Hiroyuki

what, preytell are these called? we had some "cream" ones today .. they were yummy! ← I can tell you how they are called in Japan. The fish-shaped ones are called taiyaki (tai = sea bream). The oval ones are called imagawa yaki (mainly in Eastern Japan), kaiten yaki (mainly in Western Japan), ouban yaki, and tens of different names!

OK, OK, but the soil in my yard is too hard to dig , so I'll have to just place them on the ground.

I used three types of konnyaku: Tama (ball) konnyaku Tsuki konnyaku Shirataki I seasoned tama konnyaku with instant dashi powder and soy sauce. I made yaki udon with tsuki konnyaku (and udon) and Chinese-style salad with shirataki (and harusame). The maitake miso soup does not contain any konnyaku. Seasoned tama konnyaku is a speciality of Yamagata and other Tohoku prefectures. Edited to add: The recipe that I used to make seasoned tama konnyaku may be of interest. Making seasoned tama konnyaku is usually time-consuming, but I succeeded in making it in less than five minutes, thanks to this recipe (Japanese only). First, heat a pan. Put tama konnyaku. Shake the pan. Add split surume (dried squid) and soy sauce! Keep shaking until the konnyaku soaks all the soy sauce. I forgot to buy surume, so I used instant dashi powder.

Thank you very much for your suggestions, Helen! Coincidentally, I've been thinking of using boxes like these to grow vegetables in. Thanks to your link, I'm beginning to think I'm not as stupid as I thought I was. The current status of my son's kinoko land. We have three shiitake logs, and hidden in the steel shelf are hiratake and maitake logs, which I bought from here. 4,725 yen for three boxes of hiratake and maitake logs each (six boxes in total). Approx. 2,300 yen for the shading sheet.

← Right, cocoa (ココア) is listed in the ingredients space on the box. No, I haven't, although I know some people do add instant coffee and chocolate. Here is a list of secret ingredients that some people add to curry, which I previuosly posted to the Japanese curry thread: - Consomme - Ginger - Chocolate - Instant coffee - Tomato ketchup - Apple, mango, and other fruits - Honey - Mayonnaise - Worcestershire sauce - Soy sauce - Milk - Garlic - Laurel leaf - Yogurt - Wine

I googled and found only one webpage that lists "マイルドブレッド" (mild bread in katakana), along with Rich bread, plain bread, Igirisu (British) bread, cinammon bread, and onion bread (half). UNFORTUNATELY, no photo or description of those breads. I suppose any bread can be called mild bread if it is mild...

My wife and I made non-fried versions of yasai chippu (vegetable chips) a couple of times when my children were smaller, using a microwave. Like Kris said, kabocha chips are wonderful. So are kabocha rind chips.

I have yet to meet a rice cooker that can do sticky rices, I have tried with Japanese sticky rices but they just don't work well... ← As for sticky rice, my new induction rice cooker (bought a couple of years ago) makes fairly good sekihan (sticky rice plus azuki beans). My older one (not induction) tended to produce rather soggy, sometimes mushy sekihan.

"Mild bread"? What is it? Please explain.

I don't know why, but some people are now crazy about bucket pudding (baketsu purin in Japanese), as well as "naneraka" (smooth) purin. This baketsu purin is exceptional. 100,000 yen! It's pudding made in a 9-liter gold-plated bucket from ukokkei (silky fowl) eggs. It comes with five 0.3-g gold leaves and a 42.5-cm diameter celadon plate.

It is generally conceded that curry tastes better the next day. I tasted a spoonful yesterday, and I still thought it was bland. Today, we had the leftover curry for supper. I thought it wasn't bad. I don't know what happened to my taste buds.

We got a bunch of kinome from a neighbor, who said he and his family went to Kawaguchi, Niigata, to collect kinome. As I said elsewhere in the Japan Forum, in Niigata and other prefectures, kinome refers not to young leaves of sansho but those of akebi trifoliate (mitsuba akebi in Japanese). They are quite bitter. A common way to eat them is to boil them for a short time, soak them in water to remove bitterness, and serve them on a plate, often with katsuobushi and a raw quail egg on top, and pour some soy sauce (or ponzu).

Much less satisfying than I thought it would be. Quite bland. It's a little surprising that the lack of fat can make you so unsatisified. Even if I wanted to taste it closely, it was so runny that it escaped my tongue so easily. Will I buy it again? Probably no, even if it were offered at the same price as regular roux.

That depends. Some restaurants mix equal amounts of cold pressed and toasted sesame oils, some use 100% toasted oil, and others mix 70% cold pressed oil and 30% toasted oil, according to this (Japanese only).

I didn't tell my wife anything about the cook-off, but today, she said she wanted to make tempura for supper. My son and I got some shiso (perilla) leaves and parsley from our yard, and some udo stems and leaves, yomogi (mugwort) leaves, and one asparagus shoot from fields nearby. My wife did all the tempura making. Top plate: Shredded yomogi leaves and kounago (small fish) Right plate: Udo stems and leaves Left plate (clockwise from top): Parsley, shiso leaves, mugwort leaves, and asparagus (hard to tell from the photo) We ate the tempura with soumen (thin noodles), using separate bowls for tempura and soumen (our favorite style). Well, we usually make tempura with other ingredients, such as kabocha (squash), sweet potatoes, onions, and carrots, but it's sansai (wild plant) time of the year right now, and we all like sansai, especially my son. Believe or not, he said, "I'm happy!" Not all ten-year-old Japanese boys are like that.

1. Tentsuyu, typically a mixture of mirin, soy sauce, and dashi (1:1:4) 2. Worcestershire sauce! To the surprise of Kanto people, many Kansai people like to eat tempura with it. 3. Salt, matcha-jio (matcha and salt), yuzu-jio (yuzu and salt), etc. Cool! 4. Just soy sauce

Basically, equal amounts of flour and (egg + water). For example, put one egg in a cup (one cup in Japan is equivalent to 200 ml), add water to the 200-ml level, transfer the content to a bowl, and mix well BEFORE adding flour. In Japan, there are regional and personal preferences to tempura batter and oil. In Kansai (Western Japan, including Osaka), they don't put eggs in their batter, and they use salad oil, thereby resulting in whitish tempura. In Kanto (Eastern Japan, including Tokyo), they put eggs in their batter, and they use sesame seed oil, resulting in golden brown tempura. Note, however, that sesame seed oil is quite expensive and many people in Kanto do use salad oil (and add some sesame seed oil, as torakris did). My mother used to add baking soda to her batter. Some people add beer and carbonated water (preferably sugarless because sugar makes the tempura brownish) for the same effect. Some add potato starch, rice flour, and cornstarch to make crispy tempura. My wife says she doesn't put eggs to her batter, just one part flour and one part water. No baking soda or potato starch. To make sweet potato tempura, she likes to add some salt to her batter so that it can be eaten without tentsuyu. Professional tempura chefs, who know how difficult it is to make good tempura, recommend using commercial available tempura flour. I wonder if you can get it in your area. Finally, don't forget that thinly coated, crispy tempura made by a professional tempura chef may not always be what you are looking for. I sometimes crave for thickly coated, dense sweet potato tempura my mother used to make because that's what I grew up with. You know what I mean...

Usually written in katakana, like this: semolina = セモリナ durum = デュラム I don't know where you can find it: When I googled デュラムセモリナ, this webpage came up first. Anyone?

Three photos of the same flyer?? Here is a translation: New Year's cards released Mon. November 1. Eggs in packs offered at 9:00 a.m. November 1 to the first 50 people With our whle heart Nagasu Post Office The chicken says: It's good. Great! Some creature? (I can't tell what it is) says: Happy New Year.

After much searching, I found bucket composting. No EM bokashi or red worms required. No bamboo vinegar, either. All you need is a bucket (preferably two), rice bran, soil, and food waste. Anyone tried bucket composting??

I'll make some yomogi (mugwort), shiso (perilla) leaf, and udo (a type of wild plant) tempura. My son (10) has been craving for it for weeks.

This is the yard we were planning to grow vegetables in, but after the snow melted, I gave up that idea because it would take a lot of money and work, as you say! This is the west side of my land. My son and I are planning to turn it into a "kinoko (mushroom) land". We have three shiitake logs right now. This is the piece of land that my son and I are growing vegetables in. It still needs a lot of improvement!

All kaiseki dishes served at Japanese restaurants should be spelled with 会席 (banquet kaiseki) rather than 懐石 (tea ceremony kaiseki), provided that they are not associated with tea ceremonies. But many restaurants prefer the latter to indicate that their dishes are not ordinary but elaborate, small-portion, and sophisticated ones. To make things more confusing, consciously or not, some restaurants use the two homonymous terms almost interchangeably. On the website of Umenohana http://www.umenohana.co.jp/body2.html , for example, you can see both 懐石 and 会席 used on the same page with no apparent difference in meaning.

Just in case you haven't found the kaiseki entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiseki

The new word that I learned recently from a TV show was kyara-ben, short for character bento, which refers to a bento featuring a character(s). I googled kyara-ben (in Japanese), and the first site that came up was the one that caught the eye of Jason Perlow. http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/kasumin_yorosiku http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2006/04/18/creepy-bentos/ Jason, the guy's name is Hirohide Yakumaru, a member of a singing group called Shibugakitai turned actor. He is now a host of a popular TV morning show called Hanamaru Market.