Pork Stew for a cold night

Today I will introduce some lunch photos in Tokyo.

Many restaurants in Japan have their 'lunch menu' which is usually a set of main, bread or rice, salad or soup and sometimes a dessert. It is also cheaper than a normal menu so business people can eat there casually every day. If you want to go to a luxurious restaurant but can not afford it, you can probably go there at lunch time and enjoy the high quality meal for 1,000 ~1,500yen!

Ingredients;

pork

potato

carrot

bay leaf

salt and pepper

tomato can (half)

garlic

soup stock (1/2 cup)

1- Cut the garlic, pork, potato and carrot.

2- Flour some salt and pepper on the pork.

3- Fry the garlic and 2 until the surface becomes brown.

4- Boil or microwave the potato and carrot until it becomes a little tender.

5- Add 4, soup stock, bay leaf and tomato can into 3. Boil until it's all cooked.

Itadakimasu

Fried meat balls coated with sesame

Finally it rained in Tokyo yesterday after a few weeks of sunny and hot weather. It really cooled down the whole city for a little and it saved us! Unfortunately, it quickly returned to the sunny and humid weather again, but I feel not as bad as before anymore. Hopefully autumn is close?

This summer is historically hot in the world. I heard that even Russia is too hot that foreign ambassadors' families there had to evacuate and go back to their own countries. I hope the situation will get better very soon.

I once had heat stroke. After I walked outside for hours without hat, water or food, I got a bad headache for an hour and then my body felt so cold. Luckily my flatmate made me lie down and gave me a lot of water and sugar. I didn't have any knowledge about heat stroke but that experience scared me after knowing that it could kill you.

Today I will cook something that can give you lots of energy!

Ingredients:

minced pork

ginger

onion

salt and pepper

curry powder

sesame (black or white)

1- Mix the minced pork with grazed ginger, finely cut onion, salt, pepper and curry powder.

2- Place a little of 1 into a table spoon and put it on the sesame. Cover it with sesame properly by using your hands.

3- Fry 2 with some oil.

Itadakimasu.

Stir fried pork with gochujang

Do you know gochujang? It is a chili-based fermented Korean paste which is basically made of  red chili powder, glutinous rice powder mixed with powdered fermented soybeans, and salt. There are also so many types of Gochujang in Korea. It has even become popular in Japan.

I got one from Korea the other day. It is so helpful when you want to add some different tastes to your cooking. Gouchujang doesn't taste either simple or too spicy, but it has the rich flavor and taste as it's fermented like cheese, miso and kimchi. If you find one, please try it!

Ingredients:

carrot

sliced pork

bean sprout

sesame oil

gochujang (1tbsp)

soy sauce (1tbsp)

salt and pepper

ginger

1-  Cut the carrot and ginger thinly. Flour a little salt and pepper on the pork.

2-  Heat some sesame oil and fry the ginger and the sliced pork. When the pork is cooked, remove it from the pan.

3-  Stir fry the carrot on the same pan. Put 2 and bean sprout into it. 

4- Add gochujang and soy sauce and stir well.

If you have Korean nori, please put some on top before eating.
Itadakimasu! 

Miso flavored pork steaks

Hello! How have you been going?

I watched the movie "Toy Story 3" last week. That was very funny!
However, it was strange that the cinema only had Japanese dubbed ones because I saw many non-Japanese people there as well. Usually foreign films are run with subtitles in Japan but animation seems to be different. It must be frustrating for American children not being able to understand their own country's movies.

Anyway, the cinema complex we went to in Yokohama has many different restaurants, a sky panorama cafe and a shopping mall in the same building so you can not get bored. You don't need to wait before until the movie starts by standing around.

Ingredients:

pork

cabbage

miso (1tbsp)

sugar (1tsp)

sake (1tsp)

mirin (1tsp)

vinegar (1tbsp)

1- Cut the pork and make it tender. Fry the pork until it's well cooked.

2- Mix miso, sugar, mirin, sake and vinegar. Put it into 1.

3- Place the pork onto a plate and heat the cut cabbage with the same sauce.

Itadakimasu.

Gyoza in the rainy season

How is the weather in your place recently?

We are right in middle of the rainy season in the middle~ western part of Japan.  Every day we have an uncomfortable rainy night where the temperature doesn't go down under 25c and there's no wind. I don't want to use A/C so much from the eco-aspect but sometimes I just can't continue sleeping!

Today's recipe is gyoza (dumplings). I think this cooking style is originally from China as all of Japan, China and Korea have a similar recipe.

It's easy to buy the dough (the photo below) in Japan but if you can't find that, you can mix flour, water and a bit of salt, and make it flat. It takes quite a lot of work but I used to do it this way in Germany and it tasted good!

Ingredients:

gyoza dough

minced pork

cabbage

chinese chive

ginger

salt (a little)

soy sauce (a little)

sesame oil (a little)

nutmeg (a little)

flour (1tbsp)

1- Cut the vegetables finely and graze the ginger.

2- Stir 1, minced pork, salt, soy sauce, sesame oil and nutmeg.

3- Wrap 2 with the gyoza dough. You can usually buy the dough at Asian shops if you are not in Asia.

4- Heat some sesame oil, put 2 and fry for a minute without moving.

5- Melt the flour in the 1/3 cup of water and pour it on 4. Put a lid on and wait until there is no water.

Please eat with some sauce (soy sauce, sesame oil, chili, vinegar etc..).
Itadakimasu!

Hamburg and Vietnamese food report 2

One of the world-famous Vietnamese foods is pho noodles.  Of course I ate many types of pho in Vietnam. There are many outdoor restaurants with small plastic chairs and tables on the streets where local people eat meals daily. A lot of them provide pho.

I especially like 'pho ga' (rice noodle soup with beef) and 'pho bo' (rice noodle soup with chicken) with bunch of herbs. It's rate to use herbs for Japanese food so I was very happy to taste the different aromatic combination.

Photo: left- pho near Saigon, right- pho near Ha Long.

Let's cook 'hanba-gu (hamburg)' that is popular in Japan.

Ingredients:

minced pork and beef

onion

ginger

nutmeg

egg

bread crumb

canned tomato

dried oregano

salt/pepper

1- Mix the finely cut onion, minced meat, mixed egg, grazed ginger, nutmeg, bread crumb, salt and pepper. Make a shape like a flat ball after hitting in hands a few times to get rid of the air.

2- Fry 1 on a heated frying pan. Make sure it's 'well-done' and put it aside.

3- Fry some canned tomato into the same pan and adjust the taste with dried oregano, salt and pepper.

4- Put 2 into 3 and heat together quickly.

The green vegetable next to the hamburg (in the top photo) is called 'ice plant'. I got this in northern Japan last week. It's originally from South Africa and tastes very refreshing and a little salty.

Itadakimasu!

Pork & cabbage with miso sauce

We had the really sad news about the earthquake in Qinghai, China. Hundreds of people are dead or injured and many of the survivors have to survive without even a house. It's snowing even in some parts of Japan so it must be so cold up there....

Earthquakes are very terrifying. We often feel earthquakes here in Japan so I'm used to small tremors. However, I only feel despaired when it becomes so big. Then, nothing can help.

When we had a big earthquake in 1993 in Hokkaido (M7.8), everything on shelves fell off and we couldn't even walk. Also after a big earthquake, many more after-quakes continue coming so that's another nightmare. Luckily, houses in Hokkaido were strong enough to hold against it but I'm worried about those in middle/western Japan...

Today's cooking is the fried pork pickled with miso.

Ingredients:

sliced pork

cabbage

ginger(grazed)

mirin(1tbps)

miso(1tbsp)

sake(1tbsp)

1- Mix grazed ginger, mirin, miso and sake together. Put pork in, stir well and put it in the fridge for 30 min.

2- Fry 1 on a heated oil. When the surface is cooked, add cut cabbage.

It tastes goood! Please eat with rice!

Itadakimasu.

Rolled cabbage with tomato sauce

What did you do on the weekend?

We walked from Omotesando up to Azabu to see some art galleries.

After we started walking from Omotesando(map) which is another fashion hub in Tokyo, we saw a lot of high brand shops in Aoyama. Many of their customers might be on-screen talents or sports players?!

We reached the Tokyo Mid-Town to see a  gallery and then went to Azabu via Ropponngi Hills for another gallery. Some parts of Azabu still have that old feeling and that differs to the new Ropponngi. The gallery is at an old apartment and has the kind of nice atmosphere as well.

Ok, let's cook. The idea of the rolled cabbage could be originally from overseas but it's known as a popular home cooking style in Japan.

Ingredients:

cabbage

minced pork

mushroom

onion

salt/pepper

nutmeg

oregano

rosemary

consomme soup

1- Boil the cabbage leaves and chip off the thick bit of the core.

2- Mix the minced pork, finely cut onion and mushroom, salt, pepper, rosemary, nutmeg and oregano.

3- Put some of 2 on 1 and roll it up. If it's not big enough to stay rolled by itself, you can clip the end with a tooth-pick. Don't worry if you break the cabbage, you can just wrap it with another one.

4- Spread enough 3 to cover the bottom of a pot. Put the soup, tomato can and boil.

I like this style of cooking because I can actually eat more cabbage than meat. This time I made small ones as the cabbage was not so big.

Itadakimasu!

Stir fried daikon and pork

Hello!
It had been cold and raining a lot last week but luckily we had a nice hanami (cherry blossoms viewing) under the beautiful sky on Saturday. Koishikawa botanic garden, Tokyo(map) is a place where you can see well-maintained cherry blossoms avoiding crowded people in this season. Everyone brought some food and drinks and had a chat under the young blossoms.

Today I will cook a easy but tasty daikon dish. The daikon absorbs the nice taste of the pork and soup.

Ingredients;

daikon

sliced pork

soy sauce(1tbsp)

sake(1tbsp)

sugar(1tsp)

mirin(sweet rice wine)(1tbsp)

soup(dried bonito)

1- Cut daikon in a 5cm stick and daikon leaves finely.

2- Stir fry the sliced pork. When the pork is cooked, put the daikon in and fry together.

3- Add 2 cups of soup, soy sauce, sake, sugar and mirin. Put the daikon leaves and cook until it has no soup.

Itadakimasu.

Fried konjac

Do you know what konjac is? According to Wikipedia, the English name for konjac is "elephant foot". It might be known as diet food next to tofu outside Japan because it's a low calorie food but we eat it generally here in Japan.

Konjac is made of konjac potatoes. It looks like a jelly mass but tastes nice if you boil it with another ingredients and soup. 

When I was overseas, it was so difficult to find this kind of Japanese food so I decided to eat more of those such as konjac, tofu, age and so on as long as I'm in Japan...

Ingredients;

konjac

carrot

sliced pork

mirin (Japanese sweet wine)

soy sauce

sake

sugar

sesame

1- Cut konjac and carrot, then boil the konjac. (You can use a spoon to cut the konjac.)

2- Stir fry the sliced pork. When it's cooked, add konjac and carrot, continue frying.

3- Put mirin, soy sauce, sake and sugar in 2.

4- Finish when there's no water left. Powder some sesame on.

You can also add some finely cut spring onion as topping!
Itadakimasu.

Meat balls in the vinegar sauce

Hello! This weekend I went to Jiyugaoka (map) where I used to live last year. It is in south-west Tokyo and one of the most want-to-live places in Tokyo and Japan.

Jiyugaoka is always full of ladies, couples and families enjoying shopping, food and walking as it's well known as a trendy areas. These are for fashion, cafes and interior design stores. The atmosphere is very relaxed and peaceful but it's a bit of a pity that cars drive through the nice narrow streets.

Things are not cheap here but you can find your favorite style of interior decoration at the highest quality. Stylish, elegant, cute, modern or country... I bought some cups and plates this time.

Today's recipe is stir fried meat balls and vegetables in a vinegar sauce.

Ingredients;

minced pork

carrot

onion

ginger

salt

starch

vinegar (1tbsp)

soy sauce (1tbsp)

sugar (1tbsp)

water (2tsps)

sesame oil

1- Mix the minced pork, grazed ginger and salt well, then make small balls and dredge the starch around. Fry the meat balls.

2- Cut the onion and carrot and fry with sesame oil. Add 1 in and fry together.

3- Put water, vinegar, sugar and soy sauce in 2. Melt starch in a bit of water, add it into 2 and stir well.

Itadakimasu.

Pork don and eco

Now-days, we are facing the serious problem for the earth's history. Climate change. All the people, countries, organizations and corporations in the world must work together to protect our earth. Green industry is booming and eco-minded people are growing in Japan.

Choosing food is one thing you can do for the environment. For example:

• Local food has less effect to the environment than imported/long-traveled food that produces more CO2 from it's transport.
• Eating food in season is more natural and better for you as non-season-food needs to be warmed up or cooled down in a artificial way like green house, which takes more energy. Also the non-natural-food often contains less nutrients.
• You can also choose organic food that has a clear traceability so that you know where and how it was made and how it came to your plate..

However, each ingredient has a different background so it's important to know the producing systems and the environmental effects of the ingredient.

Today I will introduce buta-don. Buta means pork, don means a bowl called 'donburi' that also means a cooking style that has something on top of the rice in the bowl. The pork is from the prefecture I live.

Ingredients for 2 serves;

sliced pork

ginger

sugar (1tsp)

soy sauce (2tsps)

sake (1tbsp)

daikon*

marmalade*

*If you have.

1- Sprinkle some salt on the sliced pork. Graze some daikon.

2- Fry ginger and 1, then add sake, sugar, marmalade and soy sauce.

3- Put some hot rice in a bowl and 3 on top of it, then put the grazed daikon on.

Please eat a lot of vegetables with buta don!
Itadakimasu.

Cold udon with eggplant and pork

Jinbocho (map) is the place to go if you love books. It can be found in central Tokyo where the streets are full of old book stores. Lots of people stop by a shop, check books outside and read it for a minute. That's what you see in this town.

Each book store has its own specialty like culture, hobbies, math's, sciences, languages or laws etc. So the whole area is just like one big library. For example, there is a store mostly has Italian, Portuguese and Spanish books and another has just books of the Edo era (AC1600-1868 in Japan). There are even some places that specialize in a particular war.

It's a lot of fun just to walk along the streets, so I can always find interesting books.

For some reason, the street (Hakusan st.) crossed with the main book street (Yasukuni st.) contains many sports stores and it's popular to buy cheap ski-gear here as well.

Today I will introduce an udon recipe in a different style to tradition.

Ingredients for 2 serves;

udon

minced pork

egg plant
garlic

ginger
nutmeg

salt

sake (1tbsp)

vinegar (1tbsp)

soy sauce (1tbsp)

pepper

starch (1tsp)

1- Boil udon and then wash it with cold water. Drain the water.

2- Fry the minced pork with sesame oil, the finely cut ginger and garlic. Add the cut egg plant and fry till the pork is cooked.

3- Add a cup of water, salt, sake, pepper, nutmeg, vinegar and soy sauce. Boil until there is less water.

4- Melt the starch in the little water, put it into 3 and stir well.

5- Put 4 on the udon.

Sprinkle some red chili powder on if you like it spicy.

Itadakimasu.

Nikujaga for the family

Hello, how are you??
Today I read the news about a Japanese politician giving a speech to object against two-name system. Married couples are not allowed to have two family names in Japan, so the current government is planing to change it. However, many conservative politicians are still against the idea. They said that the system would break the family relationship.

I personally think that having two names in a family is not a issue in the relationship. Other issues are killing the family system clearly, for example adults are pushed to work longer and kids are forced to study at cram schools till night time. It can be seen sometimes small kids eating fast-food on the train on the way to cram school. Naturally, they have no conversation at home.

So today I will introduce this typical homemade taste 'nikujaga'. It is simple, but it makes Japanese people feel home. 'Niku' means meat and 'jaga' means potato. Yes, nikujaga is a cooking of meat and potatoes!

Ingredients:
potato (4)
onion (1)
carrot (1)

meat (sliced or minced pork or beef)

soy sauce (2tbsp)
sugar (2tbsps)

sake (2tbsps)

salt
mirin -sweet rice wine (2tbsps)

1- Peel and cut potatoes, carrot and onion.

2- Stir fry the meat, potatoes, carrot and onion.

3- When the meat is cooked, add 2 cups of soup (any stock) and boil until the potatoes get soft.

4- Add sugar, mirin, salt and soy sauce and boil until less soup.

If you add boiled green peas in the end, it'll look nicer.

Itadakimasu.