helenjp

In deep deadline panic here, so just one tip... My boys' favorite way to eat them is to grill them with cheese sprinkled on top. They're done when they puff up. Moderate rather than really hot grill.

Wasabi soft-cream is a Shizuoka specialty as far as I know...my son#1 selflessly didn't buy himself one on a school-trip, but saved his pocket money to buy wasabi soba to bring back home so we could all eat it together... edit: oops, wrong son!

Here? Apparently there's a famous ice-cream shop near the Byodoin. Kyoto Pref. best soft-creams...sake, black bean and other flavors! Shinpachi Tea Shop has yuzu soft cream (but gelato only in other flavors, soooo sorry!), shops in Arashiyama (Kyoto) and Osaka. Shogoin tea shop at several Kyoto locations if you feel tempted by cinnamon-matcha. Must get back to work, and my boring cup of coffee...

Freezing it till I feel like using it is probably a good idea! I've tried to make suri-nagashi soups in the past, and they weren't popular...but natto in hot miso soup might pass!

I sometimes (OK, often) let natto get older than I should, usually because we didn't have rice with dinner as planned. Natto cooked in omelets or stirfried with ground pork is pretty good...any other "use it up" ideas?

Oh, *now* he tells me. Son1, admittedly feeling grumpy with hayfever plus a slight cold, tells me that he *hates* the coarser steel-cut oats I bought, and can we please get back to the finer pinhead-style pronto. (Some companies call this Irish Oatmeal, some call it Scottish oatmeal...). Anybody else fond of smooth oatmeal? Fave products? Methods?

Yes, responsible trade is a global issue, not just a Japanese issue. When I started translating, the US was championing free trade. Now, of course, it's big on protectionism. As a NZer, I'm sure my thinking is biassed, but a few years' spent teaching horticulture students in Japan as well as my previous experience translating and interpreting has convinced me that Japan's current protection of agriculture (in both domestic and international policies) is having bad results. NZ's removal of protection was pretty painful at the time, and definitely not perfect, but I feel that Japan's protection is actually destroying the primary sector here instead of revitalizing it. Since Japanese agriculture has such a long tradition of intensive but sustainable cultivation, that's a crying shame.

Printemps in Shinsaibashi, Osaka would be my first port of call for fruit sorbets. It's been 25 years since I was there, so I don't know whether they serve yuzu or not...but the interior of the shop is so unchanged that I teared up when I saw the pics.

I agree about the problems of thermometer readings with shallow fat/oil. You do't want the thermometer tip touching the pan-bottom, but you want it well covered...almost impossible. That's why it's a good idea to pay attention to how the fat behaves at different temps, so you can guess accurately at the temperature - is it smoking, how hot does it feel when you hold your hand about 3-4 inches from the surface, how does a gob of batter dropped into it react, etc. Electric skillet sounds like a great idea. I have no idea how people can deep fry on an electric stovetop...whenever I tried it at my mother's house in NZ, I never seemed to be able to keep the oil hot enough. Gooooo, gas! Deepfrying is all about practice...I've seen my share of burned-but-raw items!

Careful with that dokudami...the very name suggests how strong the "kudasu" (err..."relaxing") effect is, and unfortunately, it can cause powerful intestinal cramping along the way. Dokudami in salad...hmmm..would I be brave enough! Young yomogi Artemisia princeps shoots though...time for me to go hunting again! Recent housing development has destroyed almost all sites, except for the area behind the local temple. Unfortunately I don't want to go there, because every spring the local boys drag stuff out of the temple junkpile and build forts everywhere, and I have a strong feeling that the priest knows who the ringleaders are... The very young tips of yomogi shoots are wonderful in almost any application, from tempura to shira-ae.

A not-very-well-kept secret of the Japanese royal family is that they have for several generations preferred western food. Fishing...I think that the Japanese have pulled their socks up considerably on this one...it's been a few decades since they were dynamiting stuff out of the water to the extent that the islands in the vicinity were unable to catch enough to eat for the next few years. That's partly because Japan is now rich enough to buy imports (from other nations who dynamite...etc), and partly because the whole EEZ concept and resulting legislation is largely a product of the past few decades. I grew up near a minor fishing port, and in the late '70s, we started seeing significant numbers of Vietnamese fishermen setting up businesses. There was constant strife over undersize fish - they saw the local seas as ridiculously cornucopian, and the smaller fish as more desirable for cooking whole anyway. The Kiwi view was that our colder waters slow reproductive rates down, so the rules could not be the same as in tropical waters, and further, the overfished waters off Southeast Asia seemed normal to the Vietnamese, but scary to the Kiwis. One problem with people learning cooking from books and TV rather than off Mom and the old lady next door is that they learn a nationally standardized cuisine which doesn't fit what is actually produced by the local environment. People are also more mobile, so they are faced with unfamiliar local species in the shops. Result: everybody wants to buy tuna, or at least something labeled tuna, because they are not familiar with the taste or methods of preparation for other species, and because they feel that what is on TV must be "the best". Vicious cycle, because of course the shops stock only what the customers buy... Obesity and diabetes, it is certainly sad to see porky Japanese kids, something I so rarely saw a quarter of a century ago. I put it down firmly to sweet drinks and to a lesser extent to ultra-refined snack foods. Japanese parents seem more reluctant to let their kids eat sweet snacks or drinks, but they don't realize how much sugar is in what appears to be a salty snack or a neutral-tasting sports drink, let alone the refined and artificial things that stand in for the straight-up ground grain flours and pressed seed oils of a generation back. Sadly, Japanese (and other East Asians and Polynesians, are genetically highly susceptible to diabetes, and start showing symptoms at much lower levels of obesity than destructive but apparently indestructible whites). But this is way off topic! Japanese rice imports...well, agricultural protectionism is a popular political choice around the globe, however shortsighted! I think there would be only a limited market for other types of rice, which perversely is the strongest argument I can think of for opening the market - how much damage can small amounts of imported arborio or jasmine rice really do to the Japanese producers?! The real damage is the high protectionist prices, which make it cheaper for Japanese families to eat bread made from imported flour for breakfast, than domestic rice. Quality vs. taste...Australian short-grain rice is fine for serving hot or even for sushi (maybe even better than Japanese rice for sushi...) but it cools to dry clumps rather than soft rice. That's not really a quality issue, it's a matter of cultural taste and different purposes. Conversely, Japanese breads certainly sell in western countries, but I can't see westerners giving up their crusty breads for pillowy "shokupan" every day of the week! One thing I'd like to know...as the other Asian Dragons gain more economic power, are their food/food product imports showing the same trends, or not?

Ohba, I come from a supply-side country which is also a heavy importer of finished products - but doesn't have the clout to force the development of those products to fit its own needs. Japan is the only major economy I've seen in detail, and being an interpreter during the 80s and a translator thereafter, I've seen rather too much of the gears going round! Not knowing enough about Nth American and European markets (including those "offshore islands" ), I suspect but don't know for sure that there's an additional level to Japanese importers demands - they won't take onions that are bigger or smaller than a certain size (12-14 leaves); they won't take pumpkins that are bigger or smaller etc etc. They want the product that Japanese growers have traditionally produced in very small-scale, labor-intensive farming, but they want it at mass-produced prices. A Japanese farmer can count the leaves on every runner of every melon plant, and control the number of blossoms ditto, because his "farm" is so small. (I won't even go into the distribution or tax system aspects). It's ridiculous to expect somebody who farms half a valley floor to do the same, especially at the low prices paid, so the result is huge wastage of product. In a country like NZ, it's obvious from the supermarkets that local buyers are only getting export rejects, but at least the produce is not wasted - growers in remote areas with no local markets for huge amounts of monocultured product simply have to toss it out.

Getting back to the original article...of course summer lettuce in Kyushu comes from other places, any lettuce grown at that time of year in Kyushu would bolt - so they either eat something else, or they import. Another Japanese problem (which politicians & bureaucrats are indeed aware of) is the mammoth size of the cities and extreme differences between the size of the centralized urban belts, and that of the depopulated regional cities and towns. In many cases, the major urban areas have expanded at least to their geographical limits (you know, mountains and things), making it very difficult to grow significant amounts of food anywhere near the cities where they are sold. Food miles...this is a big argument used by Japanese growers against importing so much food, but one thorny problem remains...the increasing diversification of tastes has led to armies of little diesel trucks tearing all over Japan with small and inefficient loads, carrying what are essentially specialty and novelty products directly from small producer to individual consumer or small shop. It's the dark side of the famed Japanese high levels of awareness of foodstuffs - so many average Taros and Tetsukos know in great detail when spinach tastes best, what varieties of spinach there are, how to identify a good bunch of spinach, etc. That's a positive thing, but then what happens when a nation gets so rich that every person feels that only the best is good enough? Japan is not so rich now, but today's young adults were children or teens in the consumption-crazy '80s - growing up in newly-rich households doing the newly-rich thing with their food expenditure - and those champagne tastes prevail even on today's beer incomes. What bothers me is the huge power of Japanese food importers, both the global trading companies and the supermarkets/suppliers...they have the clout to bring prices way down, to insist that whole regions in other countries switch to producing one crop to create more efficient supplies for Japanese buyers, and then to suddenly drop that producer and run after another one, wreaking havoc on small and poor economies...Think Tonga, pumpkins, 10-15 years ago...although I don't know details of the situation in recent years and it seems to have stabilized, it looks like Tongan agriculture is now mostly monocultural, under the direct control of Japanese importers...yikes.

Finicky, definitely...a friend of mine has to go to great lengths to deceive her son if she uses frozen meat - he's 10 and he wants it to walk on to his plate and suicide in front of his very eyes, if possible. She and many other housewives feel extremely guilty if they keep fresh food in the house overnight - they *should* buy fresh every day, though of course, it's just a matter of whether it's sitting in their fridge or the supermarket's fridge in many cases. People in Japan are more aware of when fresh produce comes into their supermarket though. Culinista Funny, I feel that Japanese vegetables and fruit fall well within the "looks but no brains" category. When I first saw the vegetable section of a Japanese supermarket, I didn't want to buy anything, because it all looked so dead to me - picture perfect, but not bursting with life. I don't want to eat a leaf that an insect wouldn't even walk over. However, those are my prejudices, and not necessarily any more defensible than Japanese ones. Leafy greens are always fresh though, on cooled trays, misted from above, loosely wrapped but not sealed right up etc. Fish is EXPENSIVE (but then I grew up on the coast). I don't like the sliced fish, it appears to have gone through too many freeze/that cycles to me. Whole fish is often good though - scaled, and comes in neat package with a little sticker saying "We will clean and cut this fish to your specifications", so you don't have to deal with fish guts hanging around your kitchen till next garbage day. Meat...it ain't red because it's super-fresh, but because it's been sprinkled with this and that, as you can tell if you open up a pack of ground meat and see that the center is brown while the outside is freshly pink - the exact opposite of what *should* occur. I applaud the number of minor crops grown on a commercial scale, and the willingness to keep levels of freshness high - (though my friend above works in a high-class supermarket and says they sell their less-fresh produce to bottom-feeder supermarkets or even give it away to staff (and sometimes thence to me, yippee!) rather than taint their own reputation by selling less-than-fresh produce, even at a discount ). I also think that sadly, now that there are at least 2 generations of people who have always lived in apartments, there is a pretty unrealistic level of expectations on how live vegetables or fish are supposed to look. OK...prices...I'll look into it later, because "one pack" is not the same size as one US pack, I'm pretty sure!

I think our minimum temperatures are quite a bit too cold for Pandan to grow, and I don't really have anywhere sunny indoors...I'd be curious to know if anybody *has* grown them in climates with minimum temps below 10degC/50degF.

Noodles got me thinking...how about a cake topped with chestnut paste or some other form of vermicelles? A fan shaped cake would reflect the lucky "8"...but maybe too girly?

I was just thinking...the oats could be nice with yogurt and savory spices/chilis as in this thread... Curd Rice thread Talking of fusion...some grains that I can get in Japan make interesting substitutes for the "real" thing...Barnyard Grass Halva, anybody? Actually steelcut oats halva is starting to sound good, if overindulgent! I have put oats into minestrone type soups and even enjoyed eating them! How about steelcut oats avgolemno, inspired by Jensen's "avenotto"? Blondie, I'm sure climate has a lot to do with good oats, glad you've found your favorite!

Funny you should ask that I was just logging on to record the results of the Hungry Boys Cold Chicken for Lunch Taste Test. Dorothy's Chicken won hands down! Dorothy's Chicken was too greasy for me yesterday, but it was certainly the crunchiest today, and the surface wasn't greasy. The yogurt/buttermilk types were OK, but the coating was softer and lackluster - but still very acceptable - son1 said "I'd want Dorothy's chicken for the lunch, then the other for a little light ( ) snack after lunch"! Maybe the unleavened flour needs tweaking...I know that Japanese kara-age is also supposed to be unleavened, but many, many people swear it's better *with* a little lift. Funnily, th spices and oniony taste that were so nice warm yesterday seemed quite dispensible in today's cold chicken (probably needs to be more highly spiced for eating cold). Clean-up tip: if you're not going to save the flour, drain the oil from your fryer, leaving the dirty sludgey stuff. Sprinkle the flour into that - flour absorbs a lot of oil, makes clean-up a lot easier. Even left-over batter is good at cleaning greasy pans.

Kara-age chicken, depfried, looks a bit anemic in the photo??? 3 types of fried chicken, L to R... *yogurt/sour milk marinade, airdried crust, shallow-fried with cover. Yellowish color due to turmeric and other spices. *yogurt/sour milk marinade, airdried crust, shallow-fried with cover. Oil temp too hot... *Dorothy's chicken. Shallow-fried with cover. Very crisp crust, bit oily due to frying in oil rather than fat. Really appreciated seeing everybody's pix and comparing different steps. (Sorry about picture quality, just started using different editing software). I think I used more oil than some, even for shallow-frying.

...it just doesn't look *quite* as nice as a Shuttle Chef on your dining table!

Fifi, thanks for the comment on the oil. Glad to know, because I wondered myself if it was related to the "greasiness". It wasn't very greasy, there was no oil gushing out etc., but it was definitely heavier than the kara-age. I guess that's why kara-age was developed, because it suits oil-frying. The buttermilk/ airdried flour was a better choice for oil than Dorothy's recipe. Interestingly, the frying smell didn't bother me at all when I deepfried the kara-age. But as soon as I started the shallow-frying the smell became overpowering... wonder why? I must take a look for some frying fat here, because I have the same thoughts about frying donuts in oil...last I saw, the biggest pack of "shortening" was the size of a butter stick!

Oh yeah, just wanted to add...that I agree with what everybody else said! I like the safety aspect very much, and the fact that it doesn't need electricity means you can put it anywhere you want. A big point in a small house!

Eden, I think goat yogurt would work fine. In retrospect, I think that the time my chicken went off in the marinade, I was using straight milk -- now I know to use soured milk or yogurt (or buttermilk of course), and a bit of salt doesn't hurt either, of course!

OK. I been an gone an done it. Now I'm too tired to post photos, will add those tomorrow (after all, I was trying to complete my tax return while frying 4 different types of chicken...finally found the darn tax certificate in my DS2's calligraphy homework...coulda rested there undisturbed till doomsday if he'd been left in charge ). So now that I'm back from the 24 hour post office ... #1 Kara-age I made this more carefully than usual, looking at the notes on the thread Torakris referenced earlier here. Oh, but it was so good. Boys gobbled it up, but claimed their tummies weren't up to southern-fried...I thought, having 11 & 13 year old boys, that I could trial an unlimited amount of fried chicken without problems, but I *would* pick the day everybody has a cold with a slight tummy upset . Kara-age is deep-fried immediately after it is floured, no egg involved. It was lighter to eat than any of the southern-fried versions. #2 Dorothy's chicken. Water/baking powder 24 hour marinade, egg-water dip, seasoned flour with leavening. Fried with cover. This was far and away the crunchiest, but possibly (not sure) the batter also seemed the oiliest (but maybe it was only the tax return on a funny tummy, a terribly indigestible combination...). #3 Yogurt/sour-milk, mild seasonings Salted yogurt and soured milk 24-hour marinade, seasoned flour (no leavening), sat for 1 hour plus, fried with cover. I messed up. I let the temperature get too high...breast meat was very dry...pieces had dark discoloration. Oops. Buttermilk marinade needs a slightly lower temp than Dorothy's chicken. #3 Yogurt/sour-milk with grated onion, highly seasoned Salted yogurt and soured milk with at least 1 tab finely grated onion and mustard powder in 24-hour marinade, seasoned flour (no leavening) with paprika, oregano, cumin, coriander, turmeric (I was in a hurry, no finessing sorry). Sat for 1 hour plus, fried with cover. Yeeess! I lowered the temperature a bit, kept a sharp eye on it. Flavor wonderful but mellow, texture good, crisp but not shatteringly so. Points. Salt I'm not sure how much salt I added to the marinade...maybe 1 tsp per cup, but possibly only 1/2 tsp per cup. Added 1 tsp salt per cup of flour, and this was not excessively salty. I was wondering why salt was an issue, because Japanese kara-age is not that salty, but I wonder if the rather greasy (though crisp) southern-fried coating just needs more salt to set it off?? Temperature I didn't use a thermometer, but think Dorothy's chicken did need around 350deg, the buttermilk a tad lower. Covering This was a big surprise to me..."lid" and "fry" just didn't go together in my mind!! However, previous shallow frying has resulted in bullet-like objects, so I'm convinced. Coating I was most surprised at how "battered" the results appeared. I expect this is partly because the pan is covered, so some steaming takes place. I was expecting (from previous experience) the plain milk marinade version to be quite tasty, but the overcooking destroyed the delicate yogurt taste, and it was bland as well as dry(later: much less dry when cold despite overcooking...that milky marinade must be effective). Version #3 was much better - didn't taste the oregano, but the onion and mustard and spices in the batter were fine. I used a "weak" cake flour (mixed with potato starch for the kara-age). Oil I used canola oil for both deep and shallow frying.

I hesitate to say it, but when I tasted organically grown wholegrain oats, I was amazed at how much flavor they had. I'd buy 'em again, if I could find 'em. I thought the McCann's taste had a lot to do with the crunchiness (not hardness) of the grain, so toasting a cheaper grain before cooking it would likely improve the flavor quite a lot. Oats sold in bulk??? I should be so lucky! I'm definitely on to try the toasting method, but will probably toast it dry and gradually add water to the same pan. Butter - porridge is wonderful served with a little salty butter or even Chinese/Japanese sesame oil and some toasted sesame seeds. Good peanut butter's not bad either. Dates sound fantastic! I don't like reheated porridge myself, because it seems to lose a lot of flavor. Milk...guess this is a personal preference. I sometimes make porridge with half milk/half water, because all milk is a bit gluey for my taste. Do you guys pour milk on your hot porridge? I used to hate porridge until I discovered that it was the lukewarm milk on the cooling porridge that was the problem! Microwaving...do you think it's better than pot-boiled if you prefer a really chewy texture? I like it cooked a bit longer, and also have 2 big sons to feed, so the microwave doesn't speed things up for me. Oatmeal stout...I hear about it, but I don't see it! <sob>