Yudofu Tofu Hot Pot & Ponzu Two Ways

This post was originally going to include three ponzu variations, but after I squeezed the juice from a couple dozen yuzu and an unbelievable citrusy perfume overpowered the apartment, my wife asked me to save some juice for shochu cocktails! Wait -- let me back up: A few months ago I met a very nice woman at a Japan Society event and somehow we got to talking about yuzu, a variety of Japanese citrus. Originally from Japan, she told me she grows yuzu in her country house in upstate New York (in portable planters she moves inside in the winter), and graciously offered to send me some. A couple of weeks ago -- lo and behold -- a box-full of yuzu arrived!

Now that I had my hands on yuzu, what do to with them? I peeled the rind to make yuzu-kosho, which I'm still experimenting with (more on that to come). And I squeezed the juice for ponzu (and now, cocktails). Ponzu is versatile, citrus-based dipping sauce. There are tons of varieties of ponzu, with or without vinegar. We made two: A simple, simple ponzu from 1 part yuzu juice to 1 part soy sauce, which was fantastic because the yuzu was so fresh, and another more elaborate recipe, the signature yuzu of my researcher Tomoko's mom, which I share below. (Thanks Tomoko & Tomoko's mom!) Both are great, variations on a theme. Besides yuzu, by the way, you can use any kind of citrus for ponzu, or a mixture of citrus, like a combination of lemon, lime and grapefruit.

Now, what to eat with the ponzu? Yudofu is a natural, and so incredibly easy. Yudofu is tofu hot pot, a standard in the winter. Place a 6-inch or so piece of kombu on the bottom of a hot pot (or any vessel you use), add silken tofu, napa cabbage, Japanese negi or green onions, and mushrooms (we used maitake from our farmers market, but shiitake or oysters or a combo of them are great, too). Fill the hot pot 3/4 of the way with water. Cover and bring to a boil, and simmer for about 10 minutes and it's ready. Bring the hot pot to the dining table and go do town, dipping cooked ingredients into ponzu to eat. Simple, clean, delicious and so satisfying. Tomoko's ponzu follows after the jump. Do you have a favorite ponzu recipe? Please share in the comments!

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Steaming Large Clams with Dashi & Sake

I found these big, hunky clams at the farmers market this weekend, each at least 2 inches across. But how to prepare them? My wife Momo found a bunch of recipes online, but we decided to go as simple as possible -- steam them with sake. I talked about sake-steaming clams in one of my earliest blog posts (written over four years ago already, wow!) but the method we found online was different. Instead of combining the clams and sake in a saucepan and turning on the heat, as I did in the earlier recipe, this method instructed us to start by heating the clams in a dry pan, then add liquid once the clams opened. So here's what we did: I soaked a dozen clams in salt water overnight to get them to expel sand and dirt (keeping them in the fridge). Then Nobuko, my M-I-L, prepared 2 cups of kombu dashi, adding a pinch of salt to the liquid, and setting aside. She arranged the clams in a dry cast iron skillet, covered the skillet and placed it over high heat. After about 7 or so minutes, the clams opened up. Nobuko uncovered the skillet and added the dashi. When the dashi started to boil, she poured in about 1/2 cup sake. When the liquid boiled again, she swirled in soy sauce, I'm guessing about a tablespoon. That was it, the clams were ready: Nobuko plated the clams with the broth in individual bowls. (While Nobuko was working the stove, I chopped scallions for garnish, which I sprinkled atop the clams.) The clams were incredibly tender and so, so delicious, as was the broth. But I wondered, what was the point of starting the clams on the dry skillet, rather than in dahi and sake? Nobuko wasn't sure, but thought it was more appropriate for larger clams. I'm not sure either. Anyone out there know the answer, or have an opinion? If so, please post them in the comments! Thanks...

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The Dynamic Duo: Butter and Soy Sauce

A few years ago I interviewed the chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten for a story and he mentioned something to me as an aside, that one of his favorite flavor combinations was butter and soy sauce. That stuck with me -- because there's something so incredibly beguiling about this bi-cultural marriage of velvety, rich butter and intense, savory soy sauce. It's a one-two punch that works fantastically with so many ingredients: all manner of mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, zucchini, shrimp, scallops, flounder fillets and more. First sauté the ingredient in butter, and when it's just cooked through, drizzle in soy sauce. Cook a little more and it's done. This is exactly how the oyster mushrooms in the photo above were prepared, using about 1/2 pound of mushrooms, 1 tablespoon butter and 1 or so teaspoons of soy sauce (adjust to your own taste). Prepared this way, they impart this unbelievable mushroom-butter-soy sauce flavor and fragrance, ah, so wonderful...

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Udon Seafood Hot Pot

Here's an example of the spontaneity of Japanese cooking: My mother-in-law Nobuko is here to visit our baby (not us, but the baby :) ), and yesterday we took her to our local farmer's market here in Brooklyn. It's a one of the smaller markets in town, but it's got great stuff, a bounty of veggies, lovely eggs, and more. A terrific fisher from the North Fork of Long Island sells her catch here, too, and we bought live soft-shelled crab, clams and scallops. By the time we got home we were ready for lunch. Looking over the seafood, we thought... hot pot! But we didn't make rice ahead of time. I remembered I had a few bricks of fresh-frozen udon noodles in the freezer. Could we make a hot pot with seafood and udon, I asked Nobuko? She thought for a moment. She never cooked something that before, she told me. But if would kill the crabs, she'd give it a try. Deal! Nobuko's one of the most amazing cooks I've ever met -- of any cuisine -- so I had no doubt the hot pot would be fabulous. She didn't disappoint.

Here's a description of how Nobuko prepared the dish. Follow it and trust your taste buds, and you'll do great. Don't worry about exact measurements; this is hot pot cooking, which is very forgiving. Taste often, and add other ingredients, if you'd like, too. Here we go:

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Chicken Nanban with Japanese-Style Tartar Sauce

So I was digging up research on Japanese-style tartar sauce for the new cookbook I'm working on with Tadashi, when I came across this dish. Yep, cookbooks are a little like childbirth -- wait a while and you forget the pain, and want to do it all over again! This time, Tadashi and I are working on our biggest, baddest project yet, a book devoted to Japanese soul food, and the family run joints across Japan lovingly serving it, especially old Showa-era restaurants still going strong today. (Hey, by the way, if you have suggestions of favorite soul food holes-in-the-wall in Japan to recommend, please let me know in the comments, and Tadashi and I will try to visit. Ramen, curry, tonkatsu -- it's all good!) The dish in the photo was originally conceived at a family style restaurant called Ogura located in the southern city of Miyazaki (great town), and has since become popular all over the country. Nanbanzuke is a pickling technique, traditionally for fish, where you first fry the fish, then marinate it in a sweet-savory vinegar (amazu). Here, this method has been adapted to chicken breast, with dallop of Japanese tartar sauce added for extra oomph. So what makes Japanese tartar sauce "Japanese?" I think (and feel free to weigh in here) that in the Japan version a hardboiled egg is added to tartar sauce, which isn't typically done in, say, America. In any case the tartar sauce I will describe shortly is wonderful, and not just for this dish. And the chicken breast, deep fried in a simple flour and egg coating, then dipped in the vinegar, is juicy, flavorful and delicious (and great for lunch the next day, too). Give it a try, especially if you've got kids. Here are the recipes:

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The Power of Goma-ae, or Sesame Dressing

Here's another dish from another one of my Japanese cookbooks, this one titled "Gentle Vegetables, Gentle Tableware." This book features gorgeous shots of foods arranged in simple yet rustic and breathtaking tableware. There are no recipes, per se, just a list of ingredients for each dish, and the author's thoughts on the cooking. These thoughts, though, are heavy. Take the dish pictured above, corn and blanched and shocked green beans dressed with goma-ae (sesame dressing). Goma-ae is simplicity itself: The way I make it is 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, ground, mixed with 1 teaspoon sugar (I use a blonde Japanese cane sugar, which has a lovely sweetness) and 1 tablespoon soy sauce. You can adjust these proportions to your own taste, and of course up quantities proportionally depending on how much you're cooking.

Now here's where it gets interesting: As the author explains, the simple acts of how you toast the sesame seeds and how you grind them, can create totally different dishes from the same ingredients. So in the photo above, I lightly toasted the sesame seeds in a dry skillet (still blonde) and ground them in a suribachi until they became a paste like peanut butter, then added the sugar and soy sauce and mixed everything smooth. This created a delicate goma-ae that complimented the delicate sweetness of the corn. On the other hand, the author explains, you can toast the sesame seeds until they brown and release their amazing fragrance (be careful not to burn), then grind them roughly before combining with sugar and soy sauce. The result now is a totally different goma-ae, one with a different flavor, different fragrance and different mouth feel - a dressing that works amazing with just blanched and shocked green beans.

A Japanese chef once described her cuisine to me as one characterized by laser-focused intent and precision. Even a home cook in a home kitchen can tap into this, just by preparing something as simple as sesame dressing.

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