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“First, the sashimi: soy-marinated tuna with a wasabi dressing, fresh slices of yuba, and thin-sliced sea bream smeared with sesame-seed paste. Dashi-maki omelet; miniature tilefish sushi; boiled hon-shimeji mushrooms and mizuna leaves in a bonito flake and soy sauce dressing; and pickled turnip cut into chrysanthemum flowers. These skewers are quail balls, steamed prawn, and salted smashed cucumber.”

Quote by Jesse Kirkwood

Book:The Restaurant of Lost Recipes
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The Restaurant of Lost Recipes

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Jesse Kirkwood

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“The grilled dish is miso-marinated pomfret, and the small bowls are simmered Horikawa burdock with Akashi octopus, Shogoin turnip, and Donko shiitake mushrooms. Those small fish wrapped in perilla leaves are moroko, stewed in a sweet soy and mirin sauce. The deep-fried dishes are winter mackerel, done Tatsuta-age style by marinating it first, and ebi-imo taro, fried straight-up. Wrapped around the green negi onion is roast duck, around the thicker, white negi is Kurobuta pork. Try dipping those in the wasabi or the mustard. As for the steamed rice with Seko crab, that'll taste best with these mitsuba leaves sprinkled on top.”

VegetablesJapanese FoodSurf And TurfBento
Book:The Restaurant of Lost Recipes
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“The pink ingredient in your fried rice: it had to be these." Nagare produced a packet of fish sausages from a plastic bag at his side. "You must have noticed them in the rice?" "Oh yes," said Hatsuko. "You know, I think I remember seeing something like that in our fridge." "I picked these up in Yawatahama. A local butcher told me this brand was the closest you could get to the type Aihachi Foods used to make." Nagare set the sausages to one side, then produced another packet from his bag. "Now, this was the other reason for that pink color." "What's that?" asked Hatsuko. "A Yawatahama specialty. Kamaboko flakes. Just like bonito flakes, except made from kamaboko fish cake instead of tuna. They were invented back before people had fridges, as a way of making kamaboko last longer. Normally you'd sprinkle them over things like chirashi-zushi, but your mother decided they'd be a good addition to her fried rice. They make a pretty decent drinking snack too, by the way." Nagare opened the packet and retrieved a handful of the flakes, which he began to nibble on. "So it wasn't just the fish sausage, then," said Hatsuko, also sampling the flakes. "That's right," said Koishi, grabbing a handful for herself. "Given what they're both made from, it's no wonder you remembered the fried rice having a fishy flavor." "As for the all-important seasoning," continued Nagare, "I imagine she used a mix of shredded shio-kombu and sour plum. That's where that tart aftertaste you mentioned came from. Then I realized: sour plum is pink too. It all fits the color scheme, see?" He showed her a can of the shredded kelp and sour plum mix. Hatsuko gave a deep, appreciative nod.”

FlavorSourFishJapanese FoodSeasoningPinkSausagesKey IngredientPlumFried Rice
Book:The Restaurant of Lost Recipes
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“Starting in the top left: fugu from Mikawa Bay, fried karaage style, and boiled Kano crab. To the right of that are grilled skewers of duck meatball and Kujo green onion, and tilefish tempura. Shogoin daikon and millet cake, baked in a miso glaze; Horikawa burdock and hamo fish cakes in broth. Below that are sake-steamed hamaguri clams, stewed Kintoki carrots and Kujo green onion, and the grilled fish is miso-marinated pomfret.”

VegetablesSeafoodFishJapanese FoodSurf And TurfBento
Book:The Restaurant of Lost Recipes
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“The early-morning food is both perfunctory and delicious. Wedges of grapefruit and orange, a glass of blood orange juice and a bowl of rice threaded through with flakes of dried seaweed and beads of salmon roe as bright as Christmas baubles. It is the bowl of soup that is extraordinary. The usual light, instant miso has been replaced by a rich chicken broth, deeply savory, the beads of fat on its surface supporting a single floating mushroom. When I am eating eel donburi from a rust-red lacquered bowl and they bring me a cup of eel broth to go with it. Deeply smoky, slightly oily, dark as night.”

BreakfastJapanese FoodEelMiso Soup
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“Tempura of orange pumpkin brought still crackling from the kitchen; slices of yellowtail sashimi in a puddle of sesame sauce; grilled bamboo shoots on a wooden skewer and a dish of rice porridge. There is grilled cod's roe with a pin's point of fresh wasabi, pickled butterbur buds and the earliest fiddlehead fern, simmered in dashi broth and curled up like a caterpillar. A pale-blue dish is filled with mustard greens and ground sesame. As the light lifts, the room fills with weak and watery sunshine and I am brought a bowl of suitably pale miso broth with matchsticks of dried nori and balls of chewy white mochi. As I lay down my chopsticks a pudding appears of green-tea blancmange with two rust-red goji berries. Dessert for breakfast is something I can get on top of.”

BreakfastDessertJapanese Food
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“A wedge of autumn melon the color of apricots with a honeyed scent you catch from three feet away. A shallow lacquered tray of rust red, laid with eight individual dishes. Yoghurt in a thin glass dish; a single teardrop of deep-red syrup and a tiny green leaf float on its surface. A deep-black raku bowl of okayu, the soft and soupy rice to gently lull us out of sleep. A triangular dish of pickled vegetables and a single umeboshi plum. A white bowl of chilled black hijiki seaweed and soybeans. A pretty dish painted with wisteria flowers of the softest, stickiest silken tofu the color of the pages of an old book, decorated with a single yellow chrysanthemum flower and a lump of fresh wasabi the size of a pea.”

TraditionalBreakfastJapanese FoodPresentation Design
Book:A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts
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“The fish on the rectangular plate are autumn ayu, salted and grilled. One of them is lightly smoked over wood chips from a mixture of cherry blossom and apple trees; the other--- with the roe--- is marinated in a yuzu-infused sauce. Feel free to garnish them with the finely chopped water-pepper leaves on the side. In the cut-glass bowl is some late-season hamo eel, in a tangy nanban-style marinade. You could sprinkle some kuro shichimi on there if you want to spice it up a little. Oh, and don't worry: All the fish is cooked right through! The Oribe bowl contains today's fried dishes: The breaded chunks of autumn eggplant and Omi beef are best paired with the miso sauce, while these two--- surf clam and vegetable tempura, and fried kuruma prawn fish balls--- will go nicely with the matcha salt. And the Karatsu cup is filled with a mixture of miniature taro, baby matsutake mushroom, red konnyaku jelly, and okra.”

SeasoningsJapanese FoodAutumnalLacquerware
Book:The Menu of Happiness
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“The skewers in the top left are inspired by those colored mochi balls people like to eat at this time of year. Shrimp dumplings, baby cucumber, and quail meatballs, all speared onto a willow branch. The thick omelet next to that is the sort of tamagoyaki you'd get at a Tokyo sushi restaurant--- cooked with shrimp paste. Then you have the sawara mackerel, grilled Kyoto-style in a sweet white miso marinade, and in the small bowl below, a selection of steamed vegetables. Baby taro, Kintoki carrot, pumpkin, lotus root, and Shogoin turnip. On that tissue paper in the middle are various edible wild plants, all deep-fried: ostrich fern, butterbur buds, momiji-gasa, angelica buds, and mugwort. Those are good with a bit of matcha salt, or you might want to try dipping them in Worcestershire-style sauce in that little pot. To the left of that, wrapped in the green bamboo leaf, is cherry-bass sushi, while the small bowl next to that is flash-boiled Omi beef, with a ponzu vinegar gelée.”

VegetablesHerbsRecommendationsJapanese FoodSurf And Turf
Book:The Menu of Happiness
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“He drained his first cup of sake, then maneuvered his chopsticks toward their first destination: the thick shrimp-paste omelet. Layered and rolled into a fragrant cakelike sponge, it was an irresistible combination of savory and sweet--- just the way Takayuki liked it. Next, he began loosening the various elements from the willow skewer and popping them into his mouth. The shrimp dumplings were succulent, the salted cucumber refreshing, and the quail meatballs--- which included the soft bones ground up in the paste--- dense with rich flavor.”

Japanese FoodOmeletSkewers
Book:The Menu of Happiness
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