Christmas dinner this year with my family, we chose to make it Japanese inspired. If you think about it, a bit leaner since I’ve went to Boston the past weekend and I’m still on digestion mode and almost all the food I ate was on the rich and hearty side.
Since I’ve still had the awesome Cadillac around, I’ve made a quick drive over to Mitsuwa in Edgewater, NJ to shop for sashimi grade fish for decent prices and…ate more things at their huge section of casual Japanese food to eat in (as seen on my Instagram like the matcha ice cream, taiyaki and gyudon).
After purchasing some ingredients for dinner, my mother made her refreshing, sweet-tart pickled daikon radish and I sliced some hamachi (a type of amberjack fish) sashimi to start with.
The hamachi nigiri was fantastic. The fish was delicately fatty and silky. I did take a few of my family members by surprise by adding a touch of wasabi under the fish.
I also made some ahi tuna tartare layered with avocado underneath. The shallow pool of sauce is made of light soy sauce, a few drops of chili oil and sesame oil. To build up as the appetizer or slightly more substantial than sashimi. Since I made extra sushi rice for the hamachi nigiri, my mother was craving the ikura don, a salmon roe rice topped with egg. (She’s thinking of a version of last year’s dinner at Tori Shin‘s okayo don.)
For the most substantial dishes, my father cooked up some Chinese crispy roast pork belly (my recipe seen on this post) and stewed up some octopus and served it in a bed of marinated cannellini beans.
To end the dinner on a sweet note, we made some tong sui, a sweet dessert soup, made of coconut milk, ginger and sweet potato.
Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas with your loved ones!
To view more photos of this meal, please view the slideshow below (or CLICK HERE):
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