Spicy Japanese Prawn & Bacon Soup – worth revisiting

This soup was quick to make and didn't even need too many fresh ingredients.

Ingredients:

Defrosted prawns/shrimp

Defrosted spinach

Bacon

Chilli oil, oil

Garlic (optional)

Knob of fresh ginger

Dashi powder

Miso soup – instant soup mix plus hot water

Vermicelli

Garlic sprouts

Miri – 1 tsp

Sake – 1 tsp

Japanese Soy Sauce – 1 tsp (remember the bacon is salty)

Bonito flakes

Chives for the garnish

Method:

Defrost your prawns and shrimp.

Fry off some chopped bacon in a mix of chilli oil and vegetable oil.  With a little garlic if you like it and some Grated Ginger

Steep the vermicelli in some boiled water for 5 minutes and then drain.

Put your dashi powder and some water into the pot.  Bring to the boil and add the prawns shrimp and bacon.  Turn it down to just below a boil and add your vermicelli and all the other ingredients, adding the miso last.  Don't put the miso soup mix straight into the pot.  Put a little of the liquid into a small ramekin and mix the miso with it before adding it to the soup.

Then you are ready to serve.  Sprinkle the top of each bowl with the bonito flakes and the chives.

Japanese Crunchy Salad – Always Good to have Crunch

This dish came about because I had a lot of Daikon – they are very large radishes!

After a little research, I came up with a Japanese style salad which is apparently often eaten at New Year.  It's a simple crunchy fresh little dish.

Ingredients:

Daikon

Radishes

Carrots – both purple and orange

Ginger – 1 tblsp grated

Vinegar – white in colour – 4 tblsp

Salt – 1 tblsp

Sugar – 1 tblsp

Cut all your vegetables into similar sized matchsticks – consistency not being my strong point this was a bit of a fail.

Rest the vegetables in vinegar and water and then when they are all cut drain them and salt them.

Then add the other ingredients to finish your salad.

Simple Teriyaki Chicken

Today's dish is not complicated.  A simple chicken dish using a store bought sauce.

Marinade Ingredients:

Teriyaki Marinade (store bought)

Ginger – cut into batons

½ tsp chilli bean paste (or other touch of chilli)

Salt

The protein I used was chicken thighs.  So you need to do this in the morning – or even the night before.  Cut up your chicken thighs into bite sized pieces and stir them through your marinade (which is just 4 ingredients stirred together).  Leave them sitting covered in the fridge for as long as you can.  I left mine about 6 hours.

Then just fry the chicken off in a hot pan – the remains of the marinade will form the sauce.  I chose to garnish with sesame seeds and chives – and was being a bit poncy by serving it on some cabbage leaves.

Japanese Style Crunchy Cabbage Salad

We don't eat a lot of cabbage so when the better half brought one home, I had to do a bit of research to come up with something different.  We like Japanese flavours so I did this Crunchy Cabbage Salad.  It was crunchy and tasty but I felt it was just a little bit too sour.  If you are going to try this I suggest you add a little bit of sweetness (honey or maple syrup maybe).

Ingredients:

For the Dressing:

1 tsp grated ginger

1 tsp garlic oil (or crushed garlic0

1 tablesp miso paste

2 tablesp rice wine vinegar

1 tablesp soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

2 tablesp water

Veges:

Cabbage

Carrot

Chilli for garnish

Method:

Mix the dressing ingredients together until they are combine and smooth – I used a little whisk thing.

Peel the carrot and then peel strips of carrot with your peeler – don't use the core of the carrot.

Take any manky outside leaves off the cabbage and then finely shred it – I used about ½ a cabbage for this amount of dressing.

If you want to keep the salad really crunch mix the dressing through just before serving.  If you want the flavours to meld and soften the cabbage a bit, dress the salad a couple of hours ahead.

I popped a little red chilli on top for a pop of colour.