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cooking (Page 25)

We spend a morning with an expert wagashi chef creating no-bake traditional Japanese sweets!

If you’re someone who enjoys making treats like cakes and pastries, then perhaps you have first hand knowledge of how baking can sometimes be a tricky affair. Well, in Japan, we have a whole category of wagashi, or traditional Japanese sweets, that aren’t baked at all, called namagashi (literally, “raw confectionaries”). Namagashi are typically made from various colorful bean pastes and often crafted into delicate seasonal-themed shapes.

Earlier this month, we participated in a seminar to experience what namagashi-making is like. Join us as we see how a master chef creates beautiful flowers from bean paste, and then try our not-so-expert hand at creating our own confections!

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Do play with your food: “Dam curry rice” looks dam tasty to us!

Recently, we shared five tips for extra-yummy curry rice with our dear readers, because we believe that everyone should be able to enjoy the very best of this mildly spicy, sweet and hearty Japanese comfort food the right way. But one thing we forgot to mention is that presentation is an important part of the curry experience. You can’t just slop spoonfuls of the yummy brown stuff all over the rice and expect it to look appetising.

Luckily, we’ve now stumbled upon a new serving method that’s gaining popularity in Japan: “Dam curry”!

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Kawaii kitchenware alert! Create cute kitty cookies with this awesome rolling-pin!

Recently we’ve been going crazy over kitty kitchen cookware, like the adorable kitty knife we featured a little while back. But our quest for kittycat-themed culinary goods is still ongoing, and this amazing kitty rolling-pin by Etsy seller Mood For Wood has got us seriously craving some freshly baked cookies, pronto!

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Make your own “wagashi” Japanese sweets at home with these creation kits

Pretty much anyone can pick up some brownie mix at the local grocer, crack an egg into a bowl, mix, and end up with a piping hot tray of delicious goodies. That’s child’s play (literally, if you’re using an Easy Bake).

It’s another thing altogether to create some truly Pinterest-worthy “wagashi” Japanese sweets. You know what we’re talking about: The wabi-sabi-riffic, colorful eye-and-mouth candy we’ve gushed over here on this very site time and again.

Wagashi are equally intimidating items to make for foreigners and Japanese alike, often calling for seemingly exotic ingredients, mysterious baking methods and coming in hard-to-replicate shapes and sizes. But, lucky for enthusiasts, there’s now a series of home kits available online to make the process a (relative) breeze!

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Five simple ways to take your curry rice to the next level

Curry rice is the perfect Japanese comfort food. It’s hearty, filling, sweet and just a little bit spicy, being a much milder version of Indian curry introduced to Japan by way of the British (you’re welcome, Japan!).

One of the best things about curry rice is how easy it is to customise it. You can subtly alter the flavour of the sauce by adding honey, apples, or even chocolate, and you can switch up serving methods by swapping the rice for udon or ramen. You can pour it over deep-fried pork katsu or seafood, or throw in all kinds of vegetables… the possibilities are endless!

But if you’re looking for ways to really step up your curry game, then we recommend trying some of these tips and tricks from professional curry chefs…

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Floppy bacon got you down? We’ve got a bacon enhancement secret for you

Bacon is a bit of a misnomer in Japan. When you say the word bacon to a foreigner, they often imagine crispy, tasty strips of goodness; you also might need to wipe up a bit of their drool. However, when confronted with “bacon” in Japan, the disappointment is immense. What is labeled as bacon looks like strangely cut pre-cooked ham.

Even when you attempt to bring home the bacon and cook it yourself, as much as you attempt to crisp it up, you will still have supremely floppy frustration. Or you overcook it and end up with black burnt inedible garbage. There is a little trick that has been making its way around the Internet that is turning floppy disappointments into crispy deliciousness. All it takes is one little secret ingredient!

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The defrosted reality of 24 frozen meals at Thai 7-Elevens [Photos]

The frozen food section at the local convenience store may not hold any lofty culinary treasures, but it does hold the key to saving time and energy after a long day. All around the world, people value frozen foods for their convenience and, sometimes, their deliciousness.

But can you really trust the picture on the front of the package to be what comes out of the microwave? One Thai netizen went on a quest to demystify the frozen food section of Thailand’s 7-Elevens and posted photos of 24 heated up meals to see how they compared to people’s expectations.

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From lotus root to alcohol: Are powdered foods the next big boom in Japan?

What’s that crumbly brown stuff on the rice pictured above?

If you guessed that it was some combination of spices, you’re (mostly) wrong. It’s actually the powdered form of a common cooking ingredient that you can find in any Japanese home. In fact, powdered foods in general have recently been drawing a lot of attention in Japan, so we wanted to share some interesting tidbits about them with you. And like the powder in the picture above, you might be surprised by what you find!

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  • Mar 3, 2015

We follow Twitter recipe to cook “coffee rice”! 【RocketKitchen】

As many of our readers are undoubtedly aware, white rice is an essential part of the Japanese diet, a food that we Japanese treat with reverence. It so happens that we also enjoy various flavored rice dishes known as takikomi gohan, in which rice is cooked with different ingredients to give it a distinct taste. Some of the  common takikomi gohan flavors that we like to have include kuri gohan made with chestnut and  matsutake gohan made with matsutake mushrooms. But a particularly unique kind of flavored rice causing a buzz on the Japanese Internet has come to our attention recently, and as unconventional and unexpected as it sounded, we decided we had to cook and try it for ourselves. The ingredient used in this unusual flavored rice?  It’s something you would ordinarily never associate with rice: coffee!

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We made world-famous French toast in our office, and so can you! 【RocketKitchen】

Have you heard of the Hotel Okura in Tokyo? It’s recognized as one of the top hotels in the world, often housing rich business travelers and foreign heads of state visiting Japan. Every U.S. president since Richard Nixon has stayed there, and even James Bond has been a guest!

But despite all that, the Hotel Okura is best known among us mortals as “the home of the most delicious French toast in the world.” It’s been praised by innumerable websites and reviews, turning the small, simple breakfast dish into a 1,840-yen (US$15.50) delicacy. With a price and reputation like that, you wouldn’t expect us to be able to make the exact same thing in our office kitchen. Right?

Well, we did. And so can you!

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Frozen marshmallow cream: Just two ingredients, at least as good as ice cream 【RocketKitchen】

Every now and again, we stumble across a dessert recipe that’s so simple and tasty, it almost feels like we’ve discovered some sort of hidden secret that man wasn’t meant to know. Last year, we found out that instead of making pancakes one at a time, we could just make one huge one in a rice cooker, sprinkle in some green tea powder, and have a dessert that looks and tastes great with no fuss at all.

But what if you prefer chilled desserts to hotcakes? No problem. We recently tried a recipe for a frozen marshmallow dessert that may or may not technically be ice cream, but amazingly creates something that tastes even better from just two ingredients, and takes almost as few steps to make.

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Minimal effort, loads of flavor: Make juicy roast beef in your rice cooker with vacuum cooking!

Our Japanese sister site Pouch would like to let our English-speaking readers in on a simple, time and effort-conserving way to cook a flavorful roast beef. This method also allows the meat to retain all of its natural juices, so you can impress your friends with an incredibly tender home-cooked meal.

But get ready for the best part of all–you get to let your rice cooker do all the hard work!

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Eat your beans the doubly delicious way with this mushiyaki edamame recipe 【RocketKitchen】

Edamame – young, green soybeans and (in this writer’s opinion anyway) the food of the gods – are usually prepared by boiling the beans in the pods, before draining and sprinkling with salt. While some people might think of edamame as an appetiser, or a side dish to sushi, in Japan the mighty green soybean has a special purpose – edamame’s best friend and soulmate is a cold beer.

And the writing team over at our Japanese sister site Pouch have their own special method of cooking edamame that they swear is doubly delicious. All you need is edamame, salt, and a lot less water than you might think.

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Japanese food blogger makes fried chicken poodles: “They’re too cute to eat!”

Whether our parents like it or not, food is an art form. Playing with food is awesome, and we’ve seen some spectacular examples of shaved-ice masterpieces, printed designs onto food, or corgi omelets.

But if you’ve been looking for a quick, easy artistic recipe you can do at home, look no further. Get ready to make the cutest little appetizers you’ve ever seen: fried poodles.

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“100 Sizzling Japanese Maids in Action” video is less sexy yet more awesome than it sounds

Japan has a long-standing and highly publicized infatuation with maid outfits. As such, it’s really not much of a surprise that you can find a video on YouTube that bears the English title 100 Sizzling Japanese Maids in Action.

The 100-second video isn’t a contribution to Japan’s highly specialized pornography industry though. Rather, it’s an ad for something altogether less prurient, as its true theme isn’t so much “hot girls” as “hotcakes.” It is, nevertheless, extremely compelling viewing.

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An Italian take on a Japanese classic, but do people in Japan consider it sushi?

For years Japan has been toying around with combining its signature flavors with the many different cuisines of the world. Japan even has its own take on pasta that they call Japanese-style pasta (和風パスタ). Wouldn’t it be fair for Italian chefs to experiment with Japanese cuisine? Two chefs in Italy have been putting their personal touches to the idea of sushi, and their pasta sushi creation is now starting to make some noise in the US and on the Internet.

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Craving ramen, but can’t find decent noodles? Transform your spaghetti with this pasta hack!

For those living outside Japan, a good bowl of ramen is almost impossible to find unless you’re in a big city like New York or London, and even then the options can be a bit of a let-down. And for many, the only ramen available is the dried variety that frankly has made some of our Japanese culinary experts gag.

But all is not lost, dear ramen lovers around the world. We’ve found a kitchen hack to turn ordinary everyday pasta into noodles fit for a delicious bowl of homemade ramen.

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Anime feast! Ghibli fan recreates 47 animated dishes in mouthwatering video

When you sit down to watch a Studio Ghibli movie, there are generally three things you can expect to see depicted with unbridled passion and heart-stirring attention to detail: the thrill of flight, the glory of nature, and the mouthwatering deliciousness of expertly prepared food. As a matter of fact, scrumptious fare, ranging from extravagant delicacies to good honest grub, shows up with such frequency in Ghibli’s works that one fan counted 47 anime dishes that looked good enough to eat, then set out to make them all himself, as shown in this amazing video.

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Courageous kitty offers himself up for dinner during tough financial times

Pets are expensive to feed and keep, which is why it’s important to make sure you’re financially able to support a little furry life for the next 10-15 years before making the decision to adopt an animal.

Sometimes, though, life throws you financial curve balls, and you may find yourself struggling to cover the cost of kitty’s food and litter. Today, we’d like to share with you the funny yet kinda sad tale of a kitty-owner whose struggle to make ends meet led to their furry little pal making a drastic suggestion of self-sacrifice (although, it’s a cat, so we’re pretty sure it was being sarcastic…)

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Taco Rice: Yummy Tex-Mex cuisine, Okinawan style!

Hands up everyone who loves Japanese food. Now, hands up everyone who loves Tex-Mex. Okay, you can put both of your hands down now. If you’ve never had the pleasure of chowing down on a bowl of delicious “Taco Rice”, then you’re seriously missing out! This Okinawan dish is a staple of the islands, being both tasty and filling while at the same time satisfying many a US military serviceperson’s hankering for a taste of home. We recently picked up a “Taco Rice bento box” from one of the best Taco Rice establishments on Okinawa. Read on for our thoughts!

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