Category: Other Recipes

After my interview with the men of I Love Blue Sea, they sent us home with a gift of some beautiful black cod and scallops, which we cooked for my relatives that we were staying with that evening. With the black cod we made sashimi (very good!), faux-nagi, and miso black cod (recipe to come soon!). With the scallops we made Hajime’s Hotate, sashimi, and these delicious seared scallops.

Since I had wanted to stop by Boccalone in the Ferry Building to get prosciutto for the Hajime’s Hotate, I also stopped by the 4505 Meats booth at the farmer’s market (they’re there Thursdays and Saturdays) to pick up a few bags of their chicharrones, because I heard they’re to die for. (They are! Consider me addicted, now.)

After lunch at Tataki, Son and I got to thinking on the way back.

“You know what would be really good?” He paused for a long moment, keeping me in an impatient suspense while he thought about it. “What if… you know how they have bacon-wrapped scallops?”

I nodded, not sure where he was going with that.

“Well, what if we did chicharrones instead?”

“Yeah…” A slow smile grew on my face, as I saw what he was getting at. “That might be good…”

“With lemon juice,” he insisted.

“And something else…” I thought for a moment. “What if we put spicy mayonnaise on it, too? Add a little spice, to go with the spice in the chicharrones, a little creaminess…”

“Yes!” Son exclaimed. “This is going on the menu at my restaurant.”

(He has a hypothetical “someday” restaurant… anytime we come up with a particularly delicious recipe, it goes on the list of random things that will be on the menu if he ever opens a restaurant. Do any of you do that too? ;))

When we made this later that day, it was a hit. Delicious.

It’s definitely going on the menu.

Ingredients

• scallops
• clarified butter
• mayonnaise
• sriracha sauce
• lemon juice
• chicharrones (preferably from 4505 Meats)

Cooking Directions

1. Pat the scallops dry between two paper towels.
2. Heat the butter in a pan until it is almost smoking.
3. Sear the scallops on one side without moving around for a couple of minutes, until caramelized on the bottom. Flip and cook for a minute longer, before removing to a plate.
4. Mix the mayonnaise and sriracha sauce.
5. Top each scallop with a drizzle of spicy mayonnaise, a squirt of lemon juice, and a chicharron.
6. Enjoy!

Three years. 200 posts. 2000+ comments. 500,000 visitors. 1.5 million pageviews. It’s been quite a ride, here on Sushi Day. There have been some great posts and some complete and total flops (that still get angry comments!), we’ve all learned a lot and there have been some amazing opportunities that have come from this blog. Such as that dinner at Mashiko, where this creation comes from. Technically it’s not sushi, as there’s no sumeshi involved… but it’s easily one of my favorite sashimi creations I’ve ever had. Obviously, I had to share it with you.

But when it all comes down to it, it’s really you guys who make Sushi Day what it is. I could post every day, but if nobody read, nobody commented… I’d be nowhere. So today, on Sushi Day’s third birthday, I want to give back to you guys, with a contest.

I’m giving away 3 sushi kits – each includes a rolling mat, a package of nori, a bottle of sushi vinegar, a bottle of shoyu, and a tube of wasabi. (Actual items may be slightly different from those pictured.) Everything you need to make sushi at home… all you need to provide is the rice, the fillings, and a few sushi lovers. And heck, I’ll even throw in a Sushi Day shirt – any size you want – for the winners.

All you have to do to enter the contest is leave a comment on this post by 11:59pm PST on November 7th, 2009. That’s a week from now. And if you want a second entry, just tweet about this contest with a link to this post, then come back here and leave a link to your tweet in a second comment. Then I’ll randomly pick the winners, and announce them a week from today.

And if you don’t win? I’ll put the sushi kits in our store a week from today, so you can purchase one for yourself.

Ingredients

• 6 sashimi-grade scallops
• 1 cup crab
• 1 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tsp Sriracha sauce
• 6 slices prosciutto
• 1/2 avocado
• tobiko

Cooking Directions

1. Slice each scallop in half, like you’re cutting open a sandwich roll.
2. Mix the crab, mayonnaise, and Sriracha sauce.
3. Cut the avocado in half, discarding the pit.
4. Use a large spoon to scoop the avocado out of the hard skin, being careful to keep the avocado half as whole as possible.
5. Slice the avocado into slices, and then in half width-wise.
6. Place one half of each scallop on a plate.
7. Pile a small scoop of the crab mix on the scallop half.
8. Top with the second half of the scallop.
9. Wrap a slice of prosciutto around the circumference of the scallop/crab sandwich.
10. Top with two half-slices of avocado and a dollop of tobiko.
11. Enjoy!

I’ve gotten tagged with another “random things” meme, this time by Nicole from For the Love of Food. Of course, if you don’t want to know more randomness about me, you can always skip to the yummy Hotate Special recipes and pictures at the end of this post. 😀

1. Up until nine months ago, I had never tried sashimi. My mother is allergic to fish, so it was rare that we ate fish at our house. Of course, now that I’ve tried sashimi, it’s pretty obvious I’m in love (as can be seen in all the sushi I make with sashimi these days!)
2. I performed in the Nutcracker ballet for eight consecutive years. I’ve danced nearly every role… from a little boy in the party scene (we had a huge shortage of boys, so the smaller girls always played the boy parts before getting to be a girl in the party scene), to a Spanish (chocolate) dancer, to the Arabian (coffee) pas de deux, to Dew Drop Fairy. Fourteen roles in all. My favorite of all was easily the Arabian pas de deux… it’s a sensual dance with several amazing lifts, and lifts were always my favorite part of a pas de deux.
3. In eighth grade, I came in first place for the Reach for the Stars (astronomy) event at our regional Science Olympiad. At the time I was really passionate about astronomy… my dad had has a pretty nice telescope, and at the time I knew just about every constellation in the sky.
4. I’m half Japanese, a quarter Swedish, and one eighth Irish. The other eighth is comprised of German, English, and other European randomness. Unfortunately, I speak very little Japanese, and even less Swedish or Irish. (I’ve got English down though! 😛 ) I figure I’ll start with Japanese, then try to learn Vietnamese (since it would be *really* nice to be able to understand Son’s family all the time) and then move on to the other languages.

*******

And now, for the sushi.

The Hotate (scallop) Special is a type of sushi I first had about a month or so ago, when I went up to Sunnyvale with Son on a business trip. We went to a sushi restaurant called Seto Japanese cuisine, where Son and I decided we wanted to try something new. As I wrote in my review of the restaurant, I loved the Hotate Special so much, that I just had to try to replicate it at home.

Have I mentioned scallops are my new favorite sashimi? They’re so soft and delicious, it’s hard not to like them. One thing though… when you get the scallops, there’s a little piece on the side of them, as if you had rolled a ball of dough and then stuck another piece of dough to the side of it. Personally, I prefer to discard this piece. I find that it is tough and chewy, not at all like the rest of the scallop. Luckily, it’s only a very small piece, so I don’t feel as if I’m wasting too much of it.

Ingredients

• 1 sheet nori
• 1 cup sumeshi
• 4 sashimi-grade scallops
• 1 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tsp tobiko

Cooking Directions

1. Cook sushi rice.
2. Chop the scallops into 1/2 inch pieces.
3. Mix the chopped scallops, mayonnaise, and tobiko.
4. Prepare the sushi gunkan-style, except replace the ikura with 1/4 of the scallop mixture.
5. Repeat to make four pieces.

Although I have forever loved inari sushi in it’s simplest form, I always look for delicious ideas to spruce up my old favorite.

Several weeks ago, I was at Whole Foods and I needed something quick for lunch, so I stopped by the sushi section. (Yes, I eat store bought sushi. It’s not all bad.) I bought a tray of inari sushi which had shrimp and spicy mayonnaise on top. Of course I was a little skeptical, but my skepticism was unfounded. The sushi was amazing.

Then and there, I vowed to replicate the sushi for Sushi Day. This combination is far too delicious to keep to myself. It is a simple, easy recipe that almost anyone will love. (yesterday I made a double batch in less than an hour, including the cooking time for the rice.) The spiciness of the sauce can be adjusted to suit your tastes, and the shrimp can be omitted for vegetarians. This inari sushi is guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser.

Ingredients

• 1 package abura age (inari pouches)
• 3 cups sumeshi
• 12 medium cooked shrimp
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp Sriracha sauce
• 3 stalks green onion, chopped
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Cooking Directions

1. Cook sushi rice.
2. Prepare the inari according to the directions on the package. (Some require no preparation, while some say you should boil the pouch of inari for a few minutes before using them.)
3. Mix the mayonnaise and Sriracha sauce until well blended.
4. Stuff each pouch of inari with about 1/4 cup of rice.
5. Push a shrimp into the middle of each stuffed inari.
6. Scoop a little spicy mayonnaise over the shrimp.
7. Sprinkle chopped green onion and sesame seeds over the sauce.
8. Enjoy!