Mood for Japanese

I have bought these 2 recipe books for a long time. But I have never got down to cooking anything in there. Last weekend, I finally had sufficient will power to ensure that my 'project' gets accomplished.

No one at home cooks Japanese. And so I had to invest in some basic Japanese seasonings and common ingredients. Deliberately made a trip (actually 2 eventually. The 2nd trip was unplanned) to Isetan Supermarket, thinking that I can get the authentic Japanese stuff for a good price with my Isetan credit card.

These are the things that I had bought:
1) Konbu
2) Bonito flakes
3) Nori
4) Instant dashi (with konbu and bonito flakes, I can also make dashi from scratch)
5) Wasabi
6) Matcha powder
7) Mirin
8) Sake
9) Rice vinegar
10) Shoyu
11) Miso

With the above (and fresh ingredients I bought later), the dinner spread last night consisted of oyako donburi (thanks to Ruth), edamame, beef with leek in sweet sauce and silken tofu with bonito flakes. The dinner ended with matcha ice cream with mochi. It was generally a success :) Next to try: sushi!

Also thanks to CL and R, I learnt how to make the matcha ice cream with mochi dessert. R taught me to mix matcha powder with vanilla ice cream to make my own matcha ice cream. CL taught me to use the frozen sesame dumplings to make mochi - cook them and whilst they are hot, throw them into a bucket of ice water. This will freeze the sesame inside the dumplings. After the dumplings are cold, store them in the fridge until ready to be served. I don't used to like matcha ice cream. But somehow, the taste of sesame mochi and matcha ice cream together has a unique taste that made me love this dessert! Top it off with red bean (azuki bean) paste on the ice cream - perfect! Azuki bean paste is available in a can form in the supermarket.

Matcha ice cream with mochi and azuki bean paste

How "beef with leek in sweet sauce" is supposed to look

That's about it... until my next attempt to cook!