Bamboo shoot (takenoko) article in the Japan Times

This month’s Japan Times article is about bamboo shoots (takenoko in Japanese, written either as ??? (‘child of bamboo’) or ?). Vacuum packed or canned bamboo shoots are available year round these days (and it’s the only way many of us can eat bamboo shoots at all), but fresh bamboo shoots taste better and have a much better texture. If you have a chance to get a hold of one, I hope you give one a try! There’s also a recipe for takenoko gohan, bamboo shoots with rice. The usual way is to cook them with finely chopped upr aburaage (thin deep fried tofu), but you may want to try the bacon variation I have written down too. The salty-fattiness of the bacon goes very well with the crunchy texture of the bamboo shoot.

This is a display of premium bamboo shoots on sale at a store in Kyoto. They were impressively big. Digging out such big bamboo shoots is awfully hard work, but with bamboo shoots, the bigger ones tend to be more tender-crisp rather than fibrous.

I remember going on a takenoko digging trip when I was a little girl with my aunt and cousins in the Chichibu mountains in Saitama prefecture. The big bamboo shoots need to be dug up with a sharp, angled digger like this one:

As I said, digging those beasts out is very hard work indeed. (You can’t just go into the mountains on your own by the way — you can only dig with permission.) Us kids were not allowed to touch the digger since it was too dangerous, so we were relagated to digging around the shoot and pulling it out. Were the fresh bamboo shoots worth it? Well…not for an 11 year old. But I guess I might think differently about it now…although my lower back may have strong objections.

View the original article here

Artisanal rice and "ancient" heirloom rice in The Japan Times

This month’s Japanese Kitchen article in The Japan Times is about a quietly growing trend in Japan: artisanal rice. Rice farmers had been protected by the government for decades, but now those protections seem to be set to erode even more (they’ve already been reduced quite a bit). One way some farmers are coping with this is to concentrate on making high quality, organic rice only. The rice produced like this is still in very short supply (the farm I mentioned, Nonki Farm in Harie, Shiga prefecture, has already sold out of most of this year’s harvest) and expensive, but I think it’s a trend that is set to increase. Japanese rice farms are usually quite small, and can’t really compete on the price level with cheap imported rice that’s grown on vast fields in the U.S. or China. So…why not go high end? I’ve tried some of this year’s new harvest rice from Nonki Farm (a variety with the delectable name of Milky Queen) and it was absolutely delicious - sweet, and juicy even, which is a strange thing to say about rice maybe, but it really was that good.

Besides regular rice, some farms are growing heirloom varieties of rice. The photo above is a closeup of a mixed bag of such ‘kodaimai’ or ancient rice varieties. Here is some regular rice cooked with a handful of the kodaimai mix. The black rice turns the white rice purple. Taste-wise there isn’t a big difference, although the kodaimai is mochi rice (sweet rice) so it adds a stickier texture.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the article: Demand Booming for artisanal rice. (I wouldn’t say it’s booming yet exactly…that was my editor being enthusiastic. ^^; But I do hope it booms!)

Incidentally, the “nonki”(??) of Nonki Farm means easygoing, carefree and optimistic. What a lovely name for a farm, don’t you think? We should all be a bit more nonki.

View the original article here

Dried veggies and more (kanbutsu) in The Japan Times

This month's Japanese Kitchen column in the Japan Times is all about kanbutsu (??). The word kanbutusu just meands "dried things", and a kanbutsu-ya as I wrote in the article is a traditional store that specializes in dried foodstuffs. While there are all kinds of dried foods, in the article I concentrated on dried vegetables, which are a great source of fiber. The salad featured there has kiriboshi daikon, shredded dried daikon radish in it, which is full of fiber. It has a rather pointed odor when it's dry, but once you soak it in water or blanch it and rinse it, it becomes quite neutral and easy to use. The salad also has cooked dried beans. One type of canned bean that is sold in Japan that I wish was available everywhere is 'dry' canned - the beans are not immersed in liquid, so they're firmer and more versatile. Frozen beans may be better to use for the salad unless you can get this kind of canned bean product (or you can cook your own of course).

Traditional dried vegetables are seeing a small resurgence in popularity in Japan, and becoming handier to use. Here's a handy mix of shredded dried vegetables that my mom sent me - it has dried daikon radish (kiriboshi daikon), carrots, burdock root and hijiki seaweed in it. Since the vegetables are shredded so thinly, I can use it by just soaking it for a few minutes in water and adding to soups and stir fries and such.

I wrote about dried vegetables some years ago on these pages - see Dried vegetables. Dried vegetables don't get mentioned that much in Japanese cuisine, but they were an important part of the diet of everyday people for hundreds of years.

I was kind of inspired to write the article by some reactions I got to last month's Japanese Kitchen column, where I wrote about shokupan or sliced white bread. I know...Japanese rice is white as snow, and the most commonly eaten type of Japanese bread is also pure white and devoid of gut-cleansing fiber. (Japanese noodles are mostly made of refined flours too.) While things like brown rice and other fiber-rich main carbs are getting more popular in Japan, most people cling to their pure white fiber-free carbs. Eating brown rice (genmai) or whole wheat type breads is one way to introduce fiber to your diet, but so is adding other fiber-rich products, in the form of fresh and dried or preserved vegetables and fruit, beans and so on.

Eating is all about balance and variety, as is life, right? ^_^

View the original article here

All about dashi in The Japan Times

This month’s Japan Times food article is all about dashi. Dashi has been covered on this site many times, but I wanted to write about it for the Japan Times readers because it’s so fundamental to Japanese cooking. If you have any desire to make good Japanese food, you need to know how to make dashi. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult, using the right ingredients. The article also includes a recipe for a dipping sauce you can use with any kind of cold Japanese noodles.

As usual, my Japan Times articles are written for people who live in Japan. Most of the readers of Just Hungry don’t live in Japan, so it may be a bit difficult to get a hold of some of the ingredients I talk about. Just do what you can, really - ma-konbu may not be obtainable where you are, so just get the best quality you can afford. (Good kombu is quite thick and leathery.)

The same goes for katsuobushi, or shaved bonito flakes. The ideal may be to get a whole block of dried katuo, and a special grater.

But it’s a tedious business, and it can be hard to get a hold of the whole bonito or the grater. Pre-grated katsuobushi is perfectly acceptable. Just make sure you close up the bag tightly after each use (or transfer it to an airtight container) to keep it fresher longer.

View the original article here

Umeboshi (pickled 'plum') article in The Japan Times

This month’s Japan Times article is about umeboshi, the sour-salty pickled fruit (usually called a pickled plum, though it’s actually more related to an apricot) that’s practically a national symbol.

I’ve written quite a lot about umeboshi on these pages before of course, including how to make your own if you can get a hold of the fresh ume fruit, following my mother’s instructions. This time though I’ve gone a bit more into my memories of this sour-salty treat growing up, as well as its symbolism. The picture you see at the top of the article is of a hinomaru bento - a bed of white rice with a single umeboshi. It looks rather like the Japanese flag, which is called the hinomaru, thus the name. The hinomaru bento has been alternately a symbol of poverty, and a symbol of wealth. During times of peace and plenty, it was a symbol of poverty; if you could only afford to eat rice and not much else, you could somehow get the rice down with the help of an umeboshi. Even looking at an umeboshi could help, since it got the salivatory glands going. But in times of war, rice itself became a precious commodity. All domestic rice production was reserved for feeding the army during WWII, and while the rich and influential could get their hands on some, regular people had to make do with other grains like millet. After the war, rice was imported from Southeast Asia to make up for deficiencies, but people hated the gaimai (rice from ‘outside’) that was so different from the type of rice they were used to. (See Looking At Rice.) So a hinomaru bento with ‘real’ japonica rice was a coveted luxury.

Nowadays of course we live in times of plenty, and that extends to the umeboshi. Not that many people make their own umeboshi anymore in Japan - and why should they? The variety of umeboshi you can get just about anywhere is staggering. This is the umeboshi display at a typical Tokyo department store food hall.

And here are various kinds of umeboshi on sale. Some are low-salt, some don’t use any red shiso (perilla), some are marinated in dashi stock, and so on.

Prices vary wildly too. You can get a packet of serviceable umeboshi for 100 yen, at the 100 yen shops like Daiso or Lawson 100, or ultra-gourmet varieties that cost 500 to 700 yen and more per umeboshi.

I know, I have not been updating here much again. I don’t know what to say, except that I’ve not been feeling too well. My energy is way low, my back keeps hurting, and now my eyes are bothering me a lot. The last one really cuts down on my online time. All this is attributed to the cancer treatments and so on, and is supposed to get better with time. I certainly hope so. T_T

View the original article here

Sashimi, raw eggs and more in The Japan Times, plus raw proteins elsewhere

My Japan Times Food article this month is about all the raw proteins Japanese people like to eat. You probably know that Japanese people like raw fish (in the form of sashimi, and as a topping for sushi), and raw eggs (on rice or noodles) - but did you know that we also eat raw horsemeat, beef liver, and even chicken? Read more about it here. The accompanying recipe is a how-to for making a great plate of sashimi.

A couple of photos that didn’t make it into the article: Here is a plate of katsuo or bonito sashimi. Lean katsuo is in season in Japan right now, and it’s one of my favorite types of fish to enjoy as sashimi. Instead of wasabi, grated ginger, garlic and/or finely chopped green onions are the preferred condiments. Raw garlic on raw fish, you say? It’s really good. Just don’t have it before a job interview or a first date. (Incidentally, since someone asked, all the photos that accompany my Japan Times articles with just a couple of exceptions were taken by me, The Guy or my mom.)

This is a sashimi bocho, a knife for slicing sashimi. It has a long blade, narrow blade (this one is about 30 cm / 12 inches long, but there are even longer ones) which has a minimal surface area to come into contact with the fish. It’s nice to have one of these but not totally necessary unless you eat a lot of sashimi. A santoku type knife (with the little indentations all along the blade, like this one) does a good job too. Any knife you use has to be very sharp for clean slices.

Since English speakers who live in Japan are the primary readership of The Japan Times, the articles I write for them are aimed at people who are in Japan. All the buying recomenndations and so on are for Japan.

However, the primary audience for this site, Just Hungry (and JustBento too) is people who have an interest in Japanese food and cooking who don’t live in Japan. If you look through the archives here, you wll notice that there are very few recipes that feature raw proteins. Most of my sushi recipes on both of my food sites use cooked or smoked fish, other cooked food like aburaage (fried tofu skins) or vegetables. (Sushi does not mean ‘raw fish’ after all; it refers to the vinegar, salt and suguar flavored rice used.)

This is because I want my readers to be able to make my recipes without having to worry about food safety. I believe that the basic rule of thumb is: Unless you are really experienced in sussing out how fresh a particular food is, if your country or community’s food supply chain is not used to supplying a particular food to be consumed raw, don’t risk it. And if you’ve seen ‘cook thoroughly or else’ type warnings issued by the government or industry associations, be really wary.

Take raw eggs or undercooked for example. Raw eggs are eaten on a daily basis in Japan, even for breakfast. And in France, a properly cooked omelette is baveuse, soft on the inside. In both countries I do not hesitate to eat eggs in all their runny glory as long as they are fresh, because if people got sick from eating eggs in the way they are used to there would be a huge uproar. On the other hand, in the U.S. the American Egg Board recommends that “Eggs should be cooked until the whites are set (completely coagulated and firm) and the yolks begin to thicken (no longer runny, but not hard). Scrambled eggs and omelets should be cooked until firm throughout with no visible liquid egg remaining.” Not to get too political on you but this smacks of “covering our asses against lawsuits and our substandard ways of manufacturing eggs” to me (can warning labels on egg cartons be far behind?) - but in any case, if you do choose to eat raw eggs in the U.S. you may want to stick to pasteurized eggs or eggs you know for sure have been laid in good conditions.

In regards to sashimi, again in Japan everyone eats sashimi at home, and most home cooks know how to sniff out (sorry for the pun) good fish. It’s just part of the culture. If you’re attempting to make sashimi at home, make sure you get your fish from a reputable seller: one that really knows what ‘sashimi grade fish’ is. Most Japanese grocery stores are fine, as are good fishmongers such as Citarella in New York. See also: Making your own sushi? Proceed with caution, which I wrote back in 2007. Not much as changed since then. Personally, I do occasionally make sashimi or sushi at home because we have a really good local fishmonger, but I’ve learned how to discern what’s sashimi-suitable from my mom and the chefs at the New York sushi restaurant she used to manage, where I hung out a lot. Teaching this kind of thing over the internets is pretty hard unfortunately, as much as I’d like to.

As I mentioned in the article, last year Japan was rocked by an e.coli scare caused by raw beef, served as yukke or yukhoe (a Korean dish) served at cut-rate yakiniku (‘grilled beef’) restaurants. It turns out that the beef in question was not sold to the restaurants as being fit for consumption, and furthermore had not been handled properly. Raw beef was not widely consumed in Japan except at speciality restaurants until fairly recently, when Korean food exploded in popularity and discount yakiniku restaurants proliferated all over the country. I don’t know about you but eating raw beef at a discount eatery does not sound like a good idea.

As the weather gets warmer in the northern hemisphere, food safety becomes more of an issue. Exercise caution and let’s all stay (or in my case, get) healthy this summer.

View the original article here

Eating sakura (cherry blossoms and leaves) article in the Japan Times

My latest article in The Japan Times is about edible cherry blossoms and leaves. Japanese people love the cherry tree so much that not only do they eagerly look forward to their all too short flowering season each spring, they use the whole plant. They eat the berries of course later on (cherries are called sakuranbo and are in season in June and July) but they also eat the blossoms and the leaves, pickling them in salt and umeboshi vinegar (a by-product of making umeboshi). The wood is used for various things too, as well as the bark. See how sakura bark strips are used in the making of magewappa (bent wood) bento boxes here on JustBento. The bark is also boiled and used as a medicinal tea.

Some photos that didn’t get into the article below.

This is how salted/pickled sakura leaves and flowers are typically sold. The flat package contains leaves, and the jar has flowers. You can find them in well stocked supermarkets or in department store food halls in Japan around this time of the year.

Closeup of some cherry blossoms straight out of the jar. As you can see they are quite salty, so for most uses you need to soak them in water for a bit. But for sakurayu or sakura tea, just put a blossom or two in a cup of hot water. The ‘tea’ is salty and sour with a subtle fragrance.

The easiest way to enjoy the taste of sakura in Japan is via wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets). This is a sakuramochi - an an (sweet bean paste) filled mochi cake wrapped in a sakura leaf. The salty-sour taste of the leaf is a perfect foil to the sweetness of the cake inside.

Here’s another kind of sakuramochi; the mochi cake is made of Doumyouji rice, which is medium grain instead of short grain.

How the sakuramochi looks inside. It’s a nice couple of bites.

This is a sakura manjuu. The filling is an again, but the dough is different from mochi (but still made with rice). The top is decorated with sakura flavored salt. You can also find sakura manjuu with a salted cherry blossom on top.

Finally here is a sakura-flower shaped nerikiri, a delicate confection made just from smooth an. Beautiful, isn’t it? It doesn’t actually taste like sakura, unlike the more rustic sakura mochi and sakura manjuu, but it’s meant to enjoy the season via the eyes. This one is from Kagizen Yoshifuka, a famous old tea room in Kyoto that I have written about previously a couple of times.

You can also buy seasonal sakura flavored candies, chocolates and the like but to be honest, most of these are pretty but just taste like sugar.

I have noticed that a lot of people (at least in my circles) are travelling to Japan this spring. This is a good thing. If you’re in Japan or planning to go there soon, enjoy the sakura season!

View the original article here

Setsubun and beans article in the Japan Times and food superstitions

This month’s Japan Times article is about the traditions and superstitions surrounding Setsubun or Risshun, the first day of spring, which is coming up on February 3rd. The focus of the article is on the tradition of mamemaki, or the throwing of roasted beans to drive away oni, the fierce evil spirits that embody bad luck. I’ve always wondered myself why beans are thrown - and now, through my research, I know. It’s really fascinating to find out about all the rituals and traditions of yore, and I get to explore them at depth through writing about them.

While I did know about the bean-throwing tradition, and I have previously written about the ehoumaki tradition of eating a fat, uncut sushi roll which has become popularized all over Japan in recent times, I didn’t know about the tradition of hanging grilled sardines (iwashi), until I talked to my mother about it. I’d never heard how she and her siblings used to hang sardine heads under the porch when she was growing up. I love the idea of the neighbohood cats coming to feast on the anti-evil fish heads in the middle of the night, probably thumbing their paws at the silly superstitions of humans.

Here is a lucky setsubun meal with grilled sardines, stewed beans, and mame gohan (soy beans cooked with rice), something they ate in my mom’s small hometown in Saitama.

The recipe for the beans and rice is in the article. By the way if you live in Japan or nearby a well stocked Japanese grocery store, you can buy canned cooked soy beans. These will cut down your cooking time considerably.

And speaking of beans - aren’t these gorgeous? Can you believe that three of them are variations of soy beans? The ones on the upper left are regular white-beige ones, the ones on the upper right are green soy beans, and the ones on the bottom are red soy beans. (The beans to the left and right are azuki and kuromame or black beans). They are big, round and absolutely delicious. They were sent via my mom by Kamo Dofu Kinki in Kyoto, who makes spectacular soy milk and tofu from them. (Read more about Kamo Dofu Kinki and their tofu-centered restaurant, Sosoan.) Ah, I’m missing Japan so much right now.

The main memory of setsubun that I have as a kid is going to the local Shinto shrine and trying to catch the bags of roasted beans the priests threw while chanting oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi. I would always get an upset tummy from eating too many of those roasted beans, but they were so good.

And finally: remember my stepfather dressing up as Santa for Christmas? It looks like he has more plans for dressing up…

Japanese traditional culture is chock full of food related rituals, superstitions and beliefs. How about your culture? What kind of food related traditions does it have, and what are their meanings? One that comes to mind for me in Western/European culture is the one about spilling salt being unlucky, and throwing a little pinch of it over your shoulder to counteract that bad luck. What are some others? The more regional and obscure, the better!

View the original article here

Mochi and New Year's article in the Japan Times, plus a very rich buttery mochi dish

I am a few days late posting this, but this month’s Japan Times article is about the traditions surrounding mochi or omochi, the sticky pounded rice cake. Mochi is both eaten and displayed in the display alcove of Japanese homes through the New Year’s holiday period (which usually lasts until the 3rd). The main display piece is a kagamimochi, or “mirror mochi” (read the article for the origins of that name). I didn’t get to include a photos of a kagamimochi in the article, but here’s a nice photo of a typical modern version by David Z. from flickr:

As you can see, the satsuma or clementine on top is plastic, and the mochi itself is sealed in a plastic container, which keeps it fresh for eating later. In the olden days the mochi stack was exposed for days, developing cracks along the surface. Some people interpreted the cracks to mean the year would be good or bad. The modern plastic-clad version is not as picturesque, but it probably is a lot more hygenic.

Ready-to-grill dried mochi cakes are easy of course, but if you want to make mochi from scratch and you don’t have a mochi making machine, here is my method for making mochi with a heavy-duty mixer, such as a KitchenAid. I’ve tried this many times and it always comes out pretty well! Although I do have to watch my mochi intake..they are basically compressed and condensed white rice - pure carbs. Ouch.

Speaking of caloric…did you know that the bland taste of mochi is a perfect foil for very Western ingredients such as cheese and butter? When I was a kid, my sister and I used to love making ‘mochi pizza’ - pre-grilled mochi spread with ketchup (we didn’t have pizza sauce in Japan back then), topped with shredded cheese and a bit of Italian seasoning.

I saw the original version of this buttery mochi dish on a Japanese TV show about a small nori maker. I’ve since tweaked it quite a bit, using brown butter (or in other words, letting the butter cook a bit more until it’s browned) which I think improves it quite a bit. The nori maker’s wife said it was her favorite way to enjoy mochi. No wonder - it s is absolutely delicious…and so very bad for you. Not the best thing to start off a new year filled with good intentions maybe…so perhaps save it for a special occasion, like surviving the first day back at work/school.

Serves 1 to 5.

5 square mochi cakes (available at a Japanese grocery store in the dried foods section) 1 stick or 4 oz / 120g unsalted butter (see recipe)1 Tbs. soy sauce 1/2 cup (approximate) chopped green onion 2 sheets of nori seaweed, crumbled

Pre-grill the mochi cakes on a mochi grill, or in a toaster oven or regular oven. If using a toaster oven, cook the mochi cakes for about 5-7 minutes or until they puff up, and are blistered and slightly browning on the surface. (The puffing will deflate once you take them out.) If using a regular oven, preheat it to 400°F / 200°C , put the mochi cakes on a baking sheet lined with kitchen parchment paper or silicone baking sheets to prevent sticking, and bake for 5-10 minutes until puffy and blistered. If using a mochi grill, put the grill on a burner set to medium-low, plop the rice cakes on and watch then puff up. Flip over once.

Melt the butter in a hot frying pan over medium heat until it starts to brown a bit (for a more detailed description of how to make brown butter, see Elise’s method). Drizzle in the soy sauce - be careful, it may spit a bit.

Put the grilled mochi cakes in the pan in a single layer and cook until the mochi starts to just brown a bit and the whole thing smells caramel-y and marvelous. Flip over and cook for another minute. Be careful not to let the butter burn.

Transfer to a plate, pouring any residual butter over the mochi. Sprinkle the crumbled nori (your hands are the best tool for crumbling) and green onions on top. Serve while piping hot, making sure each mochi bite is well covered in that butter. Tell yourself you’ll go on a diet the next day.

If you use salted butter, reduce the soy sauce to 1/2 or simply omit it. You can season with a little salt instead of soy sauce.

If you don’t like nori, the green onions alone are pretty good. Or try…crispy bacon and green onion. Really.

View the original article here

Sweet potatoes (satsumaimo) in the Japan Times, plus an update

This month’s Japan Times article is about sweet potatoes*, which are called satsumaimo in Japanese. Satsumaimo means “potato from Satsuma”, referring to a region of southern Kyushu which at one time was very powerful and influential. In the article I wrote about how the sweet potato played an important role in saving the people of the Edo (old Tokyo) region from starvation, and how there are still several Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples dedicated to honoring the sweet potato. There’s also a recipe of course, for ringo kinton, a wonderful sweet-sour dish. (And the recipe for the daigaku imo or “university potatoes” mentioned is right here.)

I also talk about the cry of the ishi-yaki-imo-ya or stone roasted sweet potato seller. I looked around on YouTube and sure enough, some people have uploaded videos where you can hear some ishi-yaki-imo-ya in action.

When my family moved back to Japan from the US (where we’d lived for a year; prior to that we lived in the UK for 4 1/2 years) when I was 11, we lived for 2 school terms in Mita, an area in Minato ward in central Tokyo, while our house in Hachioji was being renovated. Mita was and still is a place with many foreign/expat residents and several embassies, and the apartment building we lived in was right opposite the Italian embassy. I don’t know who was in charge there, but they apparently hated quite a lot of things about everyday Japanese life. They lodged a complaint with the management of our building about unsightliness of the futons being hung out on the balcony railings (Japanese people like to air out their futons every sunny day if possible), not to mention the laundry. (I guess because laundry hanging out is associated with poor tenements in Italy?) Another thing they objected to was the ishi-yaki-imo-ya’s sing-song announcement on his loudspeaker. The building management had no spine, and issued an edict to all residents of apartments on the embassy side to refrain from putting out their futons (which the residents revolted against, and only about half complied with). Bt the ishi-yaki-imo-ya ignored the requests to pipe down the announcements, thus risking an international incident. Good for him, we all thought. I loved rushing down from our 5th floor apartment to buy some piping hot potatoes wrapped in newspaper from him.

Anyway, I hope you check out the article!

(*I know a lot of people call them ‘yams’ in the U.S. too, but I find this very confusing since another totally different kind of root vegetable is also called yam, so I stick to sweet potato.)

I’ve been home now for a few days (they let me out on Tuesday, and it’s now Friday). The operation went very well, and while I still have quite a lot of pain I’m doing ok. I’d like to thank you for all of your wonderful well wishes! I’m quite overwhelmed. I’m going to be allowed until January to heal up, then the doctors will evaluate my need for radiation therapy and so on.

While my body is getting better, unfortunately I received some really bad news literally 10 minutes after getting home. My father, who lived in New York, had passed away over the weekend. I was in a state of shock and panic for a couple of days - I knew I couldn’t travel right away, and Max was all set to go on my behalf - but my sister Meg, who lives in Florida, has been an absolute star and been able to handle things as best she can. I’m hoping I’ll be well enough to travel to the memorial service in a couple of weeks. My father’s death was sudden, though not quite unexpected - he had a serious case of diabetes, but was doing quite well recently. We think that he passed away suddenly without pain, so that at least is a relief. I will try to write a bit about my father at a later time. (Oh, and I know there are quite a few fans of my mom who read this site - she and my father split up years ago, so she’s not grieving or anything, though she said she’s much sadder than she thought she’d be.)

In the meantime though, I’m going to try slowly posting again, though the pace will be rather slow. Writing is actually therapeutic for me. Please don’t worry that I am in deep mourning or anything like that, although I am of course very sad. It may sound cold, but I was never that close to my father, unfortunately. (If you read this I guess you got an inkling of that.)

What a year it’s been. I’m really hoping for a much quieter 2012. ^_^;

P.S. My father loved sweet things, including ishi-yaki-imo.

View the original article here

A recipe for katsudon, plus tonkatsu and pork in The Japan Times

My October article for The Japan Times is all about pork in Japan, with a recipe for tonkatsu. Tonkatsu is arguably the best known pork dish from Japan, though there are plenty of others, since Japanese people eat almost as much pork as they do chicken and beef combined. I also delved a bit into the historical relationship between meat, especially pork, and the Japanese people. For instance, you’ll see how Buddhism-influenced official edicts discouraging or even outright banning the eating of meat were circumvented by some - they just said meat was ‘medicinal’! Anyway, I hope you check it out.

I already have a (rather old) recipe for tonkatsu on this site, but I’ve given more detailed instructions and a different method for frying the tonkatsu (in two stages, at two different temperatures) for a crispier coating.

As an aside, I’m really proud of the frying photos we took (The Guy took care of the lighting and so on, while I did the ‘styling’, which mainly involved keeping the breading looking as clean ss possible.) Looks great, don’t you think?

No you don’t want to be eating deep fried foods all the time. But on occasion - why not?

Katsudon, which means ‘cutlet (rice) bowl’, is a popular variation on tonkatsu. You could make it with leftover tonkatsu, though it’s much better with a freshly made one of course. If you do make it with a leftover tonkatsu, reheat it in a dry frying pan, the oven or an toaster oven (not the microwave, where it will turn tough on the inside and soggy on the outside) until heated through ahd re-crisped.

Per serving:

1 bowl of hot steamed rice1 tonkatsu, freshly made or reheated, sliced2 medium fresh eggs, lightly beaten1/2 small onion, sliced thinly50ml / about 1/4 cup dashi stock, or water plus a pinch of dashi stock powder 2 teaspoons soy sauce2 teaspoons sake (leave out if you can’t use alcohol) some chopped green onion or mitsuba leaves for garnish

This cooks very fast, so make sure everything is ready to go before you start.

Put the hot rice in a bowl. Arrange the tonkatsu slices on top.

Put the onion and dashi in a small pan and bring up to a boil. Add the soy sauce and sake. Boil another minute.

Add the eggs and start beating with chopsticks vigorously. Your aim to is to have very loose, soft scrambled eggs (though if you are not sure about the age or provenance of your eggs, cook them a bit longer). When the eggs are still loose, pour them over the rice and tonkatsu.

Add garnish, and eat immediately while piping hot. You should have to blow into your bowl as you eat to cool it down.

View the original article here

Kyoto jo-gashi (wagashi) and iced matcha in the Japan Times

This month’s Japan Times article is about the elegant world of Kyoto jo-gashi, or high end wagashi (traditional Japanese pastries). The online version is divided into two parts: the main article The nostalgic and sweet life of Kyoto, and then the recipe-of-the-month, Serving green tea in your home which is actually about making iced matcha. You probably know that matcha comes as a bright green, very fine powder. If you’re into making matcha, you may already have a chasen, the delicate bamboo whisk that is used to mix matcha with water. The whole mixing process is a critical part of the taa ceremony, and it’s very beautiful. But you aren’t conducting a tea ceremony, you don’t need a chasen to make great matcha, especially iced! The easiest, though rather inelegant, way to mix the fine tea powder with water hot or cold is to just dump both in a cocktail shaker, as I suggested in the article. Close the lid and shake vigorously- voila, foamy smooth matcha! (Incidentally, I suggest boiling the water first and then cooling it down because that gives the tea a slightly cleaner flavor if using tap water. You can use bottled water if you like instead.) You can use a jar or any container with a tight fitting lid instead. Alternately, use a small whisk - I have one that I got in a cake-making kit aimed at kids - an whisk well until the tea is combined. You can make matcha latte by substituting warm or cold (if you’re doing iced) milk for all or part of the water.

I’ve already written about Kagizen Yoshifuka as part of my Postcards from Kyoto series. It’s one of my must-stops whenever I’ve in Kyoto. The interior of the shop is surprisingly modern - but then, Kyoto has a number of very nicely designed modern retail spaces.

I ran out of space for the addresses of the places I mentioned in the article, so here they are if you are interested in visiting them when you’re in Kyoto:

Kagizen Yoshifusa main location: Higashiyama-ku, Shijo-dori, 264 Gion-cho Kita-gawa. Tel: 075-561-1818. 5 minutes walk from the Keihan Shijo Station. The tea room is open 7 days 9am-6pm; there is a store in the front for purchase of hannamagashi and higashi. 2nd location at Koenji. Demachi Futaba: Kamigyo-ku, Demachi-dori Imadegawa-agaru, Seiryu-cho 236. Tel: 075-231-1658. 5 minutes walk from Demachi Yanagi Station. Takeout only. Kamo Mitarashi Chaya Honpo (main store): Sakyo-ku, Shimokamo Matsunoki-cho 53 (opposite the entrance to Shimokamo shrine). Tel: 075-791-1652 20 minutes walk from Demachi Yanagi Station, or take the Kyoto City Bus to Shimokamo Jinja-mae stop.

Check out my Google map of Kyoto also (I do need to update it; I have so many other places to add to it.)

View the original article here

Setsuden article in The Japan Times, plus suzumi or 'keeping cool' the traditional way

In my Japan Times article this month, I talk about setsuden or cutting down on electricity use, a critical topic this summer in Japan due to so many power plants (both nuclear and otherwise) being offline temporarily or permanently. This is not just in the devastated Tohoku region, or the Tokyo-Kanto region that TEPCO covers, but nationwide. With daytime temperatures nearing 40 degrees celsius already, it may be a long and difficult summer in Japan. Hopefully the article will give some ideas for making setsuden a bit easier, and even a little fun. (Incidentally, I’m sort of hoping setsuden becomes a widespread word; it’s so compact and descriptive, much better than ‘cutting down on electricity use’, isn’t it?)

Since my Japan Times article is in the Food section, I do focus on things you can do in the kitchen, but there are other low- or no-electricity ways to keep cool too. As I mention in the article, many department stores in Japan have set up suzumi or “keep cool” product sections, where they sell a lot of traditional items that help you feel a bit cooler. These range from things like fans, absorbent towels, bedding and handkerchiefs, to more aesthetic things like fuurin or wind bells. I bought the one pictured here and in the Japan Times article in Asakusa, Tokyo. They’re called Edo Fuurin, and they have been made in the Asakura area since the feudal Edo period. (Yep, even in modern Tokyo some traditional crafts are kept alive.) It’s very thin handblown glass, handpainted with irises. They had other summery designs too, like morning glories, hydrangeas, and goldfish.

Goldfish are associated with summer because they are, or at least used to be, a ubiquitous part of any summer festival or omatsuri. I remember trying to catch those elusive goldfish with wire rings lined with the weakest ever paper. If I managed to catch one, I would carry it home proudly in a little plastic bag of water, and dump it into a bowl…where it would live for a week or so at most before dying (I had no idea about filtering the water, etc.) and I had to give it a fishie burial.

Here’s another suzumi item - a little strap or netsuke to hang from a cellphone or, in this case my coin purse. It’s shaped like a tiny glass eggplant-shaped fish bowl, and it has a miniscule goldfish and a gold coin inside. It doesn’t physically cool you, but looking at such a cool, cute item does perhaps make you feel a tiny breath of imaginary cooling air. It’s resting on another traditional item that helps to keep you cool, a woven cotton cloth called a tenugui, which is used in all kinds of ways, including just to wipe off sweat.

In any case, if you happen to be visiting Japan this summer, do be aware that trains and stores are not blasting the air conditioning as much as usual. You may want to carry a little fan with you to keep cool. Japan has terrific absorbent handkerchiefs, made of toweling and cotton gauze and things like that, which are great for mopping your brow with. And why not look for little, cool suzumi items too? You may learn a little about Japanese traditions as you combat the hot, sticky weather.

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LA Times' Pandan Chiffon Cake with Coconut Glaze

LA Times' Pandan Chiffon Cake with Coconut Glaze - Burnt Lumpia: Filipino Food | Filipino Recipes | Culinary HijinksBurnt Lumpia: Filipino Food | Filipino Recipes | Culinary HijinksLumpia FillingAbout Burnt LumpiaFilipino Food Recipe ArchiveLinks Get My FeedWelcomeRecent PostsLA Times' Pandan Chiffon Cake with Coconut GlazeRat Tails in the GardenIf Elvis Were Filipino...Picnic for the Planet & Some Fried ChickenHomemade Ube Pop TartsTwo Words: Done DealBanana 2 ConferenceFourGambas for Game DayFilipino Food Bloggers Featured on "Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho"CategoriesAdobo RecipesBeefBeer, Liquor, & WineBL OriginalsBL Restaurant ReviewsCookbooksDessertsFruits and VeggiesHow to Make LumpiaKalamansiLasang PinoyMy Cookbook!On The GrillOtherPancit (Filipino Noodles)PorkPoultrySeafoodThe BL FamThe Manila MachineTravelUbe RecipesVinegar (Suka) « Rat Tails in the Garden |Main

May 10, 2011LA Times' Pandan Chiffon Cake with Coconut Glaze

Walk into most any Filipino bakery (in the U.S. and in the P.I.) and you are just as likely to find a display of brightly decorated chiffon cakes as you are to see the plain-jane likes of freshly baked pan de sal and ensaimada.

Big chain Filipino bakeries like Golidlocks and Red Ribbon, as well as smaller mom and pop joints, all crank out various frosted, iced, and overly sugared chiffons ranging in flavors from chocolate, to mocha, to mango, to pandan, to macapuno, and the ever-popular (and ever-purple) ube. Heck, my family even loves the neon tropical chiffon cakes (passion fruit & guava!) from King's Hawaiian bakeries.

Yup. We Pinoys loves us some chiffon cake.

But how on Earth did an American cake come to be such a popular dessert amongst Filipinos? Well, probably in the same way that spam, ice cream, and hamburgers made their way into the Filipino culinary landscape--American tastes and food products crossed over to the Philippines during the American occupation of the Islands in the first half of the 20th century. Ever since then, chiffon cake (and spam, and ice cream, and hamburgers, and many other things) has stuck with us. Ah, colonialism!

Anyways, when the LA Times recently ran this story on chiffon cake (and provided recipes for a basic chiffon as well as chocolate, hazelnut-orange, and pandan-coconut) I knew I had to dust off my angel food cake pan and give one of the Times' chiffon recipes a try. Although I considered ube-fying the basic recipe for chiffon cake, I decided to instead give the pandan-coconut recipe a whirl (my cup runneth over with a crapload of ube recipes).

Not neon green, but still full of flavor

The Times' recipe for Pandan Chiffon Cake is simple enough, with the only possible curveballs coming in the form of pandan leaves and pandan extract--both of which, however, I was able to easily find at my friendly neighborhood Filipino market.

Throwing some pandan leaves and water into a blender provides some instant grassy-nutty goodness in the form of pandan juice. With the freshly blitzed juice and a touch of the bottled extract, the chiffon cake takes on the familiar Filipino flavors of pandan. And to top things off, a simple mix of coconut milk and powdered sugar provides a coconut glaze to complement the pandan.

Chiffon Marbury

The resultant cake was moist, delicate, and rich all at once--immediately negating my need for any future chiffon runs to Goldilocks and Red Ribbon.

To make this Pandan Chiffon Cake with Coconut Glaze, you can find the LA Times recipe here.

Also, I have a few other Pandan Recipes in the Burnt Lumpia Recipe Archive-o-matic:

Pandan Ice Cream

Pandan-Poached Asian Pears

Pandan Old-Fashioned Cocktail

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Comments

Sweet! With chiffon cake so readily found, I usually opt for the easy way and just buy. But this pandan cake with coconut glaze just sounds and looks too good to pass up on trying. Thanks for sharing!

Posted by:Tracey@Tangled Noodle |May 10, 2011 at 08:38 PM

I saw this recipe this week and toyed with the idea of making it, too. Maybe not the pandan version (at 9 months pregnant, I probably wouldn't last long among all the little ol' ladies at the Seafood City), but maybe the simpler version with a coconut glaze while I wait for the baby...Anyway, looks good!

Posted by:Lorena |May 11, 2011 at 09:57 AM

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Spring vegetables article in the Japan Times

I seem to have vegetables on my mind a lot these days - it is springtime after all. This month’s article for the Japan Times is all about spring vegetables that are more or less unique to Japan. You may know about takenoko or bamboo shoots, but do you know fuki, and warabi, and udo? And did you know that the young leaves of the wasabi plant are a great delicacy, only available in the spring? Well…read and find out!

If you are in Japan, you can get these vegetables is to just go to your local well-stocked supermarket or department stall food hall. Unfortunately, as far as I know most of these vegetables are not available outside of Japan, unless you grow them yourself or are very lucky and find them at a Japanese grocery store or something like that. (But most readers of the Japan Times live in Japan so I can get away with writing about only-in-Japan things a bit more there ^_^;.) I don’t even know if you can get the seeds for them. You can get the roots of some things, such as fuki (butterbur) or wasabi and try your luck. My mother used to grow a ton of fuki in her garden on Long Island, NY. It even became a bit invasive. So if you can get some roots, give it a go!

I have to admit that as a kid, I used to hate all of these wild vegetables, especially fuki and fuki no tou, because of their bitterness. Now I crave them. Modern hybridized vegetables seem so uniformly bland, that it’s rather nice to have a zing of extra sharpness or bitterness from varieties that have not had all the bite bred out of them.

Here are some more spring vegetables sold at the Nishiki market in Kyoto and Tsukiji Jougai (outdoors) market in Tokyo these past couple of weeks. (I’ve written about the Nishiki Market here, but not about the Tsukiji Market. And I should, because all in all I prefer the more raucous Tokyo market. I’ll get to it soon.)

So, this is from Nishiki Market. If you can read hiragana, see how many unfamiliar vegetable labels you can make out. ^_^ For instance, I have no idea how “aloe shoots” (aroe no me) are supposed to be eaten, or that they were eaten at all.

Another from the Nishiki Market. On the right are some gorgeous looking mitsuba - you should be able to get mitsuba at least at well stocked Japanese grocery stores. On the left are bunches of flowering wasabi. I’ve never had these but I imagine you prepare them the same way as wasabi leaves (called wasabi-na in the eastern part of Japan, ha-wasabi in the west).

This display is from the Tsukiji outdoors market. (Outdoors or jougai means it’s outside of the wholesale area, where the famous fish auctions take place. Tons of little shops line the streets and are worth a trip even if you can’t get into the wholesale area.) The main thing on show here is kogomi, a mountain vegetable similar to warabi. You can also see gyouja ninniku in the back right - these are sort of like bärlauch or wild garlic.

And finally, some pretty nice looking wasabi roots for sale at Tsukiji, in case you’ve never seen the real thing.

The Japan Time article has a recipe for tempura using some of these spring vegetables. Another way to enjoy them is to simply blanch them (some vegetables need special de-bittering treatment, which is described in the article) and serve with a dressing. Here’s a little dish of blanched nanohana with the thinly sliced raw mountain udo core. Udo is a bit like parsnip; the outer part is a bit tough, and the core is tender and nice eaten raw in a salad. The sauce here is sumiso, a mixture of white miso, vinegar and a little sugar.

As I say in the Japan Times article you don’t want to eat a big amount of these vegetables, but in small quantities they are really wonderful, a sure sign of spring.

The very fact that these vegetables are even eaten at all (tree shoots? Fern sprouts?) shows how resourceful people used to be - or maybe how desperate they were for food. Kind of puts those people panic-buying cup noodles from convenience stores to shame. Anyway…eating these bitter vegetables is a reminder of our past, not only in terms of our food culture, but showing us what we are capable of.

View the original article here

Hinamatsuri (Girl's Festival) article in the Japan Times, plus my aunt's antique hina dolls

The new Japan Times article by me out today is about Hinamatsuri, or Girl’s Festival, which falls on March 3rd. I’ve talked about Hinamatsuri on this site previously, but the article goes a lot deeper into the traditions and origins of the day, which is to celebrate the well-being and happiness of girls and women. There is also a recipe of course - for a Hinamatsuri-colored spring chirashizushi (scattered sushi), which is great for parties since it’s so easily scaleable. I hope you check it out! (If you’re looking for daintier, but fiddlier, Hinamatsuri-appropriate sushi, try shell-shaped Hamaguri zushi, or little ball-shaped Temari zushi.)

Hinamatsuri is a day for girls. There’s also a day for children on May 5th (Kodomo no hi), but I guess to the people of the olden days the only children that counted were boys, because just about all of the Children’s Day traditions are boy-centric! Only households with boys are supposed to put up a flagpole flying koinobori, or carp-shaped wind socks, and the only doll displayed is of a little warrior. Growing up in a household with only sisters, I always vaguely resented the colorful koinobori flown by our across the street neighbors, and never related to Children’s Day much. Girl’s Day on the other hand was just for us.

Although the Japan Times article is mostly focused on the food-related customs of Hinamatsuri, I also talk a little about the centerpiece of the day, the hina dolls. The prince and princess dolls (odairi-sama and ohina-sama) shown in the article belong to my aunt - they are an antique set she inherited from her mother-in-law. Here’s the complete display. There’s the newlywed prince and princess flanked by two lanterns (bonbori), three ladies in waiting (san-nin kan-nyo), 5 musicians (go-nin bayashi), and two bodyguards or soldiers, one an archer and the other a spear carrier. The three bearers of goods on the bottom rung accompanying the princess’s dowry chests are rather unusual - most sets don’t have them. (The custom of bringing a chest of drawers (tansu) with you when you get married still lingers today, especially out in rural areas.) Then there’s the couple’s wedding feast trays with bowls, and two peach trees, one in full flower and the other one with fruit.

Even the most expensive and elaborate modern hina doll sets with handcrafted dolls made of wood or ceramic and real fabric, are let down by the cheap-feeling plastic accessories that come with them. They look okay from a distance, but up close they are well, plastic. This set on the other hand has real lacquered wood and cast-porcelain accessories. According to my aunt, the set originally belonged to an aristocratic family, who had to sell it in the postwar period when their finances got tight. It was most likely custom made for the family in better times. It’s quite fascinating to imagine all the little girls who must have taken out these dolls every year to display and admire them, so many years ago.

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Toshikoshi Soba (year-end soba) article in The Japan Times, plus a bit about my niece and nephew

I’ve had an article with recipe in The Japan Times every month since August. Writing for them is a bit different than writing for my blogs; I try to focus more on the story behind the food, and I also write for English speaking people living in Japan, who are the main audience for the paper. It’s an interesting challenge every month! Anyway, for this month I have an article about Toshikoshi soba, or year-end soba. It goes into a lot more of the historical background and origins of the custom of eating soba noodles on New Year’s Eve than my old toshikoshi soba post from back in 2003. The recipe is also a bit different; instead of using pre-made kaeshi or storebought mentsuyu, I give instructions for making the soup totally from scratch using konbu seaweed, bonito flakes, soy sauce, mirin and sugar. Again I’m assuming that most of the readers have ready access to these ingredients, as well as the kamaboko topping. Anyway, I hope you’ll take a look!

I’ve used my favorite eating-model again for the top photo accompanying the article, my 9 year old niece Lena. (I’ve spelled her name phonetically as “Rena” on these pages before, but she apparently favors the spelling “Lena”. Her name in kanji is ??.) I love my nephew Lyoh, her older brother, just as much of course, but he tends to pull awful/funny faces when I point the lens at him, as boys will do. Lena-chan is a great model; she loves to pose for the camera when she’s aware of it, and when she’s not she has the most adorable, intent look on her face. Here she is eating some sushi. She’s checking under the fish for wasabi, since she doesn’t like it.

Lena and Lyoh are both great kids, though I may be biased as their aunt. They are quite rambunctious and can start a wrestling match in the back seat of their dad’s SUV at the drop of a hat, but they’re definitely not kids that their parents are afraid to take out to a restaurant at any time. Even when they were younger, they knew how to behave themselves. Here’s Lena-chan eating soba again when she was just 6 years old, with my mother looking on fondly. Even when she was little, she had great table manners.

I spent a weekend with my sister, her husband and the kids at Hakone, a popular resort area at the foot of Mount Fuji, in November. We ate out a lot of course, and wherever we went the kids behaved themselves impeccably. When we went to a kaiten-zushi (conveyor belt sushi) restaurant, Lyoh even ordered some special items directly to the waitress just like his dad. (Tip: if you want to be ensured of freshly made sushi at a kaiten-zushi place rather than sushi that may have been around the track several times, just put your order in for something directly.) I don’t think they are necessarily unusual - most kids in restaurants are quite well behaved, especially in Japan. But I was reminded of how jarring kids in restaurants can be the other day when I was at a cafe, where a set of parents were ignoring the fact that their kids were running around rampant. It happens in all countries, and I really think it’s all up to how the parents react. Lyoh happens to have ADD and some other problems, so he can get a bit agitated sometimes, but when that happens one of his parents talk him down quietly so that he breathes and calms down.

I love this photo of the kids that I took at Tokyo Disney. It really shows their personalities. Lena-chan is trying to pose cutely for the camera, and there’s Lyoh-kun totally ignoring it and jumping up and down, full of beans.

Another fun thing about my niece and nephew is that they both prefer washoku or Japanese food most of the time over Western food. Sure, they do beg for a Makku (Japanese slang for McDonald’s) visit sometimes as all kids do, but not that much. When we went out for breakfast at a diner-type place, the adults all ordered “morning sets” with toast, eggs, and so on, but the kids both ordered traditional Japanese style sets with rice, miso soup, pickles and fish or chicken. When I took them to Tokyo Disney back in the spring, they grew tired of eating things like Mickey Mouse shaped pastries, so their mother went out to get them some bentos, which they tucked into happily. Lena is especially fond of Japanese food. Here she’s eating some mitarashi dango.

I really miss seeing the kids at this time of year, so please excuse my rambling on about them. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!

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