Posts Tagged: Rice

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29
Jul 11

Japanese Comfort Dishes

Warm foods like chicken soup and vitamin-rich foods like oranges help Westerners clear up their sinuses and build their immunities. When ill in Japan, there are a few cultural comfort foods to which many people turn, much like chicken soup in the West. Whether you want to do as the Japanese do should you fall ill in Japan or your love for Japanese food will give you comfort during an illness, try Japanese comfort foods. (These foods are for colds and other mild illnesses. If something more serious is wrong, seek medical attention.)

Kayu: Also known as okayu, kayu is a warm rice porridge. Since rice is such a staple of the typical Japanese diet, it’s not surprising that rice porridge is more popular than oatmeal, although the concept behind enjoying a warm, easy-to-digest porridge is much the same. You can enjoy kayu on its own or with cooked meat, steamed vegetables, or with cooked or raw egg. Add tea and you have chakayu. Making kayu is as simple as boiling rice and water with a touch of salt until the rice is mushy.

Negi miso: Green onions called negi are another antidote for feeling under the weather in Japan. Vitamin-rich negi can be steamed or enjoyed raw. One particular dish made for the ill with negi as a main ingredient is negi miso. Miso is a Japanese flavoring often used in soup. While you can add chopped negi to a miso soup to make a version of negi miso, the most easily digestible form of the dish for the ill is a negi miso drink. Just boil water with miso flavoring and add chopped negi.

Shogayu: Another hot drink for the ill in Japan is shogayu. Shoga, Japanese ginger, is thought to provide many health benefits, including upset stomach relief and a boost in immunity. Shogayu is a simple drink to make; add a pinch of grated shoga and a dash of sugar to a mug and then add hot water.

Fruit: A common gift in Japan for an ill person is fresh fruit. You may notice in Japanese TV shows that a friend or family member attending the bedside of a person in the hospital will peel an apple for the patient to eat.

Do any of these dishes sound appetizing to you? Do you think they make good meals when you’re ill?

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11
Mar 11

Tsukemono: Pickled Foods

When discussing Japanese food in the past, we’ve mentioned foods like umeboshi (pickled “plums,” as they’re often called, although the fruit is actually closer to an apricot). Pickled foods are seen frequently in Japanese cuisine. The word for pickled foods is tsukemono.

When you order a Japanese meal set, you’ll often be served a small plate of Japanese pickles. These will not taste or look like the Western pickles to which you are accustomed, as they are usually not pickled in distilled vinegar. They’re softer and smaller than the typical Western pickle and are sometimes made by soaking in a mixture that may include sake, miso, soy sauce, rice bran, mustard, sugar, spices and occasionally, vinegar. However, much of the time, they’re simply placed in a special pressurized container called a tsukemonoki along with some salt. The tsukemonoki uses tsukemonoishi (weight stones) to press upon the vegetables or fruit. The process takes at least ten hours. Juices come out of the produce and the tsukemono pickles in its own juices.

Besides the basic pickled cucumbers to which we in the West are accustomed, the most popular tsukemono include umeboshi, takuan (pickled daikon radishes), beni shoga (ginger pickled with the brine from umeboshi), shibazuke (pickled eggplants), oshinko (pickled Chinese cabbage), and acaharazuke (pickled turnips). You may even find certain types of fish pickled (this is usually called kasuzuke, but you can find kasuzuke made with just vegetables as well, as it refers to the method of pickling in sake lees [yeast]).

Tsukemono can be served as a side dish or they can be thrown together as a salad or within a meal. They also make popular items in rice and onigiri to give the plain rice a touch of flavor. They’re easy to buy in Japanese grocery stores, but they’re also simple enough to make in homes if you have a tsukemonoki. If you don’t have a tsukemonoki, you can try to make your own in a tight container as well by applying pressure to the vegetables.

Have you ever eaten tsukemono? Do you like tsukemono more or less than Western pickles? Would you like to try making tsukemono yourself?

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31
Dec 10

Japanese New Year Food

We’re rounding out our more in-depth coverage of the Japanese New Year celebration with a closer look at a couple of the traditional foods associated with the holiday.

Kurikinton (sweet potatoes with sweet chestnuts): Part of the traditional Japanese New Year meals (osechi-ryouri) is the kurikinton. This simple dish is eaten sometime within the first three days of the new year. The sweet potatoes (which are a little different than the sweet potatoes we consume in the West) are boiled along with jasmine seeds for flavor. The seeds are then removed the and sweet potatoes are mashed along with some sugar. The mixture is then mixed with sweet chestnuts in syrup and simmered on low heat for a few minutes.

Kagami mochi (“mirror rice cakes”): These mochi first act as a decoration before they’re eaten. They consist of two round mochi, one slightly smaller stacked atop a larger one. Atop of the mochi is a daidai (a bitter-tasting Japanese orange) with a leaf. Below the mochi are (optionally) dried persimmons and kelp. The entire dish sits upon a decorative sheet called a shihoubeni and a stand called a sanpou. Owners of the kagami mochi may also fold gohei (sheets of paper) into pointed lightening shapes and attach the gohei to the display.

This edible decoration was originally designed to ward of fires in the home in the new year (at least the shihoubeni part was) and to symbolize the new and the old year. It may also be meant to give the family strength and to symbolize the passage of the family through generations. After displaying the decoration for a few weeks near the home’s Shinto or Buddhist altar, the family participates in a ritual called the kagami biraki (“mirror opening”), in which they break and then eat the mochi. This occurs on either the first or second Saturday or the Sunday following New Year’s Day.

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10
Sep 10

Perusing the Japanese Menu with Fake Food

Today we’re not going to discuss Japanese food–at least not the type of food you can eat. Instead, we’re going to examine the fake Japanese food you’ll find adorning many restaurant windows in Japan. If you live near a Japantown or a Japanese marketplace with a food court or even some Japanese restaurants in the West, you may still see some examples of these fake food displays outside of the Japan.

Japanese restaurants often (but not always) make room for display windows featuring plastic incarnations of most of their dishes. These display cases can take up as much as half of the restaurant’s facade in a food court or even line the entire length of a larger restaurant in a mall. (For example, take a look at this video.) The actual-size replicas of the restaurant’s main dishes include replicas of all of the sides served with the food and even similar (or the same) bowls and plates. Along with the food item is usually a placard indicating the name of the dish, the price and the dish number so that you can order by number instead of item. (Although can still name the item if you wish.)

The fake food is usually so lifelike that you can see glaze where there’s supposed to be glaze or swear you’re staring at broth in a noodle dish. The food doesn’t lie lifelessly on the dish; rather, it’s arranged as if it were the food you’d be ordering, complete with noodles crossing every which way and overlapping main courses. Of course, much of the fake food is displayed vertically so that you can get a good look; this means that you won’t be confusing the food for real food, despite how real it looks!

Most fake food displays are custom-made for the individual restaurant. In fact, there are prominent companies in Japan that specialize in producing these individualized creations, such as Iwasaki Be-I, Japan’s largest fake food manufacturer. Much of the manufacturing process is kept secret, although it’s widely known that plastic is the most often-used material in the creations. Japanese restaurants can spend the equivalent of hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have these fake foods made for their menus.

Have you ever seen the fake food in Japanese restaurant windows? Do you think that the fake food can help you make a better choice when deciding what to order?

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6
Aug 10

Donburi: Rice Bowl Meals

In Japan, eating donburi is an easy way to warm up on a cold winter day–or just to enjoy a flavorful, hot dish whenever the craving strikes you. “Donburi” means simply “bowl,” but when it comes to food, it refers to a family of rice bowl dishes. What distinguishes these types of dishes is that meat, tofu, eggs and/or vegetables are simmered together into a stew and then poured atop steamed white rice.

There is no singular simmering sauce used in all dishes, but popular ones include dashi (the stock used in miso soup), soy sauce, and mirin (a type of rice wine). Ingredients typically (but not always) included are onions, eggs, and seafood. One of the most popular types of donburi is oyakodon, which literally means “parent-child donburi.” This is because it consists of both chicken (the “parent”) and egg (“the child”). Oyakodon also includes onions and may be simmered in a variety of sauces, but is usually simmered in a soy sauce mixture.

Another popular donburi dish is katsudon, which features fried pork cutlets, egg, and onions. However, there are many seafood varieties, such as tenshidon, which offers a crab meat omelet over rice, and tekkadon, which features spicy raw tuna and seaweed. There’s also unadon, which includes cooked eel.

You can find beef in donburi dishes such as gyuudon, which features just beef and onions, and tanindon, which is like oyakodon, only with beef in place of the chicken. (“Tanin” means “stranger,” since the beef and egg would have no familial relation.)

Donburi are typically inexpensive dishes available quick to order. You may find a small Japanese restaurant with only counter seating, but turnover is fast since the food is made quickly and you’ll be able to get a seat without much wait. Just don’t linger around more than necessary, as you’ll want to free up your seat for another customer.

Donburi dishes are also popular ways to prepare leftovers and give them additional flavor. Home chefs need only simmer some meat and vegetables from a previous meal together in sauce and serve them over steamed rice.

Have you ever eaten a donburi dish? Which one? Which ones sounds the most appealing to you and why?

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9
Jul 10

Japanese Curry (Best Served with Rice)

When you think of curry, you usually think of India, the homeland of the dish. In Japan, while they do have Indian curry on many a restaurant menu (it’s called “indo karee” in Japan), there’s a Japanese treatment of curry (called “karee,” pronounced “kah-ray”) that’s far more popular.

Curry has only been in Japan since the late 19th century, but it’s already considered a fairly quintessential Japanese dish. Curry made its way to Japan via the English Navy. As India was an English colony at the time, the British had been influenced by Indian cooking and introduced the way in which they replicated the dish to the Japanese once Japan opened up to the West. In the British recipe, curry mimicked the style of Western stew, and that became the basis of Japanese curry.

Japanese curry took a while to catch on, but it positively flourished in the late 1960s. Besides being available in many food stands and restaurants, the curry roux mix made it possible for Japanese homemakers to easily make the dish at home. It wasn’t until the 1990s that actual Indian-style curry became somewhat popular in Japan as well.

Japanese curry is traditionally much less spicy than Indian curry, although it can be extra spicy at the chef’s discretion. The sauce is typically made from curry powder, flour and oil (and can more easily be purchased rather than made in the form of curry roux in supermarkets). The basic vegetables cooked in the sauce are carrots, onions and potatoes, but the chef can add any number of vegetables (and fruits!), such as peas, scallops, eggplants, turnips, broccoli, lotus roots, pears, melons and apples. Also in the curry is usually a meat, either cooked without additives or deep-fried first. Popular choices in Japan include beef, pork, chicken, oyster, duck and even deer.

Served over rice, Japanese curry is known as just “karee” or “karee raisu.” Other popular ways to eat Japanese curry include as the filling in bread (“karee pan”), over Japanese noodles (“karee udon”), with a raw egg (“yaki karee”) and as a soup (“suupu karee”). Japanese curry is usually quite affordable and can be found at most types of restaurants in Japan, fast-food and sit-down alike.

Have you tried Japanese curry? Did you like it more or less than Indian curry? Which type of Japanese curry seems the most appealing to you?

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24
May 10

The Japanese Hamburger

This week we thought we’d do something different when it comes to discussing Japanese food and instead discuss what the Japanese do with what is generally considered a Western food: the hamburger. To have a hamburger in Japan (or just to have one Japanese style) is not quite the same as getting a hamburger in the West. So while you’re on a crusade to sample Japanese food, don’t forget to try some of the food you’re probably more familiar with—only in the Japanese way!

Most Japanese hamburgers (known as “hanbaagu” in Japan) are similar to what is known as “hamburger steak” in the West. Eaten with a knife and fork on a plate (with no bun), the Japanese hamburger patty is made from beef or pork (or both) and is minced together with onions, breadcrumbs, eggs and/or a mixtures of spices. The patty is then served with the diner’s topping of choice, which is typically a combination of any of the following: a fried egg, teriyaki sauce, demi-glace brown sauce, or vegetables.

When the Japanese decide to make hamburgers at home, more often than not it’s the hamburger steak. This is also a popular dish in family restaurants and other restaurants serving Western-style food.

The Japanese actually do have American-style hamburgers complete with a bun, called “hanbaagaa,” in the American-export fast food chains, such as McDonald’s and Burger King, as well as in other Asian burger franchises. However, the Japanese find holding their food directly with their hands unsanitary. If you order a hamburger in Japan, don’t be surprised to find it served in cup-shaped tissue paper that you’re expected not to unwrap. You hold onto the burger by gripping the tissue paper portion (careful not to bite into the paper!), allowing you to eat the hamburger without touching your food directly.

Another way that the Western-style burger differs in Japan is in the toppings. Teriyaki sauce-covered patties, fried egg-covered patties, shrimp croquette-covered patties, patties made from tofu, and even pork cutlets in place of the beef make for popular hamburgers in Japan. Some hamburger buns are even made entirely from rice grains!

Have you ever had a Japanese hanbaagu or hanbaagaa? What did you think of them? Would you be interested in trying one? Do you like the idea of not touching your burger with your hands for sanitary reasons?

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10
May 10

Onigiri: A Simple Way to Eat Rice

While in the West, you might pack or grab a sandwich when you want to eat on-the-go, in Japan, you may grab a rice ball, or onigiri. When you think of white rice, you probably don’t imagine being able to scoop it into a ball and take it on the go without it falling apart. However, onigiri is actually just that.

Onigiri is rice that’s specially prepared to remain sticky so that it’s easily shaped. The rice (white rice only) isn’t rinsed before cooking, which helps contribute to its stickiness and makes it clump together. The rice also can’t be instant rice and is usually short-grain. Depending on the chef, a small amount of salt may be added to help preserve the rice but is not always necessary.

The rice is then shaped into a convenient small form. Although usually translated as “rice balls,” onigiri are more often triangular in shape than circular, but they can also be circular, oval or rectangular (often confusing people unfamiliar with the dish who think that it’s sushi), star-shaped or any kind of shape the chef desires. To help keep the rice together, the outside of the rice is usually (but not always) partially wrapped in a strip of dried seaweed (nori).

Some onigiri are served plain, but there’s often at least one (usually salty) ingredient literally stuffed into the middle of the ball of rice. This helps not only contribute to longer preservation but gives the onigiri more flavor. Popular ingredients include umeboshi (pickled ume, an apricot-like fruit), kombu (dried kelp), satled salmon, dried tuna, and salted roe. In some parts of the world, particularly in Hawaii, onigiri is often prepared with Spam.

Japanese people frequently have onigiri for lunch (either on its own—perhaps more than one at a time—or paired with something else) and you’re more likely to see a student buy or pack an onigiri from home than a sandwich. People frequently make their own onigiri, but they can also buy them from convenience stores, vending machines and cafeterias for cheap. Ongiri are high in carbohydrates, so they’re filling and give you a fair amount of energy. However, they’re not typically a delicacy eaten for dinner or ordered at a restaurant.

Have you ever eaten an onigiri? Do you think you would like to try one? Would you rather have rice or sandwiches for lunch?

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5
May 10

Japan’s Golden Week, Part 2

Golden Week continues in Japan and we continue our coverage of the holidays. April 29th was the first day to feature a specific holiday. The next is May 3rd, which is Constitutional Amendment Day (kenpou kinenbi).

Constitutional Amendment Day was established in 1947 to honor the first day the country came under the laws of the Constitution of Japan, which was developed alongside the Allied Forces. The Constitution turned Japan into a liberal democracy. (It was previously a militaristic, imperialistic system.) It greatly lessened the role of the imperial family, making them more figureheads than policy makers, and also declared that the country would never again declare war. Instead, Japan would only defend itself if necessary, which is why the Japanese military is now called the “Japanese Self-Defense Forces.” The meaning behind the day is for Japanese citizens to reflect on democracy and government. It’s also the one day per year in which the National Diet Building (where the government—the House of Councillors and the House of Representatives—convenes) is open for public tours.

As discussed previously, the next holiday, Greenery Day, takes place on May 4th. Golden Week’s last national holiday is on May 5th —today! Children’s Day (kodomo no hi) is meant to celebrate children and their fun-loving, innocent personalities as well as to honor parents (particularly mothers) for raising them. It was originally known as Boys’ Day and was meant only to celebrate sons (as there is another holiday in March to celebrate daughters), but it was changed in 1948 to Children’s Day to celebrate all children.

An iconic symbol of Children’s Day is the koi (carp)-shaped koinobori flags. Households traditionally hang these flags from their rooftops, one for each of the parents and each of the children who live inside. Another tradition is to display a Kintarou (a fabled adventurous boy) doll and a kabuto (samurai helmet) inside the house, as these are symbols of healthy and strong boys. Today in Japan, many families are eating kashiwa-mochi (red bean rice cakes wrapped in oak leaves) and chimaki (sweetened rice paste in a bamboo or iris leaf) to celebrate.

Have you ever heard of Children’s Day or Constitutional Amendment Day? Do you think it’s fair that Boys’ Day was changed to Children’s Day when there’s still a Girls’ Day?

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28
Apr 10

Fish for Breakfast: The Classic Japanese Breakfast

In the West, the classic breakfast could include pancakes, waffles, eggs, sausage, bacon, orange juice, milk, cereal, or hash browns—or maybe if we’re in a hurry, just a granola bar, a muffin, or yogurt. In Japan, though, breakfast is taken seriously and, when prepared in the classic fashion, may seem more like what we’d expect for dinner or lunch than breakfast.

While some Western breakfast staples have become a bit more popular in Japan, particularly as an occasional treat, they’re not typically eaten each morning. The closest breakfast item the West shares with Japan is eggs, as the Japanese are particularly fond of dishes such as ome rice, an omelet in which the egg yolks are mixed with (cooked) rice and any choice of vegetables (such as zucchini, carrots or onions) or meat (particularly chicken, pork, or beef) before the mixture is fried into an omelet. If the chef is so inclined, she or he may also decorate the oblong-shaped omelet with a design or message written in ketchup, the most popular condiment for omelets in Japan. Tamagoyaki, another popular style of omelet which is basically just a rolled omelet with or without vegetables and meat, is also served for Japanese breakfasts, usually with soy sauce.

However, the similarities between the Western and the Japanese breakfast end there. In the traditional Japanese family, the mother or wife will wake up before her husband and/or children—as much as an hour beforehand—to prepare a full-course breakfast while she also works on packing them a cold lunch for later. Traditional staples of the Japanese breakfast include:

  • Fish, particularly broiled, dried and salted fish. Popular choices are horse mackerel and salmon.
  • Rice, either just a bowl of steamed white rice or rice mixed with seaweed and/or vegetables. Some families prefer okayu, which is warm rice porridge.
  • Miso soup, complete with seaweed, tofu and onions.
  • Seaweed, either within other dishes or just served in dried rolls or strips. The seaweed on its own is often dipped into soy sauce.
  • Natto, which is a form of fermented soy beans. This sticky, strong-smelling part of a Japanese breakfast is great with soy sauce or on top of rice.
  • Pickled vegetables, which are pickled in brine or salt. Some popular pickled vegetables include cucumbers, turnips, ume (a kind of plum), cabbage and radishes. These can be eaten on their own or mixed with rice.
  • Salad, Japanese style. With lettuce or cabbage and traditional vegetable accompaniments.
  • Green tea (the most popular breakfast drink).

Do you think you would like or dislike to eat so much for breakfast? Does the traditional Japanese breakfast appeal to you? Would you rather have fish or pancakes for breakfast?

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