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HookedOnChthonics posted:On topic, though, does anyone have a good beginner's tsukemono guide? It was the best surprise I had eating in Japan in terms of being totally ubiquitous and awesome there and totally absent from stateside Japanese. I'm interested in getting into pickling myself eventually but I don't even know what exact vegetables I sampled over there so that might be a little further down the road yet for me. I have Quick & Easy Tsukemono and it's pretty great. Some of the recipes are difficult, but there are also super easy ones. Preserving the Japanese Way is also supposed to be good.
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Feb 16, 2017 02:16
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mindphlux posted:in japan for the first time. I walked by a shop selling katsuobushi, did a double take, went inside. after a lot of broken english and google translate with the owner, I discovered there are tons of types of shaved dried fish, which makes complete sense, but I never realized before - for whatever dumb reason I thought it was just bonito. got some sand bream, mackerel. I'm now slightly sperging out and want to buy some whole dried filets and shave my own, and/or preserve my own at home. anyone have any resources on grades of katsoubushi, production, etc? I'm not sure how I ran across this recently and it's technically only tangentially related, but here's a paper about adapting katsuobushi production techniques to pork; maybe you could reverse engineer the regular process from it?
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Apr 22, 2017 04:03
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hakimashou posted:I used to get these big glass bottles of mirin, Takara Masamune, but I couldn't find any last time I ran out, and looking it up some website says its discontinued Regular Takara is still available (at least in my liquor store). emotive, if you've only been looking at grocery stores, you should try liquor stores; depending on your location hon-mirin might only be able to be sold there due to the alcohol content and lack of salt (that's the case in NYC, anyway).
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Apr 28, 2017 00:40
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Another technique that I found helps is to intentionally mix the batter shittily, since you want essentially no gluten formation. Combine wet and dry ingredients separately like you’re baking, then barely mix them just until they’re together, some lumps are OK. I think one cookbook I have suggests using a pair of chopsticks to mix because they do a “bad” job.
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Jul 2, 2019 17:13
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Also I’ve never seen Kakubin (which is the standard “Suntory whisky” and is a fine highball component) for sale outside Japan, but don’t know why you wouldn’t want a bottle. All their other whiskies are too expensive now as intros (but are generally good to great, though I prefer Nikka’s single malts). Toki’s a good rec as an intro.
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Oct 29, 2019 17:42
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Totally. That's Kakubin ("square bottle"), it's for highballs (and is good in that context). Sucks compared to Yamazaki/Hakushu/Hibiki/Toki (I haven't had Chita), but is also like $10/bottle in the convenience store. It is not the worst Japanese whisky I've had, because Nikka Black exists.
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Oct 30, 2019 06:44
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Yebisu is best macro, Kirin when you can’t get it, and I went to the Baird in Nakameguro last time I was in Tokyo and it ruled.
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Nov 1, 2019 03:19
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Yep, both kakuni and hong shao rou are absolutely delicious but you have to slow-braise them forever and they also do really benefit from chilling and defatting the braising liquid. The whole point is that they're super soft and gelatinous texture. (Crispy-skinned pork belly is also delicious but it's a totally different thing.)
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Dec 10, 2020 16:49
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im on the net me boys posted:There are some limits I think. I’ve had leftover curry with tortilla chips, tortillas, and udon noodles but I tried making a curry sandwich with just some bread once and that sucked It can't have been that bad, karepan is a thing. (It's deep-fried bread, but...)
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Dec 15, 2020 04:46
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Doing a full ichijū sansai set for A5 sounds fun. I don't think you can really go wrong on side dishes; I'd probably end up doing spinach ohitashi for the steakhouse creamed-spinach connection and something simmered with yuzu, maybe sweet potato or kabocha. For tsukemono tons of stuff would be good; I've been digging cucumber kasuzuke lately, takuan is always good, I think umeboshi would work, you could even do like kimchi. For the soup, maybe something with mushrooms and like a genmai miso?
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Jun 3, 2021 15:22
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Can't vouch for it as I haven't done it, and I kind of can't believe I'm linking this, but you might try this recipe for a "Akayu Spicy Miso Ball" on page 104 of an insanely comprehensive ramen cookbook by a reddit guy named Ramen_Lord.
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Oct 1, 2021 21:45
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Looks great. I've been thinking about trying to do shabu shabu over winter. Is the best thing to do just to get a donabe and a little burner? What's easiest? Also, does anyone have a suribachi? If so, would you/do you use it for grinding spices or would that mess it up and/or not work well? I just got a molcajete which is great for its intended purposes of salsas etc. but I'm missing having a smaller mortar and pestle for grinding cumin/allspice/whatever and have always been interested in a suribachi...
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Dec 16, 2021 00:03
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Thanks for the recs for hot pot stuff--I wouldn't have thought to look at induction burners but it makes perfect sense combined with a reasonably-shaped pot.
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Dec 31, 2021 04:10
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Technically "wagyu" literally means "Japanese beef" so "American wagyu" isn't really a thing. That said, it's just nice beef that's usually fattier than typical American beef, so cook it like you like to cook nice beef. In Japan, big steaks aren't really eaten (meat's expensive, it's fatty so it's too rich to eat a lot of, and it's not in the culture) but there's no reason you couldn't do it. Cooking and eating tiny rare bites of awesome beef does rule though.
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Jan 19, 2022 18:00
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Shaoxing and dry sherry are much better substitutes for each other than either is for sake; they both have significant 'nutty' flavors (and amontillados/olorosos are even intentionally oxidized like shaoxing is) that sake doesn't really have. Honestly I don't think there is a good substitute for sake in Japanese cooking; everything I've ever tried has been kind of garbage. In my experience the best thing to do is sub mirin (assuming you can get mirin, which I realize is maybe not any easier than getting sake) and cut back added sugar if the recipe has any. Edit: I haven't tried it but honestly I think a decent white wine (something you like to drink) would be better than sherry as a sake substitute.
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May 19, 2022 17:03
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This is cool. Have you tasted it yet? Also, if you're lazy and cool with a more "rustic" style of miso, I bet you can skip the scum skimming (that's just protein, same as inside the soybeans, I'd expect it to break down again in fermentation), leave the skins in (which I'd expect to partially break down and partially not), and not worry about blending it super thoroughly. (Obviously if you've skipped any of those before and it sucks for some reason correct me.) This seems way more accessible than other miso recipes (I was primarily looking at the Noma Guide to Fermentation one which has you growing your own koji from spores and wants lots of temperature control). I might try it, thanks for posting!
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Jun 15, 2022 19:01
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You don’t think the eraser bits would ferment out to softness? I guess no way to know but to try it. The split faux umeboshi/umeshu is a great idea.
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Jun 16, 2022 18:19
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Is there an Austin goon (or I suppose a Houston goon now since they have on there) that can give some tips on recreating Ramen Tatsu-ya's Mi-so-hot? I'd like to get a handle on that especially since it looks like I'll be moving away and my only recourse will be to make it myself. I haven't had this and I'm in NYC, but if you like a spicy miso ramen you should just make a miso ramen but with spicy elements. Use tobanjan or gochujang or doubanjiang in your miso tare and potentially add other sources of spice and you should get in the ballpark. (Miso tare is a mixture of miso, garlic, ginger, and probably sake/mirin/other stuff, which you combine with your soup stock to make the soup.) I like Ramen_Lord's Book of Ramen as a general reference; you should specifically check out the spicy miso tare on page 93 and/or the akayu spicy miso ball on p112 (with ideas on how to use it in a complete bowl on p133), but don't feel like you need to follow those recipes exactly or anything. If you have access to good noodles, and you can make good stock (even if it's just plain chicken stock), you can make good ramen and you can tweak it to be all your own.
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Dec 4, 2022 05:00
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:My biggest problem with working with miso is everything I find is saltier than salt. I only ever play with miso when playing with ramen, so I can inexperienced. I am probably finding the wrong stuff. I have found some hot sauce that I like but that's also salty. So I wind up with something so salty that I could walk across it. You're probably not finding the wrong stuff, miso is insanely salty. It started as a way of preserving soybeans with salt, after all. Typically when you use it you aren't adding salt separately or using any other salty ingredients--you'll notice in that ramen book I linked that there is no salt in any of the broths/stocks, for example. All the salt is coming from the tare, and in the case of a miso tare, from the miso. If you're adding miso to a salted chicken broth or something, yeah, it's going to be inedibly salty. Edit: and yeah, most/all prepared hot sauces are also salty, so if you want more heat in your ramen you want to look at chile flakes, powders, or those three other condiments I listed (all of which are fermented chile pastes, and basically sub in for part of your miso). Double edit: or chili oil, duh. See also "ra-yu" "la-yu" or be on-trend and get some chili crisp. Scythe fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Dec 4, 2022 |
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Dec 4, 2022 23:07
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hallo spacedog posted:I have this book which is pretty good. Looks like it's out of print again but it should eventually come back in print. This book rules. -- Edit: Rocko Bonaparte posted:Edit, more: There's another one of their things that my wife particularly likes. It's the Nu Skool, which is a vegan offering using an "almond milk tonkotsu." Has anybody here experimented in that general area? We aren't vegan, but my wife wants to eat more vegetables (and I really should too). I think I will get more chances at refining something like that than a thick miso meat stew, so I should give something like that some attention. Just searching that Ramen_Lord document for "vegan" was not getting me much. I missed this a couple of days ago. I'd just make a vegetable stock you like, going hard on onions/alliums and root veg like carrots, and not using any celery or herbs, since those aren't typical Japanese or Chinese flavors (ramen is Japanese-Chinese, after all), then mix it with some almondmilk. You could theoretically use any tare in combination with a veg stock (that's the power of building ramen through separate stock + tare, you unlock more combinations), but miso tare will give you the most body (which you want if you're trying to mimic tonkotsu but vegan). I know I'm being really sketchy and hand-wavey here, but that's because home ramen can be way more relaxed than people make it out to be. I spent a couple years thinking it was really complicated and each little thing mattered, and it's actually really easy and you can do whatever you want and it'll still be good. Here's an attempt to be somewhat more specific, because really what I'm trying to say is: just start making some ramen and then start tweaking it to your own preferences.
I hope that was helpful, even if it's still just a sketch! Scythe fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Dec 9, 2022 |
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Dec 9, 2022 04:57
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That’s the only reason I haven’t started a nukazuke pot. I can’t figure out how to keep it alive over vacations short of asking a friend to come by and stir my weird pickle pot. It’s annoying because I love that style of pickle, though.
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Dec 10, 2022 20:53
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Hijiki Katsuobushi (even if your wife doesn’t want it you can use it) Instant dashi Hatcho miso Sansho Shichimi/nanami togarashi Dried soba Frozen udon Agedofu Umeboshi You want dried shiitake for Japanese, also. Wood ear is more of a Chinese thing. Re: ramen: theoretically certain noodles go with certain styles, but that’s more of a tradition thing. Get whatever kind looks good to you. Sun Noodle is a good brand.
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Dec 11, 2022 15:04
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Nice, glad things are improving. Roux is definitely nontraditional but I can't see why it'd be bad in something like a miso-style bowl. I would make it separately from your tare (if that's what you meant by "paste"), not cooking the miso will result in a stronger miso flavor. Powdered gelatin will be fine, it's tasteless and will just make your broth have thicker mouthfeel. Go for it. Rocko Bonaparte posted:Are any ramen heads here generally just precooking a bunch of different stuff and then getting it warmed up together for assemble for a fresh bowl? I intend to do a lot of this during my Christmas break and need to streamline. Otherwise, I'm making a pile of dishes every day for one huge-rear end bowl. Most of the effort in ramen is the noodles (which I buy and freeze so I always have some around), then the broth, then the tare. For broth, I keep general-purpose homemade chicken stock in my freezer all the time and generally use it as my ramen broth too, if I don't have time for ramen-specific broth or don't feel like putting in the effort. (I generally do just plain chicken broth, like the "new wave chicken chintan" on p62, so I can use it in both Asian and western cooking. Sometimes I do a more specifically Chinese-style chicken stock with scallion, garlic, and ginger, which I don't see in the Ramen_Lord book but works well and is useable for anything Chinese too.) Whenever I do make tare I make it in bulk-ish, whenever I make brine for ajitama I make a deli container's worth, whenever I make aroma oil I make a deli container's worth, and I throw all that poo poo in the fridge since it keeps well and I can use it again next time I feel like ramen. If I make chashu, which is not always, I definitely make a lot of that and freeze most of it. When I feel like ramen for dinner, I just drop some tare in a serving bowl, defrost some chicken stock in a saucepan, and put a pot of water on a low rolling boil. The boiling water gets used to cook my egg before dropping it into its brine, and can get used to cook cabbage or corn or bean sprouts or whatever other toppings before it eventually gets used for the noodles, which I cook directly from frozen. I can defrost chashu or other proteins in the chicken stock (bonus: they've now flavored the stock!), and many other toppings go on raw or briefly soaked anyway (sliced scallion, sesame, nuts, butter, menma, kikurage, spice blends, etc). If you've got noodles, stock and tare in the freezer/fridge, you can go from "hmm ramen sounds nice" to eating a bowl in under an hour while dirtying two pots and a cutting board.
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Dec 16, 2022 18:23
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Looks delicious. Definitely get some teppogushi.
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Jan 29, 2023 21:26
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Yeah, any short grain "japonica" rice is what you want, those might sound like jokes but they are related to Japanese rice. Koshihikari is I think the most common cultivar in Japan itself.
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Feb 6, 2023 14:53
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BadOptics posted:Has anyone used the Mr. Bento lunch containers by Zojirushi? And if so, any tips/ideas? Bought one forever ago, never used it, but now I'm starting a new job and figured it would be a good opportunity to use it. I have a book on bento recipes, but I've seen some posts on Reddit mentioning that the heat retention from the design makes some recipes turn out bad due to it essentially steaming the food. I have a Ms Bento (smaller version with one fewer container, but an optional in-container divider), though I rarely use it anymore now that I eat more lunches at home. It’s great for its intended use, but you really do need to use it for one big relatively sauceless thing (rice, typically) and one soupy thing you want at the same temp as each other (either hot or cold), and then one or two room temp things; it won’t work if you try to use a room temp container for a hot/cold thing or vice versa, or if you try to mix hot and cold. So Japanese lunch stuff works great of course. You just put hot rice in there, misoshiru or clear soup, and then whatever side/s you want (something salty/sweet/sour/fermented enough that it won’t spoil at room temp for a half-day). Karaage, tonkatsu, tamagoyaki, edamame, kimpira, carrot-hijiki, random suimono or sunomono, tsukemono, etc, all work great, as you’d expect. The problem is that a lot of other cuisines don’t have that two-hot-plus-two-room-temp meal structure. Middle Eastern or Mediterranean stuff is a good candidate if you go all-cold and don’t mind a cold pita/bread/whatever, since you can use the rice bowl for that and the soup bowl for tzatziki/labneh/muhummara/hummus/etc (or actual soups, like gazpacho), then grape leaves or beets or spiced carrots or whatever in your side bowls. Probably even shawarma or kofte or whatever if you’re aggressive enough with your marinade/etc. Or you can go hot, with like mujaddara and harira plus sides. I bet Indian stuff would work too, but I never tried it. I couldn’t figure out how to make it work for other cuisines though, since a lot of American/Euro/Latin stuff doesn’t have a soup, or wants the protein to be the hot thing (and if it’s saucy you can’t put it in the rice bowl because it’ll leak, or if it’s supposed to be crispy it won’t be anymore as it steams itself in the rice bowl).
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Mar 3, 2023 17:19
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TheKingslayer posted:Would there happen to be a good cookbook that focuses on Japanese street food/comfort foods? I have and like “Japanese Soul Cooking” by Ono and Salat as a starting point. You don’t really need to be precise with measurements for a lot of the dishes though, so don’t be afraid to start tweaking recipes as you get comfortable with them.
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Apr 7, 2023 13:59
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TheKingslayer posted:The cookbook recs were awesome y'all and I've been enjoying them so far. But one more question, is there a good book on Japanese drinking culture/cocktails I could get to go along with these? Japanese cocktail culture is pretty much American cocktail culture of the past (i.e. pre-Prohibition through mid-20th-century), preserved in amber. You can get books about it specifically (Uyeda's "Cocktail Techniques" used to be recommended a lot) but unless you are a true obsessive about mirroring the exact shaking technique used by bars in Ginza in the 80s, you don't need them. New recipes aren't a thing. (Interestingly, since Japanese cocktail bars preserved oldschool American cocktail techniques so well during the cocktail "dark ages" of the late 20th century, they were a primary inspiration/source for the "cocktail renaissance" bars of the 2000s/2010s. And now you're getting a kind of "third wave" cocktail bar in places like Katana Kitten, who are behind the book hallo spacedog posted.) So, for cocktails, to do them in a "Japanese" way, you should just make a classic drink using as much of the sleeve-garters style of 'mixology' as you feel like doing, plus serve your impeccably-made drink with a little tray of bar nuts at least, if not a more complicated snack (see your Izakaya cookbook), and keep the lights low, put some soft jazz on, ideally provide a little hot towel when you sit down. I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty great, but a bit silly to do at home. For whisky, the best book I've read is "The Way of Whisky" by Broom. It'll tell you about all sorts of fancy whiskies you can't buy unless you travel to Japan and make a trek to the hinterlands and/or know a guy. I haven't found a really good English-language book on sake, unfortunately. Cocktails and fancy whisky aren't really a big part of Japanese drinking culture IME, though. Like spacedog said, regular people drink a beer or a highball when they pop into the pub after work, or some shochu, particularly if you're down in the south. Then they keep doing that until they're finished eating or too drunk to continue. In the summer when it's hot, more ice and more fizz go in the drink. In the winter when it's cold, you probably mix some hot water into your shochu, or heat some sake in a tokkuri. Sake is less popular than beer, cheap whisky, and shochu, but it's coming back a bit and is still considered the proper pairing for some things (especially sashimi and similar dishes; theoretically you aren't supposed to drink sake with rice).
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Apr 27, 2023 14:23
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Any vegetable will work. Daikon and lotus root are both good. Roast broccoli works. Really anything you can cut up and simmer until it's soft. While you're adding stuff, grate an apple or a pear and throw it in the sauce, or add some honey, for sweetness.You can also add some garam masala to wake up the roux a bit. And keep a jar of beni shōga or fukujinzuke in your fridge and garnish with some of it + some dashes of shichimi tōgarashi.
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May 9, 2023 20:04
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Yeah, to be clear, "dashi" itself is the stock/broth you make. You can make it the oldschool way and use your own kombu/katsuobushi/shiitake/niboshi/whatever in water, or you can get packets with those ingredients pre-selected for you and then steep them like tea, or you can get the powdered instant dashi and just dissolve it. It's like instant coffee vs. coffee.
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May 23, 2023 19:55
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On the east coast of the US, I usually see that as “green cabbage” or just the default “cabbage.” What Grand Fromage called “Western cabbage” I usually see sold as “Savoy cabbage.”
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May 24, 2023 19:43
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Yeah, "savoy" definitely means "wrinkly." I had no idea there was a specifically "flat" variety distinct from "green," you learn something every day. I stand corrected on that--gotta pay more attention to the flatness of the cabbages I'm buying. Personally I do like the post-shredding ice bath step as a side for katsu, and yeah, sliced really thin. I serve the cabbage tossed in a little wafu-style dressing though, even though it's usually unadorned in "real" katsu joints. Also this got lost in cabbagechat: some kinda jackal posted:While we’re asking restaurant questions, I’m going to miss the kushikatsu place 30 seconds from my hotel. Thinking about trying to DIY when I get back to Canada, maybe make a fun backyard friends get together thing out of it. I'm sure the breadcrumbs are just fine panko (also you can make store-bought panko finer by running it through a blender or food processor, before you strain it). Batter-wise it seems like one of those things where each shop has their own thing, but egg/flour/milk or water in some ratio will get you there. You might be in for some experimentation if you want to duplicate that particular spot exactly. More eggs and using milk instead of water should make it richer/fluffier, so you can adjust accordingly for batch 2 depending on how batch 1 comes out. It does sound like a fun backyard hang if you've got a way to deep fry outside. Kushikatsu kick rear end.
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May 24, 2023 21:23
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Miso in the fridge in the fridge can last years, potentially indefinitely. It’s fermented and very salty, after all. Keep it tightly sealed so it doesn’t dry out or get contaminated with something else and you’re golden.
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Jun 1, 2023 13:28
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Yeah, I wouldn’t add miso to cooking rice, it’s more a thing to use either as part of a marinade for something you’re going to grill or roast, or to stir into a finished soup. There are some recipes where you simmer fish in it, too. The best thing I know to do with miso and rice is to dilute some miso in water and brush it on yaki onigiri while they grill.
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Jun 3, 2023 00:10
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Yeah for me, it was first more dashi/etc, then cooking more slowly, and that’s usually good enough but if I’m feeling fancy enough I’ll also add the egg in multiple stages.
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Jun 16, 2023 22:04
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If they look and smell ok, they’re fine. Katsuobushi developed as a preservation method after all (granted, traditionally you shaved your own flakes off your dry block of fish every day, but still).
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Jul 30, 2023 14:15
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Total weight. I find the easiest thing to do is add 2% in salt directly to the veg and let them sit for a few hours to see how much water they throw off on their own, then top up with 2% brine to cover.
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Aug 30, 2023 18:28
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Yep, that’s what I do.
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Aug 30, 2023 18:36
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Gripweed posted:I took my mom out for ramen today and multiple times she said “I need to learn to makes this”. What’s the best ramen cookbook? The recipes in the beginning of “Japanese Soul Cooking” by Ono and Salat are good starting points. Ramen_Lord’s book of ramen has more detail than almost anyone needs.
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Aug 31, 2023 22:27
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Nanami tōgarashi and shichimi tōgarashi are the same thing. Both mean "seven-flavor chili pepper": "nana" and "shichi" are two different ways to pronounce the number 7. Ichimi tōgarashi is different, it's "one-flavor chili pepper" (because it's just chile flakes).
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Sep 12, 2023 15:36
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