Strawberry Daifuku

Daifuku is a sort of rice cake but it's got stuff inside and my favorite one has a whole strawberry in it. How sweet. There are actually lots of places your can find strawberry daifuku but this one from Yamato-ya (大和や) near Keio Inokashira line Kugayama station is unprecedented.

Google Map

大きな地図で見る

Favorite Spread

My recent hits, Maroon(chestnuts) Cream and 梅(plum) Jam. It's pretty organic and great spread on toasts, pan cakes, etc.

Curry Take-away

Lamb curry with saffron rice take-away from "PANAS".

Whenever I miss curry take-aways I used to do back in Britain, I would hit this place.

To tell you the truth, my stomach wasn't great before I ate this curry. Curiously enough, my stomach got healed after I ate it!

PANAS国分寺北口店

Look what just arrived!

Fresh veggies from 加津佐 (Kazusa)! Kazusa is the southernmost part of Minamishimabara city in Nagasaki. It is most famous for potatoes and onions, and it was my home for 2 years. That place will always be special to me!

Sandwich Kit for Picnic

When picnic in the park, I often make my own sandwich kit. It's handy and you can make delicious sandwiches everywhere. Freshly baked bread is the key. Fortunately in Tokyo, there is a local bakery in almost any towns and I can easily find freshly baked breads. Grab a few slices of bread, tomato, lettuce, pastrami and anything you like to sandwich with, and pack them with butter, mayonnaise, ketchup, or any sauces you like. don't forget to take disposable knives and plates. As cherry blossom is in full bloom in the park, a piece of my own sandwich adds a relish to the picnic.

Blueberry Muffins in 15 mins

Not exactly 15 minutes to be ready to eat but basically all you have to do is mixing up all the ingredients, fill up the cups, and place them in Oven. Depending on the ability of your oven it would take an hour or so but I still made it with my not-so-great microwave oven so you should be fine with your oven.

Best Mexican in Tokyo

People say Tokyo is a dead city for good Mexican but I always enjoy home made tacos as it's easy and fun to make. Preferably choose hard taco shells, get nice pieces of beef in the nearest super market and mince it up with our new food processor, or just get a package of mince meat.
Fry the mince with beans and any vegetable you like. Fill up the shell with the fried meat and top with grated cheese and taco sauce which you can find in any super market.

It's easy and great dinner.

Fami-Res

A restaurant chain called Gasto(ガスト) has one of the biggest indulgence of "fami-res" (family restaurant). the reason why I crave for going there sometimes.

English Muffin with Salmon Omelet

Pretty easy yet very nice lunch. Combination of English muffins and eggs always work very well.

The Un-peanut sauce

When you think about it, processed peanut butter is gross. In addition to the added sugar and chemicals, it's also quite unsanitary. A former colleague of mine who used to work in a food factory wouldn't eat peanut butter because there was actually a limit to the amount of RAT FECES that could be present in a final batch. It was in the parts per million, but it still gives me pause when I'm craving it. Sometimes I satiate the urge with a good organic brand, but a jar of the good stuff in Japan will set you back about $12 US.

So, when craving a good peanut sauce, I figured out a way to make it using a ubiquitous local ingredient: the sesame seed. It's probably my favorite ingredient because it's so versatile: it can be sprinkled, crushed, or ground into a paste. For this recipe, I used Neri-goma, which is liquidized sesame seeds and is somewhat similar to Tahini. It's available in easy-to-use tubes in white or black.













The black is great if you want to make a beautiful goma pudding like this one:












I like neri-goma because there's only one ingredient listed: sesame seeds.

Sesame sauce

Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons Neri-goma (white)
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
1 Tablespoon brown sugar or Tenzai (beet) sugar
1 clove of garlic, grated
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
a pinch of red pepper flakes
1 Tablespoon of water

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. It makes a really creamy, delicious sauce that can be added to a stir-fry at the end. You can also put it on noodles, as a dipping sauce...the possibilities are endless!

Cream of Burdock (ごぼう) Soup

I invented this recipe today because I really wanted a creamy soup using Japanese ingredients. It's vegan and it will fill you up!



Ingredients:
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 long sticks burdock, cleaned, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 tablespoon vegan margarine
2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup flour
2 cups soy milk (or a bit more to taste)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
a bit of fresh mitsuba
a sprinkle of black pepper

Directions:
Heat margarine in a saucepan until bubbly. Add onions and garlic, saute until soft. Add burdock and saute a bit more. Add vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Cook until the burdock is soft, about 20 minutes. Add flour and saute for a few minutes. Add soy milk and soy sauce and blend until smooth. Sprinkle with pepper and garnish with mitsuba.

Dried shiitakes are surprisingly meaty

Last night we made kenchinjiro, which is a kind of miso stew. As Y dug in, he remarked, "Wow...this shiitake is surprisingly meaty!" I couldn't agree more. Dried shiitakes have a much stronger taste than fresh ones for some reason. And as a bonus, you can use the soaking water for soup stock!

The best according to Erica

Bananas sauteed in butter + maple syrup + walnuts sprinkled on top = the best dessert ever!

Japan is not so bad in terms of glutenization

E wrote that MSG, or just "gluten" is in pretty much all packaged food in Japan, and most of meals you have in restaurants, which is not true.
If I call the situation that consuming gluten is becoming more common "glutenization," Japan is getting over it. I should say.
More and more restaurants, or any places which serve food make their menu without gluten, and advertize that by putting a sign in front of the restaurant saying something like "using fresh and organic veggies."
It's fairly easy to find food without gluten in Tokyo. In いなか (rural area) in Japan, it's even easier to find food without gluten because rural areas are normally rich in locally grown food. They try hard to sell their own products so they advertize how healthy and safe the food is. Gluten is not a good idea for them to use.
About packaged food, like TV dinner, frozen food, pasta sources, dressing, spices, etc, etc... like E said the "無添加(no added chemicals)" is not the majority of the products available in stores yet but you can find it anywhere in Japan. In fact, it stands out in the food floor because of the big letters on the package.
From my experience, I think that gluten makes your tongue kinda numb. You become less and less sensitive to taste if you keep consuming it, and eventually become unable to tell if it's gluten or something else.

Gluten is such an easy and quick way to season food when you cook, but I'd rather enjoy a different taste every time.

ごぼう (Gobou) is related to the artichoke

Gobou (known as burdock in the west) is a root vegetable found all over the world but only eaten in Japan and other Asian countries. Maybe it's the unappealing twig-like appearance that turns people off (E didn't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole for a looong time) but when you peel away the dirt there's a delicious whitish-grey flesh underneath. It is also high-fiber and low-calorie, and is often eaten with macrobiotic diets.

E made きんぴら (kinpira) using this recipe...but she went a little too happy on the spices and now our mouths are on fire.



In conclusion, E would make out with a gobou, but then Y would be jealous. :o

無添加 (Mu-ten-ka)

Did you know that it is very difficult to find any food in Japan without added MSG? If you eat in non-organic restaurants, chances are you are consuming MSG with every meal. The only way to avoid it is by cooking your own food...or so E thought.

It turns out that almost all packaged food contains MSG as well!

...but not all packaged food. Y taught E the kanji for mu-ten-ka, which means "no added chemicals." Look for it on packages of soup stock (dashi), miso, or pretty much anything in the grocery store.

This is what happens when you don't have an oven

E made rice cooker zucchini bread!



It's actually very easy: all you need to do is put any recipe for zucchini bread (like this one) into the rice cooker and set on "cook" for about 3 hours. E used half whole-wheat flour and reduced the sugar. おいしかった！

The first post!

Let's start this blog with a random picture of Y acting like a ninja.