Butter + soy sauce

[OnigiriFB]

OK I nominate that Amy needs to try the fish sauce and butter! (Why do I suddenly feel like I'm in elementary school?).

Hrm. I'll have to go look for that. Not sure if my korean/chinese/japanese market carries it. They do have a darker type of miso but I always thought that was for something else like nasu dengaku? Thanks

[smallworld]

OK I nominate that Amy needs to try the fish sauce and butter! (Why do I suddenly feel like I'm in elementary school?). 

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Yes ma'am!

But all my meals for the next few days are fully planned, so if someone beats me to it please post the results!

Hrm. I'll have to go look for that. Not sure if my korean/chinese/japanese market carries it. They do have a darker type of miso but I always thought that was for something else like nasu dengaku? Thanks

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I think nasu dengaku uses red miso and that would work fine with the potatoes. Definitely better than white. If you're worried about using it up, red miso is great for miso soup, dips and marinades-- and dengaku, of course!

[tokyogurumegal]

Many dishes from Hokkaido use butter. Japanese cooking = soy + (fill in the blank, pretty much anything goes)

My mother grew up in Hokkaido during the war and she was the fortunate one who actually had food. They use to put butter in miso soup to add extra richness in flavour. Pretty rich for those days huh? My dad who grew up in Tokyo where food was scares can't believe these "rural" tales.

[Chufi]

The minute I read the words "Butter"and Soy" in 1 sentence I knew I had to try this! Yesterday I made wild salmon with mushrooms, butter and soy. It was fantastic. There's a picture here on my blog.

Thanks for the inspiration!

[takadi]

Ahh this brings back childhood memories of when we used to put margarine and maggi sauce on rice and eat it as it is. I guess it does have some culinary use

[OnigiriFB]

The minute I read the words "Butter"and Soy" in 1 sentence I knew I had to try this! Yesterday I made wild salmon with mushrooms, butter and soy. It was fantastic. There's a picture here on my blog.

Thanks for the inspiration!

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OMG! That looks lovely Klary. Yum! I definately want to try that. Now I just have to find a dutch translater.

[judiu]

Klary, that is one of the most beautiful pieces of food porn I've had the pleasure to see. I love it that, even though I have a tiny fragment of an idea of the Dutch language, I can ALMOST read your recipe! I'd love to see it in English; I have a friend who adores salmon; I'd love to make this for her sometime!

[Chufi]

Thanks!

okay here's what I did...

for 2

150 grams of chestnut mushrooms, sliced

50 grams of butter

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 pieces of (preferably wild) salmon, 150 grams each

Melt half the butter in a small frying pan, and sautee the mushrooms over low heat, they will absorb the butter. When they´re nice and soft and brown remove them from the pan.

Melt the rest of the butter in the pan and add the soy sauce. Put the pices of salmon in the pan and cook over low heat, spooning the butter mixture over the fish, turning the pieces over once. Total cooking time depends on the thickness of the fillets, about 5-8 minutes. Just before you think the fish is ready, add the mushrooms to the pan to warm them through.

Soooo simple sooooo good

Edited March 23, 2008 by Chufi (log)

[torakris]

I am the only one who doesn't like the butter-soy combination? It is probably because I don't like the taste of butter...

I have tried a couple of recipes, mostly fish and vegetables, and while my family enjoys it I just can't.

While I was leafing through a cooking magazine at the Dentist's office on Saturday I saw a recipe for tuna steaks with a butter-soy sauce but made with the addition of vinegar. It called for 1 tablespoon of butter (in which some veggies were cooked before searing the tuna) then a sauce was made by adding 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

Anyone ever try adding vinegar to this combo?

[helenjp]

with the addition of vinegar

I heartily agree, and I do use vinegar, though often I go the opposite way from that recipe and reduce the vinegar very fast before cooling it a bit and adding the butter. That brings out the sweetness in the vinegar a little, and it blends nicely with the butter and soy. You can "freshen" the vinegar taste with a little sprinkle to finish.

Wine or sake are good too. And Japanese recipes seem to use about 1 tablespoon each of butter and soy sauce to cook a small side dish, so it's only a tiny bit of butter per serving.

Try cutting the combined butter-soy "funk" with some fragrant citrus like sudachi peel, yuzu or other citrus juice, or a bit of miso, or a pungent herb or scallions.

I haven't figured out why, but I think that the butter either needs to be barely melted, or lightly browned before use - taken past the cloying stage anyway.

On the other hand I remember that Chufi's Dutch butter-braised beef cooked very slowly in butter tasted good, so maybe cooking butter thoroughly makes the difference!

Could be that less-then-fresh Japanese butter and "economy size" soy sauce play a part too - I think I'll experiment with some good soy sauce and report back.

[markemorse]

It's true, you really only need a very little bit of butter to achieve the desired effect: we've been putting a tbsp of butter and a few shakes of soy sauce in our morning bulgur for several years now...excellent comfort food.

Edited March 24, 2008 by markemorse (log)

[MoGa]

Asparagus with butter and soy sauce or butter and miso is really good, both of these combinations I've eaten in Japan.

I thought Ramen with butter and corn was popular in Sapporo.

Britain has a long tradition of fish sauce and butter - Worcestershire sauce which is splendid with butter and melted cheese. The anchovy paste 'Gentlemen's Relish' also showcases a long standing habit of combining anchovies with dairy produce (buttered toast and/or scrambled eggs)

[Ce'nedra]

Ramen and butter just didn't go for me...I hated it; had a really hard time finishing my bowl (and this is coming from a die-hard ramen fan!).

The Chinese have also been using mayonnaise alot so I suppose adoption of all these 'new' products is pretty common these days that noone really bats an eye (well depends on which ingredient). Actually, I remember being really surprised the first time I knew ramen and butter even existed (I believe I posted a thread about it somewhere discussing 'fusion' cuisine).

Which brings me to another point; what is fusion and what isn't?

Butter and soy sauce, mayo and blah blah seems so natural that I don't really consider it 'fusion' (more like 'make do' or 'substitutes' that just happen to live on...or even Asian Australian/American/etc since many Asian families pick these ingredients up when moving to their 'new' country -for eg oil = butter) but when I come across certain other meals (like asparagus and mushrooms in rice paper dipped with mango sauce), I label them 'fusion'...maybe it's just me.

Someone help me clear up my mind!

Anyone ever tried cheese kimbap? Or cheese ramen?

Edited April 1, 2008 by Ce'nedra (log)

[Ce'nedra]

Hmm actually I think may be able to come up with a semi-reasonable explanation for my way of thinking (for the above). Semi...

Maybe I don't consider soy sauce-butter, mayo-fill in blank, etc 'fusions' (well they are technically speaking) because those dishes tend to retain essentially Asian characteristics (for eg fried rice with the soy-butter) whereas the rice paper example I gave, to me, has transformed into a very Western palate.

Ok I think I'm confusing myself now...

[nakji]

Anyone ever tried cheese kimbap? Or cheese ramen?

I have tried both of these items, in Korea, and all I can say about that, is:

Honey, that ain't right.

Mostly because they were made with processed cheese, though, which I loathe wholeheartedly. They might be nice with feta or cheddar, who knows?

Butter and soy sauce, on the other hand, I find delicious. I have a capricious palate, I guess.

[JasonTrue]

Although I didn't always feel this way, I now generally think of fusion as self-consciously meshing superficial elements of two or more cuisines without a deep understanding of the source cuisines or the functional attributes of each of the ingredients.

This results in things like seared tuna with a sesame and fake wasabi crust, ginger flavored gratin potatoes, and towers of interesting-sounding but fundamentally incompatible ingredients. It also, occasionally, produces some fairly interesting ideas, some of which are of culinary value, but it seems like the primary purpose is shock and drama rather than good food.

Adaptation is essentially a different process. It's about fitting an unfamiliar ingredient into an established culinary tradition. Usually, by the time an adaptation reaches a wider audience, the attributes of the ingredient are well understood. It sometimes works its way into another culinary tradition; butter-soy sauce is apparently loved by French chefs as much as by Japanese.

For successful adaptations, contemporary cooks grounded in a particular cuisine can think of ingredients as analogous to already familiar ingredients. Shaved or grated Parmesan has a lot of the same qualities as a garnish of katsuo-bushi, so you could often get desirable results by decorating a dish with parmesan instead of katsuo, as I sometimes do with ohitashi. Adapting European broccoli or green beans to aemono or a red-cooked Chinese dish is relatively natural.

The tomato is, in every cuisine outside of the Americas, an adapted ingredient. Potatoes and chilies, too. Nobody considers marinara sauce or insalata caprese as fusion. Nobody thinks that chili-laden kimchi, Sichuan hot pots, or Indian curries are intrinsically fusion foods, though kimchi wasn't always made with chilies and spiced dishes in India prior to contact with the West never had chilies in them. A number of spices went the other direction, like ginger, cloves, cinammon, though much longer ago.

[JasonTrue]

I've had good results from cheese in okonomiyaki and cheese in spring rolls, both originally in Japan. But processed cheese in spring rolls doesn't usually do it for me either... I like them with mozzarella or camembert.

Anyone ever tried cheese kimbap? Or cheese ramen?

I have tried both of these items, in Korea, and all I can say about that, is:

Honey, that ain't right.

Mostly because they were made with processed cheese, though, which I loathe wholeheartedly. They might be nice with feta or cheddar, who knows?

Butter and soy sauce, on the other hand, I find delicious. I have a capricious palate, I guess.

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[MoGa]

I've had good results from cheese in okonomiyaki and cheese in spring rolls, both originally in Japan. But processed cheese in spring rolls doesn't usually do it for me either... I like them with mozzarella or camembert.

Anyone ever tried cheese kimbap? Or cheese ramen?

I have tried both of these items, in Korea, and all I can say about that, is:

Honey, that ain't right.

Mostly because they were made with processed cheese, though, which I loathe wholeheartedly. They might be nice with feta or cheddar, who knows?

Butter and soy sauce, on the other hand, I find delicious. I have a capricious palate, I guess.

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I got the idea for combining cheddar and mochi a few years ago from a book by Emi Kazuko/Yasuko Fukuoka.

Now that you mention it, mochi rice cakes brushed with soy sauce, filled with melted cheddar and eaten with half a nori laver sheet are really good. Never seen it sold in Tokyo though.

My Japanese husband isn't too keen on mochi, but I can usually convince him to have a couple of these when the weather is cold (although he'd normally prefer cheese on crumpets given the option)

[flacoman]

My preferred saute for mushrooms is soy and balsamic , with a tab of butter melted into the juices and reduced a bit :-) Makes me a happy bunny indeed.

my 2c

jorge

[OnigiriFB]

My preferred saute for mushrooms is soy and balsamic , with a tab of butter melted into the juices and reduced a bit  :-) Makes me a happy bunny indeed.

my 2c

jorge

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Soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, and butter? Hrm.. could you describe the taste? Is it sourish? I can't picture it. Um.. sounds good though I might have to pick up some shrooms!

[flacoman]

OK, here goes:

Drizzle oil into the bottom of the pan ,get it to medium heat .

Drop in the sliced mushrooms,swirl them about and let them drink in the oil.

Once the skillet is dry drizzle in abt two tsp balsamic and let it flash off, as it reduces ,add pepper and drizzle in about the same of soy. The steam from the balsamic and soy will steam and soften up the mushrooms and release their juices also, so judge your firmness and scoop them out when you have them where you want. Once the mushrooms are out raise the heat and reduce the liquid by half, cut the heat and drop in a knob of butter and stir to melt. The syrup you now have can garnish the mushrooms and makes a great base to drop a steak into.

Taste: hmm, it has the tang of the balsamic, but the mushroom juices temper that somewhat, the soy adds the salt and umami and the butter smooths the whole thing out

my2c

Jorge

Edited May 30, 2008 by flacoman (log)

[infernooo]

I found this recipe in a free tourism/Japanese travel magazine - the chef is from the Ocean Room in Circular Quay in Sydney, Australia (Raita Noda).

Pan-seared Tofu Steak with Soy & Butter Sauce

Ingredients:

400g (2pcs x 200g) tofu (silken or soft)

1 pc alinghi mushroom

1/4 bunch broccolini

6 pcs semi-dried tomatoes

Garnish-herbs:

a little dill or bulls red

baby shiso

a little fried garlic

salt, white pepper/black pepper to taste

a little rice flour or corn starch

Soy & Butter Sauce:

30g unsalted butter

1 pc French shallots (chopped)

1 tsp (or more to your liking) soy sauce

50ml water

1/4 lemon

1/2 ts garlic (minced)

1/2 ts parsley (chopped finely)

1 ts capers

1. Cut 200g of the tofu into a rectangular piece and sprinkle with salt and white pepper.

2. Dust the tofu in the rice flour and fry in an oiled and heated pan until golden. Be aware that even at this stage the tofu may still be soft and easy to break apart.

3. Heat the oven to 180c and grill the fried tofu in an oven-proof tray for around five minutes.

4. Prepare the vegetables. Cut off the top end of the broccolini and lightly boil in a pot of water with a dash of olive oil and salt. Slice the alinghi mushrooms down to about 3mm and then brush them with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Grill the mushrooms till golden. Cut the semi-dried tomatoes into bite-sized pieces.

5. Now prepare the sauce. On medium heat, melt the butter in a pan. Add the chopped shallots, garlic and capers. Thoroughly cook until almost over-done, then add the soy sauce. Bring down to low heat and slowly add water (mixing with a whisk) to emulsify the sauce. To avoid burning the parsley, sprinkle it on towards the end.

6. Place the grilled tofu on a plate and pour the sauce over it. Arrange the prepared vegetables around the tofu. Add a dash of herbs or garlic chips to complete.

Cooking Tip:

Before sprinkling herbs or garlic chips, lightly pour some olive oil and some salt on the tofu.

[flacoman]

Did you ever try the mushrooms this way?

Regards

Jorge