When I lived in Downtown LA, there was only one good side to that and it was the close proximity to Little Tokyo and all of it’s excellent sushi restaurants and Asian markets. Our favorite sushi restaurant in LA is and forever will be Komasa. Back when I lived in NYC it was most definitely Tomoe and when I’m back home in Miami? Eh….I haven’t really found one as good as in LA and NYC. If you’re a Miamian and know of a solid place, let me know!
One Sunday afternoon while lolly gagging about town, I decided to make my own Japanese feast inspired by Komasa. I am a huge fan of their miso soup and green salad. You might think to yourself at this point, “How hard is it to make a miso soup and green salad?” Well, it’s not…and I’ve never been one to make challenging dishes, but Komasa’s miso soup and green salad are special….wait….~*special*~
I also decided to sear some tuna, buy some spicy as hell wasabi peas to snack on and make some rice vinegar sushi rice in addition to the soup and salad.
The soup was easier than putting together a 10 piece puzzle while blitzed out of your mind. I basically bought miso soup packets from the Asian market and added scallions and “Buna Shimeji” mushrooms.
The salad was equally as easy. I added lettuce, broccoli (which wasn’t in the original Komasa salad), sprouts, Japanese pickled carrots and topped it off with tobiko (I love the stuff!). The dressing was not Ginger like most Japanese restaurants usually top off their salads with, but instead I used a Japanese dressing that looks like Ponzu. It contains: sesame seeds, soy sauce, vinegar, sake, lemon juice, yuzu (citrus), wine, konbu seasoning and spice.
The seared tuna was quickly cooked in a hot pan with a little bit of toasted sesame oil. I added some salt and pepper to taste. The tuna was topped with tobiko (again), toasted sesame seeds and scallions. There was some ponzu sauce on the side for dipping.
All in all, it was an extremely enjoyable meal with minimal effort involved in the preparation. We had some hot sake to accompany the meal which was the perfect thing for it. I would do this again, especially when I have some guests over. Maybe next time, though, I’ll actually roll some sushi…
Filed under: Asian, Blogroll, carrots, Cooking, Dinner, Fish, Food, mushrooms, Recipes, salad, seafood, soup, tuna
Love the meal! Any chance that you would post the miso soup recipe, or guidelines?
Usually there are packets of miso soup at grocery stores in the Asian/Ethnic aisles.
I used a packet like this with the directions which is to boil water and add the packet (basically, an instant soup). The only thing I added were the scallions and mushrooms after I mixed the soup with the water. The mushrooms cook on their own with the heat of the soup. If you can’t find Buna Shimeji mushrooms (which you’d probably have to go to an Asian market for) you can substitute with straw mushrooms which I believe you can buy canned.
Not carrots, but rather burdock.
Interesting. Here I thought they were carrots! I googled it to see what it is and got this:
“Pickled Burdock Sushi – Why Is It Orange?
I love sushi and I love burdock (gobo); hence I believe that pickled burdock sushi is one of life’s best treats.
But I am perplexed by the deep orange color of the pickled burdock – it looks exactly like a carrot. Any Japanese food experts out there who know why they bother to dye the stuff orange and how they accomplish it? Kind of reminds me of my adolescent cake cooking experiments when I dyed cake batter weird colors, just because I could.”
I guess it often gets mistaken for carrots!
WOW! The photos on your blog look great. Love your writing, very personable. My friends and I just started a food blog and have been checking out what others are doing. Yours has a nice touch that makes it fun to read.
Thanks!!!
Thanks for the response. I thought about a soup mix but was not sure. I have no idea why I have been craving it since this morning!
We love trying to recreate dishes we’ve had at restaurants. Sometimes it’s bang-on, sometimes it’s not. Check out our attemt to recreate a very different type of pasta dish we ate in Tuscany this summer. Thanks for the lovely blog and pictures. I could jump into the picture of tuna and start eating it! http://neverfull.wordpress.com/2007/09/15/bucatini-or-maccheroncelli-with-pistachio-sauce/