Curry UDON

After eating whole pot of Curry, there still is something joyful.
Curry UDON!
This is easy, just make UDON with the pot of Curry after eating most of them.
(Maybe inside the pot, a little amount of curry is there...you cannot trash it away, but it's not enough for serving as Curry and rice...)
If you make curry and rice, and haven't tried Curry UDON yet, try this! :)

Curry and rice

Curry and rice is one of most popular cooking in Japan.
It's easy to cook using it's base like above! :)

Roasted chiken sandwich

 The lady in my gym class kindly told me how to make roasted turkey(chiken) sandwich.
She said that combine onion, celery, torn roasted turkey(leftover of thanksgiving!), and Mayo, it will be a delicious ingredients of sandwich!
I tried using my frozen thanksgiving's leftover. And it's surelly really delicious!
Appreciate her so much.

Making meunier

 Meunier is the way to cook fish like this; put flour on fish, then saute it with butter on the frying pan. It's originally French dish.

 This is also common in Japan. This is called "MUNIERU", instead of its original French word. (So actually, I didn't know how difficult its spell is until I start blogging! ) I remembered that I learned this dish when I was a middle-school student, at the class of cooking. The school was not special one, was just a pubric school. Meunier was the first or the second dish that we've learned.
..It has been long time ago!

 I had thought Meunier is common in the world for a long time. But recently I've noticed that I don't hear about this so much here in USA...even though this is easy, tasty way to cook fish. So I'd like to show you  how I make Meunier.


Thaw and cut the fish. Salmon, Sole, Tilapia ...You can use your favorite.


Put salt and pepper. Only a little bit salt works well.

Put flour. Using net is convinient.

Put flour on all the sides of fish.

Heat oil. I use olive oil. Butter is nice for taste, too.

Remove excess flour and start to saute with medium heat.

I put skin side down first.

Turn out when they become lightly browned.


Turn and turn...

When it cooked thoroughly, done! To know cooked or not, push them with turner. If you feel harder, it cooked. Or just cut and see inside.

Done!

(Optional)
You can add some flavor on it. Squeezing lemon, Putting chopped herbs...as you like!

This time I squeezed lemon just after removed from pan. And,

some Dill.

Done.

ITADAKIMA-SU!

(This phrase express that you appreciate food, and cooker.)

Potato gratin

Brined Roast Chicken

For Thanksgiving, I tried to grill the roast chiken.
(Whole turkey was too big for us..)
This was the first time to cook the whole chiken for me!
In Japan, I didn't have such a large oven like I'm using.

This was the chiken. I felt relaxed after I found out its internal was taken away!
I put it in the salty water overnight.

This is stuffing.

My husband did that...I was interested in this work, but he couldn't stop sticking to this work!

Our mouth were watering...

Done!

I've thought it's difficult, but it's not.

It took time, but our oven did most of cook.

It was jucy and tasty! I ate whole chiken dish for the first time, and hadn't known how it's tasty. :)

Maybe brining was good for taste and texture this time.

...Hope you have had a nice Thanksgiving.

Japanese omelette

Japanese omelette
Miso soup
Steamed rice
Cantaloup

I'm not good at rolling Japanese omelette so much, But it wents well today! :)

To make Japanese omelette, special pan like this is used. I use iron one, and it's sometimes sticky. Sometimes I think maybe I should use tefron-coated one... But I feel tasts are nicer with iron pan. Maybe I should practice more.

Gratin (salmon and spinach)

Gratin (salmon and spinach)

I'm not sure this is popular in USA.. Because I've never seen gratin in my cooking books that I bought in USA.

Gratin is baked dish with white source. It is called "GURATAN", instead of original French word. It's popular dish in Japan. Maybe you'll find gratin even at Denny's or KFC of Japan.

I tried to make gratin with salmon and spinach. Making gratin without macaroni and chicken was my first experience. Luckely, it went well! Tastes good. :)

Lunch

Salmon meuniere

Steamed asparagus

Tomatoes and onion

Steamed rice

Cantaloup

Ratatouille

Ratatouille
Greek salad
Cooked seeweed "HIJIKI"
Steamed rice

SANMA

Fall is the best season for SANMA, a Pacific saury .
In Japan, at evening time of fall, you will meet the smell of SANMA that somebody is grilling at their kitchen when you walk around. Everybody likes eating grilled SANMA in fall.

Here in USA, I have no idea how to grill SANMA in our kitchen...Can I use oven for it? Will oven smell bad after that? Does neighborfood like the smell? ...So I cooked them without grilling. It's also nice when cooked with soysource and blackpepper like above.

My friends bought them for us. Appreciate them so much!

Cooked SANMA
Pumpkin soup
Steamed rice with MATSUTAKE
Salad

Matsutake

Steamed rice and MATSUTAKE
Chawan-mushi with MATSUTAKE
Pumpkin soup

MATSUTAKE is mushroom grow up on pine tree's root.
It's one of typical autumn flavor. But in Japan, domestic MATSUTAKE is really expensive.
It's around $100 per only one MATSUTAKE.

Here in USA, we can buy MATSUTAKE picked at USA with more reasonable price.
Like $6 per 5 MATSUTAKE. I tried to cook them as steamed rice, and chawan-mushi.
We enjoyed autumn flavor. :)

PURIN

Custard pudding "PURIN".
Japanese call it just PURIN, instead of pudding.
I love this sweets as much as chawan-mushi.
In Japan, you can buy it everywhere such as supermarket, convenience store, cake shop etc.
I haven't seen in USA yet, so I tried to make by myself.

I looked the recepe of "Caramel Flans" from my "NEW COOK BOOK", using 2% milk instead of half and half.
The taste was nice although it have bubble :)

Chawan-mushi

Chawan-mushi is one of my most-favorite dishes!

It is steamed egg and dashi-soup in a small cup. It looks like custard.

And as you eat, dashi-soup will appear, and you will find chiken, siitake-mushroom etc. inside.

I tried to make it by baking in the oven. And make it as larger size so I can eat them as much as I like:). For ingredients, I put shurimps and onion and mushrooms.

It has all gone just by 2 people (me and husband) at once although I prepare 1000ml of egg and dashi-soup before baking:)

You can see chawan-mushi made by professional at here;

http://www.kyounoryouri.jp/recipe/8309_%E8%8C%B6%E7%A2%97%E8%92%B8%E3%81%97.html

Today's lunch

Grilled chiken drumsticks
Cooked Japanese squashes
Steamed Japanese eggplants
Steamed rice

Bananas foster

Actually, it was stir-fry of bananas.

I found this recipe at "NEW COOK BOOK" by BetterHomes.

It was easy:) !

The book said that I should burn out alcohol, but it's scary...I didn't try that.

Instead, I stir-fried for a few more minutes, it was enough:)

Unfortunately, I have banana allergy.

It suddenly came to me when I was 23 or 24... the same time that I found I had allergy to latex gloves.

I was dissapointed since I loved to eat bananas for breakfast! But soon I had found I can eat cooked banana.

And then, I try to cook banana when I want to eat bananas:)

Pot-au-feu 2

Pot-au-feu
Pasta

I made much Pot-au-feu. We have eaten it every day:)

Pot-au-feu

Pot-au-feu
Steamed rice

I hadn't known how to spell Pot-au-feu untill wrote this post....

OYAKO-DON

Chiken and egg bowl "OYAKO-DON"
Cooked sweet potatoes with honey and lemon

OYAKO-DON is typical bowl dish in Japan.
OYA means parents, KO means child.
It's made from chiken and egg ( and onion, dashi, soysource, and MIRIN or sugar).
What a cruel name....but it's really tasty, and easy to cook:).

Fried noodles with thick soup

Fried noodles with thick soup "ANKAKE-YAKISOBA"
It was easy using ready-to-use chicken broth:-)

Grilled drumsticks

Grilled drumsticks
Boiled green beans dressed with peanuts
Miso soup
Steamed rice with mushrooms

Previous weekend

On Saturday


We went to a German grocery store.
Their sosages are nice:)
Even with sosages, rice and Miso soup were on our table:)


On Sunday

We still have a lot of uncooked SOMEN although it became cooler.

I tried to cook them as hot noodles "UDON".

Fresh blueberry cookies

I've come up with putting fresh blueberry in cookies.

I tried, and it wents well!

Stir-fry of squid

Stir-fry of squid, broccoli, and anchovy
Greek salad
Cooked seaweed "HIJIKI"
Steamed rice

My friend gave me these squids.
It was frozen-packed and easy to cook. And, taste was nice!
Appreciate her so much:-)

HIJIKI is a kind of seaweed.
Cooked HIJIKI is common dish in Japan.
It was dried, and we soak it into water before cooking.

Salmon meuniere 2

Salmon meuniere
Boiled green beans dressed with peanuts
Miso soup
Steamed rice

I finaly bought a hand blender.
It's nice for chopping peanuts:-).

Hand blender is really expensive in Japan:-(

Salmon meuniere

Salmon meuniere
Steamed rice, mushroom, carrot
Miso soup

Sandwich

Sandwich for lunch.
With cheese, ham, tomato, avocado, and mayo.