Japanese Recipes for Healthy Living

Archive for the ‘Fish’ Category

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.

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!

Tuna and Avocado Sushi Dome

I love fresh tuna with sushi rice. But making a sushi roll is too much work when you’re hungry. So I sometimes make this. You don’t need nori (seaweed sheet) or any tool to roll a sushi. But it tastes like sushi, and it looks beautiful.

Ingredients

• 1/4 pounds fresh raw tuna (ask if that’s good enough for sushi at a grocery store.), sliced
• 1 Avocado, sliced
• 

  Tuna and avocado sliced

• Soy sauce
• Wasabi
• 2 cups  sushi rice

Directions

1. Lay a plastic wrap on a small rice bowl.

Rice bowl with plastic wrap

2. Put tuna and avocado slices on the bottom of the rice bowl.

Tuna and avocado

3. Put sushi rice on top of the tuna and avocado, and push it lightly.

Tuna, avocado and rice

4. Cover the rice bowl with a dish and turn them upside down. Then remove the rice bowl and plastic wrap.

rice bowl removed

Serve soy sauce in a small plate. You can mix up soy sauce and wasabi in the small plate, and pour that on top of this sushi dome.

This is one of my favorite Japanese fusion recipes. I used seared albacore tuna, but sashimi tuna (not seared) is fine too. You can find seared albacore tuna at Japanese grocery stores.

<ingredients>
1/4 pound Seared albacore tuna

(for the dressing)
4tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2tbsp lemon juice
1tbsp grated garlic
2tsp grated ginger
1/2 cup fresh basil, finely chopped
Sea salt and pepper

<how to prepare>

1. Combine all the ingredients of the dressing.
2. Slice the tuna 1/4 inch thick.
3. Pour the dressing over the tuna.