prasantrin

I should have posted these pictures first, but since they had nothing to do with food, I resisted. But I like them so much, I'm going to add them, anyway. Although my mother arrived in Japan on December 7, it was still sort of autumn in my area. As proof, here's a picture of some maple leaves on the campus of where I work. Just three days after my mother arrived, we went on a bus tour of Nara. We went to Horyuji (the world's oldest surviving wooden structure, and one of the oldest temples in Japan). There we saw the old and the new. It was a beautiful day for a tour.

How come no one told me that 1 cup of raw glutinous rice would only make 2 nor mai gai? Time to soak more rice!

See, this is why I've never volunteered to do a real foodblog. I'm really bad with follow-through! I also scored very high on an "Are You a Procrastinator" quiz once--like 21/22 points. The day after we went to Arashiyama, we went to see Kodo. If you've never seen them live, you really must. I know they'll be touring Europe at the beginning of 2008 (England, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland), so if you happen to live or be travelling in those areas, do try to go. It was so good, my mother didn't even nod off once! And that's saying something! But before we went to the concert, I wanted to try another chocolate shop that was sort of in the area. I had wanted to visit Ek Chuah for quite some time, and it was well worth the wait. We both had the cake set (Y1050). I had the Theo Abroma, and my mother had the Fromage Mousse--cream cheese mousse on a base of cherry mousse, served with cherry compote. Both were excellent. And we both had the dark chocolate drink to accompany our cakes. It was very creamy and rich--much better than the Pierre Blanche version (which is good in its own right, but different). What we really liked were the cups the hot chocolate was served in. No two were alike, and they were so delicate. Really beautiful work. The saucer had this little basket-like thing attached (permanently) which held the cup in place. We were very curious about them, so we checked the bottoms for the maker. They were labelled "Ek Chuah", so we asked the waitstaff about them. The cups are custom-made made for the shop, and if a customer really wants, s/he can order some for the low low price of Y20 000 per set! And by set I mean one cup and one saucer! Well, I may never own my own set, but I can at least go to Ek Chuah and dream! The skin is the best part. When she's of high school age, she can come to the school where I work as an exchange student through YFU or AFS! She'd love it, I'm sure! I was the exchange student counsellor a couple of years ago (and will be again next year), and I think the students we host have really great experiences. I'm sure most students who do exchanges have great experiences, though. Me, too! I'd probably shop there even though I don't have the money, though. I'm just lucky there isn't one nearby, or I'd be in big trouble! Funny thing about restaurants, at Daimaru in Kyoto, I remember that even the little restaurants that were in the basement were better than the ones on the restaurant floor. There used to be a really great Italian place that had the best tiramisu I'd ever had, and another little dim sum place. I had lunch at either of those two places every week, since I worked just a couple of blocks away. But then they closed all those little restaurant-type places (I think), and expanded the ready-to-eat food section. I really miss that Italian restaurant! I actually wanted to post a picture of the nozzle thing sticking out, but I couldn't figure out which button was the "clean" button. Plus I'm always afraid I might get sprayed by the thing! You know, even though I read "yawarka" whenever I look at the buttons, in my mind it always says "yawarakai". Odd, isn't it? I need to get my mind to think Japanese and less beginner-learner-of-Japanese, I think! And I told my mother what you wrote and she said, "Oh my god! Tell him to tell the truth!" But she's flattered, and thanks you for the compliment! I will post a picture of myself in the next post or the post after, and then you will see why I haven't posted a picture of myself, yet!

Yes, it's true, I am a girl. But if it makes June feel better, Prasantrin is a man's name (my dad's name, actually). My dough to filling ratio also depends on the filling, but not the type of filling, just if the filling sucks. If it sucks, I want less filling, more dough. But if the filling is really good, I want a lot of filling, but not so much that all I get is filling, since I really like the sweet taste of the dough, too. I like just enough dough so that I don't end up with only dough for my last bite. I want dough and filling in each bite, in other words.

Are those the parbaked ones that you finish baking yourself? I've been thinking of trying them, since they're quite cheap and would be very convenient. But if they're fully baked, I would have to pass. I can't eat that much bread! Well, I can, but it wouldn't be a good thing!

I wanted to use up my char siu filling, so I made one last batch of bao. This one was perfect! I was going to make a yeast and baking powder bao, but sheetz mentioned they're not as sweet as baking powder bao, so I stuck with junehl's recipe. I made 1/4 the recipe, this time not heating the milk and definitely putting in the oil. The dough sat for several hours, and when I finally got around to putting it to use, it was getting late so I didn't bother kneading it. It was a bit sticky, so I used more flour on the board and on my pin than I usually do. The dough was very easy to work with (other than occasionally sticking to my pin), and it steamed beautifully. As a result, I have my fluffiest bao with the best dough to filling ratio I've ever had. I can't wait to do this again! I keep saying I'm going to freeze my bao, but I've already eaten more than half of what I made. Oops...Oh well, at least my tummy is full and my taste buds are happy!

It's black "bean sauce" rather than "black bean" sauce. Maybe now that torakris has posted the kanji, you can try the Chinese forum, but I would guess you'll get as many translations for it as you already have. Lee Kum Kee has the name in Chinese characters, then in katakana, at least in Japan. It might even be in romaji. If you're trying to direct people to what to buy, just steer them toward LKK. But she's asking what it's commonly called in English, so being able to read Japanese won't really help.

I clean the tops off my cans, or at least rinse them, and I also "clean" my can opener by running a thickly-folded paper towel moistened with bleach solution through it. I don't clean my can opener as often as I should, but most of the cans I buy are tab-tops--the kind you pull off (one of the great things about living in Japan).

I spray most of my fruit with a water and vinegar mixture, then rinse it off with tap water. I read somewhere (probably Fine Cooking since that's the only cooking magazine I get, but it may have been online) that a bit of vinegar mixed with water did a better job of removing surface bacteria on fruits and vegetables than just water. I use it on almost all fruits and vegetables, including berries, grapes, etc., though the article suggested using it on hard fruits (apples, etc.).

Keeping in line with the Christmas theme, we traveled to Kyoto to see the night lights at Arashiyama. At this time of year, they open the temples at night to allow for night viewing, and they also light up different areas, including the bamboo forest. We love bamboo, so we went specifically to see forest. Painted lanterns lit our way. . . . . .to the forest It kind of sucked. There were a few floodlights here and there, but only one side of the forest was lit (in the advertisements for the event, both sides were lit), and it was quite crowded. So crowded, that some a-hole kept stepping on the heels of my shoes while we were walking through, then laughed about stepping on the heels of my shoes. Word to the unwise--just because I'm a foreigner doesn't mean I don't understand what you're saying. But there were two saving graces that night. The first were these: On the left are kurogoma (black sesame) yatsuhashi. Nothing really special, since you can find them all over the place now. But on the right you have "Kurosha". These are kurogoma langues de chat. Mmmmmmm... And even if you don't like kurogoma or langues de chat, how can you not love the packaging? The second good thing were these: Freshly made sembei. We watched him squirt the batter onto a heavy iron (think sandwich press), then top it with beans. The he pressed the top part down and cooked them for a bit. They were awesome fresh off the grill. We bought one bag of the peanut ones, and two bags of karinto (black sugar and some other sugar type). We went to downtown Kyoto for dinner. Could someone explain to me why depachika are so wonderful, but department store restaurant floors almost always suck? We went to a "famous" soba restaurant located on the restaurant floor of Takashimaya, but we didn't think it was particularly good. Oh well. The restrooms on that floor were really nice, and I saw the sleekest toilet remote I've ever seen. From right to left on top, you see an assortment of little buttons--"lift lid and seat" (the accompanying picture was cut off), "lift lid only", "close lid (and seat)", I don't remember the next two, then "massage", "move", "little flush" and "big flush". The big buttons are the usual (left to right) "off", "butt wash", "yawarakai" (what's that one? Gentle wash?"), "bidet" (which in Japanese means specifically "front wash for women"), and the other two were, I think, for adjusting temperature and strength. I couldn't read the kanji, and I didn't want to test them out (I've had bad experiences "testing" bidet buttons). We did stop by the depachika before heading home. I tasted the lightest cheese bread I've ever had at Fauchon. I was going to buy a loaf, but decided against it. We're headed back to Kyoto on Friday, so I might give in to my cravings then.

The first day, after sitting for a few hours, the dough was just tough. It was quite difficult to break off pieces, and then it was difficult to roll out. I wondered if it was because I heated the milk (to help dissolve the sugar), but now I'm thinking I may have forgotten to add the oil. I thought I had, though. After letting it sit for a couple of days (which is how long it took me to get back to them), it was a lot easier to work with. On both days, though, they still tasted great! That particular piece of pork belly that I cut into was quite meaty, but the others were pretty fatty. I do find that in Japan, they trim more of the top fat off, so they were perhaps not as fatty as belly in Canada. I could only roast my char siu for 20 minutes, or it would have overcooked, so not much fat melted out. Next time I'm going to roll the char siu in the marinade every 5 minutes during the roasting rather than every 10, to get more of the flavour of the marinade. It was still pretty tasty, but the first time I made it, it got dunked in the marinade twice while roasting rather than once, and it was definitely more flavourful. Here are some of the Batch 2 bao before steaming: After steaming (not very pretty, I know): Filling--these were Tepee's chicken filling--tasty, but I had to use up some chicken breast, which I hate, so I used it instead of thigh, and I've also realized that I don't like Chinese mushrooms .

Costco had them a couple of years ago (the last time I bought some), but I don't know if they still do. They may have been a mix of freeze-dried berries, but I think they had bags of just strawberries.

My mother is visiting from Canada, enroute to the Philippines, and I was going to volunteer myself to do a foodblog while she's here, but I'm still not eating enough or cooking enough to post anything interesting every day for a week. So. . . because I'm a sharing, caring SIT grad (if you knew me at all, you'd know just how funny that statement is ), I thought I'd just post a few of our more interesting food-related outings here. I've already mentioned elsewhere that we lunched at Kimukatsu. To me, Kimukatsu isn't really tonkatsu, but it's quite good katsu. I didn't have my camera or my cell phone that day, so I didn't take any pictures, but I would highly recommend going for lunch rather than dinner. Most of the dinner options are also available at lunch, plus you can order some very reasonably priced sets at lunch (but not at dinner), and more importantly, the Genkatsudon is only available at lunch. It's awesome! Today is the end of many of the "winter light" shows, so we took in a couple this weekend. Kobe is home to Luminarie, a huge light spectacle that commemorates the Great Hanshin Earthquake. It started in December 1995, and was meant to give hope and encouragement to the people of Kobe. I think the lights were donated by the goverment of Italy, and the themes always have Italian names (the theme and the display changes every year). You have to walk a long long way to get to the lights, because the organizers put up barriers so you can only walk down a particular route to get to them. I think we walked for about 10 minutes until we finally got to the start of the lights. When you finally do get to them, you walk through them... . . .before getting to the main part--we didn't go into the main area because there were too many people. It was a bit cold that night, so before we went out to see the lights we fortified ourselves with some hot chocolate and sweets from La Pierre Blanche. Mom had the Eclair Set--she chose a coffee-flavoured eclair and chocolat chaud as her beverage. The sorbet was raspberry mint (very delicious and refreshing), and her little cake was a dark chocolate cake soaked with maybe kirsch. She found it to be too bitter, so she let me have it. I really liked it! I had the cake set--I can't remember what the cake was, but it had some kind of flavour I didn't particularly care for. Maybe it was apricot jam between the layers? I got a little profiterole filled with pistachio pastry cream. My mother liked it more than I did. I really like the design of the space of this chocolatier. Everything is brown--walls, ceiling, furnishings, etc., and during the day, the brown tiled walls remind me of a chocolate fountain. It isn't really a place where you can linger, though, because there are few tables (I think maybe 8), and the atmosphere isn't really comforting or relaxing (in my opinion). But if you're ever smack in the middle of Sannomiya and want some hot chocolate, it's a good place to go.

I've been searching for a recipe online for recipe for hor fun, but have not yet been successful (neither all ingredients nor proportions can be found!)--does anyone have one to share? I'm thinking I might try my hand at them after I make my sticky rice. I'd like to made noodles that can be stir fried, but I'd settle for noodles that can be rolled.

I didn't find any water chestnuts at any of the grocery stores I went to, but thanks to helenjp's suggestion, I used lotus root, instead. It worked really well! Another question--are fresh rice noodles available in Japan? I mean the type used for char kway teow or chow fun. If yes, what might they be called in Japanese? I have a craving for rice noodles, but I couldn't justify paying Y700 for a couple of rice rolls at a dim sum place. (And their char siu bao was Y800 for 4 pieces!!)

There's always Sigg. They are lined (with "a patented secret formula liner), but they say the bottle won't leach any harmful substances into your beverage. Plus you can buy several to mix and match with your outfits.

Bruce, thanks again! I do love that recipe--it's my second time using it. And my mother loved it so much that she not only wants a copy of it, but she wants me to use my leftover pork belly to make more. She's going to bring it to the Philippines to serve at a party she's having shortly after she arrives! Dejah, June's recipe for the buns is here and some subsequent hints for making it are here. There may be a couple more hints a post or two later, too. It's really a very good recipe. It has just a touch of sweetness, just like restaurant bao, and it's pretty fluffy. I imagine yours would probably be fluffier than mine, too, since I suck at steaming! I used up the rest of my dough making a few more char siu bao and some chicken bao, but I have quite a bit of the fillings left. I'm going to combine my remaining chicken filling with my leftover hum sui gok filling and use it in my sticky rice. Then I'm going to make a bit more bao dough for the char siu filling--I was thinking of trying a recipe that uses a combination of yeast and baking powder. Has anyone tried that type of bao recipe before? Any comments on it? But then again, I like June's recipe so much...if it ain't broke, why fix it?

How much sugar would I have to add to the dough to make it a touch sweet, but not too sweet? My recipe uses 2cups gl. rice flour+7oz cold water, 3/4c wheat starch+7oz boiling water, 1/2 t salt and 4T lard. Would I have to cut down on any of the ingredients or add anything else if I add sugar? Could I just add white sugar, or does it have to be Chinese brown sugar? I have white sugar, brown sugar (light and dark), and palm sugar, and I have access to demerera and muscovado, so I could use any of those. I can't really add yam or sweet potatoes, I think, because Japanese sweet potatoes are so different. And my mother forgot to bring the sweet potato I had asked her to sneak into the country. And thanks for the kind comments about my hum sui gok...it almost makes me want to try again to improve on my first attempt!

I started making some char siu bao the other night (instead of marking papers). First the char siu--I couldn't get pork shoulder, so used pork belly. Mmmmm...I'm never using pork shoulder for this again! I used the recipe c. sapidus kindly pm'ed me. It was just as delicious this time as the first time I used it. (blurry pics--sorry!) Pile of char siu--I made about 500g. Very moist, it was! I used junehl's dough recipe again, but this time I made 1/2 the recipe (last time I used it, I made 1/4). I had a much harder time with it this time. It's quite tough--perhaps I let it rest for too long. But it was still tasty, and I didn't have any spots on my cooked bao this time. I was in such a hurry to eat, that I under-steamed these ones a bit. But they were still tasty! I really liked the sauce for the filling. I just used the leftover marinade, plus 2T of flour mixed with 4T of oil (I found a recipe on the internet like that). I loved it! But perhaps I'll use less oil next time. It's a bit greasy. Also, because I had trouble with the dough, I have a much higher dough to filling ratio than I like, but as a whole, these bao are flavour perfect! I also made chicken filling, but I only had time to make 8 bao before I really had to get back to marking, so I only made some char siu bao. I still have loads of dough (I hope it's not too tough to work with now) to fill, and a lot of char siu filling and chicken filling to use. Hopefully it will get done by the end of this weekend, and hopefully the dough will still be OK to use! ETA: I also made hum sui gok that night.

I hope y'all aren't too disappointed with my efforts, but here are the pictures! First, when I made the dough I had no idea what to expect. I mixed the glutinous rice flour with cold water, and the wheat starch with boiling water, then added lard and something else but I can't remember what. When it first came together, I was pretty worried. I didn't think it would ever become one mass. Plus I had to do all the mixing and kneading by hand, since I don't have a stand mixer. But I managed, and it looked OK (as far as I knew, since I didn't know what it was supposed to look like!). As for the filling, I thought it would be a wee bit saucier. And clearly, I didn't take the time to mince the shrimp into smaller pieces, nor did I take the time to break up the ground pork as it cooked. This would come back to haunt me later. Next, I quartered the dough, then rolled out the first quarter into a 14-inch rope. I cut it into 14 pieces, and rolled the first piece out. I rolled beautifully, but when I started to fill it, that was where things started to fall apart--literally. I didn't expect the dough to be so delicate, but my largish pieces of shrimp and pork didn't help any. They poked holes through the dough. This made me very afraid, because I remembered Dejah's warnings about them breaking apart and hot oil splashing around. So I ended up making 11 or 12 pieces from those 14 pieces, and then used the remaining pieces to patch up the holes in the ones I was able to make. Then came the frying. The recipe said to heat the oil to 325-350F. I used 170C, but for some reason, my oil kept wanting to climb higher--about 190C. I put the hum sui gok in, but the temperature didn't lower much, so I turned down the stove. The heat seemed to be quite low, but the temp. was 170-175C, which I figured was OK. But then the remaining hum sui gok just wouldn't brown. The dough cooked through, but remained pale. Also, some of my thin ones broke and caused quite a bit of oil to splatter. Luckily I used a splatter guard, because if I hadn't my apartment floor, walls, and kitchen counter would be covered in oil. This is one of my better-looking ones. Some of the ones I had patched up looked like they had tumours! The innards were sparse (couldn't use too much filling or the casing would break), and that first night, I thought my hum sui gok kind of sucked. I had definitely had better, but hey, it was my first try! My mother said the filling was good, but the casing wasn't very flavourful. The next day, I tried one cold. It wasn't crispy, of course, but it sure did taste better! So I helped myself to a few more... I ended up making fewer than the 48 the recipe claims to make, because I wanted to make my casing thicker to prevent breakage. I think I only got about 30 or 35 pieces out of it. I now have 20 left (I guess I decided I really liked them ), so I'll freeze them, then pan fry them to recrisp and hopefully brown them. I think I just might make these again, when I have a lot of time on my hands. I do like them a lot more now than when I first made them. I think next time, I'll make the filling the day before to give the flavours time to meld. Thanks for all the help and encouragement! (I did finish all my marking and my grades, so now I just have to finish making my char siu bao!)

Short but oh so sweet! What a wonderful holiday treat for us all! I know I really appreciate that you (A, B, and C!) sacrificed some of your quality time together to share it with all of us! And that final pic--what a great way to end! Beppo looks so content and loved--may we all be so lucky!

Katie, I judge you. But I judge you as my hero. Tonight I had nachos with a combination of pepper jack and cheddar cheese. Not as good as convenience store nachos, but it did the job.

I reuse oil, too, but you can only reuse it so many times before it goes bad (stale or otherwise). You can't reuse it forever. I prefer to recycle my milk cartons. By using the solidifying powder, I can still throw away my oil (neatly), and then recycle my milk cartons. That way I'm only throwing away one thing rather than two (and I buy my solidifying powder at the Y100 store, then recycle the carton it comes in). I'm Canadian, so I believe in recycling as much as possible.

It's very, very wrong. From Wiki (believe at your own risk) In Japan you can buy a kind of powder that you put into warm oil that causes the oil to solidify. I usually use that, then throw my solidified oil out in the trash. As for deep-frying, I, too, make my initial temperature about 20C higher than the temperature I want to fry at, so when I put my food in, the oil won't cool too much.

Coincidentally, I saw some information on this service recently. I think there was a pamphlet at the airport or something. When you need translation services, you call a number, and then the phone gets passed back and forth between you and the person you're communicating with, while a person on the other end interprets for you. At the time, I thought, "Who would want to use a service like this???" but now I can see the need. When I drop my mother off at the airport in January, I'll see if I can find the info again. It might be useful, though, if you were to also rent a cell phone while you're here, so you'll always have access to a phone. I'm sure the places you'll be would let you use their phones, but if they're very busy, they might be less enthusiastic about the idea. I think you'd be better off finding a translator where you are, and having the card made there. Then you can be as specific as you want to be. You could just have the person write or type it on a piece of paper--it doesn't even have to be a card. Then have several copies made and have them laminated, too.