Tsukejiru and kakejiru soup for ramen, soba etc.

In a Japanese cooking book I’ve found the basic recipe for the soup e.g. used for noodle soups (ramen).

Ingredients:

6 cups dashi or chicken stock
1/2 cup light soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin
1/2 teaspoon salt
Monosodium glutamate

Preperation:
Heat the dashi or chicken stock and taste for seasoning. Add the mirin, soy sauce, salt and a dash of monosodium glutamate. Bring to the boil and taste again for seasoning, correcting if necessary. Simmer for ten minutes.

Dashi is bonito based fish stock often used in Japanese cooking. If you make your own miso soup with miso paste, it’s recommended to add some dashi.
Monosodium glutamate is better known as aji-no-moto in Japan. It’s got a very interesting story behind it that you can check on Wikipedia. You will also find out more about umami, the so called 5th taste that some people believe to be lots of nonesense.
Instead of dashi or chicken stock you can use any kind of soup stock, like beef. After I cooked bigger amounts of meat e.g. in the steam cooker, I often use the fresh stock/juice left over as the soup base in the next ramen.
There are three basic tastes of ramen: shouyu (soy sauce), shiyo (salt) and miso. I find this recipe to be close to shouyu ramen, even I don’t know if that’s true by definition. This was the only recipe I could find in that book. If you want to cook miso ramen, use dashinand miso paste, but no (or little) soy sauce or mirin. Also for shiyo ramen, use less dashi and soy sauce (a bit is nice for seasing) but you can add lots of salt so that it gets a really nice salty taste. Of course if you leave out soy sauce or dashi, add the same amount of water instead.
If you put it all together you get 7 cups of soup. This results in about 2 servings. I usually use about 3 1/2 or 4 cups of soup per serving, which results in a bit less than 500 ml.

This type of soup for ramen is called kakejiru. For some other noodles like soumen you use a more concentrated version called tsukejiru, in which you only dipp the noodles. The ingredients are as follows:

2 cups fashi or chicken stock
1/2 cup mirin
1/2 cup dark soy sauce
Monosodium glutamate

Mix all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Taste for seasoning, correct if necessary and cool before using.
For soumen, each person gets about 1/2 to 1 cup of tsukejiru.

 

 

Kabocha

What has turned out to be very popular on several occasions is Japanese boiled pumpkin. It’s cooked with sugar and dashi, which gives it its unique taste. Some people even remarked that it almost tastes a bit like marroni, and I can see (or rather taste) the similarity.

Ingredients:

1/2 pumpkin (best to use kabocha pumpkin, if they have, or otherwise some other green skinned pumpkin)

3 cups dashi (1 tsp. dashi powder)

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

1 tblsp. salt

Preperation:

Peel the pumpkin, unless it is very young and tender in which case the skin can be left on. Cut into large pieces. Pour the dashi into a saucepan, add the pumpkin an bring to the boil. Reduce to medium flame and cook until the dashi has reduced about a third. Add the sugar, soy sauce and salt and continue to cook untill the pumpkin is tender. Serve hot.

This is the way it’s written in a cooking book. I prefer to add all ingredients right at the beginning. This will give the pumpkin a richer and sweeter taste.

Okonomiyaki

Für 2 Portionen berechnet:

Tempura Mehl   1 Tasse (200ml)

Wasser                ¾ Tasse (150ml)   – Zusammenmischen

Ei                           1

Salz                       1 Prise

Kabis                    200g     – In feine Streifen schneiden, daruntermischen

Andere Zutaten je nach Geschmack:

– Fondue Chinoise Fleisch, Schinken oder Gschnätzletes (das zuerst

anbraten),

– Fisch roh oder Ebi (kleinere oder grosse Crevetten, diese kurz

kochen)

– Auch andere Gemüse (Rüebli in feinen Streifen, Peperoni, Pilze etc.)

In die Pfanne etwas Oel giessen, etwas erwärmen, dann den Teig aus Mehl, Wasser, Ei, Salz und Kabis beifügen. Oben drauf noch andere Zutaten beifügen. Deckel drauf und braten, bis der untere Teil fest ist. Dann versuchen, das Okonomiyaki auf die andere Seite zu wenden mit Hilfe von zwei Holzkellen oder mit Hilfe des Deckels. Auch auf der anderen Seite etwas braten. Ev. muss noch etwas Oel nachgegossen werden, damit es nicht anbratet.

Wer will kann auf das fertige Okonomiyaki eine Sosse giessen aus einer Mischung von Majonnaise-Ketchup-Sojasosse, aber sparsam (Gefahr, dass es einem schlecht wird)! Nur Sojasosse ist weniger kalorienhaltig und eher zu empfehlen.

Wer will und es auftreiben kann, kann auch Fischflocken oben drauf streuen. Ist jedenfalls ein Hingucker, wenn die Flocken sich auf einmal zu bewegen anfangen und der Fisch neu zu Leben erweckt wird!