Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Dinner with a toaster oven, mostly...

I was EXHAUSTED but very very hungry tonight.  I also didn't want a lot of dishes to clean.  So, I decided to make good use of my toaster oven and a package of aluminum foil to make dinner.  I had a lovely maitake mushroom and some shiso leaves that I really needed to use.

So, I decided to combine the maitake with shitake, some fresh garlic, a little sesame oil, butter and sake, and roasted it in aluminum foil in my toaster oven:





While I was at it, I decided to cook some wild salmon as well!

I drizzled salt on the shiso leaves and let them sit for a few minutes.  Then I wrapped them around the salmon filets, and drizzled them with a little sesame oil.  The salmon joined my little mushroom friends in my toaster oven.





I decided to pair this with some homemade nukazuke.  These are daikon and gobo (burdock) room that I pickled in rice bran.  The bed of rice bran is known as a nukadoko.

It's a Japanese method of pickling - I used to watch my grandmother making these when I was a little girl.





The finished dinner below... I decided to make some udon noodles in a quick broth.  I topped it with beni-shoga (red pickled ginger):

Everything came out pretty tasty... except I think I left the nukazuke in the nukadoko too long.  It was a bit sour tasting.

On an added note, all of these photos were taken with my new IPhone 4S. It takes awesome pictures!

7 comments:

Hiroyuki said...

Both "foil yaki" (mushrooms and salmon) sound easy and delicious!

I'm glad that you have an toaster oven and make good use of it!

It's amazing that you still keep your nukadoko!

I laughed to see the sheet of paper with denshi-renji (microwave oven) written on it. What is that supposed to mean?

muskratbyte said...

Hiroyuki-san, I thought you'd get a laugh out of that. I've labeled many of the items in my house with their Japanese names, so that I remember them. For example, my television is labeled 'terebi', the door is labeled 'doa', etc.

Sissi said...

Your dinner looks delicious. I love the idea of wrapping salmon in shiso (I welcome every, but really every shiso use idea! I love shiso). I must remember the salt trick. It probably makes the leaf softer.
Great idea to learn Japanese! I must do the same!!!! Thank you so much!

muskratbyte said...

Thank you Sissi! The salt does soften it a bit, but most importantly, it draws out the shiso taste.

I actually need to make more signs in Japanese for other items in my house. It really does help!

Mary said...

Looks pretty yummy! Grandma would have gotton a kick out of your making nuka.

Unknown said...

These are daikon and gobo (burdock) room that I pickled in rice bran. oster toaster oven recipes

muskratbyte said...

Yes, Muhammad, that's correct.