Some days, a girl just needs some Italian. Or more specifically, a salted cream explosion of al dente spaghetti goodness scattered with juicy bacon bits. Yeaaaa it's carbonara. This recipe includes the slight Japanese twist of adding konbu-cha, which gives great depth to the salty overtones to create a more vibrant flavour, but if you don't have it you can always leave it out. Ingredients (serves 2) ♥ 180g spaghetti ♥ 2 knobs of garlic ♥ 3 slithers of bacon
{Sauce} ♥ 100ml fresh cream (whippable type) [生クリーム(ホイップ可)] ♥ 100ml milk ♥ 2 egg yolks ♥ A sprinkle of black pepper and parmesan cheese {Seasoning} ♥ A pinch of konbu-cha [昆布茶] or konbu-dashi [昆布だし] ♥ 1 teaspoon salt + optional: half-boiled egg [温泉卵] 1. Put the pasta on to boil for 10 minutes. 2. Grate the garlic and cut up the bacon into strips. 3. Mix the sauce ingredients. 4. Heat olive oil in a frying pan and add the garlic. When fragrant, add the bacon. 5. Add the drained spaghetti and sauce. 6. Sprinkle the seasoning, black pepper and place a half-boiled egg on top if you wish.
Soba noodles are healthy and super versatile, yet so often I end up eating the same old zaru-soba (chilled soba with a tsuyu dipping sauce) that I thought it was time to spice things up a bit. This cookpad recipe is dirt cheap and dead easy, and considering the small amount of ingredients required to make it, the depth of flavour is superb.
Ingredients:
♥ 2 servings soba noodles (dry/fresh/boiled, anything is fine)
♥ 500ml water
♥ 1 teaspoon hondashi
♥ 3 tablespoons soy sauce
♥ 3 tablespoons mirin
♥ 1 beaten egg
♥ 1 tablespoon potato starch [片栗粉] mixed with 2 tablespoons water
1. Prepare the soba noodles as directed on the packet (usually boil for a couple of minutes). Drain under ice water and chill in the fridge.
2. Add the water, hondashi, soy sauce and mirin to a saucepan. Once boiling, turn down to a simmer and slowly stir in the potato starch until the mixture thickens.
3. Slowly pour in the egg whilst mixing slowly.
4. Add in the ginger and soba noodles and bring back up to the boil for a couple of minutes.
5. Serve in a bowl with salad onions and pepper powder.
I kind of feel like a massive fraud for posting this under the tag "recipes", because it's probably the easiest thing in the world. Satoshi's parents live in Nagoya and every so often they send us a huge box of groceries full of all his favourite childhood foods - it's like the most adorbs thing ever and for some reason makes me well up every time they do it. Not expressing your love outwardly but instead making sweet gestures like that is just so wa. But yeah, anyway, the other day they sent us about ten million sausages and the most gorgeously fresh and crisp spring cabbage, so I thought I'd put them both to use for dinner. It's a fancy way to eat your sausages and adds some vegetables to the mix! Ingredients: ♥ Sausages (we love the Johnsonville range 'Beddar with Cheddar' and 'Cooked Brats') ♥ A few cabbage leaves ♥ 1 cup water ♥ A konsome stock cube [コンソメ] ♥ 1 tablespoon of potato starch [片栗粉] mixed with 2 tablespoons water 1. Boil the water and add in the konsome stock cube. 2. Add the cabbage leaves and leave to boil for 4 minutes or until soft. 3. Wrap each sausage in a cabbage leaf. 4. Put back into the boiling water and simmer for 5 minutes. 5. Stir in the potato starch for about 2 minutes until the mixture thickens.
The other day our friend invited us to a dance music festival he was running called 'Body and Soul'. All our crew were there and it was really cool to catch up with everyone as it'd been a super long time. Macchan gave us a world-class tour behind the scenes and we had an absolute blast - it was a really cool, laid-back festival and everybody was just out to enjoy themselves, dancing along to remixed disco and old school anthems.
It finished around 8pm, and since we were in the area, Satoshi took me out to Tsukishima Monjayaki street to chow down on one of the less well-known regional iron grill dishes. Monjayaki originates from Tokyo, and unlike Osaka's okonomiyaki or Hiroshima's hiroshima-yaki, the mixture is runnier and not as stodgy, with the main focus being on enjoying the vegetables and toppings, which range from seafood, to meat, to gyoza, to cheese, to anything you can imagine. The batter acts as a sort of flavouring or sauce so you don't need to add any extra dressings or mayo, which makes me like to think that it's a (somewhat) healthier option!
Monjayaki street is packed with row after row of monja restaurants so it's really hard to know which one to go for, but Satoshi took me to a place called 'Okame' which he used to go to with his company senpais. We luckily got the last free table, and ordered butter oysters and two monjayaki - gyoza and seafood. There's just something about DIY food and eating freshly off a grill pan that makes food taste so very good - the slight charring really rams in the flavour.
You prepare monjayaki firstly by sautéing the solid ingredients. Once all the veg has softened, shape it into a donut shape and pour the batter inside the hole. Eat it directly off the grill pan with the little spatula that comes with your chopsticks. We also got dessert - we went for anko (red bean paste), but there was also anzu (apricot) or mixed filling to choose from. Dipping the fried anko in kuromitsu (brown sugar syrup) created a really warming, comforting taste very typical of Japanese desserts - simple and not too sweet. Also on the way home, there was a cute little bakery selling melon pan and ice cream, so we had a cheeky post-dinner nightcap there too. The whole Tsukishima area was a really cute, Shōwa style town with cheesy little souvenir shops and funny mascot statues, and all in all it was a really fun gourmet experience.
I was always kinda scared to try making curry rice, since it's such a kodawari (picky) thing, and everybody has their own taste preference. But I figured I might be able to wing it with cookpad's most popular curry recipe, so I gave it a try and actually it turned out pretty damn good. It passed the husband test which is all I need to know anyway! Ingredients (makes a big pot of about 5 plates - it's best to make a big stash then freeze each serving you don't need in ziplock bags): {Stage One} ♥ 300g beef in bitesize chunks ♥ 2 onions ♥ 1 carrot ♥ 20g butter ♥ 1 tablespoon crushed garlic ♥ Arabiki shiokoshou (if you don't have this, regular salt and pepper will do) ♥ 1 bay leaf [ローリエの葉] or a pack of curry herbs {Stage Two} ♥ 200g curry roux blocks (2 packets) ♥ 1 tablespoon Worcester sauce ♥ 1 tablespoon honey ♥ 1 tablespoon soy sauce Stage One: 1. Fry the garlic in the butter, then add the onion. Simmer until caramelised. 2. In a big saucepan, heat some oil and add in the beef. Season with arabiki shiokoshou. Add the carrots and cooked onion. 3. Add the bay leaf and 900ml water (or 1.2l water if you want to simmer for longer). Minimum simmer time is 30 minutes, but the longer you leave it, the better the flavour becomes. I like to start mine around lunchtime and leave it simmering all afternoon, making sure to top it up with a bit of water if it starts to run a bit low. Stage Two: 1. Add in the stage two ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes. Serve on a plate with rice!
The temperature is finally starting to pick up here in Tokyo and there's a hint of that sticky summer humidity in the air - all of which calls for a nice refreshing bowl of hiyashi (chilled) udon. My local supermarket had a sale on for nama-udon (fresh udon), which is so much nicer than the packet stuff, so I just had to get a couple of packets since Satoshi is a huge udon geek and I knew he'd be psyched. I chucked this recipe together in under 10 minutes - it's super super easy and tastes incredible, plus the ingredients are dirt cheap cupboard essentials, so you can always use it as a trusty back-up dish when you're low on stock. Ingredients (serves 1): ♥ 1 serving of udon noodles ♥ 1 pack of natto ♥ Half a cucumber ♥ A handful of shirasu (whitebait) ♥ A dash of mentsuyu 1. Boil the udon as directed on the packet (it's usually for 5 minutes). Drain and rinse under ice cold water to cool the noodles. 2. Open the natto and mix in the sauce that comes in the packet. 3. Slice the cucumber with a peeler into thin strips. 4. Whack the udon noodles in a bowl, pour over a little bit of mentsuyu and mix until it's coated evenly. You can always add more to taste as you go along, so don't put too much on! 5. Arrange the natto, cucumber and shirasu on top and voila!
Satoshi is obsessed with curry flavour, but it so often involves greasy chicken and oily junk food combos that make him completely regret it the day after. So he rarely eats it, reserved only for "special occasions". But I found this nice soothing recipe for a curry soup on cookpad, which uses wholesome ingredients like tofu and ginger, no processed curry flavour blocks, and the best thing is it's super easy. It's a really warming, filling soup which would go great with a bowl of brown rice or udon. Ingredients (serves 2): ♥ 1 pack of silken tofu ♥ Half an onion ♥ 1 egg ♥ 1 tablespoon of potato starch [片栗粉] mixed with 2 tablespoons water ♥ A sprinkle of salad onions {Soup} ♥ 350ml water ♥ 1 teaspoon hondashi powder ♥ 1/4 teaspoon salt ♥ 1&1/2 teaspoons soy sauce ♥ 1 teaspoon mirin ♥ 1 teaspoon sake ♥ 1/2 teaspoon curry powder [カレー粉]
1. Chop the onion into thin slices and fry lightly in oil. 2. When softened, sprinkle the curry powder over to form a light coating. 3. Pour in the soup mix and bring to a high heat. 4. Chop the tofu into bitesize chunks and plop them in the soup. Turn to a medium-low heat and simmer for 3-4 minutes. 5. Slowly add in the potato starch and stir lightly until the mixture thickens. 6. Turn off the heat and crack an egg in the middle of the soup. Sprinkle some salad onions on top and serve.
