Kate has recommended Japaneasy as a cookbook, and I am here partially to endorse that view. But also, buying ingredients is *hard*. I thought I had stocked up well for Japanese month, but it turns out I am very short of dried tuna flakes and other critical ingredients. The first ten days or so have therefore been very heavy on the noodles, ginger and sesame. Not bad for it, but not exactly transformational. Especially as my snacks this week were mainly Sesame Snaps after some nostalgic purchasing decisions. I wish I'd bought toothpicks too.
Ginger soba noodles (from The Art of the Larder) - leftovers make good if exceedingly beige lunches. With a splash of asparagus, because everything has at the moment. And toasted sesame seeds because *literally* everything has those this week. I bought a sizeable jar for the month and am perceptibly down it already.
Braaaaaaaains....
No, wait, tofu. It's not properly silken but it did have some heft; one of those in funky packaging that promises to taste of something (it doesn't). Spring onions, ginger, sesame and plenty of soy. And then those tuna flakes that I don't have, so I'm afraid I bunged a spoonful of peanut rayu (a hint from Anne-Marie, thank you) on the side and called it a meal. This is one from Japaneasy, and it made me think I don't entirely share Tim Hayward's palate. Hey ho.
This one's also Japaneasy and much more successful - sesame sauce to go with green veg and some noodles to make it a meal. Sesame sauce is stuff like soy, mustard, tahini, mirin, vinegar, sugar, that sort of deal. You can water it down, as I did the dregs from the mixing bowl to make a bit of noodle sauce, or treat it as a dip. I shall repeat. But also, it reminded me of miso-mustard-mayo...
And then, the first result of me randomly looking up "noodles" and "miso" in the indexes of various mixed cookbooks, to find some extremely dubiously Far Eastern options to round out the menus. It's from The Nigel, his most recent book, and like so many of his recipes I don't 100% get on with it. Someday I will learn not to buy him, but here we are. Boiled onions, dressed in honey-miso-sesame (sigh, sesame), roasted for about 40 minutes. Basted, a couple of times. Guess what? Roasting honey like that makes it burn. But it's quite tasty despite that. Only quite. Luckily, I need lashings of miso for the rest of the month, so it's just a start.
I always like the idea of trying to cook Japanese type dishes, but I admit I never really have much success so I'm applauding the very fact that you went for it!
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