Dinner at Green House July 29

We had dinner at the Green House Restaurant in Gig Harbor. My mother, Shinho and me.
We shared two appetizers, Ahi Poke Napoleon and Steamed Clam. Both were good. Portion was generous. For main, we chose from chalk board menu. Mom had Seared Scallop, Shinho had NY strip steak and I had Pan roasted trout with arugula sauce. They were good but not fabulous, a little bit bland, needed more flavor. For instance my trout tasted like they forgot salt and pepper before pan roasted it. The arugula sauce looked beautiful and creamy but did not have much flavor from arugula. We had two dessert, creme brulee and strawberry shortcake. They were good. The best part was we got 15% discount.(Before 6PM 55 and over get 15% discount on appetizer and main.)

Tofu with crab meat

 

This is very easy dish. It only takes several minutes from start to finish. In a wok or stir fry pan heat canola oil and add chopped garlic, ginger and scallion. Sautee for a couple of minutes then add crab meat, sake and chicken broth. Bring to boil, then add diced tofu and cook for a few minutes. In a small bawl mix 1 Tbs water and 1 Tbs potato starch and swirl into the wok and stir quickly. Add some salt and a little bit of sesami oil, as you like.

Side dishes were stir fry vegetable ( broccoli, zucchini, red bell pepper), cucumber salad (sunomono) spinach (tamago toji).

Almond crusted chicken

 
 
I found this recipe several years ago on the internet. It is very easy. Cut chicken tender into bite size and coat with minced garlic, dijon masturd, salt and pepper. In a separate bawl, mix crushed almond, panko and grated parmesan cheese. Coat the chicken with almond mixture. Then pan fry or bake it in the oven.

One of the side is scrambled egg with julienne carrot.

Shrimp with green pea sauce

 
 
This is another popular Chinese dish in Japan. This one is not spicy and the sauce is lighter, but very tasty. I think green pea and shrimp are good combination.


Side dishes are two kinds of pickles (tsukemono), spinach with natto, green beans in sesami dressing (gomaae), celery sauteed with bacon.

Summer vegitable curry

 
 
I am not good at planning ahead to make menu of the dinner. Sometimes inspiration comes when I walk Cooper in the afternoon, or sometimes while I am driving home, or when I look into the fridge. It was the last minute inspiration today when I desperately looked into my fridge and saw a big eggplant. OK, summer vegetable curry. Eggplant, green bell pepper, zucchini, onion and ground beef, I got everything I needed. Sauteed minced onion and ground beef in a sauce pan. Add salt, pepper and curry powder and cumin, then add chicken stock. In a separate pan sauteed cubed eggplant, green bell pepper and zucchini. Transfer vegetable to the beef curry sauce and cook about 10 minutes.

I had fresh mozzarella and it is going to expire, so I made Caprice salad. Instead of basil which I didn't have I used shiso and that worked very well. Easy, breezy and delicious dinner.

Garlic shoot

 
 
I found garlic shoot at the local produce store, Local Boys. I have never seen it except Asian grocery shop. It has mild garlic flavor and sweet taste. I cooked with sliced pork and was very good. First marinate sliced pork in soy sauce, grated ginger, sake and ground black pepper. Meanwhile cut the garlic shoot 2 inches long. Coat marinated pork with potato starch. Heat the wok and add vegetable oil and stir fry pork. Remove pork from the wok, add a little more oil and sautee garlic shoot. Return the pork to the wok and add hot chili sauce(tobanjang), soy sauce, mirin and cook for a couple of minutes.

Cold avocado soup

 
 
It was over 80 degrees! Perfect day for cold soup. This is one of my favorite soup. Super easy. 2 peeled avocado, lemon juice from 1 lemon, 2 cups chicken broth, salt and pepper and blend everything in the blender or food processor.Chill the mixture in the fridge. Before serve, add 1/2cup heavy cream or greek yogurt if you want it lighter taste. Serves for 4-5

Main course was ceder plank smoked salmon with grilled asparagus.

Summer dinner

 
 
 
Welcome back summer! It was such a beautiful day today. I made my favorite Japanese summer dish. One is yaki nasu, char grilled eggplant with grated ginger and bonito flake(I took picture of it, but didn't look delicious, so no photo)and hiya yakko(cold tofu). I also made shiso rolled asparagus ( Maki sent me this recipe). For Shinho, the meat lover, I made tsukune(Japanese style mini hamburger). They usually use ground chicken in Japan for tsukune, but I used ground pork and beef and added minced scallion and ginger.

Wild sockeye salmon

 
 
Salmon is not my favorite fish, but here in Washington you cannot find many varieties of fish and actually salmon is always fresh and reliable.
Today I just broiled it and served it with creamy mashed potato and sauteed green beans with almond. Mashed potato is served as a kind of sauce for the salmon. I added chicken stock and Greek yogurt to make the mashed potato creamy and tangy.

Side dishes are variety of vegitable, mostly Asian flavored.

Chicken cutlet with shiso

 
My shiso plant is growing beautifully, so I wanted to use shiso leaves in some way. I sliced chicken breast to make it fairly thin and put the shiso leaf on it and fold the chicken in half. Then coated with flour, eggwash and panko. I think it looks pretty and the flavor of shiso leaves give chicken fresh taste. But I think if I marinated chicken in soy sauce and sake, and just coated with potato starch and fried it, it might be more delicious. I will try that next time.

Dinner at the Bistro Satsuma

I took the day off today. (not exactly, I cooked lunch.) Shinho and I went to Ollala Beach for kayaking this afternoon. So we had dinner at the Japanese restaurant in Gig Harbor. The chef makes really superb dashi, so anything with dashi here is excellent. My favorite is odamaki and nasu shigiyaki. Shinho's favorite is Hamachi Kama. These are highly recommended.

Halibut my way

 

I got beautiful halibut fillet for dinner and couldn't decide how I cook it. I looked up several recipe but all the recipe required something I didn't have in my pantry or fridge. Finally I made up this dish. I thought mild onion flavor of leek might work with halibut. I sauteed chopped leek and red and orange bell pepper with olive oil and butter then add chicken stock and white wine and reduced the liquid to about 1/4. Pan roasted halibut and served with the sauce and topped with crunchy bacon. Came out pretty nice.
Sides are asparagus with creamy tofu dressing and other usual stuff like spinach.

Cucumber salad with smashed garlic and ginger

 
 
 
This Cucumber salad is also from "PLENTY". It is another Asian recipe. It is tasty and refreshing.
The main is Mahimahi with brown sugar soy glaze. This recipe is similar to Teriyaki, but fresh squeezed lemon juice and green onion in the sauce give more flavor to the fish. The other side dish is sweet miso glazed broiled eggplant(Dengaku Nasu).

Broccolini and sweet sesami salad

 
 
 
 
I got this beautiful cook book "Plenty" from Kathy and Sharon. It is a vegetable recipe book.Every thing looks so delicious and I want to try many of them and It makes me want to be Vegitarian if it is easy to get all kinds of fresh vegetable.
I picked up one recipe which is the easiest for me and all the ingredients are familiar to me. Broccolini and sweet sesami salad. Mr. Ottolenghi got this recipe from Japanese Ingen no gomaae. It was delicious.

Main is tritip steak with grated daikon radish and scallion and ponzu sauce. I also made seaweed salad.

The last one is marinated sesami leaves. They are from my garden.

Prawn

 
 
 
My mother loves crab and shrimp. She especially loves panko breaded prawn. It is also my favorite. Side dishes are Japanese eggplant and green pepper with sweet miso sauce, broccoli with spicy peanut dressing, miso soup.

Tofu Steak

 
 
Main dish tonight is tofu steak. Smear minced garlic on tofu and lightly dust the tofu with flour. Pan fry and serve with sauce( mixture of soy sauce and mirin )topped with bonito flake, grated ginger and chopped scallion.

Other dishes are shredded beef with green pepper, niku jaga (stewed potato with carrot, onion and beef), spinach namul.

Rock fish in Tempura sauce

 
 
I think this is a delicious recipe for all kinds of white fish. I used rock fish but cod is also very good. Slice the fish fillet 1.5 inch long and add a little salt and grated ginger, sprinkle with sake. Then add potato starch and mix well. Heat the oil medium high and deep fry them. Make tempura sauce ( dashi, soy sauce, mirin ) Add chopped scallion and pour over the fish.

The other dish is stir fried chicken with broccoli and red bell pepper.

Miso Mayo Glazed Salmon

 

When you don't have enough time to prepare dinner, this is easy recipe and good for frozen salmon. Mix one part of miso and three parts of mayonaise and chopped scallion. Lightly salt and pepper the salmon fillets and spread the miso mixture over the fish and bake in the oven until it is done.

Shumai

 
 
 
Shumai may not be considered as a main dish, but traditionally there is no main dish in Japanese meal. 1 jyu 3 sai which means one soup and three plates. So, today's menu was Shumai, Nasu Shigiyaki(eggplant), spinach and mushroom frittata, green beans with sesami dressing. Shumai is Chinese, eggplant and green beans dish are Japanese, frittata is Spanish. We often eat like this.