I must say the video was very well made, in terms of functionality and usefulness it’s very helpful :P

Dango (団子, Dango?) is a Japanese dumpling made from mochiko (rice flour), related to mochi. It is often served with green tea.

Dango are eaten year-round, but the different varieties are traditionally eaten in given seasons. Three to four dango are often served on a skewer. One variety of dango from Hokkaidō is made from potato flour and baked with shoyu (soy sauce).

But I would like to focus on the Mitarashi Dango, which is Japanese dumpling soaked in soya sauce, sugar and salt syrup. It’s like a perfect marriage of sweet and savory and I can see why it’s loved so much. However, to the western palate, it might take a bit of a getting used to. If a taste for salty-sweet is acquired, you’ll find Mitarashi Dango to be an excellent dessert.

I found an excellent recipe for dango from one of my favorite food blogs of all time: Just Hungry.

If you wanna know how to make Mitarashi Dango at home, follow this link: Mitarashi Dango, rice dough dumpling with sweet salty sauce.

One of the most monumental scene in Memoirs of a Geisha was when Chiyo met the Chairman for the first time. It was also the first time she tasted cherry flavored shaved ice. The picture of her savoring that ball of snow flavored red is sweetness. Kakigōri is a Japanese ice dessert that’s popular during hot summer days. We can anticipate eating Kakigōri really soon, that is if the weather would stop acting unpredictably cold again.

Popular flavors include: strawberry, cherry,lemon, green tea, grape, melon, “blue-hawaii” sweet plum, and colorless syrup. Some shops provide colorful varieties by using two or more different syrups. To sweeten Kakigōri, condensed milk is often poured on top of it. It is nearly identical to a snow cone but can have a slightly rougher consistency and a spoon is almost always used. The traditional way of making kakigori involves using a hand cranked machine to spin a block of ice over an ice shaving blade. However, electric ice shavers are most often used; though street vendors can still be seen hand-shaving ice blocks in the summer.

Make your own shaved ice: Kakigori with poached apricot
In addition to the streets, Kakigori is also sold in festivals, convenience stores, coffee shops, restaurants; during the hot summer months Kakigōri is sold virtually everywhere in Japan. Some coffee shops serve it with ice cream and sweet bean paste. Convenience stores may also sell it already flavored and packaged similar to ice cream.

I really like her, she simplifies Japanese food to the shreds for the home cooks. As usual, her tuna donburi looks delicious and simple enough to make.

Nikuman are Japanese steamed buns usually filled with either savory or sweet filling made out of adzuki beans. These japanese version of steamed buns are very similar to the Chinese baozi, also usually filled either a savory or sweet filling.

These hot food are usually sold in street hawkers or the convenience store in a ready-to-eat heat pack. Here are several brands to lookout for:

Circle K Sunkus

* White curry man
* Squid ink seafood man
* Deli chicken man with mayo-style flavor

Ministop

* Crunchy Chinese seafood man
* Crunchy cheese sausage donut man
* Boiled pork cube crunchy curry man
* Crunchy cheese lasagna man

FamilyMart

* Cream cheese man
* Sakura man
* Choco-man

Lawson

* Milk caramel man

SAVE ON

* Sakura anman
* Beef tendon man
* Jiaozi man

But if you want to make Nikuman at home, it’s is not impossible. Like a lot of asian style cooking, preparation is usually the hardest part of the whole thing. Here’s a very good recipe of steamed buns with pork filling that you can try out during your long weekends:

For the dough:

A:
2C (240g) flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp potato starch
1/2+ tbsp oil
3 tbsp sugar in 4 oz H2O

B:
½ tsp yeast
1 ½ tbsp lukewarm water
½ tsp sugar

1. Combine ingredients A and B and knead for 10 mins. Cover with wet teacloth to proof for 1 to 1.1/2 hours. Punch down and knead at least 20 times. Rest dough for 10 mins. If the dough pulls back, the rest time is insufficient, extend the rest time.

2. Divide dough into 1 oz pieces and fill with chosen filling. As you pleat the closing, be sure not to grease the edges so that the dough will stick.

For a good pork filling:

3T dark soy sauce
3T light soy sauce
1/2c honey
1/2t salt
3T oyster sauce
2T rice wine / sake
3T teriyako sauce
1t five-spice powder
1/2t ground white pepper

1-2 lbs pork tenderloin, loin, or belly cut into strips approx. 2″ thick and 8″ long. (I only used 1lb, but the marinade will easily take 2lb of meat.)

Stir all ingredients together in a deep bowl until honey dissolves.

Poke the pork all over with a skewer and place in the marinade. Turn until well coated. Cover and refridgerate for 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4. Set a wire rack over a deep baking tin filled with about an inch of hot water. Place the meat onto the rack, well spaced out. Baste generously and roast for 15 minutes.

Baste the meat once more and roast for another 20 minutes. Baste once more then turn the meat over. Baste generously and roast for another 20 minutes, basting 2-3 times during this period.

Turn the oven up to 200C/Gas Mark 6. Baste the meat one last time. Roast for 15 minutes until the meat is mahogany-coloured and the edges are slightly charred. Remove meat from to a chopping board and leave to rest. Don’t throw away the pan juices, you’ll need some for the filling!

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of my own for show but I will make sure to post it up when i made Nikuman again. But it would have to be during cooler climate :)

The most common Japanese pickle we know off are Umeboshi which is a plum pickle often served with rice and gari, pickled ginger used as palate cleansers to accompany sushis and sashimis. Japanese pickles are different from the western pickles which uses vinegar as a preservative agent. Also, ingredients used in picking in the west seems a little more palatable than the ingredients used in Japanese pickles.

In Japan, pickling does not stop at fruits and vegetables, pickling goes way out to rice bran, soybean to even fish. The purpose of tsukemonos is to offer color, texture and aroma to meals in Japan. It is even a good appetizer to start the meal with. The most common ingredient used for pickling in Japan are soy sauce, miso, vinegar, rice bran (nuka), salt, brines and sake lees (sake kasu).

Read here for more info about Tsukemono

I found a really nice website that offers some good recipes to start you off with making your own Japanese pickles. There are three recipes (all vegetarian) of pickling used in the site and they are Salt pickling, rice bran pickling and miso pickling that you can use.

Here’s one of the recipes to check out:

KYABETSU TO NINJIN NO ASAZUKE (pickled cabbage and carrot)

1 small head of regular cabbage (3/4 pound),
the leaves cut into pieces about an inch square
1 medium sized carrot, cut into matchstick slices about an inch long
1 Japanese cucumber, unpeeled and cut into matchstick
slices about an inch long
4 tablespoons of salt

Method:
Place vegetable slices into the pickle press (or jar) and add one teaspoon of salt, mix well by stirring with your hands. Add the second teaspoon of salt and mix again. Add the final tablespoon of salt and mix well. Clamp on the top of the pickle press and screw down the lid until it pushes down tightly on the top layer of vegetables. Leave under pressure overnight or for at least 10 hours. Remove the pickles from the press and place them in a colander, wash them well to remove salt, pat them dry and serve.

I would like to introduce you to a really, really cute and informative site about making your own bento boxes called Just Bento. The pictures and ideas are really awe-inspiring. It makes ME want to make a bento and eat off it right now.

Just look at some of the bento boxes you can find there:

What’s awesome about this site is it even does a calorie count for you.

Has anyone every tried this? It looks like a very loose okonomiyaki.

Have you ever wondered what Sumo wrestler’s eat to help maintain that weight and energy for their tournaments? They eat this thing called Chanko Nabe, a type of stew that incorporates various meats and vegetables. Needless to say it is high in calories and is absolutely hearty for cold days. It contains a dashi or chicken broth soup base with sake or mirin to add flavor. The bulk of chanko nabe is made up of large quantities of protein sources (usually chicken (quartered, skin left on), fish (fried and made into balls), tofu, or sometimes beef) and vegetables (daikon, bok choy, etc). While considered a reasonably healthful dish in its own right, chankonabe is very protein-rich and usually served in massive quantities, with beer and rice to increase the caloric intake. Leftover chankonabe broth can also later be used as broth for somen or udon noodles.

Here’s a recipe I am keen on trying, even though i am in no hurry to gain weight. Ever. It’s looks pretty yummy and the main protein for this Chanko Nabe is chicken.

* 1 pack udon noodles
* 12 cups chicken stock
* 4 boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 2-inch chunks
* 1 daikon radish, sliced
* 1 potato, sliced
* 2 onions, quartered
* 12 shiitake mushrooms, stemmed removed and quartered (can use reconstituted dried shiitakes, if you like)
* 1 carrot, peeled and sliced into bite-size chunks
* 1 cake fresh tofu (”cotton” or non-silken so it won’t break up on you), cut into small cubes
* 1 cake fresh tofu (also cotton variety), cut into small cubes and fried on all sides in oil til they take on color (if you can find it in the store, get abura-age,which are deep fried thin slices of cotton tofu)
* 1 medium bok choy cabbage, chopped into small pieces
* 1/2 cup soy sauce
* 1/2 cup mirin (sweet sake)
* 2 teaspoons salt

Garnish: gratings of that racy, narcotic shichimi, if you can get your hands on it

Cook the udon noodles according to directions, drain, and reserve.

Bring water to boil in a saucepan, then add the sliced daikon and potato and parboil for a few minutes. Drain, refresh with cold water, and reserve.

Bring the chicken stock to a boil, add all the vegetables (not including the daikon and potato or the cabbage), chicken, and two kinds of tofu and simmer until the fresh vegetables are cooked through, about 15 minutes. Add the daikon, potato, and cabbage and simmer 5 more minutes.

Season the broth with soy sauce, mirin, and salt to taste, simmer a few more minutes.

Place the cooked udon noodles in deep soup bowls, then ladle the soup over them and serve piping hot, passing the shichimi separate, to grate over the soup to taste.

Recipe from HERE..

Apparently, I just missed out on the Foodex 2008 in Japan recently – it was on March 11-14, 2008. It’s an exposition on food around Japan featuring local and international cuisine. But anyway, even if we’ve missed it this year, they’ve already scheduled a date for next year. FoodEx 2009 will be on March 3rd to 6th 2009.

Visitors would need a registration card for entry to savor all the food from various cuisines. Online Purchase (by credit card)
Prior purchase will cost JPY 4,000 per visitor per day. It is possible to to register up to 6 persons for multiple days of visit. Access the “Online Overseas Visitor Registraton” icon and follow the instructions. Online purchase is strictly for persons residing overseas.
* Onsite Purchase
Visitor Badges can be purchased at the onsite ticketing desk for JPY 5,000 per visitor per day. Visitors will be required to submit TWO business cards (in English) as proof of profession onsite.

http://www2.jma.or.jp/foodex/en/index.html