Herring

The most popular fish in Holland is herring.  It's now in a season so you can eat the most fresh one in Holland.  We love herring in Holland, especially eat with chopped onions. 

We also have herring(Nishin) in Japan, but usually we eat cooked one with other vegetables such as bamboo shoot or Kombu and soy sauce.  Personally I like Dutch herring much better!

Cold Somen

Somen are very thin, white Japanese noodles made of wheat flour.   The noodles are usually served cold with a light flavored dipping sauce or tsuyu and sometimes with Tempura.  Somen is a bit like a Cappellini, Italian Pasta, very thin so it takes only 2-3 minutes to boil and it is very suitable on a hot summer day.

My children are still on school holiday and they are hungry for lunch.
As we had a lot of potatoes, bread in Europe, I made this somen lunch for them.

Boil somen 2-3 minutes and wash with cold running water.  While boiling somen, you can make sauce as follows:

1. Chopped Tomato, cucumber mix with Natto in a small bowl.
2. In bigger bowl, put 6 tsp tsuyu(you can buy at an Asian section of the most supermarket) and 1tsp vinegar.
3. When somen are ready, put them in 2's bowl and mix well.
4. Put 1 and mix very well.
5. Put on the plate and sprinkle white sesame and parsley on top.  You can put wasabi if you like.

Yummy:)

Europe

I was in Europe last 3 weeks so I couldn't update my blog.

We were in The Netherlands, France, and Germany.  Food is different in each countries and I love them all!

This is in TGV to Paris.  The lunch in there was great!  You can buy a lunch called Ekiben(Station bento)in Japan and it is usually very yummy, but this lunch in TGV was really delicious.

Omotenashi

Last Saturday I had 8 people came over for dinner at my house.  Now our dining table is close to a garden so that we can see outside while having dinner.

I light up with candles in front of the water feature.  Not only Food or table settings, but to make a good atmosphere outside is also very important to entertain guests. 

Zakkokumai (Mixed grains rice)

Zakkokumai has become increasingly popular in Japan recently. Zakkoku just means “mixed grains”, and mai is rice.
Zakkoku is sold in convenient packets at a Japanese super market or Japanese section at a local market.   Each pack is meant to be used for 2 to 3 cups (rice cooker cups) of white rice. You simply throw in the contents after you’ve washed the white rice and put in the water for cooking.  It has black beans (kuromame), azuki beans, mung beans, pressed barley, black rice (kokumai), another kind of millet (mochikibi), yet another kind of millet (mochi hie) and amaranth. It colors the rice when cooked a slight reddish-purple.

You can eat as it is or with curry or gravy are great. I ate with a topping which contains, Zasai, Dried prawn, Spring Onion, Myoga and a soy sauce. 

Appetizer

I was invited to a friend's house for lunch.  She told me that she has no idea what to make for appetizer so I made and brought it.  You put smoked salmon on some toast.  Then cream cheese and dill and pessary, salt and pepper mixed.  Mix well then put this cream into zip lock.  Cut the one edge of zip lock bottom and squeeze on the salmon like a whip cream.  Good with a glass of cold white wine.

Spring Roll (Harumaki)

This is spring rolls called Harumaki in Japanese.  Originally from China, but I make more Japanese style filling.  There are so many kinds of filling you can put such as leek, minced pork, prawns etc.  I usually make with minced pork, dried shiitake mushrooms, bean sprout, and carrots.  Just put a bit sesame oil in the pan and cook these ingredients and add some soy sauce, cooking wine, a bit of sugar and a bit of oyster sauce. 
We dip into soy sauce and vinegar and Japanese mustard, but I also like to eat with chili sauce.  When you wrap those filling inside of the wrapper, you can freeze it so whenever you want to eat, just fried it then ready to eat!