helenjp

So where's your hotplate? The perfect time for tabletop cooking has arrived, I'd say. I just remembered a really lazy wheeze I used to love when I came home from work on the last train at night back in the old days...tuna salad, especially good when mild new onions are in season as they are now. Soak slivered onion in several changes of lukewarm water if your kids are not too keen on it. Natto omelet with shredded nori and/or negi is a another good hurry-up dish. Softboiled egg broken over a bacon salad (constructed by your kids) and topped with your favorite dressing. Put sake-marinaded chicken, salt salmon etc. on top of the rice in your rice cooker...wrap it in foil if you want to avoid contamination! Toppings such as chopped peanuts and green coriander on tofu. Pork belly slices, liberally sprinkled with salt, pepper and dried herbs/chili while still in the meat tray, then scissored up (don't separate the slices!) and fried in squares of 3-4 overlapping slices. Hope that's clear, because it's very easy. Why not do prep at your dining table? Stick what you want in a bucket, so you can manage to carry it on crutches. Best luck.

Sujiko miso-zuke in Japanese. I thought this sounded more like sujiko than ikura, and sure enough, there it was! For one roe of sujiko, 150g (5-6oz) of medium-colored miso, blended with 1.5 tab of mirin (sweet sake) and 1/2 tab of sake. Wrap the whole roe in clean dry gauze, and lay on a bed of half the amount of miso. Spread the rest of the miso on top, and either wrap in plastic wrap or pop into a container and leave it in the fridge for 2 days or so. I'll look forward to trying this in the winter - my Hokkaido-born husband can never get enough sujiko!

Strained and rinsed *after* marinating. Hmmm. Sounds like your grandmother might have marinated the whole roe rather than separating the eggs out first??? Generally "sujiko" are the not quite ripe eggs which are normally pickled and eaten still in the roe sac. They are lots cheaper than ripe ikura. Ikura are the fully ripened roe. The link that Hiroyuki gave shows the different steps beautifully, and here is a rough summary. This is also the way that I prepare ikura roe (much cheaper than buying roe ready pickled in soy sauce). For one double-lobed roe of either ikura or sujiko (a couple of pounds, from memory)... Dump into a bowl of hand-hot water (hotter than you might expect). This toughens up the membranes and makes it easier to remove the individual eggs. The eggs will get whitish, but don't worry. Remove all the membrane, a fidgety process, and repeat the washing if necessary. Drain and allow to cool. The eggs should turn clear again. Now pack into a plastic container and pour over roughly 200ml each of sake and soy sauce (that's about 5/6 of a US cup). Add about 2 tab of dashi stock if you like. I do like - I think it makes for a much mellower flavor. The roe will immediately turn transparent and develop a glowing color, but hands off!!! Leave in your fridge for at least 24 hours, maybe 2-3 days - the eggs will absorb the marinade and swell. If you want, you can also freeze the marinaded eggs - they will turn cloudy in the freezer, but will be fine when thawed.

Jason, that was a great response! Green tea cookies that I have seen were very light-textured langue-de-chat types. I have made this type of cookie with a (washed and dried) salted cherry blossom on top, but that's because I love green and pink together. A tiny pinch of regular green tea leaves or a couple of black sesame seeds is good too. I flipped through alllllll my recipe books and found that I only had one cookie recipe using green tea. It was a regular freezer-cookie roll 'n slice dough, using 1 tsp of matcha tea powder per scant cup of flour.

Kabocha can be tricky to judge, because it is not a really hard-skinned long-storage type, so you have to judge whether 1) the kabocha was ripe when picked and 2) it has not been stored so long that the starch is starting to deteriorate (it will be pulpy when cooked if that is the case). Ripeness - the skin will start to be more matte than glossy, the pale patch will no longer be white but more yellow, and the stem should not be green and juicy but dry and a little corky (though that's not quite true for the early summer kabocha which are enjoyed more as a juicy and mildly sweet vegetable). The same is true for the skin - it can be thinner for early summer kabocha, but it should be hard and dark by fall. I think that fall kabocha should not be completely smooth and round - you should be able to see some swelling in each segment, indicating that the seeds are ripening. Of course, if the seeds are completely ripe, the flesh will be past its best, and in any case, some varieties are smoother, while others have deep furrows between each segment, so use your judgement!

I meant to make a version with just the nutmeg, actually 1/2 tsp is probably enough in the blend I have in the recipe above...but it's hard for me to tell too much about flavors at present, since the Japanese hayfever season is still dragging on!

Unless you're getting there reeeally early, you should probably take stuff to serve with the umu food, rather than dishes that need to go into the umu. You know what, I bet your father's friends would be most tickled of all if you asked to come early and help out/learn to make the umu! From numerous church umus and other minor things (I mean, three people from my NZ church couldn't possibly get together WITHOUT several tables full of food!), I would suggest desserts like fruit salads or poke-style dishes with banana or other starches baked in coconut cream, or raw fish salads, or maybe taro leaf dishes with coconut and fish or meat, if you have a source for the leaves and it's not going in the umu. PolyHut recipe page This site has some really good recipes: Tongan food section of yachtie's site on Polynesian food I don't know how traditional your family is but can you get good advice about gifts and wearing of mats etc? Nothing like being prepared...! (Pacific Islanders in New Zealand are pretty traditional, though where I come from there are mainly Samoans, Cook Islandes, and Niueans, and not so many Tongans). Sorry if I'm being intrusive.

The problem that I remember is oily granola that was hard and gritty rather than crisp and crunchy. I'm pleased with the texture of the two "crumble" type granolas, but I want to try a regular oil/honey type one too, because I think part of the problem was probably having the oven too hot! The granolas I made are disappearing remarkably fast, courtesy of sons, so I expect I will be reporting back on a "browniebaker" type recipe quite soon! One thing - am I the only person who doesn't really like coconut in granola? My objection is pretty trivial - I don't like the fact that it floats while everything else sinks .

Yellow Tail has been around for about a year in my local stores, and yesterday I overcame my considerable suspicions and bought the Chardonnay. It was truly HORRIBLE - hot and bitter! I haven't tasted that type of Aust/NZ chardonnay for about a quarter of a century, and I didn't enjoy the memories it brought back at all!

325F is a lot cooler than 180C! I'm sure we used to bake our granola in way too hot an oven. jsolomon and mktye, I see you both recipes with honey. I plan to try one with honey (another Rare Ingredient here in Japan!) and will be interested in how it affects the texture. I've decided that texture is really the issue I'm concerned about - flavor is pretty much what you want to make it, it's the texture that I want better control over . Meanwhile, time to put my toys away, pack my work bag, and head for bed!

Sugar for the syrup was separate, but that was really because I used it to "doctor" the recipe after it was completed. I am thinking of a less troublesome way of adding these ingredients, but this method probably gives the freshest flavor. If you used white sugar instead of brown sugar in this recipe, you could easily take 3 tabs from the total amount instead of adding 3 more tablespoons. However, this is a fairly big recipe, so an additional 3 tab of sugar still doesn't make the granola very sweet. Also, because the total amount of oats is large (and therefore the proportion of fat/oil is lower), adding the syrup at the end didn't make the granola sticky. The syrup and lemon essence are for the post-baking phase only. Too easy to burn during the baking, and most of the flavor would disappear too. By the way, the lemon granola is a big recipe - you might want to reduce it way down for a trial run.

I can't get wheatgerm in Japan, but from what I remember, it used to burn easily. However, this time I used a much lower temperature. I think it would be OK at 300degF. Anybody got any great wheatgerm techniques??? If you add sugar and oil/butter to straight oats, it will get hard and crisp-crunchy. However, if you rub butter or margarine into flour (or something similar) and sugar, and bake it, you will get something that resembes the "crumble" topping on desserts like Apple Crumble...something similar to a cookie dough, in a lot of ways! So the recipes I gave are basically a crumble dough with extra oats and nuts added before baking, and fruit added at the end. Hope that isn't more confusing...

I stuck it in the method part of the recipe, so that people wouldn't be tempted to add it before baking the granola, but I've gone back and added it to the ingredients. I also added lemon and ginger shreds and they make a big difference, so I've edited the recipe to show those changes. The crystallized pineapple has a sharp tang too. Thanks for the hint on using peanut butter!

Pam, I hadn't thought of making it in a skillet either, but I was interested to see that your recipe used butter rather than oil. Today I made two versions that combine oats with "crumble". Kids were enthusiastic. I'll add photos later... Knusper "Florentines" Granola Make a crumble out of: 1/2 cup margarine or butter 1/2 cup dark brown sugar 1/2 tsp salt, optional 1 cup ground almonds 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 tsp instant coffee 1-3 tabs cocoa (I used 1, more would have been better). Mix in 2 cups rolled oats 1 cup whole almonds, chopped 2 cups raisins, with the juice of half an orange squeezed over them, and the zest of 1 orange (zest of 2 oranges would be even better...). Mix everything except dried fruit to a crumbly consistency. You will probably use a smaller quantity of oats if you use the regular ones and/or a more crumble-like consistency, and a larger quantity if you use thick rolled oats, and/or prefer a more granola-like consistency. Heat oven to 300degF, 150degC, and bake, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes. Then add orange/raisin mixture, stir, and bake for 10 minutes longer. Spread and cool baked granola. When cool, sprinkle over 2 tab cocoa and 4oz or so of chopped dark chocolate, mix together, and pack into airtight containers. Wild Lemon Granola Make a crumble out of: 1/2 cup margarine or butter 1/2 cup dark brown sugar 1/2 tsp salt, optional 1/2 cup ground almonds 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 tsp ground nutmeg 1/2 tsp ground cardamon 1 tab ground cinnamon 1 tab ground ginger Mix in 4 cups rolled oats 1 cup whole walnuts, chopped 2 cups mixed fruit - cranberries and crystallized pineapple. Peel of one lemon, shredded, and about 1/2 inch of fresh ginger, sliced and shredded - heated with 3 tab sugar to a syrupy consistency. Crystallized ginger would be nice too, but I didn't have any. To finish, approx. 1 tsp lemon essence (amount depends on strength of essence or extract). Mix everything except dried fruit to a light, crumbly consistency - this is much lighter and less like a "crumble" than the recipe above. You will probably use a smaller quantity of oats if you use the regular ones and/or a more crumble-like consistency, and a larger quantity if you use thick rolled oats, and/or prefer a more granola-like consistency. Heat oven to 300degF, 150degC, and bake, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes. Then chopped dried fruits, stir, and bake for 10 minutes longer. Spread and cool baked granola. When just warm, sprinkle over 1 tsp lemon essence plus ginger and lemon peel shreds in syrup, mix together, and cool completely before packing into airtight containers. Still to come (a family can only eat so much granola!!) Matcha Mango Granola, Somewhat Tart & Slightly Seedy Apricot and Sesame Granola, Savory Red Pepper Okonomiyaki Granola. Hmmm...and what would taste good with peanut butter in a granola, I wonder ???

Granola is about to meet my sons, Airman and Ammonite, for the first time in their short, protected lives. It will soon (I hope) start getting too warm for good old porridge, and my schedule this years means that some days I leave the house before they eat breakfast. That means Granola. The plan is: Home-made Granola. The design criteria are: no teeth-breaking BLOs (bolt-like objects). Nobody must develop diabetes as a result of granola consumption. Total cost of ingredients must not exceed household income. I'm just off to the supermarket, where I hope to decide whether to go for gingery granola or cocoa-y granola ingredients. Documentation to follow... (Actually, blush, granola is not a first for me, because I spent all my undergraduate years within the "dust-zone" of Auckland's Northern Roller Mills. We quickly found that a sack of oats was much cheaper than the equivalent quantity of bread. Shortly after that, we discovered that no price was too expensive for bread.) However, I've thoroughly forgotten all that, so kindly consider my personal granola history as a kind of Japanese history textbook, write me down as an absolute beginner, and share your favorite granola recipes and methods with me, please!

You sold 100 doz. stuffed blintzes????

Ooooh, I found the "better method"! For one cup of tapioca (or sago), bring 6 cup of water (with a little sugar if you like) to the boil, pour in dry tapioca a little at a time, stirring, and boil gently for 5 mins or so till little outside of tapioca granules are clear, then slam lid on, turn heat off, and leave for around 15 mins till all white centers have turned clear. Pour 3 cups of cold water into the tapioca, stir gently, and either pour into molds, or into syrup and chill.

I've never lived where cake mixes are that common, and after you bake a few cakes, it's no more hassle to bake from scratch and have one more bowl to clean up than it is to bake from a mix and end up with a pile of floury, sticky sachets and boxes. BUT. I did use a sponge-cake mix a few years ago to show my kids how to beat eggs and mix/bake, because it allowed them to concentrate on the process, not the ingredients. Next time round, they bought and measured the ingredients themselves. As luck would have it, I had to rush back to NZ over their birthdays, , but the boys and my husband were able to bake the birthday cakes themselves using the mix . That's who and what mixes are for, right?

Didn't you pay attention to the Japan Times cartoon over the weekend that showed an overtime-benumbed worker treading on his son's legos like a mountain ascetic firewalker???? A pity you didn't have more fun (skiing, dancing, etc.) while fracturing your foot, but hope you enjoy your enforced reading time. We made more than enough Moussaka the other day to count for your share too . Possibly eGullet could arrange international shipments of Dan Tarts for you to assess while you're unable to bake your own?

Egg for bentos is usually well seasoned, which helps it to keep. Proportions: 2 eggs, 1 tab dashi stock, 1-2 tabs sake, 1 1/2 tsp - 1 1/2 tab sugar, 1/3 tsp salt. Dashimaki (rolled omelet) is more lightly seasoned, atsuyaki (thick baked egg) or a sturdier rolled omelet needs the heavier seasonings. These omelets are cooked in separate layers, and I think that exposing each thin layer to the higher heat at the bottom of the omelet pan probably helps ensure that the egg is well cooked. Even so, I use less stock and more seasonings in summer, and I don't include egg at all at the height of summer (when temps are round 100deg.F.) Summers are hotter in Japan than they used to be, and people use vacuum-sealed plastic lunchboxes (as in my photo), which can keep the lunch at a dangerously warm temperature. Aluminum is better, because the lunch cools more rapidly, and these days, many people pop a frozen handwipe towel (or Kris' favorite frozen edamame in the bag!) or frozen drink on top of the lunchbox to cool it further).

Today's bento...nothing fancy with the rice, as husband likes it plain! Sorry about the giant photo, changed my software and haven't got used to the new one yet... Umeboshi and shiso-pickled myouga were made during last summer's eGullet blog! Green shiso seed pickle was bought. Egg rolls with sausage, wakame and small shiitake (cheap at the growers!) stirfried in sesame oil with shoyu/mirin, green pepper dressed with katsuo flakes, pack of concentrated miso soup with freeze-dried spinach to go with it.

I almost never get cracked skin as long as I use soap to wash dishes in, and save detergent for greasy items only.

I agree that there is no shame in buying plants rather than sowing seed - especially if your windowsill is too hot/dry or too dark, a growing plant with some muscle on it is more likely to survive the season. Mint...plants such as mint which normally like damp conditions seem to do better when there are other plants around them, which presumably keep the air just a little moister. That said, if I don't transplant my herbs pretty quick, they're all going to be dried herbs!

Photos too, well done! Husband's and my bento for today was rice with pickled cucumber and umeboshi, omelet with scallions, leftover Moussaka from last night and boiled daikon sprouts . Can't wait for payday (It's 2 months since my last payday...). As for Misa...post #73 above!

I haven't made these in a looong time, and when I did, I used a long-out-of-print book written in Japanese by a Chinese chef. The pastry is a shortcrust, cut out with a fluted cutter. Maybe this is because the book was aimed at Japanese home cooks of 2-3 decades ago, who were still pretty oven-shy in those days and not familiar with pastry-making. The custard always cooked up to a nice yellow color partly caused by mixing but not beating/aerating egg mixture (but possibly high sugar content helped create glossy, intense color??), but this could depend on how yellow the yolks of your eggs are. A western book advised cooking tarts at a high temperature (200-220degC) initially to ensure that the bottoms of tart cases are not soggy. I've found that method successful. Here's the recipe I use, if anybody wants to compare (since it's no longer available in print). In Japanized Chinese, "Tan Taa" 200g flour 100g shortening (I suspect I used a mixture of butter and lard). 2 tab sugar 40-50ml water Rub fat into flour/sugar. Add water and mix roughly, cover and rest in fridge 1 hr. 140g sugar 200ml water 2 eggs (approx 120g total) 2 tab condensed milk (unsweetened Snow Brand "Evermilk" is used in Japan, but with all that sugar, does it really matter if it's unsweetened or not?) Bring sugar and water to a boil and make a syrup, cool. Add condensed milk to mixed (beaten but NOT whipped) egg, and mix gently together WITHOUT allowing to become foamy). Strain and set aside. Roll pastry out to approx 1/8 inch thickness and cut out rounds. Heat empty tartlet tin/cases in preheated oven, remove and drop pastry rounds into them, fill 3/4 full with egg mixture, and bake at 180degC for 10minutes. I really doubt if I ever preheated the empty tartlet tins when making these, especially teflon coated ones!