shinju

I especially like the second one - very much like a any _regular_ chef in Japan (no TV chef) showing you how to cook. Very very impressive. Please post any others as you find them here. ■

Hiroyuki, this is really awesome! Thank you so much for posting these helpful sites. I am so impressed!

Chuka Tare Serves 4 as Main Dish. This is a terrific sauce for steamed chicken breasts, thinly sliced pork, Chinese cold egg noodles, and especially make ham slices go "wowie"! Use this as a topping for ham slices. It is best to top ham slices no more than 1 hour before serving. 6 T soy sauce 6 T rice vinegar 1 tsp tohbandjan 2 garlic cloves, minced 1-1/2 tsp ginger, minced 1 green onion, minced 2 tsp sesame oil Combine all ingredients at least 2-3 hours before serving. This sauce keeps well for at least 1 week in refrigerator. Keywords: Easy, Sauce, Japanese ( RG1483 )

Hiroyuki - wonderful pictures of soba making. How neat to have kids make soba like this! I've never heard of hegi soba and now can't wait to try it. Not sure exactly what funori is, but wonder if I can substitute nori wetted down with water? Maybe worth a try? Initially I started making udon after hearing my mother describe how my grandmother used to make udon - walking on it to soften and I was intrigued - much like making wine. After udon, other types of pasta, and finally soba. By far, soba is the hardest to make, but also the most rewarding because of the taste. Freshly made soba is truly wonderful tasting.

Helen is right. Kinugoshi doufu is not _drained_ at all. I make tofu often (momen), and have tried making kinugoshi 4 times so far and failed miserably. Not sure why, but it does not set. If anyone successful in making kinugoshi doufu, please, oh please share your experience. I love kinugoshi doufu and got through a container every two days.

I know it's not the same, but I dry matsutake in season using my oven set at the lowest temperature. I can use these for flavoring rice and soup dishes.

We are also considering going too, but depends on how much time we have. This will be our first time my lil brother and I will be together again in Japan and he is eager to check out all the robotics there. Since it will still be several more months before our trip, it will be interesting to hear from those who went. I also checked out the restaurants immediately after reading the opening informtion.

torakris: i tried to make a few times - tastes ok, but looks like UDON my first experience with soba making was in tottori. there is a soba making centre attached to a soba restaurant. everyone makes their own zaru soba. these lovely little obachans who are total pros help you through it. quite a lot of fun. i highly recommend it! thanks for finding the tacos soba pic !! ← I also make soba sometimes and it's wonderful tasting. I attended a cooking demonsration in San Francisco 5 years ago by a soba master from Japan. After making the first batch, he asked for a volunteer to come up. I frantically waved my hand and I was the lucky one. It was a great experience for me as I learned how to make soba properly. He was surprised that my attempt at working with the dough and rolling (a different motion requierd from regular pasta though) was pretty good for a beginner. I explained to him then that I was used to making homemade pasta and udon. The cutting part is still very hard for me though. It never comes out evenly although my husband made me a device (a wooden guide) for cutting soba and udon.

"I also love to use my donabe for making fondue, but that isn't exactly Japanese food, is it.....?" It may be if you dip grilled mochi into cheese!

Rona, thank you so much for this detailed information. This is the most information I ever read anywhere and sounds so interesting. You are living my dream! I will defintely check out their school in June. I may even drag my 22 YO nephew who will be traveling with us since he is becoming quite interested in cooking himself. Their cost sounds reasonable especially since they provide all the ingredients. I worked for a while as a chef assistant in my free time at our local "gourmet store" cooking school and they normally charged anywhere between $65-$150 per night depending on who the chef/instructor was leading the course. Although I enjoy baking, my efforts have been hit or miss. I think I do better with breads than desserts. I'm usually in awe by all the beautiful presentations found at Japanese bakeries in general. It's so kind of you to offer your place. I really appreciate this. It will still be 2 years away before I can do all those things I always wanted to do but couldn't for various reasons. I really enjoy all the pictures you have up. They look wonderful! Thank you again.

Oh Rona, I'm so glad you are taking this class. I'm going to throw a bunch of questions at you. Which class are you taking; do you enjoy it; cons and pro; how often do you go; how are the instructors? Several years ago I was seriously considering enrolling into Tsuji at some point after I quit working and looked into their program. It's not cheap, but sounded very interesting. Besides Tsuji, I have read about the school you are attending and wondered how it was. Their cakes look very nice and I need help in presentation aspect of cakes for sure.

I own several of her books, and her book called "Tare no Hon" is very good and I do use it for inspiration often. Her "Sosu no Hon" is not as good though. I do like that fact that she enjoys using some non-Japanese ingredients to come up with new ideas (I also enjoy doing that too). However, her rendition on Western style food seems very basic and not inspiring at all. I think my favorite now is Hisama Hirano - very easy to follow his recipes.

Thank you for the info. I download the freeware and although not all kanji graphics show up properly on my English Windows, I think I can figure this one out by trial and error. Torakris - do you know if people in Japan use recipe software much for organizing recipes? I get the feeling it's not as widely used.

Robyn - I'll report back. It sounds like fun times.

Thanks for the link Torakris. I've never heard of the term, but it is the style I'm referring to. I don't use kakuriko/potato flour. flour, and water, just flour and water. The same method of cooking though. I'm getting hungry - we won't be eating for another 3 hours. But, we are having yakiniku!

Does anyone here use or perhaps recommend Japanese language recipe software that we can add our own recipes? For a while I was able to add recipes to English language recipe software, but since upgrading Windows it garbles. Thanks again!

Smallworld - your okayu looks wonderful. Made me hungry just looking at it and I just finished my dinner only 30 minutes ago. Is that takuwan to the left or something else? If it is takuwan, your family must like it very much as it looks quite a bit for a single portion.

I tend to like Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya in Nihonbashi, or the FoodShow at Tokyu Shibuya; others to consider include Takashimaya Times Square or Isetan in Shinjuku, Takashimaya in Yokohama, the Ginza big three (Matsuzakaya, Mitsukoshi and Matsuya), etc. These are great recommendations - thank you. Has anyone seen or use the method of of toromi instead of plain water? I like the look of gyoza with toromi (lacy) and it seems to make the appearance very crunchy looking on the outide.

Thanks for all these recommendations - I printed it out (my Dad will be happy). There seems to be several to choose from and I will definitely take him to the Gyoza Stadium. He will get a kick out of it. Yes, some ramen places are pretty good with gyozas but hard to find those that make their own skin. I like to try some mochi mochi and kari kari outside type with juices spilling out when you bite into it. The place in Bay Area did have that look (sorta), but it wasn't browned enough and totally lacked the flavor. We have tried Taishoken for their gyoza and it's good. BTW, it's darn hard to make excellent tasting gyoza. It needs combination of many factors.

My Dad really loves Japanese style gyoza and we'll be in Tokyo this June. I really want to take him to a place that serves tasty gyoza. Any Recommendations? There was a Docchi Show sometime back regarding gyoza and I lost the list of resturants they visited. Recently I took him to a restaurant here in Bay Area that was recommended by bay area restaurant foodgroup. It was a Chinese restaurant that specialized in pot stickers and it was nothing like the Japanese style. We really did not care for it at all. It was very meaty but not juicy or flavorful. The skin was very good though as it was made there.

(I've always thought you are a man!) Perhaps in my next life. BTW, thanks for the link. I will give it a try perhaps this summer.

Has anyone ever made shiso juice from red shiso? I purchased a bottled shiso juice when I was there and liked it very much.

We also make mochi at our Buddhist Church and regarding your question as to why kinako mochi got sweaty - did you use _ample_ cornstarch when shaping mochi? After shaping with cornstarch then add kinako. Fresh mochi absorbs quite a bit of cornstarch, but do not taste like cornstarch.

wattacetti - I purchased 5 different Shun Kershaw knives from ebay.

Yes, repeating words in Japanese is common. My first language is Japanese, but now I don't have much occasion to speak Japanese in my own environment. However, when encountering certain things, I still say such things as: Samui samui instead of cold cold. It would be very awkward for me to say cold cold or hot hot, but very natural for me to say atsu atsu.