Teriyaki Chicken

When you order teriyaki chicken at a restaurant, it's usually just grilled (or even boiled) chicken smothered in teriyaki sauce. Not too exciting. I really like teriyak chicken, but just not when it's made like that. I like marinating the chicken in the sauce instead and then grilling it up. A light drizzle of extra sauce over to eat with the rice or veggies is fine, but I don't want it drowning in sauce.

So, this is how I make teriyaki chicken. Super simple, super delicious.

Ingredients:
- Boneless, skinless chicken thighs
- Teriyaki sauce
- Sesame seeds and green onions as a garnish
- Rice and steamed veggies to round out the meal

Directions:
- Marinate the chicken in the teriyaki sauce for a few hours (I tend to do it overnight)
- Grill the chicken
- Garnish the chicken with sesame seeds and green onions
- Serve it with rice and veggies

That's all!

Miso Soup

Since I already had the miso out, I thought a nice accompaniment to the salmon would be a miso soup. This was also simple, quick and healthy with minimal cleanup. I love meals like this!

Ingredients:
- Miso
- Water
- Dashi (pellet-like fish stock base)
- Wakame (dried seaweed - but not the sushi kind)
- Tofu
- Green onions

Directions:
- Boil some water in a pot.
- Add dashi according to the package directions, stirring to dissolve the pellets.
- Add miso paste to taste.
- Add in the wakame.
- Dice the tofu and gently slide it in.
- Gently stir the soup so that everything is mixed.
- Garnish with a bit of freshly chopped green onions.

Miso-Glazed Salmon

This dish was inspired by my continued effort to eat healthier and eat more fish. I've already reached my "recommended" weight gain for this pregnancy. I'm an over-achiever that way. And since I still have a while to go, I am (sometimes) watching what I eat a bit more carefully. Apparently, it's a good idea to watch what you eat, even if you're not pregnant, but whatever. Plus fish is good for the baby's brain development - grow baby brain, grow! :)

I've always adored miso-glazed fish that you get at restaurants and was surprised to find that it is SUPER easy to make at home. Hardly any prep and minimal clean up, it's so quick and so good for you too. I'm definitely adding it to the regular rotation!

Ingredients:
- Salmon
- Miso paste
- Honey
- Soy
- Rice wine vinegar
- Ginger
- Mirin
- Water

Directions:
- Mix the miso paste, a bit of hot water, honey, soy, rice wine vinegar, grated ginger (I used a microplane grater), and mirin in a bowl to taste. If you're missing any of the ingredients (besides the miso), feel free to substitute. Honey and mirin can be replaced by brown sugar, etc. And honestly, if you're missing any of the other ingredients, it's fine to omit them altogether. The main thing you need is the miso and something sweet.
- Put the mixture in the microwave just long enough so that it thickens up a bit. It shouldn't take long.
- Put the salmon on some foil to make cleanup a cinch.
- Brush half of the glaze onto the salmon and pop it under a broiler for about 15 minutes. Since I was just making this for the two of us, I used our toaster oven instead of the full-sized and it still turned out great.
- After 15 minutes, take the fish out and brush on another layer of glaze and pop it back under the broiler until the fish has cooked through. For me, it took another 15 minutes, but it really depends on how thick your fish is and how strong your broiler is.
- Serve it with brown rice and steamed broccoli and you've got yourself a quick and healthy dinner. And if you have any extra sauce left, drizzle it over the rice and veggies.

Soba Noodles

A few months ago, my office moved less than 6 miles away from home! It still takes me about 15 minutes because it's all local, but it's still nice to be so close.

One of the benefits of being so close is that I can go home for lunch! I don't do it often, but it's nice to know it's an option.

On this particular day, I didn't bring a lunch like I usually do and didn't have lunch plans with anyone, so I decided to go home. There were no leftovers in the fridge (otherwise I would've brought those for lunch), so I needed to make something quick. We're going through a heat wave right now in California, so I decided on cold soba noodles. Quick, refreshing, healthy, and delicious!

This is my submission for Presto Pasta Nights which is being hosted by Sara of I'm a Food Blog. Check out the rest of the submissions on Sept 25th!

Ingredients:
- 1 serving of soba noodles
- Edamame (I used frozen)
- 1-2 slices of ham
- Soy sauce
- Rice vinegar (or any vinegar will do if you don'to have rice vinegar)
- Mirin (honey or sugar is fine if you don't have mirin)
- Miso paste (if you don't have this, just leave it out and put more soy)
- Wasabi paste (optional, if you want a bit of kick)

Directions:
- Boil a pot of water and cook the soba according to package directions. Put the edamame in also, just to heat them through. Immediately drain and rinse with cold water when done and set aside.
- Mix a bit of soy, vinegar, mirin, miso paste, and wasabi in a bowl to taste. If you're missing some of the ingredients, no big deal. Just substitute the soy and miso with something salty, the vinegar with something sour and/or citrusy, and the mirin with something sweet.
- Toss the noodles in the sauce and top it with the edamame and julienned ham and you've got yourself a quick and easy summer meal.

Inari

As a kid, I called these little guys Japanese footballs, so I figured they'd be nice to serve during our Super Bowl party. Plus they make great finger food. Don't they look like little footballs to you?

Anyway, Inari is a great "sushi" for beginners. It's very simple, there is nothing raw, and the flavor is mild and sweet. It's just fried tofu pockets and rice - very non-threatening.

They're also super easy. Just buy the already seasoned tofu skins in a can like above and stuff them with rice. Ideally you should stuff it with seasoned sushi rice, but the skins already have so much flavor that if you don't season your rice, you'll still be fine.

Ingredients:
- Seasoned tofu skins (aburage - pictured above)
- White rice
- Rice vinegar to taste (optional)
- Sugar to taste (optional)

Directions:
- Cook the rice and season it (the seasoning part is optional).
-To season the rice, you can either be lazy like me and dump vinegar and sugar to taste, into the water while the rice is cooking, or do it the right way - cook the rice and then spread it out on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle the vinegar and sugar on the rice and mix until combined.
- Open the can of tofu skins and take them out. If you'd like, you can also use the liquid in the can to season the rice.
- Carefully open the pocket of each tofu skin, they are very delicate.
- Stuff some rice in. You can put as much or as little as you like. You can also sprinkle some sesame seed or furikake on top if you'd like, but traditionally, they're served plain.
- Pop them in your mouth and rub your tummy with delight!

This is about 2 cans worth of inari, minus a few that I accidentally ripped while opening and had to eat them myself :)

Japanese Curry

I had leftover katsu because I figure if I'm gonna make a mess breading and frying stuff, I might as well make extra, right? I also thought I'd mix things up a bit with the extra katsu and make some japanese curry to go with it for Katsu Curry!

In the end, the hubz and I decided we liked the katsu better with the katsu sauce and the curry on it's own over rice. Either way, japanese curry is a winner in my book =)

I'm also going to submit this entry to Joelen's October Tasty Tools event! She's highlighting Dutch Ovens this month and I can't even begin to tell you how much I loooooove my Le Creuset. Even though this dish can technically be made in any old pot, I used my Le Creuset dutch oven for it, so it qualifies for Joelen's event!


Ingredients:
- 2/3 lbs ground meat (other non-ground meat like chicken or beef would be good too)
- 3 carrots peeled and chopped
- 1 onion diced
- 1 tsp minced ginger
- 1 potato diced
- 1 tbs of oil
- 2 tbs of flour
- 1 tsp of curry powder
- water or chicken broth as needed
- 2.5 blocks of S&B Golden Curry (pictured below)


Brown the meat and then remove it from the pot. Or if you're lazy like me, you can add it into the pot after sauteeing the onions and toasting the flour and curry powder.

Heat the oil and add the onions. Sautee until soft.

Add the flour and curry powder and toast until fragrant.

Add the ginger, carrots, potato, the browned meat and water/broth to deglaze the pan and make a sauce.

Add the blocks of curry and stir until melted. Simmer the curry until the vegetables are soft. Keep adding broth/water as needed and to make as much sauce as you'd like. Taste. If it needs, add more curry powder, salt, white pepper, etc as needed.

Chicken Katsu

Panko is everywhere these days, and why shouldn't it be? It makes things much lighter and crunchier than traditional bread crumbs - it's great!

Before the whole panko craze, I always kept it in my pantry for making katsu and it's still one my favorite uses for it. Just fry up a few of these babies and serve it with some rice and steamed or sauteed veggies and you've got a great meal. You can use pork instead of chicken for tonkatsu too!

Ingredients:
- Chicken
- Flour
- Salt
- Egg
- Panko
- Oil

Take boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs and either cut or pound them to an even thickness.

Mix the flour with a bit of salt in a plate. Mix an egg with a bit of water in another plate. Spread panko crumbs out in a third plate. Here's what my breading setup looked like.
Heat up enough oil to cover at least half the thickness of the chicken to about 300 degrees.

Take each piece of chicken and lightly coat it in the flour mixture and pat off the excess flour. Then drag it through the egg mixture and let the excess drip off. Lastly, pat it in the panko crumbs. I found that holding the corner of the chicken with your thumb and forefinger and dipping it in each mixture without letting go was the best way to go. Yes, one corner won't have breading, but honestly, after it's been fried up, you can't even tell which corner you were holding on to.

Next, carefully put it into the hot oil and fry it for a few minutes on each side until golden brown and cooked through.

Dip it in some katsu sauce and enjoy. You can probably make the sauce yourself with some ketchup, worcestire sauce, garlic powder and maybe some vinegar? Add some honey and/or brown sugar if you like the sweet hawaiian style sauce better. I've never tried making the sauce, but if I were to, I'd start with that and then make adjustments as needed. Or, you can just buy this -
I hope you like it!

Sushi revisited

The hubz had a craving for sushi the other day, and I could ALWAYS go for some sushi, so I was more than happy to oblige. I dug around the freezer, fridge, and pantry and found imitation crab, eel, fish roe and cucumber, but no avocado. What a shame...I loooove avocado. But I'm also lazy, so I made due without it instead of making a trip to the store.

You can see the directions and more pictures here. So, like I was saying, this time I made 2 kinds - one with crab, cucumber and fish roe. The other with eel, cucumber and fish roe. Dee-lish!

Japanese Cold Noodles

There was a heat wave coming through, so I thought it'd be nice to make some cold noodles. Japanese cold noodles are quick, easy and perfect for a nice hot day.

The picture is a bit fuzzy and the presentation is definitely lacking, but the flavor is definitely there. Things I would do differently next time though is cut the egg thinner and use non deli ham and and cut it thinner as well.

Ingredients:
- instant noodles
- eggs
- ham
- cucumber
- bean sprouts (I didn't have any on hand so I just used extra cucumbers)
- sesame or furikake (optional)

Dressing:
- soy sauce
- vinegar
- sesame oil
- grated ginger
- wasabi

Method:
- Cook the instant noodles without the flavoring packets and then run it through cold water. Toss it with a bit of sesame oil to keep it from sticking together (this part is optional). Set aside.
- Beat the eggs and spread it in a thin layer in an oiled non-stick skillet. Cook until the edges are firm, then flip to cook both sides. Julienne the egg "pancake" and set aside.
- Julienne the cucumber.
- Julienne the ham.
- Mix the dressing ingredients in a bowl to taste.
- Put eggs, cucumber, ham and bean sprouts over the noodles. Pour the sauce over the noodles. Sprinkle with sesame seeds or furikake.
- Mix all ingredients and enjoy!

Sushi Part II - Nigiri

So in addition to the sushi rolls, I also made some sushi nigiri with the salmon that I skinned for the salmon skin rolls.

Did you know that there are no real government regulations for "sushi grade" fish? To make raw fish safe for consumption, you just need to be concerned with parasites. All you have to do to kill the parasites is to freeze the fish at -4°F or below for 7 days or -31°F for 15 hours. Of course freshness and proper handling is important to avoid bacteria as well.

So now that our fish is safe to eat, let's make some!

Take the fish and slice at a slant into bite size pieces. For the rice, flavor it with rice vinegar and sugar to taste like you did with the rolls. Wet your hands to keep the rice from sticking to your hands and squish it in your hands to shape it into rectangles. Place the fish on top, dip in soy and wasabi and pop it in your mouth. Yum! If you want, you can also cut some thin strips of nori (seaweed) to wrap around the fish and rice and glue the ends together with a grain or two of rice.

I highly recommend making your own nigiri if you have can find good fresh fish. This was sooo much sweeter and more tender than most restaurants. And the few restaurants that do taste this good are always outrageously priced.

I hope you enjoy yours as much as we enjoyed ours!

Sushi! Arigato gozaimasu!

Sushi night! I love Japanese food.

So with sushi, you can really put in whatever you want, so I don't have an ingredients list and measurements or a real "recipe" for you today.


The first thing though, is the rice. You can use plain rice (short grain is better if you have it because it's stickier) and even better (and more traditional), you should flavor your rice with sugar and vinegar. The way I do it is to just add the vinegar and sugar (to taste) straight into the water that I'm using to cook the rice (rice vinegar is best if you have it, but any old vinegar will do). If I forget or decide to add more, I stir the sugar into the vinegar and let it dissolve, then mix it into the rice. On a side note, make more rice than you think you'll need. I'm always surprised by how much rice I use per roll.

Now on to assembly. The first thing to do is to spread the rice on the seaweed. Use room temperature rice because hot rice will make the seaweed mushy and rip and cold rice is too stiff and won't adhere to the seaweed. I like to use the rice spatula to help smush and smooth the rice onto the seaweed. If you find the rice sticking to the paddle or your hands, just wet them a bit. Not too much though, otherwise it'll make the seaweed soggy/rip through it.


As you can see, the rice doesn't cover every single inch of the seaweed and that's perfectly fine. Just make sure that it covers one of the edges. This edge will be the edge opposite of where you put your filling and will act like a glue to keep the roll from unraveling.

Line up whatever fillings you want across the bottom. Sliced cucumbers, avocados and imitation crab for california rolls. Mix the imitation crab with mayo and sriracha sauce for spicy california rolls.


This one is actually salmon skin (just salted and lightly dredged in flour and then deep fried), cucumber and fish roe.

Here's a closeup of the salmon skin that I fried up.


I also made some with unagi (eel), cucumber and avocado. (I bought the unagi, already marinated, in the frozen seafood section of an asian market. This is what it looks like)


After spreading the rice, it's time to roll! A bamboo mat will help, but is not necessary. If stuff starts smooshing out the sides, just shove it back in and don't squeeze so tight.


After rolling, use a sharp knife to cut it into pieces. Don't cut until you're ready to eat to prevent the rice from drying out. If it gets difficult to cut, dip the knife in some water (and wash off the rice that's stuck to it). The edge pieces are a bonus for the chef since they're not very "presentable", so just pop 'em in your mouth!

*BONUS: If you want to do inside out rolls, wrap your bamboo mat in plastic wrap so that the rice won't stick. After smooshing the rice onto the seaweed (you'll probably want to be more meticulous about getting a nice, pretty, even layer of rice on contrary to before where only the outer edge mattered), flip it over and put the line of filling in. Roll it as you would normally, except this will be more difficult, sticky and messy, but your rolls will get prettier with practice. After rolling, you can pat/roll sesame seeds, fish roe on for extra flavor and decoration. Wrap each roll in plastic wrap to prevent the rice from drying out. When you're ready to serve, unwrap, cut and eat!