One more exotic recipe: but when you have all these funny named ingredients at home the dish quits from the category of the strange. Pak Choi is a type of Asian greens similar to the chards. It is usually either steamed or lightly stir-fried.
Salmon is usually roasted with herbs, today we change our dressing: oriental style. Miso gives the fish slightly sweet taste but soy sauce balances it with the saltiness, the use of ginger adds some freshness and along with sesame oil - unmistakable flavour.
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2
300-400g salmon
1 teaspoon miso paste
1 teaspoon mirin
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
3 teaspoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons grated ginger root
400-500g pak choi
1-2 garlic cloves
2 tbs vegetable oil
sesame seeds
1. Wash the salmon fillet and remove the bones with tweezers. If it still has it's skin then cut it off.
2. Mix miso paste with mirin, soy sauce and 1 spoon of grated ginger.
3. Pour some oil in a roasting pan.
4. Put the salmon into the pan and spread the miso mix over.
Note: I didn't mix grated ginger in the paste, so I just grated it over the salmon fillet.
5. Let the salmon marinate with miso.
6. After about 15-20 minutes cook salmon in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes at 220C.
7. Meanwhile, wash the Pak choi and cut it in halves if it's too thick.
8. Pour some vegetable oil in a frying pan and add squeezed garlic and 1tbs of grated ginger. Heat it for a couple of minutes at medium heat.
9. Add pak choi to the pan and cook under a lid for 5 minutes at medium heat.
10. Serve salmon cut into servings and pak choi with some sesame seed sprinkled over.
ENJOY !!!
I made my brother's favourite soup today: Miso Soup... I even made the stock from scratch, as finally I gathered all the necessary ingredients!
The ingredients of this soup are quite unusual for the westerners, but as one of my Japanese friends asked me once: how can you cook any Japanese food without dashi stock?
Dashi is used to prepare almost everything in Japanese cuisine, and surely not even one Japanese soup can lack this stock.
It is prepared with the Kombu kelp and the Katsuobushi, a particular dried thin tuna flakes.
Then Wakame seaweed comes: it looks like dry thin twisted stripes that expand 10 times bigger as soon as you put them in water.
All these ingredients can be found in specialized oriental groceries. They are quite pricy here in Europe but don't worry, they will last long...
INGREDIENTS:
Servings: 2-3
For Dashi:
5x10cm kombu kelp
2tbs katsuobushi (bonito flakes)
3 glasses of water
For the soup:
1.5tbs white miso paste
50g tofu
1.5 tbs wakame seaweed
green onions
1. To prepare dashi stock, soak kombu in cold water for 15minutes.
2. Bring water with kombu to boiling over the low heat.
3. When the water just starts boiling add bonito flakes and simmer for 2-3 minutes over low heat.
4. Drain through a thin stainer and your dashi is ready.
Note: You may keep dashi refrigerated for 2-3 days.
5. Put wakame seaweeds into hot dashi and it will immediately expand and will gain it's wonderful dark green colour back.
6. Cut the tofu skin off and cut the cheese into 1cm cubes and add it to dashi.
7. Bring dashi with wakame and tofu to boiling and simmer for a couple of minutes.
8. Switch off the heat and melt tofu paste in the hot soup.
Note: Don't boil the soup with miso.
9. Chop the green onions finely and add them to the soup.
Serve in small bowls.
ITADAKIMASU!!!!
