torakris

Things honestly clould not have been worse in my kitchen yesterday. It started off with two, not one, but two trips to the grocery store to buy eggs and flour. I actually wrote a note with just eggs and flour on it and took it with me. Then I came home with eggs and a of other things. So back to the store for flour. I then started off by sauteeing the zucchini mixture, which went well. Then on to the cheese. I was making a very simple ricotta (from scratch) but I could not get the curds and whey to separate, I tried adding double the amount of citric acid, then I said what the heck and decided to squeeze lemon juice into it. The lemon half popped out of my hand and landed in the pot of very hot milk splashing all over me, and it still didn't curdle! Then I pulled out my rice vinegar and added a splash of that and I still never got what I was hoping for but I did get a cheese like product that was not bad but quite acidic. Time to turn to the pasta, I have never made pasta by hand before. I created a large pile of flour made a well and added the eggs, it was beautiful at this point. I took a fork and gently stirred the eggs and started to slowly incorporate the flour. All good so far, then the dam broke! the eggs escaped out a hole they dug in the back of the pile and took off. If it wasn't for the warped cutting board I was using I would have lost them all over the counter. (I warped my nice wooden cutting board a couple months ago when I decided to use it as a lid on a pan I was simmering. ) I finally got the dough together and kneaded it for the full 10 minutes, I then set it aside (wrapped) to rest. In the meantime I pulled out the pasta machine to read the directions since I have never used it before. It is a handcranked Imperia brand that I bought through Amazon last year. To start with there were no directions on how to set it up, go ahead and laugh but it actually took 30 minutes to figure out how to do it... It can't clamp on to either my kitchen counter nor my dining room table because of their sizes. So I tried clamping it on to my sons chair but that was an awkward position to work in and the pasta had no where to go but the floor. I did finally manage to get it clamped onto my table but not really securely... When I unwrapped the dough, it was quite sticky. Mario says to go very easy on the flour so that is what I did, but it stuck to everything, the cutting board, the table, the machine, my hands, itself, etc. I tried using more flour but it still stuck and then the book said that when the dough comes out (on the largest settings) to fold it in half and feed it through again but for some reason the piece would end up being wider than the machine. Suddenly I noticed little silver specks inside my dough, upon closing inspection it turns out my machine is peeling! and it was flaking into my dough!! I trudge on and it seems to be be coming together for two feeds or so then it gets messed up. Now I am noticing little red smears on my dough, it took a couple minutes of inspecting the table and everything in the vicinity before I realize at some point I sliced my thumb and was actually bleeding quite a bit.... oh, well it will just be colorful pasta. I get two semi decent sheets out of the fist batch and the door bell rings. It is some woman selling wind chimes!! She goes on into a 10 minute speech about the significance of each of the animals on them and the special materials they are made of, then the next 5 minutes in commenting on how cute the kids are and asking various questions about life in Japan. I finally said no thank you and she left.. back to the pasta my two strips are slightly dried out now but I decided to run them through one last time.Tthen I cried for the first time: I went back to the books and started reading to see what was going on. It was then that I noticed in the recipe he has for the pansotti is a little different then the general fresh pasta rolling and cutting explanation he has. It says to just put it through the second to last setting once and then cut it into 3 inch circles. Well this sounds much easier! It is much harder to crank now and the hand crank piece is now falling out of the machine every three cranks instead of every five... but I get a nice long piece that I probably floured more than I should have and set about cutting circles. I think the pasta was too thin though because as I would pick up the shape it would stretch into a long oval and if any part touched another part they would be instantly stuck together. After 5 tries I said screw it and decided to just turn it into tagliatelle with the attachment. It would take another 10 paragraphs to describe that disaster so I am going to stop now. Thank god for instant pasta!! I took the zucchini filling and the oil and walnut sauce and combined it all togther. the whole process took over three hours and it left a good sized chip in my dining room table....

Rachel, that mold is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen! I am so jealous....

Aaahhhhhh!!!! I hate every single one of you for making this sound easy!! I don't know if dinner will ever get made and it will take days to clean my house..... back to my struggle with the pasta machine

I just ran across this review for a book called The Enlightened Kitchen: Fresh Vegetable Dishes from the Temples of Japan by Mari Fujii. It sounds very interesting, I can't wait to take a look at it when it comes out.

Eating in Japan is governed by the seasons. Before you come to Japan try to learn some of the food that will be in season while you are there. here are some threads that may be able to help: Spring foods Summer foods Autumn foods Winter foods

For anyone in Japan interested in making your own seasoned ikura or sujiko, now is the time! The stores are now filled with trays of the raw salmon egg sacs. I am thinking of doing some shouyu-zuke (soy sauce seasoned) ikura this week so I can satisfy my craving for ikura-don!!

9/3: いくら丼 ikuradon a donburi (oversized bowl of rice) topped with ikura, one of the most delectable dishes on earth. ikuradon

9/2: 人工いくら jinkou ikura These are artificial or man-made ikura. If you see a dish that has ikura in it and the price seems to good to be true, it probably is.. You may find them sold on their own or mixed in with some "real" ones. It can be hard to tell them from the real thing. They are often made from some kind of oil and a seaweed extract and sometimes carrot juice for the coloring. You can try sniffing them out as the fake ones don't have that nice ocean smell , but the best test is to pour some hot water on them. If the surface turns a cloudy white you have the real thing!

← Please feel fre to make it on any day that works for you! I was thinking of calling it Yakisoba Weekend, but that just sounded weird...

We haven't done one of these in a while... This time it will be yakisoba, if you want to read more about yakisoba check out this thread. I am still debating between a shio-yakisoba (salt flavor) or a sousu-yakisoba (sauce flavored)

works for me!

those both look great, the ebi-shio ones in particular I think I will be heading to the store today...

those sound really good, I have never seen maple flavored ones before... you MUST buy them and report back! and welcome to eGullet!!

ngr00, welcome to eGullet! I read Kitchen such a long time I can't remember how she described the katsudon. I have had some bad katsudon as well, I never order it anywhere in the US anymore as it tends to be overly sweet. In Japan I often find it too salty...

This particular recipe calls for his basic pasta dough which is 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour and 5 large eggs.

I was going to stuff it and do the black bean sauce, but didn't have much time last night so I just sauteed some goya with thinly sliced pork and onions in a fermented black bean-garlic-ginger sauce. It was great! I loved the combination so much that I actually felt a little sick after the meal because I ate more than I should have.. two days ago I made a goya and raw onion salad, I blanched the goya and soaked the onions in some ice water then combined them and dressed them with 1 tablespoon each of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar and topped it with some shredded katsuoboshi (bonito flakes)--excellent and it couldn't have been easier.

I never peel gobo, I just wash the skin really well with a brush. Normally when using gobo I soak it in acidulated water but I can't remember if I did it for these the discoloration wouldn't be noticeable.

sounds good to me!!

soba with deep fried gobo, this creation from 7-11 is a stroke of genius, absolutely wonderful!

I guess they don't call it the lazy days of summer for no reason.... convenient store lunch again.... Mine is the soba, Hide chose a corokke (croquette) burger. This soba was soooo good! It had deep fried gobo (burdock root), scallions, carrots and grated daikon, I don't think I have ever licked a bowl clean before. Everyone in Japan, run out to 7-11 now!

Fanta's latest YUZU!!

yuzu fanta! just one word: yum!

I have had this same recipe (Alford-Duguid's) dog-eared for quite some time now but have never gotten aound to it.... In the comments/glossary section in the back of the book they talk about rice flour and decribe two types: rice flour and glutinous rice flour and comment the that they are not interchangeable as glutinous rice flour makes softer and stickier doughs. Mochiko is a glutinous rice flour so this could be why some people have had disasterous results. Look for a regular rice flour.

A daifuku craving came on really strong yesterday, I really wanted a grape one but alas none was to be found.... Instead I found this zunda daifuku (with edamame) and goma daifuku (sesame seed ones filled with anko-red bean paste) they were both really good but I particularly enjoyed the sesame one

I have decided I am going to make Pansotti with Walnut Sauce from Mario's new Molto Italiano book (pg 238). They are sort of like ravioli and are stuffed with red onion, zucchini, bread crumbs, ricotta, pecorino and fresh oregano.