Japanese Cooking - Contemporary & Traditional by Miyoko Nishimoto Schinner Page B
Book: Japanese Cooking - Contemporary & Traditional by Miyoko Nishimoto Schinner
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Authors: Miyoko Nishimoto Schinner
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baby spinach, that will wilt upon contact with the hot soup.
With a few pieces of decoratively pared veggies, tofu, and fu (colorful wheat “puffs”) floating on the surface, these subtle soups are simplicity itself
If you are using carrots, fresh shiitake slices, enoki, or shimeji mushrooms, add them to the dashi and simmer gently for a few minutes until tender. This will add a greater depth and complexity to the flavor. Add the sea salt, sake, and soy sauce, and simmer for an additional minute only. If you are not adding any of these vegetables, simply add the seasonings to the dashi and heat for a minute. Turn off the heat, taste, and adjust the seasonings. It should be flavorful but subtle. Pour into individual bowls and top with minced scallions, a grating of lemon zest, or if available, mitsuba sprigs. (They are extremely fragrant—my pick for suimono.)
Clear Soup with Chrysanthemum Leaves
Shungiku no O -suimono
3 to 4 cups Konbu Dashi (Konbu or Konbu-Shiitake Stock), page 54
bunch shungiku (young chrysanthemum leaves), cut into 1-inch lengths
2 fresh shiitake, sliced paper thin
2 teaspoons soy sauce (preferably usu-kuchi)
Sea salt or more soy sauce, to taste
Bring the stock to a simmer. Add the shungiku (young chrysanthemum leaves) and shiitake, and simmer gently for about five minutes, or until the leaves are tender. Turn off the heat, add the soy sauce, and stir; adjust the soy sauce or sea salt. Serve immediately.
This simply prepared but exotic-sounding soup features the tender, young leaves of chrysanthemums. They are sold in bunches in Japanese markets in the spring and early summer and are eaten as a vegetable. The highly fragrant leaves are unlike any other leafy green in flavor, possessing an almost “perfumey” flavor that may not, appeal to some Westerners. I find that this very fragrance lends a unique flavor to suimono (clear soups). Do not attempt to eat the leaves of chrysanthemums from flower shops; they may be sprayed with unwanted pesticides.
Yield: 3 to 4 servings
New Year’s Stew with 0-Mochi
O zoni
N ew Year’s Day is the biggest holiday in Japan. The whole country shuts down; no businesses are open for at least the first three or four days of the New Year. This is the time to make your rounds to visit all of your relatives and friends, eating and sipping hot sake at every stop, huddling under the thick comforter of the kotatsu, a heated table with a thick blanket over it. Traditionally, housewives would spend the days before the New Year cooking various dishes of a cuisine called o-sechi ryori. Vegetables, beans, tiny fish, eggs, and other little dishes were cooked in plenty of sugar, soy sauce, and sake to preserve them for days. This would allow them to be free from the chores of the kitchen during the New Year’s celebrations. (Of course, they would still be expected to entertain.) Although most housewives today forgo this tradition, or simply order these dishes from the many stores and catering services that provide them, the one dish they do cook fresh on New Year’s Day and for the next few days is o-zoni, a stew that features the thick, chewy, stretchy rice cake called o-mochi.
O-mochi has become quite popular in the United States among natural food aficionados and is available year round, yet in Japan it is eaten primarily (if not solely) during the weeks of New Year’s. O-zoni is the most famous dish featuring o-mochi, and throughout different regions of Japan, as well as in various households, there are numerous versions. In the Kanto region around Tokyo where I was raised, o-zoni is typically a savory soup containing vegetables and chicken. (I wasn’t a vegan at age 6.) Later, when I married a man from Tottori, several hundred miles southwest of Tokyo, I was surprised to find that their o-zoni was sweet, a “stew” of azuki beans cooked with sugar and o-mochi, a dish we Tokyoites called zenzai. Apparently, he was equally
With a few pieces of decoratively pared veggies, tofu, and fu (colorful wheat “puffs”) floating on the surface, these subtle soups are simplicity itself
If you are using carrots, fresh shiitake slices, enoki, or shimeji mushrooms, add them to the dashi and simmer gently for a few minutes until tender. This will add a greater depth and complexity to the flavor. Add the sea salt, sake, and soy sauce, and simmer for an additional minute only. If you are not adding any of these vegetables, simply add the seasonings to the dashi and heat for a minute. Turn off the heat, taste, and adjust the seasonings. It should be flavorful but subtle. Pour into individual bowls and top with minced scallions, a grating of lemon zest, or if available, mitsuba sprigs. (They are extremely fragrant—my pick for suimono.)
Clear Soup with Chrysanthemum Leaves
Shungiku no O -suimono
3 to 4 cups Konbu Dashi (Konbu or Konbu-Shiitake Stock), page 54
bunch shungiku (young chrysanthemum leaves), cut into 1-inch lengths
2 fresh shiitake, sliced paper thin
2 teaspoons soy sauce (preferably usu-kuchi)
Sea salt or more soy sauce, to taste
Bring the stock to a simmer. Add the shungiku (young chrysanthemum leaves) and shiitake, and simmer gently for about five minutes, or until the leaves are tender. Turn off the heat, add the soy sauce, and stir; adjust the soy sauce or sea salt. Serve immediately.
This simply prepared but exotic-sounding soup features the tender, young leaves of chrysanthemums. They are sold in bunches in Japanese markets in the spring and early summer and are eaten as a vegetable. The highly fragrant leaves are unlike any other leafy green in flavor, possessing an almost “perfumey” flavor that may not, appeal to some Westerners. I find that this very fragrance lends a unique flavor to suimono (clear soups). Do not attempt to eat the leaves of chrysanthemums from flower shops; they may be sprayed with unwanted pesticides.
Yield: 3 to 4 servings
New Year’s Stew with 0-Mochi
O zoni
N ew Year’s Day is the biggest holiday in Japan. The whole country shuts down; no businesses are open for at least the first three or four days of the New Year. This is the time to make your rounds to visit all of your relatives and friends, eating and sipping hot sake at every stop, huddling under the thick comforter of the kotatsu, a heated table with a thick blanket over it. Traditionally, housewives would spend the days before the New Year cooking various dishes of a cuisine called o-sechi ryori. Vegetables, beans, tiny fish, eggs, and other little dishes were cooked in plenty of sugar, soy sauce, and sake to preserve them for days. This would allow them to be free from the chores of the kitchen during the New Year’s celebrations. (Of course, they would still be expected to entertain.) Although most housewives today forgo this tradition, or simply order these dishes from the many stores and catering services that provide them, the one dish they do cook fresh on New Year’s Day and for the next few days is o-zoni, a stew that features the thick, chewy, stretchy rice cake called o-mochi.
O-mochi has become quite popular in the United States among natural food aficionados and is available year round, yet in Japan it is eaten primarily (if not solely) during the weeks of New Year’s. O-zoni is the most famous dish featuring o-mochi, and throughout different regions of Japan, as well as in various households, there are numerous versions. In the Kanto region around Tokyo where I was raised, o-zoni is typically a savory soup containing vegetables and chicken. (I wasn’t a vegan at age 6.) Later, when I married a man from Tottori, several hundred miles southwest of Tokyo, I was surprised to find that their o-zoni was sweet, a “stew” of azuki beans cooked with sugar and o-mochi, a dish we Tokyoites called zenzai. Apparently, he was equally
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