April 26, 2007
ikasumi soft-serve is the new black
Sea salt and citrus soft-serve ice cream.
You can find soft-serve ice cream everywhere in Japan. It is based on this simple equation: where you find tourists, you find vendors selling soft-serve. Where you find anything at all worth seeing, you find tourists. Every place in Japan boasts something worth seeing. Therefore, soft-serve is everywhere. This is a good thing.
Vanilla, strawberry and matcha are the standards, but the best part about soft-serve in Japan is its use as a vehicle for all manner of seasonal, regional and barely-edible ingredients, meaning that any decent tourist attraction will have its own special flavor. I like to try them all. I look it less as gluttony and more as a hobby, like collecting stamps. Except with nothing to show for it but some torn cone wrappers and a small ice cream belly.
Squid ink soft-serve ice cream.
Many soft-serve flavors I've tried have been both strange and delicious, like houji-cha (roasted green tea), shionami (sea salt), umeboshi, and tomato. Others have been less weird but just as good, like kuri (chestnut), iyokan (a kind of citrus fruit) and sakura (cherry blossom). Only one flavor was bad enough to force me to abandon the cone: ikasumi (squid ink), purchased at a stall near the famous Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. I remember it tasted almost like chocolate, but there was something wrong beneath the almost-chocolate, a shadowy squid taste lurking below the surface which drove me to abandon ship.
What makes all these flavors so easy to eat is the fact that it is soft-serve (sofuto kuriimu in Japanese) rather than regular ice cream. If I had to maneuver around chunks of frozen tomato, I don't think I'd be as happy as I am eating a cone of something smooth and yielding that tastes faintly of tomatoes. (If you are wondering, this particular soft-serve reminds me of a fresh mozzarella and tomato salad, but sweet, of course.) The cutting-edge of food is all about changing the textures of familiar foods into something more unexpected, but foams and flavored papers are nothing next to Japan's national program of soft-serving everything under the Rising Sun. I'll toast my cone of kinako to that.
Link | Comment (10) | Categories: Musings | Sweets | Weird | Western Food
January 10, 2007
me vs. natto
In the showdown between me and Japanese food, there was one foe that could always best me: nattō.
Nattō. Fermented soybeans. You've probably heard of it. It's a divisive comestible, in that way only things that are called "food" yet smell like rotting feet are. While nearly everyone in Japan will lecture you on the health benefits of eating nattō (lowered risk of osteoporosis and cancer and blood clots and obesity and maybe...death?), there are actually a fair number of Japanese people who find the stuff repellent. The thing that makes nattō so disgustingly special is its texture, which manages to be at once slimy, slippery and stringy. This is a byproduct of the fermenting and aging process, during which the beans are soaked, fermented under heated conditions, then aged at a much cooler temperature. Meanwhile, Bacillus subtilis natto, a rice straw bacterium, does its not-so-subtle work and a pile of sticky, odiferous beans results.
But my cowering at the sight of nattō wouldn't do. I refused to be bullied, especially by something made of beans. Beans are small. Beans are innocuous. Beans are even kind of wimpy. So I armed myself with a fistful of green onions and a bowl of hot rice, excellent allies in any Japanese food showdown, and set to work.
Although I entertained thoughts of wimping out and starting with the black soybean nattō, which is supposed to be less strongly flavored, I decided to instead go for an all-purpose brand that had always caught my eye when I peeked fearfully at the nattō section of the grocery store. It came with small packets of tsuyu and karashi (mustard). I planned on using the tsuyu and forgoing the mustard, as its strong flavor might overpower the nattō-ness of my nattō. I chopped up some green onion and took a deep breath before lifting open the Styrofoam lid. It would be the last nattō-free breath I would take all day.
And there it was. You don't really need to ask why I was so afraid of nattō, do you?
The deep stink of fermented protein filled the kitchen. But the slippery adventure was only beginning -- I still had to mix my nattō, stirring it around with a pair of chopsticks to make it even more stringy. I wasn't too clear on why this was the desired result, but in the spirit of no-holds-barred nattō consumption, I did it.
After mixing, the beans looked even worse, foamy and viscous, like something you might find on the underside of a lily pad or see in a movie about spawning aliens. Undaunted, I piled them into the small bowl of hot rice, sprinkled on the tsuyu and covered the whole mess in a thick layer of green onions.
And finally, I put the first stinking bite into my mouth. I chewed. It was nutty. Slippery. There was a faint taste of rot, but it was rot I knew I could come to accept and maybe even love, like a very stinky cheese or a friendly zombie. After a couple bites, I added to some daubs of karashi to the mix and found the occasional burning bites even better. Toward the bottom of the bowl, I needed something more, so I pulled out my final Japanese food ally, the mighty umeboshi, and alternated the last bites of beans and rice with nibbles from the tart pickled ume. It was exactly right. I cleaned the bowl.
I had bested nattō. Or had I? My entire apartment reeked of the stuff for the rest of the day. I declare this match a tie.
Link | Comment (11) | Categories: Firsts | Soy | Weird
October 5, 2006
mentaiko
You're looking at two membrane sacks stuffed with salted, chili-seasoned eggs from a fish called suketōdara, or Alaska pollack, or mentai. Hungry yet?
This is what mentaiko ("mentai babies") looks like when you buy it in the supermarket. It's a common onigiri (rice ball) filling in Japan and occasionally pops up in things like bi bim bap or pizza, but one of the most popular and, in my opinion, most delicious ways to eat mentaiko is on pasta, typically in a butter- or cream-based sauce.
This may seem strange. When I told a friend in the U.S. about the "fish egg pasta" popular in Japan, she thought I meant some kind of fish-flavored egg noodles, maybe a variation of squid ink noodles. When I told her I actually meant pasta topped with fish eggs, I think she may have briefly considered never emailing me again. But mentaiko, and especially mentaiko pasta, deserve a try. The salting and chili-seasoning process produces something a little spicy and not very fishy, with a flavor all its own. Heck, I'll even go so far as to say mentaiko is my favorite of all the fish roes! You heard it here first, people.
I've eaten mentaiko pasta in restaurants and at the home of a mentaiko-obsessed friend, and it seemed time for me to try making it myself. I used the recipe in Harumi's Japanese Cooking
It took less than ten minutes to put the sauce together -- squeezing the mentaiko out of the membranes was strangely gratifying -- and the finished dish was nearly as good as and several pounds lighter than the incredible cream-based version served at one of the cafes in my town. Next time I'll look for darker red mentaiko, as the usually-shocking-pink sauce is part of the allure for me. And I might throw in some mushrooms as well. Perhaps there's a mentaiko pizza in my future?
Some notes on ingredients: If you can't get mentaiko, make a nice eggplant parmesan or something; there are no substitutes. See the notes about shiso here. Kombu cha powder is a hard one. Harumi recommends using a strong fish stock as a substitution, but maybe you could mix kelp powder (available at health food stores) with some matcha powder. Or just throw in some parmesan cheese. The kombu cha is just there to add umami anyway.
Mentaiko Pasta
Adapted from Harumi's Japanese Cooking
Serves 2
6 oz/170 g uncooked thin pasta (such as spaghettini)
3 oz/85 g mentaiko
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon kombu cha (kelp tea) powder
2 small sheets of nori, cut into matchstick-sized pieces (about 2 tablespoons)
3 shiso leaves, finely shredded
chopped green onion or chives, to garnish
soy sauce, if needed
Boil the pasta in salted water according to package directions. While it is cooking, soften the butter for 10-20 seconds in the microwave, then beat until creamy. Remove the roe from the membrane and mix into the butter. Add the kombu cha powder and stir until smooth. It will resemble buttercream frosting at this point, but resist the urge to eat it straight from a spoon.
When the pasta is al dente, drain and immediately mix with the butter mixture, tossing to coat the pasta evenly. Taste for seasoning and, if necessary, add a little soy sauce. Divide onto two plates and top with the shiso, nori and a sprinkling of green onions or chives.
Link | Comment (0) | Categories: Ingredients | Noodles | Recipes | Weird | Western Food
May 29, 2006
of sake and spit
When making liquor (like sake) from a starchy substance (like rice), the starch must be changed to sugar with the enzyme action of a substance (like saliva).
…Wait, what?
It’s true. The first sake in Japan was made at big rice-chewing parties. Everyone in the village would show up, chew some raw rice, spit it into a container, then go back home, content in the knowledge that they would soon gather for another village party, this time fueled by spit-soaked sake, known as kuchikami no sake, “chewing-in-the-mouth sake.” After the chewing party, water would be added to the saliva-rice and then the mixture would be monitored until it smelled alcoholic—what poor sap had that job? and was he likely to drink the most or least at the party?—at which point, everyone would gather again to drink their very communal concoction.
This type of liquor is not exclusive to Japan; in South and Central America as well as other parts of Asia, people were chewing their way toward drunkenness during the seventh through tenth centuries. In Taiwan, the custom was practiced until the early twentieth century. In Hokkaido and Okinawa, the northernmost and southernmost parts of Japan, they prepared the drink for special festivals and only women chewed the rice.
Luckily, koji was discovered, a useful little mold which not only turned starch into sugar for sake, but also came to be used to make miso, natto and soy sauce. Where would Japan be without you, Aspergillus oryzae?
…Drinking a whole lot of backwash, that’s where.
Link | Comment (3) | Categories: History | Rice | Sake | Weird
May 10, 2006
my first kani miso
My first encounter with kani miso was accidental. It was during my first weeks in Japan, when I would buy things in the grocery store just because they were labeled in hiragana—the Japanese alphabet I could read—instead of kanji, the thousands of complicated Chinese-based characters of which I knew approximately thirty. So when I saw the word kani, crab, I thought I was buying a container of fried crab meat, and it wasn’t until halfway through dinner that I began to detect the muddiness of the flavor, a certain bottom-of-the-sea taste I remembered from an hour-long seafood feast I had eaten in Thailand, encompassing every type of crustacean and mollusk I had ever heard of, and culminating with a plate of prawns swiftly beheaded by the hostess of the meal, the thin green brain fluid pooling on the serving plate, a sight which had ended the meal for me. Looking down at the fried thing in my chopsticks now, I noticed the grayness underneath the batter. What was I eating? I finished the remaining pieces, but vowed to stick with the kare age, fried chicken, next time.
Sitting at the local kaitenzushi (conveyor-belt sushi) restaurant a few weeks later, I watched the approach of a roll stuffed half with crab meat, half with a dollop of some mysterious substance the color of wet cement, with the thick and shiny texture of mayonnaise. (A condiment not out of place at kaitenzushi restaurants, incidentally—hamburger steak and a squirt of mayo balanced atop a small finger of rice, anyone? …Anyone?)
“What is that?” I asked, as my friend James grabbed the plate and added it to the growing pile in front of him.
“Kani miso.”
“But what is it?”
“Crab guts. Want one?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to look like a wimp. “Okay.”
As he plopped one of the two rolls on my plate, he told me about the first time he had eaten crab guts; it had been at this very kaitenzushi place, on a night when he came alone and sat at the counter, next to an old man presiding over a giant pile of empty plates. I imagined a rainy night, possibly with lightening, and the old man as wizened and dirt-streaked, most likely with a blind, rolling, cataract-ridden eye.
“I reached out to take some kind of clam sushi and I saw he was watching me,” James said. I thought of the darting cataract eye. “So I asked him if the one I picked was any good. He said no”—I could see his cackling, wrinkled face—“but the one he was eating was. So the next time it came around, I tried it. And I liked it.” A flash of lightening! The claw-like hands, curling triumphantly around their disposable chopsticks! A flayed and defeated crab lying supine in the kitchen behind the conveyor belt!
There was still the matter of the kani miso on my plate, and the dawning realization that I had eaten fried crab guts for dinner once.
I picked it up with my chopsticks, the guts glossy in the fluorescent glow of the conveyor belt. I dipped it in my small dish of soy sauce. I ate it. There was the dense crab meat, then the squish of guts between my teeth, the bottom-of-the-sea taste, but even stronger this time, as I chewed through the rice and seaweed wrapping. It tasted like crab, but dirty crab. Like a dirty martini—something dusky and thick beneath the clean sweetness.
“Huh,” I said. There was no flash of lightening. “It’s okay.”
But the next time I went out for kaitenzushi I found myself picking it out of the conveyor-belt line-up, enjoying the disgusted look flickering behind the eyes of those at the table who would never try crab guts, their open-mouthed incredulousness as I popped the pink and gray pieces into my mouth and chewed. “Mmm…” I said, hamming it up in the face of their revulsion, and it actually did taste better than the first time I had eaten it.
And after that, I started eating kani miso for myself.
Link | Comment (1) | Categories: Firsts | Sushi | Weird