Hiroyuki

Some people do, while others don't. Anyway, it's edible.

It is not food-related, but let me provide a link to the theme song (Tada Arigatou) of this TV drama, because it's such a great song!

Today, I got a box of 11 nectarines for 680 yen. They are rated "B" and are cheaper than immaculate ones. I don't care if they are flawless or not as long as they are as good.

Rinnai, Paloma, Noritz, etc. I guess you can get cheap ones for 20,000 yen or less. Expensive ones can be 60,000-80,000 yen or even higher. Example

Going back to the initial question, I think the answer is relatively simple. The Japanese are (or at least were) less familiar with whisky than with sake, and probably find it less off-putting to dilute it with water. On the other hand, many Japanese would feel it rather (or very) offensive to dilute sake with water or use it as a base for a cocktail. You can do creative and innovative things to something you are not familiar with, like making weird spicy sushi rolls, and the Japanese can put mayo and corn on their pizzas.

Let me give you some clarifications. Stirring 13 1/2 times before adding water is definitely Suntory's style. As I suggested previously, this step is required to chill the whisky and the glass well and offset the temperature rise that occurs when you add water. Wonky or not, this way of making mizuwari is from Suntory, a leading whisky manufacturer in Japan.

I'm not the one who wrote the procedure. I just translated it. Why not follow the procedure and test it for yourself?

Suntry provides this nice procedure for making mizuwari on their website: http://www.suntory.co.jp/whisky/museum/ent...enge/water.html (Sorry, Japanese only) 1. Put plenty of ice. 2. Pour an appropriate amount of whisky (about 30 to 45 ml). 3. Stir 13 and a half times without adding water. 4. Add some ice. 5. Pour 2 to 2.5 times as much natural water as whisky, and stir gently about 3 times. So, why stir well before adding water? The site says that mixing water to whiskey generates dilution heat, causing it to rise to about 3 C in temperature. By cooking the glass and the whisky well enough, you can make mizuwari where the whisky is hard to dilute, keeping the balance of flavors.

You mean 'mincer' ミンサー or something like that? http://www.pro-douguya.com/ar-fu-dk0580.html http://www.ne.jp/asahi/fukui/knyco/foodpro/chopper.html

I checked the ingredient list of Kewpie mayo. It includes: Vegetable fat and oil (including soy beans)

Here is a link to the entry about this fish in the sushi shop's Okamisan's blog.

Thanks for your reply and the link, sanrensho. The problem is whether you can get chuunou sauce outside Japan.

Have you checked out this thread? I just can't think of an authentic recipe. I prefer very substancial yakisoba with lots of various vegetables to supermarket an street food versions with only a few strands of cabbage!

The idea is that the starch in the rice fills the pores of the donabe.

The Yamato area (former Yamato town) of Minami Uonuma city is famous for its watermelon: Yairo Suika. In the area, there is a field called Yairo Hara (8-Color Field), which is ideal for watermelon cultivation. My wife had craved for watermelons for days, but the local supermarket that I frequent had already stopped selling them. Today, I asked the sushi chef and his wife where I could get watermelons (their sushi shop is in the Yamato area). The chef said that farmers stopped shipping them on August 18, and his wife told me of the supermarket that carried three of them the day before yesterday. I went to that supermarket, and luckily, I found seven or eight of them sold there. I bought one big one for 780 yen and two small ones for 480 yen. Correction: My wife said the correct pronunciation of the place name is Yairo Ppara, not Yairo Hara.

I went to the sushi shop for lunch today. I had a nigiri set. The main reason why I had to go there today was that I absolutely had to have this special fish. This is not sakura masu (cherry salmon). In fact, you have never had it before because it has recently been developed here in Niigata. It's a cross between ame masu (white-spotted char) (male) and niji masu (rainbow trout) (female), and it's named Uonuma Miyuki Masu. You can see some photos of the fish here. The flesh is firmer than that of sakura masu, says the chef. The fish is going to be a great specialty of the Uonuma region of Niigata prefecture. I can't wait to have more of it! Edited to add a photo: Uonuma Miyuki Masu, wrapped in plastic wrap, in the display case. Uonuma is the name of the snowy district here in Niigata, Miyuki is Beautiful Snow, and Masu is trout.

Any donabe is prone to leaking because it is porous. I didn't know of the soaking method. A common practice is to put some cooked rice (say, a rice bowl of cooked rice), add water, keep simmering for hours, and leave the nabe overnight to fill the gaps.

Images of Iga donabe Unfortunately, I don't have a donabe. I wish I could get one, but my family is not a nabe-liking one. I use a big, flat-bottom, metal pot, which serves the purpose fine.

I previously posted a recipe here. You can also see a photo of the mayo I made upthread (post #51), together with the blender (Milser) that I used. The manufacturer of Kewpie mayonnaise says that they use a special vinegar brewed from apple juice and malt, suggesting that this is the secret of the flavor of their mayo, but I know, like anyone else, that the secret of the flavor lies in "seasonings (amino acids)", in other words, MSG.

I did some googling and found that moromi miso is also called hishio miso and name miso. I don't think moromi miso is quite sweet. It may be slightly sweet (not all moromi miso are the same), and is less salty than regular miso.

Morokyuu もろきゅう? It's moromi miso plus kyuuri (cucumber). Thus, moro-kyuu. Images of moromi miso. I simply have cucumbers with regular red miso, not moromi miso.

The left one is a cheese tsukimi burger, while the right one is a plain tsukimi burger. You can tell the difference from the pictures.

Not so significantly different in looks from a peach, as you can easily see from the photos, but the flesh is firmer and is sweet and sour. It's more like a nectarine than a peach.

The other day, I found an intriguing fruit sold at the supermarket, and I just had to buy one pack of two for 380 yen. The fruit is called Wassa (sp?), ワッサー in Japanese, and is natural crossbreed of a pear and a nectarine. The fruit was good enough, but I prefer nectarines.

Excellent name. It seemed odd, even to me. I definitely won't be doing that in the future! Although I have been having a hard time perfecting my fish-side-down swipe through the shoyu. It's quite a trick for me. ← I personally don't do this "oihagi" thing at a traditional sushi shop or conveyor sushi restaurant, but at a conveyor sushi restaurant, I wouldn't mind if I saw someone do this because at such a restaurant, the topping is simply placed on the vinegared rice, which is usually shaped with a machine. No manual, artistic handling by a sushi chef is involved there.