helenjp

I just did a quick survey of Japanese tourist sites - I would say that not everybody knows a) that tipping in the US is pretty much a fixed percentage, and b) what that percentage is right now, and c) that it's not at all the same as in Europe. As a New Zealander, I don't get tipping at all. When in Rome, etc, but I how can it be a "tip" if it is in fact payment for service? And if tipping is mandatory, why are businesses required to pay some of their staff a living wage for their work but not others ? If it's a charge, and we need to pay it, why isn't it on the bill? That doesn't mean that I wouldn't tip if I went to the US, but it does mean that I probably wouldn't get it right every time. If I thought that ignorance was going to get me yelled at or pursued into the street, I might just bring a month's supply of instant ramen in my suitcase like all the other Japanese tourists! Or more likely, I might take my tourist yen to some other country .

Made Adam's recipe using TWO WHOLE BIG 100g tubs of mascarpone and 2 egg yolks, substituting "suzu castella" like this - scroll down to "gyunyu suzu castella" for pavesini, savoiardi, ladyfingers etc. The "bell cakes" were dipped in strong black coffee with a little rum in it. I was a bit dubious about the mascarpone mixture, but since the sponges were not totally drowned in the mixture, it was very nice chilled. In fact, I was very happy not to meet cream or chocolate - slightly bitter, fragrant cake vs. one smooth rich sauce was enough.

My sister updated me to say that she can get oats nowadays, and that Dutch stroop is a good sub for golden syrup, but use less as it is so sticky and sweet.

My sister in the Netherlands says that rolled oats are extremely hard to find, and she buys them in Germany. Wouldn't be surprised if the same were true in Belgium...

Tried the recipe, and think that 5" high pressure or 8" low pressure might be best. At 6 minutes slightly uneven low pressure, the rice was cooked, definitely neither crunchy nor mushy, but maybe just a little softer would be better. I soaked the rice 2 hours, and think it needed that long. I tied the surplus rice mixture up loosely in some baking paper and put the parcel in with the squid - it came out fine!

Not quite 10 minutes - it takes another 5-15 minutes (depending on what you've got inside) for the pressure to drop in a fair-sized pressure cooker using the natural release method (i.e. just leaving it alone without opening valves or running cold water on it).

This year's sakura-gohan turned out much better than last year. 3.5 c mochi rice 1.5 c plain rice Short piece konbu ½ tsp sugar 1 tab sake 100cc red wine (mild, pinotage) If possible, small handful of pickled red shiso leaves, rinsed and minced 30g salted cherry blossoms (half a jar), briefly soaked in water. Blossoms added whole, stems chopped and added. Wash and soak rice for 1-2 hours (i.e. use timer on rice cooker). Add all, mix, switch on, using "okowa" mode and "okowa" water level for just under 5.5 cups to allow for plain rice. (If your rice cooker doesn't have an "okowa" level, use a little less water than usual). If you like decorate each serving (especially for bento) with a few extra cherry blossoms, rinsed, squeezed gently, and dipped in a little sake.

Love those apple flowers! I like to make inari with black sesame and ginger mixed into the rice filling. Son2 loves inari, and the bento routine has fired up for the year...but somehow I find it hard to take photos at 5:30am! Son1 maintains he never looks at other people's bentos, but son2 says the ultimate simple bento is the "donburi bento" - one of his classmates rolls up every day with a lidded plastic bowl of rice with a stirfry flung of top of it.

My favorite way of cooking this is in the rice cooker - just switch on as usual for perfectly tender squid and rice, thanks to the moist heat. However I'm not sure how the latest ones, with their complex programming, work with non-rice dishes. One website suggests simply turning the cooker off if it continues cooking way past 45-50 minutes, as the rice will obviously be cooked by then. I haven't tried this pressure cooker recipe yet, but from my experience with the rice cooker, I imagine it would work fairly well. DON'T stuff too much rice into the squid - it won't be able to expand as it cooks, and will be gummy, or worse, not properly cooked. Should serve 4. Easier to make with big squid, as the thin flesh on small ones rips more easily as the rice expands. 2 good-sized or 4 small squid. 1/2 c glutinous (mochi) rice, raw 2 dried shiitake, soaked 20g carrot (shall we call it 1 oz?) 20g bamboo shoot sake 4 tabs dashi stock 1 c shoyu (soy sauce) 3 tabs mirin (sweet sake) 3 tabs sugar 1.5 tabs Few slices of ginger, optional. Wash rice and leave to soak 30 mins in water (enough to cover). Finely dice vegetables, including shiitake. Pull or rub skin off squid, using paper towels to get a good grip. Remove guts and long "quill" from inside. Wash and dry. Rub skin off tentacles, chop into inch lengths. Drain rice, mix with vegetable and squid tentacles. Sprinkle over sake, mix in. Divide filling between the two squid sacs, until about 2/3 full. Don't overfill!!! Fill a bell pepper or something if you have leftover rice. Close squid sacs with toothpicks and lay on bottom of pressure cooker. Pour over dashi, mixed with sugar, shoyu, mirin, and ginger. Close cooker and raise pressure to LOW, maintain 5 mins. Release pressure naturally (about 15 mins). Remove squid, and when cooled slightly, slice into thick rings for serving. Without lid of pressure cooker, reduce cooking liquid and drizzle some over cooked squid to serve. I intend to soak the rice longer. (Overnight if cooking conventionally). This recipe recommends lower pressure and shorter cooking time than most - 5-8 mins at high pressure may be needed. This recipe is also about right for use in a rice cooker or stove-top. When cooking on the stove-top, double the amount of dashi, and keep spooning juices over and add a spoon of water now and again if need be. In either case, it will take 45 mins or so. I truly recommend pressure cooker or rice cooker rather than stove-top, as it it is fatally easy to end up with chewy, dried out squid. Hints I haven't tried: cooking daikon along with the ika-meshi to soften the squid.

Joong: Japanese recipes recommend 6-10 minutes (depending on how many...) at high pressure, preferably on a trivet and with 1 c water for steam. Natural release. Congee: 5 c water per c rice, not more than half full, 10 mins or so at high pressure, reduce pressure naturally. Soups...try it! Using a pressure cooker to cook pork has resulted in a very tasty stock which I just had to use for soup, though I didn't make the soup in a pressure cooker.

OK, you answered the question I hadn't asked yet! I was wondering about coffee-only Tiramisu.

I haven't compared the same recipe in LC and pressure cooker, but I have cooked two pork braises intended for pulled pork, one in a pressure cooker, and one in a Japanese-style slow cooker (like a hay box, you cook the dish briefly, then drop the whole saucepan into an insulated outer container and leave it several hours). Liquid does not evaporate much in either method. The pressure cooker produced a more flavorful and softer result. I was afraid that the pressure might drive the flavor out into the broth, but that was not the case. The insulated slow-cook method was not quite powerful enough to completely tenderize meat cooked in one piece, even though I repeated the whole heat/sit process.

Hee hee, my strawberries are flowering, my Japanese ume are about the size of an olive pit, my spring-sown peas are starting to climb up their net, AND my basil seeds are finally showing tiny green heads. So why was the raised bed a failure? Too dry? Weeds? I'm curious! I didn't grow many vegetables in my garden because I have such limited sun, so this year I got some big, deep containers which can be used in sunny but soil-less areas. The zucchini currently spends the morning on one end of the balcony, and the afternoon on the other end . Sazji, please keep us posted on the sweet potatoes. I grew some in an area that was a bit too damp and shady - wonderful vines for making Christmas wreaths with, but a bit disappointing underground!

Don't know about butter cookies, but somewhere I read that honey/spice cookies like lebkuchen are made with or used to be made with aged dough. So of course I had to experiment. I think some of the doughs were held over for months in chilly German cellars, but mine certainly lasted 2-3 weeks in late autumn/pre-Christmas, and handled and baked much better than "fresh" dough - the sticky tendency of the dough had turned into a very easy to handle flexible, plastic texture, and they baked crisp.

Dishes in the bathtub, a woman after my own heart. But may I recommend the shower instead? So much easier to "pre-wash" . Feeling nostalgic for the entertaining I used to do in the small apartment where I resorted to Megan's trick. I didn't have much Japanese china in those days, so guests were sometimes requested to bring their own rice bowl or ramen bowl .

Yes, although the cherry blossom here in Matsudo is still viewable, the cherry blossom at our son's school entrance ceremony (held at the big university campus, where there are lots of cherries) was about 70% over - still looked good at a distance . Surprisingly, few students were eating under the blossoms, but a few local families had turned up, complete with Grandma and small kids, to enjoy a bento under the last blossoms.

Hmm, my Le Creuset has chipped around the rim of the pot, so I would think twice about using a steel-bound glass lid on it. However, I buy glass lids for all sorts of other purposes - frypan lid, alternative lid for pressure cooker, etc.

Better late than never . My "real, genuine, shiba-zuke" recipe is buried somewhere, but I think most people make it as in the following recipe. This way (using water rather than just salt, and adding a little soy sauce) is my preferred method. QUICK SHIBA-ZUKE (1-3 days). 1-2 Japanese cucumbers – rub in coarse salt, rinse off, slice. 4 Japanese eggplants – cut lengthwise, then slice, soak in water. 3-4 myouga buds. Cut lengthwise, cut out core. 1 lump ginger. Slice thinly. Coarse salt 40g (4% of weight of vegetables) 50 ml ume-su (sour red brine from pickling umeboshi) 1 tab shoyu (soy sauce) 1 tab sugar 50g salt-pickled red shiso leaves Place cucumbers and eggplants in a bowl or pickler, mix in 1 tab coarse salt and 140ml approx. water. Weight lightly, leave around 3 hours. Drainb. Mix red shiso leaves into cucumbers and eggplants. Mix in shoyu and sugar. Weight, and leave overnight, but preferably 2-3 days. Keeps around 10 days refrigerated. *In the unlikely event that you are using umesu from home-made pickles, watch salt levels carefully - it's much saltier than commercial products. FAKE UME-SU & RED SHISO LEAVES for use in quick pickles. 250g of red shiso leaves (about 1 bunch) 15g coarse salt (6% of weight of leaves) 1 liter mild vinegar (rice vinegar preferably) Strip leaves off stems. Wash, drain thoroughly. Massage HALF salt in. Squeeze well and discard juice. Massage rest of salt in. Squeeze again, and place leaves in jar, and pour over vinegar. You should get a beautiful red color. If you use up the vinegar, refill once if there are still plenty of leaves left – you should still get color. Keeps 1 year. When using real ume-su from home-made umeboshi, be aware that it is MUCH saltier than commercial ume-su, which is similar to this “fake” recipe. UME-SU MARINADE – for about 1 c of vegetables If vegetables are hard, either soak in salty water (1 tsp salt to cup of water) or rub in a very little salt and rinse, then squeeze, before proceeding. Alternatively, blanch and refresh in cold water. 2 tab each of water, vinegar, ume-su, and sugar – adjust sweetness to taste. Add a chopped umeboshi (not too small) if desired. Marinade until the vegetables are pink. YUKARI QUICK PICKLES Tender young spring turnips, blanched cauliflower, daikon, cucumbers – anything mild-tasting will do. 100g vegetables Good pinch of coarse salt. Massage salt into vegetables, or combine with a few spoons of water. Leave until soft, squeeze. Sprinkle 1 tab powdered yukari (dried salted red shiso leaves) over. Add a pinch of sugar and 1 tsp – 1 tab mild vinegar if desired. Shreds of lemon or yuzu peel, or a few black sesame seeds, or a small amount of daikon or turnip stems combined with the vegetables make this very attractive. Edited to remove references to the recipe I decided to leave out of my post!

The shoe thing...funnily enough, although I live in a fairly Japanese-style Japanese house, when I'm in New Zealand I don't like to impose my shoes-off policy on guests. My guests see everybody else's shed shoes, so they can't help knowing my policy - if they still don't want me to see their shoe-induced bunions, so be it . White carpets, fragile parquet - I think that your choices are either to put an "entertaining" carpet down on top of your current floor surface, or to dine out when entertaining. Inviting somebody to your home is a big message of trust and intimacy - it's worth a lot of tolerance and backbending to avoid undercutting that message.

Oh yes I forgot to say that I bought a Zojirushi too! like this! Not the latest, but fairly modern - hollow (double-walled) lightweight rice pan, pressure cooking. I can't say that I notice really huge differences in cooking, except that it plays Twinkle Twinkle when I switch it on, and Amaryllis when it's done . My old Toshiba turned out to be older than I thought - around 10 years. The base of the cord (where it is stored inside the bottom of the cooker) had shorted. Maybe the plastic cord covering had cracked? Maybe something else melted the plastic? Couldn't figure out where the initial heat/excess current had come from.

You can buy seeds here too, and I've just sown some - probably best sown frommd-April to mid-May though, depending on your location.

Can't help with the nuka, but friends of mine in New Zealand used to use well-dried breadcrusts, torn up, and wetted with cooled brine. The pickles tasted slightly different, but it worked.

Here we're just moving into the "reliably in the 60s" (late teens in celsius) season. I have spring-sown peas doing well, and of course lettuce and radish were the first to sprout in the cool temperatures. I've also put in a whole-lot of autumn-sown greens such as mustard greens and mizuna, because the seed was going half price, and I'll harvest them so young they won't have a day to even think about bolting . Nearly ready to sow zucchini and bitter melon. I figure that the local kids who sometimes destroy my plants will have a hard time getting the upper hand if they attempt close combat with a bitter melon vine. By the way, what do keen cooks who garden in small areas appreciate/aim for most? Apart from herbs and a wider variety of salad or boiled greens, I think the biggest plus for me is having a little of this and that (few peas, tomato etc) available when making bento lunches in the morning.

Tepee, the words "brownie cake" actually made me feel sick ! The word "frosting" following close after didn't help, either! Since my kids are home from school at present, I plan to dig out the recipe for a non-chocolate "caramel" or "butterscotch" brownie. I do like the look of the shiny, crackly top, and I like chocolate, but gooey + chocolate is not for me!

I've been enjoying this - thank you! Not only the vicarious trip to the US - it's always good to see what goes on in the life of other work-from-home self-employed people. My late-night working snack is usually coffee made with half a cup of milk.