Masu Sushi & Robata - sushi, drinks, appetizer

Masu Sushi & Robata has made several "best-of" lists since it opened a few years ago. I finally made it out to the NE Mpls location (they have opened a second location at the Mall of America).

Masu is great! They have a separate vegetarian/vegan menu as well as a gluten-free menu.

For an appetizer, I had some vegetable tempura. Delicious! A good mix of squash, eggplant, and other veggies:



Also had a great vegetable sushi roll. I think this was called a firecracker? Had some veggies rolled up with rice and nori, then coated in crushed wasabi peas and some sriracha/hot sauce over the top. Awesome:



I also had a delicious drink and brought home a caterpillar roll (vegan-style) for Mr. Coconut.

Fried Pickle Slices

No Picture, though I will DEFINITELY be making these again, very, very soon!

I started with Claussen Dill Halves, my pickle of choice. I sliced the halves up into 1/4 inch slices. I used a tempura batter mix and dipped the slices in that, then rolled in panko bread crumbs. I did a few plain, then added seasoned salt to the panko so the rest were flavored.

I used a pan with vegetable oil to pan-fry the slices, a few at a time. I fried until golden brown and flipped so the other side of the slice would match.

I drained on a paper towel on my plate, and dipped in Frank's Red Hot.

DELICIOUS. Crispy, salty, tangy. I would probably cut my slices thicker next time, 1/2 inch or more. My tempura batter could also have been a little thicker.

Bento Birthday Box

This is a dinner from Midori's Floating World Cafe, a Japanese restaurant in Minneapolis. This is from their special all vegan menu, which is available only at the restaurant and only if you ask. If you click the picture, it should bring you to Flickr where I labeled the picture.

clockwise, starting with the rice:
tempura veggies
veggie sushi rolls
soba noodles and wakame
fruit
pickled ginger and pickled veg in center

I also had some agedashi tofu, a special vegan version (dashi = fish broth, and the agedashi tofu is usually served with bonito (fish) flakes. At Midori's they serve it with a shitake broth, and nori strips.)

Deep Fried Experiment #1: Tempura Green Peppers and Mock Duck

---> They look like sea monsters, don't they?

Deep fried food is oh so tasty, but a big pain to do at home. (I used to have a 3-in-1 machine that had a deep fryer, steamer and crockpot all in one.) Every now and then, though, it's fun to make a night of deep frying. Saturday night was one such night.

I happened upon some tempura batter without eggs a while back and had never gotten around to using it. I decided for the sake of the blog, I should really try it out. So I did. With one green pepper, a can of mock duck, and some onions.

What You Need:

software:
Tempura (check for eggs)
Mock Duck, one can, drained, rinsed, and sliced into smaller pieces for eating (also: packaged or homemade seitan, tofu, or anything else will work, too)
One Green Pepper, sliced into strips (or 5, or broccoli, or whatever)
One onion, sliced into rings
LOTS of oil (canola/vegetable) for frying

hardware:
Deep pan for deep frying (I used a wok)
Splatter Guard
draining rack/area
paper towels


Prep everything you plan on battering and frying. It makes the whole process much easier. Ideally, you should set up an area for the raw stuff, an area for battering, an area for frying and an area for draining. I have an extremely small kitchen, so this isn't really possible. Our draining area sort of crossed paths with the raw area, it was a messy situation, etc. I'm thankful that I was only working with green peppers and mock duck and not raw chicken.

The rest of this process is not very scientific. (as if the beginning half was.) Heat up oil to...really hot. But not too hot. Yep. (I don't have a thermometer. One more thing to add to my list of kitchen essentials.)

Batter the veggies or item you want to fry. We found that a really thin coating worked best. We also found that seasoning the mock duck ahead of time (pan frying with soy sauce, ginger, hot peppers, etc.) was an excellent decision. Place battered items into pan:


When the fried objects are golden brown (5-8 mins?) take them out of the oil and place on a wire rack on top of a cookie pan. (We used the toaster oven accessories for this because it was small and perfect.)

Yep. Use paper towel to soak up more oil after the objects have cooled more. Eat and enjoy. Soy sauce is a nice condiment, as well as cock sauce.

The Verdict:
It wasn't bad. Wasn't that good, either. More of a batter issue than anything. the tempura just didn't work well with deep frying, which is to be expected. The onions were the best. I thought they would not be tasty at all, and I feel foolish for questioning deep fried onions.

I will have to have a true deep frying night soon, testing a couple of batters.