helenjp

Carrot Top, if it's any consolation, I probably *did* pay about $87 for my copy of the New Settlement Cookbook! When I moved to Japan, I had a broken floppy disk drive, and couldn't write anything to disk...as soon as I arrived, the hard disk collapsed too, and there went all my non-Japanese recipes, in those pre-Internet days. In a fine fit of temper, I went to the big English bookstore and paid a mountain of gold for The New Settlement Cookbook and Rose Levy Berenbaum's Christmas Cookies book, and consequently had to sleep on the floor on a sheepskin for a month until I got my first Japanese pay-packet! They were practically my first US cookbooks, and since I was forced to use them, I came across all sorts of fascinating dishes I had never heard of before . Up until then, I'd rarely strayed from the apron strings of Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson.

Ivory Coast background Ivory Coast has (I think...) one of the most urban populations in the region, so I wonder exactly what the characteristics of the agricultural population are...how much of a shadow is cast by the old French plantation labor systems...how much the more fragile ecology and economy of the Sahel further inland affects the Coast, etc. Ivory Coast is definitely an agricultural trading economy - what we buy or don't buy is going to have a huge impact on how people there live. I'm curious to know what people think - is it better to pressure the existing traders and importers/processors; or better to boycott and ban? I wish I knew more about this area - some weird linguistic events made me interested in the Sahel and West African coast when I was in high school, and then I happened to meet a string of people who had lived there...but still don't know more than a tiny drop of all the things that fascinate me about the region.

At this time of year, it might be worth looking at local 2nd hand shops, as many people move house around now, and sell their lightly-used electrical goods. I have a Toshiba inherited from a friend, it's a sturdy trooper but you can't use 2 trays in it. Pity...

I made a cream cheese pound cake and just for kix, baked it from cold. It was a huge recipe, so by the time it was cooked (all in one pan) it had quite a crust on it. I wrapped it in a linen towel and put it in a loose polythene bag overnight. By morning the crust had softened, but the cake was on the dangerous end of "moist" - not too far off soggy. Great toasted though! 24 hours after baking, the lemon flavor had mellowed, and the cake had an even, moist, but no longer stodgy texture. ...Pity there's none left, now that it's perfect

Some sobering reading on modified trivets for gas ranges. This is similar to the type of trivet I have which is supposed to focus the gas more on the middle of the pan bottom. I've never noticed problems myself, because I rarely use it. I think I'd still be nagging the manufacturer/agent to come and demonstrate how it's supposed to work. Do you think that it could be something as simple as adjustment to the direction of the gas jets?

I'm not sure why you can't turn the gas down so that the flame doesn't extend past the width of the pan...however, I have a set of two accessory trivets/plates which I use on top of the normal grate on my gas cooktop. The first is a solid simmer plate like the flame tamer above, and I use it a lot, but it's really only useful for longish periods of cooking on a slow steady flame without burning things. The second (which I actually rarely use) supposedly directs the gas flame into a "whorl" shape, concentrating it efficiently under the center of small pots and pans, rather than allowing it to fan out. I'm sorry, but I have no idea what it might be called. I googled "gas cooktop accessories" and found lots of simmer plates, but no trivets or whatever they're called.

Torakris, no, I never see fresh octopus for sale here - so I never needed to use that information on tenderizing it until I was back in New Zealand, where octopus is a favorite of many Pacific Islanders. I have a feeling that the various octopus tempura recipes use boiled octopus too...

I think I'd go to a Chinese store and buy a can of "seagrass jelly" which is black to start with. I haven't tried melting it and resetting it, but suspect that you could do so. I think it tastes faintly like aniseed, but try it and see.

My Japanese cookbook had the memorable phrase "beat octopus patiently with a daikon to tenderize it". I cannot really attest to the efficacy of this method from first-hand experience, I am sorry to say.

I am soo impressed! My son asked me for the very same, a plane that would be in the air, and with working lights....I'm afraid he got a Concorde with*out* working lights. I even had little lights like you used, so now I feel very lazy. ...I did paint in pinstripes, aircraft identification number and windows though! You did a lovely job!

Joking aside, crumbling up some nori over the yakisoba might help both texture and taste. There is certainly quite a range in kyuushoku supervisors. When my boys first started elementary school, their kyuushoku were just exemplary - nicely cooked, menus had a nice combination of items and looked attractive, there was a definite seasonal feeling to the menus, etc. Then came a woman under whose supervision the team turned out adequate food, but the menus were the most unappetizing combinations! I can't remember them now, but I think serving hot-dogs with yakisoba is a good example.

Hmmm...I think the answer is a large pack of chili pepper and some packs of nori in your desk! If it's hidden under a blanket of black nori, it can't bother you, right?

Kyushu will be hot and humid at that time...I think you will be wondering about what to drink more than what to eat, and the traditional unsweetened cold teas will be your friend! I haven't been to Kyushu for years, and passed through Fukuoka very quickly, but there is a much stronger influence/interest in Chinese food there, though fairly Japanized.

Woah - a tempura fire can be a big fire. I'm sure you're glad that making bento for a while is the worst thing that happened. I'm just about to start 6 years of daily bento making for JHS and HS lunches...I quail a bit at the thought of how much teen boys can eat, and am disgustingly delighted that there is small chance of either of my boys being on sports teams and working up even bigger appetites! I'm pretty sure that even if my son1 goes to a public HS, he will be taking a bento.

I would brush rather than dip nori, and honestly, the moisture of the dessert will be more than enough - it will be crackly at first but will quickly soften, and in fact disintegrate if it gets too wet. It is quite delicate, so if you want to make a rolled dessert, you will have to think about how heavy the filling will be - sushi rice etc is not that heavy. I was thinking about the marine flavor, and wondering about going the other way - instead of trying to match it with something just as intensely flavored, how about using it candied as a little accent to a custard? The sweet rice pudding sounds like a good direction. I suppose the sushi rice must have been very sour originally, as it was fermented. The sugar now not only adds sweetness, but keeps the rice firm. Rolled sushi fillings will have one zing of a strong flavor like wasabi or a strong herb (ginger, scallions, shiso flowers or seedlings etc, plus bland rice with the freshness of mild vinegar, and the richness of a fish filling. So...thinking out loud here...how about a mild pale custard or rice pudding, with a rose-petal confiture or candied rose petals on top, and a small whorl of candied torn nori? Or, if you want the rolled sushi look...long straight very crispy and fragile churros style deepfried donuts soaked in orange syrup as the center of a rolled sushi, with a rather scant and highly fragrant pastry cream piped onto the nori, and rolled up? - so that the pastry cream acts like the rice in a rolled sushi, but MUCH LESS of it - just enough to bond the crunchy donut and the chewy nori. I know, too crazy! P.S. It fries quite well though you have to be quick - it's handy to stick bunches of fragile things together (just cut strips and dampen the end, and hold the item to be fried under the oil surface with chopsticks or tongs just where the nori is), and people also stick patches of it on fried breads.

Agar will make a tougher, chewier "glaze" or skin than gelatin. Salt will increase the pore size of the gel - it holds more water, but is more fragile (which may be a good thing in terms of mouthfeel, but I think you also run a greater risk of the agar gel weeping water as time passes).

Entier L&P Sausage is the one I buy. Not too often...they're not on special often enough . Hiroyuki...I think I'd rather have my health products out of a jar, and my food as food!

Futari Shizuka confectionery - made from powdered rice, light brown "wasanbon" sugar, and very little syrup, then pressed into shape and allowed to dry. The box-lid shows the shirabyoushi dancer Shizuka in her white dancing costume, and presumably her lover Yoshitsune (but possibly the enemy who forced her to dance, but a bit hard to tell from the tiny picture!). The name of the confectionery refers to a time near the end of her life when she was captured, pregnant, after her lover had fled with his family and killed himself to avoid capture. She was forced to dance in front of her lover's enemy (his half-brother), and gave a famous performance celebrating her love for Yoshitsune. As she danced, her ghost appeared and danced with her, and so the dance and the Noh play written about the event are known as "The Two Shizukas" (Sometimes pronounced Ninin Shizuka, sometimes Futari Shizuka). Moved, her enemy's wife and daughter pleaded for her life to be spared, but her son was killed at birth and she herself died not very long after. The shape of the sweets is also said to resemble a plant named "the two shizukas" because it flowers with double white flower-spikes, but I haven't seen the sweets, so I'm not sure about this. Futari Shizuka plant

I have one of those Zojirushi lunch jars - I use it for son's dinner rather than lunch though. Mine DOES have an extra container - the top container has a drop-in half-moon shaped container, so I can divide it in half or not, just as I like. Otherwise, what about putting some stuff in the rice container, if there's too much rice space and not enough side-dish space for you? The only thing I have against these hot lunch jars is...hot umeboshi!

This two-layer lunchbox with its own soup bowl, in red lacquer with a Totoro motif...I just can't think of a reason to buy it, though I'm trying very hard

I recently bought a Dretec 2kg scale for about GBP10...entirely because it was a little cheaper than Tanita. It's working fine, and is much more useful than the digital scale I bought years ago, which turned itself off after a minute or so. I use larger scales for larger items - usually I make a son stand on the scales and hold the item in question so that I'm measuring in the middle of the range, not at the lowest end. My mother was a pharmacist, and always had 2-3 sets of scales, calibrated from "grains" to "oz/lbs" to "stones"...so I've never been in the habit of weighing precision ingredients on scales designed to deal with 5-10lbs. Forgot to say that this digital replaced a small spring-blance, which turned out to be much less accurate and robust than I had hoped. eGullet thread on kitchen scales

Chicken Cream Corokke (made about 2 dozen, at least of those that stayed around long enough to count). FB asked about the long-cooked method, so here it is. Nothing spectacular actually. First, the bechamel - you can make this somewhat thinner, if you are prepared to take great care chilling and coating the croquettes, and frying them. I made a thick bechamel because I thought this would be the easiest for anybody trying it out (and for me, of course). This is not the recipe to cut your corokke-making teeth on, though! Cook 500g-600g of skin-on chicken breasts gently in 600ml milk, with ½ onion, 3 cloves, 2 bayleaves, 8 peppercorns. I used the "okayu" (congee setting on my ricecooker, feel free to use other methods. When cooked: Reserve chicken fat and milk (strained) adding milk to make up about 800ml. Allow chicken to cool, skin and discard skin, chop chicken coarsely. Bechamel: 75g butter (Use up to 100g if not using the chicken fat, maybe 5og if subbing cream for about 1/3 of the milk) melted, and 100g flour stirred in over gentle heat, allow to bubble, add the hot reserved milk and chicken fat gradually, stirring in. Bring all to a simmer, and simmer for around 45 minutes (total cooking time nearly 1 hour). By this time, the sauce should make an even, opaque film, and the bechamel trickled off a spoon should sit in cords on top of the sauce (this flour ratio will make a sauce too thick to form ribbons when completed). A spoon pulled through the bechamel will leave a distinct track closing immediately. Season fairly punchily - I used at least 1/2 tsp of salt, but then I also used salted butter and I think cooking the chicken in milk means you need less salt at the end. Beware of black pepper, nutmeg etc, as the coroqque should be creamy in color as well as texture. Stir cooked chicken into bechamel. As you see I started with roughly equal weights of liquid and raw chicken, which also makes the corokke easier to handle, but you could use half this amount of chicken. No need to stick to chicken, either... Cool the chicken sauce mixture THOROUGHLY - overnight is best. In warm weather, CHILL, and work with the mixture as chilled as possible...but this type of cream and chicken would not keep well in warm weather anyway. Set up your coating line: Plain or AP flour, then (for the entire batch) 2 eggs beaten with around 50ml milk, dried breadcrumbs. No mystery about Japanese panko, they're just dried, either in a good breeze or in a low oven. I like the fine ones, crush the larger type if you like. Now, take a heaped spoonful and form into shapes. I usually make them into batons, and experiments show me that no shape is particularly more prone to cracking or weeping when fried, with the exception that a relatively thin book or coin shape is the very easiest to fry. Flour fairly heavily, dip into the egg (if it "rolls off" then maybe beat a tad more milk into the egg) and into the breadcrumbs. If you feel paranoid about the corokke splitting when fried, repeat the flour and egg steps. Roll in the crumbs, then gently press a handful round the croquette so they are well covered. I think they fry better if they sit for about 5 minutes before going into the oil, so you could even put them back in the fridge at this point. I don't think cream corokke should be fried at a really high temperature - not more than 180. They will quickly turn a nice gold color, you can assume they will be heated through by then, so take them out with a slotted spoon and drain well (you will dent them or burst them if you use chopsticks, though I do it all the same). The scattered breadcrumbs should be skimmed out of the oil with a fine metal sieve-ladle very frequently, as this type of corokke is all about appearance. This is a sadly blurred picture sorry, and you can see that there are specks of stuff which I didn't skim out of the oil, as I was anxious to get the first batch on my sons' plates before they had to go out. These also contain a little sweetcorn. Advantages to the long cooking? The bechamel develops a beautiful, beautiful texture - velvety instead of gluey, and the flavor is rich and fragrant - normally corokke are not too appetizing cold, but these disappeared way too fast.

I came across a black tea (oolong tea) jelly in my recipe files too! I actually made a batch of black coffee jelly, now I'm considering making cut-outs of it and scattering them through a milk coffee jelly...wwill post pix later if I do. No pix, but double-strength black coffee jelly hearts and stars cut out of firmish jelly in a soft cinnamon/coffee milk jelly...mmm! Think I'll try cardamon next time...

The average plastic bottle of shoyu will go bad over time, but not too fast. (But 2004 is too old!). However, the expensive little bottles of upmarket shoyu are often not pasteurized, and they really do need to be refrigerated once opened.

I love that tea-ball with its own cup to sit in! Would you believe, hours after I posted my earlier comment, a parcel arrived from my sister containing a very similar tea-ball. Now to find a cute thing to put on the end of its chain... Congratulations on all your baking. As for husband making lunch while wife bakes, it's been known to happen, definitely...