Spaghetti with Miso Cream Sauce

Time for a post before finals begin...
About a week ago, I have been thinking about different ways to combine western and eastern cuisines together. I have always wondered how I can incorporate miso into Italian style cuisine. Heck, I'll make some Japanese-Italian pasta dish.

Spaghetti with Miso Cream Sauce (Chicken optional)

Ingredients
Spaghetti for two servings
1 Chicken breast
2 tbs Red miso
1 half inch slice Ginger
3 cloves Garlic
1/2 cup Sake
3/4 cup Heavy cream
1/2 cup Chicken stock (better if it is fresh and no salt)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup Basil
Salt and pepper

Prep
1. Boil water.
2. Mince ginger and garlic.
3. In a cup or bowl, mix cream, stock, and cheese.
4. Salt the cup (I give my Trader Joes salt mill 8-9 turns)
5. Slice basil into strips.
6. Slice chicken into stripes or bite size pieces.
7. Throw spaghetti in.

Time to COOK!
1. Heat up oil in a pan and saute the chicken until almost done.
2. Remove chicken and hold in a bowl.
3. Add ginger and garlic to the juices and oil.
4. Start browning those ingredients.
5. Add sake and cook off alcohol.
6. Add miso and cup mixture.
7. Stir fast so that the cheese gets incorporated instead of melting into a mess.
8. At this point your spaghetti should be almost at al-dente (test by eating a piece)
9. Transfer noodles and chicken into the frying pan.
10. Add basil and toss the spaghetti until each piece of spaghetti is evenly coated with sauce.
11. Transfer to a plate and enjoy
Note: You never ever dump sauce onto pasta and call that done. The noodles are supposed to absorb the sauce or else you'll just be eating a soupy mess. When you finish eating the noodles, there should be no sauce leftover.

Enjoy your meal! Now onto cramming for finals ><.

Braised Daikon and Carrots

Here I go on another food adventure...

In the middle of the forest of vegetables in the country of Ralphs, I found a foreign plant that I have never handled before: the DAIKON RADISH! Though I know it was the middle of a mild summer, I was craving for them. I could not wait for winter to harvest these white roots*. I hurried to Ralphs' border and paid off the customs fees at the automated self-checkout for my flight back home.

*Note: Daikons are in season and sweetest in the winter or in colder weather. They will be slightly bitter out of season, but for this dish, the bitterness is eliminated by the sweetness of miso and soy sauce.

Braised Daikon and Carrots

Ingredients
1 Daikon radish
4 Organic carrots
3/4 cup Water
1/4 cup Soy sauce
1/4 cup Rice wine
1 tsp Rice vinegar
1 tbs White miso paste
1 tbs Rock sugar (about big enough to fit in a tablespoon)
Dash sesame oil

Prepwork of slashing vegetation
1. Peel daikon and carrots
2. Chop them into wedge chunks
3. Mix soy sauce, rice wine, and water together

Cooking
1. Heat canola oil in a pot
2. Throw in daikon and carrots to brown, occasionally stirring (5-7 minutes)
3. Add in soy sauce mixture.
4. Wait until the mixture begins to boil and throw in rock sugar.
5. Stir occasionally until the sugar dissolves.
6. Add in miso paste, rice vinegar, and stir.
7. Turn heat on low to simmer.
8. Cover and cook for 30 minutes or until daikon is soft and the flavor has seeped in.
9. Finish by drizzling a little sesame oil on top.

Yea... this is my first time using daikon radishes in a dish. I see my aunts and parents make daikon radishes and carrots all the time with beef or some sort of meat. I guess I decided to be healthy today and leave out the meat.

Asparagus and Tofu with Miso Butter

ARG! I hate oversleeping! I missed a large section of the Festival of Books : (. I wanted to Ruth Reichl and Alice Silverstone. Oh well, I guess I have to finish my homework today in order to go to tomorrow's portion of Festival of books. Tomorrow, Alice Waters will be there ^_^.

Anyways, I was digging through the big cold box and was wondering what I should make with all my leftover vegetarian items. I decided to use up the asparagus and tofu. Now all I have left is spinach. I'll figure out what to do with that tomorrow.

Asparagus and Tofu with Miso Butter


Ingredients
5-6 stalks Asparagus
1/2 cup Firm tofu
1 tbs White miso
2 tbs Stock (vegetable, fish, or chicken)
2 tsp rice vinegar (no rice vinegar? you can also use juice of 1/2 a lime)
3 tbs Butter
Spoonful of Ginger (should fit on a spoon after you julienne them)

Prep work
1. Peel stalky portion of the asparagus
2. Cube the tofu into 1 cm
3. Julienne the ginger
4. Boil water

Cooking part
1. Add asparagus to the boiling water and cook for 2-3 minutes
2. Remove the asparagus and let it sit out on a strainer to dry
3. In a pan, add oil and cook the tofu until crispy on all sides (3-5 minutes on medium heat)
4. In a saucepan, add butter and melt
5. Add the ginger and miso and cook for 1 minute
6. Add vinegar and stock
7. Reduce until sauce-like consistency
8. Put tofu, asparagus, and sauce together.

Well... today is going to be quite a long day of studying.

Tomodachi Sushi: Adventurous and Creative Sushi

Restaurant Review:
Tomodachi Sushi
10975 Weyburn Ave
(Westwood) Los Angeles, CA 90024
(310) 824-8805

Tomodachi, meaning friends in Japanese, well deserves its name, for the restaurant is an excellent place to go with friends, new and old. The restaurant is small, but can accommodate a small group of buddies for chatter.

Out of the various restaurants that offer sushi in Westwood, Tomodachi has the best selection of items with over 50 types of rolls. Not only do the sushi chefs know the basic California and spicy tuna rolls, but they also are innovative and create unheard of items, such as the colorful mango and tuna roll. Of the several rolls sampled, from the classic salmon roll to the intriguing spicy tuna and salmon volcano roll, each had a great texture and flavor.

For the non-sushi lovers, Tomodachi also offers Japanese dishes, such as teriyaki salmon, various rice bowls, and salad. Even though those dishes are available, the restaurant name says it all. It is a sushi restaurant and should stick to what it does ... make sushi.

With great tastes and menu selections, Tomodachi will create curiosity that will drain your wallet. The specialty rolls range from $10-$15. If you want to sample a variety of rolls, bring friends and share the wealth.

Review Rating: 3.9/5.0
Menu Price: Moderate

Somen Noodles with Miso Tilapia

Because I am too poor to afford black cod... once again, I have tilapia, which I have to say is my new favorite fish as you can see from my previous posts. It's cheap and delicious ><.. I probably should be concerned with the amount of mercury, lead, and various toxins from this "previously frozen in China" fish. I guess I'd have to go to Whole Foods for the good stuff, but heck I am a college student and do not have that kind of money for organics. I guess this will be as bad as eating instant noodles or even worse ... because at least in instant noodles, I know what chemicals I am consuming, while for this lump of fish, I have no clue what toxins have been in its system. Enough talk about organics and what is healthy. This dish was probably one of the fastest or least time consuming dishes I have ever made. Hope you enjoy it during the finals stress.

Somen Noodles with Miso Tilapia



Ingredients
1 Tilapia fillet
2 tbs White miso paste
1 tbs Sugar
1 tsp Sesame oil
1 tsp Soy sauce
1 Green onion
1 Batch somen noodles

Prep Directions
1. Mix all those ingredients together
2. Pat the rinse and pat the tilapia dry
3. Evenly pat the miso mixture on the fish
4. Marinate for about 3 hour (I would marinate it for a day)

Cooking
1. Preheat the oven for 375F.
2. Place fish in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
3. Boil water and throw in noodles.
4. When noodles are done, pour a tsp of sesame oil, soy sauce, and black vinegar and mix with the noodles.
5. Put some bonito flakes or favorite seaweed topping over the noodles and serve with the fish.

Japanese Chicken Curry

Ah... what an uneventful weekend filled with fun studying. My water resource engineering midterm is on Monday, and I have no clue what is going on in the class aside from knowing that there are different types of flows and water can jump and how to read a Moody chart, which does not tell me how my mood is.

Anyways, for lunch I decided to make a giant batch of chicken curry to supply me for my lunches next week.

The curry I made today was quite an experiment that turned out quite well. I heard all sorts of rumors such as adding coco powder, heavy cream, and garam masala can enhance my Japanese curry's flavoring. As a result, I decided to test if those rumors are true.

Japanese Chicken Curry



Ingredients of oddness
4 Chicken thighs and drumsticks (best if already deboned)
4 Carrots
2 Potatoes (Medium sized Yukon potatoes)
1 Brown onion
3.5 oz (100g) Package of curry roux (I prefer super hot)
2 cups Chicken stock (a little more for reserve)
2 Tbs Tomato paste
2 Tbs Heavy cream
2 Tbs Garam masala (see Indian basics section)
1 Tbs Cayenne pepper (adjustable to tolerance)
1 Tsp Coco powder (wtf??? yea...)
1 Tsp Honey
1 Tsp Soy sauce

Prep work of samurai chopping
1. Chop onions into 1 sq in sizes
2. Slice carrots to desired thickness (baby carrots work if you don't want to cut anythign)
3. Peel and chop potatoes into desired cube sizes ( I make them 1 cubic in big)

Cooking
1. Add chicken skin size down in a pot until browned
2. Add in onions and cook until translucent
3. Add carrots, potatoes, and chicken stock
4. Cover and cook for 10 minutes or until potatoes are almost done
5. Add roux, tomato paste, heavy cream, garam masala, cayenne pepper, coco powder, honey, and soy sauce
6. Mix all the ingredients well and let it simmer for 5 minutes.
7. Reduce until sauce-like viscosity. If it is too thick, add more chicken stock.
8. Serve with rice or noodles.

Hmm... The result of this experiment made the curry richer probably because of the cream and gave a better aroma than just adding water to the roux type curry.

Well... back to studying ... 300 more pages to read yay! ^_^