813 recipes. Page 24 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
King oyster mushrooms are cut lengthwise into thick planks and scored in a crosshatch, which gives them enough heft to stand in for meat over rice. They are seared in a dry pan first to drive off water, then glazed with soy sauce, cooking wine and sugar, and they stay chewy under the sauce.
Rice cake has no place in this New Year zoni from the Iya area of Tokushima; firm rock tofu and taro fill the bowl instead. Two long slabs of tofu are crossed on top of the taro, a shape silken tofu cannot hold, and heavily pressed extra-firm tofu is the fallback. The bowl gets just a small pour of hot broth, leaving the crossed tofu in view.
Grated daikon gives the chilled mentsuyu a mild peppery bite and a cooling edge, with scallion, nori, and wasabi adding sharper notes. Thick udon is chilled all the way through in ice water after rinsing, which firms the starch and brings back its springy chew.
In American Chinese cooking, egg mixed with vegetables is fried into small patties, and a brown gravy made separately is spooned over just before eating. This version has no meat, only mushrooms, bean sprouts, onion and scallion, and it is pan-fried instead of deep-fried, which leaves the edges brown and the middle soft.
Instead of sushi vinegar, the rice gets a generous amount of akumochizake, Kagoshima's ash-treated local sake, and is layered with separately cooked dried daikon, shiitake, butterbur, bamboo shoot, sea bream, shrimp, and fish cakes. Traditional versions use raw cured bream and rest for half a day at room temperature; this home version cooks all the seafood through and rests the covered sushi in the refrigerator for 6 to 8 hours so the aromas meld. Because the sake is never heated, its alcohol stays in the dish, which makes it adults-only and unsuitable for pregnancy, children, or anyone driving afterward.
Flattened into flower-like discs, the soybeans cook faster than whole beans, take seasoning right to the center and release a nutty body into the broth. The method grew from storing winter protein in snowy northern Shiga, and the soup is often served as oko-jiru at Buddhist Hoonko gatherings.
Pork, shrimp, squid, and clams are stir-fried hard with cabbage and bean sprouts, then simmered with thick champon noodles in a chicken-based broth seasoned with oyster sauce and sake. There is no chili; the flavor comes from the seared seafood and the sweetness of the vegetables. Kamaboko fish cake and shiitake round out a bowl that is mostly toppings. Serve as soon as the noodles have soaked up the broth and the cabbage still has some bite.
Cut lengthwise, each piece shows red-tinted egg white and yellow yolk inside a green ring of fish paste, a cross section said to look like a peacock feather, hence the name kujaku. In Kamae, Saiki, Oita, it comes out for New Year and celebrations. Lizardfish, croaker or a similar white fish is ground fine and kneaded with salt, sugar and egg white, wrapped around a boiled egg, and fried.
Brown rice is topped with pan-seared salmon, blanched spinach, shredded carrot and avocado, then dressed with soy sauce, lemon juice and sesame oil. Against the chewy rice, the salmon is cooked only until its center is still faintly translucent and stays moist.
Dongara refers to the head and bony trimmings of the cod. In the Shonai area of Yamagata, spawning cod goes into one pot from flesh to liver to milt or roe, and the liver melts into the miso broth, making it rich and savory. At home it is made from a cod hot-pot set cleaned by a fishmonger, with the gallbladder, gills and intestines already removed.
Thin shabu-shabu beef and onion, glazed in soy sauce, mirin, and sugar, sit on top of thick udon in clear dashi, giving the bowl a sweet, savory topping over a light broth. The beef is cooked in a separate pan rather than in the soup, which keeps its glossy finish and stops the broth from turning murky. It needs only about 2 minutes once the seasoning is added, at the point where half the red has gone, or it toughens. A little dashi is held back at the start to soften the broth if it tastes too salty. Rinsing the boiled noodles with hot water clears off their surface starch so the soup stays clean. Sliced scallions finish the bowl with a fresh edge.
Egokusa seaweed, simmered and stirred until it melts into a thick, spitting paste, sets in a square tray as this jelly from Nishi-Aizu and Kitakata in Fukushima. A little vinegar helps the fibers break down, and the seaweed alone firms it with no added gelatin or agar. Slices go into mustard soy sauce, and the dish traditionally appears at memorials, Obon, New Year, and other gatherings.
Five minutes in soy and sesame oil is all the salmon gets: long enough to turn the surface glossy, short enough that the inside still eats like sashimi. The fish comes out of the marinade as soon as a light soy tint appears, before the soy takes over its flavor.
Buckwheat flour kneaded with crumbled firm tofu is pressed into willow-leaf shapes, pointed at both ends and slightly plump in the middle, which keeps a springy buckwheat bite. This miso soup from northern Iwate takes less work than cutting fine soba noodles yet still tastes clearly of buckwheat. Anyone with a buckwheat allergy should not be served it.
Despite the name, the noodles are thick wheat, not buckwheat, served in a clear bonito broth under pork belly braised sweet and salty in soy, mirin, and sugar. Because the pork carries so much seasoning, the broth gets only a light touch of soy so it stays clean. The cooked noodles get a brief rinse in warm water rather than cold, which removes surface starch without cooling them down, and bonito flakes on top add a smoky aroma.
This fried fish started at stalls in the lanes around the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, and spread across North India as something to eat with beer. The batter is besan, chickpea flour, mixed with rice flour; it clings more thinly than wheat flour and stays crisp longer. Ajwain seeds in the batter bring a smell close to thyme.
Because ordinary short-grain rice, not glutinous rice, goes into this Chiba rice cake, the finished mochi is less sticky than the usual kind and keeps a soft but clearly grained bite. Non-glutinous rice will not pound smooth after one steaming. The second steaming softens its firm core, and the brief cold-water dip in between separates the kernels and tops up their moisture. Leave the rice in that water too long and the cake turns soggy. It comes from the Sosa area.
Square rice cakes go into the clear soy-seasoned broth without grilling and turn smooth outside and soft through the middle. Aichi is known for dark soybean miso, yet this New Year soup uses none, keeping the broth light in color. Mochina, a traditional green from the Owari area, looks like komatsuna but is more tender and slightly sweet. It is added only after the rice cakes soften so it stays bright. A pinch of bonito flakes is the only garnish.
In Gunma homes, wide unsalted noodles go straight into a pot of root vegetables and dashi without being boiled first. The broth comes out slightly cloudy and thick rather than clear, and that is how it should be. Taro, burdock, daikon, shiitake, and fried tofu make it a hearty one-pot meal seasoned with both soy sauce and miso. Noodle thickness and vegetables change from one household to another.
It began in 1940s Singapore, when M.J. Gomez, an immigrant from Kerala, put whole fish heads, which his Chinese customers loved, into a South Indian curry. Okra, eggplant and tomato cook along with the head in coconut milk and tamarind, and collagen from the head gives the gravy a slight stickiness. The first bites go to the cheeks and the soft parts around the eyes, which have soaked up the most curry.
Freshly cooked rice pounded only halfway, rather than all the way into mochi, gives these grilled skewers a toasted outside and an inside with distinct grains. The topping is junen miso: egoma (perilla seed, called junen in Fukushima) toasted, ground until slightly oily, and mixed with sugar, miso, and sake. Pull them from the heat at light char marks, since the sugar in the paste turns bitter once it blackens.
Soaking water from dried shiitake, with no meat or bonito, forms the broth for this Japanese vegetable soup, and potato starch thickens it just enough to coat a spoon. In southern Miyagi it is a Buddhist meatless dish served around the spring and autumn equinoxes, at Obon, and at memorial gatherings. That light body holds taro, burdock, carrot, tofu, and fried tofu in suspension, letting each spoonful bring up both broth and filling. The umen noodles are boiled in a separate pot, since cooking them in the soup would release enough starch to cloud and weigh it down. Shiraishi umen, shirataki, and small wheat gluten puffs (mame-fu) make it something between a soup and a noodle dish, and a scattering of mitsuba adds a fresh herbal note at the end.
Ray carries so much collagen in its skin and cartilage that the broth it simmers in, sweet and salty with ginger, sake, mirin and soy, sets like jelly once it cools, with no gelatin needed. In Katsuragi, Nara, ray has long been chilled in its broth this way. Nara has no coast, but seafood landed in Osaka came in quickly along the Takenouchi road.
Chicken cooked down with soy sauce, mirin and ginger juice, and sweetened egg scrambled into tiny yellow grains, each take half of the bowl. Left unmixed, they let you change the balance with every spoonful. Both need to end up as fine crumbles, and the chopsticks keep moving in the pan the whole time.