Dashi Risotto

Please excuse this ugly photo. I just made an incredible risotto and there was no time to take a proper picture. I can't wait to share with you. The ingredients list is incredibly simple: onion, arborio rice, mirin, and dashi stock.

What is dashi stock? It is a Japanese fish stock made of kombu (seawdeed) and bonito flakes. You can find both of these in a Chinese or Japanese supermarket.

How to make dashi stock? You start with a quart of water and a slice of kombu the length of your hand. Soak the kombu in the water for a couple of hours or overnight. Then boil the water, just before the water boils over remove the kombu and sprinkle two handfuls of bonito flakes into the water. Let everything boil for 30 minutes, strain the stock, store or use immediately.

Now that you got dashi stock, we're ready for risotto....

Dashi Risotto
Serves two
 
2 cups dashi stock
1 onion, diced
1/2 cup arborio rice
1/4 cup mirin

On low heat, keep dashi stock warm. Heat another pot on medium heat with oil and sautee onion till translucent, about 3 minutes. Add rice, mix well with onion. When you hear the rice popping up against the pot add mirin. When the alcohol is almost cooked through, add two ladles of dashi stock over the rice. Stir occasionally to prevent rice from sticking to the bottom or the side of the pot. When there is barely any stock left, ladle another spoonful of stock over the rice. Repeat stirring, adding stock, and stirring until rice becomes plump and stocks are used up. Add salt and pepper any time in the cooking process. When you're down to the last ladle, watch the rice. You don't want all the liquid gone because as risotto cools it draws in more moisture.

Before serving sprinkle some bonito flakes on top. Enjoy right away--don't wait!

Unagi Don: Broiled Eel on Rice

I'm getting more and more lazy to head out to eat. Traffic and long hours of commute is killing any desire to drive. Although I have been craving for Japanese food for the past week after work, I just rather stay home and rummage in the fridge for dinner. It's weird how I'm not tired of washing dishes but I am very very very annoyed of stepping on the brake and the accelerator.

So what I saw first when I opened the fridge was microwavable rice. Yes! I've just saved 29 minutes from making rice from the rice cooker. Not 30 but 29 minutes because the rice needs one minute in the microwave. It's okay I can live with one minute.

With rice ready, let's make a rice bowl! I love any dinner that has a salty sauce to go with rice. As a kid, I could never finish my bowl of rice without some sauce to go with it. It's a habit my great grandparents passed on to me. I heard that sodium satiates you faster, and it's cheap. So people would sprinkle salt or soy sauce over their rice and have some steamed veggies for supper. This way you won't feel like you didn't have enough for dinner. It's not that my great grandparents were pouring soy sauce over my rice bowl, but the habit is they would take a spoonful of juice from say a slow-cooked pork.

Any time I have rice I try to pair it with a saucy dish. Today I made Unagi Don or broiled eel on rice. It's a common Japanese dish that is sweet but heavy on soy sauce. The easy way to make the dish is buy pre-broiled eel from Asian market and make the spreading sauce at home.

The eel usually comes in air tight package, and the fish look long and thin out at the tip. If you're not eating it immediately, put it in the freezer, and defrost before broiling.

What you would need for a Unagi Don is:

A bowl of rice
A package of broiled unagi or eel
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin
1-2 tablespoon sugar

Open the unagi package and broil it in the oven for 8 minutes
In a small sauce pan, cook soy sauce, mirin and sugar on high heat
Taste the soy sauce for more sugar (salt is not necessary because soy sauce is very salty)
Let the liquid boil for 5 minutes to cook off the alcohol
When the sauce is nice and hot, carefully pour two table spoons over the eel, pop it back into the oven
Spread the rest of the soy sauce on rice and mix well
Take the eel out from the oven after 8 minutes, slice it up into 3 inch pieces
Lay eel on rice
And enjoy!