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Japanese

Sushi Time!

May 20th, 2009
by dave.
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Tuna + Salmon

Let me preface this by saying that I’m a complete noob at making sushi. Love eating sushi, but when it comes to rolling maki or making nigiri…let’s just say it was probably better that I paid someone else to do it.

Back in New Jersey, mom made California rolls now and then and she had the method down pat. I remember happily wolfing down piece after piece back in the day. My experiences rolling maki? Not so good. I used too much rice, I didn’t keep my hands moist, I overstuffed the roll and well, you get the picture. Think of a roll that looks like a lumpy potato in the middle =/

But, I decided to try making nigiri and it actually turned out well. Got the roommate to cut the fish while I rolled up the rice. The rice wasn’t the best, probably should tweak the sauce mixture a little bit, but it turned out alright as a few friends and I gobbled up every piece!

And the best part of it was getting the fish itself. I drove it back from New Jersey in a cooler =P

Inari
Tuna
Salmon

P.S. The title has nothing to do with the similarly named arcade game.

Super Fusion Cuisine (Brookline, MA)

Apr 1st, 2009
by dave.
1 comment

super_fusion

Nestled about a 2-3 minute walk from Washington Square, Brookline is Super Fusion Cuisine, a small (very small!) sushi restaurant run by a former chef from Fugakyu, one of the more popular sushi restaurants in town. In the past year, there have been many, many sushi restaurant openings in the Coolidge Corner / Washington Square area and I was afraid it was starting to become oversaturated. But I sure hope Super Fusion sticks around!

There are 4-5 very small tables (2 person tables) snugly piled into one corner of the restaurant while the sushi bar could probably house another 3-4 people. The rest of the restaurant is occupied by the kitchen and sushi bar. The roommate and I ended up there about a month ago and ended up with the last table (3 more parties showed up in the next 5 minutes and had to wait in the cold!). Unfortunately, every time someone came in or left the restaurant, a swift frigid breeze swept through the restaurant, making it extremely uncomfortable. However, after a few cups of tea, the food arrived…and I was pleasantly surprised!

I applaud the chefs for not using a ton of rice on the maki, as sometimes I’ve seen more rice than fish. Also, the special rolls on the menu were very creative, combining many different tastes that I haven’t experienced together before. And the bill came out pretty reasonably too (for sushi anyway), which resulted in a pleasant dinner, despite the gusts of cold air. Super Fusion also delivers, which is a plus for this densely populated area.

Chicken Katsu Curry

Nov 9th, 2008
by dave.
1 comment


There are a few local Japanese restaurants, including one of my favorites Cafe Mami, that serve some very homestyle Japanese food. Simple, tasty, and cheap. And one of my regular dishes is a Katsu Curry, a fried pork/chicken cutlet with curry on top, served with a fried egg, cheese, and sometimes some pickles.

But sometimes I’m a little lazy to travel across the river to get to Cafe Mami so I tried my hand at making it myself. I do use the boxed curry though, I’ve read through the ingredients on how to make curry paste and decided it wasn’t for me (probably to the chagrin of many). I also add onions, carrots, and potatoes, to make it a heartier stew-like meal. Boiling the carrots and potatoes in advance does help too, as it lessens the amount of time to simmer the curry.

I used to make this without cheese but after reading a couple other blogs and getting some testimony, I added the mozzarella and it does actually add a lot of taste!

Chicken Katsu Curry

Serves 4-6
Time : 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:
- 4-6 chicken breasts, pounded thin
- 2-3 eggs, beaten
- ½ cup flour
- 1 cup panko bread crumbs

- 1 box S&B Hot curry
- 15-20 baby carrots, chopped
- 1 medium onion chopped
- Optional (A couple boiled potatoes, chopped)
- 3.5 cups water (or stock)
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced

- Eggs for afterwards
- Some mozzarella cheese

Method:
1. Dredge chicken in flour, eggs, then bread crumbs (Can do twice if you like)
2. Bake or pan fry chicken (bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 or pan fry for 5-10 minutes), set aside
3. Heat a sauté pan under medium, add a little canola oil, add garlic. Stir fry for 30 seconds until fragrant, add onions and carrots.
4. Stir fry vegetables for 3-4 minutes, then add water/stock. Stir in the curry mix and add boiled potatoes (if you have them)
5. Simmer for 45 minutes until potatoes and carrots are soft
6. Serve chicken over rice. Add some mozzarella cheese on top and pour curry over. Top with a fried egg if you like.

Notes:
- Can substitute the baked chicken (with eggs, flour, bread crumbs) with chopped beef chuck. Add the beef after the garlic in this case.

Pork Katsu-don

May 29th, 2008
by dave.
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One of my favorite dishes to get for lunch at the Porter Exchange (most notably, Cafe Mami) is Pork cutlet-don. They have the meat pre-marinated and then fried up to order, mixed with some onions and an egg, and served steamy and hot! Quick, cheap, and very tasty!

The pork katsu-don always seemed like something that I could try my hand at making but my previous attempts weren’t so great (read : failures). I never could get the sauce right, either it ended up too salty or just plain flavorless.

But then my roommate cooked it up once using a couple recipes and it tasted great, so I had to try one more time. I grabbed the recipes he used and then compared them to a couple other I found online and came up with the version I’m posting today. (This is the version I closely modeled : mmm-yoso)

Anyway, on to the food!

Pork Katsu-don

Ingredients
4 Pork cutlets (boneless pork chops – about 3/4 a pound)
1 medium onion, sliced
4 eggs, lightly beaten (can use more if you like)

Sauce
3 tbsp sake (or other rice wine or sherry)
3 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp mirin
5 tbsp soy sauce
3/4 cup water
1/3 tsp Dashi

For Dredging
Flour
Panko Breadcrumbs
More eggs, beaten

Method
1. Use a meat tenderizer to flatten out the cutlets.
2. Dredge the cutlets first in the flour, egg, then breadcrumbs.
3. Pan fry until almost cooked through, set aside.
4. In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil and then add the sake, sugar, mirin, and soy sauce. Return to a boil, add the dashi and simmer.
5. Pour 1/4 of the sauce into a small frying pan and bring the sauce to a simmer under medium heat. Add 1/4 of the onion.
6. Slice a cutlet along the width (try to maintain the shape of the cutlet) and place in the pan on top of the onions. Then pour 1/4 of the eggs on either sie of the cutlet. Cover and simmer for about a minute or so.
7. Remove cover and serve over rice.
8. Repeat 4-7 for the rest of the cutlets.
9. Top with some chopped scallions

NOTE: If you really like sauce, you can add 50% more to the recipe or even double it.

Nagoya Sushi – Westfield New Jersey

Apr 27th, 2008
by dave.
2 comments

This is a little bit of an “aside” post I guess (since this is mostly a Boston blog) but I was visiting my parents in New Jersey this past weekend and got some great pictures of my favorite sushi restaurant. The place is called Nagoya, and it’s right near the center of town in Westfield. Westfield is about 30 minutes southwest of New York City and you can take the 113 bus toward Dunellen right to Westfield (stops about two blocks away from Nagoya!)


View Larger Map

Nagoya is family owned and run, and they’re open late too for the suburbs (10pm I think?) The food is mainly Japanese, but occasionally we get treated to a few Indonesian treats here and there. I’ve never actually ordered anything other than the sushi, though my sister has had some of their cooked food and seems to have enjoyed it.

But let me go on about the sushi now. Henry, the owner, has a whiteboard of all the popular “specialty” rolls up in plain sight where adventurous diners can put up their own creations. But beware, only the top 20 stay on the board, the rest are relegated to a separate menu. I actually have a roll of my own creation sitting at #3 on the popularity list, primarily for salmon lovers (pictures later).

Now, Nagoya treats the Westfield crowd so well, that it’s hard for me to eat sushi elsewhere. And since my family is there so often, Henry cuts us whichever piece of fish we fancy at the time, whether it be a slice of fatty tuna or getting creative with some of the other rolls offered.

Once, I went there four days in a row.

Anyway, onto the pictures! I ended up splurging on a brand spankin’ new DSLR last week and these are the first pictures with it. I’m a photography noob (go figure!) but I’m trying hard to get better at it :P

Salmon Tar-tar

Tuna, Yellowtail, and Salmon Sushi

Squid and Wasabi Tobiko handroll, Salmon, Tuna, Yellowtail sushi, and my special MicroBoston roll:

Closeup on the MicroBoston roll:

Christmas Tobiko

Spicy Yellowtail, Spicy Salmon, Eel/Tamago sushi, and Volcano Erupt Roll:

Closeup on the Volcano Erupt Roll

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