GIFTS OF FOOD

My friends often give me interesting food to try. Recently my friend Junko gave me two plastic containers of food. She said they would be good with rice and beer. One of the containers had small fish she said her father had prepared (no idea what kind but I think they came from Lake Biwa.)  They were sauteed in soy sauce and sugar - kind of teriyaki style. I'm pretty sure the sauce was exactly the same as that used for the  large cooked grasshoppers a friend from Nagano once presented me with. The fish were indeed delicious with rice, but quite bony. I wonder if small fish bones are worse than crunchy legs...

The other container had sweet potato stems, which I had no idea you could eat! And they were really good, a little sweet, and slightly sour. I wonder if the Maori people in New Zealand ever eat sweet potato stems?

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SASHIMI-DON

One of my favorite Japanese meals is donburi. 'Donburi' is a bowl of hot rice with some kind of topping... so gyu-don is beef on rice, and buta-don is pork on rice, and oyako-don is rice with chicken and egg (oya = parent and ko = child!) Donburi is easy. It's quick. It's satisfying. And for me it's also comfort food.

Lots of Japanese restaurants sell donburi. You can often buy a a donburi set which includes a generously sized bowl of rice and topping, a small dish of Japanese pickles, a cup of Japanese tea, and a small salad for under 1000 yen. It's very good value.

I absolutely adore ikura-don, which is salmon eggs on rice. I also really like any kind of sashimi-don (sashimi being raw fish.) I love sushi and sashimi, but in my opinion raw fish over hot rice is a heavenly combination! I sometimes go to one of the sashimi-don restaurants in Sanjo Teramachi where I usually order a combination of salmon eggs (ikura), sqid (ika) and prawn (ebi.) If you want you can add soy sauce, wasabi or maybe ponzu (combination of sour citrus fruit and soy sauce) but I usually eat it without any extra flavoring.

Sashimi-don is really easy to make at home. I just buy a tray of sashimi from the supermarket, cook up some plain rice, and eat! Simple, elegant and totally delicious!