Japanese Recipes for Healthy Living

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.

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