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The scene
We see the sisters having breakfast again, this time with their new sibling.
Sachi admonishes Chika who keeps putting soy sauce on everything. A frantic Yoshino then barges into the room, asking the others why they didn't wake her up. Suzu says Yoshino must've turned her alarm off when it rang because she did actually hear it.
Yoshino is almost late for work and claims she doesn't have time to sit down for breakfast. Sachi isn't best pleased with that and gets even more annoyed when she notices Yoshino is in fact wearing her brand new blouse. They take a few playful jabs at each other for their styles. Yoshino and Suzu then rush out to catch the train.
The food
We get a great look at the breakfast in this scene. We can see Yoshino eating rice from her bowl in the above photo, but as Yoshino and Sachi are squabbling, we also get this angle of the table:
Everything nicely on display! Aside from the rice and tea, what is all this stuff?
I believe the green stuff has to be kobachi (seasoned and fried kale), which I also suspected to be in the last breakfast scene as well but wasn't sure about. The white dish in upper left corner looks very much like cabbage, so I'm assuming it's some kind of tsukemono again. There are a few Japanese pickle recipes I've seen that use napa cabbage which it kind of looks like. And on the large plate we can see what's obviously some kind of fish, probably salmon based on the color of the flesh and the skin.
We also get a look at Chika who's eating something yellowish and square. My guess is this would be tamagoyaki, a Japanese-style omelette.
I think they don't have miso soup this time as it seems like there are too few bowls on the table.
Recreating the food
So, it's breakfast time again, just a bit different from last time! I was multitasking and in a bit of a hurry while cooking and didn't take photos of the process, so let's jump directly to my recreation of the meal:
The dark green stuff is kobachi which turned out to be a really simple dish. I used this recipe on The Spruce Eats for this one. Now, the recipe calls for "lacinato (dinosaur)" kale instead of "curly leaf" kale. The problem is there was only one type of kale in the supermarket and the package didn't specify which one it was, although I suspect it would've been of the curly leaf kale variety. It was also pre-cut into slightly smaller pieces than I would've wanted, but it looked usable enough and was the only option I had anyway, so that's what I got. The preparation itself was extremely easy. Heat some olive oil on a frying pan on medium high, sauté the pre-cut kale for a few minutes, drizzle with mirin, sauté again for a few minutes, drizzle with soy sauce, sauté for a few minutes more depending on your personal preference of how soft you want the kale to be. Easy!
The light green stuff next to the kale is napa cabbage tsukemono. Now, there are a whole bunch of recipes for different kinds of tsukemono but I wanted to try out the simplest possible one: shiozuke, a type of quick pickle that only uses salt. I used a similar recipe found in the Japanese homecooking book I've mentioned before but this one on Inscrutables is basically the same if you want to give it a try. Very simple - cut the cabbage into bite-sized pieces, add salt, use a bit of weight to make the liquid come out and that liquid will serve as the brine. I prepared mine a couple of hours before eating the meal and it turned out well.
The salmon in the photo looks like it's very likely to be shiozake, salted and baked salmon that's a staple Japanese breakfast dish. Shiozake and shiozuke, huh? Well, "shio" means "salt", which is what's used to season both dishes. I'd actually never made shiozake before as there's another Japanese salmon recipe that I absolutely adore and I cook it all the time, so I was interested in how it'd turn out. I used this recipe on the trusty Just One Cookbook. Pretty easy - pat the salmon fillets dry with a paper towel, add sake and let sit for 10 minutes and pat dry again, add salt to all sides, put in an airtight container lined with paper towels and stick in in the fridge. After enough time has passed, the salmon is ready to be baked in the oven.
One thing I unfortunately didn't have while cooking was time. I was again going somewhere for a few days and forgot to buy salmon the previous day so I had the salmon in the fridge for about eight hours. Various recipes say you should let it set for a day or two as more time equals a more cured salmon, but I read somewhere that 7-8 hours mostly does the trick as well. Also, I finally realised why the actual slices of salmon always look so nice with the skin on display like that in Japanese recipes. The recipe tells you to cut the salmon diagonally, which would of course let the skin show nicely. I'll need to try that the next time!
Finally, in the middle we have some steamed rice with a pinch of salt and on the the left side is the tamagoyaki which I also included in the bento lunch earlier. Chika's tamagoyaki slice looks plain so I left out the nori sheet this time. What I haven't mentioned before is the tamagoyaki pan. There is a square tamagoyaki frying pan that can be used to get the perfect omelette, and while it would certainly be fun, I've opted not to buy one quite yet because my kitchen is small and I don't think I need a separate pan for one specific thing. However, it's possible to make a decent-looking tamagoyaki on a round pan too. You could fold the edges into the omelette to make it square or just cut out the ends when the omelette is done if you want to present it nicely. It won't affect the taste in any way, obviously!
Trying it out
Another fun and varied breakfast! I really liked the shiozake which I will definitely be trying with a longer curing time to see how it affects the end product. I was also rather pleased with the kobachi and how easy it was to make - that one also definitely goes on my list of everyday dishes. The shiozuke is pretty basic but it's dead simple and quick to make, plus I'm not a massive fan of napa cabbage but enjoyed eating this salted version of it, so it's pretty good in my books. I've still yet to find a tsukemono recipe that's better than the kombu-flavored pickling powder you can buy at Tokyokan. And tamagoyaki is always good, although I do prefer it with a sheet of nori.Again, this really wouldn't be a difficult breakfast at all to prepare in the morning. The key is that all of the dishes are quick and easy to prepare, especially because a part of them are prepped the previous day or even earlier so that they're ready to go when you need them. For instance, for this particular breakfast you already have the shiozake waiting in the fridge and the tsukemono is ready to eat, so you can prepare everything else in 20-30 minutes while the salmon and rice are cooking. It's even easier if you have someone to help you, of course, which I presume the sisters do!
Recipes used
Kale kobachi: The Spruce Eats
Napa cabbage tsukemono: Inscrutables
Shiozake: Just One Cookbook
Tamagoyaki: Tasty (video)
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