JasonTrue

I'm in Tokyo for FoodEx 2006 (Makuhari Messe) and Hoteres (Tokyo Big Site) this week. As usual, I'll post some notes on my blog at the end of each day, but I thought it would be good to post some of those observations here too. If anyone else is going, you're welcome to chime in with your own observations. I've got a slightly crowded schedule my first two days here but hopefully I'll have a chance to see some things outside of those meetings. If you're in Tokyo this week you can also PM me for contact information; I'm wielding a rental cell phone and we might be able to meet in some sort of group for some sort of foodie amusements. Tomorrow is day 1, so I look forward to posting tomorrow.

I finally had a camera ready to go when making squash gnocchi (kabocha gnocchi) with cream sauce... I stole the concept from an Italian restaurant I visited in Ginza many years ago. It's a kabocha and potato-based gnocchi with a sauce made from the same squash, cream, and butter. Details in blog entry

I think if you're trying to use fruit flavors, other than certain pickled fruits, you're better off with a deception of nori, like this cookie company in California makes: http://www.kookisushi.com/ see, for example: http://www.kookisushi.com/sushi.htm They simulate nori with chocolate or some other ingredients. I can't imagine cinnamon or orange with nori, but that's probably my own bias tending to favor more conventional Japanese combinations.

I've heard from a close source that May was "on the market" (quite a long time ago) but that seems like a an expensive way to acquire a wine bar location. I can't picture a thai restaurant there - not Mai, certainly?! Do you know the name? ←

Kamameshi refers to the style of pot used to make the rice. A lidded cast-iron or other metal pot is used for kamameshi. That kind of pot produces a result more like baking than steaming/boiling rice.

In general, Japanese are not as impressed by strong, intense flavors as Americans tend to be. We have generations of people who grew up on overly bland food, and finally have discovered flavor; subtlety, and even simplicity, aren't necessarily rewarded in our current culinary scene. While I can say I've had some pretty but unexciting Western desserts that looked beautiful, I'd say it's not entirely a fair characterization to say that appearance is considered more important than flavor. The flavor expectation is just not the same. The appearance certainly contributes to flavor perceptions in Japan, but it does not supercede the importance of flavor. Japanese just tend to enjoy tasting what's there; that's why you find kabocha-flavored desserts that aren't obscured by cinnamon, allspice, and powdered ginger as they would be in the U.S. The traditional confectionary in Japan has generally been meant as a palate preparation for green tea, not as a dessert, so intense flavors are not appropriate, but a dominant sweetness is. Also, traditional confections are generally consumed in small quantities, so sweeter flavors are more acceptable, until the same confection makes its way to the U.S. and is made four times larger by Shirakiku or whoever. This is true for Middle Eastern confections like those from Iran: some of those are incredibly cloying, if you eat an American-sized portion, but if you're having a little pastry with a little Turkish-style coffee, it's just right. Though not used in every kind of confection, the "gelatinous" character of sweets like daifuku, warabimochi, and tokoroten, to some extent serves the function that cream does in European desserts: it balances the sugar level of the dessert it's complementing. (Alas, American pastry chefs don't necessarily get this yet; our desserts tend to use cream as another sugar delivery vehicle). The chestnut pastries are in abundance primarily October through perhaps January; after that, the chestnut options are mostly the obligatory Mont Blanc type pastries. I've had some pretty intense chocolate mousse or ganache-featuring cakes in Japan, which came as a bit of a surprise, but they were usually from the French companies that have set up shop in Japan.

One of my tea vendors in Seattle, a fellow importer, also makes a nice alternative to the small gaiwan brewing cups used for gongfu tea service if you want to be less preoccupied with watching the brewing time. He basically designed a drip brewer that, with proper brewing temperature, reliably makes decent tea for at least three, and sometimes more, infusions. It works best for Chinese teas like oolong, puerh, and maofeng. (Apologies for the self-serving link) http://www.yuzumura.com/c-29-tea-brewers.aspx

I can't speak to the Earl Grey's stronger second showing, since most of the bergamot flavor is likely to come out very early on, but most gongfu style tea service, with its several short infusions with small amounts of liquid, expects to bring out different qualities of the tea on each infusion. So for oolongs, whites, puerh and greens not accented by aromas or oils, you shoud find the first infusion is very light, unless you are steeping it too long. Some people even discard this "first infusion", or use a lower temperature water to "wash the leaves" and discard that. The first infusion should bring out the aroma, and the second usually brings out the flavor. Subsequent infusions will usually be less flavorful and more visual.

I learned a few years ago from an Egyptian colleague to make a more dip-like foul... it is also apparently breakfast food, but bears little resemblance to the version I've had in Lebanese restaurants. I recall hers having a bit of a greenish hue, perhaps because of the color of the small fava beans she used, but mine looked like this when it was done: It's made with some caramelized onions and has a slightly sweet taste. It was really good with fresh-from-the-oven pita. Blog Entry on Egyptian-ish Foul

Kabocha Cheese Okonomiyaki (blog entry) I made this okonomiyaki with almost no liquid: just a lot of oroshi-imo (from nagaimo), flour, an egg, and a tiny bit of dashijiru. No water. It turned out to have a very nice crispness. The idea is stolen from a chain okonomiyaki place I've been to once or twice. In the fall a few years ago, they offered a kabocha cheese okonomiyaki which had thin sliced kabocha in the cabbage/batter mixture, and mashed kabocha placed on top after both sides had cooked about 5 minutes each, dressed with some cheese, and covered for an extra couple of minutes until the cheese melts.

Yes, ginger... alas, the lighting was a little overly intense. I usually have some daikon-oroshi either on top of the tofu or simply suspended in the broth, but I was out of daikon

Tempura is considered to have Portuguese origins in Japan, though the Portuguese equivalent is much heavier in my limited experience (namely, at Portuguese restaurants in Germany, not necessarily a reliable reference point). But the Portuguese influence was far earlier. It's probably pretty challenging to pinpoint the introduction of the potato into Japanese food, though the sweet potato has a long enough history that Japanese tend to think it's a native plant.

This was basically potatoes and kabocha, with some salt, but I used a tiny bit of half-and-half to smooth them out a bit. (I would use a bit of cream normally, but alas, I had only half-and-half).

I usually rough peel it for nimono, but Hiromi doesn't peel it at all. In the version that I made, I felt the skin was a bit thicker than normal so I peeled it completely. If the peel is relatively soft, I like it left on, or mostly on, for nimono.

We were in a frying mood last night (see the kabocha thread or my blog for details), so we decided to make agedashi-doufu in addition to korokke. This would normally have some oroshi-daikon and sometimes I add another vegetable like shiitake, but I didn't have either handy yesterday...

Hiromi's nimono: (Tonight's dinner) (From yesterday's dinner) My Nimono: From this the yaki-onigiri no ochazuke blog entry.

Tonight we finally got around to making takikomi-gohan in my donabe. This was hijiki, aburage, ninjin, and saya-endo; the snow peas were blanched and added after the rest was done. It was a little light on the seasoning, but had a good fresh taste and was complemented by our stash of zasai pickles and umeboshi. (blog entry)

Kabocha Korokke: Apple-ginger chutney instead of tonkatsu sauce: More photos are on my blog.

Ah, yes, this particuar dish is filled with soup, but I might get around to shooting something in it that's not entirely full... I usually use it for soupy things, though for misoshiru or suimono I usually use a wooden lacquered bowl from Takayama. Here's a slightly less full bowl from the same set: It has some crystals in the bottom that are obscured by my broth.

Yes, I only half-remembered that ambiguity. The "usuguchi" soy sauce that I was thinking of is frequently labeled in english as "light". If it says "low-sodium", that's exactly the opposite of what you want.

I've sampled shiro tamari before, which does have a distinct flavor from regular tamari, and I suppose shiro-jouyu would be similarly lighter in color and flavor, and particularly suitable for things like suimono (clear soups) and so on. We used it instead of soy sauce when we had a sample from a food trade show. There are quite a lot of variations of shouyu, and I would expect the same is true for white tamari and white shouyu, so my experiences might not be universal. I suspect that you can get quite adequate results using ordinary (or, for that matter, special) Japanese shouyu, but if color is important, you might try using "light" soy sauce, which is meant to be lighter in color. What's the dish that you're making.?

I usually like them best thinly sliced, grilled until golden-brown at the edges, seasoned with salt or shouyu or both. Butter, olive oil, or simple neutral vegetable oils are all quite nice. A little fresh sudachi or yuzu, squeezed ever so slightly onto the matsutake at the table, adds a nice sappari contrast. Alternatively, whole or quartered mushrooms grilled atop an oak-charcoal burning grill with a simple shouyu-based dipping sauce. I would use the open-gill matsutake for this, but I had a nice hot soba dish made with a matsutake-infused kakejiru (seasoned broth). It was a clever way for a little soba shop to turn a humble 900 yen dish into a 1900 yen one . They may have used some dried matsutake for the base note, as one would do with a shiitake-konbu based dashi. Doubinmushi is also nice... a simmered suimono served in a small clay pot (like a 180 ml teapot), perhaps with other vegetables such as mizuna, and lighter flavored mushrooms like enoki or shimeji. Assari or sappari is best: simple and light, or simple and refreshing.

Mass produced items are instantly recognizable. 99 percent of the "Japanese" dinnerware in the US market is in this category, either imported by the big gift market importers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, or commissioned by big chain stores. Of course, the dividing line isn't aways that harsh... In many countries, including Japan, there are some mass produced "handmade" items that are simply produced with rapid production techniques, rather anonymously, without much infusion of soul. I find a lot of these in pottery towns from Mashiko to Kyoto. In Japan, Nippon Craft has a lot of nice, elegant, but fairly consistent pots e.g.: (Hagi ware with somewhat unpredictable crackling hagi-yuu glaze.) I have a 5-piece set of these that I bought on a whim at a department store, and a matching serving bowl, but these were quite cheap (about 750 yen per piece plus 3800 yen for the big serving bowl). In my experience, though, these are a fair step up from the average U.S. department store "Japanese" fare. For example, there are noticeable differences between each bowl, and because they are Hagi ware, they age differently depending on how much hot water exposure each pot gets. The U.S. seems to demand "dishwasher safe" dishes over personality... I had one customer ask me if my pottery (from YuzuMura) is dishwasher safe, and I had to say... Well, the artists I work with don't really test for that since it's not a concern in most Japanese households, especially for artisan pottery. These pots weren't originally made for export. They are made by a small number of individual potters. I'm sure they are fairly durable, but they are handmade... I wouldn't want to risk chipping or damage on pots that are hard to replace." ("Dishwasher safe" has more to do with porousness than durability... Japanese craft potters, and even traditional production pottery such as that found in Hagi or Bizen, tends to absorb some liquid, which means that rapid high-power drenching isn't the most effective way to make the pots sanitary.).

It's fine to have sets of say, 2, 3, or 5 similar pieces, but I always discourage people from trying to find matching sets of everything... because Japanese tend to plate smaller portions of various things, it makes a lot of sense to have a somewhat eclectic collection reflecting a family's (or host's) individual taste. A friend's mother in Ube told me every time she takes a trip, she buys one or two pieces that speak to her. Sometimes it's a single cup or bowl or serving dish, sometimes it might be a set of five interesting tori-zara or kozara. Over 20 or 30 years, that can really add up.

For me, I give a fair amount of thought to which plate I use, but I don't worry too much about whether it's exactly the right one. I might choose a different plate or bowl for the same basic dish for any number of idiosyncratic reasons, from seasonality, to theme, to what was easiest to extract out of my cupboard that met the need at the time. I do pay more attention than I used to when it comes to color contrast, textural accent, and so on. After serious accumulation of Japanese pottery over about 7 years, I use my Japanese dinnerware or teaware almost daily. But I've almost never had to buy a low-budget plate in Japan solely for the purpose of getting food on the table, because I started with a fairy substantial western dinnerware collection right out of college, and bought most of my Japanese pots as I could, when they spoke to me, on various trips to Japan. Because I have so many Japanese and Korean pots now, I use them regardless of whether I'm serving Western or Japanese food. I always use them when serving anything remotely Japanese, because, of course, the flavor of Japanese food is hugely affected by how it looks in its dish. Europeans, and to some extent, Americans, seem to like austere white plates and let the plating and garnish paint the plate. I (usually) prefer to let the plate decorate the food. I'm fortunate in that I don't usually have to weigh the risk of putting out one of my favorite, irreplaceable bowls when children are acting up... namely, because I don't yet have children. So I suppose my choices might skew differently if/when that becomes a factor, and I suspect plastic and acrylic dinnerware might make an appearance.