Happy New Year!!

Where did December go??  It's already 2013.

Wish you a very happy new year in 2013!

This is our Christmas Eve and Christmas Dinner at home.  It's always nice to get together with family and friends.  

Marinated Eggplants(Nasu) & Nasu Dengaku

Nasu is common vegetable in Japan, many ways to cook and eat.

It is not so easy to find Japanese eggplants here, it's easy to find western eggplants so I use often western eggplants.  It is good, just bit harder and much bigger than Japanese one.

I made this Italian dish.  Marinated with sun dried tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and a bit red pepper.
Cut eggplants thin and grill it on a grill pan with a 1 tsp olive oil.  Put grilled eggplants on the plate and put marinated sauce on top.  I cut basil leaves and sprinkle on it.

The other one is Japanese dish called Miso Dengaku.  This is my husband's favourite dish.  You can find it in a casual Japanese restaurant or tapas (Izakaya) in Japan. He asked me if I can make it or not so I tried it.

It is also western eggplants and cut thicker.  Soak in the water few minutes and dry it out then wrap each of them and cook 4 minutes in microwave.  While it is in microwave, make Dengaku sauce.

Just mix 2tsp Miso, 1tsp Mirin, 0.5 tsp Sake, 1 tsp Sugar.  When eggplants done, take out from microwave and spread the miso sauce on the nasu.  Put them into a oven toaster and just toast.  Take it out and sprinkle grated white sesame on top.
Japanese Nasu skin is very soft so you can eat it, but western nasu skin is hard so you can serve with spoon and scoop inside of nasu.  It is melting in your mouth.  Even though you don't like eggplants, you must try this, it is totally delicious!!  Of course, my husband liked it a lot as well as my kids who usually don't eat eggplants:)

Last night's appetizer, Sashimi and Umeshu

I made sashimi appetizer with Umeshu.  Umeshu is a Japanese liqueur made from steeping ume (plum) fruits in alcohol(shochu) and sugar.  It has a sweet, sour taste and an alcohol content of 10-15%.  The taste and aroma of umeshu can appeal to even those people who normally dislike alcohol.  It is good for aperitif.  I found umeshu with shiso herb recently.  This is really refreshing and great to have it before dinner with appetizer.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Personally I like tomato sauce pasta more than cream sauce pasta, but all my family like cream sauce more than tomato sauce:(

I made Spaghetti Carbonara.  There are many recipes of Carbonara.  My recipe is very simple so this is good to make for family when I have no time to cook.

1.  Bake small sliced bacon until crispy in a pan.

2.  Add 1 cup of cream and stir until thicker the sauce. 

3.  Boil Spaghetti for few minutes shorter than the cooking time on a spaghetti package.

4.  Add boiled spaghetti into the pan and mix. Put off fire.

5.  Add egg yolks and mix well.

6.  Salt & Pepper and sprinkle fresh grated parmesan cheese on top.

 

Today's Obento

This is today's obento.

Thai Red Curry

We had guests on Saturday night and I cooked so many kind of dishes.  Liver Pate, Prawn and Carrots, leek, celery salad, Salted pork with miso and vinegar as appetiser.  Then pork fillet and Parmesan cheese as main with brown rice and pumpkin and spinach salad.  Desert was berries mix with balsamic with vanilla ice cream.

But, I was very busy and my husband was busy with guests so totally forgot to take photos:(

Anyway, I will make them again so I will take a photo next time.

So I was quite tired yesterday after entertaining guests until 1am.  (Of course, lots of wines, whisky etc).  My daughter said "Let's order Pizza for dinner", but I really don't like to order pizza.  Maybe in US, it has a better pizza, but I don't like to order pizza here and always regret after I ordered.  To order Pizza is only for emergency for me such as lots of my daughter's friends are coming or I am completely exhausted to cook or no ingredients in the fridge.

Then I cooked Thai Red Curry.  This looks complicated, but takes only 15 minutes!
You just buy Thai Red Curry Paste.  You only need for 2tsp of this so you can keep it in the fridge and make it again and again.

1. 2tsp red curry paste into the pan.  Pour 2 cans coconut milk and melt paste.
2. Bring to boil then add frozen shrimp.
3. Add 2 tsp fish sauce.
4. Add Basil leaves (better to tear by hands then it's more fragrance).
5. Serve with brown rice or white rice.
(I served half brown half white).

Inarizushi

Inarizushi is a fried tofu skin which is cooked in a soy sauce and sugar.  It's drained then stuffed with sushi rice.  I have been making this so many times included for catering and I noticed that it is not everyone's favorite.  I guess because it is a bit too sweet.  For me, also not my favorite, but children are usually happy to eat this.  My daughter's friends came over the other day so I made Inarizushi for them.  They are gone in 10 minutes!