Tag

Kabu

Autumn Food, Blog, Spring Food, Summer Food, Winter Food

Kabu Gyoza

I decided to make gyoza for lunar new year, but instead of using the normal gyoza wrappers I used slices of turnip.
You will need a medium sized peeled turnip or daikon radish thinly sliced into rounds.
Make your filling, I used soy mince the kind you reconstitute in hot water. I used around a cup of this in a bowl with a little hot water, do not add to much water or it will make it too wet.
Then add to a frying pan some thinly chopped veggies. I used a mix of hakusai  (Chinese cabbage), carrot and green onion, you could also add some diced shiitake. Just as a note I found slicing the carrot thinly into strips with a potato peeler then chopping it helps not to make the carrot to thick or it won’t cook properly. When the veggies are sautéed add this to your soy mince in the bowl.
Add a splash of tamari and mirin and a teaspoon of ginger juice. Then add a teaspoon of kuzu to a bowl and mix in a little water to make a slurry and add this to your mixture, this will help to thicken it. Add some salt and pepper and put everything back in your frying pan and sauté it all for a little while to thicken it and cook your filling.

Put your slices of Kabu or daikon into a steamer and steam until they are translucent.
Wipe some oil onto the surface of a frying pan with some kitchen towl.

Start to fill your Kabu wrappers, with your filling by putting the filling to one side and folding the other side over to make a half moon shape.

Keeping adding them to your frying pan until they are all done.

Fry on both sides until the Kabu is browned. If you want cook the filling a little more you can place them in the oven.

Now make a dipping sauce.

Add equal amounts of tamari (soy sauce), sesame oil and brown rice vinegar and a little ginger. Give it all a mix.

To serve you can sprinkle the gyoza with sesame seeds and a sprinkle of togarashi ( chilli spice ). You can also add some chilli threads and chopped green onion.

Blog, Winter Food

Kabu & Yuzu Tsukemono

I managed to get some Japanese turnips ( Kabu ) they are delicious raw in salads and cooked in soups.


I especially like to make pickles with them and around the winter solstice they are  nice with Yuzu. Pickles are a must to serve with any Japanese style meal and these ones are ready basically the next day though the longer you leave them the softer they get. These pickles remind me of the kind you can get in the pickle shops in Kyoto

I hope you will enjoy making these easy pickles at home.

You will need a zip lock type bag.

Around three Kabu washed and with the tops and bottoms sliced off. If you have leaves still on your Kabu keep those wash them and chop them to pickle also ( I didn’t have leaves with mine so I chopped up a few komatsuna leaves to add)

Half a chopped red chilli pepper

A tablespoon of sliced fresh Yuzu rind

Two tablespoons of fresh Yuzu juice

A tablespoon each of mirin and brown rice vinegar

Two teaspoons of salt ( I used freshly ground Himalayan pink salt )

One tablespoon of finely sliced kombu kelp that has been soaked in water which will make it easier to cut. I had been given a bag of sliced kombu and I used that.

Slice you Kabu into rounds and add everything into your ziplock bag. Then massage the Kabu so everything coats the Kabu well, close the bag and place in your fridge.


Every few hours I massaged the Kabu just on the outside of the bag. The next day it will be ready to eat but it’s even better after a few more days.

Autumn Food, Blog, Winter Food

Japanese Thanksgiving & Kondate-Zukushi Meal

Niinamesai 新嘗祭 is a Shinto celebration held on the 23rd of November, nowadays it has been rebranded as Labour Thanksgiving Day. It is a very important day in Shinto religion as it is the annual day to give thanks for the newly harvested rice. This is known as the celebration of first taste.In Buddhist temples it is known as The Autumn Festival and is normally a ceremony of the gratitude for everything nature provides. It is also a time to pray for a prosperous and fruitful New Year.

I decided to make a temple style meal to celebrate doing something a little different. These days due to modern cultivation methods, vegetables are grown all year round and no one seams to know a vegetables true season. In temple cuisine it is believed to be important to follow the flow of nature and eat foods provided by the season. This makes sense as each season provides us with the nourishment we need, consider summer vegetables tomatoes, cucumber and melon all have a cooling effect on the body. Autumn and winter root vegetables give us warmth and nourishment to warm the body with soups and nabes.

I had just received a box of kabu from an organic Japanese vegetable farm. Robin & Ikuko run Nama Yasai farm in East Sussex.

Kabu かふis a type of Japanese turnip, it has an effective digestive aid and is rich in vitamin C, iron and fibre. The leaves are nutrient rich in vitamin A and Calcium.
As the whole part of the vegetable is good in so many dishes from soups and simmered dishes to salad and pickles, I decided to prepare a meal using two Japanese principles. The first is called Ichi Motsu Zen Shoku, which is the use of using a vegetable in it’s entirety. The second approach is called Kondate-Zukushi a culinary practice of making an entire meal from one single ingredient (in this case kabu).

This is my Teishoku meal

Kabu & Soymilk Soup

Chopped Kabu, simmered in vegetable stock until tender adding some greens at the last minute, then add a dash of soymilk and white miso before blending.

Gohan & Kabu greens

cooked Japanese rice with chopped Kabu greens mixed in after cooking.

Simmered whole Kabu with Yuzu miso

Miso roasted Kabu with sautéed greens and baked tofu

Finally what no Japanese meal should be without Tsukemono or pickles. This pickle is known as Asazuke or quick pickle.

Slice a medium Kabu and place in a ziplock bag, add to this some chopped greens, some sliced kombu kelp, 1/3 chopped red chilli a teaspoon of Yuzu zest and a teaspoon of Yuzu juice, a table spoon each of brown rice vinegar and mirin and a tablespoon of salt. Press the air out of the bag and seal it then massage the Kabu so all the flavours are immersed. Then leave in the fridge at least four hours or overnight.

I hope this can inspire you to make your own meal around the Kondate-Zukushi principle.