The new Japanese Cooking Thread: Now With 72% Less Pocky and Instant Ramen.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > The new Japanese Cooking Thread: Now With 72% Less Pocky and Instant Ramen.

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Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

There's good low sodium soy sauce, try that. Or just various brands, they're all different mixes. I have also found Kikkoman to be saltier than average in my experience, if that's the one you're using.

If you can't find one with a saltiness level you like, dilute with some dashi. Hard to go wrong with adding some dashi to a Japanese food.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2017 03:54

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 22:08

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Stringent posted:

Gravity's guide is the place to start for mapo:
http://goonswithspoons.com/Ma_Po_Tofu,_Gravity%27s_Guide

Yeah I dunno what the Japanese version of mapo tofu is like but this recipe is a good generic Chengdu mapo tofu. Every restaurant makes it differently so there's no one true recipe.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2017 06:08

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:

Is there a recommended dashi powder? Every now and then I have a use for dashi, but I don't keep bonito and kombu around.

I use Ajimoto, it's perfectly fine.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2017 04:25

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

It just depends what I'm doing. If I'm making a soup or something where the dashi is the main flavor, I make it from scratch. You don't get the smokiness of the katsuobushi from any powder I've tried and I miss it. If it's dashi as a supporting ingredient in a sauce or curry or something I use powder.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2017 03:31

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Sounds like a weird chawanmushi.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2017 02:16

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Anyone know what the sauce is for the generic shredded cabbage salad, the kind of thing you always get with tonkatsu?

# ¿ Jun 17, 2017 09:19

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Knowing Japan it's probably just mayo.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2017 15:18

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Ramen is a Chinese dish originally and so is chashu, screw your brother.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2017 15:05

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Sell me on homemade Japanese curry powder. I always use the packaged blocks because when I bother to get out my whole spices and start toasting and grinding, I'd rather just make actual Indian food instead.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2017 04:56

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Yeah I might just try adding some of my normal garam masala to it. It looks like the biggest difference from a generic Indian one is the huge amount of turmeric the Japanese mix uses.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2017 08:10

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Try this: https://www.justonecookbook.com/catfish-kabayaki/

It's not exactly the same because unagi is rich and fatty compared to most other fish, but a lot of the unagi flavor comes from the sauce. Unagi eels are endangered and while I won't claim I never eat them, I try to keep it to a minimum and substitute with other fish if I make it at home. Catfish works well, I bet mackerel might too--it has a distinct flavor but the fattiness would help.

Also the sauce doesn't go off for quite a while, you can make a bunch and keep it in a jar without refrigeration.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2017 15:22

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Can't agree enough things like soy sauce and Worcestershire are great to further Japanese the curry. I also use dashi in mine.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2017 06:22

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

How long does a tamagoyaki stay good in the fridge? I'm going to start making work bentos and I only want to cook on Sunday. Most things can be frozen in portions but I'm sure freezing would ruin a tamagoyaki.

It doesn't take that long to make but I'm lazy. Also I don't want to eat an entire one in every lunch.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2017 14:23

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Stringent posted:

It won't spoil for a week, dunno if you consider that good or not.

I was just thinking about how fried eggs get really weird in the fridge but hard/soft boiled ones are fine so I am not sure where tamagoyaki falls on that spectrum. I guess I'll just try it and see what happens.

I am surprised that site says you can freeze 'em but she usually knows what she's doing.

Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Sep 5, 2017

# ¿ Sep 5, 2017 15:22

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Freshness of rice is a bigger flavor difference than where it's from imo. I wouldn't waste the money on imported, California grows great Japanese rices.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 07:50

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Jun's kitchen is a superb cooking catte. I like when he hangs out on the fridge watching the prep.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 12:07

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

If you want to drink a pine tree drink gin, what's this nonalcoholic pine tree poo poo

# ¿ Sep 16, 2017 07:11

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Honestly most home cooking Japanese food is pretty simple. I always think of it in the same vein as Italian in that you get the best ingredients you can find and don't gently caress with them too much. Browse around justonecookbook.com until you find something that looks good.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2017 11:39

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

There are so many sake makers I don't know which you'd have available, but what you should really be looking at is the style if you're going to really get into it. Most sake is futsu-shu, which means it's partly made from rice and partly from added ethanol. It's the generic stuff that doesn't have a ton of flavor and variety. There are a number of types of higher quality stuff. You should start with junmai-shu (純米酒), which is made just from rice and usually in smaller batches. There's a lot of variety within that. You can go up fancier to ginjo-shu (吟醸酒) or junmai ginjo-shu or the top quality is called junmai daiginjo-shu. I wouldn't bother with those just yet.

When you look at the label you'll also find a number that's either positive or negative. A higher positive number is drier, and a lower number/negative number is sweeter. I don't know what the full range is but it's like -20 to +20. There's also going to be a percentage number on the label, which is the rice polishing ratio. The lower that is, the more non-rice flavors you end up with. That's largely what the category names mean but it doesn't map precisely.

I would find a liquor store that has a wide selection of the small 300 ml bottles and get several with different types and ranging among sweet and dry to see what you like. Fukumitsuya is a sake brewery in Kanazawa that makes only the higher quality types from pure rice and I like everything I tasted there. They were also nice and taught me about sake and gave me lots of free alcohol so you should support them.

This is my favorite if you can find it. It's the highest grade so not cheap, but super worth it. You can see the numbers I'm talking about on the back label here.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2017 10:06

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Furious Lobster posted:

What's the name of this sake? Also which numbers indicates the brix level on the back?

I don't know the name, I can't read much Japanese. :v:

I thought the 16 was the sweet/dry but I am wrong, this label doesn't have it.

This is the other side of the front label. I'm pretty sure the bottom left is Fukumitsuya brewery, the bottom right says Kanazawa junmai. The red might be the name but the only character there I know is yuan and I don't know what the Japanese reading of that is.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2017 05:04

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I found a couple example labels.

That's what you're looking for.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2017 08:34

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Those pickles are good, your friend is an rear end in a top hat imo.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 14:07

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Yaki onigiri is also a good izakaya classic.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2017 15:29

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

If you want to get into it there's a cookbook called Izakaya which is real cool, has a lot of classics plus a lot of newer experimental stuff. And cool little articles about the different izakaya the recipes are taken from.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2017 16:00

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

AnonSpore posted:

What's the secret to fat tonkatsu cutlets? All the recipes I can find online tell me to pound them thin when I'm fiending for the inch+ thick super juicy stuff. Tried to do it at home but it took a hell of a long time to get cooked through to the center and the outside was kinda dry.

I dunno what they do in Japan but the easy way would be the oven. Try baking them before frying and then frying before baking, see which makes a better crust. I suspect baking first would work better but have not tried.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2018 07:22

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Doc Walrus posted:

Ahhh gotcha, I was using a ton of water as well. Tonight I'm gonna make some pan-fried panko tilapia with a side of rice w/ katsuo furikake (The GF liked that one better than ebi) and if the texture is better this time I'll start actually making onigiri.

The way I learned to Japanese rice:

Measure out rice in a measuring cup. Let's say 200 ml line here.
Wash the rice in a strainer.
Let sit for half an hour at least to dry. Do your other prep and cooking while this is resting.
Put in rice cooker. I add salt here because I'm normal but traditionally they don't add salt to rice while cooking in any part of East Asia I'm familiar with. I think this is incorrect and you should salt it.
Add yo water, about 10% more than your rice volume so get to the 200 ml line and go a little over it. Doesn't have to be super precise but if you go over 20% or so you're risking gooey.
Give a swish to spread out the salt.
Once it's done, I turn it off (mine automatically goes into keep warm), open the cooker to vent out the big steam cloud, then leave it closed about ten minutes before I serve. I find if I don't do this a bunch of it sticks to the cooker and the texture is worse, after that ten minutes it firms up a little and it all comes out.

I am sure there are thousands of other grandmas who have other methods but this way comes out good every time and the texture's just like what I'm used to getting in Japan.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 04:41

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Yeah gochujang isn't really spicy. It can get overpowering though, it's strong flavored and sweet. If you want to heat it up the Korean way, get gochugaru (chili powder) and mix that in. I also find any sort of garlicky/vinegary hot sauce mixes well with Korean food without drawing attention to itself.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2018 07:07

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Japan is merely a rogue colony of Greater Korea so make japchae. https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/japchae

# ¿ Mar 18, 2018 18:18

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Yeah justonecookbook is always pretty good. With Japanese food you virtually never have to worry about spiciness, most of the stuff that isn't in the fermented fish guts territory should be stuff you can sell to your kids.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2018 01:15

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I try it in almost everything. It's particularly good for fish with the whole citrus thing going on.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2018 15:15

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Anyone got a good guide on how to start making nukazuke? I found a place to buy rice bran so I need to know the whole process from the beginning.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2018 05:00

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

I wrote up a two parter some time ago in the pickling thread. Here's part one: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3437802&userid=177786#post440058889

Iirc that's all you need to get started and part 2 got posted not long after. Have fun!

Awesome. Are you still willing to mail a starter? If so I'll PM you when I am ready to get my bed started.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2018 22:08

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I prefer a mix of the two for miso soup but it's all up to personal taste.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2018 20:18

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I can't get decent Asian vegetables anymore without an annoyingly long drive, all my local stores are Chinese run and sell garbage. I found a source of seeds to grow my own but am trying to find out what species of bamboo is grown for shoots in Japan. I imagine there's more than one, any of them will work.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2018 04:33

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I've gotten to the point of adding marmite to virtually every sauce/gravy type thing like Japanese curry or tomato sauce or whatever, it's great.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2018 21:36

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Getting a bunch of the 300 ml bottles is the way to go, just don't be like me and forget to mark down any you particularly like.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 05:02

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

It depends where you are. You're unlikely to find sake other than Gekkeikan at a normal liquor store, unless you're on the west coast or like NYC. There's probably a Japanese supermarket somewhere that will have a larger selection, and I believe you can order sake online because it's wine level alcohol and not liquor, but that depends on the state. https://www.truesake.com/ is worth checking out I guess.

https://www.justonecookbook.com/japanese-grocery-stores-around-the-world/#United%20States

Might be helpful. Some of those are generic Asian stores with Japanese food and likely won't have sake.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 17:01

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

The Japan tourism thread has a lot of restaurant recommendations and links to Tokyo goon restaurant lists all nicely pinned on maps:

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3758863&pagenumber=140#lastpost

Go back through the last ten pages or so and you should find a bunch. The burnt miso ramen at Gogyo Ramen in Kyoto is one you shouldn't miss imo. They also have burnt soy sauce, last time I got a bowl of each and this is a good way to live your life.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2018 22:14

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

It's always good to have more than one. I like the anchovy paste or fish sauce/marmite/soy sauce combo for punching up sauces.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2018 02:03

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 22:08

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Just buy saltwater fish that doesn't smell weird/is already frozen and eat it. You'll be fine. If you have an actual fish market around try them instead of Kroger. There should be at least one if you're in a city of any size, even well away from the coast.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2018 22:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > The new Japanese Cooking Thread: Now With 72% Less Pocky and Instant Ramen.

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