SCC's Japanese Home Cooking Edition: Land of the Rising Sarah

Hello friends! Here's some new and daring info! Did you know that Japan produces something besides electronics and anime porn of girls with cat ears? (Here's looking at you, everyone I went to college with...) It does! Specifically, my awesome friend Sarah! She got here when she was 18 and since then has TAKEN AMERICA BY STORM. By that I mean, we are friends and she cooks crazy awesome. Usually, when you think about Japanese food, you think of sushi, but Sarah, authentic Japanese person™ decided to take things a different route.





For her Supper Club, Sarah cooked every day Japanese style comfort food, the type of thing that mothers usually cook for their kids and families. Think of it as the Japanese version of meatloaf or mac and cheese, (except, ya know way more awesome because it's Japanese and by nature they do everything better than us,). Anyway, it was totally different than what I thought was usually served in a Japanese household, but as always, it was nothing short of being delicious!



Japanese Potato Salad

5 potatoes
rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp of sugar
canola oil
Persian or Japanese cucumber
carrots
1/2 an onion
Japanese mayo

Steam or boil the potatoes until soft. While potatoes are being cooked, make french dressing by mixing rice wine vinegar with canola oil and some sugar. For every 3 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, use 2 tablespoons of canola oil. Taste the dressing and make sure it is not overly sweet.

Whisk the dressing together. Remove the skin of the potatoes and mash them while hot.
Add the dressing in it while it is hot and mix with some black pepper and salt. Slice cucumber and sprinkle with salt. Let it sit for a little bit and then squeeze out the excess moisture.

Thickly slice the carrots and put it in the microwave with some water to soften it up so it is not crunchy. Thinly slice the onions and soak it and rinse the onion to remove overly onion-y flavor. Add the cucumber slices, carrot slices and onion slices to the potato/dressing mixture. Mix all together. Add 1/2 cup of Japanese mayo. You can add more or less mayonnaise depending on your taste. Keep refrigerated.


Chicken Katsu

chicken breast tenders
oil for frying
flour
Japanese panko
egg
milk



Take pieces of chicken tender, dredge in flour, then in beaten egg mixed with a little bit of milk and then finally in the panko. Make sure you pat the chicken in the panko so the panko sticks firmly to the chicken.

Heat oil (canola or vegetable works). To see if temperature is high enough, throw a piece of panko crumb and if it starts sizzling the oil is hot enough. Deep fry chicken pieces until they are golden brown. Serve with tonkatsu sauce (You can make your own tonkatsu sauce by mixing ketchup with worcestire sauce 1 to 1 ratio).


Beef Curry

veal bone (1 medium size)
beef chunks (they sell it as "stew" meat, but you can use any meat for curry)
2 onions
garlic
2 carrots
2 potatoes
Japanese curry roux blocks (You can find them here: http://www.asianfoodgrocer.com)


Roast veal bone in a shallow roasting pan in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. While it is being browned, saute sliced onions and minced garlic together until the onions are caramelized. Transfer into a deep pot. Brown the beef separately and add to the pot. Once the veal bone is roasted, also add that to the pot. Follow the instructions on the curry pack to see how much water to put in. I put in about 1.5 Liters.

Put a lid on the pot and let it stew for as long as possible. I stewed mine for close to 3 hours. Once in a while, remove the scum that has accumulated at the surface of the pot. After you are done stewing the meat with the veal bones, remove the veal bones and add the potatoes and carrot. Stew for another 30 minutes. When potatoes are soft, turn off the heat, add the curry blocks and mix. Turn the heat back on for a little and serve hot with rice.




Christa's Waffle Ice Cream Sandwiches
I came up with the idea for these after I made waaay too many waffles and had no idea what to do with them. Admittedly, they have nothing to do with Japanese food, but they were awesome, so I feel like I get a pass.


an even # of mini waffles
(I made these using a mini waffle pan and used a
buttermilk waffle recipe, but you can use Bisquick,
or if you're really lazy, just buy a bunch of the frozen
pre-made mini waffles.)
maple ice cream
dark chocolate







Wait for waffles to cool. Melt chocolate and drizzle over waffles. Refrigerate until chocolate is hard (about an hour).

Put about 2 tbsps of ice cream on half of the waffles. Top with the remaining waffles. Wrap each one in foil and/or plastic wrap and freeze for about an hour or until you are ready to serve. Bam! Waffle sandwiches!



Booze Pairings!

Choya Umeshu Plum Wine
I am not into sweet wine, but when it comes to Japanese food, especially when it comes to Sarah's spicy Japanese curry, it is a must!

Choya Plum wine is probably the easiest brand to find at your local liquor store. It is lightly sweet with great plum, apricot and peach flavors. It has a good mouth feel, a nice coat but not too thick. I highly recommend taking the label's advice and enjoying it on the rocks or mixed with a dry sparkling wine.

This wine goes very well with any spicy Asian food but works as a dessert in itself. It also comes with nice little booze soaked plums right in the bottle to munch on when you're done!


Asahi Beer
The most popular beer in Japan! Super dry and refreshing, this beer goes great with spicy food and complements the acidity of the Japanese style mashed potatoes perfectly. In my opinion, beer is the best alcohol pairing for curry, and this one sure did the job!


Sake!
This particular booze blogger has convinced herself that she is allergic to sake, but when you make this for your crew you should definitely go out and get some! Kampai !!!














Chicks/chicken; Frying, frying, frying; I have mad chopstick skillz












Wine is classier out of plastic cups; Mochi!












This has nothing to do with SSC but Sarah has the coolest nails ever; General deliciousness!


Cheers!
Christa, Phoebe and Sarah





About Sarah
Sarah grew up in Tokyo, Japan and went to International and American schools her whole life. She finished her undergrad in Northern California and is currently working towards her masters in Gastronomy at BU. She received her culinary certificate through BU last fall. She is very passionate about food and she goes by the "live to eat" mentality. Most of all, she loves to cook Japanese comfort food!