This year's July 4th BBQ Dinner

On 4th of July last week, we invited friends for a celebration BBQ dinner.

I was glad they enjoyed my cold corn & kabocha (vegan style) soup...I forgot to take the picture, though.

Main course, BBQ time. Mesquite charcoal on our Santa Maria BBQ Grill. We grilled flat-iron beef steak (marinated in my soy-based sauce), and scottish salmon. We were glad we ordered both the meat and fish from McCall's Meat and Fish in Los Feliz for this dinner. They quality was superb as always.

They both came out perfectly.

Donabe rice was the mixture of brown, black, and sweet rice, cooked in double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san". So nice. Side dishes were Cauliflower & chick peas salad, and broccolini namul.

I also made kabocha squash cheesecake with rum cream.

It was such a fun and relaxing evening with wonderful friends. We enjoyed watching the fireworks, too.

Recovery "shojin" style donabe bean stew, and homemade tofu

I ate a lot of BBQ dishes over the extended 4th-of-July weekend.

So, my body was screaming for light and delicious donabe dishes.

I made one of my regular "shojin" (Buddhist-style vegan) dishes, Soybean Gomoku-ni. (You can find the recipe here.)

To make this dish, I can't think of any better tool than my soup & stew donabe, "Miso-shiru Nabe". This donabe always makes wonderful stew/ braising dishes. To make the soybean stew, I basically just mix together the ingredients in the donabe and cook in the oven for 45-60 minutes.

This is one of my favorite comfort foods. So wonderful.

I also made tofu from scratch with my homemade tofu kit.

As soon as it was made, I just sliced a cube and ate with some condiments and plum salt.

My body was very happy.

Grilled Seabass Tacos

Grilling time...

We picked up beautiful seabass (cut for fish taco!) from McCall's Meat & Fish Company. We also got some jumbo shrimp.

They were seasoned simply with chili powder (from Arizona), salt & pepper, and cooked over mesquite charcoal on our Santa Maria BBQ Grill.

Served with corn tortillas, homemade guacamole, cilantro, scallion, and hot sauce. It was a delicious taco dinner in our patio. 2009 Gritsch Mauritiushof, Gruner-Veltliner Federspiel "Axpoint" had the nice minerally clean flavor with a hint of spice. It was a very nice pairing with our tacos. It's a single vineyard situated by the famous Singerriedel vineyard.

Some dessert shots...

Dessert time...

Jason's favorite. Sake-kasu ice cream. I used extra amount of sake-kasu (sake lees) this time.

Kabocha squash cheesecake. I used more kabocha than the cream cheese, so it's a healthier-style, and the flavor was great.

Japanese-style BBQ Flat-iron steak and salmon on Santa Maria BBQ Grill

I'm loving the summer BBQ season.

One evening from last week...

Jason came home from work early enough to start a fire on our Santa Maria BBQ Grill and have dinner together. This time, I got flat iron beef and salmon. I marinated the beef in Japanese-style sauce overnight. For the salmon, I simply seasoned it with shichimi pepper and salt.

Here's my "standard" Japanese BBQ marinade

(for 1 pound of meat)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

1 tablespoon sake

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 teaspoon doubanjiang (hot bean paste)

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 clove garlic, grated

1 small knob ginger, grated

1-2 green part of scallion

Simply whisk together all the ingredients.

Once one side of the beef is nicely browned, I flipped over the meat and covered both meat and fish with a lid. (You don't need to flip the fish...fish will cook with the nice smoke-heat.)

The total cooking time was about 10-12 minutes. The aroma of mesquite wood was really nice.

Itadakimasu:-) Both the meat and fish were perfectly cooked. I was so happy.

Ginger Pork and Omuraisu lunches in Little Tokyo

I had lunch twice last week at one of my regular Downtown spots...Aburiya Toranoko in Little Tokyo.

Buta-no shoga-yaki (ginger-marinated sauteed pork) with miso soup and rice. Very nice. And, it was only $10!

Jidori chicken "Omuraisu" (omelet rice). Tasted so "natsukashii" (nostalgic) Japan. It was also only $10, and came with miso soup and salad. It was a nice power lunch after hard work-out and swimming just before lunch.

What should I get this week...

Shio-koji ("salt-koji") meat on Santa Maria BBQ Grill

Shio-koji makes a wonderful marinade for meat, fish, etc.

You can use it as is or mix with other ingredients.

For pork, I simply marinated it in straight shio-koji. For 1 pound of pork butt, I cut it into about 1" cubes and mixed in 2 tablespoons of shio-koji. Meat was marinated overnight.

For chicken, this time, I tried chicken breast to see how it will turn out. I made lemon-basil-shio-koji marinade. 1T shio koji, 1T olive oil, 1/2T soy sauce, 1T lemon juice, 1T minced basil leaves with a pinch of black pepper were whisked together and a large piece (almost 1 pound) of chicken breast was marinated in it overnight.

They were grilled over mesquite charcoal on our Santa Maria BBQ Grill. We also grilled some eryingi mushrooms. We intentionally didn't season the mushrooms at all...they soak up the mesquite aroma so nicely and taste so natural this way.

Wow...shio-koji marinated pork and chicken were both amazing. I served them with some condiments including avocado & yuzu-kosho dip.

Making extra-rich donabe dashi stock

I always make dashi stock in donabe. With the gentle and even heat distribution of donabe, my simple "home" style donabe tastes always great. Any classic-style donabe would work perfect for making dashi stock. I use my classic-style medium-size "Hakeme", especially since the size is perfect for making 2 liters (2 quarts) of dashi stock.

Here's my standard "awase-dashi" (kombu and dry fish base) stock recipe.

There are different kinds of dashi stock styles (kombu, kombu+dry fish, shiitake, kombu+shiitake, etc.) and so many different ways of making them. This time, I experimented to make extra-rich broth with kombu and shaved dry fish.

One of the common notions about making good dashi stock is not to heat the kombu in water too long or at a too hot temperature, while soaking it in cold water for multiple hours before heating is considered to be welcome. If you simmer or boil kombu, it would ruin the dashi stock with the bitter flavor.

So, what I did was after soaking the kombu in cold water for a couple of hours, I infused it over very low heat for 1 hour. The temperature is below simmering: about 140F (60C) degrees. I used a little over 2L (2 quarts) water and 2 large pieces (2 of 2"x4") of premium (thick) Hidaka Kombu. (If you want to achieve lighter broth color, Rishiri kombu is recommended.) Kombu rehydrates and expands to much bigger in water, so you can cut each piece in half before start to heat.

After removing the kombu pieces. I increased the heat to simmer and added a good handful of mixed shaved dry fish. It was low-simmered for about 3 minutes.

The dashi stock was strained into a bowl. The long infusion made the aroma so rich, and the flavor was even deeper. Wonderful.

You can use premium-rich dashi stock for something simple like miso-soup, to something unique like ramen broth.

Happy donabe life.

Donabe-braised shio-koji chicken and konnyaku

It almost feels like Shio-koji is changing my life. It's becoming an essential ingredient in my cooking. It's not only so versatile (you can simply use it to replace salt, soy sauce, or miso sometimes), but also it gives such umami-powered flavor to a dish.

I got a pound of organic chicken thighs (boneless and skinless). I wasn't sure what to cook with it, so I first cut them into smaller pieces just marinated the meat in 2 generous tablespoons of shio-koji for 3-4 hours.

Meanwhile, I decided what to make with it. I actually decided this dish, because I wanted to use my beautiful soup & stew donabe, "Miso-shiru Nabe".

One block of konnyaku was rinsed and sliced into 1/4" thick. Then, I made a short slit in the center of each piece, pushed one end to go through the slit to make a twisted knot.

In Miso-shiru nabe, I heated small amount of sesame oil and stir-fried the shio-koji marinated chicken. Konnyaku and 2 cups of dashi stock was added (you can substitute it with chicken stock, or even just the water would work for a little lighter flavor). I also added 2 table spoons of sake.

The broth was brought to boil, then reduced to simmer (skim as necessary). The surface was lined with a piece of foil, covered with a lid, and simmered for about 20 minutes. To finish, some thinly-sliced yuzu rind and 1 teaspoon of usukuchi shoyu (light-color soy sauce) were added. It was let rest for 10 minutes after turning off the heat.

That was it! And the result was outstanding. The broth was so rich in flavor...it tasted almost like fortified. I was so dreaming of making ramen with the broth next time! The chicken was so flavorful and tender. And the aroma of yuzu gave such a nice elegant accent.

Happy donabe life.