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Posts Tagged ‘sashimi’

Tuna Poke

Tuna Poke

Every few months or so, I’ll discover a restaurant that quickly becomes my new favourite. It always plays out the same way, I’ll go back several times in a month and think how handy it would be to have a “standing reservation” every week. My husband prefers to try different restaurants so by the third or fourth time, he is pleading we try something new. A restaurant that made it to the favourite list and one we visited more than the usual was a restaurant serving Japanese pub food in Surry Hills called Izakaya Fujiyama.

They are famous for their charcoal grilled fish head which is limited in availability. They manager mentioned that it’s only available usually once a week. Naturally, when we found out that there was a tuna head was available, we had to order it. We asked the waitress for it and she put in our order. A few minutes later she came back with bad news. “Chef says that you cannot order it. It’s too big.” She told us. Given that we had already ordered four other dishes, she tried to persuade us that there would be too much food. We said we didn’t mind and we really wanted to order it so she went back to the chef to place our order. Forty minutes later this monster of a fish head arrived in our table. The head was so large that all our other dishes had to be cleared because the wooden serving plate covered the whole of the table. Of course there was no way we could finish the dish. In fact, we shared it with the table beside us and still had half to take home!

We rolled out of the restaurant thinking we would need to take at least four or five people to join us next time. Later on my husband told me that when the waitress went back to tell the chef we were insisting on ordering the dish, he saw the chef laugh and shake his head.

Equally as impressive, this tuna dish is definitely more manageable. Tuna Poke made with sashimi grade tuna marinated in soy, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil, over a bed of seaweed and topped with crispy wonton strips.

Tuna Poke

serves 2 as a started

  • 250 grams sashimi quality tuna
  • 100 grams seaweed
  • 3 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • Dash of shichimi togarashi
  • 1 teaspoon toasted sesame
  • strips of fried wonton wrappers
  1. Diced the tuna into 1 cm pieces. Set aside.
  2. Mix the soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, shichimi and toasted sesame in a bowl and spoon over the tuna.
  3. Lay the seaweed salad on a serving plate, top with the marinated tuna and finally the wonton wrappers.

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Tartare of Oysters, Scallops and Salmon with Ginger Dressing

Awhile back I told my husband – “You must have fed me something!”

“What do you mean?”  He asked.

“Well, you know I never used to like you…” I told him.

And I’m still scratching my head thinking about what aphrodisiac he must have fed me to make me fall in love.  Could it have been the daily belgian waffles he sent to my office? Or was Cupid’s arrow laced with the triple chocolate layered cake that he would drop off at my home after work?  Whatever his recipe was, it worked!

With Valentine’s a few weeks away, here’s a recipe has the three key ingredients to make  a sure fire aphrodisiac – oysters, caviar and champagne (vinegar that is!).  I have adapted this from one of my favourite cafes in Paris called Cafe Constant.   It is owned by Christian Constant who owns several restaurants on the Rue Saint Dominique.

Oysters, Scallops and Salmon

Recipe (Serves 4) – Adapted from Christian Constant

  • 12 fresh oysters, cleaned, shells reserved
  • 8 sashimi grade scallops, roe removed
  • 40 grams Sashimi grade Salmon
  • 2 tablespoons ginger, grated
  • 2 tablespoons chives, finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons champagne vinegar
  • Juice of 1/4 lemon
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • olive oil
  • Caviar, for topping

Seafood Tartare of Christian Constant

  1. Finely chop the oysters, scallops and salmon and set aside in the refrigerator.
  2. Mix the ginger, lemon  juice, champagne vinegar, chives, and olive oil in a separate bowl.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
  3. When ready to serve (not any sooner!), mix the seafood with the dressing and place on top of the reserved oyster shells.
  4. Top with caviar.

Tartare Recipe adapted from Christian Constant

Stumble It!

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The Sushi Party!

Jack and Ben getting ready for the Masterchef Challenge... Itadaki-masu

One of my first memories in the Kitchen was watching my Mom cook.  I can recall asking her if I could help her.  Whether it be just to stir a sauce, chop an onion or peel a carrot.  The answer was usually that we should “just watch”.  As you know, “watching” isn’t half as interesting as  “doing” which is why we really didn’t develop that interest in cooking until much later on.

The latest range of Junior MasterChef products is a great way to encourage children to get interested in cooking at an early age.  When Kath from Be.Interactive and Fiona from Mark Communications offered that I test drive one of the kits available, I immediately jumped at the chance and asked for the Rice Kit.  Being Filipino, rice is very much considered a staple in our culture, as well as most Asian cultures.  I am glad that the new range also catered to all those that love rice!!

The Rice Kit contains a microwaveable rice cooker,  rice bowl, serving spoon, chopsticks, measuring cup and recipe cards.  I thought that it would be fun to get my nephew Ben and one of his best friend’s Jack to come over this weekend and road test the rice kit and have a sushi party!  The idea was to make the rice ahead of time and provide the boys with a selection of sushi fillings and get them to make their own rolls.

I was a bit apprehensive to use the microwave to make “sushi” rice but I am happy to report it turned out fine.  The technique I used to microwave the rice can be found here.  The recipe for the sushi dressing for the rice was given to me by Jack’s Mom (who is Japanese) and it was so simple to prepare and came out perfect – just like what I would have in any top Japanese restaurant.

Junior Masterchef Rice Kit

Recipe

  • 3 1/2 cups short grain rice, washed
  • 4 cups water
  • 3 inch square konbu (optional)

Vinegar Dressing Recipe

  • 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
  • 5 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt

When cooking the rice in the microwave, place the konbu on top of the rice.  Prepare the vinegar dressing by dissolving the sugar and salt on the rice vinegar over low heat.  Force cool to room temperature by pouring the hot vinegar mixture over the rice and place this on top of another bowl of water and ice.  Twirl the rice using the serving spoon provided until the rice comes to room temperature.

The fillings we used for the rolls were as follows – seaweed, salmon roe, tuna, king fish, salmon, cucumbers, prawns, tamago yaki (egg) and  crab sticks.

Sushi Roll Fillings

Recipe Tamago Yaki

Tamago Yaki

Put two five year olds in a room with some sushi rice, sushi roll fillings and a little bit of imagination and you get loads of fun !!  I asked Ben what the best part of the sushi party was and he said “putting fillings in the rice and rolling them up!”  Would he want to do it again?  “Yes please!” he said.

Ben and Jack with the Junior Masterchef Rice Kit

Clowning around before we got to cooking...

Okay... here we go!

"You mean we can put ANY filling we want? Do you have chocolate??"

"I'll have a prawn..."

"Rolling is fun!"

"This is soooo yummy!"

"Can I have one more?"

"Using chopsticks is easy!"

"We had so much fun!"

The end... Gochiso-sama

 

The Junior MasterChef kits are available to purchase from here.  They are also available at all the leading retailers such as Myer, K-Mart, Target and Big W. It’s the perfect Christmas present so hurry while stocks last.

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