flame-grilled eggplant with white sesame sauce & shallots Serves 4
yakinasu no shirogoma-dare 焼きナス 白ごまだれ アサツキ
a recipe from Shuji’s cooking class on 8 September 2011
There are so many varieties of egg plants (or aubergine) in Japan. They are in season in summer and early autumn. Eggplants help strengthen our immune system and help fight off summer fatigue. Egg plant recipes include tempura, age-dashi –nasu or deep-fried eggplant without tempura batter and served with tempura dipping sauce & grated white radish & shallots, which we did during my cooking classes in August. This evening, we will grill the whole eggplants over the flame. This method makes eggplants bright jade like colour and giving them smoky flavor. I love yaki-nasu.
If you do not have time to make sesame sauce, you can simply drizzle soy sauce over the yaki-nasu topped with grated ginger.
2 eggplants (naganasu or long eggplant as above photos shown), 4 stems of *asatsuki shallots (finely chopped), 6 tablespoons white sesame seeds (roasted)
To make white sesame sauce : combine in a saucepan (A)120 ml 1st dashi stock, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons mirin and bring to a boil once and remove from heat. And pour it little by little into the ground roasted sesame seeds and mix well.
- Grill eggplants over the flame of gas stove on high heat. (You can do this on the char-grilled BBQ flame outdoor just as the Spanish grill shallots when they BBQ their favourite pork.)
Plunge grilled eggplants into cold running water basin and peel the burnt skin, drain and cut into 5cm length.
- To make white sesame sauce, grind roasted white sesame seeds to coarse paste using Japanese clay mortar and wooden pestle, and add into it the sauce (A) and mix well.
- Serve grilled eggplant with white sesame sauce topped with finely chopped asatsuki shallots.
l Asatuki is thin shallots. You can use normal shallots or spring onions for asatsuki.
German flight attendants landed in Seki for a cooking class and learned the heart of Japanese Cuisine.
On November 11, 2010 five German women arrived in Japan and visited Yamakyu, a Soba noodle (buck wheat) Restaurant located at Nishimachi, Seki City in Gifu prefecture. The visitors learned Japanese home cooking with locally grown fresh ingredients. They enjoyed the the lunch that they cooked themselves.
The visitors were Lufthansa German Airline flight attendants who had arrived in Nagoya the previous evening on November 10. Mr. Shuji Ozeki (aged 54), the owner/chef of the restaurant has been demonstrating how to cook Japanese meals on his YouTube channel for 5 years. Three years ago, a Lufthansa flight attendant watched one of his videos and attended his cooking class with her colleague. Since then the word has spread amongst the cabin crew members of the airline.
The menu of the day consisted of five dishes: tempura, nikujyaga (braised beef and potatoes), persimmon with mashed tofu, miso soup and boiled rice. With the help of Chef Ozeki, the visitors learned how to wash and boil rice, how to prepare and deep fry tempura of anago (conger eel), prawns, shiitake mushrooms and seasonal vegetables. They also learned how to make stock from konbu (dried kelp or getrockneter seetang) and katsuo-bushi (bonito flakes). They also learned how to season Nikujyga to perfection.
After the cooking lesson, the flight attendants enjoyed their own, hand made, Japanese lunch. Flight attendant Miriam Koch said to me,” All the ingredients we used today are available in Germany. I can’t wait till go home and try out cooking the dishes we have just learned.”
English translation by Shuji Ozeki
This is the translation of the local newspaper article written by Maki Shinohara of Gifu Shinbun Newspaper,
published on 12 November 2010
Shuji’ resipe of Nikujaga (sukuyaki flavoured beef, potatoes) is on this page below.
MISO So good to keep you warm and to stay out of flu virus in winter!
According to Dr. Keiko Kamachi of Tokyo’s Women’s University of Nutrition, miso paste is fermented soy bean product and has vitamin B’s and protein which is easily be digested and absorbed in our body, beefing up our immune system.
Japanese Nabe cooking with miso based soup or hot pot cooking as shown by me on YouTube video will keep you warm and strengthen our body’s defense capability against flu virus in winter months.
In this cooking video entitled Autumn Cooking in Japan shot and edited by my New York friends Sean and Noriko Sakamoto (currently residing in Gujo-Hachiman, Japan), I use authentic miso paste made in Gujo-Hachiman, Gifu prefecture in the heart of Japan. I am also showing you how to make dashi stock from sun-dried kelp or konbu and bonito flakes or katsuo-bushi. To view this video, just click on the YouTube video on this page.
In Japan wherever you visit you find so much variety of miso paste being made by some small to medium family business owners in each area. As chef/cooking teacher I do not shop mass produced miso paste sold at big super markets. My parents and I love Gujo-miso paste sold at small local shops for our daily miso soup for breakfast and nabe cooking for dinner during freezing winter months here in the Central Japan (Chubu region). We live in Seki, a town located about half an hour drive by express way to Gujo-Hachiman. As we speak, the town of Gujo- Hachiman is snowed in. Nabe or hot pot cooking with miso paste based soup is a perfect meal on a snowy day and the evening.
nikujyaga, braised beef & new season potatoes
nikujyaga, braised beef and new season potatoes Serves 4
I think nikujyaga is one of the most frequently cooked dishes at home in Japan. This dish goes nicely with freshly cooked rice.
If you serve a large bowl of freshly cooked rice topped with nikujyaga, it is called nikujyaga-don.
200g beef tendon (optional), 200g thinly sliced beef (preferably wagyu-sukiyaki cut), 4 new season potatoes, 1 large onion, 2 carrots, 2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil,100g shirataki (optional, thin white noodles made from konnyaku potato or devil’s tongue), 20 snow peas or green beans or broad beens
Broth: reuse the water used when cooking beef tendon or just water if you do not use beef tendon (you may use 2nd dashi stock)
3 tablespoons sugar, 3 tablespoons sake, 3 tablespoons soy sauce (koikuchi or dark soy sauce)
Please note that the amount of the sugar and soy sauce may vary each time you cook the dish just as any other dishes. You may need more or less. Trust your own taste buds.
1. Cook beef tendon in water with cover on medium heat for one hour or till tender. (I normally cook beef tendon with water in a pressure-cooking saucepan for 15 minutes.) Cut boiled tendon into bite size. You do not have to use beef tendon to make this dish though. This is the Ozekis way, we believe beef tendon adds extra flavor to the water and vegetables and the flavour beefed up nikujyaga dish compliments with red wine. And it is nicer to eat with freshly boiled shot grain rice.
2. Wash to clean potatoes, scrub skin with brush (we use tawashi, turtle-shell shaped brush) and cut into large bite size. Cut carrots in bite size.
3. Peel onion and cut lengthwise into 6 wedges. Cut thinly sliced beef into large bite size.
4. Boil shirataki for a few minutes, rinse in cold water and drain well. Cut into 10cm long.
5. In a saucepan stir fry with vegetable oil, beef, potatoes, carrot, onion. Add water or 2nd dashi stock (niban-dashi)to cover the ingredients. Bring to a boil on high heat and skim the froth. Keep cooking till the vegetables are cooked. Add shirataki and sugar and sake and keep cooking on medium heat with an otoshi-buta or a wooden-lid or aluminium foil cover directly sitting on the beef & vegetables) for about 5 minutes. Add soy sauce and keep boiling till the broth is almost gone. Serve with blanched snow peas or green beans. (You may use chicken thigh meat with skin on for this dish. The skin adds nicer flavor to the vegetables.)
Miso soup with tofu,wakame and shallots Serves 4
5 cups ichiban dashi stock, miso paste to your taste, 100g tofu, 20g salted wakame (sea weed, rinsed and cut into bite size), chopped shallots as needed
Heat up 4 cups dashi stock to near-boil and reduce heat to low and dissolve miso paste to your taste. Add tofu and heat up near boil, but do not boil or you will lose the flavour of ichiban dashi stock. Serve with wakame and chopped shallots.
Ichiban dashi is seafood stock made from dried kelp from Hokkaido and dried bonito flakes, alternatively you can use instant dashi powder available at Japanese and Asian food market in your town.
To watch how Shuji makes ichiban-dashi stock, visit Shuji’s YouTube channel at shujiozeki and find a video How to make Ichiban-dashi stock.
Monday evening is my weekend evening as our soba noodle & Japanese restaurant is closed on Tuesdays & Wed.
Last night I cooked for my parents and our relatives Aussie beef raised in Tasmania.
I pan-fried three different cuts of Tasmanian beef steak and seasoned with my kind of teriyaki sauce called kuwayaki-no-tare. Served with grated daikon or white radish, chopped asatsuki or spring onion, and home-made ponzu. My ponzu suace for the beef steak is made up with kurozu or locally made dark vinegar, koikuchi (dark)soy sauce and a dash of Aussie E.V. Olive oil which was given by my former boss, Master Soba Noodle Chef Yoshinori Shibazaki of Shimbashi Soba So Good on Chevron Island, Gold Coast, Australia. When I had an opportunity to dine at his new restaurant with my Gold Coast friends in April this year, Yoshi-san and his wife Keiko-san kindly gave me a bottle of Joseph 2008 Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil, South Australia. They remember that I love Aussie olive oil. I apprenticed for over three years under Chef Yoshi Shibazaki at his Sydney’s Shimbashi Soba Restauran back in the mid-’90′s.
And the wine last nigh was 2004 Cabernet Merlot, Leeuwin Estate, Margaret River. The bottle was presented to us by Steve Hafer, my aikido mate from Sydney when he and other mates visited us and enjoyed slurping my hand-made soba noodles served with deep-fried shiro-ebi or fresh white shrimps. That day was the day before my 54th birthday, 27 May 2010. Thank you, Steve. We very much enjoyed the wine at last after all the unprecedented hot, humid and endless summer here in Gifu prefecture, Japan.
So with the Aussie beef and wine a great dinner time was had by us all last night.
written by Chef Shuji Ozeki
Aussie beef served with grated daikon, ponzu, Japanese summer herbs
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Aussie beef served with grated daikon, ponzu, Japanese summer herbs
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Bottle singed by Steve H.
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Mum & Shuji toast to Health
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chef’s weekend dinner with his parents & relatives
flame-grilled eggplant with white sesame sauce & shallots Serves 4
