Soba noodles with Tempura (Tempura-soba)

Japanese kitchen is impossible without tempura. I was looking at this recipe for long while and was always feeling a bit afraid of trying it. Deep drying was just not my thing, I thought.
I went through some recipes, video tutorials and finally was ready for this experiment. To begin with - let me highlight some tips which were very helpful for me:
1. Oil temperature should be about 160-170 C (320-340 F) for meat of thick and large pieces; about 170-180 C (340-360 F) for meat of a small bite-size pieces. For vegetables though - 160-170 C (320-340 F) is quite enough. Best way to determine temperature of oil is candy thermometer. But there are some hint ho to without. Tip 1: drop a few drops of batter into frying pan with oil and if it sinks to the bottom of the pan and floats up to the surface quickly than temperature is around 160 C. Tip 2: drop of batter sinks halfway to the bottom, and floats up quickly - about 170 C.
2. Ingredients for deep frying should be put in order. First: pumpkin, sweet potato and carrot (all vegetables with  a little smell). Second: squid, shrimp and sillago (and other seafood or meat).
3. Do not deep fry many ingredients at once - they will overlap with each other preventing heat from distributing evenly.
4. Before tossing ingredients in batter - pat them dry and sprinkle with some flour.
5. Use really cold water, add few pieces of ice if needed.

I made tempura only with shrimps and served it over soba noodles in tasty stock. Soba can be easily substituted for udon.

Ingredients for Tempura:
8 fresh shrimps in shell
4 pieces of maitake mushrooms

Ingredients for Tempura batter:
1 egg yolk + chilled water to make 3/5 cup (5 oz or 142-150 ml)
3/5 cup of Hakurikiko flour (weak flour with gluten content 6 1/2-9 %)
Oil for deep frying (canola is mainly used, hence does not have a strong smell)

Method:
1. Wash shrimps in cold salty water. Remove the heads of the shrimps, devein and shell. Remove back vein with toothpick. Chop off the tips of the shrimp tails and gently press out moisture with a flat blade of the knife. If moisture remains in the tail - it will cause oil to sputter). To prevent shrimp from curling, make 3 incisions across the belly and open each of the cuts with hands to straighten the body. Wash and pat dry the mushrooms.
2. To prepare the batter: sift the flour. In a mixing bawl, lightly beat the egg yolk and pour in chilled water to make 2/5 cup. Add the sifted flour, and stir briefly. Do not over-mix, other wise the batter will become too sticky.
3. Dust shrimps and mushrooms with extra flour. Heat oil and start deep-frying while coating each ingredient with batter. Deep fry maitake first, than shrimps. Skim the oil surface to keep it clean. When the bubbles around the edges of each piece become small with the noise fading away - touch it with cooking chop-sticks. When the batter feels crispy, it is time to take it out of the pan. Place them on draining tray.

Ingredients for noodles:
7 oz dried soba (buckwheat noodles)
8 Tempura deep fried-shrimps (recipe above)
1 inch green onions
3-4 stalks trefoil

Ingredients for broth:
3 1/3 cups water
1 tsp granulated Dashi (Niboshi small dried sardines and bonito flakes flavor)
3 Tbsp sake
3 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp Mirin sweet cooking wine
1/2 tsp salt

Method:
1. Bring water to the boil in a large pot. Place soba noodles in the pot, boil while stirring with chop-sticks. When the water rolls up to the edges of the pot, pour in 2/5 cup of cold water. It will reduce the boiling and make noodles harder. Cook for as long as prescribed on the package - mainly 6 minutes. Drain soba on the sieve, rub and rinse in running cold water to eliminate slipperiness.
2. To prepare broth - bring water to boil with dissolved dashi. Add sake, soy sauce, miring and salt. Simmer for 1 minute.
3. Put noodles into donburi bawls and put tempura on top. Pour on hot broth and garnish with green onions and trefoil stalks cut into 5 inch lengths.

Death by Chocolate

Sour Cream Brownies

Adapted from Piece of Cake Blog

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons premium cocoa powder (I love Valrhona)
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
7 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into pieces (chocolate chips work fine, I like Ghiradelli)
1 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup dry cranberries

Set an oven rack to the center position and preheat the to 350 degrees. Line a 9x13 pan with foil, and spray with cooking spray.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour and cocoa powder and set aside.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Allow it to bubble for about 10 seconds, then remove the pan from the heat and add the chocolate. Let it sit for a minute or two, and then whisk until smooth. Let cool for a minute while you prepare the rest of the recipe.

In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar and eggs until smooth. Whisk in the sour cream, salt and vanilla until well-blended. Stir in the chocolate and butter mixture, then fold in the flour and cocoa mixture just until it dissappears into the batter. Add dry cherries and mix.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake the until the brownies just begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, about 30 minutes.

Cool the brownies completely in the pan on a rack before cutting into squares.

Tofu and Wakame Miso Soup

Gohan described in previous post i served with warming bawl of Miso Soup.

Ingredients (serves 2):
1/2 cake of silken tofu (i used cutlet, hence had some left from gohan)
20 g. wakame seaweed, reconstituted
2 cups Dashi stock
2-3 Tbsp red miso

Method:
1. Cut the tofu and wakame into bite-sized pieces.
2. Pour the stock into pan and bring to the boil over medium heat. Add the tofu and wakame and remove from  the heat before coming to the boil. Add the miso into the soup gradually while softening with some stock and dissolving on a ladle.
Serve in individual bawls.

Mixed Rice ("Takikomi-Gohan")

Healthy and tasty rice dish with many ingredients. Everyone will love it!

Ingredients:
1 cup japanese rice
1/2 cup pearl barely
1 packet of shimeji mushrooms (large)
2 inch long carrot
1/4 tofu cutlet

For soup:
4/5 cups dashi stock or water
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
1 Tbsp sake
1 Tbsp Mirin
1 1/2 tsp light soy sauce or 4/5 tsp dark soy sauce  
1/2 tsp salt

Method:
1. Wash rice and barely 30 min prior to cooking and drain on colander.
2. Cut carrots into julienne strips. Wash and drain mushrooms. Cut tofu into thin triangles.
3. Pour in the stock, mushroom, carrots and tofu into pot, and heat everything. When it begins to boil lightly, add sugar and sake, and continue to simmer for 1-2 minutes. Add the soy sauce and salt, continue to simmer briefly.
4. Drain all ingredients through a sieve, reserving cooking liquid. Note: let all ingredients cool completely before cooking rice, hence it might start burning in the rice cooker.
5. Place rice and barely into rice cooker, add simmering liquid. If there is not enough simmering liquid, add some water. Add solid ingredients from the sieve and mix everything lightly. Turn on heater. Note: water should be just a little bit above rice.
6. When cooking is finished, keep the cooker covered and let stand for 10 minutes (do not use function "Keep Warm"!). Open the lid and mix everything. Serve warm with some trefoil if you like.

Japanese Fried Noodles (Yakisoba)

One of the most loved japanese dishes in our house (after curry of course). You just need some vegetables, any meat you like and yakisoba sauce. The sauce is a bit tricky - books and web offers quite a variety f possible ingredient, you can buy even ready one from japanese grocery or just use concentrate which comes sometimes in dry soba packs. (I will upload a pictures later of that type). I made yakisoba with Tonkatsu sauce base (Buldog Brand). It was recommended to me by some japanese couple shopping in japanese grocery.

Ingredients:
2 portions (150 g. each) cooked soba noodles
60 g. chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
3 cabbage leaves
1/2 carrot
1/2 green bell pepper
3 stalks baby asparagus
3 baby corn
30 g. white mushrooms (keep in hot water if using dried)
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
For yakisoba "handmade" sauce:
1 Tbsp. oyster sauce
1 tsp. Japanese-style Workcestershire sauce
1 tsp. Tonkatsu sauce
2 tsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. Sake
Salt and pepper
For garnishing:
Green laver
Beni-shoga red vine-gared ginger.

Method:
1. Cut chicken, season with salt and pepper. Cut the cabbage leaves into 3/8 inch wide rectangles. Peel the carrot and cut into thin stripes. Soak dried mushrooms in hot water. Cut asparagus and baby corns diagonally in three pieces. Slice green bell pepper into thin stripes.
2. Mix all ingredients for sauce in a small bawl and set aside.
3. Start stir frying in two portions (one for each). Spread 1 Tbsp. of oil over the frying pan or wok and add chicken, mushrooms and all vegetables. Stir fry for 3 minutes. Add noodles and fry. For better taste - fry the noodles until both sides are browned first, during drying drizzle 1 tsp. of sake or mirin on them to enhance the taste even more.
4. Add sauce to yakisoba in pan and stir to coat. Arrange on one plate and cover to keep warm.
5. Prepare second portion following above instructions.
6. Sprinkle on top green laver and garnish with beni-shoga red vinegar ginger.
7. Eat with marinated cucumbers with wakame seaweed or kimchee (chinese pickles cabbage)