Here are my recent meals enjoyed in my Japanese kitchen. shiso juice (recipe – https://hirokoskitchen.com/2014/06/sexy-delicious/, shiso condiment, summer vegetable pizza! (baked in cast iron skillet – the best result/ no need to own a pizza baking stone), cold zucchini and pea miso soup, corn rice, cold pork shabu shabu with summer vegetables served with sesame-shoyu sauce.
There are many reasons why I like to cook my meals at home. I can avoid artificial chemical additives by selecting and using seasonings and oils which are made by honest companies. I can incorporate and enjoy a diverse array of seasonal vegetables and locally caught wild fish in my meals.
To cook healthy and delicious meals at home shopping is indispensable and important. I cannot let other people do this process. There are two ways to do food shopping. A: I come up with a recipe and do a shopping according to the recipe’s instructions. B: Without having much idea what to prepare I go to a Farmers Market or a grocery store, I explore and purchase ingredients which inspires me to cook something out of it.
When it comes to the height of the season vegetables, we don’t need much ‘recipe’ to enjoy them. For example, heirloom tomatoes; they are packed with robust flavor, so I slice them and serve them sprinkled with good quality sea salt and olive oil. Sometimes I use home-made no sugar/mirin added ponzu sauce in place of olive oil and salt. When I have a piece of red onion, I chop them fine, soak them for 20 minutes or so in cold water, drain and sprinkle it on top of sliced tomato.
Are you enjoying just harvested, very sweet corn? I cook it and flavor it as minimal as possible in order to enjoy the very natural flavor of it: I blanch it, grill it or make a delicious soup out of it. Since I own a probiotic, traditional Japanese Nukamiso pickling base, I started (for the first time this year) pickling it in the pickling base. One gram of Nukamiso pickling base has one hundred million good probiotic bacteria. They massage my corn and transfer it to a delicious, healthy snack. Please re-vist https://zesterdaily.com/cooking/nuka-zuke-pickles/ to learn and review the wonderful power of Nukamiso. You can also find the tips of Nukamiso pickling in Hiroko’s Blog – Hiroko’s Kitchenhttps://hirokoskitchen.com/?s=nukamiso.
Bounty zucchini often turns to delicious, bright green, cold creamy soup in my kitchen. There is no serious recipe for this type of soup. I cut up zucchini and cook them along with onion and green peas in kelp stock or water for 20 minutes. I use 4 cups kelp stock for about 24 ounces vegetables. Then, puree the cooked vegetables with the cooking liquid, and flavor it with miso and pinch of salt. You need about 1 to 2 tablespoons of miso. Which miso we should use in this delightful vegetable soup matters a lot. My only recommendation is Mellow White Miso (Miso Master brand https://www.facebook.com/misomastermiso: organic, kosher, no-GMO, gluten free, unpasteurized). You can find more delicious soup recipes with seasonally changing vegetables in Hiroko’s American Kitchen https://hirokoskitchen.com/shop/hirokos-american-kitchen/.
Summer continues. I will return to the blog with more summer recipe ideas.