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Have you ever been to Izakaya or Japanese pub? Most of places have got small, tapas-style plates available for drinkers, which uses meat, fish and seasonable vegetables. There are many healthy Japanese food being enjoyed around the world, but I personally believe Japanese tapas for drinking occasion is one of the dish I would like to introduce to people live overseas because it’s easy, small and tasty!! Being inspired by an article, I am going to write about Japanese tapas using Karashi-mentaiko or chilli cod roe and tofu.

“Kanko*” some rights reserved. flickr

Mentaiko itself can be enjoyed as it is to eat with sake, but it’s good to go with other ingredients, too. It is widely eaten on rice, toast, noodles and potatoes. One of the most popular ingredients to go with as healthy boozing tapas might be tofu.

“kagen33” some rights reserved. flickr

It can be eaten on a cold piece tofu; this will probably be the most guilt-free type of mentaiko tapas. Spiciness of mentaiko becomes a good accent to tofu, and tofu can still keep its very fresh taste with no greasy dressing or strong condiments. If you would like to eat it warm version of that, you can use warmed-up tofu with a bit of dashi soup (and butter if you find Japanese food too light)! In fact, warmer version feels a lot gentle to your body than cold one, and it will probably suited for coming winter.

Now, if you find the combination of tofu and mentaiko is too light and are a cheese lover, you can try Tofu and melted cheese and mentaiko or even put mentaiko in regular gratin with tofu to make it a bit light. Mild spiciness of mentaiko fades when it’s heated, but it gives you a kind of egg-like taste (?).

Hmn, there are so many ingredients mentaiko can be eaten with, and so many dishes I would like to recommend you to try. My favourite is Mentaiko pasta (can be cream or soy sauce based) and mentaiko and squid sashimi!  Oh, neither of them are not tofu involved though 😛 I hope I at least help growing your interest in mentaiko a bit^^

What do you think about today’s article?

If you have a chance to buy a karashi mentaiko (chilli one, not the smoke one) in your country, why don’t you try making some Japanese tapas for home drinking?? I’m sure you will like it 😉  Please let me know about your country’s boozing food ne.

Source: matome NAVER

This is JAPAN Style!