helenjp

Rona, I have bad memories of escorting wives of visiting scientists around Kobe nearly 30 years ago...looking for "a simple steak and salad that doesn't cost the earth, now is that too much to ask?" It sure was, especially back then, but these ladies didn't want to hear it! Potatoes...some people with swallowing problems really dislike eating mashed potatoes, they either choke or fear they are going to choke. I'm suspicious of food hates with histories that need to be explained in detail, with appropriate attention and sympathy displayed by everybody in the room (even if they already know way too much about the issue!), EVERY time the target substance is identified within ICBM range. Extreme picky eaters...I encourage them to cook for themselves, even in my kitchen!

This is a recipe from Noriko Sato's 1990 Japanese book of preserves, including many western pickles and preserves that were exotic during her girlhood - she was born just 100 years ago this year. It's a semi-cooked style, and one 've made it numerous times. About 10 "smallish" fresh whole sardines 1-2 t coarse salt pepper, both ground and whole, to taste water, brought to the boil with: small bundle of parsley stems 1-3 bay leaves, depending on size and freshness Dressing, made with: 1 lemon - cut a few slices, squeeze juice from the rest 1/4 c olive or your preferred oil 1/8 - 1/4 c vinegar 1-2 cloves garlic 1 t salt lemon juce from above pepper 1/2 onion, sliced thinly parsley Remove heads of sardines, gut them, remove tails and fins if large, and remove bones using Marcella Hazan's "unzip" method (place fish bone side down, press firmly along length of fish, then turn over and pull off backbone). Trim small bones away from stomach opening, and tidy up the fillets. Pull off thin outer membrane of skin if necessary. Lay on a plate and salt and pepper, allow to sit for about 30 minutes. This firms the flesh, and the salting makes the flesh sweeter. Transfer fish neatly to a colander or similar, in one layer. Bring water to boil with a few peppercorns, parsley stems, a little onion and bayleaves. Plunge colander into the boiling water for 3-4 minutes, and drain. Heat the garlic in the oil, allow to cool, then stir in lemon juice, vinegar, salt, and pepper, seasoning to taste. Line up the fillets head to tail in a flat container, layering with onion and spices. Pour over the cooled dressing, weight lightly, and keep in the refrigerator at least one night before eating. The same book has a recipe for a "quick" version of Scandinavian milk-fermented herring that can be made with herring or small yellowtail. I don't remember trying it with oil fish like sardine or saury. Essentially, the fish are cleaned and filleted, salted and left to stand, then arranged in a dish, and 1/2 cup of milk is poured over them (lift fillets to make sure the milk touches all surfaces). The fish is left to stand another half hour, then lemon slices, onion, and parsley are scattered over, and a cup of vinegar (heated with 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp sugar plus pickling spices of your choice) is poured hot over the fish, lifting fillets to ensure that the vinegar touches all surfaces. Cover and refrigerate, and depending on the thickness of the fillets, the preserved fish will be ready in 1-3 days.

I suspect that 10 deg C might be OK if the plants were already established. But it might be best to sow some in the fall specially for your indoor crop! The only thing I can think of is to keep them well away from windows, or if that's not practical, stick a cardboard (or better, polystyrene foam) box over them at night, or at least between the plants and the window. Japanese window insulation is not the greatest...I have to keep my breadmaker away from the window in the winter. Hiroyuki, it's possible that your watermelons might improve in flavor if you leave them inside for a few days (less than a week) at room temperature after cutting them off the vine. I am lucky to have several friends who either have small families or who don't like fruit, and they keep giving us watermelons. . We had one that must have been approaching 3 weeks since harvest the other day, and the color and sweetness were remarkably good...the aroma may have faded a little. Those small "ko-dama" watermelons are definitely the right size for an urban household. Do you think that nectarines have become cheaper and more available recently? I used to avoid buying them in Japan, as they tended to be shipped too early, and were very expensive, but this year they've been quite cheap here.

Wow, I had come to the conclusion that rosebuds were not mature enough for significant aroma, and were strictly for decoration. You can sometimes buy them in Chinese tea shops. Violet goes well with almost any kind of citrus, even grapefruit, if you want to add some dried peel or a twist of fresh. Strawberry leaves add a faint aroma to black tea (and make a very mild tea by themselves). I've been meaning to experiment with nutmeg geranium flowers (thinking that they may be less overpowering than the leaves).

I'm going to try that, thanks Lindsey! By the way, did the long, "drying" darken the eggplants significantly?

The Bountiful Container is quite a good book - maybe more useful for limited spaces than the Square Foot Gardening book (which rather assumes that you are growing conventional quantities of each crop, albeit micromanaging them). The one thing I disagree with about SFG is the shallow soil depth - unless you are ultra-rigorous about watering twice daily in hot weather. I've had much better success with deep containers, especially hip-high slimline garbage containers for things like squash or tomatoes. Even 18" (45 cm) soil depth seems to be that much more resilient than 12" (30 cm).

I like the idea of babaganoush "deconstructed" - the thought of putting lots of work into less than wonderful eggplants was bothering me! The curry....was made with Japanese roux. I had other plans, but got a phone call from son at school saying "Please meet me at the hospital..." ...so roux it was. The "waterless" treatment is always tasty, though. Ratatouille...yes, but you have to put other ingredients in, and with 5-10 eggpants, there ain't room! Pickles, I think that is a FINE idea. Mabo nasu (like mabo tofu, but with eggplants) is another quick but tasty dish I'm planning to use.

First off, use a plate that has been sterilized in boiling water to keep everything submerged in future. The stuff that has been submerged is probably fine with this kind of pickle, if the brine was strong enough, unless something very horrible (black or orange mold) was growing on top of the liquid. If there is a fine film on top of the liquid, skim it off, boil up the liquid, cool it, and re-submerge the sound cucumbers in it (in the fridge, if you think they are sufficiently pickled and just want to keep them in good condition until you eat them).

Anne, how did those Black from Tula turn out? I stumbled upon 2 seedlings at the garden center this year, and have been very favorably impressed. Mine are in big garbage containers, in an area that doesn't get a huge amount of sun, and have set a very nice quantity of fruit (the one that gets more sun is producing much, much more than the one that gets and hour or two less sun each day). The color is not especially dark, but the flavor is good and a nice, complex balance. The fruit are prone to splitting, but are very meaty, with only a negligible amount of seed pulp. To me, they are kind of Momotaro gone over to the dark side...

I ended up currying them with some tomatoes..letting them sweat out their own juices to make a rich, spicy sauce. Joe, I'll definitely try chargrilling, though I wonder if they will be as tasty as fresh eggplants done that way. I'll be over at that stand again at the crack of dawn tomorrow, anyway!

So a Tsukiji breakfast is good eating? I'd always thought it might be a bit over-reated. I see what you mean by $$$...L'Osier would be a wonderful and very memorable place to dine, but the cheapest lunch menu is exactly what I paid in total recently for an evening of drinks, snacks, and karaoke for 4 adults and 2 teens at our local pub, run by a Filipina friend! Different world...wonder if L'Osier offers a cover charge for people who can only afford to ogle the decor?! Excellent idea on watching shows being filmed, that would be very interesting. P.S. When am I going? Already here, just the usual case of the local not making the most of the opportunities that visitors are determined not to miss!

That's an idea, and I'm keen to try it when the weather cools enough to use an oven! With darker wholewheat or wholegrain loaves, a little vinegar is sometimes used as a "cheat's" souring agent in the dough. Wish I'd started doing it earlier...

My local honesty-box vegetable shack has risen from the ashes, and they have started selling "old" Japanese eggplants at around a dollar a dozen (100 yen for 10, to be pedantic). These are probably not seedy or over-ripe, they've just been picked a few days and left at temps close to 100 deg F in a tinroofed shack, and are starting to deflate and lose their gloss. Recommended recipes for the less wonderful eggplants in our world?

Hi LordB - any places that you would recommend other visitors to put on their "absolutely must go" list? And what did you think of moja-yaki? It tastes like hot wallpaper paste to me, since I met the Osaka-style okonomi-yaki first and much prefer it, but I hear that some people really like moja-yaki...

I had long thought that vinegar would retard yeast growth, and avoided it. However, recently I started adding 1 T of rice vinegar (i.e. a mild vinegar) to a loaf made with somewhat under 1 lb flour, to strengthen the sourness of bread made with yogurt whey. The plan was to make a "quick" sour bread in the breadmaker, for extra palatability in summer. Since this is roughly double the amount of vinegar Miriam's original post mentions, it did add noticeable sourness. The sour flavor was a big hit with my elder son, who loses his appetite dramatically in hot weather. Texture...yes, it really makes a difference - heavy bread made with rye, fine ground whole wheat flour and graham flour is normally a bit hard and heavy, but with vinegar, it's definitely springier (not really loftier, just better texture). Chewy but still soft, definitely the way forward for dark bread-machine breads for me. It made a difference to a challah-type bread too, but not so dramatic. I've never eaten any challah except what I've baked myself, and find it a very springy bread - if that is how it is supposed to be, maybe the salt vs. vinegar/yolks/fat balance is the reason why. (And I used to include some durum semolina flour in challah, is that typical too, and would the vinegar make more of a difference with a really high-protein flour like that?). Since then, I started reading McGee's Food and Cooking (riveting reading!) and sure enough, he mentions souring agents as tenderizing "hard" gluten structures. He doesn't go into all the detail I would like on flours, but it's still interesting reading just for the bread content.

Any books/chefs who are particularly good at rethinking classic sauces? I was just reading a Japanese magazine (Senmon Ryouri) which has a sauce feature this issue, and enjoying the thinking behind each chef's saucemaking. For example, one guy says that he doesn't like to add vegetables to fond-based sauces for roast pigeons, because he thinks that the sweetness of the vegetables conflicts with the sweetness of the meat. That sounds like an approach that could be rewarding with rabbit, which can be very sweet (not that I'll have the chance to try that experiment any time soon). What books in English would include that kind of discussion plus recipes/techniques?

If you read Japanese, the current issue of Cafe Sweets has interviews with high-fliers including patissiers. It would be a good starting point for anybody planning a pilgrimage.

The other advantage of "seeding" the pickle with yogurt whey is that the faster the lactobacilli get to work, the less access spoilage microbes have to all the resources the pickle provides.

Food grade vs drinking grade matcha...in my experience there is some difference in the fineness of the powder, but the food grade matcha will likely have better color (though the drinking matcha may have better flavor, the finer points will probably be lost during baking or in combination with other ingredients anyway). If you can find matcha specifically for baking, it may contain chlorella (which has a high chlorophyll content and therefore a strong green color) in addition to tea. I keep matcha powder in the freezer and don't attempt to "save it up" - use it while it is fresh, as both color and aroma fade.

I have to second the rubber spatula idea...I've used the Korin type of scaler, and really, there are a variety of implements that will remove fish scales. That isn't the problem - I'm much more interested in what happens to the scales AFTER they leave the fish! (That is, I don't want to be peeling them off walls and ceiling if I can help it).

Haven't been teaching at the university for several years now, and being an urban university, the focus was less on food plants and more on eco-this and that, landscaping, and park and wildlife reserve management. Actually, talking of gin and tonics, a gardener once told me to give my pine tree a 1.8 liter bottle of sake every year just to give the roots a little tickle .

I live in Japan, and I've eaten my share of top sushi when younger, and a good share of cheap sushi now that I'm older and more impecunious. Even the convenience store sushi is not bad these days...though not that good either. BUT. When I'm outside Japan, I don't willingly eat sushi made by non-Japanese or by a shop that doesn't specialize in Japanese food. It's not snobbery, it's just too many bad experiences. Chain-store staffed with Korean students? Even my kids won't eat the sushi they sell. Platter of sushi as an entree in a western restaurant? Sorry, but every time, I've found that the bread basket was a better option, even if somebody else already ate all the butter. Dry, loosely-packed, underflavored rice with raggedly cut flabby fish...it may even look nicely presented at a casual glance, especially if you haven't eaten much sushi, but it surely doesn't look or taste appetizing to me. Sushi takes not only skill but also practice, for about the same reasons that patisserie takes training - the basics have to be good, and the presentation has to be perfect...and you have to be fast and efficient, with a good eye for style. It's not at all impossible, but it's the kind of skill that is rarely perfected by the part-timer. (Yes, people make great sushi/pasta etc at home, but not at professional speed and with professional timing, probably!). In Japan, while some people do get apprenticeships directly with shops, the usual approach is to go to a senmon-gakkou (private training school offering vocational skills courses)　like this one (know nothing about this school, it's just an example). You need to get the skills, often taking exams for qualifications offered by bodies such as the Japan Sushi Instructors Association. Then they look for jobs making sushi, and start to claw their way up the ranks to the top jobs, which tend to be hotel sushi bars, about as high as you can go without opening your own shop. Think in terms of 5 years for a good job, 10 years at least to being able to set up on your own. Since you need to know your raw ingredients very well, some of the best sushi I have eaten has been outside the big cities. Although these areas are likely to be more conservative about taking on foreign staff, and you would need Japanese, they could be a useful training ground. So...learn about rice. Learn about fish (not necessarily just raw fish, all types of fish preparation and cookery would help you). Learn Japanese, and listen to what your Japanese friends say when you eat sushi together. I'd like to hear about training in sushi outside Japan - what I've heard hasn't been good, but has anybody actually visited or attended one of these overseas sushi schools?

I hear what you are saying there about toxicity, and sometimes think that the best thing I can do is to keep adding plenty of mature compost to the soil, to help it "detoxify" as efficiently as possible by itself. Mineral compounds that don't break down easily are a problem though, and it horrifies me that soil takes so long to revive if it once gets past the point of self-maintenance. Regarding shiitake: we had a shiitake farm nearby (guy retired to concentrate on exotic fowl)...while the shiitake that they sold to wholesalers were the larger ones, they sold the tiny ones at the gate - once the cap is open, I assume it's not going to get much bigger. I liked them, because they were small enough to toss whole into all kinds of dishes.

I'll be interested to hear how you get on with Odoriko - it's supposed to be the home gardener's answer to Momotaro - meaty tomato without too much splitting. Kujo negi is my favorite of the small onions. However I lost almost all mine this year, as my husband didn't realize where I'd sowed them, and came along and dumped a whole lot of dirt on top! My eggplants seem to have almost stopped flowering...I am wondering if it's the very rainy and cloudy weather recently, or lack of appropriate nutrition, or whether they are just about ready to shut down until fall. We ate our first "Black from Tula" tomato...not all that black, very fleshy and hardly any pulp, flavor only middling, but possibly that was because it ripened in bad weather. It may have wanted another few days on the vine, but it was starting to split. Green shiso is doing very well in this weather

Woah - I see you've been doing the same calculations that I've been doing! That's a good price (6120 yen / 25 kg) on Hokkaido bread flour. I think the Haruyutaka blend is probably the same thing I'm buying from Hokkaido no Megumi (7,400 yen for 25 kg in 5 kg bags, cheaper than 1 big bag). I had heard that the demand for Hokkaido bread flour is predictably impossible to fill with single-cultivar wheats, and that lower-protein flours (Hokushin etc as listed on the Shikisai site) plus gluten are being blended into the popular cultivars like Haruyutaka. This move is being criticized by home bakers, but the result is affordable, and since whole wheat bread flour disappeared off my supermarket shelves, acceptable. Do you think these whole wheat flours are more finely ground than the average supermarket flour? I think that's why they can be handled just like white wheat. I'm wondering if that's why they produce a better rise and softer texture...there seems to be a belief that Japanese housewives need a coarser ground flour so they won't have to struggle with lumps, but I thought that was just in the cheaper grades of "weak" flour. "First powder" 25 kg wholewheat bread flour, under 5000 yen. Tomizawa Canadian graham flour 25 kg for just over 5000 yen incld tax, and the Haruyutaka blend for the same price as Shikisai. My favorite is Kida Seifun's K'Z whole wheat bread flour (which I also get from Hokkaido no Megumi...'fraid I bought their last though). It is coarse and doesn't rise too well, but makes a dark, tasty bread. Talking of longer rise...I couldn't afford to run the oven every day for bread, but sometimes turn the breadmaker on with most of the flour and all of the water, let it run just till it's mixed, then dump the rest of the flour and yeast on top, and set it on timer, to allow the unleavened dough to ripen a bit.