Sizzling donabe musorooms and tofu with "taberu la-yu"

Here's another great dish to serve with my chunky taberu la-yu (hot sesame oil).

The dish itself is another twist from my sizzling donabe mushrooms. I used my tagine-style donabe, "Fukkura-san" for this dish. I made it without anchovy or balsamico this time, and instead added tofu. On the skillet of Fukkura-san, I spread mixed mushrooms, and laid a block of tofu in the center. Drizzled the mixture of sake and our homemade miso (1.5 tbsps each), covered and cooked for about 8 minutes over medium+ heat. Once they were cooked, they were covered with grated pecorino cheese and chopped cilantro. Everything was then mixed by a serving spoon and served in to plates and a generous amount of the chunky la-yu was drizzled.

It was so delicious and tasted really great with some plain donabe brown rice.

Happy donabe life.

Cooking class report...Donabe Steaming 2

Last Saturday, I hosted another donabe & Japanese cooking class. The theme was "Donabe Steaming 2". We made 4 courses with the donabe steamer, "Mushi Nabe", plus donabe brown rice, and donabe dessert.

Tofu Chawanmushi with Saikyo Miso Sauce.

Steamed Root Vegetables etc. with Peanut Karashi Sauce

Shrimp on Tofu with Sizzling Sesame Sauce

Steamed Gindara (black cod) and Vegetables with Oroshi Kurozu Ponzu Sauce. The very seasonal wild-caught gindara was amazing. I just want to keep eating this fish every day if I could.

Pairing wine...Raventos I Blanc, L'Hereu Reserva Brut Cava

We also had the donabe-steamed "sake manju" (sake-flavored dumpling, filled with sweet azuki bean paste), too.

We had a wonderful time!

Happy donabe life.

Mochi time...New Year "Kagami Biraki"

January 11 is a day we traditionally do "Kagami Biraki" (literally means, "opening the mirrow") in Japanese culture. In this ceremony, we break "Kagami Mochi" (two-tiered round-shape mochi ornament for the new year) and eat it for good luck.

Here's our little Kagami Mochi. I took it out of the package. I broke it into pieces and poached them in the hot water until soft.

Itadakimasu! I made two kinds of mochi snacks. One is "Kinako Mochi", which is coated with a mixture of kinako (roasted soybean powder), ground black sesame seeds, sugar, and a little salt. Kinako mochi is my favorite kind of mochi. The other is "Anko Mochi", which is mochi and sweet azuki bean paste. These are both very rustic Japanese desserts we all love.

I felt so lucky for this year.

toiro news: Kamado-san on Food & Wine magazine!

Our double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san" was introduced in the "trendspotting" section of the new Food & Wine magazine (February 2011 issue)! It's on page 26, so please check it out.

It's a teeny article with no picture, but I was very excited when I found out about it. I actually didn't know about it until a friend of mine told me that I'm on Food & Wine magazine. So, I wonder how the magazine found out about my donabe and website. So exciting! I don't do any advertisement...my donabe websites (both shopping site and blog) are only driven by my passion for donabe cooking. So, I am so lucky and grateful that people keep finding my websites and grow interest in donabe cooking.

Thank you also for the great word-of-mouth!!

Happy donabe life.

Popular winter donabe stew...Oden

Oden is such a popular stew/ hot pot dish, especially in the winter time in Japan. There are also many restaurants as well as street vendors which specialize in this national dish. While there are different variations by region, typical oden is basically vegetables and fish cakes cooked in a clear soy-based broth.

Here's my home-style oden ingredients: daikon, boiled eggs, konnyaku shirataki (yam jelly noodle), chikuwabu (tube-shaped flour dumplings), kombu, sato-imo (taro), chikuwa gobo (burdock-root stuffed fish cake), hanpen (fluffy white fish cake), etc.

To make oden, whether it's for 2 people or 6 people, I find it becomes tastier when I cook a larger batch. So, I used my largest donabe, which is donabe steamer, "Mushi Nabe" (without the steam insert), for this dish. Those ingredients which requires longer time to cook were added to the broth first. Later, all the ingredients were added to the donabe.

Oden was served at the table right out of the donabe. The typical condiment for oden is karashi (Japanese hot mustard). Everything was so tasty. Konnyaku shirataki (yam noodles) were cut in half at the time of the service. Just wonderful. My all-time favorite oden ingredients (I have two) are chikuwabu (tubed flour dumplings) and kombu. When I was little, when my mom made oden at home, I always ate so much of chikuwabu and kombu. So, she had to cook extra amount of these items.

I posted the recipe on toiro's website.

I love oden.

Happy donabe life.

Simple donabe azuki rice

This dish is very simple to make. It's a perfect rice dish when you want to serve it as a side dish but don't want to make just plain rice. I cook it with my double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san".

The ingredients are 1.5 rice-cups (270 ml) brown rice (partially polished kind, which can cook like white rice), 1/2 rice-cup (90 ml) sweet rice, 400 ml water (of which 2 tablespoons are replaced with sake), 1 (US) cup cooked azuki beans (I simmer the beans until al dente), 1 teaspoon salt, and a small piece dashi kombu. You add the ingredients to the donabe in the order of rice mixture, salt, water (with sake), azuki, and kombu, and let the mixture soak in water for 30 minutes. Once the donabe is covered with both lids, you can cook it just like you cook the regular plain rice (about 15 minutes over medium-high heat, then 20 minutes resting after turning off the heat).

Small amount of the sweet rice gives the nice chewiness to the dish, and sake gives the shiny finish. So easy and so tasty.

Happy donabe life.

Donabe one pot dish...Tomato Nabe (tomato broth hot pot)

In the past years, there are so many unique "untraditional" style hot pot dishes which have become popular in Japan. Tomato Nabe, or donabe hot pot with tomato broth, is one of them.

I made my own version and it was phenomenal! I contemplated the recipe in my head for a while (I was also thinking whether I wanted to do it the "western" style or Asian style) and decided to do an eclectic Asian-style.

I sauteed the onion, garlic, and ginger in the donabe first. They were pureed with a can of diced tomatoes (with the juice) until very smooth. The puree was combined with the Chinese-style chicken stock, and seasoned with mirin, soy sauce, nam pla, black vinegar, etc. The aroma was excellent.

Here are the ingredients to cook in the broth. Gindara (black cod), shabu shabu kurobuta pork, tofu, mushrooms, etc.

Everything was cooked on the table top, a small amount at a time. The broth tasted really gorgeous, and really enhanced the flavors of all the ingredients so nicely. I must say, bravo. My homemade chunky la-yu made a nice condiment for the dish.

The "shime" (end of the meal) course was Chinese noodles. We cooked the noodles and bean sprouts in the remaining broth, and served with the la-yu again. It was really really wonderful.

I posted the recipe on toiro's website. Hope you will try it, too!

Happy donabe life.

Chunky La-yu ("Taberu La-yu") - New Version

I have introduced my homemade "Taberu La-yu" (chunky hot sesame oil) in my blog before (here's the recipe I posted on toiro's website). It's a versatile condiment, and I love it with a wide variety of dishes.

I tweaked my original recipe for further improvement in flavor. I replaced the onion with minced shallot and scallion (one each), and also added 1/2 tablespoon mild chili pepper and 1 teaspoon of brown sugar. (I also used white sesame seeds instead of black sesame.) The result is superb.

For lunch, I made steam-fry chow mein with my tagine-style donabe, "Fukkura-san", and finished with a good drizzle of my chunky la-yu. (top photo) It was really tasty! My steam-fry chow mein is, I would say, a much healthier version compared to regular stir-fry noodles, because I use more volume of vegetables and herb toppings than the noodles. This way, I can also enjoy different textures in one dish. Here's my quick steam-fry noodle recipe.

Steam-fry chow mein with XO sauce and a drizzle of chunky la-yu

Ingredients (for 1 serving)

1 serving fresh chow mein noodles

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1/2 clove garlic, thinly sliced

a small handful of snow peas, cut in half

1 tablespoon XO sauce (spicy Chinese seafood paste)

1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine

a good handful bean sprouts rinsed and buds removed

(topping)

mixture of thinly-sliced scallion, cilantro, and daikon sprouts

chunky la-yu

Procedure

1. Blanch the noodles in boiling water (cook only half-way or less). Drain and rinse in cold running water. Set aside. Combine the XO sauce and Chinese rice wine in a ramekin. Set aside.

2. In the skillet of Fukkura-san, heat the sesame oil until fragrant over medium+ heat. Add the snow peas and stir.

3. Add the blanched noodles, and top the noodles with the bean sprouts. Pour the XO sauce mixture.

4. Cover, and steam-fry for a few minutes. Turn off the heat. Uncover and stir.

5. Serve with the toppings.

Happy donabe life.

First Cooking Class of 2011...Japanese New Year Dishes

Last Saturday, I hosted my first cooking class of this year. I was very excited to have the enthusiastic guests. The theme was Japanese New Year Dishes ("Osechi Ryori"). It was a lot of fun.

There are only several random pictures from this event (Jason didn't take the pictures of all the finished dishes...), but here are some...

Menu

Tai snapper sashimi quick “kobu-jime”

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Kuri-kinton

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Chikuzen-ni

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Tokyo-style o-zoni

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Donabe azuki rice

Sake

Otokoyama Junmai (Hokkaido, Japan)

Happy donabe life.