Japanese Foods from My Taste

Posted on June 20, 2007 by Nene

When I was in my country, my husband and I had our dinner at a Japanese restaurant for the first time. The foods served were delectable except the ‘wasabi’ which was too hot and ‘miso shiru’ or miso soupA traditional Japanese soup made by disolving fermented soybean paste (miso) in soup stock. There are many optional ingredients such as seaweed, tofu, onions, mushrooms, and potatoes. . When I drunk it, I felt I would throw up because of the strange taste. Since I was used to drinking sweet fruit juice after meals, I didn’t like the bitter ‘ocha’ or green tea which is usually served after meals by Japanese. However, now that I live in Japan I don’t have any choice but to accept the taste of it.

As the months passed by, I got used to the taste of miso shiru and ocha, and most especially I learned the technique to eat the hot ‘wasabi’ without tears in my eyes. The technique is when you put the food with wasabi in your mouth, position the part with wasabi to your tongue while the food is protecting the upper part of your mouth from touching it. I noticed when the wasabi touched the upper part of my mouth, the spice reached my nostrils and it brought me to tears. Thus, when my in-laws watched me not minding the hot wasabi, they were very impressed.

One of the Japanese foods that most foreigners don’t like is ‘natto’ or fermented soy beans because they say the smell is odd. However, when I first ate it, I didn’t think the smell was odd. In fact, I like the smell and of course the taste of it. I feel like eating ‘natto’ with every meal. Other food that foreigners dare not eat is ‘sushi’ or raw seafood. Sushi for me is just fine. I like tuna sushi the most.

I always help my mother-in-law in cooking and the first food I learned to cook was miso shiru. Then, I learned tonkatsu, curry, tempuraDeep fried seafood and vegetables that have been dipped in batter made from water, flour, and eggs. , rice ball, ramen, and yakisoba. I am also learning Japanese recipes from a website: http://www.bob-an.com/recipe/English/index_e.html. On that site there are 103 Japanese recipes in English out of 4341 recipes in Japanese. There is glossary of ingredients where you will find the definition of each ingredient.

Here is a recipe that I learned from my mother-in-law:

TONKATSU

Ingredients:

salt, pepper, pork meat in slices, bread crumbs, 1 pc. egg, water, flour, cooking oil, cabbage, tonkatsu sauce

1.   Chop cabbage, soak in water. Cut it very thin.

2.   Pound meat with meat mallet or with the back of the knife.

3.   Do not pound meat too thinly. Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of the meat.

4.   Put egg, flour, bread crumbs in 3 separate shallow trays. Add a little water to the beaten egg. Spread flour on both sides of the meat. Pat off excess flour then dip into beaten egg.

Spread meat onto bread crumbs (panko). Cover the meat with crumbs and press it a little. Repeat this processs on all slices.

6.   Heat oil. Drop a piece of crumb onto the oil. When the crumb starts to rise from the bottom of the pan. It means it is now ready for frying. Fry in a moderate heat. When meat starts to brown, reduce heat temperature and continue to fry slowly. Do not fry it too much otherwise the meat will become hard.

7.   Drain oil on net and put it on a paper napkin.

8.   Cut into bite size slices. Move meat and thinly cut cabbage to plates.

9.   Top with tonkatsu sauce (Worcestershire sauce or chuno sauce)

and serve it with a smile on your face.

In serving Japanese food, I noticed that they use several plates, in different sizes. They say they care for the presentation of food on the table. The use of different kinds of plates adds flavor to the food and delight to the people who will eat. But because we don’t have a modern dishwasher, it takes me almost 30 minutes to finish washing and wiping the dishes!