SoraNews24 goes back to the kitchen to go back in time as we taste-test the first written record of how to make curry in Japan.
RocketKitchen
Naive question prompts discussion about Disneyland eggs, existence of magical chickens and we get our chef’s hat and apron on.
We’re back in the RocketKitchen for a super-easy dessert recipe to impress family and friends with this holiday season.
With just four quick steps and a very special ingredient, anyone can make this spectacular fluorescent jelly!
The perfect solution for the leftovers after your traditional Japanese Christmas KFC meal.
If you’re looking for a new way to make karaage, or Japanese-style fried chicken, how about taking some inspiration from the underground student council vice president of hit manga/anime/TV drama Prison School? We liked how character Meiko Shiraki’s karaage, coated with kaki-no-tane rice crackers, looked in the manga and anime, so we decided to give it a shot!
Carbs have long gotten a bad rap for their supposed “unhealthiness”, which in turn has spurred a number of fad diets, from the Atkin’s to the gluten-free, that urge their followers to shun the grains. But most nutritionists will still argue that, unless you have specific allergies, your body needs carbohydrates to function at its best.
Of course, as with all things, moderation is the key. But sometimes it’s okay to give yourself a little treat, and what could be better than a big old bowl of all of the carbs. We’re talking rice, pasta, ramen, and bread combined together in one heavenly bowl. Couldn’t get any better than that. Or, you may be saying to yourself, it couldn’t get any worse. Either way, we decided to give it a try and find out!
If you’re in the mood to cook but running short on ingredients, there’s always the old tactic of asking your neighbor for a cup of sugar. If you are in Japan though, why don’t you ask your neighbor for a cup of mirin, or sweet sake used for cooking, instead?
The Sanshu Mikawa Mirin Distillery has recently been promoting sweets made with mirin. This notion is bound to turn some heads as there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between mirin and sweets in Japanese cooking, where it’s instead often used to add a flavorful touch to grilled fish or sushi. So how is it that this seemingly savory flavor can be substituted for the sweetness of sugar? The RocketKitchen is going to get to the bottom of this and eat some pudding too!
Recently we’ve been seeing a lot of ways for you to express your inner sailor scout. There’s Sailor Moon pajamas, Sailor Moon cellphones, and even Sailor Moon designer bags and, um, menstrual pads.
But what about when you want to eat like one of the sailor scouts? Well that’s something we at RocketNews24 have been wondering ourselves, so we decided to try making one of Sailor Jupiter’s legendary bento boxes. How did it turn out? Let’s just say we ran into some interesting characters along the way….
Tuna. It’s definitely a fish most of us all grew up with. And if you’re anything like one of our RocketNews24 crew, P.K., then you may have grown up believing that tuna only comes from a can!
Though you may associate tuna with cans, that need not be the case. You can actually use fresh tuna in your meals, and today we’ll show you how with a simple recipe that’s sure to impress, even though it requires only five ingredients. Read on to learn how to make this delicious yet simple tuna recipe!
The beef bowl is essentially Japan’s equivalent to the American hamburger. Offered by inexpensive restaurants across the nation, the beef bowl, or gyudon, as it’s called in Japanese, is a tasty, hot meal that’ll give you all the protein and carbs you’re craving without costing you much money or time.
But while you’re usually never far from a beef bowl joint in Japan, what if you live in a town or country that doesn’t have a Yoshinoya, Matsuya, or, most tragically of all, a mouth-watering Sukiya? No problem, because with this amazingly simple recipe, you can make your own Japanese-style beef bowl in just five minutes!
Okonomiyaki is one of the most popular foods cooked at home in Japan. One of Japan’s Top 10 Comfort Foods, the dish is fun to make with family or friends and best of all, it’s easy! Okonomiyaki is also popular with foreigners who when visiting Japan can sample the dish at any of the myriad specialty restaurants dedicated to this vegetable-rich meal.
So, what exactly is okonomiyaki? And how do you make it? Glad you asked!
Read on to find out more about this simple dish: watch a how-to video showing you how to make it, check out photos that show you some unusual ingredients, and get inside tips from Kazuko who regularly makes the dish for her seven grandchildren.
When you talk about soft candy in Japan, the first thing that comes to mind is Hi-Chew made by Morinaga. These delightfully chewy candies pack a mouthful of flavor in a small soft package. The flavors can range from your run-of -the-mill candy flavors like strawberry, grape and orange, to prefecture specific flavors like Hokkaido’s Yubari melon. The candy has gotten so popular that you can even find it pretty easily in stores (and even a factory) in the United States as well.
Anyone who has eaten a Hi-Chew knows that the taste and texture is so nice that just one piece is never good enough. Even when you try putting two of them in your mouth it doesn’t quite hit the spot. Soon you realize you’ve eaten the entire pack and have to buy another one! If only there was a larger version of the candy that we could sink our teeth into. RocketKitchen isn’t talking just medium or large size Hi-Chew either, we are going gigantic!
Being one of Japan’s two favorite types of fish to eat raw, Japan takes its tuna pretty seriously. As a matter of fact, tuna sushi and sashimi gets different names depending on which cut of the fish is being served. While just about everyone loves ordinary tuna, either maguro or akami in Japanese, it’s the extra-fatty tuna belly, called chu-toro or o-toro, that people really rave about.
Of course, those same premium cuts that get gourmands’ mouths watering can leave your wallet crying, as the price of the extra-creamy toro can be more than double that of lesser cuts of tuna. That’s why we decided to test a theory we’d heard that you can unlock the full potential of akami with mayonnaise. But does marinating your ordinary tuna in mayo turn it into toro, or is this rumor just a bunch of bull?
Miso soup: the quintessential Japanese food. The soup takes on a different form from region to region and in different households throughout Japan, but it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that miso soup is the soul of Japanese cooking.
However, one of England’s top chefs recently published his own take on the soup. What kind of “neo-Japanese soup” could this possibly be!? Of course, our reporter just had to find out by making it herself–keep reading to see the results of her cooking after the jump.
When people think of Japanese food, most think of sushi, sashimi or even some of the more popular Japanese comfort foods like okonomiyaki or udon noodles. If you’re a tourist, however, you’ve likely never experienced one of Tokyo’s most popular dishes: monjayaki. But don’t feel bad; even some Japanese people who don’t live in the Tokyo metropolitan area (75 percent of the population) have never tasted it. This is one reason why Tsukishima Monjadori, a street with over 100 monjayaki restaurants, ranks in the top five sight-seeing spots in the capital for Japanese tourists (FYI, the other four are Harajuku, Tokyo Disneyland, Odaiba and Tusukiji Fish Market).
Monjayaki is simple but complicated: it has just a few easy ingredients and can be made in under three minutes yet it requires instructions to make, and even eat, properly. It helps to know, for example, that monja is not usually eaten with chopsticks, and that there’s a good reason why.
Read on to learn more about this unexpectedly delicious fare: watch a how-to video showing you how to make it, check out photos that show you how to eat it, and get tips from a master monjayaki chef.
Onigiri, or rice balls, are one of the easiest ways to dabble in Japanese cooking. It’s almost as easy to make homemade onigiri as it is to buy from a store. The popularity of the simple rice ball is so great, there is even a store that sells one from each of the 47 prefectures.
In the RocketKitchen, our aim is to show you the best way to make fabulous Japanese dishes right in your own home. This time, we’re going to share with you foolproof way to create the best-tasting onigiri you’ve ever made. Hope you’ve got some rice cooking–it’s time to level-up that onigiri!
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