White and Brown Beech Mushrooms with Dashi pictures (1 of 4)
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In my Asian market, there are always abundant choices when it comes to mushrooms—shiitake, enoki, button, portobello, buna shimeji, drumstick mushrooms, etc. I love mushrooms as they are one of the healthiest foods to eat, plus they are low in calories and are often organically grown.
This week, both white and brown beech mushrooms (buna shimeji mushrooms) are on sale. I got a couple of boxes of them but don’t really have a good recipe to prepare them. I then think of Japanese recipes as mushroom is a mainstay in Japanese cuisine and I had personally savored delicately flavored mushroom dishes during my trips to Tokyo. After flipping through my Japanese cookbook, I decided to cook the mushrooms with some dashi, soy sauce, sake, mirin, and butter…(get beech mushrooms recipe after the jump)
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Tempura (Shrimp and Vegetables) pictures (1 of 3)
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A few weeks ago, I tweeted about guest bloggers on Rasa Malaysia and Mable Tan—a fellow Malaysian who resides in Australia—responded and came to my rescue. Mable is a fantastic baker and a great cook; her blog “Happy Monkee” is beautiful and delicious. In her past life, Mable was a writer and stylist working with Seventeen, Marie Claire, Female (leading magazine in Malaysia and Singapore) and Going Places (inflight magazine of Malaysia Airlines). Please check out Mable’s guest post below and learn the secrets of making light and crispy tempura, a popular Japanese recipe. Please also pay a visit to her blog. Thank you!
Unlike Japanese breadcrumb (panko), tempura is a lighter, fluffier version. The idea is to keep the batter as cold as possible and also not over-mixing the batter. I’m so used to clump-free mixes that it takes ginormous willpower not to beat it till it’s smooth. Apparently, an over-mixed batter will result in activating the wheat gluten and causing the batter to be more chewy and dough-like when fried (great if you’re making doughnuts).
Now, what you might not know about tempura is that it was actually introduced to the Japanese by Portuguese missionaries and traders. The first shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, loved it so much it became widespread and adopted into the culture. If you go to Portugal today, there is a very similar dish called peixinhos da horta or “garden fishies…”
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(Attend hands-on hot pot workshop in Los Angeles by Harris Salat, the author of Japanese Hot Pots. Classes are available on November 14-15, 2009. Click here to learn more.)
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There are countless authentic Japanese [...]
Just a couple of weeks ago, my friend Marc at No Recipes shared his udon recipe with Rasa Malaysia readers. In his guest post, Marc also shared his dashi recipe–the building block of Japanese cuisine. Finally, I knew what to do with the giant piece of kombu (dried seaweed) and dried bonito flakes in my [...]
There is no secret that I adore Japanese cuisine and wish to learn more about it. Today, I am very pleased to have Marc at No Recipes as a guest writer on Rasa Malaysia. Marc shares his kitsune udon recipe, elaborates on Japanese dashi (the building block of Japanese cuisine), and introduces key Japanese ingredients [...]
