nakji

I'm not sure about the Cheetos, but since I ate my first "cheese mochi" this week, I'm not sure I'll go near another cheeto again in my life. It melted on my tongue! Also, have you seen the new caramel salt flavoured kitkats? My husband bought a bag full of the mini bars at the supermarket, and I've been trying to pretend I didn't know they were in the cupboard for the last few days. This vacation is killing me.

I'm glad it worked out for you. Fresh rice noodles taste so much better to me than reconstituted dried ones. I miss being able to walk out on to my street and buy fresh ones right out of a basket filled with rice noodles and banana leaves. You could use them to make all sorts of dishes...my favourite is Bun Bo Nam Bo.

Nakji, I have been looking for the Champagne tastes, Beer budget thread but can't find it. Would you please post the link to it as I love collecting these ideas. Your broccoli looks wonderful and broccoli was on sale this week and I have a lot of that and also cauliflower for which I have wonderful ideas, past roasting, all from this thread. Thanks, Kay ← Clickety. It took me forever to find it again, actually, it was in "Food Traditions" and not "Cooking". Thanks, it was really delicious, my husband and I were fighting with our forks to get it all. ETA: Bruce, thanks for the directions! I'll definitely be trying that out, especially since there are three kinds of ginger on sale at the supermarket now, and I hate to waste ginger diversity. Dr. J: Damn. Did you have time to do anything other than cook? Only...potato salad with French toast? How does that taste?

I know, I know. Especially at the rate I can consume mul kimchi. But I'm limited by the size of my container and my fridge where I eventually have to put it. And I have no more cabbage. You're stars! I'm going to wander into the kitchen and see if I have any chilis sitting around. I know I have dried shiitake and konbu....

Help! I have a third of a daikon sulking on my kitchen table, because I don't have a home for it. I turned a third of it into cold udon with ponzu, and another third into mul kimchi, but now I need to sort out the rest of it. I don't have much miso left right now, or I'd put it in that. I was thinking something with thin slices...anyone have any suggestions? Helen?

Sugoi! Once again, Hiroyuki, you are my personal culinary hero. I have two tubs of miso taking up valuable space in my bar-sized refrigerator. My freezer? Virtually empty - except for a small bag of edamame for bento. I'm getting up right now to go rearrange things.

That looks like a fantasy thali, Bruce! In the seared ginger raita, was the ginger cooked before adding it to the yogurt? It sounds fantastic, there aren't enough yogurt-based condiments in my life, frankly. Last night I got home after a long weekend of eating in Tokyo, and I had to cook something simple out of the cupboards, since we had virtually no fresh food sitting around. I always keep a can of tomatoes and a pack of pasta on hand for just such emergencies. I found a few strips of orphaned bacon at the back of the fridge, and made my cheapskate version of pasta amatriciana. There was a grumpy looking broccoli in my crisper as well, the green buds just about to go over to yellow, so I knew I had to do something about it. I stir-fried it in olive oil with garlic and lemon, and then I remembered MoGa's tip in the Champagne tastes, Beer budget thread about using panko as a topping rather than parmensan. So I sauteed some in a little butter and olive oil, and topped it with that. It's my new favourite vegetable dish! People who don't like eating vegetables clearly aren't adding enough fat and carbs to them, in my opinion. It must be a corollary of the "Bacon Makes Everything Better" rule.

I do this all the time, too! Sometime if I want to make it low fat, I use nuoc cham as the dressing instead. It's great packed in a lunch box for the next day, too, if your co-workers don't mind the smell of fish sauce too much. Daniel, that meal made me sulky. Why can't I cook like that? I can barely manage to put the salad together. Ted Fairhead, your curry looks comforting.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that ovens weren't common in Japan, just that I don't have one. It makes cooking most western dishes difficult for me, since most recipes call for one. I have a recipe from the February 2008 issue for chicken in a pot - it looked interesting, until I read that the chicken is put in a dutch oven, then put inside a regular oven. I guess I was wrong, but I thought the whole point of using a dutch oven was so that it could be cooked over a direct flame. But anyway, it called for being cooked for 80-110 minutes, and then I thought about what that would do to my gas bill, and I hurled the magazine into a corner. Where it has sat until I dusted it off just now to see what month it was.

They're strips of cooked ham. Next time I make this, I think I'm going to use smoked chicken instead. But it wasn't a complete disaster - I did eat the whole thing! I love cold noodle salads too.

oooh, I might try that this weekend. I made that for lunch today!

Oh, dear. I'm not sure if I'm up for that, since my broth skills are parlous. Harukiya had a shopfront at the museum, but we didn't try it, so perhaps we should give it a chance, since we don't mind "oily" so much. Oh no, I got what you meant. And I did really enjoy that Sapporo miso ramen.

Random, scattered impressions on first viewing: The Gladporn shots are beginning to get to me. I thought this challenge was fairly relevant, since don't most "top" chefs these days eventually put out a book for home cooks? Not, you know, like Thomas Keller and Ferran Adria, but the Jamies and the Emerils of the world. Ten dollars for four people seems cruel and unusual if you're only going to send them to Whole Foods. Does the average family shop there? I thought Nikki was clever to use a one-pot dish, since you can put it on, and walk away from it for a while. I haven't prepared meals in a family setting since living with my parents, lo those many years ago, but I recall there's a lot to do when you get home, and being able to walk away from food while it cooks itself enables you to put the laundry on and all those other tasks that functional adults have to engage in. Pasta is clever to stretch your budget. I immediately shouted, "pasta!" when I heard the challenge. It reminded me of Jamie's School Dinners, when heard how much he had to spend per student. Kids love pasta, it's easy to cook, it only takes a few minutes, and most people are comfortable cooking it - who hasn't made boxed mac-and-cheese? Antonia made a faux-Asian style stir-fried pasta, in the style of, to paraphrase Jeffrey Steingarten, mock ethnic dishes that dieticians love. I wouldn't have been surprised to see bottled teriyaki sauce involved. I liked the look of the pasta puttanesca more, but why the carrot soup as well? Curry is a much more common dish in countries outside of the US, so I wasn't surprised when Mark decided to make one. Serve a kid in the UK, New Zealand, or Japan a curry, and they wouldn't even bat an eye. I'm not sure he knew what a risk it might be in the US. That being said, it looked like his curry sucked. No reason why it had to be meat to add the protein - chickpeas or lentils would have been fine. Cucumbers? WTF? In Mark's defense, I also feel like Chef Tom doesn't like him. In Chef Tom's defense, I think it might be justified. As for Richard, a good showing for an area that might have been difficult for him. But I didn't know beets were cutting edge. I grew up with a bottle of pickled beets planted firmly in the middle of the dinner table - but maybe that's an English thing? I'm hoping they're popular in Japan, too, because there's nothing better than a salad with beets and goat cheese when the weather gets hot. The Uncle Ben's challenge was so inexcusable, I can't even speak about it. Especially now, in the midst of a rice crisis.

This, maybe? I like the idea of Cook's Illustrated, but every time I open a copy, it seems fully 9/10ths of all the recipes require an oven for some step, which I do not have. I realize ovens are used for most Western dishes, but I wonder how much of it is really necessary.

Those scallops look amazing.....I'd kill to have those for breakfast, lunch, or dinner! I miss the Digby scallops I used to get in Nova Scotia, soft and pillowy, and succulently sweet- I just can't find the like here in Japan. I made hiyashi chuka for the first time for lunch today - it's a kind of cold noodle salad made with fresh ramen noodles, and in the version I did, it has a dressing made with white miso and ground sesame seeds. The recipe sounded promising, but the taste was just too bland for me. The recipe calls for an alternate version with a vinegar/soy sauce-based dressing that I think I'll try next time - it sounds sharper and more interesting.

Well, this is exactly the sort of conversation I was hoping to spark about ramen. Lots of really great insights, thank you. I have to sheepishly admit that I do like the Sapporo style ramen with vegetables and other bits in it, only because the regular tonkotsu style usually feels so ridiculously unhealthy to me. My husband agrees with you, though, Hiroyuki, and feels the quality of the broth makes or breaks the dish - although he feels the fattier, the better. What I really need to do now is taste a good quality version of Tokyo style, to see how I feel about that. Can anyone recommend a good reputation specialist in traditional Tokyo-style ramen in Tokyo? I'll be in town this weekend, and have made no firm plans for any of my meals yet, although I will be on the Ebisu to Shinjuku perimeter of the Yamanote.

The Seijo Ishiis on our line have been completely ransacked and the only thing remaining is the French stuff. My husband got the last of the Hokkaido specialty butter at Ofuna station. I guess I'm going to lose a lot of weight this spring.

The "tragedy of the commons" effect, isn't it? Exactly how endangered is the bluefin tuna? I grew up through the cod collapse on the East coast of Canada, and I always worry about our global fisheries. In fact; I feel guilty every time I eat fish, and it's another reason why I almost never cook it at home, except for the odd piece of farmed salmon (which has issues of its own, I know).

Gosh, me neither, and it's killing me right now in Japan. There's a shortage of butter, and 200g of domestic butter, when you can find it, is around $6. We haven't given it up yet, but let me tell you, it's getting spread preeetttyy thinly on the bread right now.

It is confusing, and I think it also depends on who you speak to in Tokyo. Shoyu ramen may be accepted as the standard Tokyo ramen style, but the reality isn't so cut and dried. For instance, Tokyo's most famous ramen place/brand is Ramen Jiro, which serves tonkotsu ramen. Tonkotsu is the preferred ramen choice for many Tokyo residents. My husband (who's from the city and who spent five years there quite recently) enjoys both the shoyu and tonkotsu styles, yet when asked a similar question recently he had the impression that there were more tonkotsu ramen restaurants in Tokyo. It may depend on the neighbourhood you live in and what grabs your attention. The only thing that appears consistent is that Tokyo is not a great place to find miso ramen. ← Right, and I noticed that during my time here, I've only had a non-tonkotsu broth once. Confusing, but certainly pleasurable to research. I have seen Tampopo! But at the time I wasn't rally focusing on what the broth looked like. I'll have to re-watch it.

It's getting so I can't even walk by a Muji shop these days without being sucked in to the kitchenwares section. As soon as I'm in there, I'm completely defenseless, and I end up walking out 2,000 yen lighter. It started with the slimline bento for my husband in January (very practical for his briefcase! And it would save money on lunches, too! How could I go without?) and moved on too fairly innocuous items like a silicone spatula (for eggs); a kitchen knife; and some deep bowls for soup and pasta and the like. Perfectly reasonable; our apartment only came with plates. Then it escalated with their new bento items, to a bento carrying bag, and some silicone side-dish holders. But these last few weeks have been deadly; first, I found some cute mise-en-place cups (do the Japanese have a word for mise-en-place cups?) and then I couldn't live without their fabulous salad spinner. Then, because I was making salad, I needed their chic erlenmeyer flask-inspired salad dressing shaker. What will it be next? Their thermal bento sets would be just perfect for going to work with soups....They must be stopped! Has anyone else been sucked in?

Yes, I forgot to reply to that aspect of your post. I draw the line at compromising on proper coffee, beer, wine, and chocolate. So I eat less of the good stuff - for example, I have a bag of Belgian chocolate pastilles I've been working on for a week - just a few after dinner is nice. I buy nice coffee and make it by the cup, not the pot. If there's any left over, I pop it in the fridge to make iced coffee later, or freeze it into cubes for iced coffee. Cheese is expensive here as well, so I buy parmesan - a little grated goes a long way. I like to look at my scraps and think about how they can be repurposed into a side dish. The main thing I do to keep quality high, though, is add labour. I almost never buy any pre-made sauces, pre-washed/chopped vegetables, or pre-made meat dishes.

Well, I moved from Hanoi to Tokyo last fall, and boy did I feel the sticker shock when it came to food shopping. Cooking seasonally has helped a little, as has raiding the bruised/damaged produce shelf when the fruit and vegetables have been changed over. I usually make a plan for the week based on how many meals need to be cooked versus eaten out. I make a list of potential dishes, and then see what's on sale at the supermarket and work within that framework. Some things are always pretty cheap, though, like eggs and pasta, so dishes featuring those are worked in once or twice a week. Then I look for ways that dinner can be stretched into a packed lunch the next day. I usually pack a Japanese-style bento, so cooking a little extra rice and saving a few pieces of meat from the main dish makes a meal out of nothing, instead of having to buy separate special ingredients for a different meal at lunch. I usually set them aside before dishing out dinner. I've lost several kilo this way, too since I'm no longer tempted to finish up the little bit left in the pan - instead I know I'll get it for lunch later. My husband and I now split chicken cutlet between us, instead of having one each, and supplement with extra vegetables, which are cheaper anyway. Another tip I picked up on these boards, I think from Shalmanese, is that if I want to get exotic ingredients, for example for me - avocado, cilantro, lime...then I plan several different dishes over a couple of days from this set, so the ingredients don't get wasted. So I might make cheese quesadillas with guacamole for dinner the night before, then make a cucumber salad with the remainder of the cilantro and lime, stir-fry some eggplant with garlic and have some grilled pork for a Vietnamese style lunch the next day. Or if I have summer rolls for dinner, I take anything leftover from the fillings platter, like shreds of mint, rice noodles, handfuls of shredded carrot or cucumber and the remains of the nuoc cham, and toss it together for a quick lunch salad.

What could be done to improve the situation? Coming from Canada, I'm already surprised at how even the smallest corner of suburban developments in Japan has a little garden patch given over for vegetables for the locals to buy. Outside of a few months in the summer, everything I consumed growing up came from California, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa...I never gave too much thought to Canada depending on the produce of other countries for survival. I found some butter at a supermarket finally, and paid 600 yen for it. I've been looking in almost every supermarket I go by, and the butter section, always pretty small to begin with, is completely empty. It's hard, because I can't abide margarine, and I still use butter as a staple for breakfast and for cooking. We used to go through about 200g a week between the two of us, but now we're really eking it out. Pretty soon I'll be reduced to buying the 2,000 yen imported Camargue butter at the Seijo Ishi. Oh well - I guess I was waiting for an excuse to try it out anyway !

Do you want to know whether tonkotsu broth is salt- or soy sauce-based? It can be both, so there can be both tonkotsu shio and tonkotsu shoyu. ← Hmmm. Now I'm more confused. Actually, I meant to ask what broths in Tokyo were usually based on. Can I assume they can either be shio or shoyu based as well? Aren't they usually clearer than a tonkotsu broth?