My grandmother visited our house in Japan and helped me cook dinner twice this week. I would like to share the following four dishes here:

Eggplant, green capsicum and pork miso stir-fry

This was my first time cooking eggplant. My grandmother gave me advice, to start cooking the eggplant from its skin as the spongy part will absorb a lot of oil. I followed the recipe I had found on a cooking magazine for summer vegetables, which I had bought in Japan.


Tomato, cucumber and seaweed tossed with rice vinegar and chopped macrophyl

I really wanted to use macrophyll, a type of leaf commonly used in Japan like herbs. It was my idea to thinly chopped them and toss them together with the tomatoes and cucumbers, as I thought that unique scent will go well with the taste of rice vinegar.


Spring rolls (with 3 different types of fillings)

Basic: Pork, bean sprouts, shiitake (mushroom), bamboo shoot, cabbage and vermicelli stir-fried with
oyster sauce. Add starch after all the ingredients are well cooked, in order to create the gleamy appearance and thick texture. My grandmother’s tip was to pour a bit of sesame oil around this stir-fry at the end, which helped make the savoury smell and taste.

Chicken and cheese: A layer of “ume” (a Japanese plum with a unique, sour taste) paste at the bottom and a leaf of macrophyll, then on top, some steamed chicken and melting cheese.

Pumpkin and cheese: Pumpkin paste and cheese.


Vermicelli salad

This is a popular “Chinese” (probably not an authentic Chinese dish, but arranged in Japan and known as “Chinese” in Japan) dish in Japan. It usually consists of vermicelli and thinly cut cucumber, ham or steamed chicken breast, carrot and egg omelette, which are tossed with a mixture of sesame oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, chicken soup stock and sugar.

My grandmother taught me how steam chicken by using boiled water. I frequently make steamed chicken to use them in salads or sandwiches, but I always used the “cheat” way of using the microwave. It was my first attempt on the “proper” way:

  1. Season the chicken breast with salt and pepper
  2. Wrap them individually with cling film, then put them in zip lock
  3. Put the zip lock in boiling water until cooked

This was the first time for me to be properly cooking in Japan. I never knew about which vegetables are specifically “in season” and what dishes are cooked during the summer. I never thought about the season when cooking in Singapore, as Singapore is summer all year around. But being in Japan, specific dishes and vegetables were recommended in the grocery store, and I realised that there are dishes that are specifically favoured and dishes that are not usually cooked during each season. For example, people would not want to eat stew during summer!

I also learned how to cook and use some vegetables that are hard to find in Singapore. For example, eggplant and macrophyll. The type of eggplant used in the Japanese cuisine are different, and for macrophyll, I would never find them in Cold Storage or Fair Price! It was very interesting to try them out, and I used them several times during my visit in Japan – I will be update on this in the following posts.

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