JasonTrue

He was dusting the sugar confection with cornstarch. That's primarily to keep the candy from sticking together while it's being worked. The sugar itself is basically maltose (wheat germ sugar in this case, or other malted grain sugar) and regular sugar; it's boiled to roughly hard crack stage. The filling is peanut, coconut, and sesame in Bamboo Garden's version. In Korea some companies fill this with sweet potato and black sesame seeds, and some street vendors have been known to use bean pastes.

I'm the importer for the Hong Kong brand of dragon beard candy (Bamboo Garden). I've heard there's a guy on Grand street in New York that frequently does dragon beard candy from a tiny storefront location, but I'm not sure if he's still there. This is the street version: soft, sticky, sweet, powdery, and will melt very quickly in humid conditions. There is also a Turkish candy called Pismaniya which is similar to dragon beard candy but made with butter or oil, and not quite as finely stretched strands (probably machine-made). This doesn't usually have a nut filling, though sometimes nuts are put on top. For the dragon beard candy that I import, it is a bit different than the traditional version because they tried to create a more delicate, refined texture that isn't as cloyingly sweet, wouldn't melt while being stored, but is still handmade. The reasons for the higher price of the packaged version are many-fold, and not just a matter of branding. One, most of the dragon beard candy producers do not usually pay much in rent or real estate costs, since they tend to work as street vendors. Also, they are usually using cheaper grades of ingredients, including maltose, the wheat germ sugar; the transparent type costs substantially more (sometimes 3 times the cost) than the yellowish one. When selling packaged products, it's also important to make sure that the peanuts are higher quality because older ones can contain molds that produce aflatoxin, and the coconut and sesame is also more expensive than peanut. Shipping and transport also factor into the price, particularly in Singapore, Japan, and the US, but even in Hong Kong where it is made, where they have to truck it from Kowloon to several retail shops. Mr. Wong, who founded Bamboo Garden, also spent quite a bit of money and about 5 years time developing their packaging technique and tweaked recipe. Their version of the candy doesn't melt once packaged properly, although like the street version, when they demonstrate the candy in person, they have to refrigerate it to keep it from melting. Since they also make everything by hand, they also invested money in HACCCP certification to ensure hygienic processes, traceability, and quality control. None of these are expenses that street vendors would normally undertake. There are also staffing costs for explaining the product to customers, which is either paid by the company shops or by the retailers who offer the product, which have their own expenses. Only a few hundred people in the world still know this technique, and since it usually takes a few years of apprenticeship or training to learn to do well, there aren't as many younger folks taking it on. That is why it is harder to find on the street in Hong Kong or China these days; not many people want to spend two or three years learning how to make something that will require working on the street all day for a trivial amount of money. Part of Bamboo Garden's goal was to preserve these kinds of traditional techniques. Just like artisanal cheeses or breads or chocolates, there's a price to pay for being able to have that experience. I think people aren't used to that for Asian foods, except, perhaps, for some Japanese things. I started importing it because it was exciting for me to see a company in Hong Kong really emphasize quality first, and not try to compete by offering unremarkable products at cheap prices. I value things that are produced where they are, the way they are, for a particular reason. I have been quite willing to pay $4 or so for a piece of good quality Japanese confectionary in a department store basement that was an equally ephemeral experience... It's not an everyday indulgence, but I really appreciated that. I'm also equally willing to pay $1.70 for a 5 or 10 gram piece of some La Maison du Chocolat when an occasion calls for that indulgence, even though I have the option of eating a whole Hershey bar for 50 cents. It's a different experience. For dragon beard candy, there's definitely something to watching Mr. Wong or any other maker produce it in front of you, but it's also really nice to be able to go home and make a pot of really good tea and serve a little something sweet to guests in a more relaxed setting. I probably wouldn't use the street vendor version as a wedding favor or a gift, either... Wing Wah or Kee Wah bakery aren't the cheapest way to get Hong Kong style cakes or pastries either, but they also stand out with distinctive quality. There's at least as much labor (roughly 10-15 minutes just on the stretching and filling, not counting the roasting of the nut filling and sugar preparation) behind a batch of 40 pieces of dragon beard candy as behind producing even 40 really high quality pieces of chocolate, so even if the street vendors were charging the same as Bamboo Garden I don't think I'd begrudge them. It is a fairly specialized skill. Most of the street vendors do tell the story of the origins of the candy, but many are probably fairly humble about their own skill. I actually would like to see more of this kind of thinking from China and India... Rather than being a destination for cheap outsourced manufacturing or services, I'd love to see investment in products that are really indigenous made with a real obsession for quality, indigenous brands, designers, etc, and especially making traditional foods with the same level of interest in "being the best" that you'd find at a Japanese soba-maker or New York bagel shop or Parisian confectioner.

Fresh Flours is a Japanese fusion bakery. The style appears to be a little more Seattle than Japanese, but you'll find hints of Japanese flavors like matcha (stone-milled, steamed green tea which is shaded for about a month before harvest), kabocha (Japanese pumpkin), and satsumaimo (a firm yellow-fleshed sweet potato that became preferred in Japan), and sweet bean paste. They'll open as soon as the sidewalk is finished. They have been selling some of their pastries at wholesale to Shinka and a few other coffee shops for a few months, since they were impacted by the arson fire that destroyed that building while it was in the middle of construction last year and had to delay construction on their retail space. The last hurdle/delay is sidewalk construction, which should be finished shortly. Keiji, the baker, studied in the east coast and worked in a New York bakery for a while, then spent some time working for Essential Bakery in Seattle. http://www.freshfloursseattle.com/ is their website. http://www.freshfloursseattle.com/menu.html has some photos of the things they will be making. (Full disclosure: Fresh Flours is a customer of mine).

I was inclined to think it was castera (kasutera) until you said it was hard and crispy. Castera is fairly soft, in spite of dense air pockets. So I'd be at a loss to give the cake a name if it is hard. Kinako is not sticky. It's ground, toasted soybeans. When used in confections, it may have added sugar and salt to bring out the nutty flavor. It is often used on stickier confections, though. Your little birds are probably the same type of confection as tai-yaki, but that type of molded "waffle" is usually called (animal, vegetable or character name)-yaki based on the appearance.

I found this article via referrer logs. It talks about the emergence of non-sushi restaurants in the U.S. It's about time! I wish more restaurant owners would brave specialty Japanese cuisine, or at least try less typical formats for the US market. I had drafted a few business plans about 2 years ago for such concepts (an izakaya, an okonomiyaki place, a quick service korokke shop, and my favorite, a sort of kissaten like atmosphere teishoku place with 3-4 Japanese-ish and 3-4 wafuu-yoshoku options. Alas, the resources left from my last job didn't make any of those financially feasible, so I chose to work on something that I could still be excited about but didn't require the same upfront financial hit. Itadakimasu @ calendarlive.com

I saw lots of restaurant-purpose induction cooking equipment at the Hoteres show this March as well as at last year's. I'm quite fond of the induction-cooking nabe which can be used to make things like yudoufu, tounyuu nabe, and other simmered "one-pot" dishes (nabe-ryouri) by placing a metal induction grate inside very rustic-looking paper-lined bamboo pots. (Caveat: the paper and the bamboo are probably not just ordinary paper or bamboo). These are common in restaurants, but I believe the induction cookers that are placed table-top are not dramatically expensive per unit. I'm not quite sure of pricing as I never tried to import them, but I sure liked the idea. I bet these devices are cheaper than the type of induction wok setup that Ming Tsai has popularized. This kind of induction cookier: http://hongfa.en.alibaba.com/product/50038...ion_Cooker.html Is often found in efficiency apartments and short-term studios (like weekly/monthly "manshon".) I didn't have a chance to use the one that was in my Weekly Mansion Tokyo place in Akasaka, but I suspect it's not the most powerful type. I usually end up with a sealed electric burner since I've recently usually stayed in a weekly studio in Nishi-Shinjuku. That particular electric burner was always miserably bad. I think that these smaller induction cookers are only slightly more expensive than electric burners. For induction cooking for purposes like high-heat sauteeing, I think this are similarly expensive in the US and Japan. You might pay more for the extra layers of distribution channels if you buy at retail in Japan, but I don't think they would be shockingly more than the ones meant for home cooks here. Of course, since the last time I checked those ran $800-3000 in the US, I'm not sure what to expect in Japan.

Ah, that's interesting. I guess I never thought of it that way, but it's probably because my Korean language skills are minimal. A few of my friends in Korea used "ssam" in isolation. For example, one explained to me that "ssam" is expected on "bibimbap", and combined with limited knowledge of "ssam bap" or other ssam dishes, and maybe lack of correction by my Korean teacher :P I had just always thought ssam is a more general word for sangchi. no, i think i did a good job translating it the first time. "ssam yori" means "wrapped dishes". "ssam" means "wrapped". it is the noun version of the verb "ssa da" which means "to wrap". if you add an "m" to a lot of verbs, you make it into a noun. "sangchi" or "sangchu" means "lettuce". and sangchi is often used in ssam yori, so you may associate sangchi very tightly with ssamyori. lettuce wraps in korean is called "sanchi ssam". perilla wraps are called "ggaenip ssam". squash leaf wraps are called "hobaknip ssam" and vietnamese rice paper wraps (a more recent trend) is called "bo ssam", although i dont know what "bo" means. ←

Isn't "ssam yori" "lettuce cuisine?" (or "leaf cuisine?") Ssam seems to include lettuces, sheets of konbu (kelp), gaennip or shiso, or other such things, so maybe wrapped cuisine is as good a definition as anything, since that's what's most frequently done with ssam. Ssam bap is very satisfying...

I always crave nasu tsukemono, but I think as a relatively young kid I must have thought eggplant was a strange idea. Then, of course, I had a kid-palatable greasy eggplant parmesan and was conviced that eggplant had potential. I now have certain rules: I don't date women who don't fully appreciate chocolate, and I'm seriously skeptical of those who don't like eggplant. One thing that seems to contribute to American unwillingness to try unfamiliar foods is that 60s-80s era parents increasingly indulged pickiness in their children, rather than continuing to serve them until they gave in. This, combined with the history of horrible abuse of vegetables in this country, made it easier for people to think of foods as strange or unpalatable even when someone has never tried that food. I was relatively "picky" when I was a child, but my younger brothers were even more so. I gave up most of my uninformed rejection by the time I was 16 or so, and gradually started trying things that I had previously tasted and disliked... in most cases, I learned to appreciate them. At this point there's no vegetable, herb, mushroom, bean, cheese, or dairy product I won't touch. (Well, except for nonfat milk, maybe). Of course, during college my palate was modified by political and ethical considerations, which morphed into a taste preference when my radical politics mellowed, and now I also have another eating idiosyncracy... but I think it made my palate more sensitive to good vegetables.

The secret to getting less than a pound at PFI is to ask for a "small chunk" of whatever you're after, and not care whether it's 1/4 or 3/4 pound. You'll find some way to use it, and they probably won't be irritated with you, especially if you're there buying other stuff.

I think it's not so much American custom as it is that American "sushi bars" are usually nandemo-ya that serve everything vaguely Japanese. In Japan this only seems to occur at family restaurants; I rarely saw sushi, tempura, donburimono, soba, udon, hiyayakko, chawanmushi and so on at the same restaurant; in the US it seems commonplace. I don't think the "not having sake with sushi" is a hard and fast rule though. I was brought to a sushi place kind of hidden off Ginza mostly filled with salarimen, and sake, shochu, and so on was served, and consumed, in the restaurant. Shochu can be made with rice or other grains. The shochu included a sweet potato option (imo-jochu) though. That sushi place was the favorite haunt of the salesperson we were meeting. I like stuffed grape leaves, and grapes for that matter, when consuming wine. I doubt that a German would turn down a beer when having barley soup or avoid drinking wheat beer and bread together. If there's a case for avoiding sake and sushi together, it might be the sweet-vinegar taste might obscure the taste of the light dry-sweet sake, rather than the other way around Some of my Japanese friends feel sake and sushi are matching, perhaps even because both are made with rice. But maybe they are younger than the people making these rules But again, since I'm vegetarian, I don't spend a lot of time in sushi places.

How can you possibly build a relationship with someone who doesn't appreciate eggplant? (Just kidding).

I think I was under the impression that it was kuzuko because I expressed doubt to a friend that there would be a sufficient supply of starch made from bracken to support all the confectioners making warabimochi. We somehow learned (not from the shop in question) that warabi-mochi flour is often labeled as such but contains other ingredients; I noticed this on some of the packages available at Uwajimaya. (Even Kuzu-ko is sometimes blended with other ingredients to save money). A confectioner in Kyoto noted: http://www.bashoudo.com/english/aboutwarabi/index.htm http://www.bashoudo.com/english/aboutwarabi/index3.htm has information on the extraction process.

I think shallow frying might cause the breading to absorb a little too much oil since the temperature will drop, so you should watch the temperature with an instant-read thermometer to make sure it stays above 350F (and preferably closer to 375F) when you do this. I'm sure it would taste nice either way but deep-frying should result in less oil absorption.

I don't think Thanh Bros. and Pho Cyclo are comparable in any way except that they both happen to have Pho. Thanh Bros. knows that you're going to order Pho so they have part of your order on your table before you've even placed the order. They have a high number of table turns and produces pretty good quality products because they just specialize in the one thing. (I order the vegetarian version). Pho Cyclo has a different approach to the interior design and customer experience Since they are right next to the corporate offices of Starbucks and otherwise industrial areas, they carved out a niche as a slightly upmarket version of the business district lunch spot. They have a longer menu, mixed modalities in service (different takeout and dine-in options), and seem to be more a "Vietnamese restaurant" than a Pho restaurant. The service is a bit more sluggish but maybe a little more personal. I've never ordered pho at Pho Cyclo; I've had tofu banh mi or some tofu salad, and except for the sign on the door I barely noticed that they even had pho. The food is decent quality, but a more pleasant atmosphere goes a long way, especially in a place that is still offering fairly low prices. I don't have a strong preference for one over the other, but I think you'd go to Thanh Bros. when you want good pho and to Pho Cyclo when you want a little more variety. I have a strong appreciation for short menus that do basically one thing really well, but I also like having a nice modest variety of ptions for other good, simple food.

My friend pointed out this convenient use for all the extra ume you'll end up when making umeshu: http://cookpad.com/chikatus/index.cfm?Page...50870&Mode=full There's no way you'd be able to eat all those alcohol soaked umeshu without falling over, but this recipe for umeshu no ume jam seems like a good frugal idea.

I also remember seeing Ume Jam in something, maybe Tennen Seikatsu magazine. Failing that, try these pages: http://homepage2.nifty.com/NG/ume/ume20B.htm http://bainiku.info/howtoume/umejam.htm http://www.pickled-ume.com/info/jam.html I think the advantage of making ume-shu at home isn't the price, it's the flavor. I think most of the commercial ones in Japan are too sweet and corn-syrupy. The one I made this year isn't quite ready to drink but it is already a very different flavor than a bottled one. Mine has less sugar, a slightly higher level of alcohol (which I will adjust downward with water when serving), and more fruit flavor (not much complexity yet though). I'm guessing you could sneak thin slices of umeboshi into some ohitashi, and maybe you can grind the fruit with some chilies and salt to make "ume-koshou."

I guess umeshu and umeboshi are too obvious, but I'd love to have some ume-syrup which I can use to make refreshing summer drinks (mae sil cha for example, which is Korean). I think you can boil some amount of ume with equal parts sugar and water. I think candied ume would be good for cakes and things like that. I sometimes got dried ume which are somehow sweetened, from Chinese shops, but they are a little tough to eat. I think that the stones of ume are considered toxic (similar to peach I suppose). How about ume sorbet?

The date was stamped on some brands of eggs about 8 years ago when I was in Germany. On those ones, I don't think it was the expiration date though; I think it was the date that the eggs were laid. I think this lack of emphasis on expiration was due to storage methods in Europe; some eggs are stored refrigerated at the supermarket, and some are not. The bright orange color of Japanese yolks is mostly due to diet, I believe. There may be some varietal difference from the kinds of chickens common in Japan, but the differences in the US are mostly due to diet. If you spend more money on eggs in the U.S., for eggs from chickens which are fed flaxseed (usually labeled Omega-3 eggs), you'll find richer-looking orange yolks. Also eggs labeled free-range, all-vegetarian diet tend to look better than ones that don't make such claims. There is one brand of egg in Seattle sold at Uwajimaya and maybe a few other locations, whose label is in Japanese, which is even more dramatically orange than other ones, but it's quite expensive. Free range eggs cost from $2-4 per dozen, but these ones are usually a super-premium $4.39 (though I've heard this type is even more expensive in New York).

- Towers of impressive-sounding but incongrous, unrelated ingredients promoted as "fusion". Possible for something in this category to turn out nicely, but rare. - Skim milk, and low fat dairy products in general. If I want low fat I'll blanch some vegetables and dress them with a bit of soy sauce and fresh ginger, which I can actually crave. - Stable hydrogenated fryer oil used for a month or two at a time. - Big food, served for the sake of bigness. Especially pasta. - Chocolate with hydrogenated vegetable (soy, palm, etc) oil, whose cocoa butter has been sold off at high profit to cosmetic companies. On a few items I beg to differ: - It's an oldie on this thread, but room temperature bread doesn't bother me, as long as it's served with good, room-temperature butter, and fresh. I'd rather have room temperature bread than bread which is heated for the sole purpose of providing customers the delusion of "fresh baked" stale bread.

I made matcha ice cream a few nights ago, for which I have a complete recipe on my blog. I think I need to make some anko, and maybe some shiratama, and maybe get some fruit and gold leaf. Oh, and my kuromitsu supply is still sorely lacking. Once those situations are properly remedied, there will be cream anmitsu in my house. Even lacking such accessories, this was still quite nice on its own.

Everything that I mention below is with aku removed by salting, weighting, and rinsing. I like Nasu-no miso-ni, which is braised eggplant with miso, mirin, and regionally varying amounts of sugar and sometimes dashi. The one I use in this photo is western eggplant because it looked better quality than the available Japanese nasu that day. (More explanation in this blog entry) Agenasu with raw grated shoga and soy sauce is really nice. No breading needed. Nasu no tempura with lots of parallel cuts in the skin, using skinny Japanese nasu or smaller Kyo-nasu. Agedashi nasu which is almost the same except in a tsuyu with dashi and oroshi-daikon. Dengaku nasu is a favorite of mine but I think I reserve it for the early fall nasu rather than summer nasu... I guess I don't crave it in hot weather. Nasu grilled on shichirin (nasu no sumibi-yaki) is nice on a summer night (in Seattle); it might be more suitable for early fall in Japan. I think I remember someone making kenchin-jiru with nasu for me before.

Out of curiosity, how did this dish get its name (Jew's marrow)? Forgive me for saying so, but this name is quite odd, to say the least. ← I think molokhiya or melokhiya isn't usually translated this way. It's most popular in Egypt. It's probably just usually explained, rather than translated, as Egyptian greens or an Egyptian stew. I've heard it translated as "royal greens" or "bush okra." Jew's Marrow is probably a strange corruption of "jute mallow".

One of the things that makes it possible for simple flavors taste wonderful in Japan is that individual dishes are rarely served in portions so large as to make your palate bored. In Kyoto this is even more so. Your three small cubes of something creamy but tofu/soymilk like might have been yubadoufu. I had it served in small cubes also, but I think we ate it with either umeboshi or shouyu. http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/ajizanmai/k.../yubadoufu.html has a photo of a larger serving of yubadoufu. As for the "Japanese gnocchi", are you thinking of perhaps dango or shiratama? Dango are usually, but not always, made with glutinous rice, and shiratama can be made from kuzuko or other starches. Dango are usually seasoned with something sweet-savory (such as mirin, soy sauce, sugar), and shiratama are usually served in sweeter things, but in a restaurant setting you might find other inventions. I usually explain gnocchi to Japanese friends as "Italia dango." Below: Flavored yuba and another godoufu-like mochi-mochi toufu, and shiso, with shredded vegetables. Seved at a ryokan near Morioka, northern Japan.

I think "silken" or kinugoshi-doufu is different than doufu-fa. Except for Mori-nu type, Kinugoshi-doufu (silken tofu) is, to the best of my knowledge, still weighted and drained, but with a much finer cloth. (My Gaku Homma book that said this was "traditionally silk" may have well meant "folklorically silk"). It must be cotton with a finer thread weave than momen (cotton). When I buy dou fu fa from the Vietnamese tofu shop in Seattle, it is very very soft and high in water content, and apparently not weighted or drained. This texture is almost exactly like oboro-doufu in Japan. If I use kinugoshi-dofu, it has at least the potential of being torn into rough cubes, but oborodoufu or dou fu fa is best spooned. Kinugoshi-doufu could still reasonably be cut and deep-fried, which works well in Chinese hot pots.