SEAWEED: WAKAME

Many different kinds of seaweed are eaten in Japan. One of them is wakame (pronounced wa-ka-may.)

This deep green sea vegetable is a standard addition to the miso soup eaten with many (most?) Japanese meals, whether it's breakfast, lunch or dinner. I've had some delicious miso soup, but I've also been served a lot of miso soup I did not enjoy. But good soup or bad soup, I always like the wakame. One of my favorite Japanese salads is a combination of wakame, thinly sliced cucumber, and seafood with a sweet vinegary dressing. 


Recently I traveled to Naruto on the Southern tip of Shikou to see the whirlpools there. One of the local food specialties in that area is wakame. In a souvenir shop they had tasting samples of wakame simply dressed with ponzu, a combination of sour citrus and soy sauce. It was so delicious that I bought a big pack of dried wakame to take home with me.

FOOD FOR CYCLING

 I often go on long bicycle rides, and it always makes me really hungry. Sometimes I pack a picnic, but even if I do, I eat it all up quickly and end up buying stuff from convenience stores. A while ago I rode from Kyoto to Uji to Ishiyama and back to Kyoto. The scenery was great, especially along the Uji / Seta River. I took a rice ball with corn, okra, and black pepper, some walnut brownies, a mini-pack of tofu, and a nashi pear. I ate all that at Uji, and by the time I got to Ishiyama I needed more food, so I bought fried chicken wings and a sweet potato chou cream (in NZ we call those cream puffs.)

Sadly I don't seem to lose any weight from biking....

BREAKFASTS

I never skip breakfast. In New Zealand I always ate home-made meusli. Bought meusli is often loaded with sugar and far too sweet for my taste. Rolled oats for meusli are available in Japan, but only in expensive small bags which the miserly streak in my psyche prevents me from buying. The classic Japanese breakfast is rice, grilled fish, pickles and miso soup. It's very healthy and good... just not what I want for breakfast. Lunch maybe, but not breakfast.

So I have eggs sometimes - fried, scrambled  or maybe a cheese omelet. Sometimes I have toast (made from my delicious home-made multi-grain bread.) However the breakfast I eat most often is rice 'pudding'. Many Japanese are repulsed at the idea of sweet rice, but none of them seem to have actually tried it...

Rice with blueberries, walnuts & yoghurt

When I say rice pudding, it's not the rice pudding my mother used to make (although I love that too, and I still can't make it as well as my mother.) I use left over cooked rice. In winter I usually heat it. In summer I leave it cold. I add something sweet, like a handful of raisins or blueberries, or some raw chopped apple, or even some whole sweet beans that are used in traditional Japanese desserts and sweets. If I have walnuts I add a small handful of walnut pieces, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I top it off with a couple of big spoonfuls of natural unsweetened yogurt. The fruit or beans add enough sweetness for me.

It's quick, healthy (even more so if I use brown or multi-grain enhanced rice), satisfying, and delicious.

PARSLEY PESTO

Spaghetti with chicken, tomatoes & pesto

 In case you don't know what it is, pesto is a green paste made with basil, pine nuts and olive oil. You can spread it on bread, toss it through cooked pasta, dribble it onto pizza or cooked chicken. It's delicious with potatoes too, whether they are mashed, diced, sliced, boiled, baked or fried. Try mixing it with a creamy mayonnaise - yum!


In Japan basil is sold for premium prices, in tiny little bunches, or in little pots that start to die on me before I even get them home. Pine nuts are expensive too, and probably only available from foreign food stores. But you can buy huge bunches of parsley at the supermarket, or if you have a garden it's easy to grow. And parsley makes wonderful pesto. Heres how... 


You need a blender or a food processor. Put in 4 peeled cloves of garlic, 1/4 cup almonds or walnuts, about 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 to 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, 5 cups of loosely packed parsley (remove any tough thick stalks), and 1/2 cup olive oil. Process until everything is finely chopped, then add up to 1/2 cup more oil slowly until you have a dark green paste that is just thin enough to pour. Store in a glass or plastic container and refrigerate. Use within 3 months, or freeze for longer storage.


You can mix parsley with basil, and I haven't tried it out yet but probably you can make it with other herbs or mixtures of herbs. I've made it without nuts or cheese too, and it was still good. 


 By the way, did you know that parsley is a cure for garlic breath? So eating them together like this means you don't have to suffer a garlic after-taste next day. 

YUBA

Tofu is a diet staple in Japan, and there are many different kinds. Yesterday my friend Sachiko handed me a packet of yuba and said "please enjoy". I did ! 



When tofu is made the soy milk is heated and a 'skin' forms on the surface, just like with hot milk, but more delicate. the skin is carefully lifted from the surface and stacked in layers. This is yuba. I admit, when I was first told about yuba I didn't think it sounded appealing... but these days I'm a confirmed fan.

So what's it like? Well, the texture is like very creamy scrambled egg (just the way I like it!) And the flavour is of course like soft tofu. It can be eaten warm or chilled and is served with tsuyu (a dip made of soy sauce and clear stock.) I'm not sure whether you are suposed to tip the tsuyu over ithe yuba, or dip pieces of yuba into the tsuyu. Both ways worked.

Thank you Sachiko! It was delicious!

MATCHA LAMINGTONS

Lamingtons are squares of sponge cake Covered with chocolate (or raspberry) icing and grated coconut. They were invented in Australia and named after an Australian Governor General, Lord Lamington. They are popular throughout Australia and New Zealand.


I've heard of lemon lamingtons (sounds nice - must try it!) but maybe I'm the first person to make matcha lamingtons...? Anyway, green tea powder and grated coconut are a delicious combination. If you'd like to try this out, the recipe is below.


Ingredients:

Sponge cake cut into squares. You can also use sponge drops. (In Japan I make these with 100 yen packets of べべカステラ　or　カステラ from the supermarket.)
1 cup of icing sugar
1 cup dried grated coconut
2-3 tablespoons of green tea powder (matcha)
a little hot water

Combine the icing sugar and matcha.
Add hot water gradually, mixing well, until the mixture
is a slightly thick syrup (like honey on a warm day.)
Put coconut into a bowl. Now the process becomes very sticky and messy!
Coat the sponge cake by dipping it into the syrup and turning it over.
I recomend using tongs or two forks, but some people just use fingers.
Be careful not to break up the fragile sponge cake.
Next lift the sponge cake and let the extra syrup drain of for a few seconds,
then place in the coconut and turn until completely covered.
Place on a tray or plate to set.
Repeat until you run out of sponge cake.

CUTE COFFEE

If you know me, you know I love coffee. At home I drink drip filter coffee with milk, no sugar, but at cafes I usually order a latte (not at Starbucks though, because their lattes are too weak for my taste.) I love the thick foamy topping on lattes. Yum.

Recently I went sightseeing in Nara. Promoters of the ancient Japanese capital have come up with an anime character named Sento-kun. They hope to make Nara appeal to the younger generations in Japan who, strangely, are not flocking to Nara to look at dusty relics and mouldering temples.

We had coffee at the Kintetsu station before commencing sightseeing, and as an optional extra you could order latte decorated with Sento-kun. Of course I bought one to take a photo. They made the image by sprinkling chocolate powder over a stencil. Very easy to do. I want to try this out with some stencils of my own !