Japanese Recipes for Healthy Living

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!

Kombu is edible kelp. It is used extensively in Japanese cooking as one of the three main ingredients needed to make dashi, a soup stock. You can get it at Japanese grocery stores, also recently I found it at a Ralph’s! It looks like this.

kombu, kombu, kelp

Since it’s not an animal product, it makes good vegan stock.

If you keep it in a Ziploc bag, it will last at least 1 year. Sometimes you see some white powdery stuff on the surface. It’s not mold or anything toxic. Just wipe the powder lightly with a clean cloth and use it.

For busy people, they sell kombu stock powder.You can just put the powder in hot water, and it makes tasty broth. You can find it at Japanese grocery stores.

I know this is not for everybody, but I love sea urchin. If it’s not expensive, I can eat as much as 10 pieces of sea urchin at a sushi restaurant.

Sea urchin looks like this.

sea urchin, uni

It’s eaten in many parts of the world. In Japan, they eat it as Sashimi or Sushi with soy sauce and wasabi. It is kind of scary looking, so I didn’t try this until I turned 18. But once I tasted it, I totally fell in love with it. It’s so creamy and goes well with soy sauce and wasabi.

At a sushi restaurant, it costs at least $6 for 2 pieces.  It can cost as much as $12 to $15 for 2 pieces. But if you buy it at a Japanese grocery store, you can get it for a very reasonable price.

For example, I got this much for less than $ 4.00!  And I made 4 pieces of sea urchin sushi out of it.

sea urchin, uni

Do you want to make sea urchin sushi? Here is the recipe!

1. Make sushi rice following my recipe.

2. Cut nori (dried seaweed sheet) like the picture below.

Nori, Dried Seaweed Sheet

3. Pick up about 2 tbsp sushi rice in one hand and shape into a oval shape.

Sushi rice oval shape

4. Put nori around the sushi rice. See the picture below.

making sushi rice ball

5. Pick a spoonful of sea urchin and put it on top of the sushi rice.

putting sea urchin

Enjoy your sea urchin sushi! I hope you enjoy this Japanese food recipe.

Among all the Japanese food recipes, I think Sushi recipes are the most popular ones. When people talk about sushi, they usually talk about the fish not the rice. But sushi rice is a big part of sushi, and if the sushi rice is not good, the sushi wouldn’t taste great no matter how good the fish is. So I will show you how to make good sushi rice today.

Ingredients for 3 cups of sushi rice:

• 1 and 1/2 cups Japanese rice
• 1 and 3/4 cups water
• 3 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 4′x4′ kombu (dried kelp), wiped with a dried towel
  

  Kombu, Konbu, Kelp

Direction:

1. Rinse the rice. Measure out the rice into a bowl, fill the bowl with enough water to wet the rice, and Drain the water. Wash the rice with hands well, and drain the water. Repeat the wash and drain 2 or 3 times. Drain the rice in a drainer and set aside for about 30 minutes.

2. Cook the rice. If you have a rice cooker, just put the rinsed rice, water and kombu in the cooker, and turn on the switch. If you don’t have a rice cooker, cook it in a pot. Put the rinsed rice, water and kombu in the pot, and bring the rice to a boil, then reduce to the lowest heat setting to maintain a simmer.  Cook the rice for 15 minutes.

Cooked rice with kombu

Let it sit WITHOUT REMOVING THE LID for another 15 minutes.  Remove the lid and fluff the rice with a rice paddle.

3. Season the Rice. While the rice is cooking, combine rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a small bowl.  Stir the mixture until the sugar is dissolved. Once the rice is finished cooking and steaming, turn it out into a large  wooden bowl or plastic or glass bowl. Sprinkle some of the vinegar mixture evenly over the rice.  With cutting motions, use your rice paddle to mix and fold the vinegar into the rice (the cutting motion prevents the rice from getting smashed).

making sushi rice

Leave it until it’s cooled down.

Now it’s ready to make sushi!

*If you can’t find kombu, you can make sushi rice without it, but kombu makes a huge difference. So I strongly recommend you to use kombu.

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.

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.

Chicken Teriyaki is almost American food now. But I realized Japanese teriyaki and American teriyaki are a little different. Here is my Japanese teriyaki recipe. Of course, you can use chicken breast, but I think thigh tastes much better for this dish. It’s so easy and so delicious!

<ingredients>
1 pound chicken thighs
2 tbsp olive oil
*1 tbsp cornstarch
*2 tbsp water
Shichimi (Japanese seven flavor chili pepper)
Sansho (Japanese Sichuan pepper)

(for the sauce)
2 tbsp sake
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin (sweet rice wine)
2 tbsp honey (or sugar)
2 cloves garlic, minced

Preparation:
1. Mix the sauce ingredients in a bowl. Marinate the chicken in the mixture for 15 minutes in the refrigerator.
2. Heat olive oil in a frying pan. First, fry the chicken (Don’t pour the sauce yet!) on medium heat until it is browned (about 5 minutes each side).
3. Pour the sauce used to marinate chicken in the pan. Cover the pan and cook the chicken on low heat about 4 minutes.
4. Remove the lid and simmer until the sauce becomes a little thicker.
5. Mix cornstarch and water in a small bowl. Pour it in the pan, and stir it on low heat.
6. Put some Shichimi and Sansho on top of Chicken Teriyaki if you would like.

This is the most popular and the easiest tofu dish. Low calorie and tasty.  This usually becomes a good side dish. I usually use silken or soft tofu.

<ingredients, 4 servings>
1 package silken or soft tofu
(for the toppings)
1tsp grated ginger
1tbsp green onion, chopped
2tsp soy sauce
Bonito flakes optional

<how to prepare>
Cut tofu into quarters. Put each piece in individual bowls. Put grated ginger and chopped green onion on top of tofu. Pour soy sauce right before eating. Put some dried bonito flakes if you want.

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.