Carrot Ginger Salad Dressing

A few weeks ago I was asked to help out with creating a menu for Japan Night, an event at my church where a missionary family was sharing about their vision for Japan.  We definitely wanted something that was Japanese, or at lease Asian-inspired, and would be easy enough for a small team to cook for upwards of 100 guests in a couple of hours.  After testing a few recipes at home, we ended up with the following menu:

Green Salad with Carrot Ginger Dressing

Vegetable Spring Rolls

Cold Soba Noodle Salad with Baked Tofu and Edamame

Matcha Mochi Cupcakes

The spring rolls we bought frozen and just baked them in the oven, but everything else was pretty much made from scratch!

The carrot ginger dressing is the same bright orange dressing you often get at sushi restaurants before the start of a meal.  I never really knew what was in it and had guessed some type of citrus and probably soy, but in fact the main components are carrots, ginger, and miso!  This totally boggles my mind because I normally don't really like carrots or ginger (in a non-sweet dish) but I can't get enough of this dressing.  It must be the miso.  =)

Carrot Ginger Dressing (adapted from goop)

makes a little over a pint

1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large shallot, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh peeled ginger
1 tablespoon sweet white miso
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon roasted sesame seed oil
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons water

Pulse the carrot, shallot and ginger in a blender until finely chopped.

Scrape down the sides, add the miso, vinegar and sesame seed oil and whiz together. While the blender is going, slowly drizzle in the canola oil and the water.

The dressing will keep refrigerated in an air-tight container for about a week.

I like to eat this over butter lettuce, but we used a mesclun salad at Japan Night.

Next up:  Cold Soba Noodle Salad with Baked Tofu and Edamame

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Miso Ramen with Marinated Soft-Boiled Egg

Now that we've made the ramen noodles, it's time to make some ramen broth!  Some broths take hours if not days to make, but fortunately, it only takes a few minutes to make the broth for miso ramen.  There's two ways you can make this broth:  either add instant dashi and miso paste to chicken broth, or add chicken bouillon and miso paste to dashi stock.  I chose to do the latter because dashi is a lot easier to make than chicken broth, and the two ingredients (kombu and bonito flakes) are shelf stable.

 
Kombu is a type of seaweed, and bonito flakes are made from smoked, shaved fish.  You should be able to find both in an Asian grocery store, but I've also found them in the ethnic section of grocery stores. They both are very high in umami, which is why such a simple preparation can produce so much flavor.

Dashi Stock
makes 1 quart, enough for 2 bowls of miso ramen

4 cups water
2-3 strips of kombu
1/2 cup loosely packed bonito flakes

 
Place the water and kombu in a medium pot and let soak for 15 minutes.

 
After 15 minutes, place the pot on medium heat.  Just before it boils, remove from heat and sprinkle the bonito flakes over the surface of the water.

 
After 3-4 minutes, strain through a fine mesh strainer.

 
Now let's talk toppings:  my absolute favorite is a marinated soft-boiled egg.  It's similar to lu dan, except the yolk is barely set, and the marinade only penetrates the outer surface of the egg.  It took me a few tries to get it right because the recipe I was using called for the egg to be boiled for only 6 minutes, but my eggs were still too soft at that point.  You want to cook it just long enough so that the egg white is set.  If it's too soft, it's almost impossible to peel, which I found out the hard way.  Eventually, through trial and error, I found that 7 and a half minutes was the ideal amount of time that I needed to cook my eggs to that point.

 
Marinated Soft-Boiled Eggs (adapted from Serious Eats)
makes 3 eggs (you only need 2 for 2 bowls of ramen, but you might as well make the third since there's enough marinade for 3 eggs)

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup rice wine
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup mirin
1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs

Combine water, rice wine, soy, mirin, and sugar in a medium bowl and whisk until sugar is dissolved. Set aside.

Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat.  Carefully lower eggs into water with a slotted spoon. Reduce heat to maintain a bare simmer. Cook for exactly 7 minutes and 30 seconds. Drain hot water and transfer eggs to a bowl filled with ice water.  Cool for 3 minutes and then carefully peel eggs (the whites will be quite delicate).

 
Transfer eggs to a bowl that just barely fits them all. Pour marinade on top until eggs are covered or just floating.

 
Place a double-layer of paper towels on top and press down until completely saturated in liquid to help keep eggs submerged and marinating evenly.

Cover and refrigerate at least four hours and up to 12. Discard marinade after 12 hours. Store eggs in a sealed container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

As for the rest of the toppings, I didn't have any roast pork on hand, or else I would have used that, but I did have some fried tofu, which worked well with the miso broth.  Other possible toppings include corn, bean sprouts, chopped scallions, nori, cooked spinach, bamboo shoots, etc.  You don't want anything too strong to mask the flavor of the broth, but it's nice to have a few different textures in each bite.

Miso Ramen
makes 2 bowls

4 cups dashi stock
1 chicken bouillon cube
3 tablespoons frozen corn kernels
1/4 cup fresh bean sprouts
8 pieces fried tofu
2 tablespoons white miso paste
1/2 recipe ramen noodles, cooked
2 marinated soft-boiled eggs, sliced in half lengthwise
4 four inch-square sheets nori
2 teaspoons scallions, chopped

Add the dashi stock, bouillon cube, corn, bean sprouts, and fried tofu in a medium pot and bring to a boil over high heat.  Remove the corn, bean sprouts, and tofu with a slotted spoon and set aside.

 
Remove the pot from heat and add the miso paste to the stock.  Stir to dissolve.

 
Split the cooked ramen noodles between two large bowls.  Pour in the miso broth.

 
Top each bowl with half the corn, bean sprouts, fried tofu, and marinated soft-boiled eggs.

Place two sheets of nori in each bowl and sprinkle half the scallions over each bowl.

Next post:  Momofuku Ramen Broth!

Previously:  Homemade Ramen Noodles

Four years ago:  Pan-Fried Pasta with Butternut Squash, Fried Sage, and Pine Nuts

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Miso Marinated Black Cod

When I saw wild caught black cod in Trader Joe's most recent Fearless Flyer, I'm pretty sure I squealed out loud.  I had been wanting to make Nobu's miso marinated black cod ever since I first had it several years ago but could never bring myself to track down the, I assumed, extremely expensive fish.  And now it was being sold in my neighborhood TJ's for $12.99/lb, which admittedly, isn't cheap, but is definitely in my price range if I'm only buying enough for one.

 
This is only of those super simple recipes that only uses the barest minimum of ingredients (four!) but is so, so good.  If you've never had black cod (also known as sablefish or butterfish) before, you'll be surprised by how buttery the flaky white meat is.  The closest fish that I've tasted is the Chilean sea bass.  And the best part is, black cod is a sustainable fish, unlike the Chilean sea bass, so that's one less thing you have to worry about.

The fillets that I ended up buying were only a quarter pound each, but I decided to make the full amount of marinade anyways because, seriously, I don't have a pot small enough to boil 2 tablespoons of liquid.  I also didn't have any sake on hand, so I substituted rice wine.

 
Miso Marinated Black Cod (based on the recipe from Nobu:  The Cookbook)
makes 2 servings

2 tablespoons sake or rice wine
2 tablespoons mirin
2 tablespoons white miso
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2-4 black cod fillets (about 1/4 pound each)

 
Bring the sake and the mirin to a boil in a small saucepan over high heat.  Turn the heat down to low and stir in the miso until dissolved. Turn the heat up to high again and add the sugar, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat once the sugar is fully dissolved. Cool to room temperature.

 
Slather the fish with the miso marinade and place in dish or bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Leave to steep in refrigerator for 2 to 3 days.

 
To cook, preheat the broiler. Lightly wipe off any excess miso clinging to the fillets but don’t rinse it off. Broil the fillets for about 10-15 minutes, until browned on top and flaky when cut with a fork.  Do not overcook!  Serve warm with rice.

 
My fillets were pretty thin (less than an inch thick), but if you have thicker fillets, you may want to continue to bake the fish at 400°F for another couple of minutes until it is cooked through.  Just remember not to overcook this fish since you'll lose the awesome, buttery texture.

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