New Year's Feast and Its Leftover Dishes2024/01/06


New Year's feast, served on the morning of 1 January. This year's speciality was homemade Datemaki made from Hanpen and eggs.

For the coffee time, I especially bought a loaf of butter cream cake. The cake looks so sinful because of its fat content that I only buy it once a year. 
A thin slice, about three centimetres, is the maximum quantity I can enjoy without getting heartburn afterwards.

The protein and sugar I put into my body kept me full for the rest of the day. In the evening I even hoped to skip diner. But just in case...


On the morning of the second day of 2024, we still had the same menu, but in smaller quantities and on more casual tableware.

The pudding of the day was a defrosted Christmas leftover cake with whipped cream and banana.
(The sinful cake went into the freezer.)

After the 3rd of January it is usually about how we should eat up the leftovers. But this year, I had stocked less food because of the crazy price rises, and it was easier and quicker to clear out the fridge. 
Oden lasted for a couple of days. 

Kuromame went with yoghrut and Kinako as a light treat.

Kakuni turned into a topping of ramen and 
was cooked with daikon and atsuage for a dinner on Day 3. 

Year-End Oden Banquet2023/12/30


Oden is a very special dish for me to cook in many ways. Firstly, the cooking process is really complicated.  It starts with shaving Katsuo-bushi for the cooking liquid. In fact, the preparation of the dashi begins the night before, when I soak a generous piece of dried kombu and some tiny dried sardines in a bottle of cold water. Meanwhile, prepare the other ingredients: thickly sliced pieces of daikon are boiled until they become slightly tender, the bit-sized shin of beef needs to be boiled twice, the konnyaku needs to be finely slashed, cut into four triangles, rubbed with salt, boiled for about five minutes, and dry-fried to remove as much as liquid as possible, and lightly boil other deep-fried ingredient. And then cook the prepared items separately: the firmer ones in a shallow pan over a direct heat (picture above), while the more fragile ingredients, such as potatoes and something that needs slower cooking process, such as boiled egg and shin of beef in a slow cooker. 
This time it took me a whole morning, about three hours to do it all. 
The second reason I rarely cook oden is that it can be quite expensive. If I prefer less greasy fried items, or fishcakes with a less fishy smell, a portion of oden could be as expensive as or more expensive than a other decent home cooking. For example, if you add up a piece of good fried fishcake (100 yen) *3, an egg (30 yen), ganmodoki (120 yen), shin of beef (198 yen per 100 grams ) *40 grams, a quarter of not-so-bad konnyaku (40 yen), a piece of potato and daikon (about 100 yen in subtotal), you can come up with 670 yen, which is just the cost of the ingredients. We also need seasonings, dashi, heating. And to make a dinner, we still need some side dishes. We can easily spend over 1000 yen per person for a home meal, which is nothing but special to me. 
Thirdly, it has become increasingly difficult to get decent oden ingredients around my area. I used to shop at Kobayashi Kamaboko store in Nishijin, and Uoka in Meinohama, but the former store has closed down. Although its products can be purchased at a local Bon Repas, the selection is limited. And the latter has been making its fishcakes smaller and smaller in recent years. 
As a result, this became the very first oden in my household this year. The leftover oden was quickly packed, separated between the cooking liquid and the solid ingredients, and went to the fridge as soon as it was cool enough.
None of this precious food can go to waste. 

Christmas Cake 20232023/12/25


As-you-like Victoria sponge cake.
Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 egg yoke
80g granulated sugar
1tabespoon tepid water to mix 
100g cake flour
40g butter

Serve with some strawberry jam and whipped cream.


I know this is not a "proper" Victoria sponge cake in many ways, but I believe my lighter version would be the same once it gets in my stomach. 
To be honest I couldn't be brave enough to follow the classic BBC recipe, which calls for 200 grams of butter and sugar...

A Side Dish with No Name2023/12/20


I don't know what this is called in either English or Japanese. 
A dish of Konnyaku threads seasoned with sugar and soy sauce, mixed with soft scrambled egg. 糸こんの卵とじ?

This is a side dish that is very familiar to me, but completely foreign to my husband, Considering the age difference between me and him, I guess this dish might have been popular among mothers in certain areas of Japan at a certain period of time. 

No Frills, Ultrra Practical Lunch2023/12/05


At the age of 50+++, I came up with an idea that Kaiten sushi restaurants could be a clean and wallet-friendly spot to have a snack. 

At Genkai-Maru sushi restaurant, three plates of sushi, natto-maki, inari, egg, and shrimp set, and beef gunkan was 448 yen, enough to fuel me for an eight-kirometer bike ride home.  Tea was free, of course. 
In terms of hygiene, each chef (still) wore a mask and gloves. There were partitions between seats around the counter, and most of the diners (I guess most of them were locals) came alone for a quick lunch.  No one was chatting excitedly or raising their voices when ordering. You can order from a tablet in front of you. Very hygienic.

I think this place is worth considering if you don't need a romantic aspect to your meal and are in a hurry.

Muffin, Again2023/12/05

The poisonous muffin, called "death muffin," incident is still being hotly discussed online and reading about it made me crave a good muffin again. 
This is City Bakery's luxury (by my standards) muffin at 320yen! I was so surprised by the price that I automatically asked for an extra bag to break it in half and take the rest home. 
 The taste was...very unusual, to be couterous. At least not my type. The price (coffee is 420 yen), the dark lighting and the taste of the product (coffee was nice, but not piping hot)...in many ways I don't seem to be the kind of customer this bakery would expect.

Its Long Journey2023/11/30


The other day, I found some salted frozen mackerel that were claimed to have been unloaded from a ship at a UK port. 
Remembering the fat and delicious smoked mackerel I used to enjoy when I was in the UK, I almost impulsively grabbed a pack of two fillets.
先日、イギリス産(水揚げ?)冷凍塩サバを見つけました。イギリスで食べた鯖の燻製がおいしかったのを思い出し、思わす購入してしまいました。

At home, I read the label and leant that the fish had once landed in Indonesia to be processed on its way to Japan. 
家に帰ってラベルを読むと、日本に到着する前にインドネシアで加工されていたことが判明。

This is the mackerel I gave been talking about. After having travelled halfway around the world, it tasted nice was fatty as I expected.
これがその地球を半周してきたサバです。 期待通り、脂がのっておいしかったです。 
We happily finished our meal with the mackerel, but this meal left me an awkward and complicated feeling. 
Mackerel was once a local delicacy in Fukuoka. We would boast that we could eat wild mackerel as sashimi here. However, for me at least, those days are long gone. Fresh and fatty mackerel have all and long gone from the supermarket shelves. Now we have to import palatable mackerel from the other side of the globe.
塩サバでおいしい食事ができましたが、なんとなく複雑な心境にもなりました。
サバと言えば、かつては福岡の名物でした。ここでは天然物のサバが刺身でいける、というのが自慢でした。が、少なくとも私にとっては、そんなことは遥か昔の話になりました。新鮮で脂ののったサバがスーパーマーケットから消えてからずいぶん経ちます。いまでは地球の反対側から輸入している有様です。

Reference:

Today's Kanten2023/11/23


Ingredients
1g granulated kanten
250cc water
70cc concentrated coffee liquid
1 teaspoon sugar

I have finally conceived an easier and less complicated way to make coffee kanten.
コーヒー寒天を作るのに、ついにうまいことを思いつきました。

Coffee liquid for instant cafe latte (199 yen at Marukyo) is the solution. By adding it little by little to simmering kanten liquid I managed to achieve a smooth and nicely bitter coffee kanten.  
カフェラテ用の濃縮コーヒー(マルキョウで199円)を寒天液に少しずつ合わせていったら、なめらかで苦味のきいた寒天を作ることができました。

I also came up with an easier way to wash pans and utensils after cooking kanten, which tends to get solid and stuck to the tools when I try to wash them with cold water. Boiling water in the pan with tools in it and scrub them while they are still hot but bearable to touch. In this way, I could clean even the mesh of the tea strainer without trouble.
それから、寒天を使った後、鍋や道具を水で洗うと寒天が固まってくっつきがちですが、鍋に道具を入れて、その鍋で水を沸かすといいことにも気がつきました。お湯が熱いうちにこすったら、茶こしの網の部分も簡単にキレイになりました。