10 things I fairly dislike in culinary delights

I feel like revealing my culinary weakness in one Sunday afternoon. This is my personal voice, but maybe, something to share with 9 out of 10 Japanese folks. Have a look.




* Alphabetically listed.

1. Bulky, photoless cookbook
Japanese cookbooks are slim and light in body, yet full of cookery photographs; easy to keep and easy to follow. I have discomfort on some aspects of “foreign” cookbooks, so let me ask you here... politely:

- How can you choose your fave dish from the encyclopaedic volume of recipes?
- Without cookery photos, how do you reconstruct a dish you’ve never tried?
- How do you keep a space for the bulky book opened on the kitchen table while cooking?
- How do you keep your cookbooks clean? Soy is all around my books!
- If you carelessly drop the book from the kitchen table, your foot will get a bruise, right?
- Is your kitchen shelf durable enough for a pile of the books?

PS. This is serious.

2. Elderflower cordial
Resistible for no other reasons but perfumy. This is an ultra-minor drink in Japan and we rarely have a chance to taste. Thus, no fuss.

PS. I love jasmine..... to drink.


3. Ginger biscuit
Recently, something gingery has been booming in Japan because it’s cheap, handy plus healthy when cash is tight in winter. Although ginger candy is the revival of Japanese retro sweets, our palate traditionally prefers the spice as a condiment for savoury dishes. See the fact that gingerbread man, ginger muffin, Lebkuchen and any other gingery or allspicy sweets are totally unpopular to taste. Boo?

To conclude, a marriage between spice and sugar will end up by a divorce in Japan. The current trend is... an illusion.

4. Liquorice candy
In Japanese, liquorice is called “kanzo”, better known as one of herbs concocted in Chinese medicine rather than flavouring confectionery. The taste is bitterly medicinal for us! While Haribos are attracting Japanese teens and ladies, their “Schnecken” is almost an invisible item in shops despite its awful colour and shape.

If I have an unsavoury boss, why not harass him or her by offering liquorice-flavoured “Drop Mentos” as their pick-me-up? That’s penalty sweets!!

PS. As long as Drop Mentos isn’t available in Japan, my small rebellion will be attempted.....


5. Lavender cupcake
Lavender sachet – dreaming
Lavender soap - refreshing
Lavender shampoo - calming
Lavender bath foam - heavenly relaxing
Lavender cupcake -- no thanks please!!

I fancy the velvety colour with a little sprig of lavender on top, but my brain circuit never recognises the flower-scented icing is “soap-free”. Meanwhile I’m always welcome to receive authentic lavender recipes from Provence.

... To be continued.

wintry letter to Nigel

Dear Nigel,

Freezing winter days urge me to eat something rich, filling, but not stodgy. So I decided to make cream pasta, following your cookery suggestions in the BBC TV series, “Simple Suppers”.

Well, I replaced chopped sausages with hand-rolled meatballs because to get hold of “good” quality sausages are not easy in my surrounding environment in Tokyo. Moulding plenty of edible balls is time-consuming, but the plain and repetitive action brings peace of mind in this floating world rather than causes a nervous breakdown... believe me.

CREAM PASTA WITH MEATBALLS

* Serves 2
200g penne (or any other pastas as you like)

Meatballs:
250g minced pork
1 tbsp breadcrumbs
1 tbsp milk
2 tsp Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 tsp rosemary, finely chopped
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Sauce:
200ml single cream
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped, plus extra to serve
2 tsp Parmesan cheese, grated, plus extra to serve
1 heaped tsp Dijon mustard
A dash of white wine
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

1. To make the meatballs, mix the minced pork, breadcrumbs, milk, Parmesan and rosemary together in a bowl until evenly combined. Season with salt and pepper, mixing with your hands.

2. Shape the dough into around 45 small balls (...phew!) and place on a tray.

3. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Add the meatballs and fry for 5 minutes, swirling frequently. When browned all over, remove from the pan and lay on kitchen paper.

4. To make the sauce, heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Stir the onion until softened and add the meatballs, flat-leaf parsley, Parmesan, Dijon mustard and wine. Then, pour the single cream and simmer for 5 minutes until the meatballs are cooked through. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Meanwhile, boil the penne. Bring a deep pan of salted water to the boil. Add the penne and cook until al dente according to the packet instructions.

6. Drain the penne, reserving a little of the cooking water, and toss with the sauce. Add a little of the cooking water if the consistency of the sauce is too thick.

7. Serve immediately, sprinkled with extra Parmesan and parsley.


Tips:
1. The point of this recipe is to keep the meatballs almost “tiny” like a teaspoonful size to balance with the penne.
2. In the process of #4, you can add Dijon mustard as well as its grainy version as Nigel does. Yet, my personal palate is happy with only the former.

Nigel, I really fancy your honest, healthy and uncomplicated approach on daily food. Your latest book, “Tender: volume I”, which is my current read, is not just about growing, cooking and eating vegetables in a not-vegetarian-but-omnivorous way. Your writing style and photography heal my stressed soul, indeed!


Last but not least... Nigel Slater is the most successful food writer and cook in Britain.

more Asian!

This morning, a book parcel just arrived from Amazon EU. Ordering foreign cookbooks (written in English) is my regular activity on a monthly or bimonthly basis. To unpack such a heavy box from abroad is a therapeutic ritual to air my life in Tokyo with extra-exotic breeze, which now became a little piece of joy!

It may sound unusual to keep collecting foreign cookbooks while the same kinda books written by Japanese authors are easily available in nearby bookshops. They not only help my English, but draw my huge attention, providing all the culinary sophistication from the cooking presentation to photography (..well, apart from the bulky bookbinding tech). This is the point that Japanese counterparts can hardly achieve, I view.

My current read is "Nutmeg & Custard” by Marcus Wareing, who is a British Michelin-starred chef at “Marcus Wareing at The Barkeley”, London. (For your further info, he’s also well-known as an ex-protégé of Gordon Ramsay.) His book covering a variety of cookery scenes together with global ingredients and spices, the “ORIENT” chapter is amazing me in particular. As epitomised by Marcus here, I really like non-Asian chefs are enthusiastic about developing Asian cooking based on their distinctive senses that I’ve never had as Japanese.

For example, cooking marriages found between soba (buckwheat noodle) and greens for salad, tuna sashimi and pickled ginger for marinade are seemingly familiar in Japanese food. For us, however, they’re something “likely-but-unlikely” otherwise too close to be harmonised in the Japanese kitchen. They still fall into a range like “nouvelle” or “experimental”, albeit delish.

Anglicised recipes make Asian food “more Asian” in your country? Strange, but true...