Hiroyuki

That type of sweet potato dessert is quite common all across Japan. ← I'm not sanrensho , and I must say that I'm not very familiar with that type. I mean, I know of it, but I haven't had it before. I can say that using skin as a container is not at all a novel idea; you can see the skins of persimmons, orange and other citrus fruits, kabocha, and other vegetables as containers. I don't think Marugoto sweet potato is a specialty of Otaru. It's only that Hokkaido is famous for its dairy products. Of course, you can make marugoto sweet potato yourself. A recipe is here. http://cookpad.com/kabotin/recipe/280651/ (Sorry, Japanese only)

I'm not sure. Do any of the photos in the following links look similar? Marugoto (= whole) sweet potatoes (second and third photos) http://shop.gnavi.co.jp/Mall2/305/101816.html Kawa tsuki (= skin on) sweet potato http://www.rakuten.co.jp/kitanoyorimichi/881157/881161/ ← Yes!!!!! I just took a picture of mine but the pciture u have is the one i am referring to. I went back to the shop, it jsut a Hokkaido promotion week...and the chef said it is called Marugoto. Can you enlighten me more on both the MArugoto and the Kawatsuki? The marugoto is such a comforting dessert, i love it. Thank you for the www link. ← Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with either, but I think I found the right one: http://yaplog.jp/haruhime-d/archive/611 The product name is Otaru no Marugoto Potato. It does look familiar to you, doesn't it? I also found the website of the manufacturer: http://www.umaibeya.com/sweethouse/sy_hyo.html

I'm not sure. Do any of the photos in the following links look similar? Marugoto (= whole) sweet potatoes (second and third photos) http://shop.gnavi.co.jp/Mall2/305/101816.html Kawa tsuki (= skin on) sweet potato http://www.rakuten.co.jp/kitanoyorimichi/881157/881161/

Did you check out post this post of mine here? I browsed through some yakisoba sauce recipes, and found they were mostly combinations of any of Worcester sauce, chuunou (medium dense) sauce, tonkatsu sauce, and oyster sauce. Another type of yakisoba that has become increasinly popular these days is shio (= salt) yakisoba, which is usually simply seasoned with Chinese chicken broth and salt. Here is an example (sorry, Japanese only). I think tonkatsu sauces are generally spicy, while okonomiyaki and takoyaki sauces are rather sweet, and I think that yakisoba sauces are more like Worcester, chuunou, and tonkatsu sauces than okonomiyaki and takoyaki sauces.

They're a lot more expensive if you buy them separately, so it's a good buy for what it is. I like tirol chocolates a lot. The best ones are almond, matcha, and kinoko. The vanilla shio (shio vanilla?) is not bad, but a bit sweet, and my coworker loves the ume one (I think it's too sweet). I kind of like the new cheese one. I thought it would be like cheesecake, but it's really more like a savoury cheese flavour. It's a bit of a surprise given the chocolate is sweet, but I quite liked it. ← The thing is, as a Kanto man, I can never be nostalgic for Tirol Choco. In my childhood, Rice Choco was popular in Kanto, and I never had Tirol Choco then.

My daugher attended a cooking class yesterday and made this: Steamed cake with bits of banana in it. I must say I'm a great fan of this and other simple yet tasty home-made cakes, especially if they are made by my daughter!

I wasn't familiar with Tirol Choco until someone mentioned it somewhere on the Japan Forum. I bought this (10 pieces all connected together) for the very first time at a 100-yen shop. 10 small pieces for 100 yen... I don't think it's a good buy.

I made soup from leftover grilled akauo (don't know the English name). (Skin and bones, but there was some flesh left on them) The salt, soy sauce, and water ratio is 1:3:160. This ratio is for sumashi jiru (clear soup) from the book I mentioned upthread. The book calls for light soy sauce, not dark, but I used dark. Thus, I used: 1600 ml water 30 ml (2 tbsp) soy sauce 10 ml (2 tsp) salt I added daikon, carrot, and enoki. I used kombu for dashi, but no one noticed there was kombu dashi in the soup. Also, my son said he wanted to have miso soup, and added some miso in his soup.

As for your question, I'm sure Helen has some nice recipes. I wonder where she is... About your umeboshi drink, I must say I don't want to use umeboshi in a drink because they are not only sour but salty! I would use ume pickled in shochu and sugar instead. (Made by my mother)

← Not do the same, but do a similar thing, like combining finely chopped umeboshi, mirin, instant dashi, and katsuobushi together.

Now it's obvious that you are talking about another type of umesu (or umezu). When I first read your thread, I thought you were talking about the byproduct of umeboshi making. Here is one recipe from here 1 kg ume 500 g brown sugar 900 ml x 2 (= 1800 ml) rice vinegar Put them all in a glass container for one month. and other from here 1 kg green ume 1.8 L vinegar 0.8 to 1 kg rock sugar (koori zao) ← uh oh. all I have is umeboshi, not regular unpickled plums. I have no idea where to get plums...all we have here are american plums which I am sure aren't the same thing. However I bet I can get some when I go to maryland when I go to a korean store? hiroyuki, could you possibly post a link to what japanese plums would look like? thank you very much ← OK, take a look: http://www.pickled-ume.com/english/index.html Scroll down and see the second photo on the right. A description of ume http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ume

It must be the brand. The water that is poured just when the water almost boils over is called sashi mizu or bikkuri mizu (lit. surprise water) in Japanese. My mother always added this water, and I often wondered why this was necessary. I learned later that sashi mizu is a remnant of the past, when it was difficult to control the heat because the main heat source was firewood. I don't put sashi mizu, just lower the heat, and boil for 4-5 min. as indicated on the soba pack.

Now it's obvious that you are talking about another type of umesu (or umezu). When I first read your thread, I thought you were talking about the byproduct of umeboshi making. Here is one recipe from here 1 kg ume 500 g brown sugar 900 ml x 2 (= 1800 ml) rice vinegar Put them all in a glass container for one month. and other from here 1 kg green ume 1.8 L vinegar 0.8 to 1 kg rock sugar (koori zao)

The population of Tokyo is actually about 12 million. The population of i-tto san-ken (i.e., Tokyo and three prefectures, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba) is over 34 million. Isn't it amazing that the Kanto region accounts for one-thirds of the total population of Japan?

Marinade for chicken karaage: Soy sauce:mirin:sake = 1:1:1 My recipe: 500 g chicken breasts 30 ml (2 tbsp) soy sauce 30 ml mirin 30 ml sake Ginger juice Garlic (optional) Coating: 1:1 mixture of katakuriko (potato starch) and hakurikiko (weak flour) I like to heat the marinade in a frying pan and use it as a dipping sauce for the chicken karaage. Coincidentally, the cookbook I mentioned upthread also calls for a 1:1:1 mixture, but the amounts are much smaller: 10 ml each for 500 g chicken.

According to thiswebpage, its gelatin.

I agree with emilyr. From my experience in preparing shrimp before tempura'ing, I can say that wild ones require considerable de-veining while farm raised ones require much less.

In Japan, we have this so-called "kakurega" (hideout) category of restaurants, izakaya, inns, and so on. Also note that authentic Japanese restaurants prefer subdued exteriors. Here are results of an image google search of kakurega izakaya in Japanese. And results of a search of kakurega restaurant.

I don't have a recipe for that. Typical ingredients include ham, onions, and green peppers. (You can add corn if your like. ) I make mine with canned tuna (I'm a fan of both fresh and canned tuna), onions, and mixed vegetables (corn, green beans, and carrot cubes). Fry all ingredients in oil until done. Boil spaghetti until soft (not al dente! ). Add the spaghetti and mix well. Then, finally, add as much ketchup as you want. (I tend to add a lot of it.) This results in a dish like this: http://www.eatsmart.jp/do/search/detail/Se...e/9002010000006 Enjoy! ← I made Napolitan last Sunday. I just had to because the popular TV drama, Kuitan 2, ended the previous day. Ending theme song of Kuitan: Itoshi no Napolitan You'll love it! Napolitan (4 servings) 400 g spaghetti 1/2 onion 3 green peppers ("peeman" in Japanese) 1/3 carrot 1 pack vienna sausage 1 tube (500 g) ketchup (the more the better ) When making Napolitan and any other Japanese spaghetti dish, you can forget al dente.

Food samples may be artistic, but I have a low opinion of them. I mean, they are very often much better than the originals. I much prefer photos because they usually justify the originals.

Those items that you refer to as plastic replicas are called shokuhin sanpuru (food samples) in Japanese. You can get numerous sites by googling 食品サンプル (= shokuhin sanpuru). Unfortunately, however, you can get hardly any good sites by googling "food sample". Here I post two (which are not very useful): http://www.kankou-gifu.jp/en/experience/food.html http://www.nagao-sample.co.jp/english/english.htm Just in case you are interested in how those samples are made, here is a site that shows it. Click one of the PLAY buttons on the right. http://sc-smn.jst.go.jp/8/bangumi.asp?i_se...renban_code=044 Warning: JAPANESE ONLY!

I've never been to a Japanese sushi bar or any other type of Japanese restaurant in the United States, but I think it's always a good tactic to say those magic phrases to Japanese-speaking chefs and servers, "Itadakimasu" before having a meal, and "Gochisousama deshita" after having a meal.

My thinned melons look like this today. It seems that fermentation is not yet complete, and the melons are quite salty. It's not the right time of the year to start a sagohachi bed because the room temprature is too high for the fermentation and the temperature inside the fridge is too low.

Thanks again, GlorifiedRice. I must say I am impressed! Much better that I imagined, except the fresh foods section, and more spacious than the Japanese counterpart.

Kuro zato (brown sugar), mozuku seaweed (by seaweed, you mean mozuku seaweed?), and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinsuko http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sata_andagi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekwasha