Shrimp Seaweed Salad

I haven't had much chance to cook recently. I've been going out to lots of concerts. In the past month, I must've gone to at least 5 shows. I got to see KT Tunstall, Yoshida Brothers, and at the Sasquatch Festival I was able to check out R.E.M., The Cure, Tegan & Sara, Death Cab For Cutie, just to name a few. In the next week, I am going to three more concerts! That's a lot of money I've been spending on concerts, so I need to stay home and cook some.

I was trying to cook something healthy for a side dish, and I realized that I didn't have any fresh vegetables. But I did have some dried seaweed that can expand when you soak in water for 10 minutes, and some shrimp and edamame in the freezer. So, here's what I came up with.

IN JAPANESE: Ebi to wakame salad
CATEGORY: Salad
COOKING METHOD: Boiled
DIFFICULTY: Easy
SERVES: 2 people
LENGTH OF TIME: 15 min

INGREDIENTS:
6 uncooked shrimp (see TIP: Shrimp)
12 edamame (green soybeans)
2 TBsp of dried seaweed cut wakame
Ponzu (citrus seasoned soysauce) for dressing

HOW TO:
First and foremost! Be sure to get the right kind of dried seaweed. Don't get the kind you see on the sushi. This is the kind that's in miso soup, and it's the kind when you soak it in the water, it expands into kelp like seaweed. With that said, soak the dried seaweed in water. Normally those things take about 10 minutes to rehydrate.

While the seaweed is being soaked in water, boil water in a pan with about a teaspoon of salt, and once the water is boiled, add edamame and shrimp (still in shells) together. Both of those only take 3 to 4 minutes to fully cook, so be sure to not overcook them.

After they finish cooking, rinse both edamame and shrimp under cold water. Place them under several ice cubes to make sure they get really chilled for a couple of minutes.

Once they are chilled, peel the shrimp, and slice it in half length wise (so that it will be thin).

Take the beans out of the pod.

When the seaweed is completed rehydrated, drain all the water, and add the thinly sliced shrimp and edamame beans and mix together.

Serve on a small bowl, and add the ponzu dressing to your liking!

Bacon Wrapped Shrimp

Happy April Fool's day. It seems like Google is playing another April Fool's joke on Gmail. This year, they claim to have a new function that let's you send email with time stamp from the past. If you forget to send birthday wish or anniversary note, you can set your email sent time to whenever, and claim that you did actually sent it. I liked last year's joke better, where they claimed that they can print all of your emails and ship it to you for free.

Now, onto today's recipe. This one is super easy, and at the same time super good, and popular at BBQs. Whenever there's a BBQ potluck, we are usually asked to bring this. Bacon wrapped shrimp is a great izakaya menu and goes excellent with ice cold beer. And don't worry, this is a legit recipe (not an April Fool's joke).

IN JAPANESE: Ebi no bacon maki
CATEGORY: Meat, Seafood
COOKING METHOD: Grilled
DIFFICULTY: Easy
SERVES: 4 people
LENGTH OF TIME: 20 min

INGREDIENTS:
16 shrimp peeled (see TIP: Shrimp)
8 slices of bacon
4-8 mushrooms (optional)
8-12 asparagus (optional)
1 TBsp sake (optional)
salt & pepper (optional)

HOW TO:
Cut the slices of bacon into half. The portion of bacon and shrimp should look like the photo here. Place the shrimp on top of the bacon and just wrap it up. If you are going to be using the BBQ grill, I recommend using the toothpick to hold it into place. If not, just place it on baking sheet. Both the shrimp and bacon are salty enough so you don't need to add salt.


If you want some veggies, I recommend grilling some mushrooms and asparagus with the bacon wrapped shrimp. On the mushroom, sprinkle some salt and pepper, and on the asparagus, sprinkle salt and pepper, but also pour a bit of sake (1 TBsp for about 10 asparagus) if you will be grilling in your oven.

If you are using your oven, set it to broil and cook for 5 to 10 minutes until the shrimp and the bacon looks crisp on the outside. If you are using a BBQ grill, both the shrimp and bacon cook much faster (usually 5 minutes will do) so stay by the grill for this one.

Seared Tuna Salad

For this year's Thanksgiving, held at my brother's, we were asked to bring a salad, mashed potato and beer. My wife took on the mashed potato responsiblity and I got the salad. I didn't want to bring a plain tossed salad, so I decided to try the seared tuna salad that I enjoy at restaurants.

A friend of ours from Japan was visiting over the Thanksgiving as well, and this was going to be his first turkey ever. Needless to say, he loved the whole Thanksving meal, especially the gravy, which he's never had before. For the rest of his stay, he requested leftover mashed potato and gravy for breakfast every day. He even bought packets of powder gravy as souvenir.

IN JAPANESE: Maguro Tataki Salad
CATEGORY: Seafood
COOKING METHOD: Fresh
DIFFICULTY: Medium
SERVES: 4 people
LENGTH OF TIME: 10 min

INGREDIENTS:
Seared tuna (1/4 lb)
4-8 leaves of leafy lettuce
1/8 onion thinly sliced
2-3 shiso leaves
1 half inch piece of ginger (see TIP: Ginger)
2 TBsp Japanese pickles - purple kind (optional)
4 TBsp of Ponzu dressing

HOW TO:
First, rinse enough lettuce for four people. If the leaves are huge, one leaf per person should do it. Otherwise, maybe 1 and half leaf per person. Rinse, pat them dry with a paper towel, and tear them into bite size with your hands and evenly spread on a plate or serving dish.

Slice some onions really thin and soak them in ice cold water to make them slightly more crispy. Place them evenly on top of the lettuce.

Recently a lot of supermarkets (at least in Seattle area) are carrying seared tuna in the seafood section. The only problem is that a lot of times, those are heavily flavored (with salt and pepper stuck to the tuna). If you like those kind, use those, if not, look for unflavored seared tuna or make one yourself.

The most difficult thing about making this salad is cutting the tuna. It's cooked on the outside and raw in the inside, so if you cut with jagged edged knife (like a steak knife) you could crumble a nice piece of fish. The key is to cut the fish in one pulling motion instead of going back and forth with your knife. Each slice should be about 1/4 inch side (or if you prefer a thicker cut, by all means go for it). Neatly place them on top of the salad.

If you can get purple Japanese pickles, spread those around on the salad. Also, cut the shiso leaves into small pieces and spread those around. Shred a piece of ginger on top of the salad (make sure you do it evenly so you don't have one area covered in shredded ginger!)

Pour about 4 TBsp (about 1 TBsp per serving) over the salad, and you are ready to serve!

Grilled Sanma

Recently for my job, I was asked to design advertisement for "shape up goods" for a client in Japan. I used colorful small vinyl dumbbells as a key visual for the ad, since I thought they looked cute (ad was targeted mostly for dieting women) and made you think about excercising. But when I showed my design to the Japanese business team, they didn't seem to understand why I used dumbbells for the shape up ad. They thought that the ad represented more for excercise, and not for diet shape up.

I was confused as to why they were confused. After several minutes of trying to clear up each other, I learned that a lot of Japanese people don't necessarily consider exercising as a main source of diet. For them, dieting was drinking nasty green vegetable drinks or vinegars, or taking a hot bath, wearing some weird ring around your toes to make you look slimmer. It turns out that they were thinking more of massage creams and bath powders and nothing about exercising. Then I remembered that all my Japanese friends that were dieting weren't particularly working out, but instead trying out all these weird methods (I don't think any of them were losing weights).

One of the other popular method of losing weight amongst my Japanese friends were eating less meat and more fish. One of my coworkers who didn't particularly like fish, started eating sushi once a week instead of beef bowl. I think sushi can be quite high in cholestrol, especially when they are fatty.

Speaking of fish, one of the most traditional grilled fish you could get in Japanese restaurants (in Japan) was sanma (Pacific saury in English), especially in the Fall. It can be a bit of pain to eat, if you are not used to it as you need to semi-disect the fish as you eat, but they are also quite tasty so I think it's worth the time.

IN JAPANESE: Sanma no shioyaki
CATEGORY: Fish
COOKING METHOD: Grilled
DIFFICULTY: Medium
SERVES: 2 people
LENGTH OF TIME: 20 min

INGREDIENTS:
A pack of sanma (Pacific saury), which usually comes in a pack of 4
salt
4-inch piece of daikon shredded (optional)
soy sauce or ponzu

HOW TO:
I've yet to see fresh sanma sold in the States. I get them in either Japanese or Korean markets, but they are always frozen. Since it's a small narrow fish, I would say one fish per person. If there are two of you, defrost two in the fridge for a few hours.

After the fish is fully defrosted, take them out of the fridge, and sprinkle salt all over on both sides of the fish and set aside for about 10 minutes (let the salt soak into the fish)

Set your oven to broil and place the fish on a rack with a pan underneath to catch drips (there will be a lot of drips!) Broil for about 7 minutes until the top is golden brown.

While the fish is being grilled, grate some radish (which I highly recommend for this fish). Squeeze the water out of the grated daikon and serve next to the fish. Pour some soy sauce over the daikon, and eat that with the fish.

The easiest way to dissect this particular fish is to cut it open in half from the top (using your chopsticks of course), and take the bones out. Now you are ready to eat!

Grilled Salmon

Today was the final of World Cup: Italy vs France. It wasn't what I expected (I expected Germany vs Brazil), but my wife and I walked to the nearby pub to watch the game from 11am. I'm not a fan of either of the team, but since I liked some of the players on the France team, I decided to cheer for them. I wore my Japan jersey to the pub (it looks very similar to the France jersey).

We got to the pub right before the kick off, but the place was so packed that we had to wait in line for twenty minutes. During those twenty minutes or so, both France and Italy had scored, so we missed that. I was quite surprised to see so many fans there. But then, this may have been the only pub showing the final in Seattle area. Congrats to Italy for winning, but more than anything, I will remember Zidane head-butting one of the Italian players. I wonder what caused him to do that.

Tonight we had grilled salmon. Salmon is popular in Seattle, but we usually get the Atlantic salmon. It's cheaper and tastes better, in our opinion. This grilled salmon is a popular breakfast dish. If you go to Denny's in Japan, you can order it for breakfast.

IN JAPANESE: Yaki Shake
CATEGORY: Seafood
COOKING METHOD: Grilled
DIFFICULTY: Medium
SERVES: 2 people
LENGTH OF TIME: 15 min

INGREDIENTS:
salmon (steak cut)
some salt
shredded daikon (optional)

HOW TO:
If you bought the steak cut (like shown on the picture), cut the middle part (so you get two of the same cut).

Pour salt on all sides of the salmon to your preference.

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and grill/bake for 10 to 15 minutes until the outside edge starts to turn dark.

While the salmon is in the oven, shred some daikon and serve it along side the fish. Pour some soy sauce over the shredded daikon, and eat it with fish.

Shrimp & Tofu Stirfry

I've heard the buzz on American Idol while I lived in Japan, but I didn't realize how big it was until we recently moved back to the States. This is the fifth season of the show, but it's my first time watching it. After thousands of people auditioned, top 12 (6 guys 6 girls) were chosen, and every week, one person is eliminated by number of votes from telephone and text messaging system.

Last night, the 17 year old Paris Bennett got voted off, and now there are four remaining; soul-patrol, Talor Hicks; rocker Chris Daughtry; guy-next-door type Elliott Yamin, and camera friendly Katharine McPhee. I'm happy with those final four, but let's look back on what I thought when the show started.

TOP 4 I PREDICTED Chris Daughtry Kellie Pickler Paris Bennett Ace Young

TOP 4 I WANTED Chris Daughtry Taylor Hicks Katharine McPhee Jose "Sway" Penala

So my prediction was quite off, but most of the people I wanted to see in the final four made it, so I guess America agrees with me. It will be interesting to see who will end up being the final two. My votes are on Chris and Taylor, but we'll see. I have never personally voted though.

Today, I'll introduce one of my favorite "let's make something with whatever is left in the fridge" dish. I usually have some tofu (see TIP: Storing tofu) and some kind of veggies in the fridge. And I always have frozen shrimp (see TIP: Shrimp) so this makes it perfect. I actually invented one evening when I didn't know what to make for dinner.

IN JAPANESE: Ebi & Tofu itame (I made that up)
CATEGORY: Seafood
COOKING METHOD: Stirfry
DIFFICULTY: Medium
SERVES: 2 people
LENGTH OF TIME: 15 min

INGREDIENTS:
10 shrimp peeled (see TIP: Shrimp)
1/4 pack of tofu diced (see TIP: Storing tofu)
3 mushrooms
1/4 of onion
some carrots
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
1 TBsp vegetable oil
1 TBsp sesame oil
1 TBsp sake
3 TBsp oyster sauce
some ground pepper

HOW TO:
Slice some carrots, mushrooms, onions and whatever veggies you want to include (baby corn, celery, cabbage to name a few). Dice the tofu into about one inch cube, and finely chop the garlic.

Heat up your wok or frying pan on high with vegetable oil and sesame oil, and after the tip of the wok/pan is hot, put the chopped garlic (if that doesn't sizzle then your pan is not hot enough!) and let it sizzle so the oil will have garlic flavor soaked in.

Dump in onions and carrots first, stiry fry for about a minute, then add mushroom and shrimp, and stirfry until the shrimp begins to turn into a nice pink color. Add some sake, and after that evaporates, add the tofu and carefully stir so you don't break the tofu too much.

When that's mixed well, throw in oyster sauce and some ground pepper to flavor, and stir until oyster sauce is evenly coated around the veggies, shrimp and tofu. It might be easier to serve this on top of bowl or rice and eat with spoon if your tofu has crumbled like shown on my photo.

Mentaiko Pasta

Last night, my wife was craving steak, so we picked up fine sirloin steak at the grocery store. Since I eat healthy Japanese food often, I would like to say that I'm in a great shape, but years of drinking beer has finally caught up to me, and recently I've been trying to watch my tummy. My wife has been suggesting that I cut down on the carbs, since I eat rice, noodles and bread all the time. I grew up eating those, so if I just have meat and vegetable, my stomach doesn't feel full. So we had 8-oz steak and fresh corn for dinner (and nicely chilled cold beer), but I still felt hungry all night. I know I ate plenty, but my stomach was not satisfied without any carb in there. I still managed to survive without eating any more for the night.

This morning, I was hungry, so I ended up eating a big pastrami sandwich. I thought that should hold me off for a while, but by 11am, I was hungry again. To make up for not having that carb last night, I decided to make some pasta... really quick. Mentaiko pasta is definitely easy and quick to make. Now days, you can easily get the instant kind where you just boil the pasta and add the instant mixture, but the thought of fish egg sitting on store shelves for months kind of scare me. Plus, this is cheap and tastes better!

IN JAPANESE: Mentaiko Pasta
CATEGORY: Noodle/Rice
COOKING METHOD: Boiled
DIFFICULTY: Easy
SERVES: 1 person
LENGTH OF TIME: 10 min

INGREDIENTS:
1 sack of mentaiko (also called Salted Pollock Roe. See TIP: Where to get mentaiko)
1 serving of long spaghetti (2 oz or so)
1 TBsp mayonnaise
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sake
some butter
Pinch or two of shredded dried seaweed [nori] (optional)

HOW TO:
Boil enough pasta for yourself for however long the instruction on the package says (usually 6-10 min).

While that's boiling, put mentaiko in a mixing bowl, and using back of a spoon, take the eggs out of the sack (it's ok if some sack gets mixed in), and throw away the sack. Add soy sauce, sake and mayo and stir until creamy.

When the pasta finishes boiling, scoop it into the mixing bowl, and add some butter on top so it can melt easier. Then stir until pasta is covered in the sauce. And that's it! Sprinkle some dried nori on top if you like. If you have fresh lemon, I hear that's also good to splash on top, but I've never tried that before.