Category Archives: meat & fish

main dish, meat & fish, soul food

Good Things Take Time (and Love)

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Venison Lasagna

Some caring attention and time is always nice for proper food, and sometimes exactly what makes the meal present itself in the best light. But time is something that likes to lack in this hasty world. Sometimes even almost too much. So you hurry through daily life, trying to find something – anything – to eat. Because eating is something you just have to do. Right?

But when most of the Christmas turbulences are over and the quiet, long desired tranquility between the years settles over the world, you actually could invest some of this preciousness again.

A nice venison ragout for example can taste a lot better if you just let it simmer patiently to let it soak up even more flavour. Also a bechamel sauce brightens up if you give it time with spices, that make it more aromatic. More fascinating. More round. And if you even have the time and the joy to make you own pasta, you will be rewarded with a lasagna that delights your senses with every single layer and that is worth every tiny bit of work. Creamy, spicy, soothing, and full of loving attention you can taste.

And best you share this piece of art with your most favourite person… because food always tastes better when it is shared.

Venison Lasagna

Venison Lasagna

Ingredients for 2-3 portions

For the venison ragout:

  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 250 g minced venison (without bone)
  • 150 ml strong, red wine (for example Shiraz, Primitivo or Pinotage)
  • 200 ml meat broth of your choice
  • 200 g tomato sauce or simply sieved tomatos
  • 2 laurel leaves
  • 2 juniper berries
  • 2 springs of rosemary
  • 2 springs of thyme 
  • salt and pepper for seasoning

For the pasta layers:

  • 250 g wheat flour
  • 125 ml water
  • 1/2 TL salt

For the bechamel sauce:

  • 25 g butter
  • 25 g flour
  • 450 ml milk
  • 1laurel leaf
  • 1 clove

Additionally:

  • 75 g freshly grated parmesan
  • 75 g freshly grated cheddar

To prepare the ragout melt the butter in a pan on medium to high heat, then add the venison to fry it. Deglaze it with the wine and pour in the broth and tomatoes. Put in the laurel, juniper, rosemary, and thyme, put a lid on the pan, and let the ragout simmer for 2 hours on low heat. Remove from the stove and best let it rest overnight. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and remove the laurel leaves, juniper berries and herb stalks.

Knead the ingredients for the pasta until you have a firm and smooth dough, that is neither wet and clingy nor too dry and dusty. Cover it, let it rest for 1 hour and roll it out very thinly (the thinnest adjustment on your pasta machine, if you happen to have any).

Melt the butter for the bechamel sauce in a pot, mix in the flour and after 2 minutes stir in the milk. Let it simmer on low heat for 5 minutes whilst stirring from time to time before adding the laurel and clove and let it rest on very low heat for about 20 minutes. Remove the laurel and clove.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Pour a thin layer of ragout into a dish or casserole and cover it with one layer of pasta. Add on thin layer of bechamel sauce and cover that with another layer of pasta. Continue until all the ingredients are used up – the last layer should be a bechamel sauce. Sprinkle it with the cheese and bake for about 40 minutes until the surface of the lasagna is golden brown and bubbly.

Asian food, main dish, meat & fish

Let’s celebrate!

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It is time for a party. And we truly need it. The year is almost over, the cosy winter solstice is right ahead and with the brighter days afterwards it just seems likely to dedicate a feast to life itself. To sitting together, to laughing, and – because what would a good party be without it, eh? – a lovely and highly enjoyable meal.

Today a little less traditional and far from goose and Christmas duck; these delicious roasts I want to attend to without traditions implying it to me, even if they may ask for it all so quietly. Let’s just have a look at the rest of the culinary season and discover venison. Beautiful and gorgeous in its dark, and almost purplish-coloured, red tone and spicy in its very own and special way it is quite a good fit for such a feast. And it even goes well with the Southeast Asian flavours, that I adore so much.

Reh Teriyaki

Simply marinated, sizzled in a generous amount of good butter (because especially on Christmas we please do not want to start skimping on that one!) and finally served on perfumy, steaming rice along some gari, spring onions, sesame and a fine sauce it truly is a delight. And it is my contribution to Zorra’s eleventh culinary Advent calendar.

Venison Teriyaki on Rice

Kulinarischer Adventskalender 2015 - Tuerchen 20Ingredients for 2 portions

  • 250 g venison
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp sake
  • 2 tbsp mirin
  • some wasabi paste
  • 1 additional tbsp butter
  • 1-2 spring onions
  • 2 portions freshly steamed Japanese short grain rice
  • some gari
  • some sesame

Let the venison adapt to room temperature first, then wash it and pat it dry. Heat up the tbsp butter in an pan on medium to high heat. As soon as it foams and starts to turn brown, add the meat and fry it shortly on each side, all the way around. Let it fry for 1-3 more minutes so it still will be at least medium rare in the middle.

Mix soy sauce, sake, mirin and wasabi and pour in into the pan. Switch heat down to medium and let it cook down a bit. Add the rest of the butter and let it melt in the sauce. Turn over the meat in the pan so it will be covered with the sauce, that should have thickened by now, and put the pan off the stove. Get out the meat and let it rest for a minute.

Meanwhile chop the spring onions into rings and divide the freshly steamed rice onto two bowls.

Cut the venison into thin slices and arrange them on the rice, adding the gari, the onions and some sesame for garnish. Pour the sauce over it and enjoy.

Reh Teriyaki

Asian food, main dish, meat & fish

Wrap, hide, fry, steam, eat! Gyōza

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Gyouza

Wrapping, wrapping, wrapping. It almost feels a bit like Christmas already. Small, precious treasures are lovingly cloaked, lashed, sealed and piled up, almost like on a table for presents. The eyes are sparkling in anticipation of things to come, the heart is beating, the soul is singing… the stomach is rumbling. Isn’t making noodles a delight? I always calm down in my noodle sessions, it’s almost like meditating, just way better: I can handle food here! Cabbage wants to be chopped with care, then gently mixed with minced meat and spices to finally nuzzle into gauzy slices of silky noodle dough, in which it will be fried and steamed into glorious perfection. 

Gyouza

Yes, making filled noodles is always a fun thing to do and a process which is better made at 200%, so all the effort pays for not just one… but a few portions and/or meals at once. And it will feel like something special then. Like a feast. Something precious. And something you should definitely enjoy in company. Because it is always good to have people around, especially when it comes to enjoying life. The lovely Julia also prefers to cook and eat in company and so we will have a double portion of recipes for you today. Both traditional, delicious and best enjoyed with at least one more person at your side. Julia has a recipe for vegetarian Swabian Maultaschen for you today and I will be cooking Japanese again to make you some traditional gyōza. I hope you enjoy them!

Gyouza

Yaki Gyōza – Fried, Traditional Japanese Dumplings with Cabbage, Minced Pork and Ginger

Ingredients for 3-4 portions

Gyōza dough*:

  • 250 g wheat flour
  • 125 ml water
  • 1 tsp salt

Gyōza filling:

  • 1 piece of ginger (the size of a peanut)
  • 300 g cabbage
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 300 g minced pork
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce

For cooking:

  • some vegetable oil for frying (like peanut oil for example)
  • water

Dip:

  • 20 ml soy sauce
  • 20 ml rice vinegar
  • a few drops of chili oil

*You could also buy gyōza dough instead of making it from scratch. Check out the freezers in the Asian supermarkets; you will probably find some packages there. 

Combine the ingredients for the dough in a bowl and knead until you have a very smooth and firm dough. Knead for 5 more minutes (to make the dough more elastic), wrap it in cling foil and let it rest for 1 hour. Knead again and now roll it out very thinly. If you use a pasta machine for this you will want to roll it out with the finest adjustment. Cut out circles (I used a glass with a 4 cm radius). Combine leftovers to another ball of dough and roll out again until you have no dough left. 

To prepare the filling peel the ginger and chop it finely. Remove the stalk from the cabbage and chop the rest finely, too. If you have a kitchen processor, you can perfectly use it for this; it will save you quite an amount of time. Mix the cabbage with the salt and let it just rest for a couple of minutes. Then, using your hands, press out the excessive water, then mix the cabbage with the other ingredients.

Place 1-2 tsp of the filling in the middle of one slice of dough, apply a little both of water on the edges of the dough and wrap it in the typical gyōza way. This video shows it quite well if you don’t know how to do it. It will take a few gyōzas to get it right, but it is quite easier than it may look at first, so don’t give up! Make as much gyōza until you are out of dough and/or filling. If you still have some filling left, you can just fry it later (you can store it in the fridge for about a day) or freeze it. Remaining dough slices can be dried to be cooked later.

Put a pan on medium heat. Add 1 tbsp of oil and plave one layer on gyōza in it. Fry them for about 5 minutes without moving them, they should just be fried on the side they are standing on. Add 50 ml of water to the pan and cover it with a lid. Steam the gyōza for 5 more minutes. Cook the remaining gyōza in the same way. Don’t crowd them in more than one layer in the pan; you’ll have to cook them in batches anyway.

Mix the ingredients for the dip and serve the gyōza with it. Enjoy!

And if you want to check out Julia’s Maultaschen recipe, please visit her lovely blog here.

Gyouza

Asian food, main dish, meat & fish, soul food

Self-Discovery and Soup

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To be adapted. To swim with the tide. That is what one seems to expect us to do, isn’t it? When we are little we still are allowed, encouraged even, to be who and what we are. With all our quirks, ideas, dreams… but some day everyday life begins and starts to pull all those special things away from us. Little by little but still effectively. We are supposed to be ideal students. We are supposed to show interest in every school subject we have to attend to, to being able to proceed in life. Maybe that is justified. Perhaps. Somehow we have to be „valued“, to be stereotyped so one can see what we have accomplished. But what falls by the wayside? We want to belong to the cool kids. We want to be part of the „coolest clique there is on this world“. So we start to bend even more and hem ourselves in, without even recognising. Everybody keeps on telling us: „All of this will be better once you’ve grown up“. That feeling of being lost. That imaginary (?) loneliness. But does it really work this way? Because suddenly they don’t tell you to fit in anymore. They tell you to be yourself. So be unique. To trust in your strengths! But how do you do that?

Who are you?

Tonjiru

To dig up all these traits that make us special after all these years of suppression, like precious treasures of the past, is exhausting. You have to put a lot of effort and energy in it and sometimes even a little bit of bravery, just to find back to yourself again. You have to try new things, even just out of impulse. Risk to jump in at the deep end. Get to know (and to love) new and wonderful people. And maybe let go of others that do you no good. Nothing ventured…

And if things are really bad, maybe a warming soup might help. A soup that strengthens from inside. That makes you brave again. A soup that caresses your soul and that is so simple to prepare, that you have enough time left in-between, to indulge in all of those new (and maybe a little crazy) hobbies that come with being just who you are. Even if that means to be a thirty year old woman that dresses herself as a 16 year old teenage boy with amazing pink hair and red eyes…!

Tonjiru

Tonjiru 豚汁 – Japanese pork soup

Ingredients for 1 big pot

  • 600 g pork belly
  • 3 spring onions
  • 3 cm ginger root
  • 100 ml sake
  • 1 piece of kombu (about 10 cm long)
  • 2 l water
  • 400 g potatoes
  • 2 large carrots
  • 3-4 tbsp yellow miso

Cut the pork into bite-size pieces. Finely chop the white part of the spring onions, chop the remaining green part into slices. Cut the ginger into coins.

Put the pork into a large pot on medium heat and let the fat dissolve. Add the white part of the onions and the ginger and let it cook until the pork is done and you have a light brown crust on the bottom of the pot. Pour in the sake and scrape the bottom of the pan to free those lovely flavors, then add the kombu and the water.

Switch the heat to high temperature and bring the soup to a boil. Use a spoon to scrape off the foam on the surface of the broth until no more foam starts rising up. Turn down the volume, put on the lid and let the soup simmer gently for 30-45 minutes. Meanwhile peel the carrots and the potatoes and cut them into bite-size pieces or chunks.

Scrape off the fat on the surface of the tonjiru. Add the carrots and potatoes to the soup, cook for 15 more minutes until tender. Switch off the heat, then stir in the miso. Depending on the brand and kind of miso you use you might have to add more miso, so season it to your taste. Serve hot with the green parts of the onion.

The tonjiru is very delicious when still fresh but you can store it in the fridge as well and heat it up on the next day.

Tonjiru

main dish, meat & fish

I fucking love stars!

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Miso Carbonara

The days are getting shorter. The precious hours of sunshine are slipping through our fingers while we are occupied with our daily business… just to find ourselves surrounded by pre-hibernal darkness in our free time. But is this really such a bad thing? The local nature needs this winter rest, the withdrawing from everything, the silent slumber under a cold and heavy snow cover, so it can rise again in spring, with all its power. Besides, this darkness indulges us with a sight we usually don’t get during summer if we don’t want to stay up too late: the starry sky. In all its glory and magnificence it now shines on us at a time we leave from work and it shows us the way back home. How often do we really look up to appreciate this spectacle of nature? Almost too quickly we’d rather hurry inside – into the lulling warmth and the flashy glow of artificial lighting.

And yet the firmament in November is so beautiful… and we always cannot have enough pretty around us. More than ever in a season that leaves the trees bare-branched and will bleach the bright autumn colours until we will be left with nothing more than a world out of grey and grey in gray in December. So yes, I’d rather turn my gaze up to the sky above, even if that means to stay in the cold for a bit longer. I admire the Orion, always easy to recognize, and wink at the Unicorn that dances right next to it. From time to time I might happen to spot at a falling star. I want to catch it, carry it around with me and lose my heart to it… to finally set it free again, where it belongs. Am I a hopeless romantic? Maybe. But all the same I know: Soon I will stand outside again, under the sky, to gaze upwards in awe and gently whisper to myself: „I fucking love stars“.

And this version of an Italian-Asian carbonara… I love that, too!

Miso Carbonara

Spaghetti with Miso Carbonara and Sausage Meatballs

this recipe (again) is inspired by the lovely and fabulous Mandy

Ingredients for 2 portions

  • 2-3 high-quality salsiccia or other really good pork sausages from the butcher
  • some oil for frying
  • 250-400 g spaghetti, depending on how hungry you are
  • 50 ml sake (or sherry)
  • 4 eggs
  • 20 g freshly grated parmesan
  • 20 g freshly grated pecorino
  • 2 tbsp white or yellow miso
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
  • freshly ground pepper for seasoning

Cut the sausages open lengthwise, get rid of the skin and roll them into small meat balls between your hand. Heat up a pan on medium heat and bring a pot with salted water for the pasta to a boil. Pour some oil into the pan and add the sausage meatballs to fry them until they are golden brown all way around. Put the spaghetti into the boiling water and cook them al dente, according to the instructions on the package.

Crack the eggs open into a bowl, add the grated cheese, the miso, the thyme and some pepper. Mix well.

Deglaze the sausage meatballs with the sake and strain the pasta through a sieve. Let them drain for just a few seconds and immediately add them to the pan. Mix well. Turn off the heat of the stove, add the egg mixture, and keep on swinging the pan around. Divide onto two plates or bowls, and serve quickly with additional cheese, thyme, pepper and sesame if you like.

Miso Carbonara

anime, Asian food, geek corner, main dish, meat & fish

Fried Mackerel with Egg on Rice

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Saba Tamagoyaki Don

Under water the world is silent. The sun casts its beams through the ever changing surface that cheerfully dance on the ground. They call out to us, wanting us to join them. The blue of the water, sometimes grey as steel and hazy, sometimes turquoise and bright, allures us to dive in. Sometimes I dream about the lively roaring sea with its waves. But tamed, I have to admit, I prefer it for swimming: In the pool, with solid ground under my feet and an envious eye on the well-trained swimmers around me. I swim my laps, duck under and feel connected to the water – a place where I’ve always felt at home. No wonder, that I fell in love with an anime series about swimming a while ago. And in honor of Free! I’ll be cooking mackerel today – the main character Haruka Nanase’s most favourite food.

The mackerel is a somewhat inconspicuous fish, but actually with a gorgeous patterning in all shades of blue and silvery grey. We should eat it much more often and stay away from creamy salmon and firm tuna from time to time. Mackerel has a much more “fish-like” taste and a very unique flavor that is easily tamed by spring onions and ginger. And it is so easily prepared, that it is almost too simple: Just cut in chunks, marinated and fried it is a delight and perfect for another one of my beloved “donburi” – bowls of rice with “stuff on top”.

Saba Tamagoyaki Don

“Saba Tamagoyaki Don” – Fried Mackerel with Egg on Rice

Inspired by Free! and Free! Eternal Summer

Ingredients for 2 portions

For the fried mackerel:

  • 2-3 mackerel filets
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp sake or sherry
  • 1/2 tbsp mirin
  • 2 tbsp potato starch
  • 500-1000 ml oil for frying

For the tamagoyaki:

  • 3 medium sized eggs
  • 1-2 tsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp mirin
  • some oil

Additionally:

  • freshly steamed sushi rice
  • chopped spring onion, gari, lime juice and/or sesame for garnish

Wash the mackerel filets and remove remaining bones. You might probably find them running alongside the middle of the filets and some might also stick in the top part. Cut the fish into bite-sized chunks and mix them with the soy sauce, sake, and mirin. Let them rest in the frigde for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette): Mix up the eggs with the soy sauce and the mirin. Put a tamagoyaki pan on high heat (any regular pan will work too, but it is best with a rectangular pan), add a thin layer of oil and pour in about one quarter of the egg mixture. As soon as the top surface of the egg starts to turn solid, roll up the omelette by flapping it over for 3 times or so. Push it to one side of the pan, add another thin layer of oil and pour in the second quarter of egg. Shortly lift up the egg roll from before so egg can spread under that too and as soon as the surface starts to turn solid again flip and roll up the roll again. Repeat until all the egg mixture is used up and you have a nice egg roll in the pan. Making tamagoyaki is a very quick process – you shouldn’t need more than 10 minutes for everything. Remove the pan from the stove and flip the tamagoyaki onto a bamboo mat. Roll it up to wrap the egg roll in it and set aside.

Get the fish out of the fridge and let it drain. Roll the fish chinks in the potato starch so that they are covered all around and let them reach room temperature. Pour the frying oil in a pot and heat up to 170°C. Carefully let the fish chunks slip into the hot oil and fry them for 2-3 minutes until they are golden-brown and crunchy. Don’t crowd the fish pieces in the oil. If necessary work in batches. Let them drain on a kitchen towel.

Fill two serving bowls with rice and top it with the mackerel. Unwrap the tamagoyaki, cut in into short pieces and divide them onto the bowls. Quickly serve it with some gari, chopped spring onions, sesame and lime juice.

Saba Tamagoyaki Don

Asian food, main dish, meat & fish, soul food

A Little Bit of Wellness for the Soul

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Miso Ramen

A good noodle soup is a treat: It makes you warm, saturates and it is filled with delicious ingredients. A really good noodle soup is far better though… a little bit of wellness for the soul. It is pleasing to the eye and has been cooked with love – with commitment and a lot of time spent already on the broth itself. It really makes you sigh out of pure happiness. The Japanese have made an art form out of their soup and maybe some day I will be able to go there… to go into a tiny little noodle bar to sit at the counter and order my first “real Japanese Ramen soup”. Until then I’ll have to try every other noodle bar with a good reputation (this one for example) to educate my palate and take everything I’ve learned back home. There I will try my best to make a soup of my own.

This recipe has been the best result since a long time: A ramen soup with an “own” miso mixture, broth-poached fillet of pork, mushrooms and egg. The soup is completed with a dash of soy milk, a small but effective trick I’ve come across on lovely Mandy’s blog. The miso mix is inprired by her recipe, too.

The spicy miso with sesame makes the soup wonderfully creamy and adds a nice fragrance of sesame, ginger, garlic and chili. The mild-flavoured prok loin indulges us with proteins, the mushrooms add a nice freshness, the egg makes it perfect and the nori finally reminds us of beautiful days at the sea. Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients: Most of it is spices and except of a little time the soup itself just needs simple attention. But it’s definitely worth it!

Miso Ramen

Ramen Soup with Miso, Fillet of Pork, Mushrooms, Nori and Shoyu Tamago

Ingredients for 2 big bowls

Miso mix:

  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 30 g ginger
  • 10 g chili paste
  • 30 g sesame
  • 3 tbsp mirin
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 2 tbsp oil for frying
  • 130 g red miso
  • 130 g white or yellow miso

Soy sauce eggs (“Shoyu Tamago”):

  • 1-2 eggs
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 3 tbsp mirin
  • 1 tbsp sake or sherry
  • 1 tbsp sugar

Broth-poached fillet of pork:

  • 200 g fillet of pork
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 500-600 ml good, unsalted chicken broth (the homemade one is always the best choice)
  • 1/2 spring onion
  • 1 peanut-sized piece of ginger

Ramen soup:

  • the leftover broth from the poached fillet of pork (see above) – about 500 ml 
  • 160 ml miso mix
  • 100-150 ml soy milk
  • 2 portions Japanese soup noodles (ideally ramen)
  • 1/2 spring onions 
  • 1/2 sheet of nori
  • a few small mushrooms (like shiitake)

Additionally:

  • a few drops of sesame oil
  • a few drops of chili oil
  • sesame

Peel the ginger and garlic for the miso mix and add them to all the other ingredients in a bowl. Mix thoroughly with a hand blender, fill it into an airtight glass jar and store it in the fridge. You can let it stay there for a few weeks until you use it up.

For the shoyu eggs boil the eggs until they are soft (I always put them in boiling water and let them stay in there for exactly 7 minutes), then put them in ice water and let them cool down completely. Peel them carefully. Mix soy sauce, mirin, sake and sugar and let the eggs marinate in that mixture for 2-3 hours.

Heat up a small casserole, pour in the oil. Fry the fillet of pork shortly on each side, then add the broth and the spring onion in one piece. Cut the ginger into slices and add to the pot. Heat the broth until it almost boils, skim off the foam that may rise to the surface and let the broth gently simmer at medium temperature for 30 minutes. Turn the meat after 15 minutes so it doesn’t dry out on one side. Get the pork out of the pot and strain the broth through a sieve – then pour the broth back into the pot. You will need it for the soup itself.

Add the right amount of miso mix to the broth and resolve it in there. A miso sieve or a ladle helps with that. In an extra pot cook the noodles according to the instructions on the package and strain through a sieve. Devide them into two soup bowls. Meanwhile bring the soup to a boil but don’t let it cook for too long.

Chop the spring onion into rings. Cut the pork into thin slices. Pour the hot soup over the noodles in the bowls. Garnisch with the remaining ingredients. Serve hot with a few drops of sesame and chili oil and a few sprinkles of sesame.

Miso Ramen

main dish, meat & fish

The Regard of Simple Things

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Rice with Salmon and Eggs

Life is precious. And if we don’t keep an eye on it it will flash by. How often do we let annoyances stop us in our doings and end up not observing the small but good things in life. But aren’t those small things the best? A cup of tea in the morning, a bitter-sweet soundtrack at work, a vespertine stroll in the woods that are glowing in their autumnal dress right now. A kind word, an embrace, a meeting with dear friends… or a simple bowl of rice with salmon and egg. Actually a food out of leftovers from yesterday, but still so good today – so comforting and delicious – that it would be a shame not to respect them.

I made this dish out of leftover rice and leftover butter-fried salmon from the previous day. But you also can use freshly steamed rice and just fry the salmon freshly as well. You can use raw and finely chopped salmon too, if you like… or you can even use smoked fish just as well.

Rice with Salmon and Eggs

„Not Really a Recipe“ Bowl of Rice with Salmon and Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients for 2 portions

  • 150 g salmon, fried in butter (or finely diced raw salmon or a few slices of smoked salmon)
  • 2 portions steamed sticky rice, fresh or from the previous day
  • 2 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 2-3 eggs
  • 1 tsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil

Use a fork or a pair of chopsticks to break the salmon filet into small pieces. Loosen up the rice with a spoon and mix it with the vinegar. Crack the eggs into a bowl and roughly mix them with the soy sauce. Heat up the sesame oil in a pan, add the egg mixture an stir while you let the eggs set. As soon as that happens add the rice, quickly stir and then add the salmon. Mix gently and divide into two bowls. Best served warm with a Japanese green tea.

Rice with Salmon and Eggs

Asian food, meat & fish, soul food

They are Among Us: Tuna Onigiri

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Tuna Onigiri

I wish there was a clone ship for onigiri! Just like this huge Cylon thing in Battlestar Galactica: Filled with huge bath tubs where all the onigiri that have come to die are magically reborn again… an inexhaustible source. They would wonderfully reappear, freshly come back to life and immediately jump into the next spacecraft to fly right back to me and directly onto my plate… A girl can dream, right?

Yes, onigiri make me happy. Really happy. So happy in fact, that I almost can’t describe it. And yes, personally I could talk about them all day long. About how easy they are to make. About how beautiful they are. About how they can be eaten cold or warm and freshly roasted under the grill. About how you can fill them or mix the rice with the ingredients or just leave the rice plain. About how perfectly you can eat them just with your hands and about how much I love to actually touch the food I eat. About how well they can be prepared in advance – and therefore are the perfect food to bring to parties, picnics or lunch break in your bento.

Yes, I am madly in love with onigiri. We both are actually. So why isn’t wasn’t there a recipe on this blog yet? My bad. After all you can nicely take them with you to the sofa to indulge in a long-awaited Battlestar Galactica relapse again. It’s been too long!

How much you get addicted to them depends strongly on the quality of the rice you use and the other ingredients. They can turn your “ordinary ball of rice” into some sheer poetry. In our most favourite recipe we use Cheddar… not really traditionally Japanese, but well – it’s delicious, so what!?

Tuna Onigiri

Tuna Onigiri with Cheddar, Chili & Ginger

after this lovely recipe by Mandy

Ingredients for 8-10 rice balls

For the rice balls:

  • 2 cups (à 180 ml) sushi rice
  • 1 sheet nori
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • some sesame or furikake

For the filling:

  • 1/2 can tuna in oil (about 90 grams)
  • 2 tbsp freshly grated Cheddar
  • 1 tbsp mayonnaise
  • 2 tsp sesame
  • 1-2 tsp chopped ginger
  • 1/2 tsp chili powder or freshly chopped chili
  • 1/2 tsp red chili paste and/or a little Tabasco

Put the rice into a sieve and wash it under cold running water. Cook it in a rice cooker according to the producer’s instructions or in a pot on the stove: Add 2 cups of water to the rice in the pot. Close the lid and switch the stove to low (heat level about 2 of 10). After 10 minutes switch to medium heat (level 4-6 of 10 – depending on the kind of stove you have) and let the rice steam for 10-15 minutes. The water should not boil and you should keep the lid of the pot closed. After 15 minutes the rice should have absorbed all the cooking water and it should be tender und fluffy. Pull the pot away from the stove. Get a spoon and carefully fold the rice before closing the lid again and let the rice rest for 5 more minutes.

Let the cooked rice cool down. Drain the tuna and mix it with the other ingredients for the filling. Season to taste with additional chili, cheese or ginger if you like. Cut the Nori sheet in half and cut those halves again in 4-5 rectangles each.

Moisten one of your hand palms and put 2-3 well-heaped teaspoons of the rice on it. Gently press it down a bit. Add 1-2 teaspoons of the filling on top of it and cover with 2-3 more teaspoons of rice. You can also use an onigiri mould for this: Dip it into water too, before filling it, and fill it up loosely right up to the top.

Now use your other hand (or the lid of the onigiri mould if you use one) and press the onigiri to your preferred shape. Wrap the onigiri in nori, brush a little of the sesame oil over it and sprinkle it with sesame. Arrange on a plate and serve with soy sauce and green tea if you like. Or dip them in this sweet and sour chili sauce. Heaven!

The onigiri taste best when they are fresh but are also perfect companions for a bento on the next day.