So, Yuki made dinner for Meatless Monday this week. As you can see from the pic, she cooks a totally different style than me. She prefers numerous different plates with different items while I usually cook more of a one-pot gig. But, with it being Presidents Day and a day off work it was her turn.
Starting with the top left dish, she simmered some daikon radish. For the broth, she boiled niboshi (small dried sardines) in water to extract that flavor into a deliciously light dashi. Then she simmered the daikon until they were softened, but still retained some texture. She topped the daikon with yuzu-miso and some sliced green onion.
The top right dish is sato imo, a hairy potato that made my fingers itch when I peeled it. It’s worth it though as it has a more pronounced earthiness in its flavor than the potatoes we’re used to here in the States. She first had boil them in some vinegar. These potatoes are very slimy and by boiling them in vinegar the slime is removed. After they were boiled she sautéed them in olive oil with some onions and garlic. Then she added some ponzu and a little mayonnaise.
The bottom bowl is harusame soup. She used konbu dashi for the broth, a very typical broth for Japanese soups. The noodles are harusame, made from mung bean starch. Also in it were some enoki mushrooms, shiitake, wakame seaweed, sliced aburage (deep fried tofu skin), baby bok choy, and an egg that was poached in the dashi.
She also made dessert, shiratama dango. They’re little dumplings made out of mochi rice flour. Simply add water to the flour, roll the dough into little balls, and boil them till they float. They’re usually grilled afterword to make them a little more savory before adding various sweet sauces. We used three of the more common sauces. On the left is azuki bean paste, the middle is mitarashi (a sweetened and thickened soy sauce with mirin, sugar, and corn starch), and the right is kinako (soy flour mixed with sugar).
Dan Bites 