I love chicken rice porridges. I believe rice cook into a congee is called Okayu in Japanese and it’s usually served to those who are malaise and unwell. Well, I believe that porridges are good for you - it gives your digestive system a break and it warms your body’s core, especially on cold winters day. Here’s a Chicken Porridge recipes that is so simple, you can make it every week :)

Ingredients:
1 cup of rice
10 cups of water/ broth
1 teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
100gram of dried oysters, washed and soaked for 15 mins
2 century eggs, quartered
5-8 thin slices of ginger

Topping:
Chopped Spring Onion/Chives
Sesame oil
Pepper

Method:
1. Cook rice and water in a pot for about 30 minutes, until every grain of rice breaks down, rendering the mixture into a thick consistency.

2. Add your dried oysters and ginger slices. You can also start adding your seasoning now too; salt, pepper, oyster sauce and sesame oil.

3. Cook for another 10 minutes. Stirring constantly. It would be easier if you have a rice cooker but otherwise, you would need to lookout for your pot of congee from burning at the bottom of the pot.

4. Now, add your century eggs and let the congee cook for another 10 -15 more minutes before serving.

5. Top it off with some chopped spring onions, a splash of sesame oil and some pepper.

Green tea is my all time favorite drink, everyday I would drink at least a cup otherwise my day just do not feel complete. I guess it’s mainly for health reasons that I do this. It’s become an autonomous part of my life. Anyway, I stumbled across a recipe online that combines rice and green tea called Ochazuke. Actually there is a similar dish in a Chinese district of Hakka that serves the same rice dish but from what I recall, the dish was slightly bitter from the thick green tea broth that was slathered on the rice but not the Japanese version, which has a thin green tea broth. Hence, I have an curious streak about Ochazuke.

The meal looks like a very warm and hearty one, with green tea as a thin broth, topped with various toppings that makes it flavorful. Just Hungry, has an example and recipe to go with it. Tell me if the picture doesn’t scream yummy to you because it does to me. I love meals that are soupy and warm.

Has anyone tried Ochazuke before? I would like to try it but i don’t have the ingredients for the toppings, so I am gonna have to make a pass till later.

Okayu

I love porridges especially on cold, wet days. It’s very soothing. In Japan, a similar recipe is called Okayu. It’s basically rice porridge cooked in broth or water, and with some added ingredients. It’s the perfect food that soothes the soul which is why Okayu is fed to the sick because it gives them energy to recuperate without being too hard to digest.

To me, I think food like these gives the digestive system and the body a break. It’s healthy and delicious. It’s something that everyone should try once in a while :) You can put any ingredients you like in your okayu - meat, seafood, veggies, etc.

I found a delicious Okayu recipe online that I would like you guys to try. I made my own rice porridge using century eggs (which is a peculiar thing to some) and dried oysters. It was very yummy. But first let me share with you an Okayu recipe made with preserved salted plums.

Recipe taken from Recipeland:

1 c Short grained japanese style
Rice (wash thoroughly)

4 c Water

2 3 rounded tablespoon white
Miso paste (more or less to Taste)

1 Or 2 large salted preserved
Salted plums—umeboshi (to Taste)

1 Cake kinugoshi tofu

1 c Fresh spinach

1 c Fresh nappa cabbage

1/8 t Sake or mirin (optional)

“Okayu” - Japanese-style porridge.

While you wait for your water to boil:

Break apart tofu into little chunks (dice or just use hands) Wash spinach well and cut into 1/4″ segments Wash nappa cabbage and cut into 1/4″ segments take seed out of umeboshi and cut into small pieces

When water is at a nice rolling boil:

Add miso (make sure it completely dissolves in water) (At this stage, taste to make sure you have enough miso in water and add more miso or water for desired taste.) Add rice, tofu, spinach, nappa cabbage, and umeboshi Add mirin or sake (optional)

Once the mixture come back to a nice boil, put cover on pot and reduce heat to low simmer for 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. Cook longer if you like a more creamier porridge.

This makes a nice replacement for soup on a cold day. If eaten as a meal, I like to puree some raw daikon with a tiny smidgin of fresh ginger, lemon juice, and soy sauce as a garnish on top of my okayu.

Here is a picture of my Chinese version of Okayu, using century eggs and dried oysters:

A meal of sushi for two

A lot of people confuse sushi to be raw fish. Well, a lot of caucasians confuse sushi to be raw fish…:P Sushi is basically steam cooked japanese rice wrapped with whatever you fancy, really. Do a wiki search on sushi - it’s interesting. Sashimi, and not sushi, is the name for served raw fish. There are many types of sushi but the sushi I am making are called sushi rolls - the most common sushi type you see in sushi bars.

The perfect sushi is actually in the rice. It doesn’t matter what you put in it as long as you got your rice right, you’re good.

What you need for the PERFECT sushi rice:
3 cups of rice
3 3/4 cup water
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

The rest of the ensemble:
Nori (seaweed sheets)
cucumbers, julienned
carrots, julienned
red peppers, julienned

optional filling: kimchi, kimchi fried chicken, roasted pork, teriyaki chicken, etc etc etc.

Once that is done, here we go, sushi step by step:

First you will need to clean the rice:

You gotta make sure that you clean them well - that means getting rid of the white murkiness of the water. And at the same time, you polish the rice by rubbing them in your hands gently. The rice is very fragile and will break so just do it like how you would play mud, for example.

Once your rice is clean, you add 3 3/4 cup water into the rice and let it cook in a rice cooker.

While your rice is cooking, you prepare your sushi vinegar (sushi-zu) that you add at the end when the rice is cooked. So you combine the rice wine vinegar, sugar and salt and stir it till all solids are dissolved. Putting the vinegar solution in the microwave for 30 seconds to heat, will help with dissolving the solids :)

Once that’s done and your rice is cook. You fluff it up with a fork or your rice scoop gently and pour the sushi vinegar in. Stir the rice to combine flavors…stir as how you would fold a cake batter - and while you’re at it, fan the rice with a magazine using the other hand or just do it like me; blow air into the rice with your mouth. Becareful not to spit in it :P

Your rice should be sticky and not mushy. Each rice grain should look polished and shiny, just like in the picture. Scoop your rice out onto a plate.

It’s now time to assemble your sushi! I even made my own gari (pickled ginger; recipe later) as you can see in the picture.

Here’s my sushi mat and my nori sheets.

So put a the rice on the nori sheet like in the picture…

Start adding your filling. I live with a vegetarian, so i added julienned tofu pieces whcih i marinated with some soy, pepper and mushroom sauce.

Roll your sushi tightly. It’s the beginning that is the hardest but once you get the hang of it, every other time would be a breeze.

So, in the end, you should get a tightly rolled sushi just like the picture. Continue rolling until you used up all the rice. 3 cups of rice should yield you about 5 rolls of sushi - depending on how big or small u want them to be.

Cut the sushi into 1 inch thick rolls. And you have a feast :)

I made a sushi out of stir fried kimchi chicken for myself. The result? Absolutely scrumptious!

Source: A series of kitchen experiments

Different types of Sakes

Do you know what is the no. 1 drink in Japan? It’s beer, not sake. :P I was quite shocked, I always thought it’d be sake because growing up I was taught to think that sake is synonymous to Japanese food and beer is mainly a westerner’s thing - think Budweiser. But anyway, sake is the second preferred drink after beer and I am going to talk about it :)

Sake is actually made out of fermented rice. Now, if any of your have ever seen rice that has gone bad, you’d wonder how that could turn into sake because it is as disgusting as it smells. Ugh. Another name for sake is called nihonshu, which basically translate to Japanese wine. Sake is widely referred to in English as “rice wine”. However, this designation is not accurate. The production of alcoholic beverages by multiple fermentation is more characteristic of beer than wine. Also, there are other beverages known as “rice wine” that are significantly different from nihonshu.

Sake is a clear liquid and has about 15% alcohol in it. It is made from rice and water. Water is very important to make good sake and that means the type of water is important too. Water that is heavy with minerals might give a different taste to the sake so it is definately preferably to use water that has the least minerals in it. Sake breweries in Japan are located near some of the best spring water in the world. After rice is washed, soaked, steamed and cooled, fermentation starts by adding koji rice.

Sake is served in a ceramic flask called tokkuri, and you pour sake into a small cup called o-choko and drink from it. It is polite to pour sake into each other’s cup when you are drinking with others. You always need to know whether your company’s cup is empty or not. (Check out Japanese etiquettes for dining). O-choko actually looks like those Chinese wine cups to me as well. Very interesting indeed. In fact one theory suggests that the brewing of rice first started in China, along the Yangtze River around 4800 BC and was subsequently exported to Japan. Another theory traces sake brewing back to 3rd century Japan with the advent of wet rice cultivation. The combination of water and rice lying around together would have resulted in molds and fermentation. Regardless, the first sake was called kuchikami no sake, (口噛みの酒) or “chewing-in-the-mouth sake,” and was made by people chewing rice, chestnuts, millet, acorn and spitting the mixture into a tub.

No matter what, I like chowing down sashimi with sake because it cleans off the fishy smell after and prepares me palate for the next piece of fish. But of course, I can’t be sipping sake after every bite unless I want to start dancing naked on the table…:P 15% is not THAT potent but it’s potent enough. The last time i tried sake, I was 16 at my uncle’s birthday dinner party and I didn’t really know that sake would be that potent since I kinda liked it. After about 6 O-chokos, the tatami mats were talking to me. I didn’t dance naked on the table though. The funny thing is when you’re drunk with sake, you don’t usually feel anything except being real light, up in the head. The feeling of bloatedness only hits you after a long while and it hits hard - which explains the puke smell in my dad’s car the day after. Sorry dad!

Anyway, read more about sake HERE.

Source: About.com;wikipedia.

Onigiri

Rice is the staple in any asian culture, Japan is no exception. In my opinion, the best way to savor rice is with the perfect onigiri - which is just the perfectly cooked japanese rice and a simple stuffing using traditional fillings such as umeboshi (pickled plums), tarako (salted cod roe), or katsuobushi (bonito flakes) with soy sauce. The rice ball snack is most commonly formed into triangle or oval shapes and wrapped in seaweed (nori). Onigiri (お握り) is also known as Omusubi (おむすび).

This simple meal needs nimble and fast hands that can withstand a little heat more so than others - in other words, you will have red hands from handling all that hot rice.

I tried making Onigiri while I was in Malaysia. It was OK as in, it was a mess I could handle. But it tastes very good. I really like the simplicity of it. I used mock meat which i cured with soy sauce and some mirin. I left the mock meat overnight in the fridge and stir fried itwith a bit of oil the next day. And that was my stuffing for my onigiri. Initially, I thought my hands were going to blister but it didn’t, thankfully and I would actually liked to try making it again.

There is a better less painful and less messy way of making this rice delicacy. I found this recipe, courtesy of a foodblog I frequent and love called Just Hungry

Click HERE for a full step by step instructions on how to NOT create a mess while making your own onigiri.

Basic recipe for an onigiri is:

Perfectly cooked rice:

3 cups Japanese rice
3 3/4 cup water
1 teaspoon salt

Method:
Clean your rice till the water is no longer murky, add everything else and cook it in a rice cooker or cook it on a stove (watch it carefully).

Stuffing:
(traditional)
Your choice of -
umeboshi (pickled plums),
tarako (salted cod roe),
katsuobushi (bonito flakes) with soy sauce

OR

Anything you like that is strongly flavored really. I still liked the mock meat stuffing i did for my onigiri back in malaysia.

Mock Meat Stuffing recipe:

250gram or 1 packet of mock meat/gluten
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoon of mirin

Method:
Marinate everything together overnight. The next day stir fry the marinated mock meat with some oil and season with pepper if you’d like.

And the rest, just follow the method in the website provided above :)

Source: Wikipedia, Just Hungry

***edit (21/01/07): I realized that there was a broken link to the Just Hungry food link after being told by my administrator. I have rectified it and I apologize for the epicurean inconveniency the link might have caused - you can now click away to one of my favorite food haven :)

Suddenly Boing Boing and Mother Digital started posting links to sushi-making machines manufacturer Tomoe, so I decided I should link to it before it becomes a meme and 3Yen is left behind in the dust… In fact, I came across this website a while ago, when I was planning on getting a whole series of machines: a cotton candy one, a crepe one, a pop corn one, etc. Then I got wiser and realised I should hire a sushi chef full time instead… But that’s another story.

Anyway, Tomoe has put up a pretty good website, promoting their very cool machines. And although there is a fair chance you are not going to buy one, you should go read how they work, how they were invented, what makes a good sushi, and so on. At least, go there for the pictures…

Regarding the photo at the top (MSR-3000W):

- This machine is the most high speed in the world．
- The producing capacity of this machine is 50pcs/minute (3,000pcs/hour)
- So you will be relieved even when a peak hour operation．
- The table and the hopper was made low to improve working efficiency
- Control panel used touch panel type. All you have to do is any used from install．
- The exchang of the amount of Wasabi became possible by the easy operation．
- The Front panel was made by the new specification, too．
- It is excellent in the durability and there won’t be a trouble．

Sushi (鮨 or 鮓 or 寿司) is a Japanese dish consisting of vinegared rice combined with other ingredients such as raw fish, raw or cooked shellfish, or vegetables. Sushi is sometimes confused with sashimi, which is the seafood sometimes served with sushi. In Japan, conveyor belt sushi restaurants are a popular way to eat sushi.

History

Chinese origins

Sushi is made up of three simple ingredients; rice, rice vinegar, and fish. So one would think that the cultivation of rice was necessary, however, the history of sushi begins before rice. The first “sushi or 鮨” might have been a salt pickled pork.

The first use of “鮨” appeared in the oldest Chinese dictionary “爾雅” believed to be written in 3rd or 4th century BC. It is explained as “魚謂之鮨 肉謂之醢”, literally “Those made with fish (are called) 鮨, those made with meat (are called) 醢”. “醢” is a sauce made from minced pork and “鮨” is a sauce made from minced fish. The Chinese character “鮨” is believed to have a much earlier origin, but this is the earliest recorded instance of that character being associated with food. “鮨” was not associated with rice.

Five hundred years later, in 2nd century AD, “鮓” appeared in another Chinese dictionary: “鮓滓也以塩米醸之加葅 熟而食之也”, which translates as “鮓滓 is a food where fish is pickled by rice and salt, which is eaten when it is ready”. This food is believed to be similar to Narezushi or Funazushi and was eaten after removing the rice.

A century later, the meaning of the two characters had become confused and by the time these two characters arrived in Japan, the Chinese themselves did not distinguish between them. The Chinese had stopped using rice as a part of fermentation process, and then stopped eating pickled fish altogether. By Ming dynasty, “鮨” and “鮓” had disappeared from Chinese cuisine.

Origin of Sushi

In 718, the first written record of “sushi” in Japan appeared in the set of laws called Yororituryo (養老律令). As an example of tax paid by actual items, it is written down as “雑鮨五斗 (about 64 liters of zakonosushi or zatsunosushi?)”. However, there is no way to know what this “sushi” was or even how it was pronounced. By 9th and 10th century “鮨” and “鮓” are read as “Sushi” or “Sashi”. These “Sushi” or “Sashi” were similar to today’s Narezushi.

For next nearly 800 years, until early 19th century, sushi slowly changed and the Japanese cuisine changed as well. Japanese started eating three meals a day, rice was boiled instead of steamed, and most important of all, rice vinegar was invented. The time of fermentation gradually decreased and rice could be eaten as well. Soon, Oshizushi was made by using vinegar and skipping the fermentation process. This new process gradually took shape in Muromachi period. In Azuchi-Momoyama Period, Namanari was invented. In 1603, a Japanese Portuguese dictionary was published and this had an entry of Namanrina Sushi, lit. half made sushi. This namanari was believed to be fermented for a period less than that of narezushi and possibly marinated with rice vinegar. It still had the distinctive smell of narezushi.

The smell of narezushi was likely one of the reasons for shortening and eventually skipping the fermentation process. It is commonly described as “a cross between blue cheese, fish, and rice vinegar”. A story from Konjakumonogatarisyu written in early 12th century makes it clear that it was not an attractive smell, even if it tasted good. A man visited a friend in Kyoto and got on a horse to go home. A drunken woman sleeping nearby woke up startled and got dizzy and she vomitted on a bowl of narezushi she had been selling on foot. Instead of throwing away or trying to scoop out, she quickly mixed it into narezushi. The man stingingly pointed out that narezushi was like a pile of spit to begin with and those who bought them most have eaten them anyway. He would from this point on, tell any one who would listen to him to not to buy a narezushi from anyone or any store.

From Oshizushi to Sushi

In the early 18th century, Oshizushi was perfected in Osaka and it came to Edo by the middle of 18th century. These sushi were sold to customers, but because they still required a little fermentation time, stores hanged a notice and posters to customers on when to come for a sushi. Sushi was also sold near a park during a hanami period and a theater as a type of Bento. Inarizushi was sold along oshizushi. Makizushi and Chirasizushi also became popular in Edo period.

There were three famous sushi restaurants in Edo, Matsugasushi (松が鮓), Koube (興兵衛), and Kenukisushi (毛抜き) but there were thousands more sushi restaurants. They were established in a barely twenty year span as soon as 19th century started. Nigirizushi they sold was an instant hit and it spread like a wildfire in Edo. In a book Morisadamanko (守貞謾稿) published in 1852, the writer wrote that for a cho(100 by 100 meters or 10,000 square meter) section of Edo, there were twelve sushi restaurants but only one soba restaurnt could be found in 12 cho. This means, that there were nearly 150 sushi restaurants for every soba restaurant.

These early nigirizushi were not as same as today’s nigirizushi. Fish meat were marinated in soy sauce or vinegar or heavily salted so there was no need to dip into soy sauce. Some fish were cooked before put onto a sushi. This was partly out of necessity as there were no refrigerators. Each piece was also larger, almost the size of two pieces of today’s sushi.

Styles and varieties

There are a number of different styles of sushi, of which some of the most common are:

- Narezushi (なれ鮨) is an older form of sushi. A fish is stuffed with salt after its organs and scales are removed. These fish are placed in a wooden barrel doused with salt and weighed with a heavy tsukemonoishi or a pickling stone. They are fermented for ten days to a month. Then these fish are placed in water for 15 minutes to an hour. Fish are then placed in another barrel sandwiched and layered with cooled steamed rice and fish. Then it is again partially sealed with otosibuta and a pickling stone. As days pass, fermented water seeps out and these must be removed. Six month later, these “funazushi” can be eaten but it can be eaten for another six month or more.

- Makizushi (巻き寿司) which is made by taking a sheet of dried seaweed, putting on a layer of rice (leaving a couple of centimeters free in one end), and then adding some vegetables like cucumber. This is rolled up using a makisu mat and “glued” together by wetting the seaweed so that it sticks together. The roll is then cut up into slices about two centimeters thick.

- Nigirizushi (握り寿司) is made by pressing rice together into a lump slightly smaller than a hen’s egg. On top of this, a piece of fish, prawn, or something similar is placed, often with some wasabi underneath it. Sometimes a thin band of seaweed is used to hold the fish in place.

- Temakizushi (手巻き寿司 or handroll) is a large cone formed by a sheet of dried sea weed filled with rice and other ingredients. A handroll is eaten with the fingers since it is too big to be held by chopsticks.

- Inarizushi (稲荷寿司) is vinegar rice wrapped into a thin slice of fried tofu (油揚げ or abura age). The tofu is briefly boiled in a sauce of sugar, mirin and soy sauce before usage. Inarizushi is either rectangular or triangular, not unlike an onigiri.

- Chirashizushi (散らし寿司), also referred to as barazushi (ばら寿司), is vinegar rice mixed with fish, seafood, slightly boiled and sweetened vegetables and thin slices of fried egg. It is said to be the simplest to prepare within the sushi family.

- Oshizushi (押し寿司 or pressed sushi) originated in Osaka and is vinegar rice, marinated fish and other ingredients, such as shiso, layered and pressed into an oshizushihako mold. The resulting loaf is cut into mouth size pieces before serving.

Common ingredients

Seafood
Certainly the majority of sushi is made with raw fish and other seafoods. For both aesthetic and health reasons, fish that are to be eaten raw must be fresher and of a higher quality than fish that will be cooked. A professional sushi chef is trained in recognizing good fish, which is clean-smelling, vivid in color, and free from harmful parasites. Only ocean fish are used raw in sushi; freshwater fish, which are more likely to harbor parasites, are cooked. In addition to fish, common seafoods used in sushi are squid, octopus, shrimp, eel, fish roe, sea urchin (uni) and various kinds of shellfish.

Sushi rice
The rice used in making sushi is a short-grained, sweeter variety rather different in consistency from the long-grain and Indian rice strains Westerners may be more used to. It is cooked with rice vinegar, or vinegar may be added after cooking, and is cooled before being used to make sushi.

Nori
The seaweed wrappers used in maki and temaki are made of a cultivated sea vegetable known as nori. Originally, this plant was scraped from dock pilings, rolled out into sheets, and dried in the sun. Today, it is farmed and industrially produced, and can be bought pre-cut into neat, ready-to-use squares. Some novelty shops also offer nori with decorative cut-outs in the shape of popular cartoon characters.

Other ingredients
Not all sushi contains seafood. Many things can find their way into sushi: pickled daikon radish, fermented soybeans (natto), avocado, raw quail eggs, tofu, pickled plum, omelet, beef, ham, and more.

Condiments
Sushi is served with soy sauce, wasabi (green horseradish paste), and sweet pickled ginger (gari). Wasabi is said to be an effective antidote against fish poisoning.

Recipe

A basic recipe for sushi rice is as follows:

Take one cup of short-grained rice and rinse in cold water until water runs clear. Combine rice, 1 1/4 cup cold water, and a small piece of dashi kombu (a type of seaweed, optional if not available) in a saucepan and turn heat to high. Remove kombu just before water boils. After water begins to boil, turn heat to low, cover pan tightly, and leave to simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and leave in covered pan for 10 more minutes. Use a wooden paddle to scrape rice into a large bowl, then gently stir it with the paddle while adding about 2 tbsp. of seasoned rice vinegar (season with just under 2 tbsp sugar and just under 1/2 tsp salt over low heat). Stir until rice has cooled somewhat and looks shiny.

Cover rice with a damp towel and use in any sushi recipe within one day.

(Source: Wikipedia)