helenjp

So, I leave for New Zealand next week, but will only be there 2 weeks, and my cheese-eating will be severely cramped by my sister's family, who normally live in the Netherlands. They will be eating NZ cheese under sufferance, while I will be lined up by the supermarket chiller before dawn most likely, after yet another year of buying cheese in overpriced 2 oz "blocks" in Japan, if at all. My kids are already talking longingly about cheese. What should we go for, in our limited time there? (It is theoretically possible to bring some home, but it'll be so hot when we get back that the poor cheese may not last the journey home to our fridge, and we may not feel like eating it even if it does. ) Any new cheese manufacturers or styles to look out for? I'm willing to sell my motherland for a mess of, er, cheese, so don't hesitate to recommend Australian cheeses too, please. P.S. I used to enjoy Mercer cumin cheese, but I recall a fuss about pasteurized vs. unpasteurized milk - never did hear who won that battle.

An usuba or nakiri is for slicing/chopping up vegetables; a deba is for chopping up meat. For slicing meat or fish thinly, a gyuutou is best. A deba will cut through small bones, though it may not be the same afterward . ...of course, that's before we get into the modern knives, the hybrids, the gimmicks, the...let me see now...

I really don't think so - partly because skills in Japan are still considered to be something you learn from a teacher, not a book, and partly because of the publishing industry here - it's much more unusual for top sellers to go into editions that span decades here. It's more usual for publishers to ask popular or respected authors to write a *new* book. And then there's the west/east Japan split in styles and seasonings... I think you have to first eliminate most of the TV chefs - some of them are extremely accomplished, but naturally they are looking more at riding the wave of the newest fads, and at putting their own spin on things than at transmitting orthodox classical dishes. That said, Japan is notoriously fashion-oriented, and dishes which were "timeless classics "30 years ago are now "the nostalgic taste of Showa". I tried to list up a few names, but I'm sure I'm out of touch. I suggest you look for books on kaiseki 懐石 formal meals, because only very well-known restaurateurs or chefs get to put out books on this all-embracing field. For something more approachable, look for books on ippin 一品 (single item) kobachi 小鉢 (small dish) cooking - the latter are the kind of side dishes you get at a sake bar, and while traditional in style, are expected to be impeccable in concept and realization. When you've looked through those, also start looking at books on temple cooking, local cooking 郷土料理 especially Kyoto "obanzai", and historical cooking. I have a thin but interesting book on Edo cooking - it would be no use if you'd never cooked anything Japanese before, but lots of interesting ideas for the more experienced cook. It's called Oo-edo Ryouri-chou 大江戸料理帖 the small edition I have is out of print (came out in 1999, out of print by 2006 - that's the publishing game here!), but there is a more complete edition called Kanzen Oo-edo Ryouri-chou which is still in print.

Looks delicious! The stuff they sell in the supermarkets seems to be picked when it's old and tough - my family have started enjoying it since we found younger shoots on sale at a little kiosk attached to a vege field. As it's right next to the station, the owner cunningly doesn't stick to the basics which could be bought at any supermarket, but grows a number of unusual vegetables such as sunset hibiscus flowers, oka-nori (mallow leaves), your tsuru-murasaki, and tsuruna (tetragonia tetragonioides), and a few western herbs.

Summer holiday homework - did you really HAVE to mention that! As for burned textbooks, in our local school, it's the SCHOOLl that has to explain to US how it happened that some students burned our son's textbooks with a lighter... . Are you on a bagel kick while you are back in the US? Good bagels seem to be hard to find in Japan - even the not very good ones are rare and expensive!

Looking good! I guess the melokhia will take off as the weather warms up. I meant to ask you, has the wild mint near you flowered yet? If it has, I'd be interested to know whether it flowers in a spike at the end of each stem, or in little balls dotted along the stem with gaps in between. Just curious...

Planting too much...reminds me of an elderly customer in my parents' pharmacy. He came in regularly for medication for his many ailments, walking very slowly on his two walking sticks...and further burdened by the cabbages, the potatoes, the tomatoes etc. that he used to bring in. I doubt if he cooked or ate much of it himself, but he got enormous pleasure out of his crop nevertheless! Do your parents freeze or can garden produce much, or do they use everything in season? Chapaghetti, hmmm...will have to check out *my* local Asian foods store when I'm in NZ briefly next month! So what do all the nieces and nephews like you to cook for them?

Calcium sulfate is very commonly used. I have used it, long ago. Oboro dofu, yes, same thing as sukui dofu. To get that you lower the temp of the soy milk to around 150degF or a tad higher, then mix in the coagulant and allow to sit 45 mins. I haven't made it, I admit - wasn't as popular then as it is now. I used to work in a Chinese grocery when I was a student, and the only tofu the owner's wife made was tofu "flowers", or soft curds in whey, eaten with syrup. She would make it for us staff as a treat on late nights.

I haven't made silken tofu, and it's a long time since I made momen tofu, but from memory, things that can cause trouble with coagulation include: temperature too hot or cool soybeans stale stirring too vigorously ...and from what I recall, sometimes it just wouldn't coagulate for the pure hell of it! Are you using bittern (nigari) or calcium sulfate (or magnesium sulfate (epsom salts) as your coagulant? It's been so long that I hesitate to give advice, but if you are having trouble with mixing hot (176degF or 80degC) soy milk with your coagulant, try cooling the coagulant to 65degC (150degF); or even cooling it right down, mixing in the bittern, and then raising the heat back up to 80degC. That's supposed to help, because it allows the bittern to disperse and set the tofu more evenly. Apparently it will coagulate very fast and unevenly if given half a chance.

THAT is a garden! So why is your father so devoted to containers? Saving on fertilizers/compost and watering??? Quick turn-around between seasons?

Thanks for the close-up of Chuck E. Cheese - we'll be on the next plane! I always wondered how you could bring rice etc back to Japan, as we've always had 44lb luggage limits (not to mention winter clothes, plus violin and guitar in hard cases...). Is the US very restrictive on what food products you bring into the country?

this photo of Tagoto's menu for the month has a bowl of grated yama-imo (yam or glutinous yam, dioscorea japonica) thinned with dashi、made like so,using (per serving) 100ml (about 2/5th of a cup) of dashi 1 tsp shoyu, preferably light shoyu (usukuchi) 1 oz yama-imo, grated very finely 1 egg (optional) about 1/2 a scallion or spring onion, chopped finely (optional garnish) Mix the dashi and seasonings in a small pan and bring to a simmer. Peel the yam and grate finely. Pour grated yam into simmering broth, stir, and return to a simmer. Add egg, and allow to simmer very briefly without stirring, then serve and garnish. The recipe in the link actually uses instant dashi, but in a simple soup like this, I would not do so, but use a good konbu (kelp) and katsuo (bonito) or a simple konbu (kelp) dashi. I would add 1 tsp of sake to the base soup too. You can make this type of "nagashi" soup with other vegetables too - turnip is a favorite, and lotus root or tofu lees are used too. It's definitely a Kansai dish - I've made it a couple of times for my northern-born husband, but he was totally underwhelmed. If it was really creamy and faintly sweet, there's a chance that white miso was used too.

Haven't tried andiesenji's lemon shandy yet, but the batch of lemon vinegar drink I made 2 weeks ago and left at room temperature to mature is now ready THIS is the version I'll be making from now on to replace my mother's old favorite, which used citric acid and tartaric acid with boiling water poured over lemon peel and juice. This has more fragrance, and also lacks the harshness of the added acids. Lemon Shrub up to 1 lb or 500g sugar 1 pint or 500ml of mild vinegar (good cider vinegar is nice) 1 lb or 500g lemons (peel thinly and reserve. Peel white pith off thickly and discard. Slice peeled fruit, and remove any obvious pips.) Place peel and fruit with sugar in a clean jar. Pour over vinegar. Close (use a layer of plastic film if the lid is metal) and keep at room temperature for at least 2 weeks (preferably 1-3 months), shaking or stirring regularly to dissolve sugar. Strain out peel and fruit, bottle in clean containers (will keep without refrigeration in my experience) and dilute with 3-5 parts water to drink. Tomato shrub sounds pretty good too...thanks for the idea!

My thoughts exactly! I'll be following with great interest, and no doubt more closely than I should be, since it's exam week for me... So how are you getting on with cooking for nieces and nephews? I'm going to have 4 teen nephews "on my plate" shortly, and they are not very adventurous either! Please let us know which dishes were most popular .

My grandfather (NZ) used to take his male calves or yearlings to the local abattoir, where they spent some time on a feedlot (grass) before slaughter. We call this type of meat "dairy beef" because it comes from dairy breeds or crossbreeeds (my grandfather always kept an Angus bull) rather than beef breeds. Angus made up about 20% of the national herd 10 years ago (excluding crossbreeds etc), but probably represents a larger proportion of NZ beef in the US, as the US is NZ's largest beef market. The old standbys for dairy beef crossbreeds are British breeds such as Herefords and Galloways, and my favorite for looks, the redpoll, but Angus has been steadily increasing with the past couple of generations of farmers. Breeds such as as Charolais and Simmental are also around, though they have not really revolutionized the NZ beef industry. I was told that not only did beef cattle need to spend some time on lush, lowland grass, eating and not walking around too much, but that the meat quality suffered if they were slaughtered immediately on arrival, because of the stress of transport (and this is a 30 minute trip in a trailer we are talking about). So I think that the ideal of having a feedlot very close to an abattoir is probably true for both grass-finished and grain-finished cattle. Grass-fed cattle in NZ remains in the open field, eating grass all year round - there is still grass in the pastures in winter, but the growth is slower, so feed is normally supplemented with silage (fermented preserved grass) and hay, and sometimes green feeds or turnips. In Australia, and to some extent in NZ too, summer droughts can be a problem, and silage and hay may be used then too. US grass-fed beef may be raised differently. NZ and Australian growers have traditionally been very opposed to the use of growth hormones, and I know that this issue has caused farmers to break lucrative contracts with certain overseas importers who like to buy local farms and get local farmers to manage them for exclusive export to the owner's country. So while I am too out of touch to claim that hormones are never used, I very much doubt if they are common. A butcher friend of my grandfather's used to say that most steaks are improved by having a little water flicked over them as they are grilled, and that's probably a particularly good idea with grass-fed beef. Another point worth considering is that eating beef as steak is relatively modern, and even now is very much more common in the US than in Australia or NZ. Somebody commented upthread that very thick steaks are common in Australia and NZ, and I think that is so - a NZ steak serving is usually smaller than in the US, but a good restaurant will serve them 1 1/2 to 2 or more inches thick. Supermarket steak is a different case, of course. So for the centuries that grass-fed beef was the norm (assuming that beef was fattened for a while on other foods in the fall), roast ing was considered to be the best way to cook beef. A "collop" was a much rarer treat, a kind of luxury fast food. I have no argument with the idea that grain-fed beef makes better steaks, but I wouldn't say that grain-fed beef is by definition better meat. As for flavor, I haven't eaten US grass-fed beef, so can't comment there, but the first time I ate Kobe beef, I didn't care for it all that much - the flavor seemed dominated by a faint sweetness and the flavor of fat, both things I still associate with grain-fed beef. Grass-fed beef tastes "fresh" to me, though now that I so rarely eat any beef, let alone NZ beef, I notice the strong beef flavor more too.

I could eat this soup year-round, and it's particularly good in hot weather. I was really interested to read all the elaborations - I've only ever made a very simple version.

Certainly honey works fine. Maple? The only maple sugar I've seen in Japan was very hard to dissolve - but I don't know if that's generally true of maple sugar or not. I don't like to heat the vinegar, but I know that some people do heat the vinegar and sugar together.

I think that the vinegar will mellow with age - after 1 or 2 yeras, I couldn't immediately tell my Japanese plum wine from the vinegar version! And after I'd sampled both a few times my powers of judgment were even less reliable. . However, the better the vinegar, the better the finished product will be. I'm sort of tempted to make a rose petal version, if I ever find myself alone with a large number of highly scented, organically-grown roses!

My husband is firmly convinced that cold green tea is poisonous...I tried to find out why, but haven't been able to dig up any details, sorry!

That lemon shandy sounds WONDERFUL! I'm curious, did your family use the fruit vinegars as drinks, in dressings etc., or to make other preserves?

Thanks for those photos - I've been wondering how it was coming on! What are the very small seedlings, by the way?

Bento blog in English Looks to be kindergarten-age bentos. The western-Japanese mix makes for some useful bento ideas for other western-Japanese mix kitchens!

I'm interested that you immediately identified it as a shrub! I didn't want to use that word, in case people associated it more with alcoholic shrubs. I didn't know there were commercial shrubs available. I've just finished making a lemon version for rapidly approaching school vacation.

These started out as a home-made summer drink in Japan, and have recently become incredibly popular in the shops too. However, they are based on 19th century drinks, and as far as I can tell, they have probably survived longest in southern US cooking, where berry versions are still found. Does anybody still make and drink these things? Anybody care to rediscover them? In the heat of summer here, the addition of vinegar is incredibly refreshing! It's a great drink to freeze and take along on hikes. Old recipe books have more sophisticated versions, but the basics are: equal weights of sugar, a mild vinegar and fruit. You don't need equal weight of low-volume aromatics such as herbs, of course, just add to taste. Cider vinegar is a good choice, though any vinegar can be used. Sugar can be reduced by up to half (or as desired), and is either dissolved over heat in the vinegar, or simply added to the other ingredients. Layer sugar and fruit/herbs in a jar, pour over vinegar, or pour cooled, dissolved sugar/vinegar mix over other ingredients. Leave to steep for 1-2 weeks, then strain and bottle, and drink diluted with 4-5 parts water per part of vinegar syrup.

I'd be surprised if it doesn't take off. When Japanese vendors first introduced unsweetened teas, we heard similar reactions - who would pay for something so PLAIN? These days, they sell so fast that it's hard to buy a cold bottle - the shopowners can't keep the chiller shelves stocked fast enough to allow the drinks time to chill. People are willing to pay for access to what they would really prefer to drink, no matter how cheap the beverage is to make. Nowadays when I leave Japan, I find myself perusing the shelves for something that isn't sweet, but isn't water. I usually give up and go to a coffee shop in the end, but if Metromint were there, be sure I'd buy it!