helenjp

I wonder....when I first visited Japan around 1980, MSG was a normal kitchen condiment, but that hasn't been true here for a long time. Of course, it's in instant foods and seasoning mixes, but the bottle of MSG lined up beside the salt and soy sauce(s) has gone from kitchens. You can buy it, but not everywhere, and I haven't seen it listed in a recipe for decades, perhaps. Wouldn't be surprised if it were no longer as common in China either.

Just a few thoughts: 1) Usually sugar isn't added to agar jellies - 12g seems OK, but it could make for a tough jelly if you added a lot of sugar and boiled it down too much. 2) A lot of the Japanese recipes use modified agar jelly powders such as Cool Agar = agar plus carrageenan, Ina Agar A = fructose, agar, devils tongue root powder, thickening agent (starch?), Ina Agar L = fructose, agar, thickening agent (starch?) . This produces a much softer and more elastic jelly than pure agar, but allows it to set at room temperature. Attempting to make an agar gel with a really high proportion of water just creates mush, not a soft jelly. 4 or 5 grams of agar should be enough to set 500 ml of water. 3) The shape of the mold might be more important than you think - the spherical shape allows plenty of soft "inside" in proportion to the tougher dehydrated skin on the outside.

Blueberries in Japan can be a bit tasteless in cakes and pancakes...I like to sub them with tiny Delaware grapes. Love the sharp snap!

I'm most curious about the flour...when I moved to Japan, I started noticing protein content in flour. Cake flour in Japan is usually around 8% protein. Flours with 6-7% protein are much harder to find, with Nisshin's Super Violet probably the best known, and even that is only found in specialty shops. What are the usual suspects for baking sponge cakes in north American kitchens?

Chlebicky seem to be genuinely hand-held size, which is good. I think knife and fork sandwiches are somehow cheating!

I recently read a kindle book called "Czech Deli Sandwiches" by Jana Mladek, and was struck by her comment that open sandwiches , "chlebicky" or http://www.pinterest.com/andelyna/oblozene-chlebicky/ "oblozeny chlebicek", should have a different flavor in each bite. Goodbye symmetry! Hello taste and visual appeal! I believe there is even a song about them... With a layer of potato salad on the bread (slices from a batard are the easiest for me to come by), the toppings "stick", making the sandwich easy to eat. However, you can just use butter, and although I don't know what's common, other "sticky" layers are easy to imagine. I should have taken photos, but I'm afraid the evidence disappears too fast every time I make them for weekend meals or party contributions - they perfect for early spring, because of the very ordinary ingredients enlivened by the combination of small amounts of so many different things, and the pretty arrangement. Toppings are the usual suspects of preserved meats, slices of hard-boiled egg,sliced cheeses, and pickles, enlivened with salad leaves, watercress, parsley, capers, green peas, pickled bell peppers, asparagus tips, shrimps, tiny piece of tomato... What about other European open sandwiches? Germany? Russia? And I'm sure my idea of Scandinavian open sandwiches is much more boring than the reality.

I really recommend growing a few, even if it has to be on the windowsill. That way, you can nibble and get to know the basic nature of each herb better. Of course, many herbs combine different aromas and tastes, but the more you notice about their characteristics, the freer you will be to experiment or substitute. Tart, sour, peppery, heady and citrusy, resiny piney, warm and aromatic, funky, bitter...

I'm beginning to think that this may just be more and more true of Japanese ovens.Ｔhe new "environmentally friendly" standards seem to be a new word for underpowered. Mine is not one of the newer bakery series of Hitachi ovens. It does go up to 300 degrees, and yes, it does a much better job of things like pizza than my old oven did. I tend to stick to flatbreads in this oven, because my breadmaker just uses so much less electricity. My oven's max usage for conventional oven mode (not microwave) is 1390kw. I know that a few are rated over 1400kw for oven mode, but many are only around 1000kw. It's very easy to confuse the screaming claims of "max output xxxxxkw!!!" with oven power, but usually the microwave rating is higher, and you have to dig through the specs a bit to find the oven-mode rating. Setsuden.net lists Panasonic as the cheapest to run out of the 30L plus size ovens, so no Panasonic oven will enter my kitchen! Why did I like the look of the Healsio? Sorry, don't remember the details. The Toshiba Ishigama series go up to 350 degrees. The 500 series has a more sophisticated convection system than the 400 series, and the oven consumption is 1430kw, heating element output 1400kw, but the interior is 31L against 33. I did have an oven about that size, and the problem was more fitting larger pans or items in than heat/power.

Yes, my oven is 33L, but the extra 3 liters is not that useful, since I can't really use the extra capacity without the temperature dropping badly (and more importantly, I feel that it might be slower to get back to the set temperature than my previous ovens) - especially with baking, I am more aware of cakes getting tough and dried out from lengthy exposure to the fan as the wretched oven struggles to bake the poor cake. The usable interior of my Hitachi oven trays (i.e. excluding lip etc.) is rouighly 37.5 x 27 cm. I assume but can't guarantee that new 33L models are a similar size - how does that compare to the Helsio trays? I remember being quite tempted by the Helsio when I bought my current Hitachi - it was just that bit more expensive. http://kakaku.com/kaden/microwave-oven/itemlist.aspx?pdf_Spec101=2&pdf_Spec301=30-50　Kakaku.com listing for microwave ovens 30 liters and over in capacity. Very much "the usual suspects" in terms of manufacturers. Also, kakaku.com sometimes includes listings for out of date models, so if there are no vendors listed, you can assume that it's not a current model!

Are you renting? If not, then gas would be my recommendation. I have had OK results with both Toshiba and Panasonic, but if you like your Helsio, why not stick with it? Right now I have a 2008 Hitachi MRO-DV100, and don't like it at all. I wanted an oven with maximum temperatures well over 200C, 2 trays, and reasonably big interior, and on paper this looked like a good choice. However, if I actually use both trays, the oven temperature tends to fall disastrously. I feel that it is pretty much designed to cook smallish quantities of foods on the automatic menu ettings, but it is not an all-purpose workhorse.

Hmmm...the miso that is sold in shops for Japanese students on small budgets looking for a taste of home is generally horrible quality. Can you give us a photo of the stuff you don't like? Also, miso varies so much in saltiness and even sweetness that recipes need to be tasted and adjusted.

Ancient plums from a batch of plum wine I made back in...hmm, when was that??? Plan was to use them in cakes or icecream etc, but somehow the desire to eat shochu-soaked unripe ume in cake rarely strikes me.

I was just quizzing a few people about restaurant art/design needs, and "website" was top of the list...because without one, you might pop in for lunch as you walk by, but you won't be arranging an office party or lunch with old friend there. That's even more true now that many workplaces absolutely forbid personal phonecalls during daytime working hours. What people wanted was information and possibly a way to book online.

I have NEVER had hot or burning sensations from garlic chives (even stringy ones that didn't get watered often enough in the garden), and have to wonder whether leaves from some other plant got mixed in with the bunch.

Ha! I had no tequila for one recipe so I used rum... So far the favorites have been the plum ices, followed by mango with yogurt and Calpis - anything with a luisciousness plus a tart nip. Today will be either grapefruit or maybe sweetcorn.

Sounds good enough that I　might need to find a shop that stocks tequila! Frozen gazpacho is good, but I want to get some molds that I　can keep separately for use with onion/garlic.

Perhaps we generally under-value food - we treat soil, plants, and animals badly, and we don't pay much to those who work with them, and those who prepare and sell our meat and produce, and even those who carry food to restaurant tables. The only people we seem to value are those who "denature" food! I've often wondered why I should pay so very much more for a fried reconstituted potato than for a raw potato delivered fresh and in good condition, and why I should pay a chef more than a grengrocer. I wondered why more cattle weren't promptly moved from the evacuation area around the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Turns out that apart from other difficulties, many were kept in pens their whole lives, and were simply not able to walk out of their pens and up a ramp onto a truck. This is a type of farming that I just don't understand at all. I don't understand why it's necessary, and I don't understand why it's considered acceptable. To be honest, I feel the same way about plant life - that cabbage was living its cabbagey life until it was cut and sent to market for me to buy and eat. Bad farming damages not only plants and animals, but the soil itself...luckily, soil takes a lot of punishment, but unluckily, it's difficult to clean it up when it is damaged past the point where it can recover naturally. I grew up on the edge of my grandparents' dairy farm - they ran it profitably, but no animal on that farm (the cattle, the cattle dogs and farm cats, the family hens and originally pigs and horses too) was kept penned or caged 24 hours a day. There was damage to the environment according to modern standards, from artificial fertilizer and milking-yard run-off, but the low-intensity farming also meant that costs were low - feed did not need to be bought, nor were expensive, high-maintenance pens needed. That seems to me just as realistic a way to farm as the Fukushima way.

Golden color...maybe swede turnips or golden rutabaga (they taste great in vegetable soups, but maybe a bit early in the season)? Yellow bell peppers or yellow tomatoes? Gold beetroot? Carrots, yellow split peas or chana dahl?

Yes, vinegar! Never seen mulberry vinegar, but anything from a drop to a teaspoonful of good vinegar takes a drink out of boring, bland territory.

I try not to use much, for that very reason, and find that about 1/4 of a banana per cup of other stuff helps the texture without making much difference to the taste. Plum and red wine is still a favorite here, but plum and red shisosorbet sounds like a good popsicle. The latest here is green melon, wanted to add green shiso but sadly had done on hand.

My guess is that it's a pure juice thing. The reason I　add a bit of banana often is to improve the texture - I'm guessing the sugars/starches in the banana "hold" the water more effectively (big guess!).

That was a great vicarious experience thank you! I also appreciated the Herbies shots - I've often looked at their website, thinking about ordering hard-to-find herbs and spices. I had some Australian herbs once, and developed a taste for Lemon Myrtle...tempted to order some of Herbies' Balmain & Rozelle blend.

I got my copy of the Paletas book too...I was happy to find more good things than the one or two items that led me to buy it. On the other hand, there were more dairy-based recipes than I had anticipated. Looking forward to trying that coconut recipe too. I made the roasted banana recipe (with milk but without cream) - Japanese "black" sugar goes well with this. A little banana added to other fruits helps them to freeze softer - an advantage with the cone-shaped Ice Stick molds I'm using, as you otherwise get a largeish icy chunk as your first bite. The molds hold only 50 ml (2 oz), exactly what I wanted. I've read reviews where people say they get an "off" taste - I'm careful to scrub to the very bottom of the mold with a tiny bottle brush, and hang them over chopsticks to dry...they've been fine. I only had one leak - overfilled the mold.

Gosh...I'm sure everybody in Japan has a good half dozen rice paddles and plastic measuring cups! Are you sure you can't find one in a dollar shop?

Pajeon mix...that sounds like an idea that might put pajeon on the lunchbox menu more often. Please do share details of your pomelo salad...I　have a favorite pork and pomelo salad too, but it couldn't be more different from yours. Want to know more about the history of yours! Cold Sydney winter...sounds just the thing, she says, eyeing the airconditioner remote.