torakris

I use Japanese rice with great success, (in a very small voice....) I use it in risotto too.

Now there is a market waiting to happen. I don't know about anyone else, but around here it gets hard to give zucchini away. You are correct, Nick. I don't know of anyone (me included) who grows zucchini here in Minnesota, but come summer, I seem to have a ton of the stuff. One of the tables at our church is always laden with it. Some of the "hidden" ones approach the size of a loaf of supermarket squish bread. I used to come home from work and find it on my doorstep. Torakris, have you tried growing it? I (and about 10 friends) have all tried growing zucchini here, me for the last 5 years. i have only managed to get 1 zucchini in all of those years! I have tried everything, but it tends to all rot in the middle of rainy season, which just started last week! I have 2 plants now and they are the biggest I have gotten them and I have about 4 pinky sized zucchini, however in the past as soon as they got this big they started to rot. So I guess i will have to wait and see, it is a lot cooler this year than it usually is, so maybe that is helping.

I prefer to hack away at my chicken with two cleavers!

There is a Vietnamese omelette that is similar, except I guess it can't really be called an omelete because there are no eggs. It is sort of like a crispy crepe (made with flour and coconut milk) folded around a sauteed .meat/seafood/vgetable mixture, called something like bainseo (sorry I am translating the name from Japanese).

150 year old oden.....yummm!

My dad makes like a hundred jars of zucchini pickles every summer, he uses the recipe that my mom's mom gave him. I was weaned onto these and they are the most incredible things. With the price of zucchini in Japan I will not be making them though. The other day I saw a yellow zucchini, just one single zucchini (about 5 inches long) being sold for 500 yen (almost $5!) I do make Japanese pickles quite a bit, none of them require canning, I also make kimchi a lot.

YOU WILL NOT TURN MY THREAD INTO A DISCUSSION OF CRICKET!! I FORBID IT!

Tuesday dinner: getting near the end of Thai food week! penang style curry with chicken thighs, bamboo shoots and snow peas simple green salad (got busy and din't have the time to prepare the rest of my original menu!) jasmine rice dessert: ice cream

I don't know how I could have forgotten the one food I absolutely can not go near: Cheesecake! eeewwww! I also don't really like (though will eat them if served) anything with chunks of fat, including most sausages. I no longer order tonkatsu in restaurants because there is always a large strip of fat attatched. I remove every bit of fat and skin of meats that I eat. I also don't really like deep fried foods, or butter. I can eat butter in baked goods, except things like butter cookies where all you taste is the butter. I eat bread plain or with EVOO. I don't really like custards or creams either.............. Maybe these are why I have never had a weight problem?

don't forget this thread as well (just skip the hot noodle entries! ) http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...T&f=19&t=19628&

bibim myun is a gift from the gods! I love any kind of cold noodles, the spicier the better. Two days ago I had ebi-ten oroshi udon (shrimp tempura and grated daikon radish with udon) that was wonderful!

hhhmmm............ the 5 books I wouldn't want to be without (at theis moment) and in no particular order: Essentials of Asian Cuisine -- Corrine Trang Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone -- Deborah Madison Hot Sour Salty Sweet -- Alford & Duguid How to Cook Everything -- Mark Bittman The Italian Vegetarian -- Jack Bishop

A NOTE ON JAPANESE CHARACTERS The Chinese characters used in Japanese writing today obviously came from China, when they did they came with the Chinese pronunciation (in a form adapted to the Japanese sound system), but since the Japanese already had their own word equivalents they ended up with two (and sometimes more) reading for the same character. the ON (ohn) reading in the Japanized Chinese reading the KUN (kuhn) reading is the original Japanese word reading so for example 子　which means child has two readings the ON reading of 'shi' and the KUN reading of 'ko' Most words usually have only one or two ON and KUN readings but then there are kanji like 上　 (which means up) that has 2 ON readings and 8 KUN readings enough to make a foreigner go batty!

word for 5/28: 野菜 yasai (yah-sah-ee) vegetables, this refers to any kind of vegetable whether of Japanese or foreign origin. The character 野(no or ya) means field and 菜 (na or sai) means vegetable though more specifically greeens.

I am actually teaching paella making at my cooking class tomorrow, interesting that you just mentioned it. I have eaten paella outside of my home twice, once in Spain and once in Spanish restaurant in Tokyo. I make it at home almost once a month, I have no idea how "traditional" mine is but I like it. I make it with chicken thighs (marinated in EVOO,white wine, garlic and lemon) chorizo shrimp (marinated in EVOO, garlic, rosemary, crushed red pepper flakes) what ever shellfish are available (cooked in EVOO and white wine) red peppers (sweet) red onion lots of garlic green and black olives The only seasoning is saffron and good chicken stock Since I don't have a paella, I use a very large fry pan.

I can't think of anything I wouldn't try at least once, but the only foods that I really know that I don't like are brussel sprouts cooked oysters I can eat them if need be, but i will NEVER cook them or order them in a restaurant I don't get the hype surrounding caviar and truffles, I have had them many ways, expensive ones, cheap ones and enjoy them but don't think they are worth the price.

Monday dinner: the Thai chicken from the night before turned into a chicken salad with rice noodles and a sweet chile-lime-nampla dressing (from the same Fine Cooking article) saba (mackeral) seasoned with soy, hung out to dry, and then grilled (not by me!) nagaimo (mountain potato) sashimi with wasabi-joyu Japanese rice red wine rakkyo (small onions) dessert: ice cream EDIT: yesterday's earthquake (Northern Japan) hit as I was cutting the vegetables for the salad, I was concentrating on julienning the cucumbers, carrots, and onions when I felt the room swaying, I thought I was concentrating too hard. A couple seconds later I realized the fish tank was jostling, it wasn't me after all!

I don't like alcohol, any kind, it just doesn't taste good to me. What I don't like is that alcohol taste, I have no problems with it in sauces, glazes, etc where there is no alcohol taste. In instances where it is barely cooked or not at all (in a lot of desserts) I can't touch it. I think I will give some sauces a try , or else just invite my fil back over again!

with a deep dark aka miso!! lannie, welcome to egullet!

word for 5/27: 果物 kudamono (koo-dah-moh-noh) fruit This word kudamono is the general topic name for fruits, though the word　フルーツ(furuutsu from the English fruits) is becoming quite popular. The word furuutsu is usually used to describe a product that uses more then one type of fruit, so for example it is more more common to see a fruit tart referred to as a furuutsu taruto フルーツタルト rather than kudamono taruto. For information on some Japanese fruits: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...T&f=19&t=20046& we are just coming into sakuranbo and biwa season!

is whiskey similar to bourbon? I made a bourbon chicken recipe for my sister's kids when I was in the US and I would like to make it again but don't want to buy bourbon just for that. Could I use the whiskey?

maybe a blend? It says : Dunhill Old Master Finest Scotch Whiskey mature, BLENDED, and bottled in Scotland

My father-in-law brought over a bottle of scotch whiskey yesterday for our BBQ, drank about a sixth of it and told us to keep it. My husband doesn't really drink whiskey................ what kind of things can you use whiskey with?

I once was served, in a Japanese house, a ratatouille (sp?) made with eggplant, yellow peppers and cucumbers (instead of zucchini?) with ketchup as the base instead of adding tomatoes. She said she didn't have any toamtoes and thought ketchup would work just as well. I politely declined seconds!

then there is kimchi fried rice, this is my lunch a couple times a week. Usually just kimchi and egg with some scallions tossed in. when there is no kimchi in the house ( ) I use kochujang. My favorite way to prepare it in when it is almost done cooking, push the rice so it is spread as thin as possible covering all the surfaces of the pan, turn the heat up a little high and then don't touch it for a minute or so. Turn the heat off and let it sit like that for a couple minutes. The bottom gets nice and crunchy similar to the stone pot cooked bimbimbap.