Hiroyuki

Do you think you can find jinko in your area? It's hard to come by even in Japan (unless you live in and around Akashi, of course). I found a recipe for making jinko from wheat flour: http://www.tohtani.com/akashiyaki.jinko.htm - Making jinko Ingredients: 30 g wheat flour 1 tbsp water Small amount of coarse salt 300 cc dashi Add water and salt to flour, knead well, let it sit for one hour at room temperature. In a bowl with dashi in it, rub the dough for 15 minutes (or use a whisk to shorten the time). About 10 g of rubbery chunk remains. Remove it. Strain the dashi. Add 20 g wheat flour and 1 egg to the dashi, then you can make akashiyaki. You can also eat the remaining chunk (gluten), called fu in Japanese. I have no intention to follow such a time-consuming recipe, and how about you?

That should really be an adventure in eating! I don't think that all surimi are produced the way you mentioned, but I think that the type of cheap fish meat sausage that I frequently buy is probably produced in a similar way.

I searched for a good photo of deep-fried chikuwa, and I found this (sorry, Japanese only). The batter is merely normal tempura batter plus ao-nori (green powder in one of the photos). You can eat deep-fried chikuwa without any sauce, with ten tsuyu (dipping sauce for tempura), with soy sauce, etc., etc. But I've never had it with a gyoza sauce (soy sauce + vinegar + raayu (piquant sesame seed oil)!

So, we are talking about some finished fish meat product like imitation crab sticks that is deep-fried with batter? If so, I have, of course! One of my favorites is chikuwa deep-fried with batter containing ao-nori (type of seaweed). Just as torakris has just clarified, surimi is a generic term for "minced flesh". In Japan, it's usually refers to any raw material for use in making all kinds of fish meat product like kamaboko, chikuwa, and satsumaage (surimi deep-fried without batter).

Of course, we do! Could anyone provide some photos of deep-fried surimi so I can tell what you guys mean by "deep-fried" and "surimi"?

I once tried to make akashiyaki (also known as tamagoyaki), but I gave it up because it requires a special ingredient called jinko (wheat starch), which is essential for giving it a soft texture. Anyway, here is one recipe in Japanese. I'm a little busy right now, so I'll provide a rough translation of the ingredients only now. Ingredients: 25 g flour 10 g jinko* 1 egg 250 cc dashi octopus *If jinko is not available: 35 to 45 g flour 1 egg 250 cc dashi octopus Dashi ingredients: 500 cc water 4 to 8 g kombu 3 to 4 g katsuo bushi Suger Soy sauce If you want to use make dashi from instant dashi powder: 300 cc water 2 to 3 g instant dashi powder Soy sauce *Shimaya's dashi powder is no good because it gets scorched; Ajinomoto's Hondashi is better.

Considering the fact that Ichiban = fragrant, for use in clear soups Niban = tasty, for use in simmered disehs and miso soups as torakris suggests, niban dashi seems to be the right answer. This Japanese-style risotto recipe calls for ichiban dashi, but no explanation as to why ichiban should be used.

I have never seen this seaweed salad atop gunkan maki (battleship sushi), but there is a lot I haven't seen. I popped seaweed gunkan maki into google pictures and look what came up! It looks like the same stuff to me. Another interesting thing I found was at this site, 4th from the bottom just above the chuka salad gunkan there is a chuka ika. This looks like a prepared squid salad and looking it up on google shows that is is commonly sold in bulk and from the same places that do the chuka seaweed. So I guess the "chuka" isn't really the name of a type of seaweed.... Just to add a little more confusion ← As for me, I'm quite satisfied now because it's almost certain that chuka is "Chinese" rather than some mysterious word. The seaweed on top of the gunkan maki in the first link looks like kiri kombu to me... Am I the only one who thinks so? The next time I go shopping, I'll check what Japanese seaweed salad looks like.

Thanks, Dejah. Your comments coincide with those of the lady who gave us the seeds. She said she didn't like store-bought ones because they were bitter. Young shoots are really tasty. We can't get enough of them! They are slimy, but we like the slime! We also like molokeyhia because it's slimy too.

Update Aug. 10 Only one photo here, as usual. Young stalks and leaves of tsuru murasaki. We pick them off almost every evening, but we can see others popping up like these the next morning. Really unbelievable! More photos in my SFG blog, as usual.

?? I don't understand what's going on here. Agar-agar is made from a seaweed called tengusa. Is that clear?

Does the book explain the phrase ofukuro no aji (taste of mom's cooking)? Niku jaga and satoimo no nikkorogashi are two typical Japanese dishes that are often associated with ofukuro no aji.

It's the smell of the bran, of course. There's nothing you can do about it - Just love it or leave it. I left it. No matter how nutrient brown rice is, I just can't take it. Life is too short to live on brown rice...

Beef again?

That is interesting! Looks good with sake too. Could you tell us the name of the fish? Is it the only fish dried and salted in your country? One more question: Ikura is one of the few Russian words I know. How do you eat ikura (I mean salmon roe) in your country?

Was your opinion shared by your husband and sons?

Every municipality has its own trash collection rules, so I can't tell whether this applies to your municipality: Food (white) trays: Wash dryas. Natto packs and colored packs cannot be collected. from a page on trash collection on the website of Sumida ward, Tokyo

Not me! I like natto and I eat two packs almost every morning, but I don't want it in my onigiri. I couldn't stand the smell.

Welcome to the Japan Forum, Lynn Shipp! I'm really sorry that torakris, the forum host, is on vacation right now. Tell us more about your adventurous eating habits.

According to one source (Japanese only), both santoku houchou and bunka bouchou were developed as Japan's original versatile knives in 1948.

The first one that comes into my head is komatsuna, which can be planted anytime except in winter and can be harvested in one month. I hope that Helen comes up with a complete list.

Being Japanese, Kewpie and Ajinomoto are the only brands I know. I prefer tart Kewpie mayo. I like to eat some kinds of sansai (edible wild plants) with mayo and ponzu and one kind with mayo and miso. In Japan, there are mayo geeks, called mayolers (sp?), who are eager to put mayo on just about anything.

How can you turn brown rice into rice balls? It's so easy to disintegrate, isn't it? Anyway, I've never made brown rice balls.

I don't understand why some people detest 'mouthfeel'. Japanese even has this term: nodogoshi (lit. throat-passing), often used to describe noodles. I've long wondered how I can put it into English. Maybe 'throatfeel' is the right answer.

万能包丁 = bannou bouchou (not houchou) = santoku houchou Bannou means versatile. 文化包丁 = bunka bouchou (not houchou) A household multipurpose knife Bunka means culture.