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.


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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.