deadstroke

My meal on the 2nd of July. It was stupendous.

Here are some Iron Chef recipes from Battle Cabbage. Hiromi Yamada's Cabbage, Scallop and Foie Gras Risotto.

Some brocollini risotto with pancetta and parmesan crisps.

Kilkenny battered cod and fries. Still room for improvement thought. Look out for the next round soon - I've a litre of frying oil left that can't be used on anything else but fish.

Haiyahhhhhhhh! Dueling Pizzas!

Crab ravioli on a roasted tomato puree and chorizo chips.

Kingfish sashimi and tempura!

Nice! Something for me to duplicate this week!

Woo! Page 800! Here's a Master Kobe MBS 9+ sirloin steak grilled on some charcoals. Dipping sauce is ponzu soy and grated ginger.

A duo of tempuras over the weekend. Foie Gras and Daikon I tried a very similar combination in Japan last winter using Anglerfish (Monkfish) liver and got hooked on it. Anko is rather had to get hold of here but using foie cuts it well. Eggplant I used beer in the tempura batter and that was a WOW moment. I actually had tempura peppers and onions but they were gobbled up before I could get a shot.

Inspired by left over wine and a piece of very fresh threadfin bream, I consulted an old classic from Larousse . This is the first time I had fish with red wine sauce and I must say I am quite surprised at how well it turned out! Threadfin Bream "En Matelote"

Here's a collection of the lunches and dinners from the past week. Prawns and Anchovy Linguini Fried Grouper Sambal Chilli Fried Rice with Chicken Cutlet Chicken and Clams Paella

Not dinner but lunch! A sort of Chinese-Japanese fusion: Pork belly braised in dark soy and onions on rice.

My first post in this thread! Beef Cheek Bourguignon with mashed potatoes and caramalized vegetables. Couldn't resist showing off my Ichimonji TKC chef's knife as well .

Yes good point. These very crude kind of grills are common around the region. However, I believe that no matter how well your ventilation is designed you won't be able to get the coals hot enough (glowing red hot) for the very quick searing and crisping needed for satay. Think of fanning the the bellows to make the furnance extra hot.

Most of the heat from grilling is from radiation. Fanning feeds the charcoal oxygen and makes them burn hotter. I believe there is literature out that that shows that us its the infrared radiation that does most of the cooking.

I always wanted to try this idea I had but haven't done so. You will need the skin on. Separate the skin as one long tube and try to get out as much meat as possible from the neck. Mix the meat with minced prawns and water chestnuts and bulk it up with more meat(chicken or pork) if necessary. Season with cornflour, chinese wine, sesame oil, soy, sugar, salt and pepper, if you like you can add just a touch of 5 spice powder to the mix. Stuff this back into the skin then try to form sort of a sausage and deep fry it. Man that sounds good already! Try it and tell me if that idea works! Also, if the colour isn't quite right you can darken it by rubbing a little soy on the skin. This idea actually came from a local dish called Ngoh Hiang or literally 5 spice, hence the 5 spice powder. Originally its wrapped in a beacurd skin but it doesn't take much to extend the idea to the neck skin. We usually serve it with a sweet sauce which I find unnecessary.

Thanks for the suggestions guys! Shunju sounds good... Also, what seasonal ingredients should I be looking out for in early December?

Sorry I forgot more details. I meant a Japanese meal with whats in season in December. Also, I am coming from Singapore, not much jetlag there. But is is possible to reach Tsukiji at such early hours using the subway/bus or did you take a cab?

I will be in Tokyo in December and have planned for one night to break away from the holiday group for a special meal alone? Why alone? The others in my group are not really foodies are not keen to spend too much money on dinner. Anyhoo, I am looking for recommendations for a place around Shibuya that would preferably be friendly to a single non-Japanese speaking customer. It should do Omakase on a budget of say 10,000 yen. I greatly appreciate any recommendations. Thanks.

Hi, I will be visiting Osaka in December this year and I would really love to try some authentic Kobe Beef. Unfortunately, dining in a restaurant will be tricky since some are not beef eaters and not inclined to pay high prices. Thus I think my best option would be to pocure some at a butcher and cook it in the apartment. Are there any reputable butchers/supermarkets in the central Osaka area where I can get the genuine Japanese cattle?

Here my humble opnion on the development on the thread so far: 1. The Australian site is actually www.japan-tool.com run by SO. He specializes in natural waterstones whose prices make grown men weep. 2. Actually, both the Kitaeji and Damascus Clad and merely misnomers for true Damascus steel. True damascus has reportedly been reproduced and does not depend on folding different metals to achieve a look. The former 2 are folded steel claddings but done in different manners. I think the Kitaeji is Shigefusa's most coveted line and will be appreciated alot more than the export model damascus. 3. On this budget, I guess you should be open to choices like Hattori, Nenohi and Itou as well.

OMG! I managed to find a fellow knife nut in Singapore! Though I am not a professsional chef but merely a university student with an socially questionable fetish. It is quite uncanny actually, since I was actually surfing to find knife stores that I should be visiting in my trip in December. Anyway I will be both in Tokyo and Osaka, and I won't mind making a trip down to Sakai City but I do need to know if the manufacturers have storefronts there or are there any places that carry several brands. I am not exactly looking to burst my wallet since I already done so a few months ago on a Suisin. The brands I am most interested are the mid range ones like Hiromoto and Ichimonji.

Kudos to Chad for the instructions he has kindly provided. I'm facing a dilemma here. I recently bought from Korin a Togiharu Santouku and a 2-sided stone for maintenance. It was a beautiful knife, but it did not perform as well as I hoped for. At first I though it was simply a matter of the edge, and using the instructions here, I brought it down to a gleaming 15 degrees that is literally scary sharp. A cherry tomato dropped from 6 inches above it would impale itself on the edge. However, on return to the cutting board, the knife still did not perform well in the sense that when slicing hard vegetables ie potatoes, halving onions sort of jobs, there is alot of resistance in the blade. Since there is no doubt in the sharpness of the edge, I can only speculate what's causing my problems. 1. Thickness The santouku is 2mm thick at the thickest part of the spine and this thickness is constant for about half the height of the blade after which it tapers down to the edge. This is the thickest knife I have owned since previously all I used where stamped Globals and Henckels. Also, being a santouku, the thickness of the blade is pretty constant throughout, unlike a chef's knife which can get very thin near the tip. 2. Surface Finish Another suspected culprit is the mirror finish of the knife which could have resulted in extremely high water tension or very effective vaccums between the surface and the, say, potato. In fact, it takes quite an effort to pry a slice of potato off the blade, it was even difficult to slide it off along the surface. I only noticed that not many knifes in the market have a mirror finish on the blade surface. Could it be because of this? Well, I hope someone can provide me with some explanation and perhaps a solution to this. Thanks for reading.

Well what I do is to put ice cubes on a fine strainer and strain the oily portion of the stock repeatedly. It works for removing most of the fat.