10 years.

Ten years ago, I was working as a web designer and developer, and was rather burned out. While I had been blogging for a few years already, my personal blog was mostly about things like web development and tech things and the like. So on a whim, I decided I was going to start a blog about one of the main obsessions in my life, food.

I had a discount coupon for a blogging service called Typepad. I opened a generic looking site, with the domain name of maki.typepad.com and wrote this post. I didn't even get around to registering the domain justhungry.com until a bit later.

Ten years have passed since then. A lot has happened, personally and professionally.

I'm now a full time writer.

I have a bestselling cookbook under my belt.

My husband (The Guy) and I have had a lot of ups and downs, even a separation, but we are together.

We moved from the suburbs of Zürich, Switzerland to a sleepy village in Provence, France. Along the way we were homeless for about a year and a half.

There was a huge, devastating earthquake in Japan, that changed my feelings about my home country forever.

We lost my mother in law, Martha, in 2007.

And my father, Masamichi, in 2011.

I got cancer. And recovered. And...now I have it back again, a bit.

Through it all, and despite several lapses in regular updates, this site has been a constant presence. The many readers who have been supporting it throughout the years have been a source of inspiration and strength to me even during the toughest times.

Ten years is a very old age for a blog I think. It's still here, and so am I.

Thank you to everyone who has read these pages, and sent me support in the form of comments and emails. I couldn't have done it - in many ways - without you.

Here's to more years to come!

By the way...The Guy just surprised me with this. I couldn't wait to take it out of the box to take a photo.

I think I'll keep him, too ^_^.

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Osechi (New Year's Feast): The Next Generation

I wasn’t able to make it back to Japan to spend New Year’s Day with my family, since I’m still not fully up to the enduring the rigors of a long flight by myself and The Guy is too busy with work to go away for an extended time. So my mother sent photos of the feast they had. I’m really sorry I missed it, since it marked the debut of the next generation of chefs in our family preparing food for an important holiday in a sense. In previous years my mother took the lead in making osechi ryouri (traditional New Year’s food), but this year that role was taken on by my sister Mayumi and my 11 year old niece Lena. They started making everything 3 days beforehand and brought everything over to my mom and stepfather’s place in juubako, which are large stacking bento boxes. Lena-chan was very much a little princess until just a year or so ago, but she’s growing up so fast in so many ways it’s amazing.

This is one layer of the juubako, containing onishime - a melange of winter vegetables, dried shiitake mushrooms, konnyaku and other items such as fried tofu and chicken simmered together in dashi. Lena-chan helped to prepare the vegetables and make the twisted konnyaku pieces. (For instructions for how to make the twisted konnyaku, see this page. For a simmered dish that’s similar to onishime, see this recipe.) The golden brown things in the background are spring rolls, which are not exactly traditional for New Year’s, but were pronounced as delicious by everyone. (Here is my recipe for Japanese style spring rolls.)

The next layer has a variety of things. Clockwise from top left: burdock root (gobo) wrapped in beef; kobumaki - semi-dried herring called mikaki nishin wrapped in konbu seaweed, tied with kampyo (dried gourd strips), and simmered; pink-and-white kamaboko; datemaki (egg and fish paste roll); and some slices of regular tamagoyaki. Mayumi and Lena-chan made it all except for the kamaboko and datemaki, which they bought.

They made even more osechi items, to eat during the New Year’s holidays. Basically osechi items keep for several days, so you can take out a little at a time and enjoy them during the holiday period, so the cook of the family can take a little break from kitchen chores. On this plate, clockwise from top left there is boiled shrimp; nibuta (simmered pork - see my nibuta recipe here); some kind of simmered tofu (I don’t have the recipe…I’ll have to get it from Mayumi); simmered dried scallops; some ‘chicken ham’ (recipe for chicken ham or torihamu here); more datemaki; and two simmered satoimo or taro root (how to cook satoimo).

And here’s even more osechi. Clockwise from top left theres some large kuromame (sweet black beans); a selection of simmered items from the onishime - kouya dofu or kohya dofu (or koya dofu) (freeze-dried tofu; see more about kouya dofu here), carrots and atsuage or deep fried tofu (more about atsuage and other types of tofu); another kind of kuromame using small black soy beans; kinton, or mashed sweet potatoes with syrup and chestnuts; and more onishime items - dried shiitake mushrooms, burdock root (gobo) and lotus root (renkon). In the center are two chicken dumplings or tsukune (recipe for tsukune here). In the background is a bottle of celebratory sake, an essential part of the whole feast of course. The label carries a saying: ????????? (warau mon ni wa fuku kitaru) - “Good luck comes to the gate (household) that laughs”.

As if that weren’t enough, they even made some futomaki or fat sushi rolls. Lena-chan was responsible for the actual rolling, and I think they look pretty great.

My mother and stepfather contributed a a plate of nigiri-zushi to the meal. Sushi is not at all traditional to the New Year, but more and more people are enjoying it these days.

I’m really sorry I couldn’t make it there this year, but maybe I’ll be there with the family in 2014, and to taste Lena-chan’s osechi for myself.

In the meantime though I’m sort of glad that the holiday season is over. Maybe the workers will finally, finally finish up the construction work on the house so we can get to enjoy it fully without having to clean up the dust all the time and push back dropcloths to get at stuff. One can dream….^_^;

Happy New Year everyone!

View the original article here

Kamaboko, the Star of Year-End and New Year's Feasting

In the last column of the year for The Japan Times, I’ve written about the symbolic meaning of the many items in osechi ryouri, the traditional New Year’s feast eaten in Japan: Savor the symbolism at New Year’s.

I’ve written about osechi on this site previously also - Everything in osechi ryouri, where I also confess that I don’t actually like most of the items in osechi that much personally! I’ve also written about toshikoshi soba or year-ending (or year-bridging) soba, which is eaten on New Year’s Eve.

One item that’s often included in both toshikoshi soba and osechi ryouri is kamaboko (?? or ????), a rubbery and firm fish cake that also makes its appearance year-round in everything from ramen to bentos. While in its natural state it’s a creamy white in color, it often comes dyed, pink being the most common coloring. It’s also the forerunner of other types of food that have become more famous around the world.

Since red and white (kohaku) is a very lucky color combination in Japan, alternating pink and white slices of kamaboko are seen often in osechi.

This is an ad from a high-end kamaboko maker, which puts gold leaf on their special occasion kamaboko. The brown color comes from lightly grilling the outside of a formed kamaboko cake.

Many regions of Japan has their version of kamaboko. It used to be made with white freshwater fish as well as sea fish, but nowadays it’s mainly made with white sea fish such as cod and various cod substitutes, together with some kind of starch - usually potato starch, but sometimes other starches from corn or wheat are used too. Here’s a type of kamaboko made in Toyama prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, which combines the white paste (called surimi) with konbu seaweed. The green coloring is pretty unusual too.

Most kamaboko has shaped like a half-moon or demi-circle on top of a small piece of wood. As a child I used to collect these bits of woods (called kamaboko-ita) and use them for school projects. I even once made a small bookshelf out of kamaboko-ita for my desk, although it and the desk are long gone now. Kamaboko comes in many other shapes too.

When red and white kamaboko are formed into a rolled spiral shape before steaming, it’s called naruto or narutomaki. You may have seen slices of naruto floating on top of a bowl of ramen. Some instant cup noodles even include freezedried versions. This page has a good picture of naruto. I don’t think the anime Naruto comes from narutomaki though - naruto also means ‘whirling water’.

Kamaboko is also the forerunner of crab sticks or fake crab meat, which is called kanikama or “crab kamaboko” in Japan. The same type of surimi or fish paste is flavored to ressemble crab, extruded into crabmeat like strands, dyed and formed into sticks. Kanikama was first made by a fish processing company in Ishikawa prefecture, which neighbors Toyama prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, in 1973. Apparently it was never meant to be faux crab meat, but a different kind of kamaboko. I think that as long as you think of it as a kind of fish sausage and not as well, imitation crab, it’s fine. But since it’s become so popular worldwide there’s a lot of really bad crab stick out there, so you need to shop around.

Getting back to kamaboko: Since it is so flexible and rubbery in texture, it can be cut into all kinds of decorative forms. This image is from the Kibun site. (Kibun is a major kamaboko and other processed foods manufacturer.)

Indeed, decorative cutting of kamaboko is the forerunner of another kind of decorative food cutting that has become known worldwide these days - the decoratively cut weiner sausage.

The simplest ways to enjoy kamaboko are to just drop a slice or two on top of a bowl of hot noodle soup, or to enjoy slices like sashimi with plain rice. It is not something you can make easily at home (believe me, I’ve tried) so if you have a Japanese grocery store, buy a half-moon pack, slice it up and enjoy!

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