bamboo + seaweed

NIKUMAN - steamed stuffed meat. similar to dampling

HAMO Oshi Zushi - hamo : like eel from the sea

Unagi donburi - Unagi is eel

Kakiage tempura

many veges for Nabe

bonito sashimi

sashimi

Last month I was in New York and of course we had dinner at Nobu again. It was delicious as usual. I had to order the rock shrimp tempura with creamy spicy sauce again. Its just to good. Back home I remembered that I have the nobu cookbook somewhere in my extensive cookbook collection. But after trying a green tea creme brulé which turned out horrible I was afraid to try anything else from the book. I scrolled through the pages and there it was: Shrimp tempura with creamy spicy sauce!
A kids free weekend and valentines day looked like a good opportunity do some serious cooking.
It turned out really nice but I stick to it: The Nobu cook book is not a good cookbook. It's like he would not  really want you to make the dishes as good as they do at Nobu. Every now and then some essential information is missing. Like the creamy spicy sauce is basically just a mayonnaise and you get the recipe to do that but then it just says ad the chili garlic sauce... After looking in the index I fond a note in the glossary where it said:

chili garlic sauce: this fiery sauce is made from a blend of fresh, roasted or dried chilies and garlic, sugar, salt, vinegar and some other seasonings.
Hello !? Why not just give the recipe ? Or should I order the sauce at Nobu?

Anyway here the recipe:

12 small shrimps
vegetable oil for frying
1 tb clarified butter
shiitake mushrooms, stems removed
tempura batter
4 tbs ceramy spicy sauce
1 ts yuzu or lemon juice
chopped chives

1. Prepare the shrimps - remove head and shell. Rinse and drain. Remove legs and reserve for deep frying.

2. Heat a medium frying pan on medium heat ad he clarified butter and sauté the mushrooms.

3. Bring about 5 cm of oil in a medium pot to 170° ( I don't have a clue how much this is but hey just hot I guess). Dip the shrimp (and what else you like ) in the batter and fry for 1-2 minutes. Drain on paper towels. Fry the reserved shrimp legs (without batter). Drain

4. Add the fries shrimp ann creamy spicy sauce to the mushrooms, then add the yuzu juice. Ad the fried shrimp legs last as they crumble easily.

5. Decorate with chopped chives.

Creamy spicy sauce:

2 eggyolks
1/2 tsp sea salt
white pepper
2 tbs rice vinegar
200 ml vegetable oil
1 tbs and 1 ts chili garlic sauce passes through a sive.

Make a mayonaise by mixing the eggyolks, salt, pepper, vinegar and then gradually whipping in the vegetable oil a little at the time.
Add the chili spicy sauce.

Tempura Batter:

1 egg yolk
200 ml iced water
100 gr all purpose white flour

Add the egg yolk to the iced water and mix well. Stir in the flour until just combined. The batter should not be smooth but a little lumpy.

My tip: serve with avocado tempura. Delicious!

Buy the Nobu cookbook

We were recently gifted with this marvellous wine – it was a tremendous pleasure to drink!
What remarkable generosity on the part of the man who gave us this bottle...!

Text from vintagewinegifts.co.uk Scoring 92/100 Parker points and from the very good 1996 vintage, this lovely red wine "is opaque ruby/purple-colored, full-bodied, ferociously tannic, and crammed with fruit and extract. Made in an uncompromising, traditional style, this wine will require a decade of patience. There is plenty of sweet fruit on the attack, and while the tannins are high, they are remarkably ripe with no evidence of astringency or vegetal characteristics. This appears to be a profound, classic, muscular, and powerful Calon-Segur that will age effortlessly for 30-40 years. Readers should remember that this estate possesses one of the greatest terroirs of Bordeaux, and produced a bevy of legendary wines in the twenties, late forties, and early fifties. Since then, it has been something of a hit or miss property, but under her administration, Madame Gasqueton has produced consistently outstanding wines. The 1996, a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot, was made from extremely low yields of 35 hectoliters per hectare.

We accompanied the Calon Sègur with simple but very nice Spaghetti Vongole. Prepared with fine olive oil, garlic, chillies and white wine. Thanks to Giorgio Locatelli for the hint to "total reduction" in cooking this.

Our chips are dead simple to make. Peel and cut potatoes ( same type you would use for mash).
Put on a baking sheet add some oil and into the preheated oven (200° ) . Turn from time to time until golden.
Sprinkle with vinegar and salt for the real uk spirit.

Turn the fish in a batter made of flour, sea salt and  beer. Fry .

Got some beautiful fresh Calimari from Italy in the Globus store in Zurich and prepared the following dish:
Calimari beaten and sautéd in olive oil, garlic, peperoncini for 2 minutes while adding salt, in the end sprinkle with lemon juice.

Orechiette with trevisano and rocket salad:
heat olive oil in pan, add onions and garlic, throw in the trevisano, cook for short time then add a splash of white wine. In a bowl mix this with the pasta and the rocket. Dead simple and utterly georgious!

 Couper 1 demi choux, 1 oignon et 250gr de thon en très fines tranches.

Poser le choux sur un plat, parsemer de l'oignon puis recouvrer avec le thon.

Raper du gingembre par dessus (à volonter) et arroser le toute de sauce soja.

Chauffer de l'huile de tournesol env. 2dl dans une casserole jusqu'à quelle fume, puis la verser sur le plat. (attention à l'huile bouillante!!! ça brûle.)

Accompagner avec du riz japonais

On of my favourite spice mixtures is the Moroccan chermula "sauce". It's the perfect spice to accompany a tajine. You can buy it ready made in good food stores but it's easily made at home.

2 garlic gloves
Salt
1/2 tsp sweet paprika powder
a bunch of fresh cilantro
1/2 bunch fresh Italian Parsley
1/2 ground cumin
1/4 ground fresh black pepper
juice of one lemon
1 tsp vinegar
1 tbl oil

Mix the salt, garlic and paprika in a blender or mortar to a paste. Add the rest of the spices and herbs and mix together. Ad the lemon, oil and vinegar and mix till you have a smooth paste.
Slowly heat the mixture over medium heat to bring the the flavours together, but don't let it cook.

Let the the chermula cold down before you use it.

Buy the way, carrots are very nice with chermula.

Fish tajine with lemon, fiq, tomato, potatoes and chermula.

A lot of different  california roll, sashimi, seared sashimi, nigiri and tamago.

Another sardinian classic with us is sepia or sepioline. We marinate them in olive-oil, garlic, lemon, salt and pepper. But first we give them a proper beating. Cook them only very short in a frying pan.

We had them as starters followed by vegetable spaghetti "kevin style" and an other plate of these fantastic scampi.
This time Stefan "webered" them which means he put the lid of the grill on for some minutes and the result was the juiciest scampis ever....

By the way I'm not so sure they are scampis, they look and taste more like little crayfish...