Rather than baking I've been cooking a bit more lately. A little while I decided to go Japanese after I bought a book called “The complete Japanese Kitchen”. Which is of course completely not the fault of a friend of mine who is also completely not obsessed with everything that has something to do with Japan and anime and definitely not because I am a lil’ too. Anyway, I made a few Japanese dishes and took hours! I didn’t have all the ingredients simply because even our speciality shops don’t have everything and the normal supermarkets really don’t either. Other than that the Japanese seem to have a lot of time on their hands. Hand-crushing a bunch of sesame seeds to pulp is really not my idea of fun. It was worth it though.
I made 4 dishes of which my chicken was the biggest success! I was pretty proud of it. First I made beans in a sesame-dressing. Then also spinach with sesame-dressing (this meant crushing sesame seeds twice mind!). I made sushi and yakitori (which would be the chicken). That night I also made pasta with a mushroom and cream sauce, because I thought it might not be enough otherwise. What I didn't make that night was pictures, so hopefully this once just a description will do.
Ingredients:
500 grams green beans
50 grams sesame seeds
1 teaspoon sugar
3 spoons (chicken) broth
1. Cook the green beans in water with a bit of salt until they are just right (don’t overcook or they become too soft). Set aside when done.
2. Put the sesame seeds in a dry pan and cook then on a medium fire until they are golden brown.
3. Grind the sesame seeds to flour directly after with a mortal and pestle. You can leave one spoon aside as dressing.
4. Add the sugar and broth to the ground sesame seeds until you get a paste.
5. Mix the beans and the paste in a bowl and dress it with the sesame seeds you put aside!
Note: this recipe asks for half the amount of beans and 2 mirin in stead of stead of chicken broth. I couldn’t find mirin however, and this worked out pretty fine.
Like I said, pulverizing sesame seeds takes a while and it’s really not worth doing for an average dinner night, but it doesn’t taste bad. I think one of my sisters liked these a lot and everyone said it was nice. I don’t like cold beans myself though, and since it took long I probably wouldn’t make this again. It makes me wonder if you could just buy sesame powder.
Anyway, this will be all I’m posting for now. I have a vacation coming up so I look forward to posting more!
