Chicken Curry - Thiru Aunty’s recipe

1 medium sized chicken
2 potatoes,
1 tsp Tumeric
Salt
5 garlic
1 inch of ginger
1 onion, diced
1 stalk of curry leaves
1 green chilli, left whole
1 inch of cinnamon
1 tsp fenugreek
3 cloves
2 cup coconut milk, separated into thin and thick milk
½ cup of curry powder
1 tbsp ground fennel
Juice from ½ a lime

1. Prepare chicken: cut into pieces, wash and leave to drain. Add the salt and tumeric, but you don’t have to mix it in.
2. Prepare potatoes: cut into same size as chicken pieces. Leave it in water.
3. Prepare ginger and garlic: pound in mortar and pestle into a paste. Put it on the chicken.
1. Fry the onion, curry leaves and spices: cinnamon, fennugreek, cloves (cummin, mustard seeds, pepper are optional) in oil till the onion is soft.
2. Add the pieces of chicken with tumeric and salt, pounded ginger and garlic, potatoes.
3. Add the thin coconut milk. Coconut milk is for the best flavour, it can be substituted with milk.
4. Add the curry powder. If you have ground cummin or ground coriander, add this as well for a different flavour).
5. Cook for 20 minutes
6. Check when the chicken is cooked and it tastes well. At the end, add ground fennel, 1 or 2 tbsp thick coconut milk and the lime juice. This is for added flavour, if you are happy when the chicken is cooked, end there.
7. If you didn’t use coconut milk earlier, you don’t have to use it here. Or, if you didn’t use coconut milk earlier, you could use just cream of coconut here.

Restaurants in Japan

Here is a list of restaurants we visited while in Japan.

Aozora, Tsukiji Market
Aburiya - Fu Do, Nakameguro
Bills, Kamakura
Burger Arms, Yoyogi Park
Ceylon Inn, Nakameguro
Ho Ho Ho, Shirokanedai
Karashi, Shirokanedai
Ninja Restaurant, Akasaka
Negiya Heikichi, Shibuya
Omotemise, Tsukiji Market
Seirinkan, Nakameguro
Su Shi something, Shirokanedai
Ten Ichi, Ginza

Ninja Restaurant,, Asakasa

Janet invited Nathan and I to dinner while Stephen was away. She took us to a Ninja themed restaurant in Akasaka for Nathan. He got a little scared going in, but it really was a training session not the real thing. The food was pretty spectacularly presented. Lots of camouflage and disguise.


Prawn salad.

See the gold leaf on top?

Tofu salad.

This is a fish dish. It was served looking like this. We wondered which vegetable dish we ordered?

But no, the waiter then lifted the grill with his bare fingers, and said the coal was the fish? Each piece was wrapped in nori and fried. Then it was laid on a battery operated red light which gave the amber glow we thought was heat and each piece was black like charcoal. The vegetable accompaniment was served on top, grilled.

Aburiya-Fu Do

While Daniel was staying here I found this restaurant on www.bento.com. The review suggests that they use a superior choice of beef in their yakiniku. So we got into the car and headed for the 'unknown'.

They dropped Nathan and I while the boys went to look for parking. I got nervous - what if they didnt like the place?

It was fantastic. A small well used restaurant, heavy with wood and charcoal. Downstairs is the bar in the picture but the customers sit on the floor and not bar stools. We were seated upstairs in a wood panelled room. And our host didnt speak a word of English and we too little Japanese.

First the appetizer arrived. It was a wonderful cabbage salad with a strong fried garlic and soy dressing in the silver bowl. The first food competition to arrive. We had yakiniku which brought us a braisier to cook the meat on. A most delicious nabe: Daniel wanted a soup and this came with some offal. Our host suggested he put it in and we didnt have to eat it and we all agreed. It was delicious. The combination of the offal, collagen, and simple ingredients of cabbage, chilli threads and whatever was to die for. Just dipping this rich soup into rice was all we needed to eat.

Our rice, which was meant to end the meal but we requested early for Nathan was a red rice full of grains and health. A kimchi and yakitori to complete the meal.

Macarons

I have to list the macarons I tasted.

While Daniel was here, we did a hunt for Pierre Herme macaron. In the rush, we had googled the wrong place, drove round the posh parts of Tokyo and bought some. They did not taste like the beautiful ones Stephen gave me a few years before. The taste still remembered on my tongue. And Daniel did not enjoy the outing.

It was the first macaron I tasted in a long while. Stephen had returned from his trip to Japan with a present for me. A pack of Macarons from Pierre Herme and it was simply the best thing. The meringue itself had almond meal in them with a complex flavourings, and paired with a matching flavour in the cream in between. It seemed to be most about the complexity of delicate flavours carried with the meringue that made the little sweet a drop in heaven.

Since, we moved to Japan, macaron was becoming a big thing. I almost screamed when McDonalds cafe sold them a few years later! It carries a large profit margin, every patisserie that could, sold them. And all of them lacked the complex flavouring of the first ones I tasted. Sadly, though, I had forgotten the name of the macaron Stephen got for me, and I didn't find it again.

Nathan tried it once and we ended up getting one from Joel Rubichon with every visit to the playground in Ebisu.

We have tried

Joel Rubichon (so so)
Piere Mason
Lauduree (not again)

http://www.omnomnomad.com/2015/12/26/3-patisseries-you-must-try-in-tokyo/

Cabbage salad

Another salad we made was this cabbage salad from my japanese salad cookbook.

Cabbage salad

• 1/3 Cabbage, cut into bite sized pieces - 1cm x 1cm
• 1 Fried tofu skin
• 1 tbs Fried slivers of garlic
• Dressing: 3 tbs mayonnaise, 3 tbs ponzu, a pinch of shichimi

Heat the fried tofu skin over a griddle. Prepare the cabbage.
Mix the dressing ingredients till its smooth.
Cut tofu to 1cm x 1cm pieces and sprinkle over the cabbage with garlic.
Pour dressing over the salad and more shichimi.

Tofu Salad

While my cousins were here, I served my favourite Japanese salad: Tofu salad with sesame dressing. I had been ordering it at nearly every restaurant that had it, till I discovered its made using a ready made salad dressing. First I bought the wrong dressing - it was a sesame ponze sauce not a salad dressing. I was disheartened. I then found the right dressing and Stephen was eating this salad every day. My cousins came, then Mama and again we were eating this salad everyday.

So here goes:

Tofu Salad

• Tofu - 1 portion of silken tofu, wrapped in a towel and left for 20 minutes with a weight over it. This drains the water, placed at the bottom of the dish
  
• Onions, sliced, lots of it - here I use the japanese leek. It can be substituted by spring onions or finely sliced red onions
• Green pepper, finely sliced
• Mizuno leaves, or any salad leaves available, cut into bite sized portions
• 1 small tomato (not a cherry tomato) chunked
• A few soy beans (edamame), some left over bits.

Add more green fresh vegetables, like cucumbers, bean sprouts, lettuce, cabbage. I dont use vegetables that need cooking, unless its the tofu itself.

• Pour salad dressing over the salad and mix
• Scatter corn flakes over the salad for texture.

Dig in.


Here is a recipe I found for the Sesame salad dressing called Gomadare.

Gomadare

• roasted white sesame seeds: 2 large tablespoons
• soy milk: 4 large tablespoons (optional)
• miso: 1 teaspoon
• soy sauce: a little (up to taste)
• sugar: a little
• ground white sesame: a little

Method
First ground together with a pestle the white sesame seeds, soy milk and miso until it has attained a nice smooth consistency.
If have difficulty mixing it, heat it a little.
Add soy sauce, sugar and ground white sesame to taste.
A little experimentation will work wonders.