torakris

word for 10/17: ƒVƒƒƒ“ƒcƒ@ƒC@@Ø@ shantsuai (shan-tsu-eye) This is cilantro and the name and characters come from the Chinese, the characters meaning fragrant leaf. Occasionally it will be found under the English name coriander (ƒRƒŠƒAƒ“ƒ_[. This almost never used in Japanese dishes rather those of Chinese or South East Asian origin.

Da welcome to egullet! I love tantanmen, there is this incredible tantanmen shop a 3 minute walk from house so I have never considered making it at home! I couldn't find any English recipes but I have a couple in Japanese (have never tried them though) give me a couple days and I will post them translated into English. For the longest time I thought jahjahmen was a Korean dish, because my Korean friends in the US made it all the time, then when I came to Japan and saw it I assumed they had taken it from the Koreans. It was only recently I learned it was Chinese in origin. I prefer the Korean version..........and it has been so long now I can't seem to get it right any more. Again I have a couple recipes in Japanese but I haven't tried them, maybe I will cook it for lunch on Sunday and then post the recipe if it is any good. Curry ramen I can't help you with.

last week was perfect nabe weather, so I had a chicken meatball and chinese cabbage nabe eaten with ponzu. sukiyaki is sounding really good about now...........

Sour patch kids! My second favorite food in the world they are not available in Japan and so I go crazy when I am in the US, my mom sent me a package last week and inside there were 3 packs of sour patch kids, I had to share the first two with my kids because they saw it, but I just savored the last pack 30 minutes ago..... I can still taste them...........

What kind of food are you interested in? Only Japanese? I have to admit I love where I am living, 20 minutes into both central Tokyo and central Yokohama,. I can eat foods from all over Japap and all over the world for that matter with out leaving my backyard. Where ever you go the actual dishes will not be too different, but the preparation style may be. They have sushi all over Japan, but in the Kansai area it tends to be of the oshi-zushi (pressed) type while in Kanto you will find the nigiri style is more common. Simmered dishes in Kanto are a lot more heavy on the soy then in Kansai, and each region seems to have their popular ramens. Tokyo suits me because I love strong tastes, trips to Kyoto have always been disappointing food wise as I find it bland to tasteless. Of course this is just my opinion While every area has their specialities, you no longer need a train ticket to get to them, once local specialites are now popping up in supermarkets nationwide. What kind of foods are you interested in eating? By the way I am slowly working on a reference of all the prefectures and their local specialities and eating habits from region to region. Look for it here early next year.

Feeling a bit under the weather, so a less then 30 minute dinner: risi e bisi (rice and green peas) the recipe I like form Nigella Lawson is not quite a soup, not quite risotto (wasn't that a Brittany sp? Spears song?) roasted potatoes and sweet potaoes sauteed mackeral with a basalmic sauce and topped with mizuna everyone was asleep before 9!

word for 10/16: ‚¶‚Ⴊ‚¢‚à jyagaimo (jyah-guy-mow) These are potatoes, you may remember the word imo ("potato") from a couple other words, nagaimo, yamaimo, satoimo, satsumaimo, etc. The name jyagaimo is another place name, this time for Jakarta, the way through which they entered Japan. In Japan, the northernmost prefecture Hokkaido is famous for its poatoes, the most popular of which is a good all purpose potato of a smallish size. Spring sees the wonderfully delicious, shin-jyaga or new potato. Potatoes are used pretty much the same as other places in the world, boiled, deep fried, simmered, stirfried and in salads. the jyagaimo: http://www.maruka-ishikawa.co.jp/images/ve...ure/potato3.jpg

I love cake shops in Japan, the food is prettier then a picture and tastes wonderful besides. Growing up in the US where supermarket bakeries is where the (overly sweet) sweets were bought, cakes in Japan were the beginning of a whole new world for me. What are some of your favorites? Here are pictures from one shop, which is quite typical of what you will find in Japan: http://www.cakepia.info/shop/recommendatio...ange/index.html click on menu (there are 3 pages) by the way the shop belongs to a good (Japanese) friend of mine, so I get to test it sometimes!

I was talking to my pastry chef friend yesterday and I asked her about uses for wasanbon in Western style desserts. She felt that the delicate flavor would be lost (and it would be a waste of money) to use it in most of the Western style sweets where the other flavors would overpower it. She suggested (though she had never tried it) in jellied applications especially with fruit where the taste of the sugar would come out. She said she would never use in applications at her shop because the cost is too high. Here is a plug for my friends shop http://www.cakepia.info/shop/recommendatio...ange/index.html click on menu and there are 3 pages with pictures of some of their cakes, page 3 is all done by my friend while the first 2 pages are the work of her husband. They both studied in Paris.

Let's see if these pictures work: the cupboard a peek in the boxes It normally isn't this messy, I swear!

Mac and cheese! That is why I bought it! I had made the recipe from the The Best Recipe just before I went on my trip, haven't made it since though............. I am getting a lot of ideas though, keept them coming!

I really like it in the simple ways: umeboshi ochazuke umeboshi onigiri maki of umeboshi and shiso refrigerate it after opening, it should last for quite a while

I have a major overstock of beans, both dry and canned, I don't eat them nearly as much as I planned to when I bought them. I have also been on a Japanese dried foods buying binge recently and have a cupboard full of various seaweeds, dried daikon and gourd, various dried shrimps and mushrooms and freeze dried tofu and I complain there is nothing in the house............

Tuesday dinner: Spent the day putting away summer clothes and pulling out the winter stuff and thus was too tired to think about dinner: cream (white) stew with salmon, onions, potatoes, kabocha, and spinach served over Japanese rice and 5 grain mixture dessert: Calpis flavored ice cream cones

This is the way anal retentive former librarian Kristin does it. Since most of my stuff it bought from Penzey's I have a lot of bags, so most things in baskets according to type of cooking. For example I have an Indian basket, South East Asian basket, American-European basket and a baking basket (with baking powder and sodas, vanilla and almond extracts, gelatin, agar agar, matcha powder, etc), then when I am cooking I just pull out the basket and everything is right there. Some misc. spices that rarely get used or are used in a variety of types of cooking go on a slide out shelf in my storage cupboard. I keep my "spicey" things (crushed chile peppers, cayenne, chile oil, sansho, etc) on a rack of the door of the storage cabinet for easy access. I just took some pictures but don't have time to set them up now, so I will add them later.

My friend just came back from France and brought me a huge back of herbes de Provence (150 grams), I have seen it called for in recipes before but have never actually used it......... What are some of your favorite uses?

For some reason when I was in the US last year I bought 8 cans of evaporated milk, I am not sure what I was planning to use them for but they have just been sitting there gathering dust. What can you do with evaporated milk?

word for 10/15: ‰ºm“c‚Ë‚¬@@‚µ‚à‚É‚½‚Ë‚¬ shimonitanegi (shee-moe-knee-tah-neh-ghee) A type of negi (Japanese long onion) named after it place of origin, the Shimonita area of Gunma Prefecture (see map http://www.japan-guide.com/list/e1002.html ). It is rather short and squat with a white bottom and dark green top, it looks quite similar to a leek. It can be quite pungent in its raw state and it nearly always served cooked which mellows out the flavor and sweetens it. It is most popular in nabes (especially sukiyaki), simmered dishes, and nikomi udon. The leaves are often eaten as well. shimonitanegi: http://www.yaoya-tokyo.com/photo/shimonitanegi.html

Monday night: temaki sushi do it yourself style hand roll sushi with salmon ikura squid spicy tuna mentaiko tuna-mayo avocado kimchi

keep talking.......... Reading these blogs makes me realize just how little I snack during the day, I might occasionally have something in the afternoon but I really don't snack in the morning or evening......

Sunday night: lamb and turnip curry green beans with black mustard seeds, chilies and garlic yogurt lettuce and tomato salad Japanese rice Dessert: pineapple upside down cake, not as good as it could have been because I under cooked it and messed up the sugar quantity in the caramel like topping (used only 1/4 instead or 3/4 -- I really need to get my eyes checked again! ) The first two recipes were from Madhur Jaffrey

Another holiday in Japan, today 10/12@is: 体育の日 taiiku no hi (tye-ee-koo-noh-hee) Sports Day was additionally introduced as a national holiday in 1966 to commemorate the start of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. This day is designed to make people aware of the importance of health through sports. Originally the day was set at October 10, but now it is the 2nd Monday of October. The undokais (Sports or Field Days) are held around tis time. They have undokais at all levels of school as well as at companies and community ones as well. For a little more about undokai: http://www.worldandi.com/specialreport/199...ber/Sa20551.htm

hillvalley, welcome to egullet and the Japan forum! I agee 100% you can get much better service when you order the "weird" stuff. Back when I was in the US and I was on my military training weekends (former reservist) I would eat Saturday dinner at alone at a Japanese restuarant, my first order was always ootoro and uni nigiri, shishamo (small pregnant fish) and makuro or ika natto, great, great service followed. Yesterday I made natto for breakfast with daikon oroshi (grated) for the first time, this was great and I am definitely going to do it again!

Saturday, spent over 6 hours cheering on Julia (age 5) and her classmates in their yearly undokai (sports day event) and had made a huge bento (boxed) lunch for the family to eat during the break in festivities, so I wasn't up for a big dinner: leftover spinach fritatta (made too much to put in the bento) risotto with red wine, cabbage, leftover sausages and kidney beans

although that is not any where near all of the sansai found in Japan, those are the most common ones. These were the ones that make appearances in supermarkets and people are mostly to run across on a regular basis. I will add the the list some of the ones we have talked about in previous posts: the ferns ( warabi, zenmai and kogomi) udo