torakris

I love purslane! My grandmother had it growing wild all around her house and it was thrown into salads almost every night. According to Elizabeth Schneider in her book Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini is is best used in salads and soups (added att the last minute) or even steamed or sauteed for just a minute or two, good as a bed for fish. It can even be used in a frittata. As for Lamb's quarters, I have never used it but according to Elizabeth, The small tender leaves can be used in salads and then otherwise treat similar to spinach, either boil, steaming or sautee-braising, recipes she includes are for creamed lamb's quarters, lamb's quarters soup, and even a gazpacho of lamb's quarters with shrimp.

I second the fast food book, this book really delivers! Good food in as fast as 10 minutes. the salt thing is really interesting, she does use a lot of soy and fish sauce and then even self raising flour in baking, but somethings especially the grilled/sauteed meats could benefit from at least a sprinkle. Almost every recipe includes pepper though.

When I read the title I was thinking the same two! There is a small Moti that opened very close to me in Center Kita (Tsuzuki-ku, Yokohama) but it isn't as good as the one in Shibuya. Even closer to my house is one called Akbar, which is good but far from the best. I love the spinach curry with paneer at Raj Mahal. Sorry I know nothing about the one in Kobe.

My (Japanese) husband won't go near kusaya, so I have never tried it. As for funazushi, I have never seen this prepared or served anywhere. I know it is still around in the deep dark countryside, but my husband's family has been in Tokyo for generations now and ahve no relatives out there.

You are lucky you don't live here,almost every pizza here has corn and one even has a pizza called triple corn! I can't stand it either. The worst pizza I have eaten was one called Idaho Special with cubed potatoes, onions, corn , cheese and topped with mayo!

Check out the following site: http://www.o-cha.com/powdered_green_tea.htm They sell various green teas including the expensive "tea ceremony" teas, but for about a 1/3 of that price they have powdered sencha, which is another type of green tea (doesn't whip up frothy) and is more commonly used for "cooking". If you are purchasing green tea to use soley in ice cream making I would reccomend the sencha. This site looks like a good source.

Honey Panko? I have seen this before. I am going to go look for it, what would it be used for? Okay this honey panko thing has been driving me crazy. I can not find out anything about it. I have asked all the women in my apartment, all te women in my daughter's kindergarten and have looked in numerous stores. A search on yahoo Japan comes up empty, except for a recipe for fried green tomatoes in which you make honey panko by mixing the 2 together, it looked quite good actually. Did you buy them? Do you know the brand?

We are having a discussion on favorite Japanese foods, so now I am wondering what foods can't you eat? When I first came to Japan I COULD NOT eat : natto shiso (or anything that had even touched it!) anko (sweetened red bean paste) I now love all of these and the only foods that I now refuse to eat are unagikimo (eel liver), these are usually grilled along witht the eels kabayaki style or simmered sanma (saury pike?) innards, these usually left in the fish during grilling and then eaten with the fish or they are removed chopped up and smeared on the outside of the fish before grilling Both are extremely bitter and I have problems with that taste.

As I was paging through my 2 new books yesterday, I noticed that her recipes never call for salt. No salt in any of her baked goods, no salt in her pasta water, no salt on her seared/grilled foods only pepper. In her flavors book one of the chapters is called salt and pepper but ever there the only time she uses saltis when she is baking something in salt or for gravlax. Anyone know why? I salt and pepper everything automatically, so I never paid attention before.

I love watching the Japanese eat mikan (mandarin/clemetine/whatever), when they are done there is this nicely folded packet with the seeds inside. My husband makes this bird with a fan tail for his chopsticks rest, although I think he does this more to keep the kids entertained while we are waiting for the food. Although he did used to make them for me when we were first dating

Akiko I got the recipe from epicurious: http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=106582 the only thing I changed was real mayo for the reduced fat crap and yogurt for the reduced fat sour cream (just cause I had yogurt and no sour cream), I also added more lemon zest than called for. Last night's dinner: a version of murgh musallam from Madhur Jaffrey, essentially a whole roast chicken marinated in yogurt and spices, then rubbbed with a puree of ginger, garlic, onions, almonds, and more spices, wrapped in foil and baked. The taste was incredible, but i have a hard time with whole chickens. I think I might try the recipe again bit with boneless thighs instead. braise of cauliflower, okra, and tomatoes with cumin seeds, mustard seeds and other spices simple salad of mixed greens with my best EVOO and best balsamic vinegar

raw oysters! I used to go to this Japanese restaurant in Columbus, Ohio during oyster season and just order the oysters, about 6 to 8 dishes of them. I still dream about those oysters, with grated daikon and a type of ponzu sauce spaghetti with mentaiko sauce, I love this! we make it for lunch on the weekends at least once a month.

Chan-wah-oyu? 'splain please! Ben chanoyu is the Japanese Tea Ceremony check it out here: http://welcome.to/chanoyu

The most common uses for it are wrappers for onigiri (rice balls) and in soups. It is when it becomes wet that its name seems most appropriate. I don't know the exact translation (and it isn't in my dictionary) but tororo means slimy, but in a good way. Sorry there is probably a better word for this, and native Japanese speakers out there? Here is what it looks like when wet: http://www.lovemika.com/recipebox/1999/99A...il/9904061.html In my search for a picture, I ran across a website (in Japanese) about the best ways to increase breast size and eating tororo was one of the best things for it. Something about the way a certain mineral in it interacts with some female hormones. Can you tell I don't work as a translator?! Notice anything different today?

It was probably a type of konbu called tororokonbu, did it look like this: http://www.aimono.com/ the type around the rice balls?

When I go to Japanese restaurants in the US, I use end up ordering a bunch of appetizers avoiding the teriyaki combo sets that seem to be everywhere. I love anything with ponzu and am a sucker for sunomono the vinegared dishes usually consisting of cucumbers, wakame and a type of seafood. I always order shishamo, the grilled fish filled with eggs. Agedashidofu is also a favorite. Age the prefix meaning deep fried, agedashidofu is different from just agedofu (fried tofu) in that that there is a dashi based sauce poured around it. Plain agedofu has two main varieties the thick one called atsuage (atsu meaning a thick cut of tofu) and aburage the thin one, abura means oil so I guess it could be translated as oil fried which doesn't really make a lot of sense. I also have to admit that I love that ginger baesed dressing they use on salads in the US, in 12 years in Japan I have never eaten anything like it.

I love liver (was never served it as a child so don't know if I would have hated it then). I eat sauteed, grilled, deep fried and my all time favorite, raw!

Having just purchased 2 of her books in addition to the 2 I already own, I can say I don7t know how much farther she can stretch. I have been noticing quite a few similarities popping up among the different books. Not enough to bother me, but enough to be noticable. I wonder what she will come out with next? I too was considering an international subscribtion to her magazine, but think I am going to wait a little bit.

I have never heard or thought about this before, but as a foreigner living in Japan it is something you pick up on pretty quickly. Very little food is wasted, they use every part of everything. For example they might take a fish and use the meat for sahimi, pull out the back bone and deep fry it, then throw the head and tail into a soup. For a vegetable such as daikon they would peel it then use the peeling to make stirfry dish called kinpira, use the actual daikon itself in either salads, simmered foods, or grated to accompany other foods. The leaves are then used in pickles or blanched and tossed into the rice. They eat almost nothing on the bone(except for fish) which makes it impossible for us foreigners to find whole chicken, or even chicken pieces with bone still in them. Also because they use chopsticks the food is cut before serving so it is easier to eat. Even in the home something like tonkatsu would always be cut before bringing it to the table. Even the "garnishes" tend to be integral parts to the dish and are always meant to be eaten. As to not leaving things on the dishes this is very true You might find an umeboshi seed in the bottom of a rice bowl and a couple shells in the bottom of the soup bowl but otherwise teh food is prepared in such a way that nothing should be leftover. Although the Japanese don't use red peppers to the quantity some Chinese cuisines do when they are used they are finely slivered so as to be easily eaten rather than picked out and left on the side of the dish. Food is also traditionally served in small individual bowls so even if something whole was used in the cooking process it would be removed before serving or else cut in a way to be easily edible. For example on recipe I use for chinese cabbage pickles calls for large pieces of konbu, yuzu skin and whole chiles, but for serving they instruct you to pull these out finely sliver them and add them as an edible garnish to the individual pickle dishes.

On a trip to Costco yesterday I picked up her New Cook and Flavors cookbook, my friend got 4 of her books including the Entertaining book that I hope to borrow next week to take a look at. I can't wait to give some of her stuff a try.

Yesterday's planned menu got thrown off because of various unexpected happenings so we ended up with a hodge podge of foods leftover gazpacho leftover lemon coleslaw sauteed turnips and spinach with chiles, garlic and sherry vinegar beef and onions in an oyster sauce Japanese rice

I am divided on Cooking Light, they have some great issues and some that are really bad. I picked up 20 back issues on Ebay for $4.00 and am currently going through them ripping out pages that I like. There are issues from about 1993 up to 2002 and it is very interesting to see the changes (first great praise for magarine and then their sudden drop of it). I actually like the magazine because of their fitness sections, but again I also read Shape, Self, and Fitness. I still have to wait and see where the new Eating Well is going to go, but in general I prefer them over Cooking light.

I was a very picky child and in addition the the common lists of veggies, I refused to eat and still today refuse to eat: jello bananas peanut butter (except in peanut sauces) beets brussel sprouts

A quick search on Yahoo Japan and I have learned that you can work with the real stuff as well as the matcha powder. Here are quite a few things made with real matcha: http://www.miyazaki-nw.or.jp/teatime/resipi.html On the packages of matcha that I have received the expiration date is usually like 3 to 4 months later. The Japanese always keep it in the little tea container shown at the bottom of my first link. It you like bitter foods you might enjoy drinking it straight, bitter foods I have a big problem with, but I have one American friend who was on some type of diet and she drank it once or twice a day and loved it.

If you are going to actually drink it you will need all of this stuff: http://www.maccha.co.jp/english/garelly/ki...kiso/index.html As for using it in sweets such as ice cream, I am not sure about using it, I never have. In Japan there have special matcha powders (different from the tea) that are used for making cakes, ice creams, etc. I have done the traditional ceremony a couple times and find the tea extremely bitter. There are various matcha drinks, matcha "iced tea", matcha au lait. etc that are powdered mixes you just mix with water. I prefer these as they have the matcha taste with out the bitterness.