sanrensho

We now have kabocha seedlings popping up unexpectedly all over the place. Like asparagus, it feels like Christmas every day. (If you've ever seen an asparagus patch in action, you know what I mean.) The seeds got into the ground courtesy of our compost, and our family's regular consumption of kabocha squash. We've also got a few other seedlings of indeterminate origin, so it should be interesting to see what they develop into. Laura: You can prune that rosemary by taking out the lower branches and forming a ball if you want. That's what my neighbor did. http://www.papagenos.com/blog/template_permalink.asp?id=140

Just out of curiosity, what kind of curry are they serving? A Japanese one made out of commercial roux? A southeast Asian curry?

I've never made it, but there's a beautiful collection (four pages worth!) of galette des rois here: http://www.galette.info/recette/index.html#top

Thanks Matt for the slug suggestion. I need to get a bunch of cheap beer and try it over the weekend. My wife just picked up a bunch of plants for me at Fujiya. They have two types of shiso, Japanese eggplant and cucumber, and togarashi peppers (didn't get it). The pac choi has really perked up with this warm weather. Since my last post I will be planting the stuff from Fujiya, plus have planted various Japanese greens and a mesculin mix w/chervil. And a blackcurrant bush. Also thinking about adding more tomatoes, since they're going strong so far.

Soaking is standard practice in Japan. It's also typical to soak overnight and use the timer setting in order to wake up to hot, freshly cooked rice. You could also do the same for your evening meals. Before you leave for work/errands, wash your rice until clear, add water and set the timer so your rice is ready around the time your get home. One tip I gleaned from a Japanese cooking show is to use the fastest setting on your rice cooker if you are pre-soaking. (This assumes that you like a rice with bite, rather than soft, mushy rice.) Your manual will tell you which timer settings have a pre-soak time built into the program. However, there are so many types of rice and different preferences for softness that it's hard to generalize. The above is my experience with Japanese short grain rice.

That's an interesting one with the addition of whipping cream. Have you made it?

Thanks Rona, that's helpful. I'll shoot for 12% protein with the recipe I posted. Although it might be a week, since my wife now shudders when she sees me bring out the loaf pans.

You could be right, but I'm not interested in adding another appliance right now. Besides, anything that is doable by a bread machine should also be doable by hand. I realize that this is more of a challenge for those of us outside of Japan. If I were living in Japan, I would have zero incentive to make shokupan myself.

I'm relieved to hear that I'm not the only one with this problem! The next recipe I'm thinking of trying is this one: http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/e-pan/pullman2/pullman.htm I'll use the mixing method as it is written, rather than my usual simplified method. The only challah I've tried is the one from Baking w/Julia, which baked and tasted fine.

Thanks, I was thinking along the same lines but wasn't sure how to play with the formula. Ill add this to my list of shokupan experiments.

As I mentioned, I have tried a few Japanese recipes by Japanese authors and haven't been happy with the results. I am wondering if anybody has reworked or come up with recipes that come close to the shokupan texture/lightness. It's very possible that my technique is to fault, although I've generally had success baking various other types of yeasted bread. Of course, I could keep experimenting and churning out shokupan failures, but I think my wife is close to killing me (if she doesn't choke on my bread first).

Has anybody found a tried-and-true recipe for baking Japanese-style white sandwich bread (i.e., shokupan)? Preferably one that is adjusted for North American flours and ingredients. My wife and kids crave this stuff, although I prefer something more substantial. We can drive across town and buy a reasonable facsimile from our local Chinese bakeries, but I'd really prefer to master it and bake it myself. Texture-wise, the closest I've come to achieving the same lightness and texture is with challah recipes (except for the yellow color, of course). I've tried a few Japanese recipes and haven't hit success so far. I'm also fairly new at baking bread, so maybe my technique is to blame. Any tips or hints would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Peter Green recently posted about such a dish in this blog: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=100702 (Sorry, I don't have the time to find the specific post right now...)

^^^Did you find the recipe difficult to work with as a sheet layer? I got the impression that this recipe was very moist and possibly delicate to work with, unlike the foam-based cakes that I usually bake. Of course, freezing might be a way around that.

Here's a link to the product manual for the Solaire portable grill: http://www.rasmussen.biz/grills/pdfs/Solai...&U%203-06.1.pdf The small propane bottle is supposed to last about one hour.

Thanks for the comments. The IR grill sounds like a winner to me.

A question for Joe Blowe and Msk: What is your experience grilling meats with a marinade or vegetables with the knock-off Solaire grill? How about seafood (prawns, squid, thin fillets)? I'm looking at the Solaire portable manual, and it only mentions removing excess marinade. Thanks.

^^^Good call, there's also avocado mousse and cassava cake. And yomogi (mugwort) is used in Japanese rice cakes.

Anything with rhubarb...

Thanks Abra and little ms foodie. I look forward to trying this recipe soon.

This looks/sounds amazing. Is it a coconut milk base (like a tom kha gai), or something else entirely?

Excellent, thanks! What I am really dying for is shishitou. Any chance those chili plants were actually shishitou peppers?

Thanks, this will be an experimental year to see what actually grows and doesn't, and what is worthwhile in terms of actual production/effort. So far, we've had a few salads of young greens (spinach/chard/kale/arugula/cabbage/pac choi) and I've got some herbs to work with. I'm hopeful that we'll have enough greens moving forward to keep us topped up most days. My main goal is to get access to a greater variety of greens without driving across town. Due to space restrictions, I'm not planting space intensive crops or things that I can buy readily (carrots, onions, potatoes). At least, not this year.

I think I've finished the majority of my spring planting, so here's the full list of what's going in my garden this year. It looks like more than it is. Most of it I've never planted before, so I'll be darn pleased if even half of it turns out OK (doesn't die by my black thumbs). Fruits from previous seasons: Blueberries, currants (red), gooseberries, raspberries Fruits new this season: Black currants, black raspberries (if I can still get some from Rona) Vegetables from previous seasons: Rhubarb Vegetables newly started this season (majority never planted before): Beans (runner/garbonzo—starts) Brussel sprouts (starts) Cabbage (savoy—starts) Chard (rainbow—starts) Cucumber (straight eight—starts) Eggplant (ichiban/bambino—starts) Gai lan (seeds) Japanese greens (shungiku/shinshu kyomizuna, one other—seeds) Kale (starts) Pac choi (starts) Peas (sugar snap—starts and seeds) Peppers (waiting to get the same ones I got last year from H Mart) Salad greens (mesculin mix—seeds, arugula—starters) Soybean (seeds) Spinach (noble giant—starts) Squash (buttercup—starts, kabocha—seeds) Tomatoes (red cherry, sweet 100—starts) Watercress (starts) Yomogi (mugwort—received from friend) Herbs from previous seasons: Marjoram (pot), mint (English, apple), oregano, rau ram, savory (winter), thyme (English) Herbs, newly started this season: Basil (Genovese, Thai holy—seeds and starts), bay (starts) dill (starts), parsley (Italian—starts), rosemary (starts), shiso (waiting for Fujiya to stock this) Disasters to report so far: The slugs got to my savoy cabbage and pretty much have killed my buttercup squash starts. Also considering leg traps to prevent my kids (or more specifically, their friends) from stepping on recently planted ground.

How about a caponata or marinated roasted peppers on grilled toast--along the lines of bruschetta? Either could be made the day before. We often make a soup such as minestrone and reheat the leftovers for breakfast the next day. We also sometimes have salad as a side dish for breakfast. Preferably spinach or other greens, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage--anything but lettuce.