2.flowering of roses

My lovely Heritage is flowering for the 2nd time, even more fragant and pink than the first time. Good times in the garden!

Weekend treat: Maki

This weekend I decided to spoil Mr.Linuz with maki, as it is one of his favorite food.
Maki really is very simple, once you got some decent sushi rice going, it's just about filling and cutting. We choose salmon (sake), scallops (hottate gai) and trout caviar (ikura) this time. I'd gotten hold of 1.class Salma salmon, so fresh you don't have to freeze it before you eat it raw.
I also made a small sashimi starter; salmon sliced with caviar and ponzu sauce.

For the maki you need:
Sushi rice, about 3 cups, uncooked
Sheets of nori
Seafood and vegetables to fill, I used rew salmon, raw scallops, trout caviar, boiled aspargus, sticks of cucumber, wasabi and mayonaise.

Rice
3 cups of sushi rice (I've got a steamcooker, so I just wash it, put it in with required water and push "cook"), if you don't have one, it's about 3 cups of water to 3 cups of washed and soaked rice (20 min) + a small sheet of kombu in the cooking water if you'd like. Let it boil up under a lid, switch the heat all the way down and cook under a lid for 20 min. Rest the rice 10 min.

The cooked rice goes into a hangiri or another large bowl for cooling. Pour over sushi-zu (3 tbsp rice vinegar brought to boil with 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp salt, cooled down) and flip the rice over with a spatula to mix it. Let it cool. Put a wet towel over the bowl to keep it moist.

Maki
Put a nori sheet on a rolling mat covered with plastic. Put an amount of rice on the nori sheet to cover about 3/4 of it, add filling in the middle of the rice. Grab one end of mat and fold into a roll. Squeese the mat to make it real round. Cut in 6 or 8 pieces.

Cold noodles

Yesterday I made some real Japanese summer food. It hardly requires a recipe, you just boil noodles, cool them off, mix some dipping soup and some garnish. This is great food if you don't feel like eating at all. In Japan they sometimes serve this in a bowl with ice cubes or in a running stream of water!


I "cheated" and bought ready-made menmi (dipping soup) that only needs to be mixed with 3 parts of water. If you want to make your own, try this recipe: 1 cup of dashi, 1/3 cup of mirin, 1/3 cup of soya. Heat the mirin in a pan, add soya and dashi. Bring to boil and cool down. Dillute with water if you like, and add garnish like ginger, chopped onions and shiso.


With our cold soba noodles (buckwheat), we had carrots, cucumber, omelet strips, ham and silken tofu.
Mr. Linuz really liked it, and he added some cold, grilled salmon from the day before as well. We also added some red shiso to the menmi.

Japanese grocery shopping

Vacation is over, and it's time to fill up the closet/fridge/freezer! From left: Rice snacks for kids, bottle of menmi, 2 types of miso, konyaku, umeboshi, soba noodles, cold tea drink, tofu, rice vinegar, mirin, frozen lotus root and inari!

Russian pirogi *non-Japanese food*

Yes, we do eat other stuff than Japanese food! Especially lately, I've been trying to mix it up a bit.. and being a "Russian housewife", I thought I'd try to make pirogi.

So, here we go:

Dough
7 g dry yeast
2 ts brown sugar
2/3 cup skimmed milk (abt. 2 dl ), lukewarm
1 large egg
1 tbsp water
1 cup (=240 ml) melted margarine, lukewarm
1/4 ts salt
3 3/4 cup flour (= 9 dl) (I used dinkel)


Filling
1/2 head of cabbage
2 tbsp hacked dill
1 clove garlic, hacked
2 tbsp oil
2-3 hard boiled eggs
2-3 large potatoes cut in small cubes and boiled
salt and pepper

+ any meat, fish or chicken and maybe peas as well
1 beaten egg

Make dough
Dissolve the yeast and sugar in lukewarm milk, leave for 5 min, then add the egg beaten with water and lukewarm margarine, plus salt. Stir together and add the flour, cup by cup, leaving 1/2 cup out. Form the dough into a ball and knead in the rest of the flour. Leave to rise for abt. 10 min. Use at once, or refrigerate for up to 24 hrs.

Make filling
Boil eggs and potatoes until done. Sieve potatoes and peel eggs. Chop them into small pieces.
Cut the cabbage into strips and boil for 2 min in salted water. Strain and chop it up more.
Put the oil in a large pan or wok, add garlic, fry 2 min, add cabbage and dill. Fry until soft, add potatoes and eggs + any other filling. Adjust taste with s/p.

Make circular pieces of the dough and put 2 tbsp filling on one half. Close it into a half circle, close the edges with a fork and put beaten egg on it.
Cook the pirogi for 20-25 minutes on 200 degrees C until brown.

Serve with soup or sour cream dressing. Great for picnic!

Roses *non-Japanese plants!*

I'm proud to present: Mr. Graham Thomas and Heritage.
The lovely Austin roses currently growing in my garden. Planted in mid-May, they're now full of fragrant flowers, Graham Thomas (above) has pale yellow, almost peach flowers. Heritage (under) has light pink, almost white, some more pink, full flowers. I have high hopes for these ones!

My garden

Growing daikon has proven to be quite interesting and quite tricky for a garden-virgin like me.
But, this one I think will be a success, after a few attempts that has ended with small, withered ones...
I have no idea if this pot is deep enough or how long this root is now, but I'll try to let it grow for another week or so to see if it gets thicker.
The daikon is Hybrid Daebu Summer, and it should be grown in 60 days after sowing.
It was planted around May 15th, so that gives it another week to grow.

My green shiso is also growing well these days. After a rocky start in the beginning of summer, they got pale green and were bothered by insects, they've matured into rich, dark green plants with huge leaves. I will salt the leaves for onigri wrappers this week - so stay tuned!

Happy morning

Japanese tea in my tetsubin (iron tea pot) and aka-shiso growing in the background....

Instant Tsukemono

I bought a mix for instant pickles in the Japanese market, so I thought I'd give it a go.
Since the instructions on the packet is in Japanese, I had to search a bit to find out how, but hey, it's not that hard... I did get an advice to add some lemon juice and shiso, so I did that.
Otherwise: 200-250 g of vegetable of choice, I used cucumber and aubergine, add a pack of instant tsukemono powder, lemon juice, shiso to a plastic bag. Leave in the fridge for a few days.

I've already tasted some, and they're quite good. Next time I'll try to make my own tsukemono powder though... to escape the msg...

Cake! Pavlova... *non-japanese food*

Oh, I found this picture of the Pavlova I made for 17th of May (Norway's constitution day).
And it looks so nice I want to share it... and post recipe...

Pavlova

6 egg whites
4 dl sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vinegar
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tbsp vanilla essence

Whisk together, starting with egg whites and salt, then adding sugar and eventually vinegar and corn starch + vanilla.
When the meringue has become thick and shiny, pour in on a baking sheet where you've drawn a circle of about 26 cm in diameter. Form a circle of the mass.
Put it in an oven heated to 250 degrees C, switch the heat down to 100 degrees. Fry it on 100 degrees for at least an hour. Cool down.
Decorate with whipped cream, berries, vanilla cream....