Last night, I went to my friend's house, where we did hi no yojin. Around New Year's in Japan, groups go around neighborhoods beating wooden sticks and yelling, "hi no yojin," or "watch out for fires!" Apparently this started in the Edo period, when fire was used for heat and the buildings were made of wood. Today, it's done not only to remind people to be careful of the fires they have in their oil heaters, but also to remind them to keep their porch lights lit.
Before we went out to do hi no yojin, however, we had dinner. My friend's mother's food is always inspiring, and I want the recipe for almost everything she's ever made. It's always excellent.
So last night, among other things, she made a daikon-tuna-avocado salad. I'm always looking for new ways to eat avocado, so I was absolutely thrilled with this dish. I made it myself for lunch today, just to see if I could. It's super-simple, and it was delicious. A nice, light lunch.

Dinner tonight. A quick meal I discovered this summer and have eaten like once every two weeks ever since. I am a HUGE fan of avocados, and this is so easy and so flavorful. In the summer I ate it chilled, but now in the winter I'm eating it hot.
It's simply somen noodles with diced avocados and tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, wakame, and ground sesame seeds in a konbu dashi broth. Simple, filling, healthy and excellent. I love it.

冬至

Today is winter solstice. In Japan, winter solstice is called Toji and is celebrated with two main things: first, a bath with a yuzu; and second, eating a dish made of kabocha squash and azuki beans. The two things in combination is said to keep you healthy in the New Year and through the long winter. One of my goals for this year was to learn more about Japanese cooking for traditional celebrations, so I have those traditions in my family.

So I cleaned my bathtub and put a yuzu in. In the hot water, they release such a beautiful, relaxing fragrance. It was wonderful.



Then here's the azuki bean and kabocha dish. It was delicious, but a bit dense. Super filling!!



Finally, here's a shot of some of the varieties of yuzu I have right now. Two oni-yuzu, a bunch of tiny baby yuzu, and a few middle-sized, normal yuzu. I don't quite know what I'm going to do with them all. I made a yuzu miso dressing for cabbage salad, and I've made marmalade. I'll probably make some more marmalade soon. And I'll also make some more yuzu madelines at some point. First, however, I have to finish my nengajo and do my New Year's cleaning. Yikes!!!


Finally, to show you what a typical breakfast (and sometimes dinner) looks like now:

Rice with an umeboshi and two cloves of pickled garlic. A bowl of Sendai miso soup with a variety of vegetables--usually now, in the winter, I'm using shiitake, tofu, konnyaku, bean sprouts, carrots, sato imo, onions, and potatoes. I put in fish and potato cakes, other mushrooms, and eggs as the mood fits me and the vegetables are on sale. I also have natto topped with scallions--it is SO DELICIOUS with the scallions on top.
Finally, I finish with a dish that's a mix of grated nagaimo and daikon with moromi su (Okinawan black vinegar mixed with a titch of black sugar) and chirimenjakko (whole tiny baby fish). It's healthy, delicious, and filling. More than that, perhaps, it's SUPER EASY. Grate some veggies, serve the rice, heat the soup. And boom! Nice warm food to chase away the frigid chill of a morning without central heating.

鬼柚子

I have been cooking mostly boring food--I keep meaning to take pictures, but keep forgetting.
Anyway, tonight I made yuzu marmalade. I didn't have a recipe, and the end result is a titch on the sweet side, but I think it's good.
I started with this:


It's called an oni-yuzu (devil's yuzu), apparently. My friend's mother gave it to me. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. When I cut it open, it had no strong yuzu scent, which surprised me. It also had a lot of juice, and only one seed. Yuzu normally is quite fragrant, has very little juice, and has about twenty seeds in one fruit, which is usually about half the size of an orange or so. The oni-yuzu, by contrast, was the size of a grapefruit.
It also had the most amount of pith I've ever seen in a citrus. Yuzu normally is quite pithy, but not like the oni-yuzu was. I spent like an hour cleaning it up to make the marmalade. It was worth it however, because the oni-yuzu has a delicate, lovely flavor that I think is just sensational.
I did use three other yuzu I had in my fridge that were given to me by another friend in the marmalade, as well. These yuzu were juiceless, seedy, and fragrant. I think altogether it made a nice balance, although I'd like to make a marmalade with just oni-yuzu. I think it would be sweeter, tenderer, and an interesting experiment. Not sure when I'll get another oni-yuzu though. I did save the single seed the fruit contained, so maybe in the spring I'll see if it sprouts.

The end product: