It’s terribly hot these days. Actually, it’s in a rainy season in Japan and rains a lot. But I hate this humidity…In such a hot day, I don’t want to use ‘fire’ for cooking! Just sliced raw bonito, marinaded them with soy, milin, sake, and ground sesame. Put the vinegared rice like sushi rise in the bowl and covered with bonitos, shredded ginger, shiso leaves and nori. So simple!
Archive for the ‘food’ Category
Katsuo-don(かつお丼)/The Bonito bowl
Posted in food, tagged bonito, bowl, donburi, katsuo on June 28, 2010 | 10 Comments »
Soramame
Posted in food, tagged edamame, soramame on June 8, 2010 | 8 Comments »
Soramame そらまめ
Do you have this bean? So cute, huh?
I boiled them with salted water like edamame and took them for a snack.(Maybe, it’d be nice for a beer. Unfortunately, I don’t drink!) Soramame has slight bitterness and much more hokuhoku than edamame. How can I say hokuhoku feeling in English. Hokuhoku feeling is like potato. Not soggy.
Kids don’t like soramame so much because of its bitterness, but they like to peel off pods. The pod of soramame has something fluffy inside like cotton.
It seems like a bed for soramame, doesn’t it? Yes, there’s the series of story for kids called as “Soramame-kun/Mr.Soramame “.
Sorry, I ate them up!!
Kimpiragobo/きんぴらごぼう
Posted in food, tagged kimpiragobo on May 13, 2010 | 2 Comments »
I don’t know if in any other countries you eat burdock. Do you? I guess it has a bit strange flavor like earth for someone, but I like to eat it as kinpiragobo or tempra. It has also some bitterness, so you should soak them into water for a while, but don’t leave them too long, or its flavor will be gone and then taste just like a bark.
I made it with only vegetables but you can add beef or ham if you want.
Kimpiragobo
They’re still dirty when you get it from a store to keep its freshness, so wash well and peel its skin but thinly, again, don’t take off its flavor. The skin does have the flavor! The grannies would say no, if they saw I use a peeler. They used to rub off the skin with a back of a knife not to remove the skin too much.
It's hard to cut, so shave it like a pencil. Soak them into water for about 5 minutes.
See? The water became tea brown because of bitterness of burdock.
Some chopped carrots and green peppers
Stir-fry with sugar, sake, milin and soy-sause.
Voila!
Clockwise from top, fish fries(kibinago), sashimi(hamachi),kinpiragobo,tofu,miso-soup(deep-fried tofu and daikon)
The price of veggies is increasing.
Posted in food, life, tagged cabbage, vegetable on April 26, 2010 | 6 Comments »
The price of vegetables is increasing incredibly due to the lack of sunshine!! For example, one whole cabbage costs 499yen, approximately 5.3 US$. Seriously….
Momo’s gonna turn 6!
Posted in food, life on April 11, 2010 | 17 Comments »
Can you believe this? That piggy Momo can ride on a bike now!
6 years later
On the next 14th, she’s gonna turn 6. We had the party last night, since it’s good for her grandparents to get together, and we all rewound memories of her with watching photos and videos. Strange to say, for me, they seemed like someone’s memories, not my daughter. I’ve already forgotten how she was crying or how she was laughing as a baby. I remember those incidents in the videos and photos, but I might be able to recall them because they were taken there. I remember these incidents were happened, but I don’t know exactly how I was feeling at that time.Fortunately, from these photos and videos I can see how much I have been proud of her, loved her since I got her and wanted to keep that moment forever in my mind. I should thank for myself of at that moment otherwise I might have forgotten even her baby face! How fast time goes by! How fast they grow!
I baked this 'creepy-berry cake' for her. She really loves strawberry. I wonder I might be 'dot-phobia' or something. Eww!
Trip to Awaji island
Posted in food, life, tagged Akashi Kaikyo bridge, aradaki, Awaji, ikezukuri, seabream, tempura, Ume-maru on April 1, 2010 | 14 Comments »
We had a one-day trip to Awaji Island crossing the world longest cable suspension bridge called ‘the Akashi-kaikyo brige’. My father took us to the hotel called “Umemaru/うめ丸” where you can take only lunch in the Japanese style room and take a hot-spring spa, too. The Umemaru hotel has the cource meal of a sea bream which is one of the famous local products of Awaji-island.
Let's go!!
Gross? No! It’s the freshest phase of seafood since it’s still alive!!!! If you are shocked with sashimi with its head, you must be sick when you see the video I put on below. So, you don’t watch it. However, this style of sashimi is called as ‘Ike-zukuri’ and is supposed to be very special. All of us were excited with joy seeing its tail was jerking, except my son. He lost his appetite.(My daughter was poking it cheerfully! oh my..)
They were baked and then steamed. Very soft and juicy.
The thinner type of sashimi called 'Usu-zukuri'
Sazae
Tempura. That shrimp was SO delicious!
The simmered dish of its head and tail is called 'Ara-daki'
The room where we stayed in
You can take a hot spring upwels from under ground of the hotel.
Now, are you ready for the still living sashimi vedio??
My croquette (Japanese taste)
Posted in food, tagged croquette, minced beef in Japan on March 26, 2010 | 14 Comments »
Do you like a croquette? I love it! It’s a very common menu for a daily supper in Japan, too. Especially, before the paycheck!! I usually season them with soy-sauce,sake,sugar,mirin(cooking wine)and pepper while I’m stir-frying minced beef with pork. I should tell you that in Japan they usually have minced beef with pork. At the supermarket, there are many packs of minced beef with pork with a couple of different sizes, but you can’t find a large pack of beef ONLY. If you want it, you have to ask a shopman to pack it for you. I don’t know why. Maybe, it’s too pricey for daily use for the Japanese. Beef is expensive, so it is supposed to be eaten in a solid shape. Do i make sense? I don’t think so. How should I put this? To mince beef is a big deal for the common Japanese. That’s why the McDonald Japan says “Our patty is made of 100% beef!” loudly. How do you think? Do you make a hamburger with minced beef with pork?
"Let me do that messy work!! I love it! "
Nori jam(Seaweed Jam)
Posted in food, life, tagged aksahi, edomurasaki, gohandesuyo, nori, nori jam, nori no tsukudani, yakinori on March 13, 2010 | 11 Comments »
This black thing is Nori no tsukudani (海苔の佃煮）that is seaweed jam simmered with soysauce, sugar, sake and mirin(sweet cooking wine). Have you ever had it?
I made it at the school event of my son. My son is now learning about the industries in our own town, and this event is related with that. My town, Akashi city is located beside the inland sea, and famous for nori(seaweed) products.
It’s not difficult to make nori jam from scratch at all. You tear nori sheets into pieces and damp in water a while. Then put them into boiling liquid ingredients and simmer gently in low heat until it becomes like jam.
Use nori sheet NOT seasoned! You can find two kinds of nori sheets in a store. One is seasoned called ‘Ajitsuke nori (味つけのり) , the other one is called as ‘Yaki nori’ (焼きのり）or ‘Ita nori’ （板のり）those are not seasoned. You have to use ‘yaki nori’ for nori jam. Here is the ingredients for it. You can try!
*Yaki nori 5 sheets
*saysauce(Koi-kuchi) two tablespoons
*sugar one tablespoon
*sake one table poon
*mirin one tablespoon
*water 100cc
If you want to taste it at first, you can find these bottles of jam in the store.
In the sea in front of my town, there are many aquafarming nets for nori. Nori is cultivated, harvested and made up in sheets. Do you know how they harvest nori? They use the special ship for it that is called ‘moguri-sen/もぐり船 like this.
Moguri means to sink. Literally, the ship goes through under the farming net and cuts seaweed. Then seaweed is made up into sheet shape and used for sushi, onigiri or whatever. I also found the blog about nori-farming in our town. It’s in Japanese only but you can understand well about making nori by its photos. (I can’t put the direct link. I don’t know why. Please copy and paste the URL and Jump, please) http://www.dashi.biz/index.php?取材日記
This movie is about nori making tour in Saga prefecture to introduce people how to make nori.
Smell of spring
Posted in food, life, tagged ume, wakame on February 23, 2010 | 10 Comments »
Ume(plum) smells very delicately.
Wakame(seaweed ) smells very strongly. You can know it from far. But, I love it. It’s the smell of spring of my home town.
They hang them, and make them dried to preserve.
Setsubun/節分
Posted in food, life, tagged ehomaki, Makizushi, mamemaki, marukaburi, setsubun on February 4, 2010 | 11 Comments »
Yesterday was the Setsubun and we had Eho-maki. You are supposed to eat a whole sushi-roll facing to the lucky direction and you could be healthy and lucky through the year. I don’t know why this Eho-maki event has become so popular in all over Japan? You didn’t have it at least 40 years ago, I think. I mean they had had this traditional event in some districts but not nationally. Now, it becomes like a Christmas cake at the Christmas!
In the following pictures, you might feel disgusting, sorry!! However, it’s fun to eat bad manner once in a while? I think that’s why the Eho-maki have become so popular now. These bloggers posted about same topics. 1 2
Also, we did Mame-maki. Tatsu enjoyed throwing beans all over the rooms, and on the other hand, Momo were busy picking them up and throwing into… her mouth!
Setsubun
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Japan, Setsubun (節分) is the day before the beginning of each season. The name literally means “seasonal division”, but usually the term refers to the spring Setsubun, properly called Risshun (立春) celebrated yearly on February 3 as part of the Spring Festival (春祭, haru matsuri). In its association with the Lunar New Year, Spring Setsubun can be thought of (and was previously thought of) as a sort of New Year’s Eve, and so was accompanied by a special ritual to cleanse away all the evil of the former year and drive away disease-bringing evil spirits for the year to come. This special ritual is called mamemaki (豆撒き, lit. bean scattering).
Mamemaki
Mamemaki is usually performed by the toshiotoko (年男) of the household (i.e., the male who was born on the corresponding animal year on the Chinese zodiac), or else the male head of the household. Roasted soybeans (called irimame 炒り豆) are thrown either out the door or at a member of the family wearing an Oni (demon or ogre) mask, while the throwers chant “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” (鬼は外! 福は内!). The words roughly translate to “Demons out! Luck in!” The beans are thought to symbolically purify the home by driving away the evil spirits that bring misfortune and bad health with them. Then, as part of bringing luck in, it is customary to eat roasted soybeans, one for each year of one’s life, and in some areas, one for each year of one’s life plus one more for bringing good luck for the year to come.
