Archive | Recipes RSS feed for this section

Three Summer Recipes ３つの夏レシピー

30 Aug

jam.jpg

第一　Japanese Peach-Sake Jam

First, a word about Japanese peaches 白桃 (hakutō): amazing. They are typically about the size of my fist, with pure wine-white flesh and bright pink skin. They are sweeter and juicier than any other peach you may ever taste; eating one usually results in pure ecstasy, accompanied by a vast pool of peach water at your feet. They are well worth the $3 apiece (minimum!) price tag, always a very special summer treat. So what to use as a substitute? Ordinary white peaches will do, but you may want to add more sugar (or maybe honey?) to the recipe. And don’t you dare use yellow peaches or I will hunt you down and kill you.

(more…)

SOY BOMB 大豆爆弾

8 Jul

Soy, if you haven’t heard, is amazing. And few cultures appreciate this fact as fully as Japan, where the unassuming legume has been widely cultivated, processed, cooked, fermented, stewed, steamed, curdled, baked, boiled, and ultimately consumed in myriad forms for hundreds (probably thousands?) of years. In America, I think soy is generally misunderstood. People tend to think of soy products as very good-for-you stuff, yes, but also vaguely artificial and blander than Wonder bread; the bean’s bounties are often relegated to that ill-lit corner of the gastro-hegemony labeled “health food,” where only the most dreary-eyed nerds, hippies, and uncool moms loiter awkwardly about.

But in Japan, as in many other east and southeast Asian nations, soy gets the respect it deserves: as a popular happy hour snack (edamame), an umami-rich condiment (soy sauce), an ingredient in sweet and nutty desserts (kinako), a sticky and pungent breakfast item (nattō), and so much more!

(more…)

Cooking with Marmite マーマイトで料理

22 Apr

You either love it or hate it. That’s what they say about Marmite, a pungent and peculiar spread made primarily from spent brewer’s yeast, a British brother of the more widely known Australian Vegemite. Brown, sticky, and sort of glossy, Marmite looks like molten Nutella but tastes far, far from it. Its flavor is something like soy sauce, something like a dry stout, and something like burnt meat; bitter, tangy, rich, aggressive, and ultimately somewhat hard to describe. Marmite is the Henry Rollins of condiments.

(more…)

Recipes for Romance ロマンスの作り方

19 Apr

In this entry, I bring you a quartet of dishes to let that special someone know just how much you enjoy watching them eat. They feature a variety of textures, flavors, techniques, and ingredients from both Japanese and European cooking traditions, with a few recurring motifs to tie everything together into one smooth, sumptuous package… see if you can discern what they are.

romance.jpg

Mizuna and Seared Tuna Salad

(more…)

Fun with Rum! ラムの楽しさ！

5 Feb

Pirates and vikings: together at last! Here are a few Antillicious rum-based recipes I cooked up this weekend in honor of nothing in particular. Yo ho ho!

As always, all measurements are to taste. Use your best judgement, ye scurvy dogs!

ラムラブToddy aftermath.

Cuba Libre (Rum and Coke) Sauce for Pork

(more…)

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 59 other followers