Dinner on 20/07/10

Menu: Goya champuru, kabocha, okara, miso soup with mozuku, takuan(Japanese pickles) and rice with grains

Here's the photo of the dinner which my mum made on our first day back in Okinawa last summer.

Doesn't all the food look delicious?

I just found out the English name for mozuku. Apparently, it's called Cladosiphon okamuranus!

Cladosiphon okamuranus (水雲; 藻付; 海蘊; 海雲 (mozuku^?)) is a type of edible seaweed in the genusCladosiphon, naturally found in Okinawa, Japan. Most of the mozuku now is farmed by locals, and sold to processing factories. The main use of mozuku is as food, and as source of one type of sulfated polysaccharidecalled Fucoidan to be used in cancer treatment aid health supplements.

(Fromwikipedia)

Looking at this photo makes me hungry and makes me miss Okinawa...

Mu-chi-(鬼餅) Day

We have a tradition of eating mu-chi- on Mu-chi-(ムーチー) day in Okinawa.

I can imagine that most of you are thinking,

"What's that? What's mu-chi-??"

Well, mu-chi- is a type of streamed rice cake wrapped in getto (月桃) leaves. Mu-chi- day is on the 8th of December in lunar calendar in Okinawa, and this year's mu-chi- day fell on the 11th of January. Traditionally, we are supposed to pray for the children's health and well being. There's an interesting story behind this tradition.

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Legend has it that there was a man who was originally from Shuri (首里), our old capital city. He was a lonely man (he lost his parents when he was very young, and his little sister got married and moved to another Okinawan island) and eventually turned into an ogre and attacked animals and children to eat every night. Nobody could do anything about it. His sister heard about this and decided to see him taking his favourite food - rice cake but put iron nails inside. His sister took him to the cliff and gave him the special rice cake. While he was suffering in pain, his sister pushed him down the cliff. So no more ogre! This event happened on the 8th of December (in lunar calendar) apparently. That's how this tradition started.

Mu-chi- day is also called mu-chi-bi-sa, and it's supposed to be the coldest day of the year in Okinawa. (Am I right, my Okinawan friends?)

By the way, kanji (or Chinese character) for mu-chi- is 鬼餅. 鬼 means devil, and 餅 means rice cake.

My family make mu-chi- every year. The photos you can see below were taken back in the early 2009.

Wish I were there to make and eat it..... If you are in Okinawa, you should definitely try it!! If you do, make sure to eat one extra for me and let me know how you like it :)

Dinner on 13/06/10

Menu: Soki jiru, spinach ohitashi, and rice

That's the soup I didn't take to my friend's on the previous day. It still tastes lovely though. In the soup, I used spareribs, daikon (Japanese radish) and kelp. I made spinach ohitashi to go with it. I wanted something simple like this. I simply boiled some spinach for a couple of minutes, and squeezed out the water. Cut in 3 to 4cm length, and then soaked it in diluted hontsuyu. Hontsuyu is very useful and is commonly used in Japan.



Japanese Hontsuyu Soup Base for Noodle

Dinner on 12/06/10

Menu: Goya (bittermelon) champuru, somin (white noodle) champuru, jushi (rice with pork, shiitake, carrots), ninjin shirishiri (grated carrots and eggs), soki jiru (soup with spareribs, Japanese radish and kelp), chicken with marmalade and soy sauce

I treated my local friends to some Okinawan food at one of my friends'. Apart from the chicken dish, they are all typical Okinawan dishes. I don't know why we use the term "champuru" for the noodle dish (we use vegetables, tofu and meat in champuru dishes), but I believe there's an another name for it - somin tashiya (ソーミンタシヤー.) In traditional somin tashiya, white thin noodles, spring onions and salt are used. I would use sliced onions, tuna, and spring onions for the dish. My mum would use grated carrots as well. All the dishes are easy to make, but I will write about them another time.




This is the close-up version of the soup and rice dish. Actually, the soup wasn't a proper one. I used normal pork instead of spareribs. What happened was, I did make the proper soki jiru at home, but I wasn't confident enough to take it around. When I went to a supermarket on the way to my friend's, I couldn't find any spareribs. The soup still tasted nice though.

I was quite happy that my friends enjoyed the Okinawan food. :)





*My writing isn't good here, is it. Sorry, I'm getting tired. Time to go to bed now.

Dinner on 11/06/10

Menu: Spinach champuru, miso soup, rice, umeboshi puree

I wanted to have a simple dinner and made champuru with spinach. In champuru dishes, we use tofu, vegetables and some sort of meat (or tuna.) I've never used spinach in a champuru dish, but I thought "why not?" We had lots of spinach which I bought from the street market (three bunches for ￡1!!) I put in dashi stock, soy sauce and black pepper to taste.

Lunch on 24/05/10

Menu: Goya champuru, hiya somen

It was a hot day, so I cooked goya champuru again!! I used up tofu, so I didn't use it. I had leftover somen with it. I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch!

Lunch on 21/05/10

Menu: Goya champuru, rice

I meant to update my blog sooner, but it's not easy to find enough time to sit down and do so when an active 4-year-old is around.

Anyway, I made goya champuru for the first time this year. It was a hot day, and I picked up a couple of goya while in town the previous day. I used to eat goya champuru all the time while living in Okinawa. We have long hot summers over there, so it's a perfect dish for it. Goya (bitter melon) is a summer vegetable, by the way. It tastes bitter, so it's not so popular amongst kids. I've always loved it though. I still make goya champuru here in England, especially when we have hot days.

I wrote about goya a while ago, click here to see what I have written, if you are interested.

I'm off to pick up my daughter from school now.

Lunch on 05/01/05

I'm putting up old photos here. They were taken back in 2005 on the mainland Okinawa. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but it was in the northern part of the island. That place looks like a house, doesn't it? I'll ask my mum to see if she still remembers the name of the place and I'll post it here.

Doesn't the food look nice? They are onigiri (rice balls) and yakitori. They were really nice.

Lunch on 26/02/10

Menu: Taco Rice with a couple of glasses of Sangria

I had my friends over for lunch and made Taco Rice for them. Have I written about it here on this blog? That's an Okinawan-born dish and very popular with many. Some of you might be familiar with it, especially if you used to live there. It was created near Camp Hansen, one of the United States Marine Corps bases in Okinawa. Okinawa has been influenced by other countries over the years, and this is one of the Okinawan dishes which describe our culture well. Our culture is mixed with Chinese, Japanese, America and so on.

I've just found a good article on this topic. Click here if you are interested.

Personally, I'm not proud of Spam being one of the popular ingredients over there, but it is commonly used in stir-fries and so on.

Toshikoshi Soba '09

I always like having Okinawa soba on the new year's eve, but can't get hold of proper one here in England. Alternatively, I used Korean style noodle.


Click here if you would like to know what Toshikoshi soba is.

It was maasan!

*maasan means delicious in our language.

Dinner on 13/12/08

Menu: Chicken soup with kelp and vegetables, rice, umeboshi puree, abura-miso, steamed cabbage with balsamic vinegar dressing

It was freezing in the house, and we couldnt't warm up all day. The heating system in our house hasn't been working properly, so I though I would make a nice soup. Yes, my favourite soup - chicken soup with kelp! I decided to add in other root vegetables which are supposed to help to warm up your body if you eat them. I just used pre-boiled chicken (we normally boil the meat to remove fat before using in soup), ginger, Chinese cooking sake, water, kelp, leek, potatoes and carrots. I didn't bother adding in salt as I thought kelp had enough salt.

I had made cheating version of aburamiso, which is cooked miso paste, tuna and sugar. We normally use pre-boiled pork for this, but using tuna makes it much easier to make it. We eat it with rice.

I would normally use leaf vegetables (e.g. pak choi) for this soup, but we didn't have any, so I made a side dish with steamed cabbage salad. Having that extra dish made it perfect combination of the dinner, I think. We had seaweed, animal protein, root vegetables, carbohydrate, green vegetables, miso, umeboshi (they both are good for your health) and vinegar (also good for your health)! A meal should be like that.

Anyway, with the help of soup including sake and ginger, we felt warm after the dinner:)

Lunch on 07/04/08

Menu: Hiraya-chi with lots of vegetables.

I used these ingredients to make my style hiraya-chi. Hiraya-chi is like Okinawan-style Okonomiyaki (savoury pancakes), by the way. When we make our normal style hiraya-chi, we would use flour, water, nira (it's sort of like spring onions), and some people use tuna as well.

My daughter loves this!

Lunch on 06/02/08

Menu: Somin champuru

This is one of the typical Okinawan dishes called Somin champuru. In Japan, they have somen (this white noodle) with a cold dipping sauce, but in Okinawa, we fry somin (means somen in Okinawan). We do eat it in a Japanese way as well, but we love this dish!

I simply boiled the noodles (don't boil them too long!), and riced them in cold water and drained well. Then I fried some thin sliced onions and added the noodles, tinned tuna (the one in sunflower oil), and sprinkled some spring onions and a pinch of salt to taste. Some people add soy sauce, dashi stock etc..., but traditionally we only use salt to taste. I sometimes use a bit of dashi stock, but never use soy sauce. I like the simple flavour of this dish.

Dinner on 27/11/08

Menu: Okinawan-style noodle in hot soup with rafute

We had a chunk of pork in the freezer, and I decided to use it for dinner. As I mentioned before, we Okinawan boil pork to remove fat before using in cooking. We normally cook it for about an hour, wash it off with water, and use it in cooking. I decided to make rafute (the pork dish). I cooked the pre-cooked pork with dashi stock, cooking sake, sugar, soy sauce for a couple of hours, and added oyster sauce in the last few minutes. As I was boiling the pork, I felt like I might be able to make soup for Okinawa soba, and went for it. It was a spontaneous decision, and I had to use the ingredients in the house. Instead of using Okinawan-style noodle, I used rice noodles. For the soup, I used pork stock, dashi stock, a bit of cooking sake, a pinch of salt and a dash of soy sauce. As my first attempt, it wasn't too bad apart from the noodles. I didn't think rice noodles go well with this soup as the taste of the soup was subtle. The taste of the noodles seemed to be too strong for this soup. Oh well. I won't use rice noodles for this dish again. Next time I will try with Korean-style noodles or I might make noodle from scratch.

Dinner on 23/03/08

Menu: chicken soup with kelp; rice and umeboshi puree

It's been a while since I last updated this blog. I've been extremely busy trying to do many things. Hope all the people who come to check my blog are doing well :)
The other day, I made my favourite soup - chicken soup with kelp! We had a bad day and felt really cold. We couldn't warm up even we had the heater on. We definitely deserved a nice comfort food that day, so I decided to make this soup. There are several versions of this soup, and this time, I just used chicken, kelp, ginger, Chinese sake, lots of leek and a pinch of salt to taste. I didn't use dashi stock or anything. It still tasted nice. For the people who are not used to using dashi stock - you don't have to use it as long as there is enough chicken in the soup. Chicken and other ingredients make a lovely stock. I have to have kelp in this soup though. I love kelp so much, and it just tastes really nice in the soup. My two-year-old daughter loves kelp like me :) I put a fair amount of kelp in her bowl, but she kept asking for more.

What's your comfort food? As for me, chicken soup with kelp is definitely one of them.

Osechi Ryori (お節料理)

On New Year's Day, we have special New Year foods called Osechi. Again, there are many variations of Osechi. The interesting thing is that each Osechi dish has a special meaning such as wishing someone a long life, happiness, wealth, good health and so on. If you are interested, click here for more details.

This photo was taken on New Year's Day in 2003, when my husband and I went back to Okinawa. Most of the dishes in the photo are typical Osechi, although yakitori and the dish on the blue plate are not. We also had a soup called Nakami-jiru(with pig's intestines) which are commonly eaten on special occasions in Okinawa. We really enjoyed the Osechi which my mum prepared.

Toshikoshi Soba (年越しそば)

Traditionally, we have noodles which symbolize longevity on New Year's Eve hoping for the health of the whole family in the coming year. Soba means buckwheat noodles, but some people have udon, and in Okinawa, we have Okinawa soba for this occasion. Depending on where you are from in Japan, different types of noodles are eaten. I heard that udon is eaten as Toshikoshi soba in the Kansai area. The area called Sanuki(in Kagawa prefecture) is famous for its udon, and people there have Sanuki udon. We are supposed to eat the noodles before the new year coming - it's considered to be bad luck if you don't.

*Toshikoshi means crossing over from the one year to the next.

Ju-shi (Okinawan-Style Pork Rice)

Serves 4

3 cups of short-grain rice
2 dried shiitake, chopped finely after being soaked in water
1 small carrot, chopped finely
1 spring onion, thinly sliced
120g pork, chopped finely after being boiled for 30min.
A total of 3 cups of dashi stock and pork stock

Sauce
2tbsp soy sauce
3tbsp oyster sauce

1. Wash the rice and put shiitake, carrot, pork, sauce and water into the pot. Mix them altogether.
2. Cook the rice.
3. When it's cooked, mix the rice and add spring onion. Mix and let it simmer for 5-10 minutes.
   

Okinawan dishes

I found this photo taken a while ago. Apart from miso soup, three other dishes are typical Okinawan dishes. The rice dish is called "Ju-shi" which contains pork, carrots, shiitake and spring onion. I added hijiki, a type of seaweed, that time. The carrot dish is called "Ninjin shirishiri" which contains carrots and eggs. The other dish you can't see clearly is actually a pork dish called "Rafute."

I love those three dishes.

As you might notice, we have many pork dishes in Okinawa. We eat almost every part of the pig - even pig's ears! It might sound disgusting, but actually really nice and crunchy :-) When we have pork, we always boil it and wash off excess fat and boil again. I do that a few times to remove fat when I use pork in cooking. Traditionally, we eat pork with lots of other vegetables and seaweed, so pork would a small portion of the meal. (especially, in pre-war time, pork was eaten only on special occasions.)

We eat a big portion of seaweed, vegetables, herbs, tofu (Okinawan tofu is the best!), and have many kinds of dishes which are different from Japanese.

I will write more recipes for our dishes.