Hiroyuki

You mean satsuma imo (さつまいも, 薩摩芋)?

Have you ever started a topic, and then forgotten that you started it? Oops I wonder if it has something to do with preferred processing--Japanese prefer less processing? A long time ago, I was told that jouhakutou is less processed than NA-style granulated sugar. I've never been able to confirm or refute that statement, though. I found this article on sugar in Japan. I don't know if it has been posted elsewhere, but it was an interesting read. And what about Pearl Sugar. Is it commonly used or easily available in Japan? I've never seen it, but I've never really looked, either. ← Shirozatou has invert sugar added to it to prevent crystallization, thereby having its unique 'wet' texture. I don't think it is less processed than granulated sugar. As for Pearl Sugar, 1,312 yen for a 1-kg (2.2 lb.) bag? Oh, just forget it. http://www.narizuka.co.jp/shopping/sugar.html P.S. Thanks for the link. Detailed description of sugar in Japan!

Looks yummy. But, roasting? Did you roast the chestnuts? ← I did roast them a little bit so I would be able to peel them... was that wrong? ← The common practice in Japan is to soften the shells either by soaking the chestnuts in hot water for a few hours or by boiling them in water for a few minutes. When making this kuri okowa, I boiled the chestnuts in water for about three minutes and let them cool for a few hours before peeling them with my 'kurikuribouzu'.

Looks yummy. But, roasting? Did you roast the chestnuts?

Sorry for not responding sooner. It is perfectly all right to call it 'ume no onigiri', but in written Japanese, there can be all sorts of possibilities, such as: umeboshi no onigiri (or omusubi) umeboshi onigiri (or omusubi) umeboshi nigiri (or musubi) ume no onigiri (or omusubi) ume onigiri (or omusubi) ume nigiri (or musubi) Of the possibilities listed above, 'ume onigiri' seems to be the most popular form. In everyday conversation, we often refer to it simply as 'ume'.

Oh, a silly mistake! Mizuame!

You mean mentsuyu めんつゆ, right? Anyway, I must say you are a quick learner!

No useful information from me, either, except that one person says here that her favorite American brand of rice is Akita Otome, and one person says here that it tasted good, another says it's not the greatest, and still another says it wasn't good. So, will you be the one to try it and report on it here?

← Thanks for the information, Jason. I confirmed that 90% of mizumake is made from corn starch in Japan. So, will you be interested in supplying this product to your fellow Americans?

Great thread. I've wanted to start a thread like this ever since I learned from torakris that there is no kurazatou in the United States. I have a question about shirozatou 白砂糖 (also known as jouhakutou 上白糖). It's the most popular type of sugar in Japan. I googled to find that this type of sugar is used in Japan and some parts of Asia only. The most popular type in the rest of the world is granulated sugar. I tried to find an answer why it is so, but failed. Any thoughts?

Yesterday, I received a detailed reply from Mr. Saito, who is in charge of quality assurance at the Pichit Division, Showa Denko Plastic Products Co., Ltd. (He says that the English name for Pichitto Roll is Pichit Sheet.) Here is a summary of his reply: We do not sell Pichit Sheet ® in the United States because it does not conform to FDA standards. In Japan, Pichit Sheet is a product conforming to the Food Sanitation Law, but in the United States, the surface material, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) film, is specified as a material that cannot be in direct contact with raw meat or raw fish, so that the product cannot be approved unless we submit very expensive animal experiment data. It has been a longstanding issue of our company to develop FDA-approved Pichit Sheet. When we successfully develop it, we would like to announce it in the United States. The surface of Pichit Sheet is made of semipermiable polyvinyl alcohol film, which contains edible sugar. It also contains a seaweed extract, sodium polyarginate. This substance is used to enhance the viscosity of mizuame (translator's note: edible sugar?) and make it uniform. The product absorbs water by osmosis. Thus, the generic name for this product is osmotic dehydration sheet. While Gore-Tex allows water vapor to pass but not liquid water, a semipermiable film allows water to pass but not matters dissolved in water (except small-molecule odor components). For chef use, we have three roll types, which provide different dehydration capacities. The high capacity type is for use in making dried and smoked foods, raw ham, and so on, and comes in an orange box of 18 sheets. The regular, all-round type comes in a green box of 32 sheets. It is for freezing, thawing, preparations for cooking, and so on, and can also be used to make dried foods if used for a long time. The low capacity type is for use in storing sashimi, for example, and comes in a blue box of 30 sheets. For general home use, we have only the regular type. The regular size comes in a red box of 5 sheets, and the half size comes in a blue box of 6 sheets.

In Japan, plain wood (shiraki) gives the impression of cleanliness and sacredness. Even today, celebratory chopsticks (iwaibashi) like these are often used at New Year's holidays. They are for one time use only, just like waribashi. The point is, guests at a house and customers at a restaurant are supposed to be given plain wood waribashi to honor them as such (no matter how cheap they may appear to you).

So, what was this thing after all? Could it be konnyaku??

I happened to have a digital camera with me when I went shopping today, so I took photos of different types of sujiko. Here's a photo of matured sujiko: The label says nama sake sujiko (raw salmon sujiko). You need to get matured sujiko like this to make ikura. These particular packs come with a packet of liquid for overnight pickling. And a photo of premature sujiko: The label simply says sujiko.

Shokumi (食味, palatability?, eating quality?) of a specific variety of rice produced in a specific location is determined through sensory evaluation by Japan Grain Inspection Association (Japanese only). A panel (group of assessors) determines the shokumi according to these factors: appearance, aroma, flavor, stickiness, and hardness. Shokumi can also be determined with a shokumi kei (shokumi measuring instrument) or a texturometer. Generally, rice is considered good if it is white, shiny, aromatic, sweet (becomes sweet when you chew it), sticky, and resilient.

No reply from the manufacturer up to now. Some more info about the product: A low-absorption type is also available: http://image.www.rakuten.co.jp/nandemoya/img10551520544.jpeg There are two types for home use, large and small: http://www.pichit.info/shop/index.cgi Pichitto roll is basically mizuame (malt syrup?) and seaweed components sandwiched by sheets of special film. from here http://www.pichit.info/qa/qa.html#q2

I found some information about Cake Margarine here (Japanese only): http://faq.meinyu.co.jp/EokpControl;jsessi...49&event=FE0006 Cake Margarine (a product of Meiji Dairies Corporation) is good for making cakes and cookies, and it's unsalted. I can't find any useful information about Hotel Margarine http://www.bidders.co.jp/dap/sv/nor1?id=52806231&p=y#body except that it is for business use and tastes good. I can't tell whether it is salted or not, but I guess it is.

One more thing: When buying rice, you must consider two factors: variety and place of production. For example, Koshihikari rice produced in the Uonuma district in Niigata prefecture is considered Japan's best Koshihikari rice and is very expensive, while Koshihikari rice produced in Chiba prefecture in the Kanto Plain is much less expensive. And, rice produced in the Shiozawa area of the Uonuma district is the very best and is really expensive!

Onigiri molds? But it's such a letdown! Onigiri should be made by hand.

Time flies, and it's already one month since we moved to our new house. I still can't say I'm comfortable in our new kitchen. There is some more room for improvement, and I sometimes miss the super mini kitchen in our resort condo, where everything was just zero to two steps away. It really was an efficient kitchen. Today, I'd like to talk a little bit more about our new kitchen. First, the temperature sensor attached to one of the three burners: Below the burner is a panel on which you can select from among the temperature settings (one for water boiling and three for tempura making): All middle and upper cupboard doors are equipped with a quake-proof latch The built-in dishwasher has a mist generator for easy removal of food stuck on the plate: You can see the word ミスト (mist) in Japanese. It takes a little getting used to before you can put dishes, plates, and other tableware in place.

I posted a photo of a Koshiibuki rice bag here. Unfortunately, Koshiibuki seems hard to come by outside of Niigata. Anyway, it's as good as and less expensive than Koshihikari.

Kirara 397 is much loved by the restraunt industry, especially gyudon (beef bowl) chains such as Yoshinoya. http://image.www.rakuten.co.jp/manryo/img10352720502.jpeg

It's a product of Showa Denko http://www.sdk.co.jp/index_e.htm I learned from a webpage of http://www.sdk.co.jp/contents/sitemap/index.htm (Japanese only) that they sell Pichitto Roll in Japan only "at this point in time". (I don't know when this webpage was created.) I sent an inquiry to this company, asking whether this product is available overseas.

I'm thinking about it pretty seriously -- one of the main reasons I haven't already jumped at it is because so many of the recipes out there for mochi-related sweets (daifuku, dango, etc.) call for the mochiko method of making instead of the pounded-rice method of making. Is that just because it's easier to find mochiko, and would mochi from a machine be better for making things like dango and daifuku? Or does the texture need to be more like mochiko when making desserts, and the mochi pounder's specifically for plain-rice-no-sugar-no-fillings, New Years-type mochi? My original impression was that the mochiko method would be better for daifuku and the pounding method would be better for dango, because dango would need to be a little stiffer in order to survive skewering, but I just got done looking at a page on the Japanese-language Tsuji Institute site that has them making dango from mochiko, and I figure they're pretty authoritative, so I'm still scratching my head... ← If you are so serious about the texture, why not make mochi from mochi rice, using a mochi making machine, and mochi sweets from mochiko, like we usually do in Japan? But think about this: You can make decent daifuku from kiri mochi, not from mochiko or shiratamako (finer than mochiko), as my wife once proved by following a recipe (I posted another recipe here), and I once made mitarashi dango for my children from leftover cooked rice, not from joshinko (regular rice flour), which was different in texture from regular mitarashi dango, but was not bad at all. As for dango, recipes differ greatly: Some recipes for mitarashi dango call for joshinko only, and some call for both mochiko and joshinko. As its name suggests, shiratama dango calls for shiratamako. *** I forgot to include a link to this webpage, which describes how to make mochi from mochiko. It's in Japanese, but I assume you can read Japanese. Am I right?

On Nov. 3, my family went to Shiozawa Sangyo Matsuri (Industrial Fair), which is held every year on this day (Bunka no Hi or Culture Day) on the premises of Imaizumi Musem (Japanese only). My son and daughter participated in the wagashi making workshop, offered free of charge, as I described here. Later, we went to an indoor tea ceremony. Wagashi served there: Matcha bowl served before me: Different bowls served before my son, daughter, and wife: The matcha was very flavorful, not bitter at all.