got to try onigiri and buy bento boxes and discovered my spiritual home, heh.

I won't go into all of it now, but since then I've been dying to make rice balls (never satisfied X__X). I got Japanese Cooking At Home by Hideo Dekura for my birthday in August, sailed off into Manchester's China Town especially to buy short-grain rice and nori (seaweed) and finally got round to it... yesterday.

Fortunately, rice and nori have a fairly long shelf-life.

I didn't want to buy a massive sack of the stuff, so I couldn't actually get short-grain rice - the stuff I got says it's medium on the packet. Hence I was really worried that this wouldn't work out, and I'd just end up with lumps of sloppy rice all over the kitchen, but fear not! Medium grain worked just fine. If you're interested, I used Nishiki Premium Grade Rice. I also halved the amounts it said to use, in case it didn't work, hence my rice balls were baby-sized ^__^

O-nigiri (Rice Balls)

Took me about an hour? I honestly wasn't watching the clock when I made these yesterday afternoon. Also I slightly glossed over some of the 'leave for thirty minutes' parts of the instructions, so I can't be any more help.

From Japanese Cooking At Home by Hideo Dekura.

To prepare the rice:

4 cups (about 280g) short-grain rice -I used 140g

4 cups (480ml) water - I used 240ml

extra water

1. Place the rice into a bowl that holds twice the volume of rice. Pour water into the bowl until it just covers the rice, then hold it with one hand and stir it briskly for 10-15 seconds with the other hand. The water will go all milky. Tip the milky water out, covering the rice with one hand (I hope for your sake that your hands are bigger than mine).

2. Add water and repeat for a second and third time, but stirring for about 30 seconds now to get rid of the excess starch. Tip out the water then put the rice in a sieve and run cold water over it for a couple of minutes until the water runs clear. Leave it to drain in the sieve for thirty minutes. Or about 20, if you're me/impatient. I'm not condoning this or anything X__X.

3. The book says to place the rice and measured cups of water into a rice cooker pan now. Wipe the underneath of the pan with a dry towel and set it into the rice cooker, then switch it on and let it do it's crazy thang.

4. If you are British and don't have a rice cooker, or else you fail at life in any other way, I bunged the rice in a normal pan with the measured water over it and left it to cook over a low-medium heat that way. Occasionally use a wooden spatula to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pan, but don't try to over-stir it, in case that stops it sticking together. I don't know if there's a scientific basis for that, but I felt I'd better be careful with it.

5. Once the rice is cooked, leave it to steam for 20 minutes, cough cough.

Actually that works out fairly well, as you can now get groovy with your onigiri stuff-

You need:

Filling : 100g (4oz) salmon fillet - I was making this for myself and a vegetarian friend to eat, so I used left over cooked vegetables from a unofficial-ratatouille-type meal I had the other day. We had a dish of soft, cold vegetables sitting in our fridge, so I picked out all the bits of sweet potato and mashed them in a bowl with a fork, to use as filling.

The book suggests also using tuna with mayonnaise, pickles, bonito flakes with soy sauce, and, of course, umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums: see the top of the post for the cute Fruits Basket quote about this).

4 cups hot, cooked, short-grain rice. This is what you've just prepared, above. However it says four cups, and presumably if you made full quantites of rice you'd still have loads left. I can't quite work this out, but it turned out fairly convenient for me in the end as I'd made half-quantities of rice.

You may want:

Furikake - This comes in many varieties and is basically a pre-prepared mixture of seasoned condiments... according to the list in the book. I used sesame seeds and some strange black seed-like specks that I found in the cupboard, which looked suspiciously like charcoal. I hope it wasn't charcoal, but my friend ate the one with those on, so I can't be sure

Green peas, mushrooms, etc - You can use these to make your rice balls more exciting, basically. I got a small handful of frozen peas out of the freezer and left them in a dish to defrost while I did everything else, and added them to some of the rice later on.

Sheets or strips of nori (seaweed)

You also need:

A bowl of salted water (2 cups/240ml water with 1 tbsp salt). The water stops the rice sticking to your hands, and the salt helps preserve the rice balls.

1. Prepare the filling - if you're using salmon fillet, grill and flake it. Otherwise, improvise. Mash your sweet potato, if you're doing this my way, and season.

2. Use a moistened wooden paddle to place your rice in a bowl, and wet your hands in the salty water. Then take a bit of rice about the size of a baseball into the palm of your hand. I've never held a baseball, so I improvised, though I notice from the pictures in the book that Hideo Dekura has THE BIGGEST HANDS IN THE WORLD. NO JOKE. Presumably he has more balls than me. Teehee.

3. Make a hollow with your finger in the middle of the rice and place some filling into it. Then use both hands to mould the rice into a triangular or oval shape (I made three triangles and two ovals). Press the rice down just hard enough to keep the rice firmly together.

4. Set the rice balls down on a plate and sprinkle with furitake, if using, or else wrap a strip of nori around the edge or surface of the ball. If it's a triangle I like the wrap it around a corner, but on ovals it looks nice in the middle.

5. Make the rest of the rice balls in the same way, but add peas or sesame seeds or what-have-you to the mix if you want.

Like I said, I made five with the half-quantities of rice I used initially. The book does say this makes 5-7 triangular rice balls, but as his are so much bigger than mine, I think that does mean with twice the amont of rice. Honestly, men.

These tasted of Japan. ♥

The best thing about Japanese food? Knives and forks are a thing of the past! I'm going to try and pass a movement to abolish all cutlery, and these rice balls are at the fore-front of my campaign. Eat them with your fingers, with a little soy sauce! Or else, balance them on the edge of a knife and take great mouthfuls out of them, if you want to do it like my friend did last night.

I don't think she really got the idea.