Innie or Outie

This meal is neither your traditional beer-battered fish and chips nor your traditional tenpura. Instead, I came up with a meal that is a little of both worlds, Asian Beer Batter Niblet Dinner:

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Ingredients for the meal consisted of cooked rice sprinkled with crushed toasted sesame seeds, miso soup, 2 cups of freshly-made beer batter, and an Asian Beer Batter Niblet Platter:

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1 large Russian red fish fillet (cut into bite-size pieces)
6 shitake mushrooms
10 fresh green beans
10 fresh shiso leaves
10 fresh basil leaves
10 slices of carrot
1 medium zucchini (sliced)

Rinse a pat dry vegetables. Then simply coat the ingredients thoroughly in the beer batter (a few at a time) and cook in a mini deep fryer until golden brown. We also added some nori sheets to the meal as a side munchie and soy sauce as a dipping sauce.

(NOTE: Although this doesn’t look like much food, the platter actually ended-up making enough niblets for 3 – 4 persons.)

Here is another versatile option for a relaxing dinner for two:

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Tabletop Teriyaki Dinner

An electric skillet makes it easy to turn any tabletop into an instant mock izakaya. For our dinner we chose beef (marinated in teriyaki sauce), mushrooms, leek, veggies and cheese rolled in pork, cabbage, and greens accompanied by miso soup and rice topped with grated sesame seeds.

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It’s Grammy night. Hubby and I felt like being able to relax at the dinner table and munch away while watching the show. Sooo, here’s another tabletop dinner idea:

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Tabletop Veggie Tenpura Dinner

You can use almost any type of vegetable in which ever proportions meet your needs.

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For our platter we used:
1/2 medium onion (thinly sliced)
1/2 medium carrot (julienned)
1/2 bunch nira (according to hubby this is a veggie similar to chives that is a cross between garlic and onion)
1 small bell pepper (julienned)
Frozen chicken wings (semi-defrosted)
Frozen chicken nuggets (semi-defrosted)
3 tablespoons freshly snipped basil

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For the batter we used:
1 egg
250 milliliters iced water
1 1/3 cups tenpura flour

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk egg and water together. Fold in flour, but only to the point of moistness. (The batter looks like lumpy and slightly runny cake batter, but you can adjust the amount of flour to reach your desire consistency.)

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Other equipment needed:
Deep fryer

Heat oil in deep fryer as suggested by manufacturer.
Meanwhile, thoroughly toss one-third of veggies in batter.
When oil is ready, alternate cooking between chosen meat and battered veggies. Beginning with the items that require longest cooking period. (I use a laddle to spoon the veggies into the deep fryer).

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For this dinner menu we also chose to include rice (sprinkled lightly with soy sauce) and nori (dried seaweed) as extra munchies to the main platter.

You can use home fries or any other favorite food item that goes well with deep fried foods. You could even include miso soup as a beverage. This dinner course is very flexible.

Here is another way to use leftover dashi from the kani nabe:

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Nabe Gumbo

Add one cup refrigerated leftover precooked rice to the remaining liquid in the nabe pot. Simmer on low for approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

Another alternative to add flavor as well as increased nutritional value to white rice is to use prepackaged grain mixes designed specifically for rice.

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10 Grain Rice

Simply prepare rice for cooking as usual. Add one grain packet on top of uncooked rice prior to cooking, then cook as usual. When cooking is completed, thoroughly stir grains into the rice and serve.

I like this type of rice with homemade thick-batter vegetable tempura, herb-marinated B-B-Q pork cutlets, or as the main ingredient of a quickie snack using butter, soy sauce, pickled turnips, and grated parmesan cheese.

In America when we want a quick bite of something we often get a slice of luncheon meat, some cheese, a little lettuce, two slices of bread, and throw together a quickie sandwich. On Okinawa, a quickie munchie can be a bowl of rice topped with ochazuke (an instant snack of green tea and seaweed diluted with boiling water).

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Another instant product that is very popular on Okinawa is instant miso soup ( sort of the Japanese equivalent of canned soups in America).

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On occasion I combine these two products (I can just see the locals going into shock!) and create my own quickie rice gumbo.

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Japanese-style Instant Gumbo

1 and 1/2 cup precooked white rice
1 packet ochazuke
1 packet (set) instant miso soup
1 umeboshi (pickled plum)
boiling water

Place rice in serving bowl and pour contents of ochazuke and instant miso soup packets on top of rice. Pour 1 – 11/2 cup boiling water over rice mixture, and let stand for approximately 3 minutes. Thoroughly stir all ingredients and top with umeboshi.

There are several varieties of these two products available, so you can try different versions to find the flavor that suits your own taste best. The ingredients should be available in your local supermarket’s Asian foods section. Also, if you want meat with this, precooked bite-sized tonkatsu (chicken-fried pork cutlet), chicken dog, shrimp, or even spam can be used.

As tasty as rice is, sometimes one can get tired of the same old plain white rice. This is a recipe I created to put a little variation on the dinner table.

Golden Rice

3 cups cooked white rice
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons parsley flakes
1/4 cup milk

Thoroughly mix all the ingredients and place in the microwave oven for 2 minutes. This recipe is good for backyard B-B-Qs or with saucy meat entrees (such as Chanpuru-No Rules-Cooking☆Recipe#20).

Have you ever wondered how to make perfectly-shaped rice balls (onigiri) without burning your hands with the hot, freshly-made rice? This is a pic of one of the secrets used by local housewifes…

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No Fuss Rice Balls (Onigiri)

Simply make some fresh rice; place rice in the press until about half full; add filling (about one teaspoon) in the center of the rice; top with more rice; and press.

Two of the more popular fillings are tuna spread (see Chanpuru-No Rules-Cooking☆Recipe#2)and miso. Or you can simply press the rice ball and place a sheet of pressed seaweed on the outside of the onigiri. The possibilities are unlimited.