Shrimp risotto

I am an Asian woman, who grew up in Japan for years and was raised by Japanese parents.

In Asia, the main meal is rice.  We eat rice all the time, and I was raised by eating rice everyday.   I can eat rice three times a day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I still don’t get tired of it.

Particularly, I eat a specific type of rice, Koshihikari. This is one of the most popular varieties of rice in Japan and is grown in my hometown.

Luckily, I can get this rice at an Asian market for a reasonable price in the US, and this is the only rice that I buy.

However, the other day I decided to buy different kind of rice, Arborio.  This is an Italian short-grain rice and used in risotto.

Risotto is my favorite Italian food, and I always order it whenever I see it on a menu at a restaurant.

I always thought making risotto was hard until I first time made Pumpkin risotto for Halloween.

Making risotto requires a really simple step, keep adding liquid to rice and cook until rice gets soft and puffy.

Shrimp and Spinach Risotto

Serves 2

200 g Arborio rice

1 onion (minced)

3 tbsp butter

100 ml dry white wine (Sauvignon Blanc)

600 ml fresh seafood stock

170 - 200 g of the smallest pink shrimp

200 g spinach

2 tbsp finely chopped parsley

½ cup Parmesan cheese

Salt

1. Heat the fresh seafood stock until warm, but not boil.

2. In separate pot (thick-bottomed), heat butter over medium heat, and sauté the minced onions for 2-3 minutes, until just translucent.

3. Add the rice to the pot. Stir-fry the rice for 2-3 minutes, until all the grains are well coated in butter and are beginning to toast.

4. Increase the heat to high and add the white wine. With a wooden spoon, stir the rice vigorously. Once the wine boils, turn the heat down until the wine is just simmering gently. Stir almost constantly. You are doing this to agitate the rice, which releases its starch and creates the creamy sauce you want in a risotto.

5. When the wine is almost cooked away, pour in two ladles of the hot clam broth. Stir well to combine, and add a healthy pinch of salt.

6. Stirring constantly and let this liquid reduce until it is almost gone. Then add another ladle of broth. Continue this until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Taste the spoon and see if the risotto needs salt. If so, add a small pinch.

7. If risotto is almost there – firm in the center but translucent on the outside, and fully surrounded with a creamy sauce – add one more cup of broth, stir well, and taste one more time for salt. (If not, you have old rice and you’ll need to go one more cup and let it cook away.).

8. Add in the shrimp and the parsley. Stir constantly until this last cup of broth is about half gone: remember you want this risotto to be loose and creamy.

9. Add in the Parmesan cheese and serve at once.

I sprinkle Zatarain’s Creole Seasoning on the top before serving.  This gives a bit different flavor to the risotto and spices it up.

Kalbi

Kalbi is the most popular Korean dish in Japan.  It is marinated beef short ribs with Korean soy sauce.

This fatty-marble short rib is hard to find at the grocery stores around here, but I can find it at the Asian market.  Whenever I go there, I have to get this meat and pounds of pork belly meat.

Kalbi is Matto’s favorite dish in Korean cuisine, so I often make it at home.  In Japan, we pronounce it Kalbi, but in Korea it is pronounced Galbi.

Kalbi (for 4)

Beef short rib 2.5 lb

Cooking rice wine (Sake) 1.6 fl oz

Sugar 1.3 oz

Garlic cloves (chopped) 2 tablespoon

Ginger (chopped) 0.6 oz

2 Green onions (chopped)

Sesame oil 1 teaspoon

Sesame 2 tablespoon (optional)

1. Add all ingredients in a Ziploc bag and keep refrigerated over night  (original recipe says 10-20 min, but it is always better to marinate overnight

2. Put a small amount of oil in a cooking pan, and cook the meat

It tastes so good and smells great while cooking.  Your neighbors may get jealous by smelling this Kalbi.  This sauce also goes great with chicken, pork, other types of beef, and even seafood.

Sukiyaki

We like to have home parties, so we had some of our friends over for a Sukiyaki party this weekend.

Usually we don’t get to see our friends often, and home parties are a great excuse to invite a lot of our friends over :)

Sukiyaki is a traditional Japanese dish which is preferably eaten in winter.

This is one of my favorite Japanese foods and I request my mother to cook it whenever I go home.

Sukiyaki consists of thinly sliced beef, tofu, hakusai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cabbage), shungiku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garland_chrysanthemum), Shirataki noodles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirataki_noodles), enoki mushurooms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enokitake), shitake mushrooms, baby Vidalia onions (http://www.sweetonionexpress.com/sweet_onion_catalog/baby-vidalia-onions.htm), and onions that we slowly cook in a shallow pot with a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and sake. 

Ingredients before cooking

Sukiyaki

List of ingredients:

Enoki mushroom

http://www.foodsubs.com/Mushroom.html

Hakusai

http://vegetable.alic.go.jp/panfu/hakusai/hakusai.htm

Shirataki noodle

http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/05/hot-and-sour-shirataki-noodles-with.html

Shungiku

http://www.tasteofjapan.ru/eng/products/vegetables/sungiku.php

Baby Vidalia onion

http://shesinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2008/04/baby-vidalia-onion-spring-tonic-soup.html

Before eating, we dip the cooked ingredients into a small bowl of raw beaten eggs.

You may think it is unpleasant to eat something cooked with raw eggs, but the raw egg enhances the flavor of Sukiyaki!

Japanese people don’t eat raw eggs very often.

However, for Sukiyaki and hot sticky rice, a fresh raw egg is a must item!!!!!

(Picture below is another way of eating raw eggs with sticky rice, called “Tamago kake Gohan”.  Add a raw egg on top of a small bowl of hot rice. Add one table spoon of soy sauce and mix them well. Ready to eat! Mmmmmmmm, Yum!!!!)

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=tamago+kake+gohan+safe&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1130&bih=576&tbm=isch&tbnid=1v0eQwON2b0TjM:&imgrefurl=http://kyotofoodie.com/takaraya-ramen/&docid=5Ilib3bGLdvc-M&imgurl=http://kyotofoodie.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/takaraya_ramen_tamagokakegoha.jpg&w=480&h=360&ei=FL8JT_OgPMyEtgeD6NjECA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=93&vpy=143&dur=2282&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=110&ty=85&sig=108104386756542168325&page=1&tbnh=122&tbnw=164&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

Japan is a small country, but it has a long history and many traditions.

Each region has a preferred way of cooking for different foods.

There are two different ways to cook Sukiyaki, the eastern Kanto region style and the western Kansai region style.

For the Kanto style, place the ingredients in a shallow pan, add broth (a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, mirin, and water) and then cook them.

For the Kansai style, first stir-fry beef in a pan. Instead of using oil to stir-fry, fat from the beef is preferable.  Once the beef is slightly cooked, place the beef at the side of the pan and add the other ingredients.  Next add soy sauce, sugar, and sake in  a 1 : 1: 1 ratio directly into the ingredients.  Place the lid on a pan and let it cook until the vegetables get soft.  While cooking, the water gets extracted from the vegetables and makes a broth in the pan.

As you can see, the Kansai style has stronger flavor than the Kanto style since no additional water is added.

My family cooks Sukiyaki with the Kansai style, and I always thought that was how Sukiyaki was supposed to be cooked.

I didn’t know there was another way of cooking Sukiyaki until my friend from Tokyo cooked Sukiyaki by adding a broth (Kanto style)

This was the first time that I cooked Sukiyaki by myself.

Seasoning Sukiyaki in my family was always my father’s job.  He doesn’t know how to cook, but he cooks the best Sukiyaki :)

I was nervous in the beginning, wondering if I could cook it correctly.

But I think it turned out good, especially for the first time.

The only thing that I would want to change next time is the quality of the meat.

Sukiyaki is a luxury food in Japan because people use expensive, pink-marble, fatty beef.

Marble-beef doesn’t get tough after boiling, and it stays soft and juicy.

I couldn’t find any marble-beef around here because American people don’t like fatty meat in general.

So I substituted with a little pricy steak meat, but it still wasn’t a great quality for Sukiyaki either :)

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=すき焼き牛&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1130&bih=576&tbm=isch&tbnid=LC4mA3d9E59vzM:&imgrefurl=http://item.rakuten.co.jp/moriya-kobe/c/0000000157/&docid=TlJQXnINfTcQNM&imgurl=http://thumbnail.image.rakuten.co.jp/%25400_mall/moriya-kobe/cabinet/s_img/kobebeef/shabu3/img_kobe_shabu3.jpg%253F_ex%253D300x300%2526s%253D0%2526r%253D1&w=300&h=300&ei=Hs0JT7rbJY-htweJlsnQBg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=556&vpy=199&dur=384&hovh=178&hovw=171&tx=134&ty=99&sig=108104386756542168325&page=3&tbnh=169&tbnw=161&start=29&ndsp=9&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:29

Overall, I had fun with my friends, and they went home with a full stomach. That’s all that matters.

http://s-twins.com/blog/2011/12/post_710.html

P.S. This is Coco after the party. She was so tired from hosting guests :)

Zucchini, Zucchini, Zucchini........

I always buy the same vegetables....., like broccoli, asparagus, tomatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage etc....
It is just because I don't really know how to cook the other veggies :(

Japan is an archipelago, and we have a limited amount of supplies.  So our country has to rely on a lot of imported vegetables.
Growing up in Japan, I haven't had opportunities to eat some of the vegetables or fruits that I see in the U.S. such as zucchini, squash, mango, guava, and brussel sprouts.
They are just some examples of vegetables that I see here, but I never had a chance to eat them in Japan.
Of course, we can purchase some of the stuff, but they are really expensive.

I was tired of eating the same vegetables over and over, and my hubby, Matto, was also tired of the vegetables.
So I bought zucchini to try something new!!!

Do I know how to cook zucchini?
Of course, not :(


Here comes my new best friend, TasteSpotting (www.tastespotting.com).
I am addicted to this website.  I frequently try to cook some of the recipes from this website, and most of the dishes that I have tried are pretty good!



My zucchini transformed into.........

Zucchini Fritters

http://thehealthyfoodie.net/2011/12/08/zucchini-fritters/

INGREDIENTS
(Makes 12 fritters)

• 450g Courgettes, grated
• 30g Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese
• Bacon, cut into a bite size
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 4 tbsp Whole Wheat Flour
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Pinch Chili Flakes

Directions

1. Cook bacon in a frying pan, and remove from heat.
2. Squeeze the courgettes in a dish towel to remove excess water, then combine with the Parmesan, eggs, flour, cooked bacon, salt and pepper and chilli flakes.
3. Heat a splash of olive oil in a frying pan and add 2 tablespoons of the mixture for each fritter.
4. Cook three fritters at a time for 2 – 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown, then keep warm while you cook the remaining fritters.

I modified the recipe and added bacon in it.  Bacon gave the recipe more juiciness and added additional flavor to it, and it turned out great :)

Served with butter rice (rice, frozen veggie, butter, and chicken bouillon), red potato & carrot.
They tasted so good, but my picture does not tell a lot :(

How can I be a better photographer????