Tonight’s dinner was a hybrid soup - started with a dashi made from shredded bonito and Kombu, added rice vermicelli, chives, and aged brown miso. It was enjoyed with soy, sauce, fish sauce, and green chiles. We had a very nice Junmai Ginjo sake with the soup -a Rihaku ‘Wandering Poet’ - very rich flavors and a long finish. The mixed genre soup was quite tasty, especially with the green chiles and fish sauce. Enjoyed while listening to Dvorak Piano Trios, looking out at the setting sun creeping up the mountains, and with a nice roaring fire in the fireplace.
Then for dessert we had a 2001 Ch. Coutet Barsac with Fourme d’Ambert, St.André, and Affinois Goat Brie. All were very good while watching Bones and House (via TiVo). A nice finish to an enjoyable evening.
Another nice meal with good food, wine, music, fire and sunset.
I liked Dvorak back in the day. Must relisten (is that a word?).
OK, do you have Ponzu sauce? You mention many Asian sauces in your post. That is new in our local Japanese grill chain, although I have read about it on the boards. What is difference between that and soy?
Ponzu is basically soy sauce with citrus in it. Just hearing that description I never would have imagined just how delicious it can be. You can buy it already made or mix it up on your own. Very popular in Japanese cooking these days.
We have both Ponzu and Gyoza sauces, but since we didn’t have any gyoza (pot-stickers), we didn’t use them, just fish sauce and soy.
Our ponzu sauce has both lemon juice and bonito extract added to the basic soy sauce; and is very good the the gyoza with lighter stuffings. I haven’t tried it on much else.
I have bought 3 cookbooks by Harumi Kurihara, and I discovered ponzu sauce when we were making her recipe for steak Japanese style. You basically cook a good steak, cut it up into cubes (maybe 1 inch) for chopstick use, and serve it with various dips. One of the dips was ponzu and I was instantly hooked when I tasted it. I generally use bottled ponzu but she says it is better to make it – yes, with bonito flakes and yuzu if you can find that.
I’ve never seen yuzu in a store here, only in yuzu rice vinegar from O Olive Oils. Ours is a bottled sauce as well; the brand is Kikkoman.
We had a very nice Junmai Ginjo sake with the soup -a Rihaku ‘Wandering Poet’
Great stuff Dick. Vine Connections imports it I believe. (at least here on the east coast)
