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.

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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.

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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.

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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.






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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.