More Fun with Food in Japan

Japanese cucumbers are the best tasting, non-burp inducing cucumbers on the planet. They are slim and very dark green, with very few bumps on the skin. In Japanese, they are called kyuuri, or きゅうり。(Please let me know if I wrote that incorrectly, nihon no tomodachi.)

What I didn't know is that Japanese cucumbers, when fresh, have a delightful little magic to them. My good friend Tamie-san told me she was watching a cooking show on NHK that said when cucumbers are extremely fresh, you can break them in half by hand and then stick the cucumber back together. Doesn't that sound like a fun thing to try with your kids?

Italy meets Japan in the Kitchen

This is called tatsoi. Oishiikatta ne.

If we are acquainted, you probably know I am a little bit of a food nut. Ever since I read Michael Pollan's books, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, I have tried to really pay attention to the food my familly is eating. I buy local and/or organic produce whenever possible, and try not to buy processed food at all. I found an organic grocery delivery service - Radishbo-ya and I get a box of seasonal produce every week. Sometimes I am completely baffled by the vegetables I receive, as you can see by this photo.

It's been a great adventure, and a fun topic of conversation with my Japanese friends, who have helped me figure out how to cook these new vegetables. I still don't like the slimy mushrooms though, and I'm happy to pass them on to anyone who wants them.

Full disclosure: I admit, I'm still buying granola bars, senbei and pretzels.

In my pursuit of easy recipes using whole, unprocessed ingredients, I found a magazine over the summer in the US called Clean Eating, which subscribes to many of the principles that Michael Pollan outlines in his books. Trying new recipes keeps me from being bored in the kitchen, so I am always looking for something new to test on my family.

Well, this recipe from Clean Eating was a winner on all fronts. Tasty, easy to make, and good for you! I did need to substitute my local Japanese ingredients that were readily available rather than make it as written. So here is my version of an Italian favorite, risotto, taking a delicious detour through Japan.

Risotto with Kabocha and Edamame

Winter squash - I used 1/2 of a pretty big kabocha. I guess it was about 3-4 cups cubed. The original recipe calls for butternut squash.
1/2 cup Edamame, cooked and hulled
4 cups chicken broth
1 medium onion, diced
1 big clove of garlic, minced
1 cup arborio rice
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried sage
1/4 cup parmesan
olive oil

Step one: Cube and peel the squash. Toss the squash with a little olive oil or mist it. Season with salt and pepper if you like. Spread on a baking sheet and bake at 425° until tender, about 25 minutes. Stir from time to time. It's ok if it gets a bit brown - that will help it hold together when mixed with the rice. Set aside.

Step two: Heat broth in a saucepan on the the stove and keep warm.

Step three: Saute onion in 1 T olive oil until a little soft, add garlic and saute for one minute more. Add rice and stir to coat with oil and veg.

Step four: Add 1/2 cup broth to rice mixture, stir until absorbed by rice. Continue adding in 1/2 cup increments. Check rice when you've added almost all the broth. Rice should be tender but firm, not chalky. Continue adding broth until you only have 1/2 cup left.

Step five: Add thyme, sage, edamame and cheese with last 1/2 cup of broth, stir until cheese melts. Gently fold in squash. Serve.

Vegans could make this with vegetable broth, and skip the parmesan. It was so creamy before the cheese was added, and it wasn't that much cheese to begin with.

Sorry, I don't have any photos. This was soooo good and was eaten very quickly. When I make it again, I'll post a photo. The box of arborio rice that I found was 1900¥ - about US$23. So I'll definitely be making this again and not wasting any of that arborio rice! Enjoy!

Julie Asks, "What are you eating?"

My friend Julie asked me what we were eating. It's an interesting question. Do you try to cook just as you did in the United States? Or do you change how you approach the dinner/lunch menu?My approach has been a mixture of trying to cook like I did in the US, with some changes.

 Some of the ingredients that are staples of American cooking are not as readily available, and you have to compromise. I have also tried some new recipes that are Japan-influenced, and these recipes of course are easy to shop for - no missed ingredients or compromises!

One of the first dishes I tried cooking was yakisoba, and it has become a regular meal at our home. During Sam's first few weeks at school, one of the moms came in and fixed yakisoba as part of the cooking segment the class has on Fridays. That afternoon she told me how much Sam enjoyed the yakisoba, and I asked her how she made it so I could fix it at home.

Yakisoba is one of those dishes that has a million variations, but it is essentially a one-dish meal that can be on the table in 15 minutes. That's my kind of meal. And if it tastes good? That's a home run.

Here is how I fix yakisoba - "fried noodles."

Ingredients

Bacon - about 1/2 lb.

1/2 onion,  chopped

1 large carrot, cut into thin batons

1/4-1/2 head cabbage, thinly sliced.

2 packages of soba noodles, 170 g each.

Bull Dog yakisoba sauce, or worcestershire sauce.

Ingredients:

First, fry the bacon. Then add the onion and carrots and cook until onion is starting to soften.

 Drizzle with some sauce.

Then add the cabbage, and let it cook down a bit.

Sometimes I put a lid on it to accelerate the wilting. Drizzle again. 

Add the precooked noodles, let heat up until you can break the noodles up, drizzle with sauce again. Cook until everything is heated through and eat. You can always add more sauce if you want it. 

I have used chicken, and it works well. I found a recipe for yakisoba using seafood, and I am

 going to try that soon. The Bull Dog sauce is probably available in an asian food market, but you can use worcestershire. The Bull Dog is thicker, but has a similar flavor. If you can't get fresh soba noodles or precooked ones, just get the dried ones. I'm pretty sure the SuperG on Concord Pike has dry soba noodles in their asian food section.

Here is my yakisoba, moments before it was consumed by the horde!

Tokyo Marathon 2009

Here's a benefit to living in an international city: world class sporting events. On March 21st, over 30,000 runners took part in the Tokyo Marathon, and the Johnsons saw some of them! We had a special reason for going to see the marathoners - two of the boys' teachers ran. Michael's second grade teacher Ms. Brown, and Sam's Teacher Mary both ran the marathon. 

That day was at the beginning of the boys' spring break, and to kick it off, we went down to Hibiya Park where we knew the runners would be going by. The marathon website said there would be tourist information at this particular park, which was fairly close to us, so we chose that location to watch. We arrived at the park around 11am, and stayed until past 1 pm, and there were athletes running by the entire time we were there.

Unfortunately, we missed seeing Ms. Brown and Teacher Mary. But we did see some costumes that did make you doubt the runner's seriousness. Or perhaps they just wanted their friends and family to be able to see them.

Michael and Sam were in hysterics at some of the crazy getup that some of the runners wore. We saw many cows, pandas, goofy pink wigged athletes, and a cello run by. 

It was a very windy day and rained off and on, luckily not enough to make us leave. After cheering on the athletes, we had some delicious street food from vendors in the park. 

I can't stress enough how good the food is here. In the US when you go to something like this, you expect to pay a lot of money for crappy food. Not here - it is not too expensive to buy street food (keeping in mind that this is Tokyo), and it is good. Nick and I had some yakisoba in a regional style, Chris and Michael had tacos, and Sam opted for a hot dog - big surprise there. I got Sam his hot dog from a cart with very fancy fixings - knowing his tastes, I said, "Purain dog, onagaishimasu." (Plain dog, if you please) I am still laughing because Sam's plain dog came with ketchup and shredded cabbage - and he ate it all up!

March 21 was still pre-sakura (cherry blossom), but Hibiya Park had pretty displays of bulbs. Michael particularly liked them.

Sam's Birthday

We took the boys to the National Children's Castle for Sam's 5th birthday. It is an entertainment complex in Omotesando with a play area, arts room, music room - all with drop-in activities. The art room has a 20 foot wall that kids can paint on! There was an art activity set up for girls day that I really wanted to do, but - no girls in our party except for me, and I was too shy to stand in line (with no kids) to get the kit to make the origami dolls. 

There are computers with games (some in English, thank goodness), computers to explore music, and foosball and pool for older kids. There's a gym, a pool, and an outdoor roof garden with tricycles to ride on. It is definitely geared toward younger children - Chris was quickly tired of the set-up, but a very good day out for the younger boys!

On the way to the Children's Castle, we spotted an amazing bakery with the most beautiful fruit tarts I have ever seen. There were gorgeous confections of mango, green melon, all sorts of berries. There was a tart with soba noodles and strawberries sprinkled with white sugar - and one with whole pears, peeled, sliced and fanned with the stems still attached. Another with mochi rice cakes in pink and white studded around the edge. Well, Nick's birthday was in 4 days, I was absolutely cupcaked out after Sam's birthday, so we stopped and ordered a mixed berry bavarian creme 15 cm tart for Nick's birthday. If you send me an email, I will tell you the price! I am too embarrassed to post it publicly. But I will post a photo of the most beautiful, tasty tart - Mixed berry with bavarian creme and chocolate straws... yummmm.

That Sushi Thing

Our Friday pizza nights have turned into Friday yakitori nights - hey, Domino's is about $30-40 a pizza and it doesn't fill us up! But we can get loads of yakitori from the yakitori man who sets up a stall outside our neighborhood grocery every Friday. This past Friday, we added a plate of sushi to the dinner table. Everyone asked Chris and Michael before we left - "Are you going to eat sushi?" The answer is of course, yes! How can you live in Japan and not eat it?

Chris is the most adventurous of our boys, and eats the sushi I can't eat. The first photo is Chris eating salmon egg roe sushi. Michael is more cautious and would rather eat yakitori (grilled chicken on a skewer - yummmm). His sushi choice was the scrambled egg, which I have to agree is kind of yucky - I don't know what is added to it, but it is sweet.  Sam is being surprisingly daring, too. His sushi of choice was shrimp - always a safe option. Sam is becoming quite a fan of wasabi.

So these photos are for my mom and for Dick Moore, who must have their sushi experience through the Johnson boys! Enjoy.

And thinking of the Moore family, I have added a poll to my blog. I recently had a western food attack and bought a case of Diet Coke for the sum of $30. Please fill out my poll - would you be this crazy?

Snack Food, anyone?

Shopping in a foreign country is not easy, we all know that. But shopping in an asian country where you can't even piece together any of the words on the packaging is exhausting.

I remember a story about baby food from many years ago. Women in African countries would not buy baby food at all. Researchers discovered that the women thought the jars contained ground-up babies - after all, that was the picture on the jar. I am afraid of making these kinds of mistakes as I shop completely by the pictures on the packages. How many tubs of margarine must I buy until I find butter?

And finding snack-type foods that are not junky has been a tough assignment for the grocery shopper. I have been buying rice crackers (senbei). The kids like them, they are not fried, and they have a nice crunch. Maybe a bit high in sodium? I don't know - which may be an advantage to not being able to read the nutrition information. I was so happy to see the senbei packaged in smaller bags, much like the snack bags of goldfish or pretzels.

"Perfect for the long bus ride home," I thought, and bought them. I tucked a bag each into Chris and Michael's backpacks.

They arrive home from school, and Chris announces "Thanks for the fish brains, Mom!" Fish brains? What is he talking about?

Apparently in the package I bought, there are 2 mixes of senbei. Just as there are cheddar goldfish, pretzel goldfish, pizza goldfish, there are flavors in the senbei. I was lucky enough to buy the variety pack with one regular type, and one "fish" type, complete with dried whole fish in the mix. Take a look at the package and you can see those fish! 

Setting a good example, Nick and I sampled the snack fish food. It's not bad, actually, in fact, I really like them. Nick said, "Remember those Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans? This reminds me of the sardine jelly bean."

And I think he's right. The fish are crunchy and sweet and WHOLE! Who knows if anything was removed besides the eyes? If I could read the package, I could tell you. Come visit me, I'll set out a bowl of these instead of popcorn. You take the rice crackers, the fish are MINE.