Tonight's Dinner - NY Steak made into another Japanese Dish....Gyu Don

Sometimes it's challenging to come up with a new type of way to use up leftovers, but it can be fun too, like a game.  It seems like there are only so many things that you can do with steak.  Also, when it's a good cut of NY Steak, you don't want to cook it long like in a chili or stew or something like that. It's typical to make the steak into a salad or sandwich, but I wanted something else. I was able to come up with Gyu Don, a Japanese way of cooking beef and putting it on top of rice.  I changed it up a bit, so it's not quite the same as Yoshinoya Beef Bowl...lol  To try to keep the meal healthy, I served it with Hiyayakko (cold tofu w/green onions, ginger, bonito flakes & soy sauce) and a salad.

Another steak from Dan Tana's...

When I bring home a doggie bag I realize how much food that restaurants serve!  I ate about 1/3 of the steak and had enough to make this dish and I still have some left for lunch!  Well, I did have a small portion of another steak too;o)  

Eringi Mushrooms (Trumpet Mushrooms)

I really like these mushrooms because they are very meaty.  It has a much lighter taste than a Portabella Mushroom, another meaty mushroom.

Onions & Eringi Mushrooms

Ginger for the Tofu

This is an old fashioned type of grater for the ginger.  I usually use a rasp, but most of the ginger gets stuck on it and I don't get much ginger out of it.  I thought I'd try my old grater and it worked a lot better ;o)

Green Onion & Ginger

I put the large pieces of the onion in the beef while it was cooking and used the smaller chopped pieces to top the finished dish.  The ginger was for the tofu, but since there was extra, I threw it into the beef mixture.

Daikon Grater

This is another old fashioned cooking tool.  I saw it being used at a restaurant called Asanebo in Studio City  and loved the texture of the daikon radish.  I couldn't find one out here, so my sister-in-law found one for me in Japan a couple of years ago.  She even had a hard time finding one over there! But now, it's become popular in Japan too, they've been demonstrating it on morning news shows and other media.  With this tool, you really need to  be extra careful not to grate your skin.  Even though it's all made out of wood, it's very sharp.  It seems that older daikon is harder to grate because they are firmer than young daikon.

The daikon is coarse when grated with this old fashioned tool, it has a nice crunch to it when you eat it.  The daikon is even good just eating it by itself with a little bit of soy sauce.  It's a pallet cleanser and helps with your digestion.

This is my other grater. It grates the daikon much finer...

The salad had lettuce, radish, carrot, celery leaves, & red onions with Japanese Onion Dressing.  Hubby likes salad, so I try to serve it with most every meal :o)

Beef ready to be served...

I sauteed the brown onions & mushrooms and while they were cooking I mixed together about a cup of water with dashi powder, sake, mirin, sugar & soy sauce.  When the onions were starting to carmelize I added the dashi mix and cooked it down until it became a thicker sauce.  At the end I threw in the ginger, sliced green onions and the beef and cooked just until the beef was warmed through...the end :o)

Some people cook it with egg in it, but I don't really like it like that.

Gyu Don

Gyu means beef and Don is short for Donburi which means bowl.  Most Donburi dishes have rice in them.  For instance, Ten Don is Tempura over rice, Tekka Don is Maguro (Raw Tuna) over rice, Katsu Don is some kind of cutlet such as Tonkatsu over rice.

I finished off the Gyu Don with the grated daikon, chopped green onion and a little bit of sauce.

Lunch Today - Steak Sandwich w/Leftovers...

I love making meals out of leftovers.  It's a game to me of what I can come up with that's different than the original dish.  This one isn't that hard to come up with, but it still is leftovers!  

Fixin's for the sandwich...

This time I figured out an easy way to add the veggies to the sandwich. (Not that a sandwich isn't easy)  Duh!  Just mix it all up just like a salad! I guess I'm a slow learner sometimes..  At sandwich shops I sometimes see them add oil, vinegar, salt & pepper to the lettuce on the sandwich, but sometimes that makes the bread soggy.  Last time I made a sandwich and I added the dressing to the lettuce only, I thought I was brilliant;o)  Today I came up with the salad idea.  Instead of layering all the veggies, why not just mix it up! This one has mixed greens, red onion, tomatoes, pepperoncini's & avocado on the side.  Then I added a simple dressing of oil, red wine vinegar, salt , pepper and some other seasonings.  I added the dressing right before putting the sandwich together.  There also was watercress with the leftovers, so I threw that in too.

Sliced Steak Ready!

We got the leftovers from a small restaurant called Sly's in Carpinteria, CA.  I didn't like the restaurant much when they first opened, but they've really warmed up on me;o)  Sly was the chef at Lucky's Steakhouse in Montecito and then decided to open his own restaurant a few years ago. He's French trained, so he also has a rotating Prix Fixe French course every month.  Of course the steak isn't as good as Dan Tana's, but it's pretty good!  He uses the freshest of ingredients!  Last night I noticed that even the twist that they put in  my Martini was organic.  As soon as I put it up to my mouth I could smell the wonderful aroma of a lemon, I thought it could be a Meyer lemon, but it turned out it was just a regular organic lemon.  I think sometimes we forget what stuff is really supposed to smell like.  I was raving to the waitress and chef about how impressed I was by this, so they gave me one of the lemons with the rest of my leftovers!  It's the small things and gestures that put a big smile on my face :o)  Also, their Coconut Cake is to die for...

For the sliced steak I seasoned with soy sauce, ajishio and pepper.

French Roll

One of my pet peeves is that it's hard to get a good sandwich!  I think it's mainly the bread and of course the meat inside.  I think the only sandwich I like eating out is at a deli called Bay Cities in Santa Monica.  They have an Italian sandwich called the Godmother.  Some people think that it's overrated, but I don't think you can get much better than that!  They bake their own bread, so whenever we go I get a couple of loaves to go and freeze it.  I cut it into serving size, wrap in foil, put in baggie then freeze it. To thaw it, I put in oven or toaster oven @425 degrees for 15 mins and it's almost like having fresh baked bread!  I wasn't able to go to Bay Cities, so I had some frozen bread from Vons Grocery in the freezer.  I'm pleasantly pleased and surprised at how good the French rolls are at Vons!  If I can get a decent roll from Vons why can't sandwich shops get at least that quality??

Steak Sandwich w/Avocado & Salad...

To peel and slice an avocado can be a pain and messy, so I just scoop it out with a spoon and put it on the sandwich.  It's all going to get mooshed together, so presentation doesn't matter that much.

Dinner Tonight - Japanese Style Kare Raisu (Curry & Rice) with Chicken

This is another Japanese homey meal.  It's another dish that the Japanese took from another ethnicity and made it their own.  The curry is sweeter and thicker than Indian curry.  It's a dish that all children in Japan have grown up with.  It's a comfy & cozy dish.  I actually had a small argument on Chowhound about this.  The other person was saying that Kare Raisu (Curry Rice) was a gourmet dish and there were so many restaurants in Japan that use the best ingredients and have turned it into that.  I argued that yes, it can be gourmet and there are fanatics about it, but when you get right down to it, it is a homey comfort dish...he never did agree with me;o)  It's also a meal that can be made pretty quickly, but it took me a while longer since I used frozen chicken.

Kare Raisu Roux

It's so easy to make the curry at home because their are many brands of curry flavored roux at the Japanese stores.  This is a newer brand that I found.  I usually use House Brand or  S&B which look like a chocolate bar, but this brand is more like granules.  I've made curry from scratch, by carmelizing onions and adding a ton of other ingredients which I can't remember off the top of my head.  I just remember that it took me hours to make and it turned out good, but didn't taste that much different than the packaged stuff...lol  Maybe I will try it again someday, but for now using the package is much easier.

Back of the package...

Carrots, Onions & Daikon

It traditionally is made with potatoes, but I didn't have any, so I used daikon instead.  Curry is another dish that you can put most anything you want to in it.

Boiled & Strained Chicken...

I didn't go to the grocery store, so I only had frozen cut up chicken.  I took the lazy route and threw the frozen chicken in water and boiled it with onion, celery, carrots etc. just like making stock.  It took about 40 mins to cook through and I got some tasty stock out of it too!

Veggies Simmering in Chicken Stock...

Normally you would just cook the veggies in water and then add the curry roux to it for flavor.  Since I had the flavored stock, I used that.  I boiled the veggies for about 10 mins then added the roux and cooked for another 10 mins then added the chicken and cooked for another 10 mins.  I ended up adding a little flour slurry at the end to thicken it up a little more.  More common is to use beef cubes and that takes a little longer to cook.

Pickle Condiments...

These are pickles that is commonly served with the Kare Raisu.  I just buy it prepackaged, I have no idea how to make these.  I'm not really even sure what they are since they are so oddly colored...lol It's just something I grew up with and I always serve it with the curry.  It's a little sweeter than most types of Japanese pickles.  The white, I believe is Rakyo, a type of onion that looks like cocktail onions and is a little sweet.  I'm not exactly sure what the green & red pickles are.  I think the green ones are cucumber and the red one is daikon.  I just know that on the package the ingredients are listed as onion, radish, eggplant, cucumber, ginger etc.  ;o) They do have a nice crunch to it and the sweetness goes well with the spicy of the curry.

Kare Raisu with Chicken

Japanese Onion Dressing

I served a salad with the dinner. On Chowhound a man mentioned a popular dressing in Japan now.  It's a simple onion dressing.  Of course I couldn't stick with the simple recipe and made it my own;o) The original recipe is just Rice Wine Vinegar, Veg Oil, Grated Onion, Soy Sauce, Sugar and S & P and you stir all the ingredients together with a whisk.  I also added Sesame Oil, Dashi Powder, Ajishio, Sake, Mirin & Ponzu Sauce and then whirred it up with my immersion blender...I love that thing!

Onion Dressing Salad

I marinated Red Onions & the tomatoes in the dressing for about a half hour and then tossed it with lettuce & radish.

Rice Bran Oil

This is my favorite oil to use for Japanese dressings and for deep frying.  I can find it at the Japanese store only sometimes.  It has a very clean flavor to it.

Dinner Tonight - Hiyashi Chuka (Cold Ramen)

Hubby is coming home on a late flight tonight, so he requested a light meal for dinner.  I came up with Hiyashi Chuka.  It's basically cold Ramen Noodles with a salad on top served with a Sesame Sauce/Dressing.  Since I buy the noodles pre-packaged with a packet of sauce, it's a pretty easy meal to make and it  is semi-healthy.  The Japanese are very good at taking other ethnic cuisine and making it their own :o)  Ramen originated in China.  Hiyashi Chuka pretty much means cold Chinese style noodles. It's very common to find in Ramen Restaurants during the hot months when people don't feel like having hot broth with their noodles.  

One of my favorite brands...

The noodles are fresh and soft.  It's nothing like Top Ramen that everybody grew up with!

Japanese Style Cha Siu

I also buy this Cha Siu (Chinese Style BBQ Pork) that's also pre-packaged.  I can find it at the Japanese market and it's pretty good!  It's fatty with great flavor and tastes even better in hot ramen where the fat slightly melts in the broth.

Tonight's toppings:  Icicle Radish (mini Daikon, Kyuri (Japanese Cucumber), Cha Siu, Lettuce, Tomatoes & Hard Boiled Egg.

Dinner!

The seasoning sauce is a soy sauce that's slightly sweetened with sesame. The topping can be just about anything that you can put on a salad that's thinly sliced.  Some of my toppings aren't that traditional, but it tastes good!  My toppings on this Hiyashi Chuka were:  Kyuri (Japanese Cucumber), I like the mini ones that they have at Marukai Market, they actually may be baby Persian ones;o)  Red Radish, Tomatoes, Cha Siu, Ham, Lettuce & Kinshi Tamago. Kinshi Tamago are thin omelettes layered then sliced.

Oct 2009 - Mushroom & Shrimp Risotto, Arancini, Spaghetti w/Shredded Beef & Tomato Sauce, Soup & Chopped Salad

Mushroom & Shrimp Risotto

I used stock I made with Roasted Shrimp Heads.  The shrimp is just simply sauteed. The mushrooms are Bunapi (White Beech Mushrooms).

I topped it with Parmigiano Reggiano shaved with a rasp, I know some people don't think Parmesan goes with seafood...oh well;o)

Bunapi Mushrooms

This is one of my favorite mushrooms.  They have a very mild taste that you can use in most anything.  It's a specialty breed that Hokuto Company came up with, it's a type of Shimeji mushroom.  You can find it at many Asian markets like Marukai.  The reason I bought it the first time was because I thought they were so pretty and white...lol

Arancini

I love Arancini  (Italian Fried Rice Balls)!  It's the perfect use for leftover Risotto...if you have any left over;o)  It's made just like Tonkatsu with the panko breading.  I stuffed the middle with Mozzarella.  

I love using leftovers to make a second or third meal out of it.  It's kind of a game for me.  It's much more fun than just serving the exact thing over again :o)

 Spaghetti w/Shredded Beef & Tomato Sauce

A friend of mine told me he makes something very similar to this and I had to try it since it sounded so good!  It seems that I can never follow a recipe exactly how it is written.  I usually look at at least 3 and then mix and match and then put in my own touch;o) 

 I used the same ingredients as Osso Buco, but used a Beef Rump Roast and braised it for a couple of hours. I topped it with Gemolata (parsley, garlice & lemon zest) just like Osso Buco...it added great flavor!

For the garlic bread, I mix softened unsalted butter (Plugra is the easiest to find), chopped garlic, parsley, Parm cheese, S & P.  I slather the butter mixture on the bread then top it off with a little more Parm then stick it in the toaster oven.  I don't have a microwave, so my toaster oven is my best friend...lol

Like a Minestrone Soup...

I made this soup with the leftover Shredded Beef using up the beef & tomato sauce.  I also added:  diced tomatoes, spinach, flageolet & pinto beans, celery, onion, garlic, zucchini, corn, it's basically my 'Frig Soup ;o) I topped it with the left over gremolata & Parm Cheese.

Italian Chopped Salad

I served this with the soup, it wasn't as good as some restaurant versions, but it was pretty good!  I think I'd rather just eat it at a restaurant, it takes a lot of time to chop everything up...lol  Ingredients were:  Red Leaf Lettuce, Tomato, Salami, Provolone, Celery, Parmesan, Treviso (a racicchio that's shaped like a Belgian Endive), Red Onion, Hearts of Palm (my fav!), & Garbanzo Beans...I think that's it..   Again, not very traditional;o)  I made a simple Vinaigrette Dressing to go with it.