helenjp

The thing to do with the tamarind is...send it to me! Can't find where to buy it in Japan! Tamarind is sour, but it also adds a slight depth and sweetness, so it's popular with bland vegies like zucchini/marrow, eggplant, cauliflower etc., and with meats that often need a little sweetness, like beef, and to add depth to spice mixes. As long as you're grilling, you could try an Indonesian dish -- chicken cooked "rudjak" style. You would need fermented shrimp paste (blachan or trasi) as well as the tamarind, though...open out a chicken so that it can be grilled flat. Smear over it a paste made from a 1 onion, plus some chillies, some garlic, and a small chunk of fresh ginger (better yet, the spice known variously as laos, lengkuas, galangal, which is a more flowery-smelling root similar to ginger), and half to 1 teaspoon of trasi (fermented shrimp paste, wrapped in foil and quickly waved through a flame before adding to the mixture) all of which have been pounded or put through a blender. Let the chicken stand as long as convenient, then prepare a panful of coconut milk (canned) with lemon grass and a little tamarind water (Take a piece the size of a peanut and mix with a little water, press through a tea strainer, discarding the solid remains). Dump the chicken in and cook slowly, basting with the cooking liquid until reduced. When mostly cooked, put the chicken on a barbeque (not too hot, burns easily) and keep spooning the cooking liquid over the chicken as it barbeques. This is an old recipe from Rosemary Brissenden, with a good flavor and the advantage that it does not take long to BBQ and also great in hot summer weather, as you don't have the worry of keeping the raw chicken safely cool. A chunk of blachan trasi will last you fully as long as your block of tamarind (heh heh), both are used in small amounts. There is a softer Chinese fermented shrimp paste which may be easier to obtain, but it does not have as complex a flavor as the SE Asian product. Golden mushrooms..don't know them by that name, but soak them and try them in a Chinese style stir-fry with shreds of meat (optional) and crisp veges...then at the last minute add beanthred vermicelli (soak 20 minutes before using and cut into short lengths) to soak up the mushroom-flavored cooking liquor and provide a nice softness with the chewy mushroom and slightly crunchy veg. Tapioca/cassava flour...I've only seen recipes for grated fresh cassava in desserts...it's used in SE Asia and across the Pacific, and I think in southern India too.

Well off topic here...my DH is a "tora" too! For the "on topic" part...I was thinking how hypocritical it was of me to say that I cook with the ingredients around me...guess I just forget what has crept into my kitchen, not to mention how eclectic Japanese eating is these days! Things I regularly bring back with me...organic rolled oats for winter porridge, dried fruit for Christmas cakes (didn't do that this year, and now I regret it!). Some spices, if I can find them...though most are available in department stores. If you use large quantitites of file or other local spices, you might want a supply!

Thanks for the website..my sister sends them to my kids for Sinterklaas, but they just can't wait till December. Of course, they like the chocolate hail best, but I prefer the aniseed ones...makes me feel very Elizabethan eating "comfits" on my bread!

Thanks for the info on "Delights From..." I've long wanted another point-of-view to balance my decades of obsession with Claudia Roden's book! About 20 years ago, I used to be a literacy volunteer. Because I like foreign languages, I was often assigned to the immigrants who somehow ended up in literacy schemes because they wanted to bring their written English up to the same standard as (or better than...) their spoken English, so that they could resume their interrupted professions or re-take professional qualifications. ...but anyway, I worked with an Iranian nurse, who often came to raid my herb garden, and repaid me by inviting me to dinner from time to time. This is not Iraqi food, but it's more similar to Iraqi than to the more mediterranean middle eastern food I was familiar with. Dinner was usually a very meaty lamb stew -- sometimes with hard-boiled eggs- in a thin soup, served with rice or bread (just plain white sliced bread, these people didn't have money or time to recreate every detail of the way they ate in Teheran), flavored with apricots or sometimes sultanas, and always accompanied by a salad. One thing I gathered from her and from Iraqi students when I first came to Japan, was that there was a huge culinary gap between the ordinary people, especially outside the main cities, and the educated urban middle classes, who spoke French and ate French, but also ate a lot of noodles. Interested to hear more on this topic...

Hmmm As Kris says, depends how long you are going to be here. (And that reminds me, while Torakris works great as a name, I'd be Inuhe, and I'm not ABOUT to start calling myself Dogfart!!). Western bakeware is often too big. Exception: 1 small springform cake pan plus a re-usable silicon liner comes in handy. Small cake pans are sold everywhere, not of great quality but OK, but I rarely see springform. Potato masher...handy item for many J kitchen tasks, from potato korokke to mashing soybeans for miso (you need a strong one for that). Serrated bread knife. Floating blade vege peeler if you like to use that kind. Sturdy corkscrew (embarrassed grin here...).Eggcups, if you like to eat western-style soft-boiled eggs...and that's about it. Used to be hard to get saucepans with heavy bottoms here, but no longer. Ingredients...on the whole I like to cook what's around me. For baking...Japanese baking powder is not great. For some reason beans and lentils etc are expensive and not easy to find here...but one thing to consider is the Japanese rainy season, which is hard on long-term food storage. Have fun imagining your life here!

Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern Food. There's always something in there that looks good to eat, and there's always something in there that corresponds with what is in my kitchen... ...or do the contents of my kitchen just reflect the fact that I've been reading this book for about 20 years now?!

Yeah, and THIS one had "shouchuu" instead of "processed alcohol" (forget the exact word, was it "jouzou alcohol"???). Don't know exactly how much difference it makes, a thing called "Aji no Haha", while technically a "mirin-fuu choumi-ryou", actually has a better taste than some straight hon-mirin that I've tasted. I think the aji-mirin were originally designed to get around liquor selling laws which made it impossible to sell sake and mirin in supermarkets...unless you added a little salt and called it a seasoning instead of an alcoholic drink!! ...Wonder if good mirin is more available in Kansai? When I used to live there 20+ years ago, people still bought good mirin to make "o-toso" sake and herbs for New Year's Day breakfast!

Recipe for tricolor Japanese pound cake...utterly standard recipe is best for this one, preferably a bit on the dry side, so that you can add yogurt to the colorant powders, as the acidity makes the color brighter. For a pound cake using 4-6 eggs. Divide mix into thirds (one third quite a bit more generous than the others). To the largest third, add at least a teaspoonful of grated fresh ginger. To one of the remaining thirds, add 1 tablespoon of green tea, either as is, or mixed with yogurt. To the last third, add 1 tablespoon of purple powdered sweet potato (a new product here in Japan) -- lots of fun to use, but definitely brighter if mixed with lemon juice or yogurt). Spoon different colors of mix into your prepared baking pan, thinking about the cross-section, not about how the cake looks from the top! Smooth a little with a spoon dipped in milk (the purple powder is starchier than the others, so the mix will be a little stiffer) and bake as normal. When baked, brush with a little syrup and scatter with black sesame seeds if you like. I was pleased with the flavors as well as the colors -- the warmth of the ginger works nicely with the faint bitterness of the tea. Regarding sugar...I know that in NZ people commonly reduce sugar in US recipes by 1/3 or 1/2...but I was a bit surprised to see such a difference in a "classic" recipe!

Ummm...well I think the rootlets of moyashi taste bitter. I start out thinking I'll just snap a few off, and end up working grumpily through the whole bag. However, if I soak the whole lot in plenty of water for an hour, the taste is considerably improved. I hear that you should keep moyashi in water in the fridge, and change it every day. I think it improves the taste, but I rarely bother to do it.

12 pound cakes later... I got a bit carried away remembering cakes I hadn't made in years...a marbled green(green tea), yellow (grated fresh ginger), and purple (purple sweet potato powder) one came out looking great and tasting pretty good too! While I was trolling through old recipes, I realized that many US "pound" cakes actually had up to twice the classic proportions of sugar. Any idea why that should be? Does your stronger flour create more volume that requires more sweetening? I wasn't as happy with the yogurt and sour cream ones as I expected...I remember that the yogurt cake I normally make uses oil and not butter, and it is not as heavy. Thanks for the wrap-while-warm hint! Those cakes that escaped the Quality Control Committee are now wrapped and stored out of sight... Regards

kiwifruit does work in jam. I like to make it in the microwave, to keep the color bright. I use quite a lot of shredded fresh ginger with it -- ginger and kiwi are an AMAZINGLY wonderful combination! Kiwifruit chunks in pound cake go nicely too...lots of apple desserts work with kiwifruit. Regards

yuba...mmm...good with various stir-fried greens...basically, just good stuff, and am I ever glad it broke out of Kansai and snuck into supermarkets near Tokyo! Guess what I found today in the supermarket. Tempeh! Yes! Here in murder-a-minute-ville wrong-side-of-the-tracks-town! Made by Kume Quality Products of Ibaragi Pref. And what are we having for dinner? Not tofu, not tempeh...by request of the Chief Wage Earner, Japanese curry (with a can of tomatoes to make it blush decently for its inauthenticity), cooked to the strains of Yo-yo Ma playing Appalachian hillbilly in the background...and served with a side of kimchi! Regards

Thanks for the help! I have a couple of syrup-type recipes that I'm happy with, especially one orange/lemon one including almond meal which makes for a very tender cake...but I haven't made them in a while, and I don't recall considering keeping qualities... However, more recipes is never a bad thing! Guess I'm afraid that the syrup will make them hard to slice, but come to think of it, by 36 hours they should have stabilized and be easier to slice. Thanks for the heads up on yogurt and sour cream -- had excellent results with that type of cake in past. As my supermarket doesn't have really good butter in stock at present, that's a lifesaver. Cake tins... throw-away cardboard loaf pans are issued to all nincompoops who agreed to bake unspecified number of cakes. These work well in tiny Japanese ovens for richer cakes like pound or fruit -- stops the uneven overheating that tiny ovens suffer from. Regards helenjp (who is listening to a just-for-me violin jam on the theme "I waited 36 hours for a piece of caaaaake" as I type...sounds as if some "experiments" are in order!)

Hello...its been a while since I baked much so I need some help. I need to make 4 pound cakes which are to be served in individually wrapped slices. I have to make at least some of them two days in advance (min. 36 hours before serving), because I have commitments which prevent me from baking more than one cake the day before (live in Japan, tiny oven takes only 1 medium sized cake at a time...). They need to be moist, of course, and also slice cleanly 36 hours after baking (without dragging or crumbling) and present an attractive cross-section... Current plans:...replace about 1/3 flour with almond meal, pour citrus or coffee or tea syrups over hot cakes before storing, avoid fresh fruit which might mold. Thoughts: potato flour would make them softer, but would it ultimately make the cakes too dry? Should I be wary of too many eggs, as they can also make a cake dry out faster? Cut back on whites only?? I'd appreciate comments on long-keeping tips, and also, of course, any great ideas for ingredients!

I thought I was hallucinating, but there it was...what SEEMS to be a properly made mirin, actually in the supermarket... Takara "Yuuki Hon-Mirin" (organic mirin). Ingredients list: Organic glutinous rice, organic rice kouji, organic rice shouchuu. I cannot remember when I last saw a bottle of mirin with those and only those ingredients listed, and it certainly wasn't in a supermarket. Takara, with the osechi season coming up, you gave me a great Christmas present!

I had great food in Shikoku (...a LONG time ago though) visiting some JETS, and cycling around with my teenage niece on the back of my bicycle. One hot summer day my legs gave out and an extra giant wobble landed her in a paddy field! The northern parts of Kyushu I saw certainly had plenty of different styles of cuisine to offer the interested eater. Have fun, wherever you end up!

Hi! I've had this problem too...on the cheery side, you can wait till they lose that first flush of freshness, then they just generally start to disintegrate and the suckers come off QUITE easily... But the more useful way is to get out your coarse salt and rub them with it, then rinse off. Salt is also handy for getting the skin off squid tubes. The one food prep problem I have never solved sound unbelievably trivial in comparison...getting the thin transparent skin off green soybeans. I thought I would make zunda-ae (fish or veges in a mashed green soybean dressing) mainly because it looks so nice. I tried it twice and came to the conclusion that UNRIPE means UNMANAGABLE -- those skins stuck like glue, and here I was expecting to be able to just pop the bean out of its sac. Feh! Never again.

How about this recipe? http://www.cookbooksforsale.com/displayRec...ist/display.htm ...now I'm disappointed, because I thought for a minute you were talking about those pancake rolls, Milsum...

Living in Chiba, I'm quite fond of all those crazy things like wasabi peanuts. ...but I do find myself casting around for something to go with red wine!!! I can tell you that neither ika nor nori do the trick!

Talking of chijimi, now is a good time (for me, anyway, since I live down the road from a shiitake farm, heh heh) to make shiitake chijimi...sort of a cheap variation of the kind served stuffed into half clamshells? I have made it with chicken to accomodate family tastes, but it is normally finely chopped shrimp flavored with a little finely chopped onion (naganegi) and ground sesame, seasoned with salt and pepper, floured, egged, and fried, and served with soy/vinegar sauce with and extra whack of lemon juice and some chopped pinenuts. Apart from things like shrimp and scallops, what I like best about Korean food is that they can take things which are essentially uninspiring, like beansprouts, and make great food out of them!

Actually, "free range" chicken is usually written "jiyou" (=ground-raised) chicken. So jidori = native chicken could well be correct. I only took a quick glance at the link, and assumed it was a variant of "jiyou-dori" without checking properly, so sorry if I put anybody wrong. Ji=local, native can be found in other food terms like "ji-zake" for local sake.

Chijimi... Yum! Yes! I like them made with seafood, but we have one son who dislikes shrimp, squid, scallops...etc. Since I discovered this way of making tofu patties, I use it all the time -- the sesame gives it extra flavor and also keeps it juicier than the usual run of dry, crumbly tofu patties! Regards

"Jidori" means free-range chicken (literally, "ground chicken"). Sometimes the term "jiyoudori" (ground-reared chicken) is used instead. Hinai is the region where they are bred. Hope that helps...

Found it! Recipe for Korean tofu and ground meat patties... 200g ground beef (but I use pork) 1/2 block firm tofu (this would be around 200g) Seasonings: 3 tab finely chopped onion (naga-negi), 1 tsp finely minced garlic, 1.5tsp cornstarch (katakuriko), 1 tab soy sauce, 0.25tsp salt, good grind of pepper, 1.5 tab sesame oil (the brown Asian kind), 1 tab ground sesame seeds Soy/Vinegar Dip: 2 tab soy sauce, 1 tab rice vinegar or other mild vinegar, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp chopped pine nuts if desired. Wrap tofu in gauze and squeeze out water, or wrap in kitchen paper and place under weights, or pop into a springloaded mini pickle press and leave until it is about half of its former self. Crumble the tofu into a bowl, add the meat and the seasonings. Mix and knead thoroughly, and form into small patties (flattened ping pong ball size at most). Heat a pan with a little sesame oil, and fry patties on both sides, making sure they are nicely browned. Serve with a few sprigs of mint if desired and dip in the soy/vinegar dip to eat.

What is it with guys and osechi? Is it the large amount of veges they don't like?? My kids look forward to it, I suppose because I have made some kind of osechi ever since they were born, but husband's stepmother never cooked. However, I think it's mostly prejudice -- he still claims to dislike osechi, but when challenged on individual items, he always says, "Oh no, I like THAT". What about the nishime/iritori?? I've tried numerous ways of doing it...cutting ingredients small...cutting them large...cooking the vegetables together with the chicken...cooking almost all ingredients separately... I think it tastes best if I cook everything separately, so the flavors have more individuality, but it is definitely more hassle than I need in a kitchen with a two-burner range! Takikomi-gohan for osechi?? Sounds good to me...but sekihan is the one thing my family can't get enough of. By the way, those packs in the supermarket with partly cooked beans actually make respectable sekihan for bento etc. DH hates kazunoko, and one DS hates ebi, so we almost always buy those little fish pickled in bright yellow millet. I used to make more elaborate things, but with 4 guys in the household, I go for volume these days... One favorite hot thing to eat with osechi is hakusai cooked Chinese-style with shredded scallops and a little cloud-ear fungus. What about toshi-koshi soba? DH doesn't like soba, so every year this is my chance to make Sanuki udon and have it The Proper Way, served in the cooking liquid, with just yuzu peel, sesame, and green onion!