Pork and eggs with cellophane noodles over brown rice.

Somehow, as if by magic, weeks have gone by since I’ve made a dinner worth posting here. Dinner tonight is really no exception but decided to document it anyway.

I know: this doesn’t look like much. I came up with it while I sat at my desk working and craving completely different things — pancakes and eggs, fish curry, possibly a burrito — but knowing that I hadn’t done a shop in awhile and didn’t really feel like doing one tonight. So I worked with what I had: ground pork, eggs and the usual assortment of dry goods, including cellophane noodles and dried shrimp, which give this dish a nice umami flavor. It’s finished with a drizzle of toasted sesame oil that lingers towards the end of the bite. It reminds me of several Cantonese dishes I grew up eating, so I’d classify this as comfort food.

“Chard and White Bean Stew” from Smitten Kitchen with whole wheat ciabatta and two eggs.

Fried rice with cha siu (Chinese roast pork).

I keep cha siu in the freezer for when I’m not feeling “that hungry” and therefore I don’t feel committed to making dinner. But I don’t want to skip it either. Fried rice is perfect on evenings like this.

My only rule for making fried rice is “don’t use fresh rice.” It’s too wet. Aside from the pork, this rice had egg, garlic, scallion and peas.

“Rolled Omelette” from Shizuo Tsuji’s Japanese Cooking. “Fennel Stir-Fry” from Soei Yoneda’s The Heart of Zen Cuisine. “Green Beans with Sesame Sauce” from Mark Robinson’s Izakaya. “Lightly Pickled Tomatoes” from Harumi Kurihara’s Everyday Harumi.

“Kamaboko and Mitsuba Cooked With Eggs” from Tokiko Suzuki’s Japanese Homestyle Cooking.

Continuing the slightly-under-the-weather and still-more-work-to-do trends from Monday night, I made a very quick dinner tonight. I had been wanting to try Suzuki’s kamaboko (Japanese fish paste) and egg dish for awhile and tonight was a good night for it. It comes together in minutes and requires minimal preparation. I got distracted and let my eggs cook a little longer than they should have but still: a good meal.

Something crunchy and pickled would have really put dinner tonight over the edge.

Dashimaki tamago (Japanese rolled egg), miso soup with silken tofu / aburage / spinach and seaweed salad.

Not my nicest-looking tamagoyaki but I was feeling kind of rushed by my hunger. Snacking on one’s way home only goes so far.

The seaweed salad is something I picked up as I walked back to my apartment tonight. A small Japanese grocery opened in Williamsburg over the winter and it’s become one of my regular stops. It’s more convenient than Sunrise but doesn’t have quite the selection. It does cover all of the right bases though and I love that I have a shorter distance to haul my groceries. I have no idea who makes this seaweed salad but it’s fresh-tasting and a nice side for meals like this.

“Minced Chicken, Shrimp, and Egg on Rice (Soboro Donburi)” from Shizuo Tsuji’s Japanese Cooking. Miso soup (medium-salty barley with mitsuba and bunashimeji mushrooms).

Dashimaki tamago (Japanese rolled omelet). Rice. Miso soup with wakame and silken tofu. “Eggplant and Green Peppers Sauteed with Miso” from Mihoko Yoshino’s Japanese Home Style Cooking.

I followed Yoshino’s recommendation that the dashi (Japanese broth) be 1/4 the volume of the eggs. I’ve been wanting a recipe that offered a ratio for egg:dashi and this is a good jumping off point. Further testing and adjusting ahead.

I only loosely followed the recipe for the eggplant / pepper but with a dish like this, I think it’s best to treat a recipe as mere reference material. I scaled the recipe to serve only one, used a fairly salty miso and upped the volume by a bit, omitted the sugar… This will be a good dish to have on hand. Quick, easy, everything is already in the larder.

Zakkokumai, rice with grains. Chawanmushi, Japanese steamed egg. Whole simmered okra adapted from Soei Yoneda’s The Heart of Zen Cuisine.

I based the chawanmushi on two recipes: Shizuo Tsuji’s from Japanese Cooking and Hiroko Shimbo’s from Japanese Kitchen. For two servings, I used one scallop, two shrimp, one shiitake mushroom and two medium-sized eggs. To figure out the volume of broth, I took ( volume of eggs * 3 ), minus the volume of the soy sauce and mirin.

Generally speaking, when I make steamed eggs, I use too-high heat and the surface doesn’t come out smooth. Tonight was no exception. Need to work on that.