torakris

lots of ideas, thanks everyone! Helen thanks for the tip about the smoothie. Maybe I will freeze some and try popping them frozen into the blender right at the very end. I think I see a fruit salad on the menu for after dinner tonight.

I saw these at a convenience store the other day and was going to try them but ended up going for a Dr. Pepper instead. It was a really muggy day and I had been riding my bike around and the pop just hit the spot better... How are they?

Since you mentioned this I have been looking for these everywhere and can't find them!! Are they over??

I bought a huge box of kiwi from Costco and now my kids have decided they are sick of them and haven't touched one. I have never cooked with kiwi before, any ideas for either savory dishes or dessert. Can they be chopped up or pureed and frozen? I tried making a smoothie with them but it had an odd fuzzy taste to it....

I would have no problems eating dog if I ever came across it. ← Even if it had been your pet? ← fair question, I don't know. I am not an animal person, you will never find a dog, cat or even fish in my house, so I will never have that option. People on farms eat their "pets" quite a bit, I have no problems walking in my sister's hen house and telling her which chicken I think we should have for dinner that night. My college roomate regularly won ribbons at 4H fairs for her sheep which were then slaughtered the next year.. If some people don't want to eat it, then fine don't eat horse meat. My problem comes when others start telling me what I can and can't eat. I eat whale a couple times a year though most of the western world frowns upon it and I will never stop eating foie gras.

I love the combination of kimchi and mirin! I make a really good kimchi fried rice and my secret is a splash of mirin at the end. I also add it to my kimchi chigae and kimchi and pork stirfries. Now that my 5 year old has learned to eat kimchi (he can eat it straight out of the jar now) I will be doing kimchi chigae a lot this winter.

I would have no problems eating dog if I ever came across it.

I can't believe they would do this. I enjoy horse meat and find nothing wrong with eating it. It may get more expensive now and I may not be making this anymore... raw horse meat prepared in the Korean yukhwe style

For the Japanese recipe: 1. Mix the egg yolks with the 250g of sugar 2~4. Slowly add the oil, occasionally scraping down the sides and beat until it is the consistency of thick cream 5. Mix the matcha, 50g of sugar, milk and boiling water together and add half of it to the mixture 6. Beating on low speed add the rice flour and baking powder 7. Once it has all been incorporated add the rest of the matcha mixture 8. Mix it until it looks like #8, sorry I can't remember what we say in English for this... 9. Mix the egg white, 600g of sugar and dried egg whites to stiff peaks 10. mix in 1/3 of the egg whites 11. Fold in the remaining 2/3 egg whites 12. fold until it looks like #12 13. Pour into two cake pans 14. Bake on the lower shelf at 180 C (350 F) for about an hour The numbers follow the pictures on this page

My husband and I love BBQing and we do it almost every weekend! We own 4 grills, 2 of which can also be used for smoking as well, and one stand alone smoker... Like the way I cook we rarely BBQ the same food twice. Most Japanese BBQ I go too are quite boring and like Hiroyuki said it is always the same food: frozen yakitori from a large box, a couple kinds of meat (with no seasoning) dipped in some generic and pirchased yakiniku sauce followed by yakisoba. Last weekend I went to the store to see what was good for the BBQ and came home with iwashi (sardines), kama (collar) of some unknown white fish and shrimp. The fresh sardines were beautiful and 5 good sized ones for only 280yen ($2.50) were too good to pass up. I packed them in about a cup of kocher salt for an hour, then rinsed and dried them and grilled them until they were done, eaten with a queeze of lemon. The kama was incredibly moist and flavorful and I wish I could remember what fish it was, we simply salted and grilled it. The shrimp I marinated in a marinade of soy, sake, Chinese 5 spice powder, garlic, ginger, onion and sugar, the kids were screaming for more. We also tossed some satsumaimo (wrapped in wet newspaer then foil) into the coals and enjoyed these homemade yaki-imo. Most Asian style BBQ's we finish off with yaki onigiri. Depending on the rest of the food and the mood I am in we make them with a variety of sauces, from simple ones with just soy sauce or miso, to a negi miso or kochujang, this time I boiled down the shrimp marinade and used that. The week before it was a American style BBQ, I made up a smokey Memphis style BBQ sauce and slathered it on grilled chicken and onions, for sides we grilled corn and had a potato salad. Is there anything you can't grill?

Here are the step by step instructions this amount makes two cakes 600g egg yolks 250g sugar 450g vegetable oil 50g matcha powder 50 g sugar 100g whole milk 400g boiling water 1000g egg whites 600g sugar 10g dried egg white 10g baking powder 800g rice flour

they also used rice flour instead of regular flour, I have had a couple rice flour cakes here they are extremely delicate and tender...

The short kitchen counters are a killer on my back too, mine is a little higher than the one in my SIL's place but being 170cm it is way too short. My solution have the kids wash the dishes!! I only wash the dishes about 2 days a week, my kids and sometimes my husband, do it the rest of the time. Even 5 year old Hide, he actually loves to do them...

A couple days ago I found an Ikea catalogue in my mailbox, apparently they are trying to get us excited about the opening.... The prices look great and they did have some nice space saving pieces. Space saving tips There are always things you can get rid off, always I own very few gadgets and the ones that I do are used constantly and can do more than one thing. A good knife eliminates the need for most useless gadgets. I only have the bare minimum of dishes that our family of 5 needs, all of the dishes (including serving bowls) are in the small cupboard over my sink. Whenever I do purchase something new I get rid of an equal amount of older things. Start with taking another look around and see what you can live with out. Only keep what you absolutely need in the kitchen. I store most of my kitchen goods/extra food in the oshire in my dining room (actually a tatami room with a wood carpet) I have a large plastic storage thing in which I keep things we don't use all the time like donabe and gas conro, waffle maker, pasta maker, etc. Also since I shop at Costco a lot I store bags of flour/sugar/sesame seeds as well as huge bottles of dish soap in there as well. Keep it organized. I use small plastic boxes from the 100yen store to store my spices. I seperated them into ways that worked for me. I have one box for Indian spices, one for South east Asian, one for European and one for baking. The most commonly used ones and some that didn't fit into any category are on a slide out shelf in one of my cupboards. So when I am cooking something all I need to pull out is the box and everything is there. Make the most of all the space you have. I put shelves inside the cupboards so I can stack things all the way up to the top. I store less frequently used things in the back andstuff used daily in the front. I avoid pans/dishes that are oddly shaped or can't stack well.

That looks incredible! It is just the kind of food I was thinking about when I started this thread. A question about the anchovies, I don't believe I have seen those before here in Japan, I wonder if it would be ok to substitute niboshi?

Yes, they are! Their homepage I was on the Oimachi line 4 times 2 weeks ago and ever time we passed Jiyugaoka and I saw the sign for Sweets Forest, I kept thinking someday, someday....

I agree with Helen, it sounds like the nori is getting soggy. When I make onigiri, I let the rice cool a bit before even forming the balls, easier on the hands! I then let the rice ball cool down even more before wrapping. I don't like the way nori gets when it has been stuck to a rice ball for a couple hours so I either don't add it or I wrap the nori seperately and the kids wrap the onigiri when they eat it.

Hiroyuki, that is beautiful! Mia (10) just walked by and said "食べたい" (tabetai) or "I want to eat that".

If your onigiri are getting soggy, either you are doing something wrong or your rice is way too soft. What kind of onigiri are you making? When refrigerated the rice starts to harden, so it is best to keep them at a cool room temp. They would really be best made fresh in the morning.

ive seen this before too, but in very small quantities. If I had some liquid smoke I could cure my own bacon and be a happy camper, but I haven't been able to find that either. I used to make my own bacon back in the states in my converted fridge smoker but somehow I think plumes of smoke coming from my small Japanese balcony would be cause for alarm in the neighborhood. all the bacon here seems to be ham. It is cooked, or pasturized, to a high temperature and it totally changes the texture and flavor. It all also seems to be perfectly rectangular and very thin. Does anyone know of a Japanese site on the internet selling spanish goods (paprika, jamon, olive oil, dry cured sausages) on the internet? ← They do sell liquid smoke here, I have a bottle in my refrigerator and just used it this past weekend in a BBQ sauce... I think I bought it at Seijo Ishii (Kanto area only?) For Spanish jamon, dry cured sausages, etc take a look here, isn't cheap though.

Ice cream ramen scroll down for pictures no comment

I just ran across this. Gyoza sweets 1. ichigo daifuku gyoza 2. apple pie gyoza 3. gyoza parfait I am not quite sure what I think of this yet but I wouldn't mind trying the apple pie one!

Hi-chu has a new flavor!! blueberry I would have taken a picture but we ate it too fast....

I definitely have to agree with tonkatsu, I have had various breaed and fried/deep fried meat dishes and tonkatsu wins hands down. I also would have to vote for tempura and being one of the best batter fried dishes I have ever had. My favorite mapodofu was at a restaurant in (middle of no where) Athens, Ohio. I still dream about it and when I try to recreate it at home, this is the style I make. I can't recall eating mapodofu on my trip to Hong Kong so I can't compare it to any Chinese versions... I do not care for most Japanese tomato based pasta sauces.

I have never figured out why Morioka is famous for both reimen and jajamen, to me they are both Korean dishes., tough my Korean friends told me jajamen is aactually Chinese in origin. In college my Korean friends would make jajamen at least once a week for me, I even picked up some instant versions in the US this summer and brought them back to Japan. wanko soba for those that are unfamiliar with it. I am not really a big soba fan and am in no particular hurry to give this a try.