A Winning Bowl

It has been busy weeks and months!

Olympics has come and gone. I was quite frustrated because I couldn't watch enough sports because most of sports events took place in daytime while I am working. I was yet lucky enough to go and watch some games.

Although I am only watching, I tend to cook a "Winning Bowl" before the important matches I am going to watch. For instance, I made it while Women's Football World Cup for Japanese female footballers, "Nadeshiko". Of course I ate it though as there is no chance that they will come and have dinner with me. Anyway they have won the cup.

It is in fact just a cutlet, "Katsu" in Japanese. And it is just a pun of "Katsu" which means "to win".

And it doesn't have to be "Katsu-don" (Katsu on rice). Just Katsu is fine.

Katsu-don (Katsu on rice in a bowl)

Often when there is an important match or exam to pass, parents are busy making "Katsu" bento lunch box for their kids. When I sat at the exam for admission to my high school, most of students lunch box had "Katsu". When I took an exam for admission to universities, the hotel I stayed made lunch box of "Katsu Sando" (katsu sandwich).

Where there is no involvement of religion or myth but just an existence of pun, this "katsu" as in cutlet happened to sound the same as another "katsu" which means "to win". And it has spread around the whole nation, and now global (because of me) as a superstition.

Anyway, I made katsu this time again with no particular events in mind, just wishing Japanese athletes to play well. I was too tired I couldn't spend too much time and effort so just made chicken katsu. Usually when we just say Katsu in Japan, it refers to pork katsu. Chicken Katsu is almost non-existent actually.

Fortunately Nadeshiko Japanese female footballers went into final and my tickets weren't wasted. But we didn't win and gold medal went to USA. While applauding Nadeshiko at Wembley Stadium, I was thinking, "maybe I should have made proper pork katsu..." Sorry, Nadeshiko! But still well done for Silver!

Sardine Revisited and Improvised

I went to Waitrose this weekend and bought one sardine at fish monger. This time the sardine was frozen and cost 45p. I was wondering it might have added some extra weight by some ice. But never mind, I shouldn't be that tight. But it was 2 pence more expensive than the last time and it was fresh.

I also bought a handful of clams not really thinking what I would do with them. I usually cook them in Spaghetti Vongole but last two times I failed by putting too much salt in it. I finally checked the clam recipe on the internet today and found that because clams contain salt already, I didn't need to put any salt in principle. I hope I remember it next time.

Looks good but it was too salty.

Anyway, I need to cook the sardine fairly quickly and I don't know how to cook a sardine in Italian way. So it will have to be Japanese.

I would have liked grilled sardine but I was very afraid of smoking the whole house with the smell of sardine. I checked a few recipes on internet and decided to simmer cook in soup. As I was preparing the soup, A bag of lemons I also bought from the weekend shopping came into my sight. I decided to put a few slices of lemon instead of traditional pickled plum ("Umeboshi") in the soup to cook a sardine. I think this might be slightly unconventional but it should be fine as both are sour and probably contain same sort of acid.

While I decided to make clam miso soup trying to remember the recipe I learned from the Japanese cookery school years ago. Although the English clams shells are slightly fatter and clams are slightly darker than what I used to know, it turned out to be very good to my surprise.

Then I suddenly remembered my uncle someone told me how to remove the abductor muscle remained on the shell. Often after taking the clam out of the shell, it leaves the abductor. It is so small I should forget about it but when I used to try to remove it, it didn't want to come off easily. Instead it breaks into fibres and still never come off as if it is rooted into the shell.

Abductor muscle remained in the shell

Here as he told me, I scratched the back of the shell where the abductor is attached with my nail. Then I pinched the abductor with chopsticks and it just came off with no effort. I wonder what this scratch does to a little abductor.

After being scratched

Sardine also turned out to be quite nice. Besides, ginger and lemon I put in together turned out to be nicely cooked as I could eat the skin of lemon and ginger. They especially went nice with rice and I had to have another bowl of rice... 

Tofu Champroo （豆腐チャンプルー）

As it happens once in a while, I have been out 5 days in a row and  my liver and stomach are probably tired. It's probably a good idea to eat something healthy, maybe fish?

I suddenly became so hungry I didn't want to spend any extra time on cooking. OK, stir fried something today. It is is Tofu Champroo today.

Goya (Karela)

Champroo (not sure if the spelling is right, but sounds like it) is in fact Okinawan style stir fry. Most famous Champroo dish is Goya Champroo. Goya is what is called Karela. This is another thing I was surprised to find at suburban Tesco long time ago. Because I thought Goya (Karela) was original in Okinawa.

Goya Champroo is often made with pork (or spam), egg and I am not sure. Often bonito flakes are sprinkled on the dish, I think. I might be wrong though.


Probably Tofu Champroo is the second or the third famous Champroo dish and I don't think I have ever had it in Okinawa but never mind. The spirit is important! I just stir fried Tofu with courgette and carrot (probably wrong sort of vegetables too) and some spices, seasoned with a bit of soy sauce and it's done. 

Since I didn't have time to cook Japanese rice because I was so hungry, I microwaved the frozen basmati rice to serve together. It was all right, well actually it was good. Basmati rice sucks the flavour of Champroo and I found it quite pleasant. I like basmati rice anyway as well as Japanese sticky rice.

While eating my basmati rice it reminded me of the time when Japan was short of domestic rice in the mid 90s following the cold summer.

That time,  Food Agency of Japan decided to import rice from overseas out of desperation. This was a super extraordinary decision because rice is protected farm product of Japan and the country never allowed any foreign rice to be imported. Sales of rice was 100% controlled by Food Agency as well so it was almost impossible to buy any other rice apart from Japanese rice at the rice shop or super market. I might have seen Thai rice or basmati rice only at Thai or Indian restaurants but not too often back then.

Now the agency decided to import foreign rice, mainly from Thailand (I think) and I was quite happy because I could buy them at the ordinary shop. It wasn't actually as good as the ones I had in Thailand but I still enjoyed it. But I was one of the rare people who were enjoying this phenomenon.

As I later found out, Thai government also had to spend an effort to export rice to Japan because it wasn't the right time for the harvest in Thailand which means the short of quality Thai rice, so they collected any kind of rice from the nation in order to save hungry Japanese people. It was definitely better than no rice at all!

On the other hand, people who had been eating Japanese rice all the time didn't welcome Thai rice very much. I can understand because it is very different from Japanese rice and some dishes especially traditionally cooked home food don't go well with Thai rice. Thai food in general wasn't very popular back then either.

Some funny control was put in place (in my opinion) as well. Food Agency also decided to mix Thai rice in Japanese rice for retail supply. This means that we couldn't buy 100% Japanese rice but mixed ones or 100% Thai rice. I thought it was something wrong because the consumer didn't have freedom of choice. I thought it would have been more reasonable if someone wants to pay more for 100% Japanese rice, they should be allowed to do so.

Because my granddad was a  rice farmer, our family got hold of 100% Japanese rice and we didn't have to suffer all that much. We were eating Japanese rice for Japanese food, and enjoyed Thai rice for ethnic (ish) food. My parents still didn't like Thai rice much though. But restaurants or processed food suppliers, families without any farmer connection didn't have a choice but to buy mixed rice. I remember some people were avoiding eating rice as well.

I can't remember how long it lasted but probably until the following late summer or autumn when the new crop harvested. Thai rice again vanished under the government's control. I wonder if we have even said thanks to Thai government. I remembered reading an article they were quite angry about Japanese people having decided Thai rice was awful back then.

hmmm "Menchi Katsu"!?

I stopped by M&S the other day after the gym looking for some quick dinner. There I found "2 Minced Beef & Onion Crispbake"! It might have been there for a long time but I didn't notice until that day so it was new to me.

The reason why I got so excited was because the picture on the package looked like "Menchi Katsu" （メンチカツ）. I think "menchi" means minced (meat). Katsu means cutlet. Katsu is in fact an abbreviation of "katsuretsu" which is exact transformation of "cutlet". Our language usually doesn't have  independent consonants so it adds vowel to every consonant. 

Anyway, Menchi Katsu therefore means "minced meat cutlet". In Japan, these are often sold at butchers. Butchers usually have so-called "oso-zai corner" where they sell small dishes, such as salad, pickles and deep fried food like katsu and karaage (deep fried chicken).

In my country side town, deep fries are usually cooked in the back of the counter after the customer ordered. When they are handed to the customer, they are piping hot and they are still hot after going home so hungry kids can start eating them as a snack or families who eat dinner early can start dinner immediately.

I used to stop by the butcher on the way home with friends. One butcher was "the specialist" (in our own rating) of chicken mini-fillet katsu. We used to buy just one mini-fillet katsu each on the way and eat them in front of the shop sometimes burning my mouth then rode away by bicycle.

The other butcher I used to stop by was the specialist of beef croquette ("Korokke"). There again, we used to buy just one beef croquette each and eat them in front of the shop and rode away by bicycle.


****

When I saw this M&S's 2 Minced Beef&Onion Crispbake, I didn't have to recall those memories in sepia colours but immediately related it to "Menchi Katsu".

I looked at ingredients and I was assured it should be quite close to Menchi Katsu. My mind was so fixated to Menchi Katsu, I even overlooked it contains potatoes. Menchi Katsu doesn't contain potatoes. It's all minced beef and onion.

I got home. I heated oven, stuck one crispbake inside. Waited and done.

I poured Katsu Sauce on it and had one bite. It was tasty but tasted more like soft croquette. Then I realised I overlooked potatoes. But, I thought it was a good beef croquette (korokke) soft version and I was pleased to find a quick and easy Japanesy food.

Natto Obsession

If I have Japanese breakfast,  typical, but one of my favourite is like this.

These are a bowl of Japanese rice, Miso soup with tofu and wakame seaweed, Natto (fermented soy beans), Tamagoyaki (omelette), Daikon oroshi (grated Daikon (mooli)) and pickles. A piece of grilled fish would be a plus.

******

I met up with my Japanese friend today and went to this newly opened Ramen (Highly Japanised Chinese noodle soup) shop on Brewer Street. When I read about this new Ramen shop on a Japanese classified magazine a while ago, I immediately figured out where it was, because it was right next to my favourite Japanese grocery shop.

After we had Ramen, we went into this Japanese grocery shop almost by default. We can't just skip this shop when we were right next to it.

My usual shopping is Tofu and Natto (fermented soy beans) and some bits and pieces. I knew that I had a few Natto packs in my freezer but as I don't know when I can come back to this grocery shop next, I bought a few more. I actually do this every time I come to this shop and the last time I was there was not long ago, at least within a month. Besides, I don't eat Natto all that often so now I have got plenty. But I am so afraid of running out of Natto!

Result of shopping today

Natto is often sold as a set of 3 or 4 packs. Each is in a Styrofoam pack and contains about 30g to 50g of Natto soy beans. In Japan, they are refrigerated and usually should be consumed within one week. Here in London, they are frozen and good for - I don't know how long but quite long, more than 6 months.

When I was in Tokyo, I used to let Natto go bad in the fridge. The sign of when Natto goes bad is when it starts catching tiny white dots around beans. I think at this stage it is still edible but not very pleasant. It gets slightly smellier and stickier. I think I knew I could freeze Natto to retain its flavour back in those days. But I couldn't be bothered. Natto is super cheap food and available not only at supermarkets but also at "convenience shops" for 24 hours a day such as at Seven Eleven. Well, good old day for me.

"More" smelly? Yes. In case you don't know what Natto is, it is in fact smelly. And gooey. It is popular mainly in Eastern Japan. It has been a flagship product of Ibaraki prefecture but Fukushima prefecture consumes the most. I heard that people in Kansai area (Osaka etc.) are not big fans of it. It is known to be good for health and it seems to be eaten widely in Japan now. 

When we eat Natto, we usually stir it and make it even more gooey as much as Natto gets slightly cloudy with its strings. Some toppings can be added, such as thinly chopped spring onions and mustard. Some people put sugar, mayonnaise or raw egg (I nearly fell sick when I tried it.)

We are fully aware that it is smelly. I sometimes think it smells like someone's foot (hopefully not mine.) That's why things like spring onion or mustard are good to kill the bad smell.

Then keep stir and pour soy sauce (traditional) or Natto sauce. Then keep stirring to make it gooey but more fluffy. Now it is done and pour all or little by little onto rice and eat with rice.

Natto done.

In London, I usually take one pack out of the freezer and move it into the fridge section the night before I intend to eat. It gets defrosted nicely in the next morning. When I don't have time, I put it in a microwave to defrost it but this way the taste slightly deteriorates and becomes slightly smellier.

Just to avoid any doubt, since I might have been talking too much of the unpleasant part of Natto, it doesn't mean that Natto is something disgusting and hard to eat. All of my friends from Eastern Japan (Tokyo and up on main land) except one like it. Some foreigners I knew from Tokyo like it, too. I would be happy to eat Natto every morning too if possible. As an objective proof, a half of a freezer box at this Japanese grocery shop is filled up with Natto and sometimes the stock is low. I am not the only one in London.

Weak Fish - 鰯 (iwashi)

Weak Fish - I am again talking about Kanji (Chinese character)  but this time, of sardine. This kanji is just one character and consists of "fish" on the left and "weak" on the right. Most of Kanji referring to fish usually consists of "fish" on the left and something on the right.

For example,

鱈 - cod (fish +snow)
鯖 - mackerel (fish + blue)
鮫 - shark (fish + cross)
鮭 - salmon (fish + triangle tipped decorative ornament - I didn't know the meaning until now) 

As for sardine, I have heard people saying this kanji of 鰯 (iwashi) represents what sardines are very well - because the fish is very fragile and gets rotten quickly (e.g. weak.) And I agree. While chopping the head off and removing guts out, I take extra care so that I don't have to remove meat as well with my finger. I also try to cook as quickly as possible.

I like sardines not just because of its taste but also because of the price. It is very cheap.

In Japan, we "sort of" celebrate 3rd of February as a lunar new year as a tradition. This is called "Setsubun". There are a couple of rituals for Setsubun and one of them was to hang the head of sardine at the door step to deter any evil to come into house. Some explanations are because the head looks scary or sardines are too smelly (even for evils) to come inside the house.

Last February I decided to do something for Setsubun. Hanging a sardine head at the door step is too gross and consequences can be even more scary I decided not to do it. Instead, I decided to eat grilled sardine.

It was as tasty as it looks but while cooking just one sardine in the oven, quite a lot of smoke also came out. In the beginning of February in cold London, I had to leave the window opened for a couple of hours, freezing. The room still smelled like fish after that though. Good thing is probably evils had been smoked away but I will never do it again especially in cold winter.



I went to Borough Market to get some Daikon (Mooli) on one weekend. I thought it was a good opportunity to stop by a fishery and get some sardines for other type of cooking (definitely not grilling.)

Waiting for my turn while other customers buying a lot of fish, most of them were spending about £30 or more, I started feeling sorry for my small shopping because I was only going to buy 2 sardines. Last time I bought one sardine at Waitrose, it was only 43p...

Then my turn came. A macho looking shop clerk came to me saying,"what do you like?"

"Could I have two sardines, please?" I said it loudly, almost shouting.

He then stirred his look on the shelf in front of him and I knew that sardines were sitting right in front of him and when I nearly pointed at a sardine box for him, he turned around and talked to the other shop clerk and said something to him. He then went to the other customer. What about me!? Should I be sorry for small shopping!? 

Now the other guy came around to me saying, "what do you like?" 

"Could I have two sardines, please?" again.

He also stirred his look around the shelf in front of him trying to find the sardine box which was sitting right in front of him (again!) This time I succeeded to point at the sardine box. He picked up two good looking sardines and nicely wrapped into a bag and said, "£1.20, ok?"

"Yeah, OK. Thanks."

Although feeling a bit sorry for spending only £1.20 at the fishery when everyone else is spending £30 to £40 on average, I still couldn't help comparing the price between Waitrose and the market.

£1.20 for two sardines at the market means 60p per sardine. Waitrose sardine was 43p. Let's make it to 50p per sardine for easier calculation. The market sardine is in fact 20% more expensive than Waitrose.

I am usually quite bad at math but this time something kicked into my head and my calculation was quick. "They'd better be super good sardines... " I was thinking on my way home.

I simmered sardines with pickled plum (umeboshi). It was a bit of failure because when I cooked the same dish long time ago, bones were cooked so soft enough to eat. Unfortunately it didn't happen this time. It was still good but with a little bit of disappointment. Oh well, next time (probably from Waitrose.)

Rice in front is mame gohan (pea rice). This was well done. Yoku dekita!

All Family in One Bowl (and all are dead)

I've been eating chicken in the last 3 days since I bought a pack of chicken breast 3 days ago. I cooked almost the same dish two days in a row: Stir fry chicken with curry flavour on basmati rice. Today as I was at home for lunch, I decided to cook Oyako-don.

In fact, I had decided to make Oyako-don for lunch since I told my colleagues yesterday that I would work from home today. Oyako-don means:

親　　　　"oya" - parent
子　　　　"ko" - child
丼　　　　"don" - As in "Donburi", a bowl. A type of dish something on top of rice,
                           served in a bowl.

Basically it's chicken with egg (parent and child) on top of rice served in a bowl.

This is not hard to make but difficult to make it right especially when you don't have right tools.

Oyako Nabe

We have a dedicated "don" making pan, called Oyako Nabe (Oyako-pan). The key of Oyako don is that beaten egg is somewhat dissolved into sauce and getting cooked together. It is  easier to do if the pan is in the right size enough to hold a nice amount of soup for one egg and about the same size as the diameter of Donburi bowl - 16 - 20 cm ish? The pan is shallow like 2cm depth or something so it's also easy to slide the topping onto rice in a bowl without much hassle and mess.

I haven't got this Oyako Nabe. I haven't got a proper size of bowl either. I use my wok just because it happened to have the smallest bottom among all other pans in my kitchen. Bowls I have are for Ra-men (noodle in soup) so it is bigger than normal Donburi bowls.

They are not expensive or hard to get. It's just me being lazy and not bothered to create the space to store all different sizes of bowls and an odd shaped pan in the shelf. As in Japanese proverb, 大は小を兼ねる ("The greater embraces the less."), Ra-men bowl can embrace everything but ra-men is too much for a Donburi bowl. And a wok does a so so job.


Today, for I didn't even try to make a nice Oyako-don, it turned out to be a nice one just going with the flow. As I had been failing before, this time of Oyako-don is not too soupy, not too salty, nicely moist and seasoning was good. mmm, yoku dekita! (well done!)

I know however, above "Oyako-don" picture doesn't look proper. But never mind. As I keep staring at it, it started looking good forgetting how the genuine version looks like.

Oyako-don zoomed in!

Daikon ~ Mooli 大根

Daikon

When I came to the UK to live, I swore to live (or rather survive?) without Japanese food. Simply because I didn't think I could get hold of necessary ingredients here in London.

Soon after I arrived in the UK, a friend of mine who had been here a couple of years before myself took me to a tour around Piccadilly Circus and showed me some Japanese grocery shops as well as teaching me some tips of living in London including how to pronounce Leicester Square correctly.

My worry of not having Japanese ingredients was immediately gone but I didn't jump into Japanese food regime because yet some things seemed still wrong I thought.

****

Several years have past since then, going through the time dealing with a couple of cravings of food I used to eat, I grew to become a happy Japanesey food cook and eater.

Although my old colleagues in Tokyo were half-jokingly asked if I could survive with notorious "awful English food" (and I was seriously worried), I actually like it and found that ingredients themselves here are very good and flavourful.

For example, super market chicken tastes almost as flavourful as some famous branded chicken in Japan. Carrots are rather fruity and fragrant like Yuzu citron. Pork tastes lovely, Lamb is sold everywhere (not easy to find in a normal Japanese super market or at a butcher.) Downside of it is only when I want to cook some subtle flavoured Japanese dish with a couple of different ingredients, each flavour stands out too independently and doesn't create a good harmony each other, however this is a minor issue as long as I don't cook such dishes. Besides, organic food is rather cheap and more available comparing to Japan and more tasty.

*****

OK, coming back to Daikon (大根)...

 

As it's often sold as Mooli, when I saw this vegetable at a suburban Tesco for the first time, I was so surprised but also quite happy because I thought it was very Japanese and didn't think just a normal Tesco would have it. Today I still feel quite happy and excited whenever I buy it. Now that I live in London, Tesco Express nearby doesn't sell Daikon unfortunately and I go to Borough Market just to buy one of them.

I like Daikon. Because Daikon is very useful. There is a variety of way of eating Daikon, cooked, raw or pickled.

One of my favourite way of cooking (if this is yet considered cooking) is Daikon Oroshi, grated Daikon. I just need to peel the skin and grate it. That's all. It will never be a main dish but nice side dish to eat with Tamago-yaki (ommlette) or with rice or by itself as a nibble.

For example, something like this. Daikon Oroshi in a flowery bowl. The front is Tamago-yaki.






*****
By the way, Daikon sometimes go outside the kitchen, too - in idioms:

"Daikon  Ashi" (Daikon (looking) Legs)
This might be dead word by now but it refers to fat legs, usually of women. Clearly this is not used as a compliment.

"Daikon Yakusha" (Daikon Actor)
This refers to "bad actor".  According to Wikipedia, the origin of Daikon Yakusha seems to be simply to do with a pun. One origin considered is that Daikon is highly disinfectant and never causes food poisoning no matter how it's cooked, thus doesn't "hit". Oh well.