Nishime (Simmered Vegetables)

Nishime (pronounced “KNEE-she-may”) is a delicious Japanese vegetable “stew” in a thin broth, a dish that’s a staple in many Hawaii homes.

Once the ingredients (available in most Asian supermarkets) are cut into bite-sized pieces, all that remains is to pre-cook some of them, then throw everything into in a large pot of water and boil. Easy!

It’s delicious with steamed rice, often served in the same bowl over the rice, with lots of broth – the shiru (pronounced “SHE-roo”).

Ingredients

• NISHIME KONBU (thick, dark-green seaweed),1 strip (36-inches)
• BAMBOO SHOOTS, 1 cup, cut into 1½-inch  pieces
• GOBO (burdock root), 1 cup, scraped, cut into ¼-inch diagonal slices
• SALAD OIL, 2 tablespoons
• PORK, 1/2 pound, thinly sliced
• WATER, 2½ cups
• SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS, 3 fresh, quartered (or if dried, soak before quartering)
• KONNYAKU (potato “jelly” block), cut into 1½-inch pieces
• DAIKON, 1 cup, cut into 1½-inch pieces
• CARROTS, 1 cup, cut into 1½-inch pieces
• LOTUS ROOT, 1 peeled and sliced into ¼-inch “wheels”
• ARAIMO (Japanese taro), 6-8 boiled and peeled
• A-GE TOFU (Deep-fried tofu cubes, pronounced “AH-Gay,” optional), 1 cup
• SUGAR, 3 tablespoons
• MIRIN (Japanese sweet rice wine), 2 tablespoons
• SALT, ½ teaspoon
• SOY SAUCE, 1/3 cup

Directions

1. Wash the konbu and strip lengthwise into 3-inch wide strips. Tie the strips in knots at 2-inch intervals; cut between the knots and soak in water for 20 to 30 minutes. Drain, then place in a pot with water to cover and cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until tender.
2. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the bamboo shoots and parboil for a few minutes. Remove from the water. Do the same with the gobo.
3. In a large pot, heat the oil. Add the pork and stir-fry until light brown.
4. Add the water, all of the vegetables, sugar and mirin. Cover, bring to a boil and cook for 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Add the salt and soy sauce, and simmer an additional 10 to 15 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked.
6. Serve with (or over) rice.

Easy Eggs Benedict

Homemade Eggs Benedict

Once in a while, I like making eggs Benedict for breakfast. There’s very little in the world that can beat poached eggs on tender Canadian bacon and crispy English muffins, peeking out from a beautiful golden blanket of hollandaise sauce.

The two snags that probably keep more people from making this delicious dish are the poached eggs and the hollandaise.

I’ve solved the poached eggs dilemma. It’s not easy to make nice poached eggs. It takes practice and more often than not you end up with a spider-web of egg whites spreading out in a pot of boiling water. Plus, it takes too long when you’re hungry.

What I’ve done is purchase an egg-poaching pan. It makes four poached eggs at a time. Granted, the eggs turn out a little triangular, but that’s a minor point.

As for the hollandaise, I use a packaged mix – Knorr. It’s good, it’s fast, and it’s easy.

So there!

Phyllis Barry’s Paella

My friend Phyllis Barry gave me this recipe after we had dinner at her house one night and I went nuts over her paella. It looks complicated but it's not – just a lot of ingredients to prep ahead of time.

Ingredients

• CHICKEN, 4 pounds
• PORK SPARE RIBS, 1 rack
• PORK SAUSAGES, 1/2 pound
• OLIVE OIL, 1/2 cup
• GARLIC, 4 large cloves, minced
• ONION, 1 large, chopped
• SWEET RED PEPPER, 1, chopped
• GREEN PEPPER, 1 chopped
• TOMATO SAUCE, 16-ounce can
• LONG-GRAIN RICE, 3 cups uncooked
• CHICKEN BROTH, 3 cups
• PAPRIKA, 2 teaspoons
• PEAS, fresh or frozen, 1 cup
• ARTICHOKE HEARTS, 8, precooked if fresh
• PIMENTOS, 1 can, stripped
• PARSLEY, preferably Italian, 1/2 cup minced
• SHRIMPS, 1 pound cleaned
• CLAMS, 1 pound fresh
• SAFFRON, 3-4 strands (optional)
• SALT
• PEPPER

Directions

1. Cut up spare ribs, and chicken if whole.
2. Heat olive oil and brown chicken pieces.
3. Remove chicken from pan and sauté sausages.
4. Remove sausages from pan and sauté onions until clear.
5. Add garlic, tomato sauce, and paprika.
6. Replace the ribs, sausages and chicken.
7. Add the broth.
8. Season and cook covered over medium heat for 15 minutes.
9. Add the rest of the ingredients, except for the shellfish. (If saffron is used, toast lightly first in a dry pan.)
10. Cover and reduce heat to low, cooking for 30 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed.
11. Poke the clams and shrimp into the rice, and cover for a few more minutes, until the clams open and the shrimp have just turned white inside.
12. When all the liquid is reduced, uncover and let stand for a few minutes before serving.

Beans on a Biscuit

Here’s another easy breakfast … the principal ingredients are store-bought.

Whenever I bake Pillsbury “Grands” Biscuits, I make sure I have one or two left-over, so I can make “Beans on a Biscuit” for breakfast the next day.

What I do is open a can of Bush’s Grilling Beans (any flavor), and jack it up with some additional stuff (e.g., bacon, onions, mushrooms, green peppers, whatever you have lying around).

Then, I ladle some over a biscuit that I’ve cut in half and “crunchy-fied” in the toaster oven and slathered with some melted butter. On top of this, I slide on a couple of over-easy fried eggs.

Those are orange wedges left over from when I squeezed orange juice.

Hey! That’s what leftovers are for, isn’t it?

Teriyaki Beef Tongue

If you haven’t had beef tongue, you don’t know what you’re missing. And if you haven’t had TERIYAKI beef tongue, you REALLY are missing something quite wonderful.

I know, I know … the very thought of eating a cow’s tongue turns you off. Or, maybe it doesn’t. If it doesn’t turn you off, then read on. But if it disgusts you, then stop right here.

Okay … are all the detractors gone? Good.

So how do you make teriyaki beef tongue? Well, first you need a couple of things – a beef tongue, and some teriyaki sauce. You can get teriyaki sauce in the Asian section of your supermarket, but if you want a better-tasting sauce than that, just follow my recipe found elsewhere on this website.

As for the tongue, you should be able to find it at a butcher shop, or perhaps at your local supermarket. That’s the hardest part – finding the tongue.

It’s easy to make, but it does require some pre-planning because it’ll take a couple of hours from start to finish.

This dish is absolutely yummy!

Ingredients

• BEEF TONGUE, 1
• GARLIC SALT, to taste, about 2 tablespoons
• TERIYAKI SAUCE, about 1 cup

Directions

1. Rinse the tongue and place it in a large pot of water (enough to cover the tongue).
2. Flavor the water with garlic salt and bring it to a boil.
3. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for at least an hour, or until the tongue is soft enough to pierce easily with a fork or toothpick (you don’t want the meat to be “crunchy”).
4. Drain and let the tongue cool. Once it’s is cooled, peel off the white skin.
5. Slice the tongue into ½-inch slabs and marinate it in the teriyaki sauce for an hour.
6. Sauté the tongue pieces in a non-stick pan to reheat and concentrate the teriyaki sauce.
7. Serve with steamed rice.

Spanish Tomato Rice

My mom used to make this dish; she got the recipe from The Better Homes & Garden New Cookbook, a copy of which (1965 edition) I obtained when I started cooking for my college roommates.

Do you know I still have that cookbook?

I’ve made some changes to reflect my own personal taste. It calls for chili sauce, but truthfully, I don’t add it in when I’m cooking, as I’m the only one in the house who likes spicy stuff. Instead, I add it into my own serving separately.

It looks like a lot of ingredients, but much of it is from cans. Of course, you can use fresh veggies if you want to. You can either have it as an entrée or as a side. I like to layer the rice on my plate with fried Spam and a slice of American cheese – rice/Spam/rice/cheese/rice. Or, I’ll make meatballs and serve it alongside.

Ingredients

• BACON, 8 rashers
• GROUND BEEF, ½ pound
• ONION, 1 large, diced
• GREEN PEPPER, 1 medium, diced
• TOMATOES, 1 one-pound can
• OLIVES, 1 small can, sliced
• MUSHROOMS, 1 small can, or ¼ pound sliced
• WATER 1½ cups
• RICE, ¾ cup
• CHILI SAUCE, ½ cup
• SALT, 1 teaspoon
• PEPPER, freshly ground, couple of grinds
• BROWN SUGAR, 1 teaspoon
• WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE, ½ teaspoon

Directions

1. Cook the bacon until crispy and set aside.
2. Pour off half the fat from the pan, and in the remaining fat, cook the onions and green pepper, and set aside.
3. If using fresh mushrooms, sauté and set aside.
4. Brown the ground beef, then add in the onions, green peppers and mushrooms.
5. Add in the rest of the ingredients, cover and simmer 30 to 45 minutes (until the rice is cooked).
6. When the rice is tender, crumble the bacon over it and serve.

Miso Sauce

Made from fermented soybean paste, miso is an essential ingredient in Japanese cuisine and is especially good as a soup or with seafood (particularly salmon or black cod, aka “sablefish” or “butterfish”).

Here’s a simple miso sauce that I use that can be used as a marinade and/or topping on fish.

Ingredients

• WHITE MISO, 1 cup
• SUGAR, ¼ cup (Or, substitute light-brown sugar or honey)
• SAKE (Japanese rice wine), ¼ cup
• MIRIN (sweet Japanese rice wine), ¼ cup

Combine the ingredients (adjust the sweetness to your taste) and let stand for at least five minutes to allow the flavors to meld. It’s okay to double the ingredients and save the excess in a glass bottle/jar in the fridge. It’ll keep for some time.

I rub it on the fish, letting it marinate for a few minutes, then either broil or pan fry the fish, reserving some of the sauce to spread on the cooked fish when it’s served.

To transform it into a salad dressing, whisk in some neutral-flavor vegetable oil (Canola is good, peanut oil is best).