nakji

Really? There's rice in gochujang? I guess that's what I get for never bothering to read the ingredients. I always use the Korean-made stuff in the red tub, I have to go read the label now...... What do you use your gochujang for in lunches, I'm intrigued?

Well, I finally got around to making mapo-dofu this weekend. Unfortunately, the board was down, so I couldn't use the recipe linked to upthread, so I just googled it, and found a simple recipe. (Which I then proceeded to freestyle on. Mainly I just use recipes as guidelines ) I used firm tofu, which I further drained in my pickle press for 30 minutes, and used sanrensho instead of sichuan peppercorns and gochujang in place of chili paste, since that's what I had on hand. Verdict? My husband loved it so much, I got a thumbs up text message when he got it in his lunch thermos the next day, along with a "better than chili!" It's going into the rotation. Incidentally, can anyone tell me if toubanjan differs from gochujang substantially? My fridge is so small, I hate to add another little bottle in there.

Have you seen the berry-flavoured ones? I think they're quite foul, but my husband loves them.

I give my spinach very little time in the water as well. I usually tong up some spinach, and dip it, stem first, in the boiling water. I give the stems about ten seconds in the water, then let the leaves fall. I pick them out almost immediately - when the green of the leaf begins to change slightly. I proceed in small batches until it's all cooked and draining, and I rinse with cold water, since I never seem to have any ice around. Ooh, I think I'll make it for dinner tonight.

I bought a ball of the kurozato ones 6 weeks ago at my supermarket, and the last one is still sitting in the bag in the cupboard. That never happens to chocolate in my house! I just couldn't reconcile the taste of chocolate and molasses.

Oh, goody. The Kamakura location is within cycling distance from me! Just in time for my birthday! I'm usually fairly disappointed in 100 yen dishes, but those look nice.

I'd like to know what people think, too. I often buy a bag of cheap Belgian chocolate pieces, which they bill as "pralines", but I would consider just "chocolate", since I always think of pralines as having nuts. What is a praline, technically speaking?

Fair enough! I myself could not imagine life without pork, especially in Asia! I think it makes up three or four meals a week for me. Without it, I'd be stuck eating the cheapest and most boring meat at the supermarket - boneless, skinless chicken breast.

The season's first zucchinis came in from the market this weekend, so I stuffed them with some ground chicken and grilled them with some cheese. Very satisfying! I've heard such people exist, but have never seen any proof before now.....

Cucumbers are all over the place here in Japan, too! My local veg stand has been stacked high with them. My husband came come on Saturday with a huge bag full of cucumbers and zucchinis from the market. I'm not sure if splenda is available here, but I'm willing to make those with real sugar, actually they look so good! Two other ways I'm dealing with the cucumber bounty: Harumi's Somen Salad, which has cucumber, tuna and somen all tossed together for an incredible pasta salad. and LA Times recipe for Korean cucumber banchan. I can't help sharing this amazing cucumber trick I learned from my Japanese teacher - (maybe y'all already know it) if you take a small bit of salt and scrub it into the cucumber on the outside, then rinse it off, it takes the bitterness away from the peel. It works a charm on Japanese cucumbers, I'm wondering how it works on common NA cucumbers.

Yay! One week in Bangkok! Blog on!

Oh, I've never tried that. What does it taste like? Doesn't the rice go gloopy? Wasabi and mayonnaise go together really well! I bet that would taste super. I'm glad you enjoyed Ca Hoa, it has just the right level of chaos for me. I love how I know what a lot of the things are for, now, too. And they carry Trung Nguyen coffee. I wanted to upload a sketch, but then I realized I didn't have a scanner. Anyway, please post a picture of your final dish. I can't wait to see it.

In Vietnam, I found pineapple was just as often used as a savoury vegetable as it was a sweet fruit. For example, thin slices of pineapple were always included on plates of lau (hotpot) ingredients. They were also often present any time things were getting wrapped up in rice paper. The pineapples used for the savoury dishes were smaller than the ones you find in a North American supermarket, however, and much drier, although they were just as sweet, I found. They provided a sweetness and crispness that balanced spicy flavours. One thing that I'm really enjoying as I learn to cook more and more Asian cuisines, is that putting sweetness into savoury dishes can be very harmonizing - and I crave dessert a lot less.

Sorry, what I meant was, is it su meshi - rice dressed with vinegar and sugar? I wouldn't find that very easy to eat as finger food. A nigiri sushi-style log would be easier to eat, and you could still present it in the shell. In which case, I would split the mussel in two, lengthwise, and put a hint of wasabi under - like scallops are presented at sushi shops. Although the wasabi pearl looks and sounds nice, I'm not sure I'd want a big hit of wasabi in the mouth like that - especially since it's probably the tube stuff, which is really strong. How about an extremely fine julienne of homemade pickled ginger, in a small rosette in the corner of the shell, (a la Richard in Top Chef, with his rosette of pickled radish on pork belly). Anyway, I'll try and do a sketch and see if I can't upload it later. In the meantime, have fun eating your experiments. Ca Hoa grocery, on the corner of Queen and Victoria in Halifax, often has exotic produce - more reliably than Peet's. When I was home at Christmas, I asked for a green papaya, and the owner pulled one out of the back refrigerator for me.

As a Nova Scotian currently residing in Japan, I feel especially qualified to critique Is that sushi rice in the shell? Huh. I don't know how I feel about that - how easy is it to eat? Do you have to scrape it out with your teeth? Is it finger food? On the lower roll, are those sesame seeds on the outside? I'm not sure, but I can't tell if you've toasted them or not. I think toasted sesame seeds have a more assertive flavour, and make for a nicer contrast as well. The maki rolls look more accessible to me. I would definitely eat one of those if it were put in front of me right now. Why not serve it with a dijon/mayonnaise dipping sauce? Nothing goes with maki like mayonnaise! And dijon mustard has a similar bite to wasabi. Is there some way you could do hand rolls with dulse? Another recipe that comes to mind is a maze gohan - a cooked rice with seasoned mussels mixed in and formed as little rice patties, garnished with black sesame seeds or maybe katsuo bushi. The cookbook I'm working my way through right now, "Harumi's Japanese Cooking" lists a maze gohan recipe with asari clams - basically, you take cooked clams, and saute them with slivered ginger, sake, sugar, soy sauce and mirin, and then mix it into steamed rice. It can then be made into rice balls (onigiri). I see this looking really cool - the orange of the mussels, contrasting with the white of the rice, then a garnish of black sesame seeds, and maybe serving them on a bit of dulse or something green like a shiso leaf...can you get shiso in Halifax, I can't remember? Wow, I wish I was there to see it and taste it!

Do you think the rind or peel could be prepared as a kinpira - like daikon peel kinpira? I've never tried to eat watermelon rind or peel, but I'm all for the frugal use of vegetables and fruits. Here is the kinpira thread.

This was one of my favourite bar snacks in Hanoi! It's delicious! But I never saw anyone cook it, we just ate it directly out of the package, with - and this is key- several squeezes of fresh lime juice over it. Taste magic! It's possible you're seeing a different kind of jerky than the one I ate, though. The beef jerkey you can buy in Hanoi is thinly shredded into strings - not big solid pieces. If you're seeing big pieces, you may need to heat it briefly to soften and shred it. I've seen lots of places do this to squid jerky. If you buy some next time, post a picture of it.

This sentence made me unaccountably homesick for a moment. Good luck with the monkfish. I've never tried it, but I hope to one day. I'm not sure if you can get it in Japan Here's a question for the punters: My go-to soy and mirin are Kikkoman Soy (green label) and Mizkan "hon te ri" mirin , (hon te ri?) Dashi is the box Hiroyuki posted over here I always mean to make my own dashi, and I will get around to it one of these days, but from a flavour perspective, is it worth upgrading my mirin and shoyu to more expensive brands? Cost isn't a huge issue, since I don't really go through that much of it compared to most Japanese households. And if so, have you got any brand recommendations?

I really, really want to try that lamb with braised pistachios and olives. That looks like a winner, right there. I was so happy that Stephanie won (although sad that it meant that Richard hadn't) because her food has been consistently good and interesting. What struck me was that the dishes Lisa cooked looked like dishes she'd made a hundred times, where it looked like Stephanie took more risks. She could cook outside of her comfort zone and produce something good, but that seemed like more of a challenge for Lisa.

That's exactly the stuff I have sitting in my pantry. I think it looks like yeast too! Except that seems to be a really big bag of it....... Add it to warm water, using about 1 tsp for 200ml or so, and use it like stock. Whachagonna make?

Oh, merguez, merguez. *sigh. I miss it so much. One of my favourite things to eat in Hanoi was a plate of merguez frites. I'm so tired this week, I'm one step away from eating at the 7/11. Dinner tonight was cold soba and men tsuyu from a bottle. The only thing I did was chop green onions and boil water.

And just to clarify, by "formal attempt to study," I don't necessarily mean taking classes, but doing things like sitting home at night with an introductory level book, carrying around a dictionary and a vocab notebook, holding "language exchange" sessions...etc. Like Rehovot, I have a quite a large food-related vocabulary for a beginner in Japanese, but any attempt to discuss sports or other things would end in tears. Sadly, the only real chance I have to speak Japanese every day is with the lovely staff at Starbucks. Just today I had an exchange about the provenance of my ring which had me giddy with achievement for an hour afterwards. I also buy "Orange Page", a cooking magazine, to help with reading, and I recently bought a Japanese language cookbook as well. I think it's really hard to separate language from culture, and you're just able to absorb and understand so much more about a place if you are a participant, and not just a witness.

I'd like to point out in addition to this that for most people, you have to make some sort of formal attempt to study the language - a lot of people are under the impression they can just ship themselves off to a foreign country and "just pick it up as they go along." If this were true, I'd be fluent in a lot more languages than I currently am. Everyday interaction will allow you to pick up some frequently used vocabulary and functional language, but to progress beyond this to eventually holding a conversation will take some effort. Consideration should also be given to the language being learnt. For example, going from English to another European language is not as hard as going to an Asian language, because of a common writing system and the large number of cognates. So in the case of the poster who is worried about learning French and Japanese, I'd recommend starting with the French first! Of course, I believe you acquire the language you're really motivated to learn - the stuff you need to survive- quickly. For example, the only Vietnamese I ever learnt was "Hello, goodbye, thank-you, eggplants, older sister, auntie, uncle, grandmother, that's expensive! and twenty copies, double sided." because those were the extent of the interactions I had to perform in Vietnamese, as I was working in an all-English environment for the most part. If you were working in a busy restaurant kitchen, you'd quickly learn all the important vocabulary, because people would be shouting and pointing. (Although whether you'd be able to say it properly or write it down yourself would be another question) But being able to say something like, "Well, I haven't finished chopping the carrots yet because the gas line has burst and the entire kitchen is on fire" would require some formal study, in my opinion. But it's incredibly rewarding when you do. I spent four months studying Japanese before I finally moved here, and it jump-started my introduction into the culture, and gave me a lot of confidence in daily interactions. It also helps to smooth over some of the inevitable bumps of culture shock, if you can ask questions and express yourself. For anyone considering going to a foreign country for a stage, I strongly recommend studying before you go, it'll earn you some respect and make your transition a lot less stressful. I once unintentionally insulted a friend of mine whose family owns a restaurant in US when I expressed surprise that they couldn't speak Spanish - I think I said something like, "It's hardly even a foreign language!" She felt that they shouldn't have to learn a foreign language in their own country, but really, if it makes your life easier, why wouldn't you? But I guess that's a debate for another thread.

I grew up thinking I hated tea, but it turned out I just hate Orange Pekoe. Right now I'm drinking cold sencha to beat the heat - just an average supermarket blend, although it's not particularly cheap. I think it tastes sweet and has hints of vanilla. It's quite thirst-quenching first thing in the morning when I wake up. I also love good quality jasmine tea. One thing I like about living in Japan is the wide variety of teas available in drink machines.

My favourite dipping sauce is half/half soy and rice vinegar, with gochu garu sprinkled on. God, I can't believe I ever used V-1 plum sauce. Is there a shame emoticon around here?