SuzySushi

Very simple. Whole trout with dill, kasha, sliced fresh tomatoes, and fresh spinach. Dessert was sliced watermelon.

As a spin-off of Origamicrane's post in "The Basics, Three recipes every cook should know", what was the first thing you ever cooked? (could be a meal or otherwise) I remember as a little girl "helping" my grandmother make pie crust at Thanksgiving... each year she'd make these beautiful lattice-crust apple pies, never measured anything. Hers were always flaky and meltingly tender, while my "play-dough" always turned out tough and bitter. But the first thing I ever "cooked" was cinnamon toast in Home Ec class, where we learned to cream butter and sugar together. In high school, I once invited a friend over for dinner, made with cut-up leftover chicken, a package of frozen mixed vegetables, and a can of cream soup. Thank goodness I learned better after I left home! [Edited for horrible spelling. TWICE!]

Strain the raspberries after you puree them. Pass the puree through a fine sieve or chinois.

Yah, you can get those in the US: my local supermarket has them. But it's definitely true that there are way fewer boxed liquid foods in the US than elsewhere in the world. Why is that, I wonder? ← I think US consumers are still suspicious of shelf-stable liquids in aseptic boxes, except when it comes to kids' juice drinks, which we've accepted wholeheartedly. Certainly boxed milk has never made it big here though it outsells refrigerated milk in France, for instance. Campbell's is now offering its Swanson broths in aseptic cartons; I don't know how well they're performing compared to cans. Manufacturers might have to do an "education" campaign to get aseptic packages more widely accepted in the USA.

My $5 porcelain ginger grater doubles as an attractive spoonrest on my range. When I do use it to grate ginger, I use a toothpick to scrape out the edible "meat."

Congratulations!!! That's not something I'd attempt from scratch... I still vividly remember a friend's wrestle, long ago, with skinning and filleting an eel for some Italian New Year's dish. It was when I found out that the expression "slippery as an eel" has a basis in fact.

Lychee season here is right now! Not sure if the lychees I'm seeing in markets are grown locally or "imported" from somewhere on the mainland. Will ask at the greenmarket tomorrow. ← The majority of fresh lychees you see are imported from Taiwan. They are usually very sweet and fairly reasonable in price, but have a short shelf life. The "locally grown" ones come from Florida (if you're in the 48) or Hawaii. They're usually more visually appealing (sold with stem and leaves), but take longer to ripen. Lychees are starting to grow in Mexico. I haven't tried them yet, but pricewise, they're in between the local and imported ones. BTW, fresh peeled lychees soaked in vodka makes a wonderful snack. ← The lychees at the greenmarket were grown on the Big Island of Hawaii. They were all gone by the time I got there (1/2 hour after the greenmarket opened).

Hmmmn... I've never seen kabayaki except in individual packages, which we buy then keep in the freezer. We haven't found any loss of quality through freezing.

Did you puncture each puff after baking to let out the excess steam?

Well, it used to be, before all the salmonella scares! Not so much raw eggs broken over foods and eaten raw (except for steak tartare, which is another no-no these days!) but raw eggs used in eggnogs (as a child, I sometimes drank egg blended with milk and fruit for a quick breakfast), mousses, pie fillings, and other uncooked desserts.

One MSG product used commercially is Ajinomoto. The Japanese company of the same name first commericalized MSG powder for food use. Aji-no-moto, by the way, means "essence of taste."

Lychee season here is right now! Not sure if the lychees I'm seeing in markets are grown locally or "imported" from somewhere on the mainland. Will ask at the greenmarket tomorrow.

Well, I can't flame the oil around the edges of the wok because I have an electric stove! I've found a trick to replicate the smoky taste is to stir-fry some scallion greens until they're almost black before adding any of the meat or veggies -- the burnt scallions also lend a characteristic "Chinese restaurant" taste to the food.

I don't know anything about the prevalence of salmonella poisoning in Japan, but I do know that 10+ years ago, one of my Japanese friends got very, very ill from salmonella poisoning, which she attributed to eating raw eggs.

Heh! (That's a Chinese or Japanese "heh.") Count me in! I've never used a recipe for Cantonese-style chow mein, though. Just thrown together a combination of what's in the house and what looks good in the market. Saturday's the farmer's market. Will "chow" over the weekend.

Fresh poi doesn't travel very well. A lot of transplanted Hawaiians use instant poi, but that doesn't taste like the real thing. Best thing is to save your money for a trip to Hawaii!

Lychee ice cream and sorbet are fabulous! (I've never had to make my own because it's a pretty common flavor here in Hawaii.) A friend makes drinks with the heavy syrup from canned lychees (eat the fruit; add your beverage of choice to the syrup). Canned lychees stuffed with cream cheese mixed with chopped candied ginger. Lychees are good as a substitute for cherries in Clafoutis. I've never done anything with the fresh ones except eat them out-of-hand with the juice running down my chin! You can tell when it's lychee season... the streets of Chinatown (every Chinatown I've ever visited, anyway) are littered with the red peels, almost like spent firecracker shells at Chinese New Year's... no one can wait to get the lychees home before starting to eat them.

Not exactly food-related but.... if you need silver polish, in a pinch you can use toothpaste. And, from experience, the best (only!) way to get rid of the smell of burnt popcorn in a microwave oven is to microwave some bacon! (Forget about lemon juice, vinegar, etc. -- the stench of burnt popcorn is overwhelming.)

Best translation in English is "savory." Foods that are umami have a sense of fullness or roundness (well-roundedness?).

I don't use any raw eggs where I am (Hawaii) because of the high prevalence of salmonella. I might try andiesenji's pasteurization method if I ever need a lot of raw eggs for a mousse, etc. (I've never been a fan of raw eggs in sukiyaki, over rice for breakfast, etc., anyway. If I eat a dozen eggs a year as "just eggs," that's a lot!)

Based on techniques and the ability to make a meal, I'd say basic recipes everyone should know are: How to roast a chicken How to make an omelet How to make a simple stir-fry Learning how to boil pasta so it's not overcooked is a forth basic.

Knorr was marketing aseptically packaged soups in Europe in 1987 -- it's only taken Campbell's 18 years to do the same thing!

A light meal of mixed Asian cultures: Zarusoba (Japanese cold buckwheat noodles served with a soy-based dipping sauce) using soba made in Korea, garnished with slivered nori. Cha-shu (Chinese roast pork) on the side, along with paper-thin slices of Japanese cucumber. Now I'm drinking a cup of chai!

Looks like a lovely vacation! I love exploring the villages and backroads in France....

I'd translate pulpa de cerdo as "pork flesh" or "pork meat," thus the boneless meat.