Hiroyuki

Glad to hear that you guys in the Kanto area are OK. And we are glad we didn't feel the earthquake.

67 m2 = 721.2 sft (1 m2 = 10.764 sft) Edit to add: Our resort condo unit is even smaller, 568.3 sft. We are moving to a new house of about 40 tsubo (1423 sft) this year, which is in the design phase at present.

It's not your imagination. The thread I started has been merged into the one gus_tatory started.

Is this the oven you make your cornbread in?

Depending on who you ask, rice for nigiri should be as hot as or slighter hotter than hitohada. Hitohada (人肌), which literally means human skin, is generally considered about 35 to 40 C (95 to 104 F). Examples of webpages describing hitohada: http://www.sakebar.net/nomal/drinking.html http://www.outdoorjapan.com/columns/masumi-6.html One webpage says that you should enjoy the contrast between lukewarm rice and cold fish. Another says that lukewarm rice and a cold topping are mixed together in your mouth to bring out the flavor of the topping. People in Kansai (Western Japan), which includes Osaka, tend to prefer colder rice because Osaka is where oshi zushi originated and this type of sushi is served cold. As for texture, rice should not fall apart when you hold it, but it should when you put it in your mouth. This is contradictory. It takes ten years or more to master this artistic skill. But now, there are machines that can do this perfectly: http://sushi-master.com/jpn/waza/waza02.html

I understand from your previous posts that you are an avid coffee drinker and that you also like drinking water. My questions are: Do you discern any difference between the coffee made with the soft water in Japan and that made with the hard water in the United States? When you drink water, is it tap water, purified water, or bottled mineral water?

Is that it? Really? Or, you have something up your sleeve?

I provided a link to this webpage, shiso juice, somewhere else: http://www.nsknet.or.jp/~chrkaji/yasuko/recipe/098_e.html I found this webpage, which briefly describes how to pickle aka-jiso: http://www.maff.go.jp/soshiki/syokuhin/hey...altqa010713.htm 塩漬けは、塩水であく抜きをした後、塩を振りかけながら漬け込みます Translation: First, remove aku (harshness) with salt water, then sprinkle salt to pickle. I can't find a good webpage that describes a recipe for preserving aka-jiso. This webpage may be of some help: http://www.nsknet.or.jp/~chrkaji/yasuko/recipe/090_e.html Read under "Preparations of perilla (around the middle or last ten days of June)".

I didn't mix anything into the kanten. I wanted to serve it in individual purin cups or molds, but I don't have any, so I just put the entire bowl in cold water, and after the kanten set, I cut it into eight equal parts. Gyunyu kan goes well with any canned fruit, and I served it with canned pineapple. That was sweet enough for my son and me, but my daughter wanted to make it sweeter, so I poured the pineapple syrup in the can over hers. It still wasn't sweet enough for her, so I sprinkled some sugar on it. Sorry to hear about the present home economics. Gyunyu kan is the thing of the past?

Is this true?

You are talking about hanetsuki gyoza (literally gyoza with wings ) we talked about them for a bit in the gyoza thread starting with this post. ← Today, I have made hanetsuki gyoza for the first time. I looked for ways to create hane (wings) and found this: http://www.nhk.or.jp/hot/onair_old/20050307/20050307a.html (Japanese only) 1. Add a small amount of water to 2 teaspoons of kyoriki ko (bread flour) and mix well. 2. Add 100 ml of hot water and dissolve well. Put some oil in a pan, place gyoza, and pour the liquid over them. Put a lid on and cook for about 4 minutes until the hane (wing) are browned. Pour oil over and cook for another 30 seconds until the hane become crispy.

I forgot to talk about gokabo. It's a specialty of Kumagaya in Saitama prefecture. Today, my sister-in-law gave us this traditional confection. It's a favoriate of my mother's. http://www.infocreate.co.jp/hometown/kumagaya/dentoh-e.html http://www.sainokuni-kanko.jp/english/specialties/sp.html Gokabo is written as 五家宝. Even native Japanese may have difficulty associating gokabo with these kanji.

Koizumi did a good job this time.

I made fuki miso this evening. A close-up photo of a fukinoto (butterbur sprout) on my son's hand 26 fukinoto in total (counted by my son) Fukimiso This time, I removed aku (harshness) from fukinoto before making fuki miso. To do this, I just boiled the fukinoto in water for three minutes (without baking soda). Then I chopped them. I mixed 40 ml mirin, 3 tbsp sugar, and some miso (less than 100 g, I think) in a pan, heated, and added chopped fukinoto. I had expected that the fuki miso tasted less bitter, but I found it just as bitter as the one I make without aku-nuki (harshness removal). A webpage describing a recipe for fukimiso (Japanese only) http://konnyaku.web.infoseek.co.jp/tezukurifukimiso.htm The onigiri (rice balls) grilled with fuki miso look really delicious!

I made gyunyu kan today. Gyunyu means milk, and gyunyu kan is short for gyunyu kanten. Many Japanese of my age have fond memories of gyunyu kan because it was sometimes served for school lunch and many of us made gyunyu kan in a home economics class. Webpages related to gyunyu kan: http://aoyamaschool.com/english/cookingrecipe0407.html (English) http://www.aa.alpha-net.ne.jp/honeys/gyunyukan.htm http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~MiChiYu/gyunyukan.html (Japanese only) Tips for success: 1. Dissolve kanten completely by simmering and stirring for two minutes or so before adding sugar. 2. After dissolving sugar, add hot milk. (I heated milk in the microwave.) Don't add cold milk. The recipe in the second link above does not call for heating milk but says to add milk while stirring with a whisk. *** Ingredients of my version: 1 stick kanten 200 ml water 2 tbsp sugar 400 ml milk The pack of 2 kanten sticks was 198 yen.

Like torakris said, I know of sweet versions only, like this: http://www.suzumeodori.com/recommend/warabimoti.htm Basically, it is a Kansai (Western Japan) thing, and I am not very familiar with it. You can see a video of how to make a sweet version from here: http://www.manma-miya.jp/recipe/1108/1108.html Click the photo under "recipe" to start it. The ingredients are: 60 g warabi starch (or corn starch) 30 g sugar 2 cups water (i.e. 400 cc water) Mix warabi flour and sugar. Add water little by little. Put the pan on the stove and stir well until translucent. Keep simmering for some time.

My wife and I sometimes put cucumber and cheese sticks inside, like this: http://blog.goo.ne.jp/hoyoyo1203/e/b611fcd...9d0cd739f7bf38e http://www.qbb.co.jp/special/recipe/candy_4.html Chikuwa with cheese inside are available at any supermarket: http://www.takahama.co.jp/html/lineup03.html

Cultured tamogi take. Those of you who live in big cities may already be familiar with this particular mushroom, but this is the first time I have ever seen it at a supermarket here in Shiozawa. I made takikomi gohan with it. The mushroom's vivid yellow color was completely gone when the gohan was made. Photos of wild tamogitake: http://park16.wakwak.com/~fungi/ajiwai_kinoko/tamogitake.htm

Yamakurage. Yamakurage is a favorite of mine. I didn't know it was Chinese in origin. Thanks for the info.

We don't remove aku (harshness) from fukinoto (butterbur sprouts) before making fukinoto tempura. My wife doesn't remove aku before making fuki miso, but most recipes for fuki miso call for removing aku by boiling for some time with or without baking soda. I have never tasted any garden weed. Have you??

Ahhh...Yuzu-"ko"? Arigato Hiroyuki-san. ← Right, yuzu-ko. 粉 is pronounced ko (and kona in some cases), as in komugi ko (wheat flour) and pan ko (bread crumbs). BTW, I appreciate all the information you have provided on this thread, especially the price information!

ゆず粉 = Yuzu powder. 粉 means flour or powder. A good condiment to sprinkle on your udon.

I don't want to do anything to degrade my crispy karaage. I sometimes put some kanzuri on it just before I eat, though. The March 18th edition of Hanamaru Market featured karage and some karrage variations. http://www.tbs.co.jp/hanamaru/tokumaru/050318.html (Japanese only) I watched the show, and reconfirmed a tip for making crispy araage: using one part katakuriko (potato starch) and one part flour for coating.

Taishoken at Nakano is closed every Wednesday. Open from 10:30 to 21:00 3-minute walk from Nakano Station on JR Chuo Line. Hope you have a pleasant journey.

There are many other izakaya around Gifu Station, but I can't find any other Wafu (Japanese) izakaya that explicitly states that they serve ayu dishes. So, I think that if you want to be on the safe side, Rakuichi Rakuza is the place to go. http://www.16dc.co.jp/kameiten/back/200410/kameiten.shtml Scroll down and view the third left photo. You can see the sign of the izakaya, the characters 楽市楽座 on the red background. The izakaya is closed only in the year change period.