Ninniku no Me にんにくの芽

Ninniku no me is the Japanese name for garlic sprouts.  These greens are super tasty with a light garlic flavor.  They are usually sold in packs in the refrigerated section and are a versatile vegetable.
How to Prepare
Garlic sprouts are similar to asparagus in texture and can be used in the same ways.  Simply cut them down to whatever size you want and start cooking.  Garlic sprouts can be a little tough when raw so it’s best to cook them first, though if chopped finely they can be thrown in with salad or fresh spring rolls.  I most often use them in stir fries and sautés cut into bite sized pieces.

Easy Garlic Sprouts Recipe

Garlic sprouts are easy to include in just about any recipe.  This stir-fry recipe is super easy and only takes about 45 minutes to make including marinating time.

Garlic Sprouts Stir-fry
Makes 2-3 servings

Prep Time: About 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar　米酢
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil　ゴマ油
• 1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper とうがらし
• about 200 grams chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch　コーンスターチ

• 2 tablespoons sesame oil, divided
• 6 shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps quartered
• 1 colored bell pepper, cut into strips
• 1/2 package garlic sprouts, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 1/2 cup matchstick sized carrot strips
• 1/2 cup broccoli, cut into bite sized pieces

Preparation:

1.     Whisk first 5 ingredients in medium bowl to blend.
2.     Add chicken and stir to coat; let marinate 30 minutes.
3.     Drain, reserving marinade in small bowl. Whisk 1/4 cup water and cornstarch into marinade.
4.     Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.
5.     Add chicken and sauté until golden, about 3 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer chicken to plate.
6.     Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to skillet.
7.     Add mushrooms and stir-fry until tender, about 3 minutes.
8.     Add carrots, broccoli and garlic greens; stir-fry 2 minutes.
9.     Add bell peppers; stir-fry 2 minutes.
10.  Add garlic and ginger; stir-fry 30 seconds.
11.  Return chicken to skillet; drizzle reserved marinade mixture over everything.
12.  Stir-fry until marinade thickens slightly, about 30 seconds. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
13.  Finished! 

Dekopon デコポン

It's officially dekopon season!  Dekopon are the sweetest, juiciest citrus you will ever have the pleasure of consuming.  It's like someone took a tangerine and jumbofied it.  Delicious!

The story goes that back in the 70s the Japanese were trying to create a citrus that could compete with navel oranges.  Scientists worked hard crossing this fruit with that, but the results were paltry at best and the experiment abandoned.  But not all hope was lost!  A farmer from Kumamoto stole a branch from one of the experimental trees and started his own experiments.  Soon, he got this fruit yielding to commercial levels, gave it a vaguely sexual name, and ever since it's been a big success!

How to Prepare
Peel and devour!

Easy Dekopon Recipe

To be honest, a dekopon rarely makes it outside of its rind before I've destroyed it in my mouth.  But on the off-chance you do have dekopon laying around, here's a great and super easy recipe.

Dekopon and Honey Jello
Makes 2 servings

Prep Time: About 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 2 dekopon
• 5 grams powdered gelatin
• 1 - 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 dash lemon juice
• 1/2 cup water

Preparation:
1. Mix 2 tablespoons water with the powder gelatin.  Mix well.
2. Peel dekopons.  Break into segments.  Take 3/4 of the segments and remove the pith as well as you can from the segment.  Cut into bite-sized chunks.  Set aside.
3.  Juice the remaining dekopon segments into a measuring cup.
3. Add lemon juice and enough water to the dekopon juice to equal 300mL or 1 1/4 cup.  Pour the juice mix into a small, microwave-safe bowl.
4. Add honey, 1/2 teapoon at a time, and mix well.  Add honey until desired sweetness is achieved.
5. Microwave the dekopon mixture for one minute.  Add gelatin to the heated mixture and whisk until gelatin has dissolved.
6. Fill a large bowl with ice water.  Place the small bowl with the jello into the ice bath.  Stir the jello occasionally.  Once jello begins to jiggle, remove the bowl from the ice bath.
7. Layer the chunks of dekopon and jello into small glasses.
8. Finished!

Mikan みかん

Right now it's peak season for mikan, those little citrus fruits that I could eat by the dozen if I'm not careful.  In English they're known as clementines or satsuma oranges depending on where you live.  I've heard the term satsuma orange has to do with one of the areas where mikan are grown in Japan, but the only place I know of where mikan are worth their snuff is Wakayama.  Like most citrus, mikan are packed with vitamin C so grab a couple if you want to ward off the scurvy, yarr!

How to Prepare
One of the best things about mikan is they're so easy peel.  I actually loath dealing with navel oranges now after having lived with mikan so for long.  The peel of mikan is also great for cooking and especially baking, so don't let it go to waste!

Easy Mikan Recipe

This may sound like a funky combo for a salad but it's actually delicious!  As an added bonus, endives are one of those random vegetables that for some reason are cheaper in Japan than in the US.  I don't really get how that one works.

Citrusy Endive Salad

Makes 4 servings

Prep Time: About 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon honey
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 to 5 mikan, peeled and segmented
• 2 to 3 endives (エンダイブ or チコリー)
• 2 inner ribs of celery (the pale white looking ones), including leaves
• 1/4 cup black olives, pitted and cut into slivers
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley or loosely packed flat-leaf parsley

Preparation:
1. Whisk together vinegar, honey, and salt in a small bowl until salt are dissolved, then add oil in a slow stream, whisking well. Season with pepper.
2. Remove the pith from your mikan segments but don't worry about being anal retentive, just remove the biggest chunks.
3. Halve endives lengthwise, then cut out and discard the cores. Cut endives diagonally into 1/2-inch-wide strips and put in a large salad bowl.
4. Separate celery leaves from ribs and cut ribs diagonally into very thin slices.
5. Roughly chop the celery leaves.  Add the leaves, ribs, olives, onions, parsley, and mikan to the endives.
6. Whisk dressing, then gently toss salad with enough dressing to coat.
7. Finished!

An easy salad for a light weeknight meal!

Brown Rice 玄米

Happy New Year!!

To celebrate the new year, my fiance and I are making a pledge to eat healthier.  People assume that Japanese food is healthy but really it can be just as junk ridden as food anywhere else in the industrialized world.  You wouldn't believe the amount of products with HFCS and the like in it.  So let the healthy eating begin!

Brown rice might seem like a lame thing to be posting about, but you still have entire nations that don't know that brown rice kicks the ass of white rice any day of the week.  White rice is just as bad as bleached flour, a bunch of essentially empty carb calories.  But with brown rice your stomach gets an instant injection of thiamine, magnesium, iron and more.   In fact, if you want to avoid Beriberi Disease, brown rice is the way to go!

So what makes brown rice brown and white rice white?  Brown rice is basically the rice straight off the stalk; just the husk has been removed.  White rice has the bran and germ removed, which is where the vast majority of rice's nutrients come from.  So why the heck do we eat white rice?  Probably for the same reasons we eat white bread and deep fried Coca Cola, we're idiots!

One important thing to remember about brown rice (and whole grains in general) is they do go rancid quickly.  If you don't think you'll use your brown rice often, keep it in the fridge or cook large batches in advance and freeze them into individual servings.

How to Prepare
Hopefully you have a rice cooker.  If you do, just fill your rice cup with brown rice, dump it in the cooker, and fill the water to the brown rice line.  Push start and you're good to go!  If you don't have a rice cooker, you should run out and buy one RIGHT NOW.  But in the meantime, boil four cups of water, throw in one cup of brown rice, cover, and cook for 40 minutes or until the water has disappeared like magic and you have fluffy rice.

There's also the GABA system, which most modern rice cookers have a button for.  You basically stew the brown rice in warm water for 20 hours before cooking, causing the rice to germinate and release more nutritional goodness.  I've never tried this since my rice cooker is ancient and needs to be put out to pasture but once I buy a new rice cooker I definitely plan on getting one with a GABA function.

Easy Brown Rice Recipe

For this recipe, we're going to cheat altogether and use puffed brown rice.  Normally a bland cereal your hippie aunt would force you to eat, we're going to transform it into magical deliciousness.

Homemade Granola Bars

Makes about 24 bars

Prep Time: About 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 2 cups oats
• 1/2 cup wheat germ OR rice bran (if you live in Japan, you can pick this up for free at any Ookini Shokudou!) OR ground flaxseed etc etc (this is going to help act like cement for the bars)
• 1 cup puffed brown rice 玄米パフ (can find in the cereal aisle of Japanese supermarkets and Whole Foods)
• 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds OR sunflower seeds OR shredded coconut
• 1 cup crushed almonds OR peanuts OR walnuts (I think you're getting the idea)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• large handful of dried cranberries OR raisins OR chocolate chips blah blah etc etc

Preparation:
1. Mix together the oats, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, and nuts in a baking dish with sides. Toast them in the oven for 10-12 minutes, stirring every few minutes so that they don’t get burned. (If you don't have an oven, toast them on your stove with your frying pan).
2. Line a glass baking dish with parchment paper.
3. Put the brown sugar, honey, butter, vanilla, and salt into a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken.  Stirring is important, you don't want it to burn!
4. Mix everything together in a large bowl. Your toasty goods, your gooey goods, and your fruity goods.
5. Mix everything like you're making Rice Krispies Treats.  The better you coat everything with the sugar mix, the better your granola bars will hold together.  Next, put your mix onto your prepped parchment paper.
7. Just like Rice Krispies Treats, spread everything out evenly in the dish with a wooden spoon.  Then use another piece of parchment paper to press down on the bars like you're attempting to make diamonds out of them.  The tighter you press them together, the better they'll hold up!
8. Wait 2-3 hours until the bars have cooled down completely.  Remove the top layer of parchment paper, and lift the granola out onto a cutting board.
9. Cut it up into bars and wrap them up for chowing on whenever you need a snack!
10. Finished!

This recipe can be modded easily for whatever your tastes are.  I've made them with peanut butter and chocolate chips and I've made them with toasted soy nuts and dried figs.  Whatever you fancy can be done!

Miso 味噌

Miso isn't technically a plant, but it's made from plants, and most of us have no idea how to use it other than in miso soup.  Miso is made from soybeans, salt, and the colonel's blend of secret spices to make a versatile paste that can be added to many recipes for salty goodness.  They make white miso, red miso, chunky miso, smooth miso, miso that climbs on rocks.  They each have their own merits and it's worth trying out different kinds.  Personally I like white miso when you're looking for a subtle miso taste and the darker misos for in your face miso explosion.  Best of all, miso doesn't really seem to expire so you don't really have to worry about it spoiling on you.

How to Prepare
If you are adding miso to a sauce, marinade, soup, etc, add a small amount of warm water to the paste and whisk it with a fork until smooth.  This makes it much easier to mix into whatever your making.  Or you can be like me and just dip vegetable sticks into it for insta-dip.

Easy Miso Recipe

This recipe requires the best miso known to man, habanero miso (make sure to get the red one for this recipe).  If you don't have time to go down to Kyoto and discover the amazing habanero store, you can sub any red miso paste for the miso and chili oil for the sesame oil.  If chicken isn't your thing, I have also made these using fried tofu squares and it's just as tasty.

Sticky Sesame Chicken Wings


Serves 4 for main dish, 8 for appetizer

Prep Time: About 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 1 large garlic clove, crushed and minced
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons habanero miso + 1 teaspoon warm water to make smooth
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• Pinch of togarashi
• 800 grams chicken wings or drumsticks
• 1 1/2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
• 1 scallion, chopped 
  

Preparation:
1. Place chicken in a baking dish, evenly spread.  Bake at 180 degrees Celcius for 20 minutes or until mostly cooked.  Remove from oven and allow to cool.
2. Mince garlic and mash to a paste using a large heavy knife.
3. Transfer garlic paste to a large bowl and stir in soy sauce, miso, honey, oil, and cayenne.
4. Add wings to sauce, stirring to coat.  Allow to marinate for about an hour.
5. Either using your fish grill or a BBQ grill, grill wings until full cooked and sauce is just beginning to char.
6. Transfer wings to a large serving bowl and toss with sesame seeds and scallion.
7. Finished!

I have made these several times for BBQs and potlucks and they have always been a big hit!

Kaki 柿

If you're in Japan, by now you've seen a bajillion persimmon trees around town and if you're lucky you'll start seeing the fruit appear on your desk too.  Persimmons have a thick skin and sweet, almost creamy inside that lend themselves well to dessert dishes.  They're also a nice accompaniment to braised pork, salads, and other savory dishes you would put apples or cherries in.  Traditionally in the US persimmons would be used to make a baked pudding, similar to fruitcake.  Japanese persimmons are high in vitamin C and fiber so they make a good breakfast choice.

How to Prepare
You can just bite into one like an apple or slice it up and enjoy the slices if you want a fast snack.  Otherwise you treat it the same as an apple in cooking.  Most persimmons you buy in the store will be seedless or have tiny seeds, so you generally don't need to worry about deseeding them.  Just cut off the top and start cooking!

Easy Persimmon Recipe

This is a recipe that a middle school girl I used to tutor many years ago taught me.  I'm amazed I was able to find it again!  To make your pudding extra fancy, cut off the tops of the persimmons and hollow out the insides so that they become little cups.  Fill the cups up with the warm pudding and place in the fridge to set.  Impressive presentation that takes little effort!

Persimmon Tapioca Pudding

Serves 4-6

Prep Time: About 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 1 cup small tapioca pearls
• 4 cups milk or coconut milk
• 2 large, ripe persimmons, the insides scooped out and chopped (or peeled and chopped if you're not making the cups)
• 4 tablespoons honey
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger paste
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom
• pinch turmeric (for color) OPTIONAL

Preparation:
1. In a large pan, soak the tapioca pearls in the milk for about 40 minutes.
2. In a small saucepan, add the cut persimmon, cinnamon powder, ginger and 2 tablespoons honey, and place the pan over heat. Stir well, cover and cook on low till the fruit softens. Remove from heat and put aside.
3. Place the pan with the tapioca soaked in milk over heat along with 2 tablespoons honey and the cardamom.  Bring everything to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about 5-7 minutes, stirring all the time.
4. Add 3/4 of the cooked persimmons along with the turmeric and continue to cook till the tapioca pearls are completely done and the mixture has thickened. Keep stirring frequently.
5. Spoon into bowls or persimmon cups. Top with the reserved cooked persimmons. Serve warm or chilled.
6. Finished!