All posts by Small Tokyo Kitchen

A Japanese Tokyoite loving food, design, culture and writing

dinner with friends – chicken marbella, la salade ala maman, la tarte au citron

23/11/2011

on last saturday, we had a dinner party with 4 friends + 1 baby.

our friends’ baby girl is 11-month old, and just started walking recently, quite firmly most of the time, but clumsily from time to time. it looked as if her cute little bum covered in nappies was working as a weight so that she would not hit her head first. it was the first time for us to host a 11-month old, and we realised how dangerous our apartment could be for small babies. there are sharp corners everywhere, such as our display shelves with lots of small objects with hard surfaces, movable tv board with untreated edges, small yet tall sculpture on a heavy concrete block… while covering all the sharp corners with plastic tape (a strict order from myself), my husband agreed that going forward he would take baby friendly architecture into consideration in his future designs.

anyway back to the party. the menu of the day was as follows:

appetizer: la salade ala maman
salad: romain lettuce, endive, carrot, walnuts with balsamic dressing
main course: chicken marbella with jasmine rice
dessert: tarte au citron + yummy cakes (contribution from our friends)

and today, i would like to share the recipe for “la salade ala maman.” (you can follow the link below for the chicken marbella & la tarte au citron)

this recipe is inspired by the tomato salad which my best friend’s mother once cooked for me. my best friend is french, and whenever i went visit her & her family in paris, her mother always greeted me with her superb cooking. unfortunately she passed away 2 years ago and i never had a chance to ask her the exact recipe. after a number of trials and errors, however, i finally made it very close to hers, and i proudly admit that our guests tonight were very, very happy with it.

la salade ala maman

ingredients (serves 6):

6 large tomatos, peeled, then sliced (1cm thick)
1/2 shallot, chopped
1/2 tea spoon of salt (about 3g or so i think)
1 table spoon of red wine vinegar
3 table spoons of salad oil
a sprinkle of sugar

directions:

1) place the tomato slices on a large plate
2) in a small bowl, mix all the ingredients except for the tomatoes and mix well
3) pour the dressing over the tomato slices, and let it rest for half an hour before serving

if anyone is interested in the recipe for chicken marbella, you can refer to my earlier posting (which i totally forgot about). this time, i used white wine vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, and mixture of brown & red sugar. not too much difference in the taste, but the density of the sauce came out thicker this time, i believe due to the brown sugar.

the recipe for the tarte au citron can be found on the japanese website called “cookpad.” the one i used is this one (thank you very much shok for sharing your recipe!). i may have mentioned it before that cookpad has a wide range of very useful & easy recipes, so i highly recommend it if you can read japanese.


i know it’s not perfect, but when i took it out from the oven, it looked so good and impressive that i could not help but smile 🙂 it is a great dessert for a home party – it is not that hard to make as long as you have enough time, and i am sure that you can make your guests smile as well.

gai pad gra pow (chicken basil rice) a la japonaise

02/11/2011

this is my first recipe for an asian dish (here i mean non-japanese/chinese dishes). it is called “gai pad gra pow (grapow for short),” which is a dish with stir-fried minced chicken with basil leaves, served with freshly cooked rice. i believe the dish is from thailand, as i always come across it in various thai restaurants.

my mother never cooked asian dishes at home, hence no asian recipes have been passed on to me. i always avoided making any of them so that I wouldn’t fail, and quite frankly, i had no idea how to make them.

but when i was grocery shopping the other day, i remembered that i had some leftover basil leaves in my fridge that i badly wanted to avoid wasting. as i had cooked an italian dish with the basil leaves a few days before, i decided to break the ice and try to make my first asian dish.

with my instinct to replicate the memory of its taste and with just one special ingredient, i made a miracle. the magical ingredient is called “nam pla,” which is thai fish sauce. you can buy it at any asian food store. i usually buy a small bottle (100ml or so), as i don’t use it so often obviously, and i like to use it fresh as much as possible.

here is my recipe of the grapow rice, with a hint of japanese essence.

gai pad gra pow

ingredients (for 2 servings):

3 table spoons of salad oil
15cm leek onion (chopped)
a glove of garlic (chopped)
a small chili pepper (chopped)
a small piece of ginger, same size as the garlic (chopped)
200g chicken mince
1 table spoon of japanese sake (or white wine)
20 basil leaves (leave 2 – 4 leaves as they are, and roughly chop the rest)
1 table spoon of soy sauce
1 table spoon of oyster sauce (optional, you can substitute it with soy sauce if you don’t have it)
1 table spoon of brown sugar
sprinkle of nampla sauce (about 1/2 to 1 tea spoonful, as your preference)
salt & pepper to taste

(on the side)
2 eggs, sunny side (try to make the egg york half cooked)
1 cup of rice (i like to use indian basemati rice with this dish), freshly boiled

direction:

1. first, put the oil in a frying pan (small size would do), and stir-fry the first 5 ingredients for a minute or so in low heat

2. add the chicken mince, put the heat to medium, and stir-fry further until the colour of the chicken changes from pink to golden

3. add the white sake/wine and quickly stir

4. add the chopped basil leaves and stir-fry quickly

5. lower the heat, and add the soy sauce and the oyster sauce from the rim of the pan, and mix it gently

6. sprinkle the sugar, and taste – if it is too salty, add a bit more sugar

7. sprinkle the nampla sauce, and taste – be careful, the sauce is quite “fishy,” so if you prefer making it mild, just stop there. if you like more exotic and strong taste of asia, add more by all means

8. at the end, you can add salt & pepper to adjust the taste

9. serve it with freshly cooked rice and a sunny side on top (the sweetness of the egg york suits the spicy/salty grapow extremely well!). put the fresh basil leaves on the side as well!

poem – she misses you

22/10/2011

“i’d tell you how much i’ve loved you
if only you could wake up again

farewell came so bluntly
and you went swiftly to your eternal sleep

i feel your presence all over the place
though you have flown away from my heart

dumstruck with the sense of weight
you have left in my mind

if you could wake up again
i would embrace
every moment
of our lives”

————————
18/oct/2011

poem – the map of our life (lieve papa en mama)

11/10/2011

you are the map of our life
thank you for always being there
whenever we need you

you are the map of our life
thank you for showing
different paths we can take

you are the map of our life
thank you for guiding us
when we get lost in the dark

you are the map of our life
thank you for letting us
choose our own way to proceed

our journey will continue
and you will always be in our heart
because you are
the map of our life

food for thought – my father’s birthday lunch at a unagi (freshwater eel) restaurant

19/09/2011

yesterday, my husband and i took my parents to a unagi, freshwater eel, restaurant for my father’s 65th birthday. it was a humble request from my dad to go to a unagi place, because unagi can be a bit expensive for an ordinary middle class family. my dad loves una-ju (うな重）, which is filets of char-grilled unagi marinated in special soy sauce-based sauce, placed on top of freshly cooked japanese rice, served in a beautiful lacquered-ware box. the combination of the charcoal aroma on the crispy surface of unagi filets, their texture being so soft inside, the thick, almost pasty savoury sweet sauce on top of fresh shining white rice gives an amazing joy to all of your five senses.

while indulging ourselves to the luxurious unagi meal, our conversation drifted back to our childhood.

when i was growing up, we used to frequently eat una-ju at home, which were delivered from a neighbourhood unagi restaurant. my father used to own a small pharmaceutical business back then, which was quite lucrative at that time and hence we never had to worry about money. whenever we felt like it, we simply made a phone call and the una-ju boxes were delivered at our front door in half an hour. my father, a unagi lover already back then and super busy business man, stuffed only the filets of unagi in his mouth, leaving like a wind, handing over the juicy, sauce-soaked rice to my baby sister (who happened to love the rice bit, rather than the filet bit). una-ju was part of the list of our regular menu, and i shamefully admit that i had never specifically appreciated how lucky we were at that time.

things drastically changed after the japanese bubble economy burst in the early 90’s, and my father had to fold his business completely. we literally lost everything – our home, our lifestyle, many friends, contacts with some relatives – left our suburban hometown and started all over our new life from scratch in a mega urban city.

my sister and i have moved on, finished our education with a help of some money my parents managed to secure for us, our dear aunties and some scholarship, found our own jobs and started our own family. my parents, ever since we left our hometown, have been leading a quiet and very modest life. my parents are still not retiring, at the age of 65 for my dad, and 60 for my mom, as they do not have much savings to support themselves, and their pension is still very minimal.

however, as we ate unagi yesterday, they looked so much fulfilled in life, especially compared to how they used to be 20 years go. my dad appreciated every bite of his unagi plate, not like how he used to swallow it in a rush, leaving the rest of us at the dining table to attend to some business matter elsewhere. they may not be as affluent as they used to be, but i could see that the contentment was in abundance.

the unagi yesterday pulled out our past memories, brought us smiles, and made us happy. the sad incidents have now become a memory, and now we can move on.

happy 65th birthday, papa.

mom’s goma-dare somen noodles & shabu shabu salad (ゴマだれ素麺と冷しゃぶサラダ）

18/08/2011

hah…. so hot in tokyo… i wonder what happened to the climate in this city. it just seems outrageous, with super strong sunlight and unbearable heat. walking only 5 minutes outside makes you feel dizzy, and makes it feel as if the sun just stabbed all over your exposed skin. i can’t remember any other summer being as hot as this year. the heat is absolutely unbelievable and the humidity swells up the entire body. tokyo seems to have turned into a tropical island without any oasis.

spending a day like this, it is quite natural that you crave for refreshing cold dishes, which is light and easy to digest. but on the other hand, you need to get sufficient nutrition to fight this evil weather. in order to fulfill these two requirements, i made the following dishes for our dinner the other day:

as the main course, i made “somen (素麺)” noodles, ultra fine noodles, to be eaten with “goma-dare (ゴマだれ),” sesame sauce. the sesame sauce shown here is my mom’s recipe, which i am very happy to share.

the side dish is shabu shabu salad, which is boiled pork slices (served cold) with steamed vegetables (cabbage, carrots and bean sprouts). actually, you can use many other types of vegetables for this, such as japanese radish, iceberg lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, etc.. its name “shabu shabu” is coming from one of the japanese onomatopoeia – you pick a thin slice of meat (usually beef) with your chopsticks, stick the meat in boiled water in a big pot in front of you. gently move your chopsticks twice or so, and the meat is ready – this movement itself, apparently, sounds like “shabu shabu.”

enjoy the dishes with an ice cold beer, and you will be fueled up for yet another summer day!

goma dare sauce a ala mom

ingredients:

4 table spoons of sesame seeds, ground
400ml of bonito fish broth
1 table spoon of brown sugar
5 table spoons of miso paste
1 cucumber, cut into julienne strips
5 shiso leaves, also cut into julienne strips

1. make the broth first – in a small cooking pan, pour the water and bring it to boil
2. before putting in dried bonito flakes (a small fistful), pour in a spoonful of water in the boiled water
3. put the bonito flakes, and boil it for 1 minute or so
4. take out the bonito flakes using a ladle with holes, and turn off the heat
5. let it cool down
6. in a large bowl, pour the ground sesame seeds and the broth
7. mix in the miso paste, one spoon at a time and melt it thoroughly each time (i use a ladle and chopsticks to do so)
8. pour in the sugar, and adjust the taste as you like it (put more miso paste / sugar if you like)
9. mix the cucumber and shiso leaves
10. cook the somen noodles (in a pasta pan with boiling water, cook it for 3 minutes or so, and when it’s done, drain the water, and rinse it with cold running water, drain it again, and serve it in ice water)

—> this is the somen noodles i always use, called “ibono ito”

you eat it like this (sorry for the hairy arm!):

shabu shabu salad

ingredients:

200g thin pork slices (if possible, ask your butcher to slice it as thin as prosciutto/ham)
1/8 cabbage (cut into 3 – 4cm wide)
1/4 carrot (sliced)
1 pack of bean sprouts
(you can use any other vegetables leftover in the fridge!)

for dressing,
1 spoon of rice vinegar (if not available, use white wine vinegar)
1 spoon of say sauce
1+ spoon of salad oil
a sprinkle of green spring onion, chopped
a sprinkle of brown sugar

directions:

1. in a medium sized pan, bring water to boil
2. boil the bean sprouts first, for 3 minutes or so until they are soft but crunchy
3. take out the sprouts using a ladle with holes, rinse it with cold running water, and then drain
4. in the same pan, boil pork slices until their colour turns brownish
5. take out the pork using a ladle with holes and put them in cold water (in a bowl), and drain the water once the pork is cold
6. on the side, steam the cabbage and carrots, and let them cool down when it is done
7. for presentation, lay the cabbage and carrots on a large plate, and on top of the layer, make a mountain of bean sprouts, and lay the pork over the mountain
8. make the dressing – mix in all the ingredients – adjust the amount of sugar as you like
9. pour the dressing over the shabu shabu salad before serving

it will hopefully look like this:

bunét (chocolate almond pudding)

16/08/2011

bunét – it is a typical italian dessert from a region called piemonte, a northern part of italy bordering france. it is almond flavoured chocolate pudding, using italian biscuits called “amaretti.”

this delicious dolce italiano was first introduced to me by my friend who lives in a small village close to a town called asti in piemonte. she is japanese and married to a local wine producer. i got to know her through the same graduate school in milan we both attended back in 2004. i remember very well the first time i visited their place during our school year – they live in this huge house facing their vast vineyard, continued on and on to the hills as long as our sight could see. not to mention it was one of the most beautiful sceneries that i had ever seen, and at the same time, i remember having a hint of envy in my little heart, feeling a bit lonely that i did not have anyone to share the moment together.

anyway back to bunét – married to an italian, my friend brushed up her cooking skill quite significantly, learning from her mother-in-law and her neighbours, trying very hard to please her newly-wed husband. everyday she cooks 3 course meals for lunch & dinner, following the strict culinary tradition of italian living. when i visited her as well, she prepared 3 course lunch for me, started with pasta bolognese as primo piatto, grilled pork slices with mozzarella cheese as secondo, and finished by the dolce in question, bunét.

as mentioned earlier, it is a chocolate pudding made with amaretti biscuits. the taste of almond gave it another layer of flavour to the ordinary taste of chocolate pudding, which stimulated my taste bud and left a positive, somehow nostalgic feeling in my stomach. when i ate bunét at my friend’s place, i liked it so much that i asked for its recipe, but she told me that it was so easy that she would be embarrassed to give it to me – dah – so i heartily looked for the perfect recipe on the Internet, and came across a few. here is the recipe that i followed, with a little twist that i incorporated.

bunét

ingredients:

for caramel:

120g sugar
4 1/2 table spoons of water (cold)
4 table spoons of water (boiled)

for pudding:

1/2 liter of whole milk
a little bit of vanilla extract
2 table spoons of espresso
2 table spoons of amaletto liqueur (or rhum)
4 eggs
90g sugar
40g cocoa powder (unsweetened)
100g amaretti biscuits (crushed pieces)

directions:

1. make caramel – pour the sugar & the cold water into the pan, and boil it on the medium heat
2. when the colour of the caramel mix turns golden, put the boiled water in (be very careful when you do this, as the caramel splashes due to the high heat)
3. pour into a cake pan (a small oven dish will do), glaze the caramel to all the surfaces of the pan

4. preheat the oven to 160 degree C

5. for pudding – in a large bowl, mix in the eggs, sugar, cocoa and amaletti biscuits
6. in a medium sized pan, pour the milk and the vanilla bean stick, bring it to boil
7. turn off the heat, add the espresso and amaretto, and let it cool down
8. once the milk is cooled down a bit, gently and slowly pout it into the cake pan
9. bake it in the water bath (that’s what it said in italian) for about 45 minutes
10. once it is baked, let it cool down in the water bath (that is also what is said in italian) before putting it in the fridge
11. let it sit in the fridge for at least 12 hours before serving

* after 12 hours or so, you can take the pudding out from the cake pan and place it on a large plate


this may have been too much for just 2 people 🙂

poem – untitled

04/08/2011

an evil in me
　　　awaken by a sudden touch
　　　unexpected and uninvited
　　　something has shaken
an evil in me
　　　with a rage unable to resist
　　　unpredictable and inescapable
　　　something has flamed
an evil in me
　　　with a pain so hard to heal
　　　underestimated and overlooked
　　　words, gesture, silence
　　　absolutely nothing can tame
an evil in me

taking a stroll in yukata 浴衣で散歩

26/07/2011

it’s been almost 4 months since i started taking kimono lessons. lately, due to an unbearable summer heat in tokyo, my teacher & i came to an agreement that we use a “yukata (浴衣),” a casual kimono-like garment made with cotton, for my practice. those who have been to some japanese “onsen (温泉), hot spring, must know what a yukata is. originally, it is something you put on after taking a bath, in the evening, so is meant to be very casual. nowadays, yukata is very popular and worn frequently for summer festivals and fireworks.

yesterday, i had a weekly kimono (well yukata for now) class in the afternoon, and came home in my yukata i had put on during today’s lesson. as part of the exercise, my teacher encouraged me to go out in yukata to gain my confidence. she even gave me some tips how to walk in such way to make me look as a typical, somewhat ideal japanese woman (“put some weight on your big toes!). so after the lesson, i took my husband along to an annual summer festival at our neighbourhood temple.

at the festival, there were a few food stalls selling “yakisoba (焼きそば),” stir-fried noodles, “kakigori (かき氷),” shaved ice with colourful syrup, “ramune (ラムネ),” sweet lemony soda in a greenish transparent glass bottle, etc… In the middle of the temple, there was a stage where a few people were playing Japanese traditional music with taiko drums for everyone to dance “bonodori (盆踊り),” bon festival dance. it is not a difficult dance – pretty much self-explanatory once you see it – and you can dance in your yukata too. it’s a repetition of several body movements, and you go around the stage in circles, again, and again, and again.


a scene from the festival

to my surprise, it was extremely crowded at the temple. kids were running around, people dancing, eating and drinking, boys and girls fishing for their potential dates… many people dressed in their traditional costume, myself included, and i strongly felt unaltered elements of traditions, through its music, noise, smell, crowd, lights, steamy air, heat…. in the heart of this modern, cosmopolitan city, i thought as if we had time-travelled to a different era.

in yukata, i felt good. wearing it gave me an amazing emotional comfort, and to make my teacher very proud, more self-esteem for who i am. i’d love to keep trying to preserve this. to the next generations, for years and years to come.

food for thought – relativity of beef stroganoff and raspberry muffins (recipes at the bottom)

21/07/2011

for humans, blood relationship can be stronger than any other relationships you can have. even if you look totally different or act entirely opposite, you are connected, deep down with your roots, with an unavoidable biological fact – you share the same blood.

my dear little sister and i can be the perfect example of this theory. we have the same parents and background and grew up together. however we don’t really share anything in common when it comes to our personalities – our interests, our behaviours, our thoughts, our values, our expertise, our ideologies and what have you… my sister has never been abroad, whereas i have been all over. she is a loving mother of 2 children, 8 and 6 year olds, has rarely exposed herself to the competitive world of capitalism. i, on the other hand, was quite focused on my professional career, and had never really thought of starting a family until i got married recently.

i am wondering if this theory can apply to food as well. as one of many examples, i would like to propose a bond between beef stroganoff and raspberry muffins.

who would ever think that they share something in common? in reality, they actually do share 4 ingredients, namely:

– sour cream
– butter
– sugar
– flour

last night i cooked beef stroganoff for dinner, which required sour cream as kind of like its taste enhancer, and was left with quite a portion of sour cream unused. after the dinner, i looked up some recipe ideas ferociously on the internet, and decided to bake raspberry muffins so that i wouldn’t have to waste the sour cream. not to mention this experiment resulted in a big success, fulfilling the sense of pride in myself (that i did not waste anything) and the appetite of my husband with a sweet tooth.

as odd as it may sound, in my mind the beef stroganoff and the raspberry muffins from last night are blood related brother and sister, who turned out to be very different in their appearances and tastes, but make me happy nonetheless. to some degree, to be a parent must be quite similar – you love your children no matter what, no matter how different you are or how different you look. i know my parents love my sister and i equally, however different we are. after all, we are their creations, who are inevitably connected with their combined histories.

beef stroganoff 2011
(in january, i posted a recipe of my easy beefstroganoff. this time the taste came out better than before, so i am re-posting a upgraded recipe)

ingredients:

350g beef slices (the leaner, the better) – seasoned with salt & pepper, then with 2+ table spoons of flour
1 table spoon of unsalted butter for beef
3/4 onion – chopped
1 table spoon of unsalted butter for onion
6 fresh shiitake mushrooms – 3 of them chopped, 3 of them sliced
3 cups of water
1/2 cup of white wine
1 beef bouillon block
3/4 cup of milk
a half lemon squeeze
1 table spoon of sour cream
salt & pepper to taste
a sprinkle of brown sugar

1. in a frying pan, melt the butter and stir-fry the beef slices until brown
2. pour the beef into a cooking pot, along with the water & white wine and the bouillon and put on a medium heat
3. once the water starts boiling, lower the heat, put the lid on and simmer for 40 minutes or so, removing any scum on the surface
4. while waiting for the beef to be nicely cooked in the pot, in the same frying pan which the beef was fried, melt the butter and put the chopped onion. cook until the onions became opaque
5. add the shiitake mushroom in the frying pan and stir-fry further
6. pour over the onion & shiitake into the pot
7. add salt & pepper to taste, and cook for another 10 minutes or so until the liquid become thicker in texture.
8. add the milk and the lemon juice, cook for another 5 minutes or so
9. sprinkle the sugar over the sauce and mix
10. mix in the sour cream and stir before serving
11. serve it with brown rice

raspberry muffins

dry ingredients:

2 cups of flour
1 tea spoon of baking powder
1/2 tea spoon of baking soda
a pinch of salt
1/4 tea spoon of cinnamon

wet ingredients:

100g of unsalted butter
1/2 cup of brown sugar
2 eggs (large)
150ml of sour cream
sprinkle of vanilla extract

1+ cup of frozen raspberries

directions:

1. sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl
2. make a hall in the centre
3. in another bowl, mix the butter until creamy and add the sugar and mix well
4. add an egg, and mix well, and then add another egg, and mix well again
5. add the sour cream and vanilla extra, and mix well
6. pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and quickly mix all the ingredients with a wooden stick
7. add the raspberries and mix quickly
8. fill the mixed ingredients into 12 muffin tins (lay paper cups beforehand)
9. bake in 180C oven for 20 minutes or so.
10. rest for 5 minutes, and remove the muffins from the tins on the rack to cool down
11. (optional) sprinkle the powder sugar on top