Seasoned Edamame

My grandmother grew edamame in her backyard garden, the patch of land behind Uncle Mas's bedroom.

When they were ready to be harvested, Bachan pulled the whole bush from the ground, piled them on the concrete, then pulled off each bean pod by hand. I remember helping her when I was little, sitting on the cold concrete next to the camellia bushes by her backdoor. 

My dad grew them too. He'd bring the bushes home and dump them on the driveway in the front yard and call us kids to come and help pick the mame (ma-meh, beans).

The best part, with my grandmother and my family, was when we'd be done picking, the water would be put on to boil, then we'd all sit around eating the lightly salted, warm mame.

Back then, my friends didn't know what edamame was.

Now, everyone eats it.

Have you ever had seasoned edamame?

I started taking a bowl of edamame to parties. Everyone liked them.

At one of the parties, our friend Rick Godinez said he thought they'd be really good--con limon--with lemon. And maybe some chile.

They LOVED them!

I've tried a lot of flavor combinations with lots of different spices, but this one is my favorite and seems to go over best with guests.

Seasoned Edamame

2 packages frozen edamame

Cholula Chile Lime Seasoning

One Lemon

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

There's a lot of different brands of frozen edamame. This one had a few yellow ones, don't be alarmed. I remember there being some yellow ones when I picked them off the bushes when I was little. If it bothers you, then simply eat those before you serve them.

We can't all be perfect.

Start with a teaspoon of seasoning mix and go from there, adding more if you like it stronger.

Cook the edamame to the package's directions, or if they're already cooked, simply thaw.

Use your micro-planer to add some lemon zest.

Then juice the lemon.

Add about 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper for a little heat.

A finely minced jalapeno is good in here too. So is seasoning it with Spike with a combination of lemon and lime. Again, season it with what YOU like.

Stir well to coat the edamame.

Chill to serve.

If you haven't had this before, you might not know that you're only supposed to eat the inside, you don't eat the pod. You bite it or squeeze the beans right into your mouth.

You'll also need a trash bowl next to the edamame, for the waxy pods.

Be sure to label it "TRASH", otherwise you might find someone standing at that bowl saying, 'These have a really good taste, but there's nothing in them!'

Spaghetti with Clam Sauce

Whenever I ask, "What would you like for dinner?", nine times out of ten the answer will be, "Spaghetti".

Spaghetti is popular here.

Whether it's marinara, arrabiata, meat sauce, ratatouille, garlic & oil or creamy clam sauce, spaghetti is always a favorite.

We had some clams left over from our shabu shabu dinner, so tonight it was garlic & oil clam sauce with spinach served along with a mushroom red sauce.

For the red sauce, I simply added some sauteed onions, garlic, wine, mushrooms & chili flakes to the last of a jar of spaghetti sauce.

For the clam sauce, here's what I used:

2 cans chopped clams

fresh clams

1/2 onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups baby spinach leaves

Flat leaf parsley, chopped

1/2 cup sake

olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

If you don't have sake, use any dry white wine.

To a hot pan, add about 2 T olive oil and 2 T butter.

Add the minced garlic and onions. Saute until onions are soft. Do not brown them. Add some chili flakes if you like some heat.

When the onions are soft, add the broth from the two cans of chopped clams and the sake. Boil for a few minutes and let the liquid reduce a little. 

Next, add the clams.

Then add the spinach and the canned clams.

The clams will start to pop open when they're done.

Gently move the mixture around until the spinach is just wilted. This will only take a minute or two.

Ready to spoon over hot pasta.

My favorite used to be eating this spaghetti with clam sauce in a bowl, soupy. The girls like(d) it that way.

The guys here like it dry on a plate.

That's a little bit of mizithra cheese on top of the mushroom red sauce.

Serve it with a green salad, and you'll please the vegetarians too!

If you need a gluten-free alternative to the noodles, you can spiral cut a raw, fresh zucchini to make noodles, just use the tool featured in the Sashimi post. They're healthy, too!

Shabu Shabu

In our family, everyone loves shabu shabu.

For years, The Shabu Shabu House was our Go-To place for special occasions and birthdays.

They serve it very simply there. The only choices are beef and vegetarian.

But when you make it at home, you can make it with anything you like!

This weekend's shabu shabu was an elaborate one, for a birthday celebration.

It's kind of like when you go out for Chinese food. The more people you have, the more things you can get.

If you haven't made it before, start out simply, choose only a few items to get you acquainted and to insure your success.

Shabu shabu is the swishing of the food with ohashi (chopsticks) to cook it in boiling water.

For those of you that haven't had shabu shabu before, you're going to be cooking your own food at the table and dipping it in a ponzu sauce or sesame sauce before eating the meat or vegetables.

First, you're going to need a stove & a pot.

We use a tabletop butane stove. There are a lot of different brands. You can get them at any asian supermarket, sale prices run anywhere from $25 to $10. The butane fuel runs about $3 - $4.

An electric skillet on the table works well too.

I have a lot of pots, too, but this is my favorite. I got it at Marukai, but they don't always have it in stock.

Any low pot will work, a skillet will work too.

This is the traditional Japanese ceramic nabe--pot.

It should be the pot of choice, it's more earthy, but we don't use it much. It's kind of like how you don't use your good china everyday.

My least favorite pot is the kind with the chimney in the center.

That chimney gets a little bothersome and someone never fails to burn themselves with it.

They look great, but the functionality is not our style.

Okay. Now that you've got your hardware, you're ready to start cooking.

A Shabu Shabu Secret:

The secret to good shabu shabu is in the sauces.

When you go around to a lot of different shabu shabu restaurants, the main thing people talk about is which places have the best sauces.

When you make it at home, you can make the sauce exactly the way you like it. That's key.

Here are the two sauces. That's chopped garlic that's being added, but that's getting a little ahead of ourselves.

The dark sauce is a ponzu sauce and the lighter one is a sesame sauce.

Here are the recipes: 

They will make a lot of sauce, enough for a crowd (because they will need refills), so you might want to cut them in half.

Ponzu Sauce

1/2 Cup Fresh Lemon Juice

1/2 Cup Low Sodium Shoyu (Soy Sauce)

1/4 Cup Vinegar

1 1/2 Cups Water

1/2 teaspoon Grated Fresh Ginger

Sesame Sauce

1/2 Cup Toasted Sesame Seeds, Ground

1/4 Cup Miso

1/4 Cup Sugar

1/2 Cup Mirin

1/2 Cup Rice Vinegar

1/4 Cup Sake

1 Tablespoon Coleman's or S & B Mustard

1/2 Cup Tahini

1/2 Cup Low Sodium Shoyu

2 Cups Water

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until well combined.

Make the sauces ahead of time, even the day before.

After mixing them, taste them, and adjust the seasoning according to your own preferences. If the ponzu is too sour, add a little more water, if  you like the sesame sauce a little more sweet, add more mirin or sugar, etc. But remember, you're going to be dipping food right out of a hot pot, and that will dilute them a little, so the sauces will taste somewhat strong.

Next, we're going to make the condiments that will go into the sauces.

Grated daikon, thinly sliced green onions & finely chopped garlic are the condiments you can add to your sauces.

Daikon is a long, white radish. 

Peel the daikon and cut it into smaller pieces that are easier to handle, then grate them.

If you don't have a Japanese grater like this one, you can use a micro-planer.

This is Ichimi Red Pepper. It's good in the sauces too.

This is the ponzu sauce with condiments added.

I like it with daikon, green onion & red pepper.

In the sesame sauce, I like green onion, red pepper and a little bit of garlic.

Now... What are we going to cook?

Ingredients:

Salmon

Sea Bass

Thinly Sliced Rib Eye Steak

Thinly Sliced Pork

Shrimp

Clams

Napa Cabbage

Shingiku

Shiitake Mushrooms

Enoki Mushrooms

Tofu

Udon Noodles

I bought salmon, sea bass, shrimp & fresh clams at Costco. I was lucky to find two small pieces of each fish. Slice them into bite-sized pieces.

The shrimp is from the frozen section.

I peeled a couple of hand-fulls of shrimp. 

They're already peeled, but I peel the last section and tail off also. If I don't, then I hear a voice in my ear saying, "Mottainai"--how wasteful--when I see those last bites left on the plates.

I also bought a bag of clams at Costco. Scrub the clam shells with a brush. Discard any open ones. All of these were good.

If you go to the Chinese market, you can buy less, not a big Costco bag.

I bought this shabu shabu sliced rib eye at Marukai. It was on sale.

I bought a lean one & one that had some nice marbling.

The Japanese markets also have fancier meat, artfully displayed and with more fat. It's expensive. And some would say worth it.

In 1997, on a trip to Japan to visit friends, we had shabu shabu.

Look at how much fat is in the meat. The Japanese eat it like that because they appreciate the flavor. And the Japanese in Japan are not fat because they only eat a little bit.

I bought some pork too, but it didn't exactly excite anyone, so next time I'm skipping the pork.

Wash & cut the vegetables into bite-sized pieces.

Cut the shingiku into manageable pieces.

These are enoki mushrooms.

Cut the bottom off and discard. Break the tops into small bunches.

Okay. Done with the prep.

*Whew*

About an hour before your guests arrive, start cooking your rice and arrange your trays.

(It's a long way back to the top, so I'm going to post the trays again.)

Do I have any snoozers?

Add the tofu and udon noodles too.

Then set your table with the trays in the center.

Traditionally, you're supposed to add some dashi kombu to the water and take it out just before the water begins to boil.

Just add a little to the pot at a time. Everything cooks fast, and you don't want to overcook anything. That's what is so good about shabu shabu. You're going to cook everything to its perfect doneness.

The clams are done when they open up.

You'll need to add more hot water when the water runs low in your pot.

(I had to serve it for lunch today so I could round-out my photos, just in case you're wondering.)

And if you're also serving vegetarians, they will be happy with the veggies & sauces!

I am always so thrilled when everyone's enjoying their meal.

This was Pam's first time having shabu shabu.

She really enjoyed all the flavors and the experience!

And look what Sue brought for dessert!

German Chocolate Cake

That's a Coming Attraction.

Sue's going to be a guest blogger!

Preview: Shabu Shabu

This is what we're having tonight.

Shabu Shabu

But today you only get a preview.

A teaser.

You'll see the whole meal next week.

***

I have really come to appreciate the Japanese diet.

I've been to Japan only twice. Both times, what impressed me most about food, is that Japanese people eat only a little bit. We Americans would say Japanese people eat a Tiny Bit. BUT, that tiny bit is fresh, simple, artfully prepared and packed with flavor. Less is more.

(Did you know that one of the secrets to the Okinawans living so long is that they only eat until they're 80% full?)

What?

Flavor. We're talking about flavor.

When you're only eating a tiny bit, flavor is most important.

There's a word for it.

Umami

Wikipedia says that umami, "..describes a pleasant...taste with a long lasting, mouthwatering...sensation over the tongue."

Kind of brings to mind something Iron Chef Morimoto would make, doesn't it.

So in my quest to eat less, eat healthier, and still enjoy myself, I began a search into my Japanese roots--for the past 30 years or so--to overhaul my lifestyle.

It's an on-going process.

Books have helped me do that.

I have collected these over the last 30+ years. Thanks to owner Carolyn Sanwo, Heritage Source carries a myriad of Japanese cookbooks. She finds the good ones and I get them from her.

My two newest cookbooks are Kansha and

The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

(I love Ree. She's my idol. Hers isn't a Japanese cookbook, but my favorite of the moment.)

My niece says I could be The Asian Pioneer Woman.

My kindergarten childhood friend says I'm Sansei Woman.

We may have some things in common, Ree and I. But she takes them to the stratosphere.

Back to Japanese food...

And so, this is how I come to this meal.

Shabu Shabu.

My parents first took us to eat shabu shabu at the Shabu Shabu House in Little Tokyo's Japanese Village. Karen had to stand up to cook her food because she was too small to reach the boiling pot while sitting down. The Shabu Shabu Man, as my kids call the owner, called her "Baby".

Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

(Sorry, couldn't resist! :)

Here are my mother & father in-law sitting in the corner at the Shabu Shabu House in 2006.

We haven't been there in awhile, now we have shabu shabu at home more than we go out to have it. At home you can make it exactly how you like it. Or you can make it simple with just a few ingredients.

Photos and recipe next week.

Enjoy your weekend!

Okazu

I remember eating a lot of okazu when I was little.

When my mother would make okazu, that meant a one-pot meal with lots of green vegetables, whatever was in season that my dad was growing, always served with rice.

It was mostly vegetables, with just a little meat, and different every time. Mostly it would be made with ground meat, since that was the least expensive, and we had seven mouths to feed. Mom seasoned it with different things, but mostly shoyu and sugar.

Okazu wasn't a favorite of mine when I was a kid, but it's a favorite of mine now. It's fast, easy & inexpensive.

Today's okazu is made with pork, tofu, vegetables & black bean sauce.

Ingredients:

Pork Loin

Tofu

Napa Cabbage

Bean Sprouts

Sweet Onion

Black Bean Sauce

This is the meat I used. Thinly sliced pork loin on sale at Marukai. It's under one pound and costs only $3.11. It was plenty for 4 people. 

You can use any kind of meat, chicken or beef too. Use whatever you have on hand. If you buy the boneless pork chops at Costco, slice two of those thinly, and it will feed four.

 Isn't this head of napa cabbage pretty? That's how it should look, nice & green.

Did you know that napa is the head of cabbage and nappa refers to the leaves? I didn't know that.

I used 6 leaves.

The nappa will shrink, so the pieces can be a little bigger than what looks like bite-sized.

I used about half of the bag of bean sprouts. Choose bean sprouts that don't have the dark part of the sprout on top. That means they're a little old.

Slice the onion.

This is my tofu of choice, next to the fresh one.

It comes in a block.

Drain the water, cut in half, then cut each half into cubes.

16 cubes in each half.

This is the black bean sauce I use. It has the garlic and ginger in it too. So easy.

I used 3 tablespoons for this okazu.

It's concentrated and will mellow out nicely when mixed in with the vegetables.

Start by heating some oil in your wok or pan, about a tablespoon or two.

When the oil is hot, add the meat and stir.

Add one tablespoon of the black bean sauce.

Stir until the meat is no longer pink & coated with the black bean sauce.

It only takes a few minutes.

Remove from pan.

That keeps the meat from being overcooked.

If you're not also cooking for a vegetarian, you can add a little oil to the pan before adding the onions, but since I'm cooking for a vegetarian, I gave the wok a quick rinse.

Add a tablespoon of the black bean sauce and stir in with the onions.

Then add the tofu and nappa.

Then the bean sprouts.

Stir to combine evenly.

Adjust the seasoning, adding chili flakes or the last tablespoon of black bean sauce--that's what I did.

Then, add the meat back in--or not--and serve with rice.

Here's my lunch okazu of today.

A meatless version of today's recipe, only I added some shingiku.

That's a little red tsukemono--pickle--on the side.

That's it! That's okazu.

When I ask my kids what okazu is, they always answer as they did when they were little:

"That's our aunt. Grandpa's oldest sister."

It never fails to make me laugh.

And bring back memories.

"No," I always say, "That's Auntie Kazu, okazu is food."

Our Auntie Kazu.

We miss her.