I should mention at the outset a few things about this menu. First, it’s light, fresh, cool, elegant — meant for beating the heat — with the flavor-enhancing help of some familiar Japanese ingredients.
It’s also a bit of a splurge: You’ll need to shell out for seafood and invest a certain amount of effort into the recipes. But the good news is that absolutely every dish can be prepared a day ahead, leaving very little last-minute fussing.
But it’s an ideal menu for an al fresco dinner on a sultry evening, and I found myself serving it to friends on such a recent night. We started with this chilled cucumber-spinach soup — easy to put together and most welcome on a sweltering day. It’s very green, whizzed up in a blender with briefly cooked leeks and spinach, ginger and a hint of smoked paprika. Cubes of silken tofu dressed with sesame oil and soy sauce add a lovely contrast to the base.
For brightness, it is worth finding shiso leaves at an Asian grocery. Just a few strips of this sweet, fragrant herb contribute a flavor reminiscent of anise hyssop, hoja santa or flowering cilantro. (Gardeners, take note: My farming friends tell me it grows like a weed, returning yearly.) As a substitute, try Thai basil and a little squeeze of lime.
With the soup chilled overnight and ready in the fridge, all you need to finish is the quick tofu garnish.
As a main course, we had pan-fried crab cakes, bound with puréed scallops for a meaty, firm texture complemented by miso, ginger and scallions. You can prepare the crab mixture and form it into cakes a day in advance. While you’re at it, make the easy dipping sauce, too. It’s a tasty lemon-infused combination of miso and mayonnaise.
But maybe the most fun make-ahead part of this dish is the easy pickled daikon. Ordinary white daikon is fine, but you can also find smaller colorful daikon at farmers’ markets and Japanese markets, so I used a bright magenta-hued one. Once peeled and cut paper-thin, sprinkled with salt, sugar and rice wine vinegar, and tossed with some slivers of ginger, they are ready to eat in an hour or so. But stored in a jar in the fridge, they’ll keep for a week.
Be certain to fry the crab cakes in a sufficient amount of oil so they get beautifully crisp. They taste good hot or at room temperature, and reheat well. You’ll need to be at the stove for only about 15 minutes.
These cakes are small, just 2 ounces each, so most people will want three. We had them in an outdoor garden setting, so they were served on small plates. If it had been a sit-down affair with dinner plates, I might have served a lightly dressed green salad alongside.
Follow with melon-mint sorbet, which comes together in a food processor and releases a blast of mint that’s evident in every spoonful. Happily, any kind of ripe summer melon, even watermelon, can be used. The texture is rougher than a true sorbet, somewhere between granita and shave ice. It’s plenty good as is, but to gild the lily, add a bit of raspberry syrup and a few festive berries.
