Japanese Recipes for Healthy Living

Archive for the ‘Vegetable’ Category

This garlic chive pancake is originally Korean dish, but it’s very popular in Japan. It’s very easy to cook and contains a lot of vegetables. This recipe is my version, and it might be different from the Korean one, but it’s very tasty.

Korean Pancake, Chidimi

<Ingredients>

8 oz garlic chive, cut into 2 inches
1 carrot, julienned
2 tbsp pickled cut ginger (see below)
8 medium shrimps, peeled and cut into 3 or 4 pieces
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 cup water
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp fish powder (option, see below)
vegetable oil

(For the dipping sauce— mix up all the ingredients below)
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 tbsp honey
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp chili garlic sauce

Chili Garlic Sauce

<How to cook>

1. Mix flour, water, salt and fish powder in a big bowl.
2. Put garlic chive, carrot, pickled ginger and shrimp in the bowl, and mix them up.
3. Heat vegetable oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Ladle 1 cup batter into skillet to make an 5-inch pancake. Cook about 3-4 minutes , then turn over and cook until other side is golden, 3-4 minutes more.
4. Serve warm with dipping sauce.

ASIAN INGREDIENTS

garlic chive, nira

Garlic Chive——I’ve never seen this vegetable in American grocery stores. You can find it in Korean stores, Japanese stores and Chinese stores. According to about.com, “Garlic chives pack a major nutritional punch for a mere 30 calories per 100 grams. Low in fat and high in dietary fiber and protein, they contain high amounts of Vitamin C and carotene, and are a good source of calcium. They also contain Vitamin B1 and B2. In Chinese medicine, garlic chives are considered to be a yin or warming food.”

pickled ginger

Pickled ginger——– You can find this at Asian grocery stores and some  American grocery stores. There is also pink ginger that usually is served at sushi restaurants. For this recipe, red one is suitable.

kezuriko

Fish powder (kezuriko)———– This can be found only at Japanese grocery stores as long as I know. It is powder form of dried, fermented and smoked skipjack tuna(bonito). This powder doesn’t have any chemical, which means no MSG.

chick pea, cucumber, corn and red bell pepper salad / lentil salad

I know… this is not Japanese cuisine, but the color was beautiful (and it was delicious), so I just wanted to take a picture. I used Japanese cucumber for this chick pea salad. I think Japanese and Persian cucumbers are very similar, and they are much smaller than the regular cucumber (the big one). The taste is a little different too. I prefer using Japanese or Persian cucumber for any salad. The combination of cucumber, corn, chick pea, red bell pepper and cilantro was so good. I mixed 1 tbsp of Dijon Mustard, 2 tbsp of white balsamic vinegar and 4 tbsp of extra virgin olive for the dressing.  I mixed up all the ingredients, with salt and pepper.

The lentil salad’s recipe was from the book “Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook“. I am not a vegan or vegetarian, but I just love their recipes. It’s so easy to cook and a lot of healthy recipes. You can see the lentil salad’s recipe here online. Since I am not a vegan, I used chicken stock instead of vegetable stock.

With some sourdough bread, hmmm, yummy.

For Japanese food, fish has to be very fresh; specially for sashimi.  Of course, Japanese grocery stores have good sashimi fish and some American grocery stores have decent fish. I live in Los Angeles, California and the Gelson’s Market near my place carries really good Ahi tuna. I recently bought about half a pound of Ahi tuna which is big enough to feed 2 people. You can cut  it about 1/8 inch thick. For salad, cut Daikon radish into 3-inch-long julienne strips , and slice some cucumber and radish, and serve them in a plate. Next, dip it in a soy sauce and put some wasabi, and eat them with rice and miso soup. The cost will be just about $10 for 2 people.

When you buy fish for sashimi, you have to ask the person who is in charge of seafood if it’s fresh enough to be served as sashimi. If the person says “What’s sashimi?”, you had better pass it. When I asked the question at my Gelson’s market, the guy answered “Oh yeah, it’s so fresh and good for sashimi or sushi.” confidently. In the picture below, you can see the ahi tuna is packed individually. I think, since we eat raw, they are extra cautious on how they handle ahi tuna. If it’s not packed right, it may get some kind of bacteria from other fish.

The Ahi tuna was so good. I may go back there again tomorrow.

<how to prepare>

I know, you feel like slicing tuna first, right? But tuna has to be very fresh. So cutting tuna is going to be the last. Let’s prepare other side dishes first.

Daikon radish looks like this.

It’s pretty big. You will need a tiny bit for this dish.  So try to buy a smallest one. Peel it and slice it with a peeler, then julienne it.

Then cut other vegetable. This time, I didn’t have avocado. But avocado goes well with tuna too.

Now, let’s slice the tuna.

Just put it on a plate, and serve it with soy sauce. Don’t forget wasabi! If you’re buying sashimi fish from Japanese grocery stores, usually wasabi comes with it. But if it doesn’t come with it, you can buy it in a tube or in a tin like the picture below. I usually buy powderd one. You probably need just 1 tea spoon of  powder wasabi, and mix it with 1 tea spoon of  cold water. Done!

There are so many little things needed for Japanese cuisine. We use so many little plates and bowls too. By the way, I will show you how to make miso soup soon. It’s so simple.

* A couple of people pointed out that I put the rice bowl on the wrong position in the picture above. Yes… in Japan, there is this rule: Rice bowl on the left and miso soup bowl on the right.  So if you’re serving this to Japanese people, you might as well follow the rule. My picture’s position is wrong according to the Japanese rule.

Once in a while, you have to check what’s in your fridge, and use up everything before the next trip to the grocery store. This menu is perfect for that.

Clean-Up-Fridge Fried Rice

You can put whatever you can find in your fridge, and just fry them and season it with salt and pepper and soy sauce, and if you like it spicy,  put some chili garlic sauce. I thought about writing a recipe about this dish, but there is no point to write the recipe since you can use different kinds of vegetables every time you make this.
But there are some ingredients you can’t make without.

• Cooked rice- Left over rice is fine. But if it’s frozen or in a fridge, warm it up by a microwave before cooking.
• Oil
• Onion
• Garlic
• Salt and pepper

This time, I used broccoli (green part and chopped core), sliced lotus root, red bell pepper and thin sliced pork. Start frying with onion, then put something that takes longer time to be cooked first. This time I started with onion, then chopped pork, broccoli core, lotus root and red bell pepper, then garlic, then green part of broccoli. Finally, I put some warm rice and seasoned it with salt and pepper, soy sauce and chili garlic sauce
. It was tasty, and my fridge was cleaned up! So satisfying.

I love salmon. It’s tasty and very healthy. This is a very popular way to cook salmon in Japan.

2 salmon fillets, about 5 oz. each
salt and pepper
1 lemon
1/2 onion, sliced
1/3 cup mushroom (Shitake, shimeji or any kind), sliced
1/2 tbsp butter

Place salmon fillets in a dish and season with salt and pepper. Cut 2 sheets of aluminum foil about 10 x 16 inches and put seasoned the salmon fillets and vegetable on top.

Sprinkle more salt on the vegetable, and squeeze half of the lemon all over. And slice the other half of the lemon, and put 2 or 3 slices and butter on top. Fold foil into rectangular envelopes, crimping all the edges. Place foil packets on a pan and cook for 15 minutes. (I think non-stick pans are not suited for this method. So use a  a pan that is not non-stick).

When it’s done, open up the foil packets as seen on the first picture (the steam comes out and it’s very hot. Don’t burn yourself!), and serve it with some ponzu or soy sauce.

In this picture you can’t see the salmon, because it is wrapped in foil. Cooking salmon this way preserves the nutrition and flavor. You can use pretty much any kind of vegetable. My favorite vegetables for this dish are onion, broccoli, asparagus and shitake mushroom.

I will explain how to cook the lotus root side dish some other time!

Kabocha, Kavocha

This picture is a picture of my Kabocha lunch. Spinach with sesame seeds, grilled salmon and cooked kabocha.

Kabocha is a very popular pumpkin in Japan. It is rich in beta carotene, iron, vitamin C and potassium. For this dish, other types of pumpkin or squash don’t work. I tried some other types, but it didn’t taste good.  You can buy Kabocha from any American grocery store  and try my easy recipe. It’s so sweet that it is like having a dessert.

<ingredients>
1 kabocha pumpkin (about 2.5 pounds), seeds removed
3 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp Mirin
4 Tbsp Sugar
4 Tbsp Sake

3 cups kombu broth (recipe below)

It’s better if you use kombu broth (dashi) to cook kabocha. But if you can’t make the broth, you can use water. Here is how to make the broth with Kombu.

<ingredients for kombu broth>
8 inch by 2 inch Kombu (dried kelp)
3 cups water

<how to make kombu broth>
Wipe the kombu with clean cloth. Don’t wash it. Put water in a pot and put the kombu and leave it for 30 minutes. Put on low heat. Just before the water comes to a boil, remove the kombu and stop the heat.

<how to cook kabocha>
1. Cut kabocha into about 1 and 1/2 inch cubes. Peel only dirty part of kabocha skin .
2. Put kombu broth, soy sauce, sugar, mirin, sake and kabocha in a medium pot.
3. Heat on high heat and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to low. Put  a sheet of aluminium foil on kabocha. Simmer kabocha for about 15 minutes.

drop lid

By the way, this salmon is just grilled. Sprinkle salt on both sides, and grill it on a pan about 3 to 5 minutes for each side. And eat it with ponzu, or soy sauce with lime or lemon. It’s simple but tasty and healthy.

This simple salad is so light and delicious. It is a really good side dish. I like this salad with wakame (seaweed), but it’s hard to find good seaweed in American grocery stores. When I have time to go to a Japanese grocery store, I get wakame preserved with salt. You can find dried wakame too, but dried one doesn’t taste as good as the one with salt. When I get that kind of wakame next time, I will show you how it looks like.

Anyway, today’s salad doesn’t have wakame, but it still tastes so good.
4 cucumbers, sliced
1 Tbsp salt
1/4 pounds coocked shrimp, chopped
1/4 pounds imitation crab (chopped or broken up)

(for the dressing)
1 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp rice vinegar
Lime juice from 2 limes
1 Tbsp sesame
1 tsp sugar

1. Put the sliced cucumber and salt in a big bowl and mix them well. Leave it for 10 minutes. Squeeze out excess moisture by hand.
2. Combine all the ingredients for the dressing and mix well.
3. Add shrimp and imitation crab into the bowl, and pour the dressing. Mix up well, and add sesame.