Sanma

It has been a while since I posted last time

Sanma season now! This sharp-shaped fish is very cheap this season. The notation in Chinese characters of sanma is "秋刀魚", which means autumn+sword+fish.

Grilling is the most popular way of cooking. This is sanma ichiya-boshi. It may be dried a night, semi-dried sanma.

Golden Week is coming up!

Spring holiday season is coming soon. There are several national holidays between late April and early May. It is called "Golden Week" in Japan. It starts from 29th of April, Showa-no-hi, which is the birthday of previous emperor, showa-tenno, followed by constitution day on the 3rd, Midori-no-hi (green day) on the 4th and Kodomono-hi (children's day) on the 5th of May.

Although May Day is not a national holiday, most of major manufacturing companies are closed on the 1st of May. Golden Week consists of these holidays and weekends around them, and the length of the holidays is depending on the calender of the year.

This year, since constitution day on the 3rd is Sunday, the 6th is set as a makeup holiday. It means that Golden week continues from the 29th to the 10th except 30th, 1st, 7th and 8th this year. Some companies close their offices on these days, some people take paid holidays to make the holiday longer. It is possible to make it 16-day holiday from 25th of April to 10th of May if the person can take days off on 27th and 28th as well.

It sounds nice, but it is serious that some companies take long holiday in order to close operations during this period due to the business depression.

Still I am really looking forward to the Golden Week!! It is lovely season.

Takenoko gohan

It is in takenoko (bamboo sprout) season. Takenoko gohan (bamboo sprout rice ) is a standard thing.

Just add cut takenoko and chopped aburaage (fried tofu) with Japanese soup stock and some salt in the rice cooker.

Anago-sushi, Saba-sushi

Anago is a king of fish like ell. It is tasted with sweeten soy-sauce. This anago sushi is very nice!

Saba (mackerel) sushi is also good.

Seasonnal cakes for February & March

The chocolate is a February thing. It is typical thing for valentine season.

This cake is not Japanese but looks like Japanese hishimochi. Hishimochi is a diamond shaped mochi (rice cake) for Hinamatsuri (doll festival on 3rd of March). It has three layers, which symbolise the early spring. Green as blast at the bottom, white as snow in the middle and pink as cherry blossoms at the top. Green layer of this cake is match (green tea) flavor.

Sakura mochi

It was lovely day today. It was very worm like May and people got their thick coat off. Today's delight is Spring sweets, sakura mochi.

Anko is covered with rice cake, and it is wrapped with salted sakura (cherry) leaf.

This is also a kind of sakura mochi, but not a authentic one actually. It is inside out sakura mochi, that means sakura leaf is inside the mochi. This was also nice.

Kinme no nitsuke

Kinme is a red color fish. It is good to nitsuke (boiled with sweet soy sauce).

Tonkatsu teishoku

Tonkatsu is Japanese style pork cutlet. It is deep fry cutlet. Julienne cabbage is the standard accompaniment with tonkatsu. Crispy and juicy!

Holiday teatime

English teatime on Saturday afternoon. Some scones with tea. French teatime on Sunday afternoon. Galette with tea.I can enjoy a virtual trip to England and France at cafes in Tokyo.

Matcha sweets

Variety of matcha (Japanese green tea) sweets. Daufuku, dorayaki, roll-cake, chou-cream (cream puff)... All are matcha flavor.
This is roll-cake. Matcha sponge cake and matcha cream. Black spots in the cake are kuromame (black beans).
Matcha dorayaki. Matcha cream is sanded with pancake. Original dorayaki is pancake with anko (red-bean jam). We can find variety of arranged dorayaki around.

Acqua pazza with Akamutsu

It was a good buy that I took a Akamutsu (Doederleinia berycoides ?) for 660 yen. This fish is not very common in everyday life. It has white meat and very juicy. I heard the price of this fish has been increasing these days, and it is one of the expensive fish.
The fishmonger recommended me to grill or put in nabe, and it is also fresh enough for sashimi. I was in the mood for western style dish, so that I made Acqua pazza.

Roast the fish with olive oil, and then steam with soaking liquid of dried tomato and white wine. Add clam, black olive, tomato, caper and herb salt and steam again. It is very easy to cook, but looks gorgeous. Only difficulty might be to get good olives and caper. An average supermarket doesn't have them in Japan. Even if they are not added, I think it is still OK.
After finish the fish, I put some spaghetti in the liquid in the pan. It was also really nice!

Hokkaido food fair

I went to Hokkaido food fair held at a department store. I was surprised that too many people are enjoying shopping there.

Hokkaido is vary rich in harvest. Seafood, potato, milk, cheese...many things.
Ikura (salmon roe), uni , kani (crab), hotate (scallop), ika (squid) in Hokkaido is really nice!

I had sushi at a temporary restaurant. Every item was very fresh and good. Salmon susi is not so common around Tokyo area, so it might be Hokkaido speciality.

Chicken meatball soup

I feel like taking something hot for dinner at cold night. Soup is suitable!

I put some hakusai (green vegetable), harusame (vermicelli) and chicken meatballs in the soup. This meatball is minced chicken mixed with some salt, sake, katakuriko (starch), yuzukosho (spicy spice with citrus skin) and soy sauce.

Buta no kakuni

Kakuni is Japanese stewed pork.
Boil some blocks of pork ribs in water with sliced ginger in a big pan about 2 hours. Leave it until it cool down. Take out the ribs from the water and remove from the grease layer, and cut it in a suitable size. Prepare almost the same amount of water and sake in another pan, and put the ribs and daikon (if like) to stew for about 1 hour. Put a bit of soy sauce and continue to stew for 30 minutes. Add some soy sauce to taste. It is melt in the mouth!

Frugal daikon salad

Slice some leftover daikon and mix with cut stem of it. The stems of daikon is usually rubbish, but it is a waste, so I didn't threw away and kept in the fridge.

Sprinkle salt and leave it a few minutes, and drain off the excess water. Squeeze yuzu (Japanese citrus fruit) and adjust the salt. Marinate some peeled yuzu skin and dried mekabu (a kind of seaweed). It is low in calories and less waste.

Soup curry

Curry is popular in Japan. I think most of Japanese have curry once a week or more. Actually, I don't have so often. Japanese curry is different from that in India or Thailand. Usually, it is very thick. Recently, new type of thin curry, soup curry is popular.
This is chicken soup curry.

pickles

Home made pickles. Carrot, cucumber, turnip and cauliflower.

Kimuchi nabe

I don't have to say Kimuchi is a Korean food, but it is also very popular in Japan. Sometimes it is argued that most of Kimuchi in Japan is not authentic. They are arranged in Japanese style. Actually, not so spicy and quite light.
Kimuchi-nabe is a kind of flavor of Japanese nabe. Korean food culture is taken into Japanese food. Japanese soup stock and Korean spice create a good harmony.

Main ingredients are hakusai (green Chinese vegetable), daikon (Japanese radish), pork, tofu and kimuchi.

Kakiage ten seiro soba

An atmospherical soba restaurant in Izu. This is the gate of the restaurant.

It is very popular. Many people are waiting in the garden.
This house is traditional Japanese architecture, which is built about 200 years ago.

This is the soba gaki. Soba is long, but soba gaki is like a cake made from soba dough. It is a wonder that we can feel completely the different flavor regardless of using the same ingredient.

Ten seiro soba (buck wheat noodle with tempura). Dip soba and tempura in the soba-tsuyu (sauce) to taste it. After eating, add some soba-yu (soba cooking water in the red cube pot) in the soba-tsuyu to make it thinner. We can enjoy flavours soup after soba.
Sakuraebi kakiage tempura (prawn tempura). Sakuaebi is small prawn. It is the local speciality in this area. It is very crispy! Very nice.

Taga soba

Ozoni

Happy New year!

It is Japanese tradition having Ozoni at Oshogatsu (New Year holiday season).

There are local flavor and family style in each area and family. Only point I would say it common is omochi (sticky rice cake) is in the soup. The shape of omochi in eastern Japan is square and round in the West. There are different soup and ingredients around Japan.

In Tokyo, square shaped grilled omochi is in the fish based clear soup stock and some vegetables and chicken are accompanied.

Omochi is so sticky that some old people have omochi stuck in their throat and die every year. It is a kind of dangerous food.