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loring the art of Japanese cuisi

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qTHE FRUGAL GOURMET

JAPANESE PEOPLE
believe that food should
look as good as it tastes. So
take a little time to arrange
these dishes in an attractive
Way.

You'll be happy you did —
especially when you see the
delighted looks on your guests’
faces,

MISO SOUP WITH SHRIMP

(Serves 5}

The Japanese love this soup
made with fermented soybean
paste,

It is a very light soup and is
served with just a few delicate in-
gredients added, so that one may
enjoy the flavor of the soup itself.

And it is drunk from the bowl;
spoons. are not offered. Your
children will love that aspect of
Japanese formality.

You can find all the ingredients
you may not be familiar with in
Japanese markets. .

3 cups ‘‘dashi’’ stock

¥2 cup light ‘‘miso’’

V2 teaspoon sugar

2 small cakes deep-fried bean
eurd, thinly sliced, or 2 small
cakes deep-fried fish paste
(‘“‘kamaboko”’), thirty sliced

Y2 cake fresh bean curd, cut into
smal) cubes

2 scallions, chopped

10 large shrimp, cooked and peel-
ied

Prepare the stock according to
instructions on the package. Bring
to a simmer and stir in the miso,
using a wire whisk.

Add the sugar, fried bean curd
land fresh bean curd. Divide into

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five bowls and add the scallions
and shrimp.

Serve immediately.

SALMON IN NISO
(Serves 4)

There is apparently nothing the
Japanese will not try with miso.

2 pounds fresh salmon steaks or
fillets

Y cup light miso

1 tablespoon sugar

Pinch of MSG (optional)

3 scallions, chopped

1 tablespoon soy sauce

I feaspvon sesame oil

Y cup sake

Place the steaks in a bow! large
enough for marinating.

In another bowl mix the re-
maining ingredients.

Marinate the steaks in this mix-
ture for about 2 hours at room
temperature or in the refrigerator
overnight.

Grill or broil until done to your
own taste, 1 never overcook mine.
Note: You can make this recipe
with any other rich-tasting fish.
Biack cod (sable) is a good choice.

BEEF MISOYAKE
(Serves 4 as part of
a Japanese meal)

Miso, fermented soybean pastc,
is used in this dish to provide a
beef and soy flavor that is very
tich.

It will stretch out the meat and
you will be surprised at how far
this dish will go at a meal.

_ Tt is generally eaten with boiled
rice.
2¥2 tablespoons sesame seeds
% cup light miso
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
\% teaspoon MSG (optional)
Ys cup sake
1 pound beef, rib eye roast, very
thinly sliced
1 tablespoon peanut oil .

Toast the sesame seeds in a fry-
ing pan. Cook only until a few
pop and the rest turn golden
brown.

Grind with a mortar and pestle
or run through a food blender.
Do not grind too fine.

Add the miso to the sesame
seeds and mix well.

Add the soy sauce, sugar, op-
tional MSG and sake.

Spread half of the mixture on a
platter and place the beef slices in
the marinade. Brush the remaining
marinade on top.

Let stand for 30 minutes to |
hour. Remove the beef from the
marinade, scrape off the excess

MOST BOWLS in
cookware stores wear the
look of happy generalists,
quite at ease being used for
a variety of cooking chores.

Not so with copper bowls,
however. Their shiny plump sides
and rounded bottoms convey that
they’re a bowl with a purpose.

Even hanging in the store, light
glints from the curled rim and in-
vites you to test the old and hon-
orable custom of beating egg
whites in a copper vessel.

Yes, copper displays a sense of
authority about its worth in the
culinary world.

It’s also a reminder that the
business ef egg whites and copper
bowls has intrigued and [rustrated
cooks for years.

Intrigued, because many claim
that souffles and other dishes
made with beaten egg whites reach
greater heights when the whites

Japanese markets.

marinade and reserve.

Broil or pan-fry with a little oil.
Heat the leftover marinade and
serve with the beef.

CUCUMBER NAMASU
(Serves 4 as part of
a Japanese meal)

The Japanese table must always
appeal to the eye as well as the
stomach.

For this reason several pickle
dishes, which can also function as
decoration, are often served. This
is a good one.

Fey es

NEWS photo Cindy Goodman
ALL THE ingredients you may not be familiar with are available in

2-3 cucumbers

1 tablespoon plus % teaspoon salt
cup sugar

Y% cup rice-wine vinegar

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

Prepare the cucumbers by slic-
ing them in half. Remove the
seeds if they are large. Slice in
thin diagonals.

Sprinkle with the 1 tablespoon
of salt and place in a bowl. Let
stand for 20 minutes.

Rinse, drain and remove excess
water by putting the cucumbers in

a kitchen towel and squeezing out
the water.

Combine the sugar,
remaining salt and ginger.

Pour over the cucumbers and
chill.

SPINACH WITH SESAME

AND MISO
(Serves 5 as an
appetizer or pickle)

Japanese immigrants quickly
learned to give common American
vegetables favors that reminded
them of the old country. This is
just such a dish,

1 like to serve this as a cold
vegetable side dish.

2% tablespoons sesame seeds
2 tablespoons light miso

Y2 teaspoon sugar

¥s pound fresh spinach

1 tablespoon peanut oit

Heat a wok or frying pan and
add the sesame seeds.

Stir over medium-high heat un-
til they are lightly toasted.

Cool the seeds and crush them
with a morter and pestle or food
blender.

Mix with the miso and sugar.

Wash the spinach and drain
well.

Heat a wok or frying pan and
add the oil.

Stir-fry the spinach just until it
collapses. Remove from the wok.

Stir the miso and sesame paste
into the spinach.

Serve hot or cold.

TAKUAN
(Pickled Daikon)
(Makes about 3 quarts, depending
on the size of the daikon)

This is another pickle that is
common on the Japanese table.

Although you can purchase
these in any Japanese market, |
still think it is fun to prepare your
own.

5-6 medium daikon, peeled, sliced
and placed in canning jars
PICKLING BRINE

¥ cup sugar

1 cup water

Ya cup pickling salt (no iodine)

% cup distilled white vinegar

Ys teaspoon yellow food coloring

1 dried red chili pepper, chopped
(optional)

Prepare the daikon.

Boil all the brine ingredients
together to dissolve the sugar.

Cool the liquid. Pour over the °
sliced daikon and place in scaled
jars in the refrigerator.

Shake the jars occasionally. The
pickle will be ready to eat in two
days.

vinegar,

ereat heights in copper bowls

are beaten in a copper bowl.

And frustrated, because if
you've ever decided to personally
test this tradition, a measured
amount of egg white beaten in a
glass bow! is not much different in
volume than an identical amount
beaten in a copper one.

Beaten egg white doesn't appear
to substantiate the claims of cop-
per.

But wait!

A billowing egg white foam is
just films of protein stretched like
elastic around thousands of bub-
bles of air.

Beating continually divides these
tiny air pockets. As each swells
with air, the volume of foam in-
creases.

Beating also coagulates the pro-
tein films. The white becomes
opaque and increasingly sviif, as if
each elastic bubble were already
baked. .

And ina sense it is, although

this particular phenomenon of
firming protein comes through
beating, not by heat.

And of course, heat is still nec-
essary to set the foam so it wort
collapse.

Copper bowls are cradled under
one arm, while briskly whisking
egg whites with the other,

The combination of whisk and
rounded base works well because
none of the white escapes the
vigor of beating.

The flexible round wires of a
whisk have less chance of ruptur-
ing the air bubbles than the flat
hard edges of some other types of
beaters.

Egg whites swirl over the copper
surface thousands of times during
beating, and they pick up trace
amounts of copper, which com-
bines with an egg white protein
called conalbumin.

Studies have found that the
copper-conalbumin complex

makes an egg white foam that's
more stable than a foam beaten
without the addition of copper.

Though the volume isn't
noticeably larger, the whites can
stand longer without collapsing,
and when folded into a souffle,
fewer bubbles rupture.

(if you can't afford a copper
bowl, note that cream of tartar is
also a stabilizer for beaten egg
whites.)

Once in the oven, however,
copper shows its unique merits.

Whites with the cop-
per-conalbumin complex allow a
souffle to rise longer, and the
bubbles expand more, before the
egg whites set.

This means that after baking,
souffles are higher — some cooks
even claim they are twice as high.

Copper does make a difference
in beating egg whites, but its ef-
fect is more evident in the oven
than in the bowl.

Et A TE