Japanese Night - Teriyaki Pork Loin and Agadeshi

These are first 2 Japanese dishes that I learnt and after a few tries, I am getting them just about right I think, thought I believed there are some 'tweaks" that can make them taste like an authentic Japanese dishes.

As I found out, cooking Japanese dishes is not that difficult to begin with.  You don't have to re-stock your kitchen, you only need to stock up these three most basic ingredients :

1. Hon Mirin - a sweet fortified liquor made from rice, used exclusively in Japanese cooking
2. Soy source - Try get the Japanese soy sauce, rather than Chinese which have more salt and 'stronger'
3. Cooking Sake/Ryorishu - similar to western white cooking wine but made with rice. It is used to marinades and made sauces.

In addition to the above 3 essential ingredients. I also stocked bonito flakes (katsuo bushi) which I used to make dashi stock.  Bonito flakes is commonly used with tofu, balanced spinach, and so on.

Both of the recipes were from Just One CookBook .  For detail and full recipe, just drop in.

Here are some of the learning I gained from making these dishes.
Agadeshi

• The key is to dry/dehydrate the tofu sufficiently i.e the surface look dried.  This mean planned ahead. If the tofu is not sufficiently dried, the coating of the corn starch will become very messy and difficult to handle.  When I made it for the 1st time, I have to coat and re-coat the corn starch as it keep 'melt' away and the end-result was a tofu with thick corn starch casting that wasn't that good tasting.
• My preferred way to dehydrate the tofu is to drain all the water and leave it in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
• Full recipe is here

Teriyaki Pork Loin

• Honestly, I still have not achieve the soft and tender type of pork that I am looking for.  I am still looking ways to make the pork loin softer to chew with.  What I have done so far is  to hit and flattens the meat before frying it.  I reckon rubbing it with corn starch may help tenderize the meat further, which I am going to try next time.
• Overall, this is a very satisfying and appealing dish - it got the protein and vege.
• Full recipe is here

Give these 2 dishes a try.  They are much easy then you think.

© copyright fiddling with recipe 2011