Eye Sleuth (31 page)

1 tsp paprika

2 cups boiling water

3/4 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.

Combine ground beef, chopped onion, milk, egg and bread crumbs.

Season with parsley, soy or spicy sauce, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper.

Mix well.

Shape into small balls and place on baking dish.

Bake for 30 minutes, turning meatballs so they brown evenly.

Sauce: In a saucepan, combine oil, flour, paprika, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper. Add sautéed mushrooms and cook over medium heat until bubbling, then gradually blend in hot water and sour cream until smooth. When meatballs have cooked 30 minutes, pour sauce over the top, and return to the oven for 20 minutes. Stir a few times.

Green beans or a salad go well with this. You can also have noodles. Yoko likes Tinkyada brown rice noodles, which are wheat & gluten-free. Lanny and Lars like egg noodles.

Yoko’s Beef Shabu-Shabu

3-inch dried kombu (kelp)

1 lb Chinese cabbage, chopped

1/4 lb scallions, sliced thin

1 block tofu, cut into bite-size pieces

1 enoki mushroom, cut in half

1/4 lb carrot, cut into thin round slices

l lb fresh spinach (wash well by soaking in a bowl of water)

1 lb sirloin beef, sliced very thin.

Fill a deep electric pan or a medium skillet two-thirds full with water. Soak kombu in the water, preferably for 30 minutes. Arrange the ingredients on a large plate. Set the electric pan, ingredients and serving bowls with dipping sauce at the table. Heat the water and remove the kombu just before the water comes to a boil. Put a slice of beef in the boiling soup and swish it gently back and forth in the boiling soup until the meat changes color to desired degree of doneness. Dip meat in a sauce of your choice (see suggestion below) and enjoy. Add the vegetables piece by piece to the boiling water, which is gradually becoming soup, and simmer them for a few minutes until they are done the way you want them. Enjoy the veggies dipped in the sauce as well.

Yoko buys a bottle of sesame dipping sauce but you can use any sauce you like or make your own. Here’s one traditional recipe:

1/3 cup white sesame seeds

3 TBSP mirin, a
sweet, yellowish condiment (12% alcohol) 

1-1/2 TBSP sugar

2 TBSP rice vinegar

3-1/2 TBSP soy sauce

1/2 tsp grated garlic

1/2 - 2/3 cup dashi soup (dashi is tuna soup stock, but you could use any stock you like)

Grind sesame seeds well. Add mirin gradually over the sesame seeds and mix. Add sugar, rice vinegar and soy sauce to the sauce. Add grated garlic and mix well. Pour in dashi stock gradually, stirring well.

About the Author

Hazel Dawkins, an editor-writer who started out in London’s newspaper world, has worked in Paris and New York and now is based in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

Her factual books on behavioral optometry, a specialty in optometry that is available in forty countries, are published by (and available from) the OEP Foundation in California, the professional organization for optometrists (
http://www.oepf.org/
).

Eye Sleuth is a cozy of a mystery that introduces Dr Yoko Kamimura, a behavioral optometrist in New York. In it, Yoko is the unwilling center of mayhem and murder. The second Yoko mystery, Eye Wit, is a grittier read (think Miss Marple on steroids) created in amiable collaboration with Dennis Berry of Oregon.

All of her books are available at:
http://www.murderprose.com
.