Bok Choy flower is delicious

I planted Bok Choy in my backyard.  There were too many of them and started blooming. I found that the flower of Bok Choy is edible. I boiled it and mixed with soy sauce and sesame oil. I served it when I invited my Japanese friend to lunch. The boiled Bok Choy was delicious. She and I liked it. They tasted bit like Chinese broccoli. 

Here is the recipe:

Boiled Bok Choy with soy sauce and sesame oil

Ingredients

A bunch Bok Choy flower with stem(4-5 inches long)

1 quart of water (Less water is OK)

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 Table spoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1.       Wash and clean Bok Choy flower with stem. If stem is too large, it may be too hard to eat. Leave the small tender stem and cut of the rest.
2.       Boil water and add the salt
3.       Add Bok Choy flower
4.       Boil 3-5 minutes or stem is tender. Take out the larger stem and pinch it to test it.
5.       Take Bok Choy out and drain the water. Cool it for 5 minutes.
6.       In a medium size bowl, mix soy sauce and sesame oil.
7.       Cut the boiled Bok Choy into 1 ½ inches long.
8.       Put Bok Choy in the source bowl and mix.
9.       Dish it up and serve warm.
(NOTES) Adjust amount of soy sauce and sesame oil. Possible addition is black pepper and chili powder.

Chinese Dragon year celebration

In Chinese calendar, last year was a rabbit year and January 23rd, 2012 is a year of Dragon.
My first celebration of Dragon new year was to cook and eat Chinese dinner with ‘ Seattle let us cook together’ meetup members on last Saturday.
Menu :
Two types of dumplings, Chicken and shrimp
Baked Barbecued pork bus
Beef chow mein
Steamed Chinese broccoli
Sesame ball
And Tofu pudding dessert
Ten of us cooked together and had delicious dinner together. I used recipes from various website. Among dishes, I liked Barbecued pork made for barbecued buns the best and also beef chow mein was very tasty although it is chop suey.
Here is the link for recipes:
Barbecued pork buns:
http://cottagegardenrecipes.blogspot.com/2008/02/cha-siu-bow-baked-bbq-pork-buns.html
Beef Chow mein
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Beef-Chow-Mein-232606

By the way, due to snow in Seattle, I had to wait to buy ingredients until Saturday morning. I went to china town and it was too crowded and was not able to park my car. I drove far south to another Asian market. The parking was full. I parked my car 5 blocks away from the market and purchased all ingredients for the dinner. I learned not to go to Asian market on weekend close to Chinese new year day by car especially it snowed the day before.

Decorating cookies at Allrecipe.com

This morning, I went to Allrecipe.com office in Seattle to participate Cookies Across America party with “Seattle let us cook together meetup” members.
It is exciting to be a part of community support effort by baking and decorating cookies. I thank to Allrecipe.com to invite us. The cookies were already baked and decoration supply was there. We needed to be there and just decorate. The young participants had a great time to apply their artistic skills to the cookie decorations. These tasty and nice looking cookies will be donated to The Pike Place Market Foundation which helps low income and elderly residents of downtown Seattle.

Kitchen knife Safety

Check out this chef's knife training video from Melbourne



If you love cooking, your kitchen knife is one of the most important tools in your kitchen.
After I read cooking basics books and internet what other chefs tell about using kitchen knives, I found 6 safety tips which are common sense but are useful in addition to watching my fingers and my knife.

1. Keep your kitchen knife sharp.
Dull knife slips and cut something else than what you want to cut. You can test if your knife is sharp by moving back and forth on the cutting board. If your knife cut into the board and is hard to move, your knife is sharp. If your knife moves easily, your knife is dull and need to be sharpened. Some Sushi chef tests his/her knife on his/her thumb nail. Please don’t try it.
2. Do not walk around with your knife. When you need to carry your knife, hold it by your side.
When Japanese chef carries his sharp knife, He will put his hand o over the knife and tell people around him that he is coming with his knife.
3. Never point at your knife every one
4. Do not try to catch a knife when you drop it.
Blade is heavier than the handle and goes down first and dangerous. From old book of “Cutting-up in the kitchen. The butcher’s guide to saving money on meat & Poultry by Merle Ellis”, if you drop a knife or it gets knocked off the counter, throw your hands in the air, as if somebody had a gun in your ribs, and let it fall…..
5. Never leave your knife in soapy water or a sink full of water.
Someone wash dishes and may cut his/her hand. Knife need to be kept at the location where everyone can see.
6. When you pass a knife to someone, put it on a cutting board and let another person pick it up.
Kitchen knife need to stay on the cutting board unless it is washed or put away.


YouTube video Above is from Melbourne production and I used some tips from it. I liked it the best among many knife skill videos.

Fresh out from own backyard

Vegetable Garded

It is nice to have fresh herbs and vegetables nearby to add seasonal fresh touch to homemade dish. I have some edible plants around my Prune kitchen.
There are a large Grape vine by a gate to the Prune kitchen, raspberries, green beans Japanese pepper plants, Shiso(Japanese fragrant green leave), Mint, Rosemarie, and Sage in side yard, , cherries, Rhubarb, cabbage, tomatoes, Chinese chives and green onion in the backyard. The new residence with the Prune kitchen get more sun shine than my previous house. Last fall, I dag the rocky and hard ground around Prune Kitchen, added many bags of composed and organic fertilizers, and planted vegetables. My hard labor paid off and I have vegetables in my garden. Tomatoes start ripening two weeks ago and until Seattle’s rainy fall starts, I will have enough fresh tomatoes for my everyday salad.
Beginning this summer,when I trimmed overgrown grape vines, I realized that I can save some tender fresh grape leaves to make stuffed grape leaves(Dolmathakia Me Rizi.) I searched the recipe and made some for my family and cooked with members of “Seattle let us cook together meetup.” The Dalmathakia Me Rizi was interesting taste to me while meetup members who cooked and ate dalmathkia said it was very delicious. We made as many as 60 of them and they were gone. Here is how I made dalmathakia Me Rizi.
I cooked fresh leaves using Grape Leaves-Canning recipe from food.com .

Then I used some of cooked leaves and a recipe from Greekcuisine.com to make Dolmathakia Me Rizi. As you see the recipe, it contains too much oil and I reduced oil amount to a half of the recipe and steamed instead of boiling.

Lastly useful fresh herbs are Rosemarie and green onion. It enhance the taste of pork dish and add nice aroma and flavor to the pasta dish when cooked it with Tomatoes and chili flakes. Green onion is for Japanese soup and add color to the salad.

Seattle Let Us Cook Together Meetup

I have been an organizer of “Seattle let us cook together” meetup for 7 months. I started this meetup to cook something good with others at Prune Kitchen. The meetup is self-taught interactive cooking class. Our dinner cooking is like Thanksgiving dinner. The members cook appetizers, main course, and dessert and share the meals at Prune kitchen.
The fee is between $15 and 30 include all ingredients and cover the expenses. I met many new members who loved to cook or wanted to cook with others. We have cooked variety of meals include Thai, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, and American, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We cook simple common meals to complex recipes. Starting in this fall we will cook on one Friday dinner and one weekend brunch per month plus some weekend’s dinner.

Photos above are some of dishes which we cooked at the Seattle Let us cook together meetup.

Edomae Sushi , Vinegar and Sushi rice

I learned interesting facts about Edomae Sushi at Tokyo Sushi academy during my Japan visit. Edo is the old name of Tokyo. Edomae Sushi is Tokyo style Nigiri. Nigiri is a shaped Sushi made with sliced fresh fish and Sushi rice.
Here is introduction to Sushi vinegar. Sushi vinegar is made of rice vinegar, sea salt and sugar. Sushi vinegar in east part of Tokyo is different from west part. In the west include Osaka, Sushi vinegar recipe include more sugar or sweet (Osaka style) while east part of Japanthe Sushi vinegar is less sugary (Tokyo style). Since I am from Hiroshima which is located in the western part, my home style Sushi is made from sweet Sushi Vinegar. Edomae Sushi uses Vinegar called Akasu or Red vinegar. I had lived in only western part of Japan and never heard about Akasu before hearing from Tokyo Sushi Academy instructor. Akasu or Red vinegar is made from Sake Kasu which is byproducts from sake making process.(See http://www.esake.com/Sake-Food/Kasu/kasu.html .)
Edomae Sushi chef has his/her unique recipes of Sushi vinegar by blending, partially red vinegar and the rice vinegar. Sushi rice made using Red vinegar is called Aka Shari which means red Sushi rice in Japanese. Tokyo Sushi Academy uses Mitsukan brand. Mizkan sells Akasu or Kasuzu for only commercial use. Here is a bit of history of Red vinegar from Mizkan Japan website which is not included in American Mizkan Site.
“… Founder of Mizkan, Mr. Matazaemon Nakamura was born as a Sake producer’s son in Edo period. He recognized when bacteria got into the Sake barrel, Sake turned to vinegar. He decided to make vinegar from byproduct of Sake and successfully made Kasuzu or Akasu. Meanwhile, Haya Sushi(fast Sushi), which is origin of Nigiri made of sea food and Sushi rice, was very popular in Edo or former Tokyo. Haya Sushi was made with expensive rice vinegar. Mr. Nakano marketed his Kasuzu as inexpensive alternative to rice vinegar. Sushi chefs at popular restaurant in Edo recognized Kasuzu had flavor and Umami suitable to Sushi rice. They madeHaya Sushi with Kasuzu. Since then, Kasuzu or Akazu has been necessary ingredient to make Edomae Sushi ……”
When I was in Tokyo, I looked for Akasu or Kasuzu. I had to go four super markets and several more expensive than rice vinegar due to long processing time. I brought back this rare vinegar to Seattle and made Sushi vinegar by mixing 1:1 ratio of rice vinegar and Akasu. Sushi rice was beige. I made lettuce wrap stuffed with Sushi vinegar, vegetables and meat. They were delicious.
Lastly, things that you should know before you decide to go to traditional Edomae Sushi restaurant. Sushi chef decides the price of Sushi when he/she sees the face of the customer. It means the same Nigiri can be cheap at one Sushi restaurant but expensive at another. No price will be listed on the menu. That is why people like to go Kaiten Sushi (conveyor belt Sushi) or Sushi train place. There you can estimate how much you had by number and color of your empty plates.
Here is
Tokyo style Sushi vinegar recipe
½ cup Rice vinegar
1 table spoon sugar (Preferably superfine sugar)
1 tea spoon sea salt
In the cooking pot, combine all ingredients and heat to melt sugar and salt. Do not boil. Cool the Sushi vinegar and use for Sushi rice. For sweet Sushi vinegar, add extra 1-2 Table spoons of sugar.
As you wish you can adjust sugar and/or salt amount.