torakris

They`re called hane-tsuki gyoza - (made with a wing??). Here is more of an explanation. ← Thanks for the name, I don't think I had ever heard it before. They don't seem to be very popular around here any more but they were all over the place 1 to 2 years ago. Also welcome to egullet! and that is a great blog and the link you posted.

I love the name! I see you decided to pick up the matsutake... You don't have to put dashi in your sukiyaki and actually I prefer it without. I make mine with just soy sauce, sake and sugar and off course raw eggs for dipping. I think we will be having sukiyaki next week......

bacon is wonderful in miso soup!! This is one reason I wanted to start this thread, to show everyone there is more variety to miso soup than just wakame and tofu.

the softer kamaage shirasu are also wonderful as a part of a sunomono (vinegared salad) dish. Here is a recipe for a cucumber, wakame and shirasu sunomono: http://abc.net.au/secretrecipes/families/japan2.htm

I was scrambling around the kitchen last night looking for one more dish and ended up throwing together miso soup with cabbage and aburage

made a takikomi last night with adzuki beans and satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potatoes) after I took the picture I sprinkled it with goma-shio (salt and toasted black sesame seeds) I messed it up by over cooking the beans, actually I forgot about them and didn't rember them until I heard a strange hissing noise coming from the kitchen when all of the water had evaporated away.... I was supposed to use the boiling water as the stock to cook the rice and ended up using just water instead, it wasn't bad though.

12/22: shirasu/chirimen can be used hundreds of ways and you can keep them frozen for a couple months pulling out just how much you need at a time. So run to your nearest Asian supermarket and buy a pack now! for recipes check out our thread on chirimen/shirasu: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=57839

snow? I am jealous.. It almost never snows in Yokohama.....

I just ate some homemade hoshi imo for the first time ever yesterday. A friend brought them over, they weren't as chewy as the store bought one, the texture was softer more like a baked potato but they were good. I had never thought about doing it at home before.

my latest purchase cafe au lait daifuku this isn't the one I usually buy, but was a small version that I actually bought frozen. It wasn't bad but wasn't nearly as good as a fresh one, you can see the cream in the middle looks sort of curdled...

another favorite dish is chirimen sanshou、A combination of chirimen and brined sanshou berries (sanshou is the Japanese prickly ash), I could eat this with a bowl of rice as well.... http://bird.zero.ad.jp/iseya/sanshochirimen.htm

Living in Kanto I am more of a shirasu girl myself.... I make a really simple furikake with it using just soy sauce, mirin and sesame seeds. I saute the chirimen until they turn a little brown (using no oil) anfd then add drops of soy and mirin, sprinkle with some sesame seeds and cook a bit until the liquid evaporates. I do a similar one with hijiki. I saute the chirimen add rehydrated hijiki and saute a bit more than I add dashi, sugar, soy and sake and simmer until all the liquid has evaporated and add some seame seeds. This is great as a maze gohan (mixed rice) where you just mix a bit of this into the cooked white rice. My favorite use for shirasu (preferable the softer kamaage ones) is to mix them with grated daikon and a bit of soy sauce and eat this with a bowl of hot rice. When I used to stay at my ex-boyfriend's house in Tokyo this is what his family ate every morning for breakfast (along with grilled fish, some kind of egg dish, miso soup and some salad), it was always my job to grate the daikon since I couldn't do anythingelse.....

actually I forgot a word I was going to discuss yesterday.... 12/21: 釜揚げ kama age You　might see packs of shirasu marked as kama age shirasu or simply kama age and to make things even more confusing they might be just labeled shirasu as well. Kama age style of cooking refers to foods that have been boiled in a large kettle like pot. The tiny iwashi are boiled in the salted water and then pulled out and left to dry, this is where we get shirasuboshi and chirimen. If they are not left to dry rather just cooled down with cld air then they are called kama age, these are softer and plumper. kama age shirasu: http://image.www.rakuten.co.jp/fujiyoneyam...1041800278.jpeg on the right

definitely keep us posted, with pictures!! I just can't imagine the taste, maybe similar to poaching?

I wonder why they called them pan fried when they were deep fried??? what was it about them that you didn't like the filling or the deep fried part? or the dressing?

Actually these are a little different than the regular ones, these gyouza (not sure if they have a name) were all the rage a little while back. They are the same as pan fried gyouza but at the very end of cooking a very thin potato starch (katakuriko)-water mixture is poured around the edges of the pan and the pan tilted a bit so that it flows under the gyouza connecting them all with this thin crunchy batter. These are really good! not sure about that second picture.....

A friend of mine received an oseibo gift set of soba and passed it on to me as she felt she and her husband wouldn't be able to eat it all. It included a couple packs of shinshu soba, a couple packs of matcha (green tea) soba, two bottles of tsuyu (sauce for the noodles), 2 packs of nishin (herring) simmered in a sweetened soy sauce, for topping the noddles) and 2 packs of maru mochi (round rice cakes). She wanted to give me the whole box but I insisted she take at least one meal's worth, that is why some is missing.

I know you didn't forget about this huge thread: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=15137 on curry in Japan I am curious as to how Korean curry is different than Japanese, having never tasted the Korean one I can't imagine how it could be much different. I have to admit to not being a big fan of curry either, for me it is one of those lazy day dishes when I just want to put something on the table that is fast and easy and everyone will eat without complaining.

12/20: While the nama shirasu are only on the market for a short time every year, shirasu can be eaten in dried forms all year round. しらす干し・しらす shirasu boshi/ shirasu http://www.yaizu.com/shohin/shirasu/ ちりめんじゃこ・ちりめん chirimenjyako/chirimen http://www1.megaegg.ne.jp/~kinomura/chirimen.jpg Both of these are the baby iwashi that have been boiled in salted water and dried, the difference lays in how much they are dried. Shirasu boshi (often just called shirasu) are left with a water content in the 65-75% range, while the chirimenjyako (also called chirimen) are much drier with a water content in the 40-50% range. People who live in the Kansai area (Osaka and surrounds) prefer the drier chirimen, while those in Kanto (Tokyo and surrounds) prefer the softer shirasu. In case you haven't been following our talk on the food preferences of Eastern and Western Japan take a look here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=55376

karin is sometimes called a Japanese quince. It is supposed to be ggod for colds and sore throats, you often see it in syrup form in the supermarkets especially this time of year. Here is more info on it in English: http://www.planetbotanic.ca/fact_sheets/ja...herbs/karin.htm and here is a Japanese page to help you with the sryup making: http://www.u-san.ne.jp/cook/cook2.htm

Where do you see this written? ← The sugar content is indicated right at the point of purchase. Not in the supermarkets in your area? ← I never noticed it before.... I will look tomorrow.

Yes it was a mixture of regular and black rices, I love this stuff and so do my kids, we talked some about it over here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=56183 The food is much more interesting to look at, much more than me.....

no sweet potatoes, cornish hens or ham in Japan...... keep the ideas coming though...

even out of focus it still looks great!! I was thinking about your bulgogi dinner as I was on my third plate of peel and eat shrimp.....

Where do you see this written?