Tofu and Chicken Meatballs

Adding tofu to a meatball gives soft, fluffy texture.  If you have leftover tofu in your fridge and want to use it up, try this recipe ♪

<Tofu & Chicken Meatballs>

• 400g chicken mince
• 300 tofu
• 1tbs miso paste
• 1tsp grated ginger
• 1tsp sake (cooking wine)
• 1tsp corn flour

• 1tbs miso
• 1tss mirin
• 1tsp soy sauce
• 2tbs water 

  

1.  Drain liquid from tofu : Place tofu on a microwave-proof plate.  Microwave for 1 minutes.  Sandwich with kitchen paper to absorb any water from tofu.
2. Place tofu in a bowl.  Break with hand or wooden spoon briefly, and add all the ingredients.  Mix well, slightly beating the mince, until the mixture comes together.
3. Shape the mixture into balls.  Flatten the centre.  Dust with extra corn flour.
4. Heat 1 tbs olive oil, and grill meat balls both side, until browned and cooked through.  remove from the pan, and set aside.
5. Mix all the ingredients from <extra sauce>.  Simmer the sauce in another pan.  Place the meat balls into the sauce and coat through, turn off the heat.

  

You can also make this with pork mince.  Add to soup, udon, steam board, miso soup etc…  enjoy your way

Mabo Tofu (Japanese style Chili Tofu)

Mabo Tofu is a typical Chinese food we eat in Japan.  Apparently it’s little different from the original dish, but we still call it “Mabo Tofu” and we enjoy it.  Some people add more chili to make it spicier, and that’s became one of “summer food” in Japan.  (In Japan we eat hot & spicy food in summer)

There is a dish called “Mabo Donburi”, it’s basically a rice served in a bowl, covered with mabo tofu.  You can find it even in convenience stores in Japan during summer.

Mabo Tofu (ma-bo dofu)

<Mabo Tofu>

• 50g pork mince
• 300g silken tofu
• 1tsp grated ginger
• 1tsp grated garlic
• 1tsp tobanjan
• 1tbs sesame oil
• 1tsp corn flour + 1tsp water

Grilled Miso-mayo Salmon

If you get bored with teriyaki salmon, why not try this creamy miso flavored grilled salmon?  It’s as easy as toasting a slice of bread.  Simply spread the mixture on the salmon and grill it.  Enjoy with steamed rice and a cup of miso soup 

<Miso-mayo Salmon>

• salmon fillet, skin free
• miso paste
• Japanese mayonnais

1. Mix 2 tsp of Japanese mayonnaise and 1 tsp of miso paste.  You can use either red or white miso depending on your taste.

2.  Spread the miso paste on salmon (skin side).  Grill under Salamander or in the oven until cooked.

If the miso paste starts to get colored but the salmon is not quite cooked through, cover the top with aluminium foil to prevent it from burning.

Japanese people often use Japanese mayonnaise in cooking.  Some people really LOVES mayonnaise, and they eat it with anything… my mum is one of them.  She even eats pickles, nimono (simmered dish, mostly vegetables), grilled fish, meat, natto, noodle .. anything with mayonnaise.  I don’t usually eat mayonnaise except when eating okonomi-yaki or tako-yaki, so I always get surprised how quickly my family finish one bottle of mayonnaise at home :p

Some of the recipes using Japanese mayonnaise are little weird to me, and some of them are actually delicious.  I wouldn’t like stir-fried rice with mayonnaise (:p) or mayonnaise pan-cake (supposed to be eaten with maple syrup… eww) but I would eat mayonnaise omelet or mayonnaise hamburg.  …  who knows, maybe they’d all taste pretty good.  It’ll be high cholesterol for sure though.

Chunky Miso Soup

It’s been very cold lately…(><)  To warm up, I cooked miso soup!  You know, miso soup is not always with just wakame(seaweed) and tofu.

Dashi Powder

Dissolve this Dashi powder (stock) into water.  The amount is about 4g of Dashi : 600ml water.

You can put lots of things into miso soup, like root veges, tofu, potatoes, konnyaku, legume, fish, clam etc…  In Japan we also put pork meat into miso soup too, the dish is called “buta-jiru”.  It’s really really nice and I can eat just this with rice.

From left:Konnyaku, Tofu, Wakame

Today I put some root veges (like daikon radish, gobou (burdock), carrots…), tofu, konnyaku, abura-age(deep-fried bean curd), shiitake mushroom, onion, wakame and satoimo taro potatoes.  See, from just with one bowl of miso soup you can get lots of nutrition:)

You can also use like this frozen veges.  You don’t need to cut, peel or wash, just chuck into the soup:p

Turn off the heat, and then dissolve miso paste.  Do not boil the soup after putting the miso paste as it will kill the flavor.

You can actually EAT miso soup, not DRINK