Japan-Norway Society October Cooking Class

The Japan-Norway Society invited me to do a Japanese cookery class last July.  Thanks to those who kindly organised the cookery class and enthusiastic participants, it was a big success.

I´m invited by the J-NS again to teach in October!

Date: Wednesday 26th October 2016 10:00 - 13:00

Menu:

* Mini-steak donburi with barley rice
* Grilled salmon in foil with mashroom
* Miso-shigi -- Japanese ratatouille with miso
* Seasonal fruit and cucumber with sesame creamy sauce

There wil be a surprise dessert, too!
Water, coffee and tea are served.  Recipes are provided.


For more details, please visit the J-NS´s event site.
https://www.facebook.com/events/751816738290821/

There are only 10 places.  Hope many people could come and join!

Stir-fried pork and kimuchi

豚キムチ

Kimuchi -- a traditional Asian (Korean) dish made from fermented Chinese cabbage has become popular in Norway in recent years. 

I saw even the recipes for kimuchi in food magazines and news papers in Norway, as I understood, some people started making own kimuchi at home!

Kimuchi and Korean food are very popular where I come from, too.

We eat Kimuchi as it is but also add to savoury pancakes, dumplings…etc.

I´ve got very good kimuchi from a friend, spicy and just rightly fermented (a bit sour), so I made my favourite dish buta-kimuchi (pork and kimuchi).

Enjoy with freshly cooked rice!

Serves 4

200g kimuchi

200g shredded pork (I bought strumpet svinekjøtt at Meny)

1 sliced small onion

1 tbs/ss sesame oil

1ts soya sauce

Salt & pepper

1 tbs/ss chopped spring onion (optional)

1 Coat the bottom of a frying pan with the sesame oil and sauté the pork.

When it coloured add the onion until it becomes soft.

Add the kimuchi and sauté for few minutes.

Season with the soya sauce, salt and pepper.

Transfer to a plate and sprinkle with the spring onion.  Serve. 

Whale meat `tatsuta-age´ Norweigian style

鯨の竜田揚げ、ノルウェー風

My family and I travelled to Northern Norway last week.

There we had delicious fish and local food.

One of the things I was given by friends to take was whale meat.

Whale meat, believe or not, was occasionally served as school lunch when I was at elementary school.(this was many, many years ago.  I don´t know if it´s served at school now).

One of the popular dishes was deep-fried whale meat with tomato-based sauce.

And somehow it was called `Norwegian-style´.

The whale meat I got in Andøya inspired me to recreate the dish :-)
I served it to my Norwegian family in Oslo.
It was an instant success!

Serves 4 (As a side dish)

150g Whale meat

1 tbs/ss sake

1tbs/ss soya sauce

1/2 ts grated ginger

3 tbs/ss potate flour (or cornstarch)

oil for deep-fry

3&1/2 tbs/ss tomato ketchap

1 ts worcestershire sauce

1ts soya sauce

1 ts sugar

1 Cut the meat into bite-size pieces (I had carpaccio meat so cut into half then made them as balls).

2 Put the meat in a small container and marinate with the sake, soya sauce and ginger.

Rest the meat in refrigerator for 10 minutes.

3 Conbine the ketchup, worcestershire sauce, soya sauce and sugar in a small pot.

Mix well and cook for 1minute then set aside.

3 Preheat the oil for deep-frying.

Cover the marinated meat with the potato flour.

4 Deep-fry the meat until the surface becomes golden.

Drain the fried meat with kitchen paper.

Conbine with the sauce, and serve. 

Savory pancake (okonomi-yaki)

お好み焼き

Have you seen this week´s `Master Chef´?
Wow, I was so impressed with the participants who had to make Japanese dishes that they had never tasted, and probably never seen, before.  Namely they were `dango (mitarashi dango, correctly)
and `okonomi-yaki´.
I make both dishes at home and particularly okonomi-yaki is a regional dish where I come from.
So here is my version of okonomi-yaki recipe.  One needs special ingredients to make the taste right but it´s possible to obtain them in Oslo.

Serves 4

500 g cabbage  

4-5 spring onions

4dl flour (fint malt)

4ss potato starch (potatmel)

2ts dashi powder 

1ts baking powder

2 pinches salt

4 eggs

3-4dl water

Vegetable oil

300g non-smoked thinly sliced bacon (or pork belly)

okonomi-yaki sauce

mayonnaise

bonito flakes / powder (katsuobushi)

green-seaweed flakes (aonori)

1 Chop the cabbage and spring onion and put in a same bowl.

2 Conbine flour, potato starch, dashi powder, baking powder,  salt, and water well in a separate bowl.
Then mix in the chopped cabbage and spring onion (the flour mixture is just covering the vegetables).
And add the eggs well.

3 Heat generous amount of the vegetable oil in a frying pan.
Reduce heat to medium then pour the okonomi-yaki mixture on the pan and shape into a round pancake.
Top with the thinly sliced bacon or pork belly.

4 Cook until the bottom begins to brown then turn.  Put a lid on and cook further for 4-5 mins.
Keep medium - law heat!  I want to have a steam-cook affect here so the vegetables shall be cooked through.

5 Open the lid then turn the okonomi-yaki for last time.
Keep brown for 1 mins or the bacon looks crispy.

6 When cook through brush on a generous coating of the sauce and mayonnaise.
Then sprinkle with the bonito flakes and green-seaweed flakes.  Serve immediately!

As shown in the TV show, we don´t normally use carrot in the okonomi-yaki.  And instead of sprinkling chopped spring onion on the pancake, we mix it in the dough.  Point is that we enjoy the sweetness of cooked cabbage and spring onion!

One can also use raw prawns, squid… etc, in addition to the pork belly.

If you can obtain red vinegared ginger, chop finely and add in the dough.

I can´t emphasise the importance of dashi /  dashi powder here.

All in all, it was a very interesting program for me… I can try some carrots in the pancake and use milk instead of water.  Probably more nutritious and tastier?  Why not!

Dear Kjartan and Gregory, please invite me to the program as a special judge when you make okonomi-yaki again ;-)

Sesame dressing salad with broccoli

ブロッコリーの胡麻和え

This is a very simple recipe but always a success whenever I serve this :-)

It´s best to toast and grind sesame seeds yourself.

But of course you can buy toasted sesame seeds at supermarket and use a blender.

Serves 4

1 bouquet of broccoli

dressing

5 ss / tbs toasted white sesame seeds

1 ss / tbs soya sauce

1 ts sugar*

1 ts grated ginger

1. Cut the broccoli into bite size.

Cook them in lightly salted boiling water for few minutes (2-3 mins).

Then soak in cold water (stopping further cooking process).

2. Grind the sesame seeds by using blender.

3. Combine the sesame seeds and the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

4. Drain the broccoli, taking out the excess liquid as much as you can.

Add to the dressing and toss well, then serve.

*sugar can be substituted by 2 ts maple syrup

New Year soup with rice cake (Zoni)

お雑煮

A Happy New Year!

One of the dishes I´m always looking forward to have for New Year is a soup with rice cake, called `zoni´.

Rice cake `mochi´ is made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and moulded into shape.

`Zoni´ is an important part of New Year dishes in Japan and there are many varieties in shapes of mochi, in type of stock …etc. 

As I come from Kansai region of Japan, Zoni must have white miso, a round shaped rice cake and a couple of vegetables.

I tried to recreate the dish with the ingredients available where I live (Oslo!).

Serves 4

4 Rice cakes (mochi)**

8 dl / 800 ml Dashi stock (made of kelp and bonito flakes but powder type can be also used)

6 SS / Tbs miso paste (white type)*

4 slices of carrot (make it round.  symbolises sunrise!)

few slices of kohlrabi (kålrabi)

and

vegetables of your choice

1. boil the carrot and kohlrabi slices until tender.

2.  Put the miso paste in a pan.  Then pour the dashi stock into the miso little by little and mix well.

3.  Place the pan over medium heat.  Bring to a boil then lower the heat and add the rice cakes then cook until the rice cakes are tender.

4.  Add the vegetables.  Once the soup is warm, serve immediately.

*white miso paste can be bought at Helios Colosseum (Middelthuns gate 23, 0368 Oslo)

**rice cakes at Obento (Bernt Ankers gate 4, 0181 Oslo)

Traditional New Year dish

お節料理

Like Christmas in Norway, for many people new year is a family-gathering event in Japan.

Traditional Japanese new year dish is an important part of this occasion.

Probably you´ve heard of `O-mochi (sticky rice cake)´ that sends quite a few people to hospital every new year days because they clog the throat with the o-mochi?  It´s my husband´s favourite story when he explains about this sticky substance!

But it´s very tasty and I don´t know anyone who dislike it in Japan!

Recently I was a little tired of baking all the `julekaker´ (Although I love them a lot and am quite good at it!)

Then I suddenly come up with an idea to make a Japanese new year dish for family and fiends BEFORE Christmas.

I didn´t whether it´s possible to make traditional Japanese dishes in Norway, but here we go, this is the result and I´m very satisfied.  Except kuromame (cooked black beans) and thick konbu (kelp), I obtained the ingredients in Oslo.  So year 2015 I´d like to update all the recipes if someone wants to try.

They will be delivered to my dear friends.

Hope they enjoyed them :-)

I wish you a great holiday season and a happy new year!

God jul og godt nyttår!