helenjp

Hmm..maybe one reason for the stability of egg prices is the increased demand for both chicken and eggs compared to the first half of the 20th century... Bird flu and food poisoning scares have driven prices up - I can't find eggs at 10 yen each any more around here...premium free range or other designer eggs are more than 3 times that price. Fried eggs ("eyeball-fried" in Japanese) are common, but not especially traditional. Poached are all but unknown, and boiled eggs are either hard boiled, and can be bought at convenience foods, while soft-boiled eggs "onsen tamago" - hot springs style are served with the whites barely coagulated, broken into a bowl with soy sauce (and maybe dashi?? so long since I've eaten them). Probably "iri-tamago" is the most common - usually translated as "scrambled eggs", but actually an omelet which is given a few stirs as it cooks. The great egg mystique which focuses on omelets in western cooking seems to concentrate on the atsu-yaki or dashi-maki styles that Hiroyuki introduced at the beginning of the thread. If you add more sugar and salt/soy sauce and perhaps less dashi than for dashi-maki and stir with several chopsticks until the egg forms large granules as it fries, you get "tamago soboro", used as a topping for bento rice and donburi dishes. A very handy item, as long as you don't overcook it.

cultured butter instructions Very fine response there, andiesenji! I'm curious to see that you place salting of butter as a marketing practice. My (New Zealand) family was mainly Scottish (or rather, the Scots ancestors had beaten out the Welsh and the Irish in terms of kitchen culture, anyway), and I was brought up to recite three times a day "Salt is the god of the Scottish kitchen". Apart from salting our porridge, we were made to understand that shortbread needs to be made with salted butter. I wonder when salting butter became common in Scotland. I like cultured butter best of all, but find it hard to buy, even in NZ.

I hear you. In fact, they are a wonderful sub for chestnuts in a "satsuma-imo vermicelle". As husband's birthday is in October, now and again I make him satsuma-imo filled cakes or Mont Blanc. If you soak the imo to get rid of the sappy stuff, you get a very nice colored satsuma-imo paste too. Maybe satsuma-imo are really designed to be steamed? I like them best that way, when baked they seem dry and crumbly to me compared with the fat kumara sweet potatoes we have in New Zealand.

Hello all, I'm correcting papers now, so the answers will be posted soon... Here are replies to some of the later questions though: White lotus, although there is a type of shiso which has green leaves with red undersides, if you leave red shiso to seed itself, you will get more and more plants with green in the leaves with each generation...unless you care to save seed from particularly intensely colored red-leaved plants. Sansho...you can get leaves by simply sticking a freshly cut chunk of twig/branch in a flowerpot - bunches of leaves will sprout directly from the trunk. Inelegant, but handy. Wasabi...there's a related question under Asian Vegetables on the GardenWeb forum. It can be grown in soil. Citrus - not hard to grow from seed, but you may have a long wait for fruit. If you are in a cool climate, you may get a sturdier plant which fruits faster if you grow your seedling for a year, then cut if off and graft the top to a rootstock such as citrus trifoliata.

So, Torakris, you don't buy those chocolate covered kaki-no-tane? I do like chocolate covered coffee beans, and was sad when they went off the market, but now I see there are imported versions. A real coffee bean in chocolate is not only tasty, it's a good thing to gnash teeth on when working!

Edible acorns (i.e. the preferable ones) "Shii" type trees produce milder acorns. Pasania edulis (Matebashii - probably the pick of the Japanese varieties for eating) Castanopsis cuspidata (Sudajii - a variety which belongs to a group related to chinquapins) Quercus serrata (Konara - harsher, need to be soaked) Take a closer look - lots of these don't look like "oak" trees! tree pix

Beautiful looking dashimaki tamago in the link, Hiroyuki! I used to strain my eggs to avoid white flecks, but I find they sometimes don't set well if strained through too fine a sieve. Do you ever put any filling in your atsumaki tamago? My kids like u-maki with eel (and it's a very economical way to enjoy eel!). Yesterday son2 had a school outing, so he had a cheese and scallion "filling" in his atsumaki tamago. Tarako filling is nice too, but prohibitively expensive for family eating.

I think the weather this year may not have been great potato-growing weather, and the potatoes in the supermarkets this year, which should be at their best right now, don't look great. First we had that very hot weather...likely to cause hollow spots, interrupt growth and create weird-shaped small potatoes with off textures. Then we had cold weather and heaps of rain. perfect to start these mutant potatoes rotting... Time for the peasants to eat cake, I guess!

OK, just for you guys (can you tell I only have half my usual work this week?) I dragged out my Imo no Ryouri book, and reminded myself of all my favorites... ...apart from the sato-imo croquettes which we had last night... I've made sweet-potato croquettes, but find them a little unpredictable - sometimes they are inexplicably stodgy, other times fine. Imo-gayu with sweet potatoes. Definitely a favorite! Sweet potatoes simmered in soy sauce and mirin, sometimes deepfried before simmering. I can take it or leave it...but simmered with soy and mirin AND shreds of kombu, yum! Lightly seasoned nimono with green beans, atsuage, and early satsuma-imo. A big yes on that recipe! Satsuma-imo simmered with lemon, a great bento favorite, and satsuma-imo simmered with pieces of apple - very nice with "yoshoku" pork or croquette dishes. I once made a Chinese dish which had matchsticks of lotus root, sweet potato, cloudear fungus and what not, deepfried tender-crisp, then served in a thinnish ankake. It was a temple style, and it was delicious, and worth it for the special occasion I made it for, but VERY time-consuming. Keep wondering how I could simplify it...

Boiling...I'm assuming you mean "boil and not disintegrate", like cubes of potato in a stew or salad, since you mention mash separately? I've about given up on May Queen, they don't seem to have either the flavor or the texture that I want. I cube the ordinary old Danshaku and soak them in water to get rid of some of the surface starch, then boil them...that stops them disintegrating so much. Japan's very hot summers seem to produce more of the brown/hollow centers than I am used to seeing in cool New Zealand. Many Japanese people firmly believe that Japanese potatoes are the best in the world. I can't figure this one out, unless the criteria for Japanese potatoes is 1) croquettes (mashed then fried) or 2)kona-fuki (boiled, then dry-shaken to set surface starch). In both cases, the potatoes are seasoned quite highly, so maybe the lack of flavor isn't an issue. Newer varieties...there's the Kita-Akari that Kris mentioned, also a rough-skinned potato which I think is called Toya, and a red smooth-skinned potato called Red Andes. However, I see these very rarely!

I know it's probably a bad thing to do, but I can't resist soaking them in cold water for a good long time (1-3 hours), then simmering or steaming them. Soaking them somehow makes them a very bright yellow when cooked, and also removes any "stinky" off flavors (I sometimes detect a sort of beany flavor in sweet potatoes). Since I discovered this, I haven't needed to use kuchinashi when making kinton for New Year.

I feel sure that I'Ve posted about this before, but... while researching to discover how to control a type of hairy caterpillar that was devouring our pine tree, I found that when they increased to plague proportions in Korea they used to be eaten...mostly because the caterpillars ate everything ELSE edible around. Noticing that birds who ate the caterpillars died, the Koreans deduced that the poison was in the hairs. Somehow, they worked out that the correct way to eat poisonous caterpillars is to skewer 'em, roast them, and peel the skin and attached hairs off before eating. Apparently they taste, er, "resinous and piney".

I agree with Anna N...strong, but not indestructible. I wouldn't buy "seconds" with a little chip - I have a round lidded casserole which has chipped and flaked considerably after a very small chip developed somehow. My gratin dish has no flaws however. Both been used for around 25 years (what kind of family do I come from, that gave a teenager cookware?!!)

I have used it for baking, but was too timid to replace the entire quantity of sugar with yogurt sugar packets! It is just enough sugar for one batch of bread though. However, now that I make my own yogurt, I don't accumulate those little packets any more.

Last week's Aera magazine had an article on Japanese wine. I bought it and discovered that they were restricting themselves to wines over the 3,000 yen per bottle line. For goodness sake! If a high-tech nation of gourmandisers can't make decent wine for that price, let them drink Mountain Dew, but what I want to know is whether, unbeknownst to me, Japanese wine-makers are producing decent wines at half those prices. I keep hearing about how the quality of Japanese wine has improved, so if you have da evidence, spill!

Waldorf...the ultimate breakfast salad, I think! Variations that are OK by me are: - cutting the mayo with a sharp yogurt - adding a hint of curry to the mayo if I'm adding chicken - using pecans. Like the sound of green grapes, would include small button mushrooms, halved (though not with grapes)....but no dried fruit for me! ...edited from SHEER NECESSITY...and what would a "Walsorf" salad be like, anyway?

Not sure, but when I make infused spirits Japanese-style, I find that the recommended 3 months maturation is not enough - I usually leave them a year. The less sugar you use, the longer maturation period you need to obtain a smooth flavor.

What was the name of the temple you ate at when you visited Koya, do you recall? I know there is Obaku-sect zen food in that area, but I thought it was only down towards Wakayama city, not in Koya itself. I'll get out my temple cooking books, but it might BE a fig. Alternative guess...desalted umeboshi simmered in dashi and given some kind of treatment, or (maybe - but I wouldn't expect this till winter) a dried persimmon simmered in dashi, etc. Looks like it has an arrowroot coating or even a thin arrowroot dough around it????

I don't remember where I saw it, but I remember a recipe that showed the cook "slapping" the seasonings into katsuo with his hands, with an explanation that this was the "tataki" referred to.

Writing is my business (not that I let it show in my posts...heh heh). I think Reesek has an approach that would inform and intrigue your diners and also work for you - a very simple, clearcut description with ONE special detail! That will give you needed practice in menu-writing if you want to expand your descriptions later, but I think the Reesek touch is just what you want. (Ever been put off ordering an item because you couldn't bring yourself to utter the ridiculous name out loud? )

Tataki kyuuri...can't think why beating the cucumber should improve the flavor so much, but beating a cucumber or three so that they break up into rough-shaped sticks, then dressing them in soy/sesame oil/vinegar makes a great salad.

Interesting! I was mulling to myself on the earlier comment about not adding water to egg wash. I add a very little milk to the egg, and find that it helps the egg adhere to the meat. Maybe the fat content? I'll be interested to try oil.

Can't tell the difference between inoshishi and pork??? I can, especially if it comes wearing all its hair! My previous father in law once toted an entire leg home from his mountain factory, where a local worker had given it to him, and handed it to me to cook I cooked it in miso and sansho, as recommended, but used so much sansho that every mouthful made my tongue go numb. Unforgettable.

Son1 went to a camp in central Shizuoka this summer. He said the green tea really was great (probably more because Shizuoka camp facilities make a point of serving a better quality of tea than is usual at such places!). He brought us back some wasabi-flavored soba. It was great! They were a pale green, and while mild at first taste, they had just enough bite (and some sweetness??) to make a difference. Wasabi flowers pickled in sake lees is another Shizuoka favorite...

Low-carb comfort food - lead me to it! I noticed last winter that I felt the cold - everybody except me thought it was a mild winter. Also for the first time craving sweets and starches - heavy stress recently associated with brother-in-law. I guess that's what carbs are for, but they are just too ready to hand in our society! So, what's the solution? Any alternative pick-me-ups, and yes, what about warm, comforting winter food? I like the turnip idea...anybody know how to tell by looking at a bunch of turnips whether they are going to be tender or fibrous? Regards Helen H