This is what I cook for my family in the morning on every weekend. This is not accurately Japanese cuisine but Japanese style Italian cuisine. Whole pasta recipes from Italy is very useful for cooking easily and quickly. Italian food is quite simple to cooke with few ingredients but amazingly delicious.
This dish is mainly based on “Aglio olio e peproncino”, which is very simple dish. All I did was just adding few Japanese ingredients and food materials without collapsing original style.
Japanese unique ingredients I added this time
| This is young sardine. Dried young sardine is pretty famous in Japan as garnish of breakfast.This time I selected boiled one. | |
| Shiso leave is one of the representative herb in Japan. This is in place of Italian parsley. In Japan, few Italian parsley and basil circulate in Japanese food market. So I selected this one that has beautifully unique flavor that brings out materials’ pure taste. | |
| This is needless to point out, Japanese most famous ingredient. I used this to add slightly thick flavor of Soy sauce. You may think Olive Oil is not harmony with Soy sauce. But this combination is amazingly fantastic. You just try out and taste it. | |
| Shimeji mushroom’s outstanding feature is its texture and flavor. Mostly the longer mushrooms boil, the softer it becomes. But Shimeji mushrooms remain its quite chewy texture and if you chew it, quite strong flavor comes out like stewed broth. | |
| This is a substitute for white wine. This is indispensable ingredients for Japanese cuisine. You can enjoy its unique flavor and fresh sweetness. |
If you live in Japan, you should try this out. All the ingredients and foods I introduce here is available most of supermarket in Japan.
Ingredients (4 people)
| Olive Oil | 4~5 big spoons |
| Garlic | 3~4 peices |
| Pasta | 400g |
| Sake | 3 big spoons |
| Shirasu (young sardine) | 1 pack (80g) |
| Oba (Shiso leaves) | 10 leaves |
| Lemon juice | a little bit |
| Shimeji Mushrooms | 1 pack |
| Soy sauce | 3 big spoons |
Points to make note of
Adjust saltiness with salty boiled water as much as possible. Boiled young sardine has already salty taste and soy sauce has salinity. You just calculate how much sault additionally need to add when considering these ingredients.
When you pour Sake, shut a pan with its lid to bake in a casserole for 3 to 4 mintues with a medium fire. In doing so, platable ingredient comes out of Mushroom and young sardine. After you remove a lid, you put some boiled water in it to keep from evaporation.
The timing you add shiso leaves is when you mix sauce with pasta after turning off the heat. Because heat ruis the flavor harb.