torakris

My hand cranked meat grinder only has two sizes, 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch. I actually would have liked my Italian sausages chunkier but I forgot about changing the disc until it was two late. I normally use the 1/4 inch one for the majority of sausages and have only used the 1/2 inch one for a chicken sausage I made and found it to be a little too chunky... What size discs is everyone using?? Where can I buy more sizes?

Most yakiniku places will have a lemon based sauce, or even straight lemon juice, this is used for the grilled tongue.

This is my recipe for a yakiniku marinade. This has plenty of flavor so no extra dipping sauce is needed. In Japan there are usually two types of tare (sauce) for yakiniku: momidare -- this sauce is used as the marinade tsukedare -- this the dipping sauce The tsukedare type is by far more popular, most yakiniku I eat at homes in Japan consists of slices of meat (usually with nothing on it, no salt or peper) grilled or griddle pan cooked and then dipped into a purchased tsukedare. Some yakiniku places put the sliced meats on the plate an then just pour a bit of sauce on top as their momidare. The cheaper the place the more likely it is that the same sauce will be on every plate of meat. At some places you can even choose the kind of momidare that you want. Here are some pictures of the yakiniku at Gyukaku (probably the biggest chain that also has branches overseas): Most of their meats come with the choice of their regular sauce (soy based), salt based sauce, or a miso based sauce.

Thanks again for the further clarification. Looks like I'll be spending my time at the FoodEx show after all. As for restaurants while I'm there....I plan to get to Tonki to sample some of their famous Tonkatsu. I would also like input from the group concerning if Inakaya is worth the expense...I'll be traveling solo so I'll have to find a dining companion. I'm also planning on hitting one of the Food Amusement Parks while in Tokyo for some research. Any advice as to Gyoza Stadium or the Curry one in Yokohama? ← Don't forget to post in the ISO tread before you come! I know of at least one person in the Kanto area who would love to go Inakaya.

I have never eaten it semi frozen, only lightly chilled...

There is a reason why instant ramen is so popular, the real stuff it just too damn difficult! Even the people I know who are serious ramen lovers wouldn't even think of making their own. Of course in Japan you can also walk down to any corner and get a decent bowl of tonkotsu ramen any time you want to. Tonkotsu is by far my favorite as well, if you do find a good recipe please share it. It will probably take a lot longer than just one day though, the recipe Hiroyuki linked to takes three days...

I couldn't get this cook off out of my mind as I was drenching in the sun on the beaches of Indonesia..... The day after we got home I went to the store and picked up 8 1/2 lbs of pork and 3lbs of back fat. Yesterday my husband and I made 3 kinds of sausages (all from Bruce Aidells' Complete Sauasage Book) Kentucky style pork sausage, chorizo and Italian sweet fennel sausage. We stuffed the Kentucky style one into sheep casings, half of the Italian ones went into hog casings and the other half was left bulk, the chorizo I kept all as bulk. Everything was then frozen in small packages for easy defrosting and use. I was too busy handling three recipes to think about pictures, so I pulled the links out of the frezer and took pictures now. the Kentucky style pork sausage, I froze them on this tray so I could just pull of the links as I needed them. I transfered them to a ziploc after I took the picture. I will be back with more pictures once I actually cook them! Some of the Italian sausage links

Yook hwe is probably my favorite dish in the world and if I ever had to choose one last meal this would be it. I have eaten this in a multitude of restaurants and my favorite version is at a yakiniku chain restaurant (in Japan, chain restaurant is not actually a bad word ) in Yokohama called Ichigoya. The yook hwe isn't cheap at $10 a serving but it is to die for. Very simple and just like Chef Zadi described, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil marinated julienned beef strips with a garnish of finely shredded garlic, sliced Asian pear, a quail egg yolk and a couple pine nuts. You mix it all together before eating. I think I need to get to Ichigoya soon......

I am slowly working on uploading my pictures and what a better place to start that than the Bumbu Bali 2 cooking class! Though it wasn't very hands on we did get our hands dirty. I had a really great time and Ketut was very informative and answered all of our questions. I can't remember what we paid but it was in the $15 -$18 range and considering the food that we ate I would have paid that just for the meal. I highly recommend this class to anyone staying in or passing through Ubud! We started off sampling various foods Ketut sliced off small pieces of almost everything on the plate so we could taste everyting in the raw state. Be warned: the fresh tumeric WILL stain everything it touches including your teeth and fingers! We then went on to the Basa Gede (basic spice paste) that we continued to use in a variety of the other dishes. This consisted of shallots, garlic, red chilies, galangal, lesser galangal, tumeric,coriander seeds,candlenuts,shrimp paste, peppercorns, nutmeg, cloves, cumin, sesame seeds. Next up was Sayur Urab (a vegetable and coconut salad), I can't remember all of the vegetbales we used but I think it was green beans, cabbage, bean sprouts and carrots. These were boiled then mixed with grated coconut, chiles and other seasonings. Next was Tuna Sambal Matah, this was probably my favorite. Tuna steaks were marinated with lime salt and pepper and then seared, the the raw "topping" was made with chiles, shallots, lemongrass, ginger, salt, pepper, lime and oil all mixed together. I got my hands dirty on this one! the finished dish Tempe Manis (tempe with a sweet sauce), I had only eaten tempe once and didn't care for it so I wasn't very excited to see this on the menu. Wow, was I surprised this was really good and the tempe tasted nothing like the one I had purchased in Japan. This was a simple dish made just with palm sugar, garlic and chiles. Next on the menu was Opor Ayam (chicken curry). This was seasoned with the basic spice paste and coconut milk. Then my other favorite Sate Lilit (seasoned ground meat on a skewer), we all got our hands dirty on this one as well. This is probably one of my favorite dishes in all of Bali and I enjoyed many variations. At the end he made a special dish for us that wasn't in the booklet, it was a prawn dish that he learned from his mother. This also used the basic spice paste as well as palm sugar, chiles, green peppers, onions ad kaffir lime leaves. As the meal concluded we were served a cocktail made with the Balinese fermented rice wine. The finale was Bubur Injin (black rice pudding) for dessert. I had eaten so much food I honestly thought I would not be able to eat this, but it must have found an empty corner of my stomach.

Torakris...usually i love looking at the food pics you post, but this looks....odd... Can you describe the taste? Im so curious ← Do you want the flavor of the whole dish? the mozoku? or the kinkan? The sunomono part was perfect, I used 3/4 cup (200ml) dashi with 1 1/2 Tablespoons each of soy sauce and rice vinegar and 1 Tablespoon sugar. Mozoku is pretty flavorless but it has a touch of slimy-ness, you need to sort of slurp it up. The kinkans were a last minute addition as my daughter's friends pulled them off the tree and I wanted to do something with them. I have never actually seen kinkans used in anyway like this but I really enjoyed it. It added a sort of sweet bitter note to the dish.

I know I started it back up again but the Daily Nihongo will be on a brief hiatus as the Yamaguchi family takes off for Bali. I will be back the second week of January. Happy Holidays to everyone!! and don't forget to check out the Elsewhere in Asia forum for pictures of some of my meals....

12/24: かまぼこ kamaboko Eso is fish that is often used for making kamaboko (fish paste "loaf"). Eso no kamaboko the kamaboko thread

A photo tour of Kappabashi Market

a nice refreshing sunomono made with mozoku (type of seaweed) and kinkan (kumquats) taken from my garden I don't know why I don't make sunomono more often....

mozoku (type of seaweed) in a vinegar dressing (dashi, vinegar, soy sauce and sugar) with kinkan (kumquats) from my garden

carrot and onion kinpira

two of my favorite nimono aburage (tofu pockets) and hakusai (Chinese cabbage) simmered with ginger satsumaimo simmered with lemon they both taste much better than they look...

another favorite maguro (tuna) seared and topped with grated daikon and scallions then drizzled (ok, drenched) in ponzu the naked tuna on the right was for my daughters, they insisted I make theirs without the daikon but then proceeded to eat quite a bit of the daikon topped one as they said it tasted better...

The water proportions are different for Basmati, this could have been your problem. I don't use the lines on the rice cooker bowl, instead I use a measuring cup. 1 cup (250ml) of Basmati rice to 1 1/2 (375ml) water. I also add a bit of salt with Basmati and fluff it with a fork (very carefully) about 5 minutes after it is done. I also just use the regular white rice setting to cook it.

I have never seen nor thought about putting kabocha in an okonomiyaki. I like it!! I have used julienned kabocha to make a Korean jon (called chijimi in Japan).

12/22: たたきごの寿司　 tatakigo no sushi This is like a oshi (pressed) sushi made with eso. Different from other sushi types though the eso is first cooked with seasonings (soy, sake, mirin) before being pressed into the rice. This is a speciality of Wakayama. tatakigo no sushi (first picture)

Japanese food packages doesn't list the number of servings. IF the nutritional serving are listed it is usually per 100 grams. I was searching my house for something with a nutrional label on it and finally found a jar of jam, the nutrional information is given per 100 grams and that is definitely not one serving! I can pretty safely say that most Japanese would consider one pack of instant ramen or one cup of cup ramen one adult serving. A lot of the instant ramen sold in Japan is now of the non-fried type, look for nonfurai men (ノンフライ麺) on the package. Here are some pictures: non-fried noodles this is from the instant ramen thread They do have some ramen noodles that are sold in the refrigerated cases that require a short cooking time. They are also sold with a soup packet and sometimes additional seasonings. These are packaged as nama men (生麺) or fresh ramen, but they ahve a pretty short shelf life. I have seen and purchased udon noodles that are soft (and have about a three month shelf life without refrigeration). These are cooked like yakisoba rather than in a broth and the flavorings are similar, sauce or salt flavor. I have seen ramen like this as well but have never tried it. These are han nama (半生) or half cooked noodles.

I love the idea of a chutney with these corokke! I wish I could get a good chutney... What is in the corokke? just potatoes and kabocha?

Jason, Do you prefer you kabocha peeled?

I haven't made agedashi-dofu for years... This is making me hungry!! what is the white stuff on top? ginger?