Congrats to UM for being around for five years! I still remember my first post on Peking duck back in 2007 (after constant harassment from Kayoko to write for her), and over the past five years, I’ve written over 200 posts. When we started, it was a fun, jokey, let’s-talk-about-food-in-a-very-funny-way kind of activity. But 5 years later, we now have 15,000 visitors a month and we are becoming more and more of a legit food blog site!

Given the level of professionalism at Umamimart, I have to make some adjustments, and I have to make an announcement.

Yamahomo no longer exists, and from now on, Moto will be writing this ReCPY column. I am starting to plan my future in various ways, and I am starting the Moto empire, very slowly. Please join me thanking Yamahomo for his five years of crazy posts, and welcome Moto.

As a part of my empire, I’ve started a short cooking video series Nihon in the Kitchen (Nihon = Japan) with my very talented colleague Ben. I do the cooking, he films, edits, and does all the animation. In these short segments, I introduce Japanese ingredients (sort of like Yoko’s Japanify), and make something easy, fun and out of ordinary.

In this above episode, I made Natto Nuts, and this is the easiest way to introduce the benefits of natto without the slime.

Enjoy!

One of my favorite restaurants is Kajitsu, as I’ve written a couple of awesome reviews about the place. Chef Nishihara is simply a genius. His creativity and flavoring, using only vegetables (it’s a vegan/shojin restaurant), is just amazing.

I saw an article in last week’s Times Magazine, where Mark Bittman cooked with Chef Nishihara. I was blown away. He made vegan Worcestershire sauce. I’ve made sauces before, from molé to demi-glace to simple dashi. But who knew Worcestershire sauce could be home made??!!

I had to do it. But the original recipe is too much, so I cut corners here and there.

Here is my adaptation.

Soak a piece of kombu (about 6 inch) and 3 large (6 small) dried shiitake mushroom in a cup of water overnight.

They are reconstituted the next morning.

Cut 1 large onion, 4 carrots, 1 stalk of celery, and piece of ginger into small pieces.

Prepare spices:

1 teaspoon cinnamon
6 bay leaves
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
½ teaspoon sansho peppercorns, Sichuan peppercorns or green peppercorns
1 tablespoon ground, dried sage
1 tablespoon soybean powder (optional)
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon dried thyme
½ small dried hot red chili

Original recipe says to use fresh tomato, but I bought canned tomato, since the quality of tomato in this season isn’t that great anyways. Puree 3 lbs tomato.

Strain the tomatoes into a large pot.

You don’t want seeds to be in the sauce.

Make dashi. Here I cut corners. Put re-hydrated kombu into 8 cups of water, and simmer for 1 hour (instead of 2).

Add 2 cups of vegetable trimmings. Simmer for one more hour (again, instead of two). The more variety of vegetables, the better.

After two hours of simmering kombu and vegetable together, the stock is now done.

Strain:

8 cups of water is boiled down to barely 3 cups.

For tomato base, add vegetables, and thinly sliced re-hydrated mushroom, and simmer for about an hour.

Add all the spices and simmer for 10 minutes. As soon as you dump all the spices in the sauce, you will smell Worcestershire sauce. This is amazing.

Blend this mixture, then put everything back into the pot.

From here on, the process was a bit hectic, and I don’t have all the pics.

Pour 1 cup of red wine into the kombu/vegetable dashi. Boil for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook down pureed tomato base for another 10 minutes.

Pour 1/3 of tomato base into dashi/red wine through strainer. Cook another 10 minutes. And here you have homemade Worcestershire sauce. Color is a lot lighter than store bought kind. The flavor is a lot softer, but you definitely taste Worcestershire sauce.

This recipe made two kinds of sauce, one thin (above), and the other thick (below). In the remaining tomato base, add 1 grated apple, and cook for another 10 minutes. You now have a thick sauce. The recipe didn’t call for it, but I blended it to make it extra smooth. Adding an apple changed the flavor drastically, and it’s awesome.

It was a great experience, especially knowing that you don’t question the ingredients of the sauce. But I don’t think I will make this again, looking at all the mess I created…

I made oven-baked tonkatsu, and this sauce is not your typical Worcestershire sauce, but quite addictive. I also made panko-crusted mahi-mahi last night, and used the sauce (one bite with thin sauce, the other bite thick sauce), and it was very good.

Chef Nishihara is a genius. I haven’t tasted chef’s sauce, but a big difference he told me would be that he saves all the vegetable trimmings (carrots, cabbage, onion, turnips, leeks) and make a large batch of dashi, with kombu. I think the depth of his dashi is far more intense than what we can make at home though.

Good experience nonetheless.

This is my new favorite winter cocktail to drink in our neck of the woods, so I named it after our neighborhood, Skylonda. I just soak some cinnamon sticks in a jar of bourbon for a few days which gives it a nice spice. Then to the bourbon, I add a few drops of bitters and a splash of dry vermouth in one of Umamimart Shop’s lovely Yarai cocktail mixing glasses.

By Kenji Miura

Shiokara is a fantastic savory condiment to your favorite glass of shochu. This particular shiokara is made with surume ika (Japanese Common Squid or Pacific Flying Squid).

INGREDIENTS
5 fresh squid
2 tbsp salt

METHOD

1. Clean the squid. (Here’s how via Kyoto Foodie)

2. Cut the legs and ears (the triangular portion of the squid) off of the main portion of the squid. Peel the skin off.

3. You may set aside the main body portion for sashimi.

4. The legs and ears will be added to the shiokara mixture. Cut these into 1-1.5 inch long pieces. Clean off any slimy film that you may encounter.

5. Mix salt and the brown innards (liver/digestive gland) of the squid together for the shiokara mixture, into a pasty consistency. I sometimes replace the salt with anchovies, which is a good alternative.

6. Add the squid leg and ear pieces to the mixture.

7. Keep in air tight container for 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Eat within 36 hours after coming out of the fridge.

To enjoy shiokara, add shichimi spice or yama wasabi (mountain wasabi, shown in the photo). I am a Hokkaido native, so I am especially fond of yama wasabi, which is used for seasonings and marinades. Yama wasabi is also a great condiment to roast beef, similar to horseradish.

Black olives are also a nice pairing to shiokara.

*Kenji Miura is a professional photographer based in Tokyo.

**Article translated from Japanese to English by Yoko Kumano.

The other day at my local Asian market — which is usually not very well equipped since importing food from Asia to an unsignificant little island kingdom like Denmark is incredibly pricey — I found these bags of grains. And I remembered the many crazy versions of rice I often came across when living in Tokyo. Blue, green, dotted in all colours, with grains, with beans, with nuts, anything you’d be sane enough to drop in a rice cooker.

Japanese consumers are obsessed with the terms “fresh” and “new”. In supermarkets and konbinis in Japan products are constantly being introduced, killed-off or moved around in the store to create the impression of variation and new experiences every time you enter the shop = more consumption, more shopping.

Shibuya: A normal day of skanky shopping.

As fellow Umamimart writer Yoko has mentioned several times in her Japanify coloum, new flavours of a well known product are introduced constantly, and quite often those flavours are more a gimmick than a real addition to its brand. Like Green Tea Coca Cola, Vanilla Licorice Beer or Mango Pudding Kit Kat. They may not taste super good, but they invoke a sensation in the consumer’s brain and a quick 10 second reminder of its brand in the surrounding cacophony of other brands across the globe. It’s all about staying afloat in people’s minds, no matter the cost.

Caramel Corn candy bags – why just one corn flavour when we can have six? Strawberry Corn, Tomato Corn, Peanut Corn, Green Tea Corn, Almond Corn and Vanilla Corn.

Japan makes you buy stuff — and that’s exactly what many urban Japanese do: work/eat/shop/sleep (wait hold on, they barely sleep since their work schedule is so intense. And also there’s very little sex involved — the Japanese are so over relationship fornication according to many recent studies. Many young, urban Japanese past their 20′s prefer to stay living at home with their parents and then spend their salary on fun with friends, foreign travels, izakaya dinners and shopping. And the shops know that.
Which means whenever you find yourself on a first class seat to Tokyo, make sure you brought lots of empty suitcases to bring back your new junk.

Tokyo, 2008: Psyched out Anders high on a mixture of sugary green tea ice cream overdose and Tokyu Hands toy department shopping frenzy:

“Look, Yoko — I’m shopppiiing! How about this bed? Should I buy it? Does it fold for the plane ride? What do you think, Yoko? Oh those sheets over there are lovely, I’ll take two of those! Wow, check out those Muji designer bunny slippers! Do you think they come in white male sizes?”

Yoko: “Get me out of here”.


Chopped baby bunny meat burger. Kidding. Sort of, I think.

But sometimes this crazed up variation shopping machine isn’t so bad. It’s actually quite exciting now and then. And I really really miss this energy and creativity among the brands in Danish supermarkets. Every five years there MIGHT be introduced a new flavour of a classic chocolate bar here, but it  will probably be “Almond” or “Soft Toffee” or something generic, really thought-over and well-tested with consumers. Yawn, you say? I agree. Then again, Red-Bean-Paste-Whole-Grain-Spearmint Kit Kat probably wouldn’t sell truckloads here. However, a little craziness now and then would be fun here in Denmark.

Back to the rice mix:

Super cute package.

It says げんきなこくもつ which best can be translated as “happy, vigouris richness”. Which is exactly what it brings to your plain, white boring rice.

Danish ingredient list stuck on the back by the import company lists the ingredients:

This is 15 kinds of rice/grain mix: Gluten rice, black rice, corn, red beans,, barley, buckwheat, pearl barley, black soy beans, black seseame, white sesame, brown rice, white sorghum, gluten foxtail millet, gluten millet and amarand grains.

WOW! That’s a whole lotta grainz.

Sounds like something the organic crazies here in Copenhagen would happily sprinkle on their tofu ice cream.

It says this bag goes with 500g rice which is exactly 4 cups.

Many Western people claim that rice doesn’t really taste of anything and it’s all the same. Well, not quite.

The world of Japanese rice is an abundant cornicopia of brands that offer thousands of different textures, subtle flavours and qualities.

My latest disappointment in my fellow Danes was last week when I went to the Kung Fu Izakaya Bar in Copenhagen. A Japanese izakaya-inspired place with wooden interiors and cozy lighting. All was good until we sat down and the starter miso soup with a bowl of Indian basmati rice was placed in front of me. SHOCK HORROR! You can NOT serve Indian rice in a Japanese izakaya, it’s like serving expensive salmon nigiri sushi with ketchup on the side (something that will send you straight to hell). Needless to say the rest of the dishes were also an abomination and we left hardly having touched the food.

This is my preferred rice at the moment. Hitomebore rice, a middle grain sort which is developed in Japan but grown in the US. I used to buy cheaper brands at the Asian market, but this is so much better. It’s about $23 for a bag of 2.5 kg which is probably a little pricey for American or Japanese standards.

The owner of my local Asian market told me yesterday that their container from Japan was finally delivered after being held back for two months in customs since there are only 3 freight companies in Denmark that scan for radiation contamination (supposedly everything from Japan is scanned before crossing the border to the EU. Hmm I didn’t know that, but I guess it makes sense).

So again, back to the rice:

I put 4 cups of rice in my rice cooker bowl. Wash gently 4-5 times until the water is somewhat clear.

Pour out all water, add approx 4 cups of new fresh water and let it soak for 10 minutes.

Put in the bag of happy, vigorious richness and mix around.

Place the cooking bowl in the rice cooker and start cooking.

While we wait for the vigorious rice, I want to show you the best Christmas present I got this year: A “Famous Views of Edo” week calendar from Taschen, painted by one of the most famous uki-e painters Hiroshige (1797 – 1858).

Edo was the old name for present day Tokyo and the paintings in the calendar show the nature around the old capital, the life of its inhabitants and the many incredibly scenes from a world long gone.

What must a foreigner have thought when coming to Japan the first time back in this age? Everything must have been so aesthetic, so beautiful — and yet so raw. A hard-knock life.

Ok, so this is the amount of Mondays we have to endure throughout 2012. Doesn’t look like a lot actually:

And speaking again of shopping:  If you’ve fallen in love with this too, you can purchase it online here at Taschen for cheap since the year’s begun now.

Yay, the rice is done. What a difference such a little grain filled bag can make. The rice has a nutty smell and a creamy brown/white colour, and is full of exciting new flavours among is grains.

It tastes great. It’s not a super intrusive attack on the traditional rice, more like a fun variation and a nutty boost.

Happy winter rice time from Skankynavia.

I had the privilege to fly first class to Japan. Don’t ask me why, let’s just say I am a lucky person. Don’t judge me, I am only doing this to show how things are being done up there.

Don’t we all wonder how the privileged few have luxurious full flat seat, all you can drink/eat, three windows per seat, two bathrooms for 16 passengers, while the rest are literally crammed like chickens in coach? I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but once you experience this, it’s very difficult to see the reality of the fourth row from the back of the bus.

Here are how things are done for the selected few at the now-bankrupted American Airlines.

Flight from ORD (Chicago) –> NRT.

Seat: It’s not that wide, but very very long. Once full flat, one can comfortably sleep as if you are sleeping on a sofa. I say sofa, not bed, because it’s still narrow, but totally as comfortable as spending a night at a friend’s apartment.

Amenities: each seat is given a comforter, a blanket, and “bed cover” to put on your seat for more plush. Upon request, flight attendants are supposed to “turn down” your seat, but that’s just what they say. None of American Airline’s mature ladies even talk to you. Actually, the Chicago crews were a lot nicer than the New York crew, which is expected.

Seat operation system: complicated. You don’t want to look like an amateur, so you have to figure out how these things work quietly.

Windows: Yeah, there are three windows per seat. Think about the half windows in coach. This was definitely a luxury.

Pajamas:  Pretty comfortable, but it’s silly to see everyone in first class wearing the same thing.

Drinks: Abundant. You press the call button, and they bring more booze (as they look at you with the face of, “How are you still drinking?!”). Awesome.

Once the aircraft is up 38,000 feet altitude and cruising speed, the meal starts. Since this is noon departure, this is lunch, I guess.

White table cloth on the table.

Plates, salt and pepper shaker, and butter are served. And yes, this is all real china, not plastic.

First course, grilled shrimp. They are served from a big platter, and they are actually good.

Not chewy, very plump, and flavored with garlic and herbs. Pretty nice.

Entree: Chicken and pureed squash. Not worthy of anything. This tasted how airline food should taste.

I guess Chicago is famous for pretzel bread? The attendant recommended this out of many choices on bread basket, filled with warm ones. And this was very good. It was like eating a softer version of a pretzel.

I don’t usually have dessert, but they serve a famous sundae that they make with a bunch of toppings. Here you can see some fruit, nuts, booze to pour on top.

Done with the meal, with one more vodka on the rocks, I slept for about six hours without any disruption from a fellow passenger leaning on my seat or anything. Oh, the Bose noise-cancelling headsets that they provide is very nice. They act as ear plugs, and you don’t hear anything.

I was woken up by the scent of the next meal from the galley. Unfortunately, it was extremely disappointing sesame chicken, smeared with a shit load of sesame, and salad.

View from the window.

13 and half hours later, I landed at NRT, then on to next flight from NRT-SYD (Sydney), in row 54, for another 10 hours, back in coach. It was reality, hard fucking reality. At least it was on JAL where the booze was free, and I had enough to be able to sleep and wake up just about when I saw the Opera House from half the window I had access to.

Fast forward my time in Australia and Japan, and to my return flight NRT–> JFK

Flight attendants were so “mature”, and they were not “attending”, more like “doing me a favor by serving food and drinks”. First class was pretty empty on this flight, but during the flight, all the seats were taken up by attendants who were sleeping and actually snoring.

First course: salad with a piece of chicken. Again they were served from a big platter, and everything was fresh and tasted good.

Though I ordered a traditional Japanese meal, they gave me a selection of appetizers from the big platter. Smoked salmon and another shrimp. It’s amazing how the seasonings exactly the same no matter which country you board the plane. The photo is dark, but the only difference on the shrimp is the actual quality of shrimp. Japan definitely has better shrimp than the States.

More appetizer cart with fresh vegetable and slice of meat of some kind.

Here is my Japanese menu. So complicated, I lost interest reading and just waited for the food to arrive.

Hassun, Kobachi, and “Western Dish”:

Below is the “Western Dish”. Good vinegar, crunchy vegetables. Pretty nice. Not so “western”, though. They tasted like regular sunomono, or vegetables marinated in vinegar.

Kobachi was also good. But these two tasted pretty much the same since main sauce consisted of vinegar…

Hassun was ok, nothing special. The egg tasted fake.

Satoimo (taro root) had skins on it. I think it had a decorative purpose, but it was kinda inedible.

Main course: soup, fish, more egg, and mochi-esque dish on top left. I think it was potato.

Oh this is crabmeat and lily bulb paste stuff.  It was tasty.

Fish was too soy saucy and fishy.

Japanese meal was good for what it was, but it’s pretty disappointing to know it was all made in Japan — I expected more. I wonder if this is American Airlines standard or general rule of airline food.

In the middle of the flight, they served pumpkin soup.

I think the airline heating system uses some kind of combustive method where hot is EXTREMELY hot, and the cold is EXTREMELY cold. My soup was piping hot, almost lawsuit hot.

Good though. Spiced with curry, and a bit spicy. Comforting, almost welcoming me back to US land.

Now you have better idea how these selected, privileged people eat during a long flight. I wouldn’t boast the food situation, but the seat, and sleep-ability is extremely luxurious and you can actually function when you land at your destination since you had a pretty relaxed time during the flight.

Back in Cupertino, Kuni (my pops) had a huge bag of fuguhire (dried blowfish tails) from Tsukiji market, which he is grills to make fuguhire zake. These tails are from the blowfish variety tora-fugu or “tiger fugu”. Fuguhire zake is a common way to drink hot sake in Japan during the cold winters, at least amongst my father’s generation (ojisan aka old men).

Kuni says that it is becoming harder to find these tails in Japan, and they are generally not for sale here in the States. The tora-fugu variety is of the highest quality.

Also, Kuni has his license to slice blowfish, did you know?

Anyhow, here’s how he makes fuguhire zake for his restaurant, Sushi Kuni in Cupertino.

INGREDIENTS
A couple blowfish tails, and some cheap sake. Kuni emphasizes that you can use run-of-the-mill, non-premium sake here since you are going to warm it up.

1. Pour about a cup of sake into a kettle.

2. Heat sake on stove over medium heat. When steam begins to rise, turn it off.

3. Take fugu tail with wooden chopsticks and slowly sear it over an open fire. If you have a small grill, that is ideal. You could also put them in the toaster.

4. Let it char a bit, but try not to let it burn to a crisp.

5. Grill about four or five of the tails, and drop them into the kettle full of sake.

6. While you are waiting about five minutes for the fugu tails to infuse the sake, make some accompanying side dishes. Like octopus sashimi and morokyu (cucumbers with miso).

Octoporn

The sake is warm and dashi-like, with smoky notes and a hint of the sea. Not fishy at all.

Enjoy!

A great follow-up to the sashimi is nabe (hotpot). A staple meal in every Japanese home during winter.

Add rice at the very end for a hearty shime (ending).

Happy winter! It’s cold and dreary here in Oakland. I hope you’re all hanging in there, I think it’s gonna be a colddddd winter.

Baking chestnut cake dusted with powdered sugar and pine nuts. This was taken as part of an assignment for Edible Brooklyn to accompany an article on chestnuts.

Photo by Erin Gleeson.

Happy new year! How did you spend your new year’s day?

The start of my new year was the worst. On new year’s eve, I was at my a party in SF and drank many whisky cocktails that my friend made. I enjoyed the cocktail and the party, and then went to the BART (the Bay Area train system) station around 3 am. There were still many people in the station, yeah, it’s a new year’s day. I was pretty cheerful at the point, but when I got on the train, I felt so sleepy but also sick. I shouldn’t have sat down, which made me even more sick. You know what happened next… yeah, I threw up everything on the floor.

You can guess the look on my wife’s face, sitting right next to me.

Back home, I washed my dirty clothes, and slept on the couch that night. Then I got sick again. I really apologize to my wife and people who cleaned up my puke on the train.

Anyway, let me introduce to you oyuwari, that heals your weary body and soul.

Normal style of oyuwari.

First, what is oyuwari? Oyuwari is shochu mixed with hot water. You can mix any kinds of shochu with hot water, but imo (sweet potato) shochu is the best shochu for oyuwari, because it has plenty of aroma and sweetness. The hot water makes the aroma bright yet mild. Oyuwari reveals the shochu’s true characters, so it’s a great way to differentiate between good shochus and bad.

Bartender’s tip: it’s pretty important that you pour four parts of hot water in the glass first, then six parts shochu. Don’t mix it. Shochu is heavier than hot water, so it will blend with the hot water naturally. Wait five minutes and enjoy the aroma before it is at the right temperature to drink. The result is a mild tasting, warm shochu drink.

And I would like to introduce a special oyuwari today. It’s called maewari oyuwari which means oyuwari that is pre-mixed. You should combine shochu and water 6:4 and infuse it overnight in a bottle or something like ceramic pot that shades the light. Filtered soft water is best for it. It’s the best way to serve it 24 hours later, and still ok to serve it a few days later — but not a week later, that is too long.

How to serve it? It’s already mixed with water, so you can just pour it to your kettle and warm it up to about 120°F on your stove top.

Portable stove you can get at Asian market.

I hate American measurement units.

Use burning charcoal to keep the kettle warm.

Above style is too special, not available in your house, but if you have passion, you can do it.

Ahh… the aroma transports me to the spa, or Hawaii. Oyuwari is the best for winter, especially for the cold nights when your wife or partner is mad at you, or after a tough day at work. Just pour shochu into a glass with hot water, and the oyuwari will deeply heal your weary body and soul.

Sigh.

Shochu doesn’t cheat you. Shochu always stands by you. Take your shochu time.

*Washi Washino is a certified Shochu Advisor. Find him behind the bar from Monday-Friday at Ippuku in Berkeley.

I’ve been obsessed with making this dish for a few months now — it is really satisfying when you are craving noodles, and so ridiculously easy to make. You can usually find nabeyaki udon on the menus at Japanese restaurants, for $12+. This is so easy to make at home, and cheap!

INGREDIENTS
1 pack of frozen udon noodles (if you only have the hard kind, that is fine too)
A few pieces of fishcake (I use chikuwa here)
A type of green (bok choy, napa cabbage, spinach)
Some green onions
Udon/Soba soup base

Optional: Egg and mushrooms

METHOD

1. Fill pot with 3 cups of water:

One requirement for this dish is to have a heavy pot, be it a nabe-style clay pot, or cast iron. Le Creuset works fine.

2. Chop all ingredients

3. Once the water starts to boil, add about a tablespoon of the udon soup base, or homemade tsuyu, to the water. Add the fishcakes to get more dashi, and umami.

4. Optional step: In another pot, boil water and cook noodles seperately

This is a not-so-lazy step that I do because I find the starch element, that Anders had mentioned before in his bacon udon recipe , to be too much when the noodles are cooked in the same pot. But technically if you have frozen udon, you should just be able to put it in directly to the pot where you’re cooking everything else.

I found these frozen Sanuki-style noodles at the Korean market, for super duper cheap. $2.50 for five packs!

It’s not the best udon, but it works fine. We are in a recession, afterall.

5. Dump all the vegetables into your pot.

Let it all come to a simmer.

6. The stove should be on medium. Add noodles.

Again, you can pre-boil the noodles, or just add the frozen pack directly into the pot, at this point.

7. Add egg.

8. Cover the pot, with all the ingredients boiling.

9. After about three minutes, open the lid.

It’s done when the egg is cooked to your liking.

All in all, this took about 15 minutes, including prep.

Add grated daikon if you please, and a heap of green onions. If you have any ten-kasu (tempura flakes), sprinkle some over. Serve in little bowls.

This is the perfect dish to keep you and your family warm during the winter months.