_john

bump! - newish knives Unknown Deba: bought at a fleamarket, well used, thick and easy to sharpen Caphalon Katana series Chef's knife: I love this knife. the bolster and handle design are awesome. holds an edge well. I have sharpened this one with a convex edge. Caphalon is not famous for their knives but after handling this knife in a shop I had to have it. Ceramic paring knife (Asian "Forever" brand): This knife mimics perfectly the shape of my beloved carbon steel paring knife but it won't stain fruit or impart any flavors. I would love to see some daily workhorses of kitchens on here. even the bargain basement JC Penny knife has some charm

really liquidy white beans with pork belly using the oven bean method may be the best thing ever. ingredients. beans, belly, salt, additional salt on be belly before serving. this is not one portion, just a shot of the belly before I sliced it. belly is easy to get anywhere in Japan, white beans however are very expensive

did it. I only used raw egg yolks from 地玉子 local eggs (30¥ a piece). very good results for a first try. The texture was like cheese and the taste was similar to the miso. I kept these in the miso for 48 hours, next time I will try 24. Delicious, I will make these again. They would be good as part of another dish too.

I've eaten the unlaid eggs and cocks combs at yakitori places often. In good supermarkets I can buy both. Ovaduct/whatever tube the egg comes out of, is also on the menu. both delicious.

yes, that is a very difficult question. For me I am searching for the burgers of my childhood. All the things I could list here that make a burger "good" for me are largely personal. The biggest problem, even at home, is that Japanese bacon is not real bacon! And by real I mean what I am used to in the U.S. I make my own bacon here, which solves that problem, but it is a lot of effort for a burger . And then you have to start thinking about fries!

I'm a little late on this thread but I have some info. I bought an oven about a year ago, maybe you saw my post on the oven thread. Anyway it is awesome. Convection, rotisserie, broiler. It's gets really hot. I'm not sure why I have waited until now to get a pizza stone but I finally did and I have some tips. I bought my stone at the national home center コーナン Conan. It was 500¥ and is 30cmx30cm which fits perfectly in my oven. I had the same issue about heating it up. My oven heats up really quickly and the stone takes forever. My solution was to heat the stone on my stove over direct flame, put the pizza on it, and place the whole thing in the oven. This works really really well, best pizza I have had in Japan or elsewhere. The stone is made of granite I think. It is the same material as my bibimbap bowl so I'm pretty sure it's safe. Here is a picture of my set up, the oven is a deviceSTYLE co-12 Convection Oven which I bought for a little under 20,000¥(free shipping!) You may ask why there is a light bulb in my oven. That is because I use it as a proofing chamber when it is cold.

I have never been to Kua'Aina but all this talk about burgers has made me want to check it out. I'm guessing you are talking about the one in Namba Parks? Is it still hit and miss? Usually when I want a good burger in Japan I make it at home. I grill it on a あみ (what is the english word for this? stove-top fish grill?). I made a kind of flexible tube that you sometimes see at yakiniku places so I can suck the smoke out of my kitchen with the exhaust fan more efficiently. Hopefully the fire department won't pay me a visit. evidence:

not in the dark! The coating will hopefully mask the shape of the food a little. The idea is that everyone will bring a few things. skewers and pre-made coating will be available. then each person dips there own item and fries it. Arrange all the skewers on a platter covered with foil and have the ends of the skewers sticking out. Then you have to take one at random. I'm imposing a rule that you have to bring at least one item that is a standard "good" item. I will make two sauces. One will be the standard kushi katsu sauce and the other will be chocolate.

A lot of people say oaisou in Kansai. But mostly in izakaya. I, and most other people it seems, say nothing. They simply stand up and the staff know what is happening. I usually thank the cooks for the meal with the appropriate style of "gochisousamadeshita" sometimes preceded by a sumimasen to get someone's attention. in Osaka I most often hear "suimasen, gochisousan" The timing of the gochisousama seems to vary. Directly after finishing the food? When standing? after paying? When parting the noren on the way out? All of these seem acceptable. Is there a "most" correct time?

I remembered one more thing I would like to bring up: I have never seen someone in Japan break apart the disposable chop sticks and then rub them together to remove "splinters". This seems to be the normal ritual in the U.S. When a friend came to visit me and performed this ritual in a restaurant who's chef had visited America the chef corrected him by saying "Rubbing the chopsticks together is rude to the owners of the restaurant because you are implying that the chopsticks are cheap/low quality and have splinters. Look at the chopsticks when you break them, there are no splinters. Rubbing them together only makes the surfaces rougher". When I see someone do this now it gives me that nails-on-chalkboard feeling.

thanks for the procedure shinju, I thought the yolks were raw. I will try to make them and post the results.

I have never tried this but I really want to. Thats why I am planning a Yami Age party! Everything will be fried on skewers a la kushi katsu. I'm bringing strawberries, shhh don't tell my guests.

I saw a recipe (in a manga I'll admit) for egg yolks pickled in a bed of miso. I really want to try it. Anyone heard of such a thing?

I haven't made kimchi in a while but I have eaten some very unusual and good ones since my last post. They were, in order of preference: surume ika (dry cuttle fish?), rakkyo (a kind of shallot), and yamaimo (mountain potato). Surume ika makes a good drinking snack on its own but kimchi surume ika, now your talking. I ate the rakkyo kimchi with curry. it seemed like they took standard commercially pickled rakkyo and just put some kimchi base on them but they were still good. The yamaimo was actually very refreshing and crisp, surprisingly good. I did make nira (garlic chive) kimchi a while ago which reached the "sparkling" stage. that was super good. ive been meaning to make some fruit kimchi. First I think I will try persimmon, maybe apple would be good too. Asian pear is already used in some korean dishes that are seasoned similar to kimchi, like yukhe, so I think it would match.

Chinese long beans in a hot wok with a little salt works great. you have to keep them moving though. A lot of things I do in the wok receive no oil.

I recently stumbled upon this print at an antique book store. I really wanted to buy it but it was 15,000¥ a little above my price range. So I did a little digital shoplifting... It appears to depict mostly kitchen tools that would be standard equipment for a well to do house in the past. Can you name them all? I would be really interested to know that some of them are, or what their use is. Click for a very large version. Click here for the very large version

I have made cider in Japan before with cheap apples. I blend up all the apples and then put them into a big piece of cloth. Then, with the help of another person, I twist up the cloth over a bowl using two dowels. This is the best way to extract the maximum amount of juice without a press. If I am making it for a party I usually mix the fresh juice half and half with store bought %100 apple juice. This works especially well if you are going to heat it when making mulled cider. I have never seen cider worth buying in any stores here.

I feel there is a lot of exoticizing of wasabi outside Japan (and even inside Japan). First of all I've heard and read over and over again that it is rare. Where I live I can buy real whole wasbi root in the majority of super markets. Even the cheapest super market carries it. This may be a recent development, I'm not sure. Second that wasabi is expensive. A wasabi root about the size of half a hot dog sells for $5~$10. At the wholesale markets you find roots that are grown larger and are designed for restaurant use. These are about the size of a large carrot and, depending on size and other factors, cost $50 and up. The roots sold for personal use can be ground into approximately 10 portions. I freeze the root and grate it on a shark skin grater (which is also quite reasonable, less than $10 in a restaurant supply store). Wasabi is cultivated in North America as well. It is difficult to grow especially for inexperienced growers which keeps the price high in America. I would expect the best restaurants, where cost is not so much a factor, to offer the real stuff.

even in conveyor belt sushi restaurants here I have seen suggestions of how to eat. In sushi restaurants which are one or two ranks above conveyor belt sushi they will often tell you how to eat a piece of sushi (meaning maki-zushi/nigiri-zushi in this case) with lemon, salt, wasabi-jyouyu, soy sauce, ponzu, "tare" for things like unagi, and other sauces including ginger, sudachi, etc. In these cases the sushi usually comes already seasoned or with a small dish of the accompanying sauce. With nigiri there are two schools of thought: make wasabi soy sauce by mixing the two in your dish or add a small dab of wasabi to each piece before dipping it in soy sauce. I have rarely seen real wasabi used under the "neta", or topping, on nigiri sushi even in the highest class sushi restaurants. And I have been served real wasabi only a few times. Hiroyuki noted in another thread the usual progression of the meal is white fish, non-white fish, tamago yaki. I usually stick to that pattern when I order on my own. When I order omakase the chef sometimes deviates from this pattern.

I just tried the Calbee Bacon and Egg paripari variation potato chips. Very good! Although I didn't really taste anything that was particularly eggy, that bacon flavor was nice.

I have the opposite opinion. I though the kawahagi with liver sauce was better than the left eye hirame I had recently at a sushi restaurant. I think kawahagi is a very fun looking fish too. I have been browsing a lot of knife stores recently and still can't find much difference between a long yanagi and fuguhiki. sometimes the fuguhiki is cheaper and I want to buy it but I am afraid of being criticized for using a fuguhiki to slice sashimi. someone will notice!

I made omuraisu for thanksgiving lunch. filling is my chicken rice which is made of diced onion, turmeric, chicken bouillon, ketchup and rice. my omelette skills are getting better! I can now make wrapped type and semi-liquid omelette on top types fairly well. this is wrapped type: It was delicious! I have been using 地玉子 local eggs recently and they really make the difference. 30¥ for one egg though.

Good question! You should have an equal amount of tendon and konnyaku cut into equal sized peices. For me it is all about the tendon which is why I probably forgot to mention konnyaku at all.

I guess it is a kansai thing. I couldn't find a recipe that I thought was close enough to what I have eaten in the past so here is the basic way I have made it: tendon with meat attached sugar soy sauce miso (I use haccho miso or another dark miso) sake miso should be the main flavor. slightly sweet with a good depth and smoothness from the tendon. not too salty, you don't need much soy. In a pressure cooker combine all the ingredients and cover them with 2 inches of water. simmer for 1 hour and then boil with the lid off until most of the liquid is evaporated. you can eat it as is or use it as an ingredient in okonomiyaki. this is called すじ玉. At festivals they cook it on top of a large teppan with a shallow rim.

You can use your fugu knife to make hirame usuzukuri (thin slices of left-eye flounder), right? ← Ah that's true! It's in season now and much cheaper than fugu. Does anyone make sujikon (konyakku simmered with beef tendon) at home? that is my favorite way use konyakku. I usually eat it at street vendors but sometimes it can be quite expensive.