helenjp

horse pee in 1000 year old eggs? I thought it was a mixture of lime and sulphur - I used to watch (not too closely, spying not encouraged) as they were prepared at the Chinese grocery where I worked part-time as a student. As for the original wild man of Borneo's sudden departure from his island paradise...I recall the words "horse doping" featured in the explanation somewhere...

Vinegar: Genmai-su is my basic vinegar (except for jobs which just require acidity, not flavor). This is a brown rice vinegar produced entirely by fermentation. Soy sauce...still looking for that perfect aroma and taste in anything other than boutique sizes! Miso: I buy a reasonably salty mid-brown miso with koji grains still visible in it, plus akadashi. I don't buy hatcho-miso very often, because it just takes so long to blend it smoothly with liquid. If I can't get Kyoto white miso I prefer to buy a very light "tanshoku" miso and add mirin if needed, rather than buy the east-Japan version with rice malt or sake lees added. Sake lees is forgivable, but not rice malt!

Since the notorious vege shack shut down, I've been buying more often from a slightly more swanky vege shack by the station, which sells all sorts of interesting things but has inconvenient opening hours. Yesterday I picked up a bunch of Okinawa spinach (Gynura crepioides, handama, in Japanese suisenjina, and another name which I have forgotten) related to Indonesian and Nepalese varieties). The thick, slightly pointed oval leaves have the faintest hint of chrysanthemum-like indentations, and true to form, it tastes a bit like shungiku. Most striking is the purple coloration of the undersides of the leaf - doesn't show up too well in this photo... Photo of gynura crepioides I fried some onion and chicken pieces plus a little bacon, added vinegar, and when that was evaporated and the chicken tender, added tofu, allowed that to release a little water, and then stir-fried the okinawa spinach (which had been lightly rubbed with a little salt to shed some of the water, then rinsed off and gently squeezed) in and added shoyu and mirin. Despite the unusual taste, it retains more texture than shungiku, and we enjoyed it. With that, we had a clear pork soup with goya (Momordica charantia, in Japanese nigauri or in west Japan tsuru-reishi, bitter gourd, bitter melon). And so ended our bag of two goya - the other one was pickled in asa-zuke pickling liquid for son2's packed lunch. For some reason, this fussy kid loves goya, and is rather fond of astringent persimmons BEFORE they've turned sweet! goya pictures PLUS GOYAMAN!!! I plan to explore Okinawan vegetables a bit further - anybody have any favorite Okinawan dishes using familiar vegetables, or any "new face" vegetables from Okinawa?

I'm looking forward to this! I have an old friend from Kota Kinabalu (he left for lunch one day and decided to fly to New Zealand for the rest of his life instead of heading back to the office...). He's often told me how his family back in Sabah complain that he hasn't brought his kids up right, because they can't take spicy food!

Abra, I'm so glad these things are archived - I haven't been able to follow day-by-day, so I'm looking forward to sitting down for a long read of your wonderful blog. I guess none of the distinctive national cuisines we know today evolved totally without outside influence, so everybody's cooking is more or less eclectic. For me, it's a matter of food which is assertive enough to go with rice - something that covers most regions from the mediterranean on east! The only thing I meditate on is a heavy reliance on out-of-area produce...but in a major city, that's a strictly academic point, anyway. Thanks for showing us so much gorgeous food and great ideas.

Also Muso organic products - don't know of any low salt products in their list, but otherwise a good choice. http://www.muso-intl.co.jp/english/product/info.html

Why don't you start one?! Seriously, there's an application for the "wetter" wagashi style in western eating, I think. I got quite passionate about making some types of wagashi about 20 years ago, when I went to Kyoto regularly. I think the techniques would be very applicable to all sorts of western materials. However, I admit I don't share Torakris' fondness for fruit daifuku! I almost always feel that the sweet "an" has caused the fruit to start fermenting...

Tunafish salad...hmmm...he would like that! Thanks for the idea - don't laugh, but as a New Zealander I think of hummus before I would ever think of tunafish! Yogurt sounds like a good idea too - I often cut mayonnaise half/half with plain yogurt. I make whole wheat bread either as flat breads, or as a loaf which I freeze in half slices, which is a serving for me...but not for him! I let my sourdough die, but sourdough whole wheat bread keeps moist even better than the regular type, for those of us who eat bread a half-slice at a time!

My mother had a ceramic cooktop twice. Kitchen outfitter broke one fitting it into the counter space. Well. Never mind that. More seriously, she noted that the totally flat cooktop meant that any spills went straight over the cooktop and over the edge onto her feet. She was getting older, so a good percentage of her cooking was jams, jellies, and confectionery for church sales - none of it stuff you want on your feet. She still liked it well enough to get another one the same...she liked the easy cleanup. Although she SAID she was very careful about what she put on the cooktop, I was constantly taking dishcloths and paper towels off it... More than that, I can't comment - I've cooked with gas for so long that I am not good with electric cooktops of any kind.

I was told by workmates to marinate the pork in a paste of red fermented tofu - that doesn't make a sweet char siew of course, and the red color is not pronounced. Whatever style of cooking *that* might be, New York Chinatown it isn't - more like "roast pork a la Chinese weekend wild pig hunter from Hobson Street, Auckland, New Zealand"

We stopped at Okonomimura, a Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki place in the Niko-niko Road shopping street near Higashi-koenji station (come out on the north side exit, and head a few steps along Ome-kaido toward Shinjuku, then hang a left along the road that goes diagonally off it to the north) on the Marunouchi subway line (Tokyo) to cheer ourselves up after hospital visiting yesterday. As we were hot, tired, dispirited, and had intended to take our kids to a great tonkatsu restaurant that we remembered until we found that it was closed, Okonomimura started under handicap, but the food was cheerful and pleasant, the service ditto, and they gave us a discount because it was so damn hot! If you're a Carps fan, you might get a discount anyway (if the team's winning, that is...). We liked the menu - one side contained dishes "to fill you up", while the other had smaller portions. We found the smaller portions quite enough, and worked our way through 2 pork-negi deluxe, yaki-soba (can't say what that tasted like - son2 said it was "all mine" and refused to let anybody else take a bite!), and some yaki-udon. Their dishes were good without being stodgy or buried in condiments. Okonomimura 1-6-19 Koenji-minami Tel (03) 3311 5503高円寺南１－６－１９ Okonomimura URL (Japanese)

Please do! Very occasionally Spanish wine is available here, but I find it hard to choose - some Spanish reds have a "fortified wine" taste which I don't care for, but I don't know enough about Spanish wine styles to understand the labels and choose a bottle which I can expect to enjoy! I live east of Tokyo, near the cheaper parts of Tokyo where "Spanish" restaurants feature more central and south American cooking than Spanish. I often hear that Japanese short-grained rice is a good choice for paella...but I'd be curious to know what non-Japanese people think of that idea.

Had to laugh to find Torakris here before me! My Spain/Portugal cookbooks are either English or Japanese, and as son#2 gets more and more into classical guitar, our family encounters other types of Spanish culture more frequently. And apart from that, Spanish food tastes so good, and so un-Japanese! Since I grew up in a fishing area, so far I've enjoyed recipes for mullet and other strong-flavored fish especially - are any of the books in the "recommended reading in English" list strong on ways of cooking fish?

I'm glad to see that Mrs. T still has some beaux. When I was in Tokyo in 1985, I preferred it to Beefeater. Locating tonic water required sweeps of all liquor shops in about a 1 hour walking distance radius, and imported lemons were sold with large signs warning of dire risks to health from the wild overuse of chemicals on imported citrus (strangely silent on the question of domestic produce). Those were the days when friends of neighbor's cousins would ring up and say "I got your phone number off a friend, I don't know where I am, but it's somewhere in Tokyo, come and get me please!" In my tiny one-room flat, a bottle of Tanqueray seemed to be the only thing that would always find a place, no matter how many Kiwis and their suitcases turned up. I don't think I've ever drunk G&T in NZ, where it would be so much easier to make - it seems like a hot climate drink to me.

Most certainly will! That sounds like a yummy time of year to hear about food in Japan, too. I often buy garlic by the net...have no trouble using it up! It's excellent pickled in shoyu, too. You can just plunk it right in, but I'll dig out a recipe, seems to be better prepickled in vinegar before going into the shoyu. Like miso, the shoyu is an excellent seasoning. I use it so much that I end up topping up the shoyu several times before the actual garlic gets used up. One thing I plan never to repeat...swallowing a whole garlic clove pickled in honey, recommended as a great cure for laryngitis. Turns out to be one of those "If the cure doesn't kill you, neither will the illness" things - horrible stomach-ache for hours!

I usually leave garlic miso for about 6 months (I have a sort of superstition about letting it pass through both hot and cold weather...no known scientific basis!), and I use the miso more for seasonings than as a condiment. If you wanted a quick maturing version, I wonder if a sloppy mix of miso and shochu would do the trick? The garlic would probably stay crunchy however. I haven't tried it that way, but I plan to - with some chili pods sliced into the pickling mix.

Hey don't feel bad - I still have trouble gardening in Japan, and I've spent most of my adult life here. Every year, winter and summer take me and my garden utterly by surprise! Mint...if you are having trouble, it may be in too dry a place. If you can't change that, try growing a slightly hairy-leaved variety. Pineapple mint is tougher than spearmint. It grows along the side of my house between concrete wall and concrete foundations...pretty dry. Also, mint likes some sun but not full sun all day.

Forgot to make clear that we do also have bread for breakfast - I bake whole wheat flatbreads for myself and (not fat but needs to be careful in future) older son, and (skinny) DH and (skinny) younger son have white toast. Japanese spouses would like rice freshly cooked for breakfast, but if Japanese spouses are wedded to that idea, they had better get unwedded to the non-Japanese spouse who is mildly allergic to rice ...one reason why I bake my own bread is to avoid eating rice every day. I rarely saw fat Japanese kids when I first came to Japan in 1979...or even in 1985. Now I see more and more, closely linked to the spread of sweet sodas, though I see a swing back to tea. I'm *really* glad that I don't have to have the soda battle with my kids - they accept that something sweet is an occasional treat, and in this society, teas of all kinds are very normal, hot or cold. Now that summer vacation is here, snacks include cucumber allowed to chill in ice water for several hours until any bitterness is gone and eaten plain or with a bit of miso dip, sweetcorn, or steamed sweet potato. Any other healthy snack ideas? Especially for starving teen boys...who grow and get hungry, but who belong to computer club at school and live practically next door to school anyway -- and get no exercise at all. I've taken to having part of dinner ready early so I can put it in front of him, but it isn't easy when I'm home late from work and fielding phone calls from clients too.

I agree that eGullet is a good place to have a "good food habits" thread for people who are not kitchen-shy. I put on weight easily if I am at home translating all the time, and that is one reason why I teach a couple of classes - I get some much needed exercise tearing up and down the aisles whispering in all those shell-pink ears! If I try to schedule things like gym or swimming, my translation simply expands to take up all avaiable time, whereas teaching is a commitment I can't back out of. I lost what I needed to on WW back in 1990 when I had been translating full time for a couple of years, and never bought any WW foods, or anything much low-fat either from memory. I also lost a good deal of weight last year following Sugarbusters, also without buying any special products. Because Sugarbusters is more "wholefood, controlled starch" than the low-carb diets, it combines well with WW, and a number of people do seem to combine them. As my children grow, I also realize that while sane eating and food preparation may be remedial medicine for me, it's preventive medicine for them. I therefore make an effort with the basics - breakfast and snack foods, what kind of bread we buy/make etc, and not just dinner. The crunch...cycling to the shops regularly for fresh produce instead of buying too much once a week because I've got the car to carry it home in. Our breakfast is always based on yogurt. I'm trying to wean the family away from fruit and yogurt every day to yogurt salads with summer veges, and also curd rice (there's a thread about it on the Indian forum, with some yummy ideas). Another great moderate-fat, low-sugar spread is yogurt cheese, laban, whatever you want to call it - yogurt drained like cottage cheese, salt added if desired, and used as a spread with jam or herbs or hummus or whatever. Great added to scrambled eggs too.

I haven't prepared that particular recipe, but I have cooked other roux-type preparations (cream croquette base) for a very long time, and as promised, the flavor certainly did lose any hint of raw flouriness, and does break down some of the gluten rubberiness (which is what I object to most in roux-based curry mixes - when I just can't stand roux, I thicken my curry with peanut flour). If you want to go that route, why not prepare the roux by hand, then tip it into a slow cooker to "mature"?

Here is the recipe and photo. I meant to upload it as soon as I finished, and I am now a little hazy about exactly how much soy sauce I used, sorry. However, I used a fairly pale takuan, and no food coloring, so this is not the bright orange of commercial fukujinzuke. It would be much more orange if you used both, but home-made fukujinzuke is often this type of shoyu pickle color, maybe because people are anxious not to add unnecessary additives to home cooking? The key is to use plenty of takuan, and plenty of ginger! Fukujinzuke recipe here

Fukujinzuke Fukujinzuke is a "modern" pickle which became popular early in the 20th century as an accompaniment to curry and rice. I make it with a lot less sugar, and without mizu-ame or yellow food coloring. I use pickled vegetables rather than fresh, as that is the traditional method. The "fukujin" of the recipe title are the Seven Gods of Luck, a fanciful reference to the wide variety of vegetables used in the recipe (not a hard and fast list, but always including takuan, eggplant pickles, ginger, lotus root, and pickled shiso seeds). Pickled shiso seeds are hard to find outside specialty shops, but relatively common in mixes with cucumbers, eggplants etc. Use these mixes, looking for a shoyu base rather than a bright green salted pickle if possible. Pickled Vegetables takuan (yellow pickled daikon) salt pickled eggplants salt pickled "furuzuke" cucumbers Fresh Vegetables fresh lotus root burdock root (gobou), or bamboo shoot or other vegetable which will not disintegrate on cooking. carrot fresh ginger root, or more Seasonings 1 c Soy sauce 1/2 Sugar, preferably demerara 1/2 Mirin (sweet sake) 2 T Rice Vinegar 2 T pickled shiso seeds, or pack of mixed shiso seed pickles 1 sliced dried chili pods, optional yellow food coloring, optional toasted sesame seeds, optional Seasonings are given for roughly 1 kg of pickled and fresh vegetables. First, slice pickled vegetables and soak in water for around 24 hours to remove salt. Squeeze water out and place in large pan. Peel lotus root, slice and then quarter the slices, toss into vinegared water to prevent browning. Later, drain and add to pan. Peel burdock root, cut into large slivers (able to be grabbed with chopsticks easily), toss into vinegared water to prevent browning. Later, drain and add to pan. Peel carrot, slice, and halve or quarter slices. Add to pan. Rinse bamboo shoot, slice into size similar to other ingredients, add to pan. Peel or scrape ginger, slice and then shred, add to pan. Add all seasonings, adjusting amount of soy sauce so that vegetables are nearly, but not completely covered. Add some sake to counterbalance extra soy if liquid level is way down. Bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add a drop lid or small plate, and simmer until vegetables are tender. Allow to cool, add food coloring and sesame seeds if desired (I prefer to add sesame when serving) place in container and keep (refrigerated if weather is very hot) for 1-2 weeks for flavors to mature. As long as no mold develops, pickle should keep very well. If you are in any doubt, occasionally drain the vegetables, bring the liquor to a boil and replace (doing this also helps to concentrate the liquor to create the familiar syrupy consistency - you can do this step after the initial 1-2 weeks' maturation if you like). Keywords: Intermediate, Vegetables, Condiment, Japanese ( RG1133 )

Fukujinzuke Fukujinzuke is a "modern" pickle which became popular early in the 20th century as an accompaniment to curry and rice. I make it with a lot less sugar, and without mizu-ame or yellow food coloring. I use pickled vegetables rather than fresh, as that is the traditional method. The "fukujin" of the recipe title are the Seven Gods of Luck, a fanciful reference to the wide variety of vegetables used in the recipe (not a hard and fast list, but always including takuan, eggplant pickles, ginger, lotus root, and pickled shiso seeds). Pickled shiso seeds are hard to find outside specialty shops, but relatively common in mixes with cucumbers, eggplants etc. Use these mixes, looking for a shoyu base rather than a bright green salted pickle if possible. Pickled Vegetables takuan (yellow pickled daikon) salt pickled eggplants salt pickled "furuzuke" cucumbers Fresh Vegetables fresh lotus root burdock root (gobou), or bamboo shoot or other vegetable which will not disintegrate on cooking. carrot fresh ginger root, or more Seasonings 1 c Soy sauce 1/2 Sugar, preferably demerara 1/2 Mirin (sweet sake) 2 T Rice Vinegar 2 T pickled shiso seeds, or pack of mixed shiso seed pickles 1 sliced dried chili pods, optional yellow food coloring, optional toasted sesame seeds, optional Seasonings are given for roughly 1 kg of pickled and fresh vegetables. First, slice pickled vegetables and soak in water for around 24 hours to remove salt. Squeeze water out and place in large pan. Peel lotus root, slice and then quarter the slices, toss into vinegared water to prevent browning. Later, drain and add to pan. Peel burdock root, cut into large slivers (able to be grabbed with chopsticks easily), toss into vinegared water to prevent browning. Later, drain and add to pan. Peel carrot, slice, and halve or quarter slices. Add to pan. Rinse bamboo shoot, slice into size similar to other ingredients, add to pan. Peel or scrape ginger, slice and then shred, add to pan. Add all seasonings, adjusting amount of soy sauce so that vegetables are nearly, but not completely covered. Add some sake to counterbalance extra soy if liquid level is way down. Bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add a drop lid or small plate, and simmer until vegetables are tender. Allow to cool, add food coloring and sesame seeds if desired (I prefer to add sesame when serving) place in container and keep (refrigerated if weather is very hot) for 1-2 weeks for flavors to mature. As long as no mold develops, pickle should keep very well. If you are in any doubt, occasionally drain the vegetables, bring the liquor to a boil and replace (doing this also helps to concentrate the liquor to create the familiar syrupy consistency - you can do this step after the initial 1-2 weeks' maturation if you like). Keywords: Intermediate, Vegetables, Condiment, Japanese ( RG1133 )

Hi, I do have a recipe, and I just made a batch with photos. It is DIFFERENT from commercial fukujinzuke, because that is usually made with some kind of syrup, or LOTS of sugar, or even mizu-ame, and often includes color to emphasize the yellowish color which originally came from using generous amounts of takuan. It's not actually a very old pickle - maybe at it's height in the Taisho period, so likely originated around 100 years ago. Sorry I've been out of the loop - was just girding the old loins for a busy fortnight when we had a family crisis. Think we're all right way up again now! Fukujin-zuke is made with "old" salt pickles desalted and repickled with sweet/shoyu flavors, and lots of fresh ginger. Some home-made recipes start with fresh vegetables, and are therefore even further away from the taste of commercial recipes. Anybody in Japan can get a recipe in August (maybe July, but I think August) issue of Kyou no Ryori, pretty similar to the recipe I used.) I'll post a basic recipe in English plus a photo later in the day.

Hmmm..you mean slices or "steaks" of fish to serve salted and grilled? In that case, you just scale and gut the fish, then open it out, cutting through the lateral bones on one side of the fish to make this possible. These detached bones are either cut out along with connective tissue, or removed with tweezers. Mackerel has bones that run "outward" through the flesh along the middle of the fillet (hard to describe). These need to be removed with tweezers. At this point you can then cut each fish "half" into slices. However, while the sliced fish can be salted, salting is often done before any loose bones are removed, because the more fish is exposed, the greater the chance of spoilage. In Japan, mackerel is renowned for spoiling quickly. Use a coarse salt for salting, and hang up to dry - somewhere cool, breezy, and out of the sun. A half day is often enough for small fish, so try 12-24 hours??