JasonTrue

I remember one of my Tokyo friends being bewildered that Nikko seemed to so heavily emphasize yuba as a town specialty. In her mind, it could be made anywhere. In my experience, the particular types of yuba used widely in Nikko weren't that exciting; what I had seemed to be big rehydated rolled yuba. Pleasant but not unforgettable. In Kyoto the fresh yuba was much more impressive, whether small rolls of yuba, fresh rectangular sheets, or yubadoufu. On the other hand, in Nikko I knew I'd be getting a little more protein than usual when I ordered yuba-soba.

I believe Japanese refer to dou fu fa as oborodoufu, which is different than kinugoshi-doufu because oborodoufu is more soft and custard-like.

I guess this belongs in another thread, but here is a photo of the Tounyuu no warabimochi I had in Kyoto. It's served with kuro-mitsu (black sugar honey syrup) and kinako (toasted soybean powder). I feel the texture is somewhat more like godoufu than typical warabimochi, because it was not nearly as chewy as the typical warabi-mochi I found, but still different than godoufu. If, however, you happen to have a little extra godoufu, please try serving it with kuromitsu and some seasoned kinako (hint of sugar, hint of salt). This was discussed on a blog entry which also discussed an excellent French restaurant hidden away in the Nose valley near Osaka, and showed some nifty yuzen fabrics from Kyoto The boundaries between the sweet and the savory aren't always sharply defined in Japan. I remember being served tokoroten as a welcoming snack at a ryokan in Izu (Shizuoka-ken), and we were offered the choice of dressing it with mustard and soy sauce or with kuromitsu. On the other hand, when I served some friends in Japan the rather ordinary Chinese/Vietnamese dessert of oborodoufu with ginger syrup, with a little bit of anko because it was readily available, my Japanese friends thought this was incredibly innovative. So sometimes convention defines the boundary.

I mean that the starch-based coagulant isn't used, just nigari, or even refined versions of nigari like calcium carbonate are acceptable. The difference, to me, is analogous to traditionally made cheese vs. Velveeta. So tofu which is coagulated in the Tetra-pak it's sold in doesn't qualify, in my book, as good tofu... though I'm sure mori-nu would disagree. Their main advantage is that it is unlikely you would find soured tofu, unlike some supermarket brands with optimistic sell-by dates that are more than one or two weeks in the future. Mediocre tofu is better than sour tofu. The most important thing when considering tofu, more than any other single factor, is freshness. I would rather have very fresh extra-firm tofu (which is for me not at all an ideal texture for tofu) than a slightly soured oboroudoufu, in spite of how much I love the texture of a good oboroudoufu. By the way, Hiroyuki suggested to me that kinu (silk) wasn't used in kinugoshi-doufu production, but that it described the texture. My source for this was Gaku Homma's generally excellent book "Japanese Country Cooking": Gaku's book does have many small errors from translation, and sometimes he also bases his explanations on folklore rather than on documented history. But he was a museum curator at one time, focused on documenting traditional crafts, so I'd be inclined to believe that. All tofu needs some sort of coagulant, otherwise it would never form. The differences come in the types of coagulants used, the best tofu uses natural sources. ←

Tofu, whether Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai, is usually made by weighting and draining curdled soymilk usually in cubic-shaped molds with holes, with weight applied on top. Traditionally these were lined with some fabric material like cotton (momen) or silk (kinu), though this can be replicated with non-fabric technologies now. I believe oborodoufu doesn't do any weighting down but some draining is done (or I might have that background). Some high-tech tofu, like the shelf-stable kinugoshi-doufu from mori-nu, are solidified insided the package using a controlled ratio of calcium chloride and some cornstarch-based unpronouncable coagulant (Gluconalactone). But most good tofu is made in a manner that replicates the traditional techniques. You can look at http://www.ued.janis.or.jp/syoku/tofu/factory/ to see some photos from a Japanese tofu factory. corrected typo in url, again :P

Every recipe I have found requires both katakuriko and kuzuko to make godoufu. But the ratio is 4:1 katakuriko to kuzuko. I think without the kuzuko it will be more like the tounyuu no warabimochi I had in Kyoto.

This is what I use: The left side is katakuriko. The right side is kuzuko, but you will want to crush it a bit or make sure it's dissolved before bringing anything made with it up to a boil.

Instead of using a batter, I might suggest doing the more classic tempura method: dilute some very cold eggs with something like a 1:1 ratio of water, beat, and pour into a bowl with an ice cube. Sift some chilled flour into another bowl. People who are better at this than me can do this in a single bowl with the flour on one side and the egg on the other. In any event, you should dredge in egg, then dredge your items in the flour. It should be just the right amount to add some crispiness from frying, without being a heavy batter. Most home cooks use a tempura batter, but I think this method produces more delicate results, as long as your tempurature in your frying oil is relatively stable.

On my blog today I finally posted some photos of a godoufu dinner I made last week. This was served before the godoufu had fully set from the hurried ice bath (hey, I was hungry) so it doesn't look as block-like as it could. The full entry includes some photos of various side dishes, including nasu-no miso-ni and sunomono with konbu and kyuuri.

If they were very fine strands (before melting), then this is the Korean version of dragon beard candy. The one that I import doesn't melt until the individual trays are unsealed. But the texture is a bit different than the street one: a little more delicate/refined and actually meant to be served chilled. The one that Sejong company in Korea makes needs to be stored refrigerated to be kept for any length of time.

Onsen tamago (hot spring egg) is a classic poached egg. Usually you add a little Japanese soy sauce and maybe other condiments when you plate it. If you poach it in high mineral content onsen water, then it's a real onsen tamago, but for the rest of us, add some salt and a splash of vinegar into a shallow, wide-mouthed pan filled with water. Bring the water to a simmer. Crack your egg into asmall teacup. Bring the cup into contact with the water and slide the egg carefully into the pan. Simmer for about two minutes, until the egg white sets.

In Japan I'm sure Torakris has good access to ceramics, but I do agree there's some very nice work at a few of the ceramics shops in Korea. I recommend the three or four part teacups meant for green tea. They have a removable infusion sieve insert, a lid, a cup, and sometimes a saucer. They are great for those moments when there are only one or two people around but someone wants a little cup of nokcha... Or for accommodating groups of people with different preferences for infusion strength. I also seek out the pottery with contrasting clay inlays... With celadon ware, this is usually one iron-containing and one iron-free clay to provide a contrasting color between the glaze reactive iron-based clay and non-reactive other clay. The contrasting patterns are carved away and then the other clay is pushed into wedges on the clay. The textures are often quite nice. (My matcha cookies were presented in these plates but the texture is, alas, obscured by the cookies). I'm less excited by typical crane motifs and so on but Insadong is a good place for both common traditional pieces and some interesting contemporary work.

It doesn't match the weight target, but I always wanted to pick up a couple of dol sot (stone bowls) for bibimbap... Fortunately there are adequate, inexpensive options here in Seattle but I keep on thinking I'll find the perfect one when I next have a chance to go to Korea.

The hobak (pumpkin) taffy is pretty durable, just like any other taffy. Maybe you are thinking of yong su-yeom yeott, or dragon beard candy? Except for the version that I import, this one tends to melt very quickly.

-some artisanal gochujang or ssamjang -yuja-cha (but maybe too heavy) is about 1/4 the price of Japanese brands and sometimes made with higher fruit content (50-55% is best) -omija-cha seeds for a kind of medicinal tea -I liked a kind of hobak candy (taffy-style pumpkin candy) found in Insadong -Lots of yeott (sweets) made from sesame or peanuts or other nuts -good soju would be nice, but you can get equally interesting shochu in Japan, and you don't drink much :P I sometimes like baek seju which is made with sweet potato and maybe ginseng, and has a sake-like alcohol level. -malt powder to make your own shikhae, but this is easy and cheap to get in the US... never tried to get in in Japan. I guess you can also get some good dried squid snacks and so on. It wasn't in my realm of need...

One thing that is also true is that eating fruit was often a mark of privilege in Japan. One of my friends (about 15 years older than me, now in her mid-40s) said that in her home only her father was really allowed to consume the fruit that appeared in their household, often including more humble fruits like apples. The Fuji hybrid that is grown in Japan produces much different fruit in Washington and BC. It has a similar kind of sweetness, but is rarely as big as a Japanese Fuji. That being said, the distribution layers and cost of living affect the price of apples in Japan. I don't know if the US apples are subsidized like other agricultural commodities, but unlike in-season Washingon apples, 69 cent per pound or even 99 cent per pound apples are pretty darned unlikely in Japan, and probably have been rare for quite a long time. Considering how much fuel costs in Japan compared to the US, and considering that there are often multiple interests in a typical wholesale transaction, it's a wonder when a consumer at an urban supermarket can get any apple for less than a hundred yen, even if grown outside Japan. One problem I did find in Japan is that sometimes quite beautiful apples were bland and starchy, but this problem occurs quite a lot with out-of-season apples or improperly stored ones here as well. I remember being unimpressed by an apple brought to us by special request at a restaurant about a month or two after the peak of the apple season (our mistake for asking for something not on the menu, I guess).

I've been snacking on some kinako senbe of late, but these had a slightly sweetened/salted kinako, much as one would probably do when making kinako-mochi at home. Though mine didn't say anything about kokutou... in yours, you say the kinako was unsweetened. They didn't blend the black sugar with the kinako?

See, for example: http://www.bigempire.com/sake/yubari.html Yubari is in Hokkaido, and the Yubari King is apparently a hybrid that particularly took to Yubari's soil.

Since this is pretty likely an invention for a non-Japanese audience, you can probably use whatever tastes good to you. Japanese don't really have a signature chili paste except maybe yuzu-koshou, or something like shichimi. Tabasco is about as ubiquitous in Japan as it is in the US... and pops up in all sorts of places it wouldn't be expected (like in low-end Italian restaurants). The most commonly used tougarashi in Japan are somewhat distinctive (smaller and spicier than Korean chilies, but used far more sparingly, and with a different flavor; different than the common thai chilies though). You can sometimes find them dry in Asian markets, and I've also seen fresh shishitougarashi in my area.

If their explanation is that people's bodies are used to high levels of iodine, I don't buy it. If they were explaining that some bacteria or fungus associated with konbu or hijiki was something that people's bodies in Japan were "used to", that might be more believable, but I'd still be skeptical. Mineral tolerances don't really dramatically vary between ethnic groups. This is just another kind of exoticization of the East, another example of orientalism. I remember in Germany that people were absolutely convinced that Teflon pans were dangerous because they had always heard they were associated with Alzheimer's disease. Of course, this had already been debunked for years by the time I was there, as there was more aluminum exposure from the average deoderant than from even the most seriously scratched aluminum pan, but the rumor persisted that the Teflon itself was dangerous. In the US the FDA over-reacted to occasional reports of people choking on konnyaku-based jellies and forced a recall. No similar recall was placed on Jello jigglers or Triscuits or any other food that it's possible to choke on when being careless. Sometimes people react more harshly to limited data on an unfamiliar product than they would to, for example, long-established, repeatedly verified data that excessive saturated fat consumption can be detrimental to health. You don't see meat or Crisco being pulled off the shelves. People try to see harm or help in absolutely every little ingredient. When I'm doing demonstrations of a candy or a tea product in a supermarket, it never fails that someone will ask me "is there some health benefit to eating/drinking this?" Or I see someone buy some product that has a huge amount of non-obvious sugar, and they say they can't eat the candy I import because it would have too much sugar (which turns out to be about 1.2 grams per serving, about 10% of the sugar in a glass of milk). I would love to explain that the health benefit or harm of a particular food is not the reason to decide to eat it or not. In moderation, there's nothing wrong with kelp or hijiki. Both have minerals which are in fact quite beneficial in judicious quantities. In moderation, there's nothing wrong with butter or cheese or even sugar. Smoked fish from the North See contains carcinogens from the smoke, but no Northern German would give up their fish indulgences for that reason. I'm a vegetarian, but even I would say that for the most part meat or fish in moderation is perfectly healthy. Europe is one place where people still eat food primarily focused on the pleasure of what they are eating and not based on the supposed medical effects of what they put into their bodies. The stuff that we use as substitutes for the things that we want to eat is rarely substantially healthier than what it substitutes for; this is a fetishization of ingredients that does more harm than good. Japanese use konbu in nearly every dish in small quantities, because it's a component of nearly every soup stock. It provides natural glutamates that enhance the flavors of food. Hijiki is a common side dish. No one fills a 9" plate with konbu or hijiki and eats a big pile of it. This is not a matter of health; this is just the fact that doing so would be boring and inconsistent with Japanese plating customs. Japanese who are eating hijiki or konbu are not getting sick because of it, but this is not because of their bodies being used to it; Japanese consumption habits are simply different. If there is some health benefit from such a practice, so be it, but few people are obsessed with the health as much as wanting to have a nice meal made of good, simple things. There aren't a large number of varieties of hijiki in Japan as I recall; just the length is the main differentiating factor. As for konbu, there are a few different varieties, but most of the distinction is based on the age, which affects the suitability of the konbu for soup stock, simply eating, or some combination of the two. The number of varieties has little to do with health considerations. I think that food magazines, journalists and health books frequently reference studies of associations between foods and diseases in an irresponsible way. The people citing these studies are not scientists and are often unable to recognize that a bell curve may only be shifted in only slightly statistically significant ways before a researcher draws a conclusion. Lay sources then overemphasize these conclusions, leaving out any qualifiers like "may" or "possibly", and make people more poorly informed than they were when they knew nothing.

I do a typical negi-shouga type frequently, but I'm also quite a fan of adorning my hiya-yakko with yuzu-koshou.

Not from Scharffenberger, but World Spice Markets below Pike Place Market has cacao nibs priced per ounce. Ah, and Fran's has some chocolate-coated cacao nibs meant more as a snack or garnish.

Since I'm a latecomer to this topic, sorry for not noticing it earlier... In Gifu, particularly in Takayama/Hida-Takayama, but also in Gero, I remember the signature dish of "houba miso", which is slightly sweetened miso (much more savory than neri-miso or dengaku-miso) grilled usually atop a magnolia leaf on a shichirin at the table. This also typically includes one or two things from the following list: 1) hida-gyuu or Hida Beef, 2) tofu or 3) shiitake mushrooms. These would be grilled along with the houba-miso and the miso would be used as a seasoning for the same; alternately, you could eat the grilled miso with the rice. Most often garnished with some negi. The miso seems to get a little bit of smoke from the houba and it slightly flavors the miso. I doubt you'll find such food outside of Japan because it isn't dramatic enough, but it's one of many examples of incredibly simple foods that can be absolutely spectacularly comforting when traveling in Japan. Alas, I have a few blurry photos from places where I ate houba-miso but no actual photos of the food. Oh, and another thing that I was absolutely infatuated with was aka-kabu no tsukemono, made from red turnip (not beets). These sweet pickles probably have a more elegant name than I'm improvising, but I've since discarded my package of them. These were served on a small plate next to a cream anmitsu-kakigouri and also savory dishes at a Takayama spot whose name I forget, but were conveniently available at a tsukemono-ya-san nearby. It's not specifically Gifu-ish, but there is a nice little senbe place in Takayama that I will go to every time. The fresh ones made to order are standard shouyu-seasoned ones, but they had a bunch of less typical toppings in their packaged ones, including tarako, chocolate, and so on.

I think for the American palate it's not as distracting to have competing flavors in the same bite. Like I said, although I'm just a white guy, my fusion is based on a more Japanese approach to ingredients... Except for some over-the-top folks like Nobu and Morimoto (both conveniently located in the US) the Japanese approach to fusion is generally more about highlighting natural flavors than about asking a lot of them to all play with each other simultaneously. Textural challenges are also confusing for a Japanese palate. The towers of interesting sounding ingredients school of fusion is certainly a common approach and it works especially well when the audience isn't intimately familiar with a particular ingredient. I'll certainly try mango and matcha together just to see what I can do with it. I might be a convert yet; when I just think of the function of these both very complex-yet-subtle tasting ingredients it seems hard to imagine them in the same cream or paste. I could imagine something like this site created working, because the flavors stay independent yet have the chance to play together. If Starbucks (Tazo) can do matcha and honeydew melon together (though I don't know how it tastes), and if the bubble tea places can do matcha-mango drinks (the most common matcha-mango references I could fine), it must have some sort of mainstream appeal. I know what you mean about high fat things often freezing hard. When I first attempted a seriously chocolate ice cream (probably the second time I made ice cream ever) many years ago, it was based on bitter chocolate, cream, some milk, and a little sugar. It tasted wonderful, but it was a sliceable, frozen-parfait type dessert and should have been made in a mold; it wasn't ice cream because the fat had hardened too much. Now that I've made that mistake I take advantage of the knowledge to recreate the texture on purpose. But it wasn't a crispy hard... I think anything short of a "crunch" will be a familiar manufactured-ice-cream-cookie like taste. Fran's Chocolates was usually working with a more crispy cookie for their ice cream cookies, and I remember that the "Big Cookie" frozen ice cream cookies were usually somewhat crisp. I would think your risk would be too much moisture (rather than fat) because higher-moisture cookies will become ice cubes.

The candy that I import is made using a similar technique, though sugar confection is finicky in different ways than wheat: sugar confection can melt from too much handling, wheat is more elastic. But both must be stretched as evenly as possible to avoid premature breakage. There's a video on my web site that shows the basic process. When I was given a chance to try this with Mr. Wong last Christmas season, the specific spiral motions of the hands were quite important both for accomplishing the task and for creating a rhythm and pace. I got a little more confident as I went along, but Mr. Wong scolded me a lot for not moving fast enough. (Moving too slowly will cause the sugar to get stickier and melt, requiring more cornstarch and producing a pastier or uneven result.). I'm not sure I'll be able to replicate the candy myself without adult supervision, but since I'm even less an expert on the wheat version: Is oil the only thing separating the strands or does one dust with flour along the way? My Chinese neighbor in Germany when I was a starving student there used to make hand snapped noodles, which are using a similar oil-covered rested dough but a little less finicky. He made fat thin noodles which were served in soup. Those six simple sentences describe a process whose complexity is beyond my ability to fathom. I admire so profoundly the chefs that make hand-pulled noodles; I simply cannot imagine it. If anyone on eG does this, he or she will earn my undying awe. ←