Sake & Japanese Food Navigator

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This blog has a new layout so if you come from Google, please use the Search function to find what you were looking for - Google still has not updated itself. Moreover, the articles have been split over two blogs: everything related to sake and food has gone to Sake & Japanese Food Navigator, and everything else is in Japanese Culture & Travel Navigator.  (Some articles still have to be transferred).

Gyoza

Chinese dumpling (jiaozi). A thin flour pastry shell filled with a mixture of minced pork, cabbage and Chinese chives (nira) and then either deep-fried or steam-fried. They may also be added to soup.

A staple of the Japanese-Chinese kitchen (Chuka). Also popular in izakaya and sold in supermarkets as enrichment for the meal at home, or as a snack with beer/sake.

Hiyamugi, cold wheat noodles

Thin somen noodles are a popular summer food, but if you want a bit more presence in your mouth, you should try hiyamugi. "Hiya" means "cold" and "mugi" is "wheat," which together is an apt description.

The noodles are boiled, chilled, and then served with a dipping broth. I use the same broth as for somen, but you can also add chili for an extra punch.

P.S. As you see in the glass bowl, there are even some colored noodles for the kiddies in the family to play with.

Peaches (Momo)

Momo or peaches come from China but have been known in Japan since olden times. In japanese mythology Izanagi, when fleeing from the Underworld and persecuted by his dead wife and various monsters, throws peaches at his persecutors. Peaches were believed to work against bad influences and ward off evil. And then we of course also have the cute Peach Boy from Japanese legend, who drives away the monsters from their island.

Although peaches were long known in Japan, modern cultivation started in the late Edo period. Now the most active prefectures are Fukushima, Yamanashi, Nagano, Okayama (the home of Peach Boy) and Yamagata. Peaches are for sale in July and August and form a welcome refreshment in the hot summer.

Hiyayakko - chilled tofu

Hiyayakko is a simple but extremely popular dish, especially in summer. It is just a slab of tofu (or two) eaten with finely sliced welsh onion, grated ginger, shaved katsuobushi and soy sauce.

It is best to use the soft kinu tofu, not the sturdier momen type. Add the soy sauce just before eating, or the tofu turns soft. This is purity itself, the cold counterpart of yudofu. It is eaten in the home, but also served in izakaya and other homey restaurants.

Sake ice and sake with ice

The hot summer continues to batter us relentlessly in Japan, so here some interesting (and unorthodox) ways to consume cold sake:

• Samurai Rock: "Sake  on the rocks" with a slice of lime - the sourness of the lime harmonizes well with sake. If it is available, it is best to use genshu, the raw and undiluted sake popular in Japanese summers. The genshu packs so much punch that it easily withstands the dilution with ice. If you have to use another type of sake, make sure you don't dilute it too much!
• Mizore Sake: "snow sake," instead of ice cubes add shaved ice to the sake like the Japanese kakegori. Also best with genshu.
• Sake Sherbet: frozen sake. Sold amongst others by Kobe Shushinkan (Fukuju brand) under the name "toketsu-shu." They use Shiboritate genshu for it. You can also make it yourself: just pour sake (genshu again!) in a sturdy glass, wrap it in plastic foil and place it in your freezer. After 4 to 5 hours you should be in the happy possession of a sake sherbet! You can drink it bit by bit as it thaws, but you can also eat it with a spoon like a real sherbet. In that case, pour some honey or syrup over it!
• "Kan" Rock: "Kan" or "o-kan" is warm sake in Japanese and that is what you add to a glass full of ice cubes. The sake should be quite hot, about 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit). When you shake the glass, the sake soon cools down. An interesting way to drink hot sake in summer!

[Ideas from the Japanese website of the Japan Sake Brewers Association]

Chukadon

Chuka donburi. Chinese-style large bowl with rice. One of the popular donburi dishes where rice is served in a donburi bowl covered with a particular ingredient. In this case that is a thick, starchy sauce containing stir-fried pieces of pork, bamboo shoots, carrot, onion slices, Chinese cabbage, peas etc. This dish is also called Chukahan.

Although it has been influenced by the Canton Cuisine, this dish originates from Japan. Around 1930 a Chinese-style restaurant in Tokyo started serving Happosai (stir-fried vegetables) on top of rice in a bowl and our dish was born.



Japanese: 中華丼

Butter rice or sugar rice?

Even today when some Japanese travel abroad, they lug around an extra suitcase filled with noodles, miso and other goodies from the national diet. They simply don't feel at ease without a bite of Japanese food.

I was reminded of this when reading Donald Keene's Modern Japanese Diaries, in which the great scholar discusses a diary describing the first embassy ever sent abroad in modern times by the Japanese. This was an official trip made in 1860 to ratify the treaty of amity and commerce concluded in 1857 with the United States. Diarist and leader of the embassy was shogunal top-ranking official, Muragaki Norimasa (a somewhat dour figure who continuously berates the Americans for being without manners and decorum, without appreciating their kindliness).

Too long bereft of proper Japanese food, in Philadelphia the Japanese group is overjoyed when a bowl of rice appears on the table. But to their dismay the rice has been cooked in butter. They ask the kitchen to make new rice without butter. New rice appears, but now to their even greater dismay, it has been cooked with sugar! Disappointed at this barbarian way of treating rice, the Japanese delegation eats bread instead. Muragaki comments as follows:

In general customs relating to food are the same throughout the world, but our country's are unique. For this reason, it is impossible to describe adequately in words the hardships we suffer when we travel abroad."
[Donald Keene, Modern Japanese Diaries]

Kanitama

Omelet filled with crab, leek slices, bamboo shoot slices and mushroom slices. かに玉。

The omelet is sometimes covered with a thick sauce seasoned with sugar and soy sauce. This is the Japanese (Chuka) version of Egg Fu Yong, the Chinese dish where any leftovers from fish or meat can be added to the omelette.

Real crab is, however, rare. You usually find crabstick (imitation "crab" made from fishcake).

Suika, watermelon

We have talked about grapes and pears, but the no. 1 summer fruit and symbol of summer itself is of course the suika, the watermelon. Watermelon is said to be good against summer fatigue and is full of refreshing juices. The rugby ball-sized fruit arrived around 1640 in Japan, via China, from Africa where it originates.

Cultivation started in earnest around 1920 and although it can be grown from Okinawa to Hokkaido, major "suika" prefectures are Kumamoto, Chiba, Ibaraki and Yamagata. You will find it in shops from late June through August. Greengrocers sell whole watermelons, but supermarkets offer them in quarters or even smaller sizes.

Nashi, Japanese pear

Japanese pears are great - they look like apples and have all the crispness of that fruit (not the unpleasant softness of Western pears - which by the are called yonashi), but when you bite in it the surprise is that you get the taste and juiciness of a pear!

Japanese pears can be brown or green or of the variety called nijisseiki. Pears are grown in Chiba, Tottori, Nagano, Ibaraki and Fukushima. Available from mid-summer through autumn, they provide refreshment in the hot weather.