smallworld

I suppose I've been in Japan too long, because I actually think that cheese and curry go well together. It's our favourite topping for popcorn, and it doesn't sound all that bad as instant ramen either...

Nabe- the only thing that gets me through winter. A dish that always makes me say 'Nihonjin to kekkon shite yokatta' (I'm glad I married a Japanese)! Not only delicious and warming, but fun- a great way to eat a leisurely meal with people you like. Just one problem- the weather outside is warm and sunny and I really don't feel like nabe! I think I'll stow away the portable gas burner and wait 'till November. Or a cool October weekend if we're lucky!

Great find! Depa-chika are amazing, and they've changed so much since I first came to Japan. I love the new big fancy depa-chika, but I kind of miss the dinky old ones- few shops give out samples anymore. What are your favourite depa-chika? I like Isetan in Shinjuku and Seibu in Ikebukuro. Shinjuku's Takashimaya, mentioned in the article, is actually not that impressive- it's best point is that it's a bit far from anywhere so never gets as crowded as other depachika. Also many of the shops have a counter where you can sit down for a quick bite, which is neat. Any favourite products? Flo is a chain (has shops in many depa-chika) with great tarts and quiches. Lenotre (at Seibu) has excellent waffles and an amazing crunchy buttery pastry called 'croquante'. Highly recommended! I don't have a favourite shop, but the onigiri and namagashi from depa-chika are way better than from anywhere else.

My favourite is a New Years only treat- tai-no-ko (sea bream roe?). My MIL simmers and flavours it like the regular New Years tarako (cod roe), so it tastes similar but the texture is much better- more firm with a bit of crunch. Otherwise ikura, tarako and mentaiko (spicy cod roe) are my favourites. I love shishamo- the only fish I can eat guts and all, from head to tail. I used to eat these so much I kind of got sick of them so I haven't had them in a while. Time to start eating them again! We once ordered grilled sanma (saury) that was really expensive. When we ate it we found out why- it had eggs! As I recall, the flavour was not unlike shishamo eggs, but they were sticky and stringy like natto. If this sounds gross then I'm just not explaining it well- it was great! I've never seen sanma with eggs since then.

Cherries! Oh how I miss them. Back home our neighbor has a few cherry trees and there are a few weeks in the summer when they keep bringing us bowls of them. Non-stop juicy cherries- fantastic! I think I'll have to time my next trip home to coincide with cherry season. RCarter, I agree about the mikan. That's the only fruit that is reasonably priced, delicious, and available most of the year. In the summer mikan are sometimes eaten half-frozen- a very refreshing snack.

I love any kind of namagashi, especially sakura-mochi. I don't much like higashi. I'm sure long ago when fresh fruit was rare and chocolate still unknown, higashi had it's charms. But these days there's really no use for it! I've heard there's another category (or sub-category) of sweets are 'Nanban-gashi', (southern barbarian sweets) which are western influenced; dora-yaki and tai-yaki fall into this category. And I love both! Also love o-shiruko.

Actually, I'm not happy with the fruit situation in Japan. Not just the fruit itself, but the price, selection and availability. First of all, too much value is placed on appearance and sweetness, so much so that I find all fruit tastes the same. Sure, the strawberries are sweet, but they don't have much of the juicy STRAWBERRY flavour they do back home. Apples don't have that apply tartness, grapes aren't very grapey. I know I shouldn't compare everything to Canada, but can't help it- the fruit is so much better back home! So much more selection, longer seasons, MUCH cheaper prices. And how ironic that I could go to my local Asian market and pick up tropical fruit like mangoes, papayas, finger bananas and pineapples for dirt cheap, yet here, smack dab in the middle of Asia, these items are expensive and usually hard to find. So anyway, I went from eating about 3 servings of fruit a day back home (5 or 6 in the summer) to one or less here in Japan. Not happy! Well, I should finish my rant here before it gets any longer...

I'd love to do this too. I stayed/worked at a WWOOF farm on Vancouver Island several years ago and it was an interesting experience. VERY hard work though, but I've heard the type, amount, and difficulty of the work really depends on the place. Wonder if I can convince my couch potato husband that this could be fun....

Bamboo shoots, of course. And fuki (butterbur), rapini, asparagus, and anything flavoured with kinome (young leaves of sansho). I also love all the 'new' veggies, like new cabbage, new carrots, new potatoes (always thought of new potatoes as a summer thing though) etc.

All rice is good. Especially: plain white rice eaten with an assortment of stuff like mentaiko, nori, shiso, grilled salted salmon etc. onigiri takikomi gohan zosui (crab, fugu or anything!)

Well Jinmyo, what I really meant was that I love the Japanese versions of western sweets. Everything is better here- chocolate, cake, cookies, pastries, donuts and more. They aren't as sickly sweet as those back home, and are usually made with higher quality ingredients. One of the only things that's better back home is apple pie. Japanese just don't understand pie! And fruit too, but that's a whole other thread. I do like traditional Japanese sweets too. Like you said some of them are really really sweet, but those ones are meant to be had with bitter matcha.

Yuck. The only good thing about McDonald's is the fries. When I crave fast food it's Mosburger all the way!!

Sake no harasu! I've had that- delicious! But it's so rich I can only eat a bit. Rest stops here are great, aren't they? We don't have a car so so don't drive often, but when we rent a car and go for a trip somewhere the rest stops are always a big highlight. I hate the drive to Yokohama or Kamakura from our place in suburban Tokyo, since there are not rest stops- what's the point of driving? Much better to head north and pick up some dango and o-yaki along the way!

I love shime-saba too! Whenever we go to a 'kaiten-sushi' place (low-end sushi served on a conveyer belt) my husband always goes for the ikura, anago, toro etc- basicly the most expensive items. I always have several plates of shime-saba and other cheapies like aji, iwashi, katsuo, and ume-shiso-maki. When we're not on a budget he always keeps reminding me that I don't have to eat shime-saba, I can order ANYTHING I want. He just can't understand that I LIKE it! I also generally prefer sashimi to sushi (maybe because sushi's a bit expensive and hard to make at home so we can't make a meal of it often, while sashimi is always just a side dish so can be enjoyed anytime). Other than katsuo, maguro is my favourite. In any form- toro or lean red meat, sliced and dipped in soy sauce or marinated in soy sauce and mirin, perfectly raw or seared on the outside, as a topping on rice or all by itself. Yum yum yum.

I was cooking Italian the other night when it struck me how much my cooking habits have changed since I started cooking Japanese food regularly. There I was grating the parmesan with my oroshi-gane (daikon grater), using long cooking chopsticks to saute the shrimp, wondering if the Japanese rice I was using would make a decent substitute for arborio rice in the risotto. Does anyone else use ingredients and/or techniques from Japanese cooking (or Asian cooking in general) when cooking other cuisines? Have your eating habits changed since discovering the world of Japanese food? Here are some examples of mine: -My cooking chopsticks are so useful I can't imagine cooking anything without them. They are basicly extensions of my fingers. -The oroshi gane (grater) is great (har-har) for grating hard cheeses. My favourite is one with holes (regular oroshi-gane don't have holes) that fits on top of a container, and is much nicer than a regular cheese grater that slips all over when grating above a bowl. It also has a suction cup on the bottom so it stays put. It's indispensable. (Is this kind of grater called an 'oroshiki'?) -Panko (Japanese breadcrumbs) are wonderful and I almost always use them instead of regular breadcrumbs. -I use tofu in everything (but I've been cooking with tofu since I was a vegetarian in high school, so it doesn't really count). -I eat way more sweets here in Japan than ever. Back in Canada I never really liked cake, cookies, pastries or other sweets (except fruit and apple pie), but since coming here I realized that was simply because the sweets most widely available back home just aren't very good. Here the sweets, especially cake and pastries are so much yummier. Even the donuts are better! And let's not forget Pocky! -I shop for groceries way more often, pretty much every day. And rather than do everything at one or two big stores I'll visit several shops- this Sunday (when I cooked Italian) I hit seven stores (helps that I shop by bike or on foot). Sure there's more but I'll stop here...

Thanks for the link! There are so many regional and seasonal Pockys I've never seen- I'll have to pay more attention from now on. I'm especially upset that I didn't know about the Canadian Maple Syrup Pocky! About the 'Men's Pocky'- I think it's just because lots of Japanese men don't really have a sweet tooth. Pocky and other sweets are mostly consumed by women and kids (and even then, it's the girl kids who eat the most sweets). So in an effort to capture a larger audience they made a Pocky that was more bitter and less sweet, that men would supposedly like. MY Japanese man likes it just fine, but prefers the normal sweet ones, especially strawberry, white chocolate, and the new mousse types (with a fatter, more 'moussy' coating). Me? Almond and chocolate mousse.

Katsuo-tataki! It's is made by searing a long chunk of bonito sashimi then slicing it thinly. It looks pretty- deep red inside and white from the searing outside. The sliced sashimi is arranged on a plate and sprinkled with various garnishes like sliced green onions, shiso, grated ginger, grated daikon, then splashed with ponzu. Spring katsuo is just coming into season, I'll have to make this soon. I like futo-maki, but I won't eat it out- haven't figured out how yet. It's too big to go down in one bite, but if I bite off half then all the remaining innards fall off. It's usually too hard to cut in two with chopsticks before eating. Has anybody figured out how to eat it?

Jinmyo, true- Korea has got Japan beat when it comes to grilled meats (don't know about China)! But luxury Japanese beef is so amazingly good it doesn't really matter how it's prepared. I actually never even liked beef or pork until I came to Japan, but now I'm hooked. A favourite 'grilled' beef dish is 'hoba-yaki'- beef in some kind of miso sauce on a big leaf (a hoba leaf, to be exact), grilled over charcoal. I had this once with Matsuzaka beef and it was one of the best beef dishes I've ever had. And yakitori is nothing to sneeze at either!

I'm surprised how small the mushimono category is in Japan, seeing as it's such a simple and healthy way to cook. Other than chawan-mushi, the only things I can think of are 'sekihan' (steamed mochi rice with red beans) and other kinds of 'okowa' (steamed mochi rice with flavourings and seasonal ingredients). And of course the great steamed potatoes topped with butter, sold as 'jaga-bata' at yatai. One of my favourite yatai snacks. I do a version at home called 'miso-jaga-bata'- steam a few potatoes (any starchy kind) till soft in the middle, cut in half and spread with a thin layer of miso (any kind of miso works well, we use a chunky country-style), broil briefly in the oven toaster, then top with a pat of butter. (We actually saw this on TV being touted by Mino Monta as a health food perfect for, well, I don't remember exactly. Thining the blood? Improving liver function? I can't remember, but that doesn't stop me from eating it!)

Never been to Hokkaido, but I love the seafood. My father-in-law was born in Otaru (a city in Hokkaido) and when we go to Osaka to visit the in-laws they often take us to a restaurant called Otaru, specializing in Hokkaido seafood. I love 'hokke', which is a kind of fish I haven't been able to translate. 'Ruibe' is a kind of sashimi made from thin slices of frozen, so good it melts in your mouth. Grilled salmon, salmon roe and crab are all good too. Other good Hokkaido stuff: Miso ramen- topped with butter, corn, and the usual ramen toppings. Or with kimchi! Ishikari nabe- a miso-based hot-pot with salmon, tofu, chinese cabbage, and a variety of other ingredients. Our version adds daikon, potato, shitake and bean sprouts and is topped with a big pat of butter and seasoned with shichimi.

I can't imagine natto gyudon. So are you saying that you make gyudon for breakfast every morning?? Your husband's other favourite, with noodles, sounds like a soba dish I've been eating lots lately. Someone mentioned natto and kimchi earlier- I love it. Sounds gross but they go well together. It's best to chop the kimchi into small bits first, and it's good served with little sheets of nori- you can scoop the natto kimchi up in the nori like a little taco. Since natto is supposed to be good for lowering cholesterol (and soy products are super-healthy anyway), I'm trying to serve in several times a week, if not everyday. Natto kimchi works well as a snack or appetizer, which is good for days when we get a bit sick of regular natto. The first time I had natto that I liked was deep-fried natto at an izakaya, but I took that merely as proof that ANYTHING tastes good deep-fried. Next was natto on pizza (I can practicly hear all the 'Eeeeew's out there!) which let me appreciate the nutty flavour of natto. The stinky cheese flavour/aroma matched the real cheese pretty nicely, and the strings either disappeared from the heat of fused to the cheese's strings. Very nice, and the next time I had plain raw natto I liked it!

Interesting. I think for this reason nimono was (is?) the hardest Japanese food for me to perfect. I'm not used to using any kind of sugar or sweet seasoning in non-dessert cooking, and as for salt I'm used to adding the minimum amount. There's always salt, pepper and other seasonings at the table so if someone wants a little more salt they can just add it themselves. It's so hard to get used to perfecting the balance of soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar, dashi etc, and making sure it's perfect before it gets to the table. My husband wasn't aware that it's OK to add your own seasonings at the table, so when we were first married and I'd cook something 'Canadian' he'd just eat it as is, poor guy. He must have thought I was a terrible cook and it took a while for him to realize it wasn't an insult to add salt and pepper to a meal I cooked. (Funny, he never had a problem piling on the parmesan cheese, shichimi or chili sauce!)

I've tried tofu-yo and thought it was awful. Definately one of those acquired tastes that I have no interest in acuiring. Hiya-yako is my favourite, but it has to be good tofu. It took a while to learn that the cheap supermarket silken tofu is only good cubed in salads and miso soup. If it's a really good tofu then the classic grated ginger, sliced green onions, bonito flakes and soy sauce are all I want on top. Otherwise anything goes, but kimchi is a favourite, as is mentaiko mixed with sliced green onions and sesame oil. Butterchik, the mystery topping may have been myoga. Although the usual season for myoga is late summer, recently it can be found year-round (it comes up in my garden every October, which is pretty late). I love myoga and think it's a great topping for hiya-yako.

Oh no, I forgot maki-mono, rolled things. (I think these belong here, but maybe they could also be classified as itame-ni? Or should they have their own category?) Favourites: Buta no shiso-maki- thinly sliced pork rolled with shiso and sliced mountain potato and ume paste. Sardine rolls- fillets of iwashi rolled up with shiso and a mixture of miso, sesame, ginger and green onion. Tori no isobe-yaki- ground chicken mixed with minced shiitake and seasonings, rolled up in a sheet of nori (like sushi) and pan-fried before simmering in soy sauce and mirin, then sliced into pretty wheels.

Well, I think it's safe to call buta-kimchi and tonkatsu Japanese, even if the technique or certain ingedients originated in other countries. If you go back a thousand years, Japanese cooking would be really different than what is considered 'traditional' today- no soy sauce, sushi, miso, or tea, no oil was used for cooking, and rice was a luxury common people couldn't enjoy. So let's not be too picky here! Itame can also be translated as saute, which might help broaden the category a little. I like kimpira with burdock and lotus root. In the spring my favourite stir-fry is with rapini and slices of chicken breast. Flavoured simply, with a bit of garlic, hot tougarashi pepper, sake and salt. I love rapini so much and it's a shame that it's not more popular back home in Canada. Most of the stir-fries I make are itame-ni, which are dishes that are sauted first and then simmered. A favourite itame-ni is thinly sliced daikon stir-fried with chunks of drained firm tofu, simmered in sake and soy sauce.