Japanese Breakfast

We are into fourth week of Buffet on Table, month long marathon that I am doing with my blogging group. We have weekly themes for this month and the theme for this week is breakfasts from around the world. For the first day I have a Japanese breakfast. We were suppose to do this theme on week 1 and combo meals on week 4. The themes were swapped and I was well aware of the swap. But for some weird reason unknown to me, I assumed week 2 is breakfasts and went ahead with my preparations. This was the second post I prepared for this marathon.

I started the prep work for this marathon only last month. Every month I participate in an event Food of the World. The country we are suppose to cook for this month is Japan. I wanted to cook one recipe from Japan and use it for both Food of the World and for my Buffet on Table.

As I said, for some strange reason I thought we were doing breakfasts for week 2 and since my posting day for Food of the World is second Tuesday of the month, I picked Japanese breakfast.

Only after preparing this breakfast and tomorrow’s breakfast did I realize or rather, my frontal lobe and temporal lobe co-ordinated with each other, and finally registered that breakfasts are for week 4 and not week 2. Thankfully my Japanese breakfast has multiple components and I could use what I already cooked for both the events.

Japanese breakfast traditionally consists of a bowl of rice, miso soup, Japanese omelet, with other side dishes such as pickled vegetables, steamed vegetables and grilled fish. Considering that, I put together a Japanese breakfast based on this menu; that has rice, miso soup, tamagoyaki or rolled omelet, and hourensou no gomaae or spinach salad with sesame sauce.

To be honest, I never would have picked Japanese breakfast if not for Food of the World event. I am glad I did, as I got to taste miso soup and got introduced to this amazing miso paste that is the key ingredient for soup.

Miso paste is fermented soybeans. Stock used for the soup is called dashi, a fish broth. Tofu is another ingredient that is a must in miso soup, at least all the recipes I checked online had it. I made the soup twice, once with tofu and the second time with vegetables. I posted this recipe couple of weeks ago for Food of the World.

Tamagoyaki is Japanese omelet prepared by rolling together thin layers of omelet. It is prepared in a special pan called makiyakinabe. Hourensou no gomaae is spinach salad flavored with sesame sauce. Preparation of this salad is similar to Korean spinach salad that I prepared last year for Around the World in 30 days. I liked the Korean salad a lot and included this Japanese spinach salad to my breakfast menu.

Japanese Menu
White Rice
Miso Soup recipe here
Tamagoyaki ~ Rolled Japanese Eggs recipe here
Hourensou No Gomaae ~ Spinach Salad with Sesame Sauce recipe here