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Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I am going to Japan in October and I have heard many good things about the zoirijushi (spelling?) cookers.

If I wanted to bring one home to Europe, how complicated would that be?
By complicated I mean are there cookers with English labels, do they work at 220V and where would I best buy one? (Flying home from Haneda airport).

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Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Yeah I figured Amazon may be the most convenient. Unfortunately International models are so much more expensive it is ridiculous.

As for Brexit, I live in Germany and have friends UK side. So I probably won't be affected. Either I buy tax free or I have it shipped to them and pick it up when I visit, whatever is cheaper.

Also, Brexit ain't happening any time soon of you ask me.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Thank you so much for doing that! Yeah those prices are about what I would pay on Amazon, so I won't bother.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I need some tips for Japan, maybe you guys can help.

We will be in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

I would like to try Kaiseki in Kyoto. This seems a very expensive idea, judging from what I find on Google. Can anyone recommend a nice restaurant where we would get away with 100$ per person or less? I just don't feel comfortable spending more on something I don't know whether we will enjoy it.

Also what are some things we should try? Ramen, Udon, Takoyaki, Okonomiyaki and Suhsi are on the list, but is there some lesser known dish/baked good we should not miss out on?

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Thanks for all the tips, I will make notes and try to fit it all in the trip (and my belly).
Our hotel is right in Dotonbori, so Daruma is definitely a thigh we will do.

Hopper fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Oct 9, 2019

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer

Johnny Truant posted:

I had the best sushi of my life at Daiwa, right by the Toyosu fish market. Go there as early as you possibly can, it's absolutely worth it.

We have teamlabs tickets for 11 on a saturday, which is around the corner. Did you queue a long time? I am thinking of being at Daiwa at 8 before teamlabs. That gives us about 2.5 hours, would that be feasible?

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I know, sorry. But I needed advice on Japanese Food only and I don't ask for food advice outside GWS. :tinfoil: All I'd get would be fried chicken and burger recommendations...

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Currently in Japan and enjoying it a lot. Thanks for all the food tips.

I am looking for Weipaa, as I want to being some home. I haven't found any in conbinis so I probably need to check a proper grocery store. Any tips what grocery store names I could look up in Tokyo, Hrishima or Fukuoka?

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Found Weipaa in a shopping center in Hiroshima with the help of a local, thanks for the tips though, will check them out for more food related items.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
For mixing highballs, of course

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I had an excellent Red Ale and Honey Kölsch from Miyajima Brewery on Tuesday, they make good beers, and I say that as a Bavarian.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Not sure how new they are as a brewery but after climbing up Mt. Misen these beers were highly welcomed. Especially since everybody else went up by cbale car and down on foot except for the Bavarians...2000+ stone stairs... :negative:

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Sitting at Kabukicho Black Hole waiting for my table... that smell alone.

On topic of cooking: I was able to find an EN/JP double language cookbook with everyday recipes and the same for homemade onigiri (the latter at Muji).

I am already excited to come home and not be able to buy the ingredients.


Edit: I did it eat all the meats. So good.

Hopper fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Nov 2, 2019

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
So I am home from my trip and want to try my hand at mochi making. Unfortunately I was unable to buy Adzuki beans to make paste, so premade paste it is for now.

However, a lot of recipes call for Japanese potato starch for dusting, but the guy at my Asian store recommended tapioka starch. I guess it doesn't make a difference, or is that a problem?

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I just discovered they opened a huge... like gigantic Asian supermarket on the 3rd floor of one of our central shopping places in Munich. This may be nothing special where you are from, but Germany and especially Munich, though a major city, suffer from a severe lack of choice when it comes to Asian groceries.

This place has EVERYTHING. From like 15 different brands of dark soy sauce and duck eggs, to 10+ kinds of ramen noodles (dried noodles not instant ramen) and to Yuzu. They have fresh yuzu fruit...

I never imagined I would be able to make yuzu Ramen from scratch...

Sorry for the rambling but I had to share. This opens up so many options, we Germans are always envious of the US when it comes to availability of Asian grocery goods.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Frankfurt is 4 hours away, but yeah a Vietnamese shop was my latest go to. But they had NottingHam adjuStments products and mineral choice in Japanese, only the barebones stuff. Now I have everything I might never need all in one shop!

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
You can get the ebooks on Amazon if that is an option for you.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer

Potato Salad posted:

Ramen! Without going through a hundred pages (sorry) do y'all have a good starter ramen recipe?

Define starter. Do you want a recipe with weipaa or chicken stock and some other ingredients that make a serviceable ramen broth that takes 10 minutes or do you mean a proper broth with bones etc?

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I made Chasu tonight and botched it. I followed the recipe exactly but apparently either my simmer was too strong or my weighted lid was not working correctly, sauce boiled down too much and stuff started burning. The sauce is a write off, can't marinate eggs with that but maybe I can salvage the pork, will have to taste it tomorrow.

Does anyone have a simple recipe for a mix to marinate your ramen eggs in if you don't have chaus sauce leftovers?

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer

captkirk posted:

Aren't ramen eggs normally done in soy sauce? https://www.justonecookbook.com/ramen-egg/

Thanks, I hadn't looked as I only made it once before and used the chasu sauce as per recommendation in the chase recipe. I just used normal boiled eggs before.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
You can use a Japanese cheesecake baking dish to cook rice and other things pot in pot in your instant pot, plus Japanese cheesecake!

Sie thing like this, but fitting for you IP size: cheesecake pan

Hopper fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Feb 27, 2020

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I just made a Japanese cheesecake. It came out with the perfect consistency and biting into that warm piece of cake transported me back to my Japan vacation and the first night in Osaka last October.

Sadly I botched the flipping of the cake out of the pan because I used the wrong parchment so all the nice brown crust stuck to the paper. Oh well, I can always try again tomorrow since we are under curfew.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
You shouldn't cook the kombu leaf AFAIK, just add it, steep it and remove. The dashi I made was water, kombu and bonito flakes. I'll check my cookbook for a recipe.

Found it: This is from a book I bought in Hiroshima last October, it has Japanese and English and generally is good for home cooking. However, he cooks the kombu and also wipes it first. Other recipes say don't wipe and don't cook. I found its trial an error.

Hopper fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Apr 17, 2020

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer

Fritz the Horse posted:

Thanks all, I made a liter using proportions in Hopper's recipe but didn't boil the kombu, it turned out pretty decent and not bitter.

Is the 20-25g of katsuoboshi correct? Because that seemed like a hell of a lot more than I've used in the past, the couple times I've made dashi I just used a generous handful or two.

When I make dashi I use about 1/3 of a pack of katsobushi, which makes it rather expensive as a pack is about 6 to 7€.
It seems like a lot of flakes because it weighs next to nothing.

In his Ramen School series Adam Liaw uses 45g katsuobushi, 17 g kombu and 3l water for his ramen dashi broth. But I think it depends largely on the richness of the dashi you want, I have no better explanation though as I only just started to dabble in Japanese cooking.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
How did you like them? I tried once and they turned out decent but not great, something about using flour I guess. Also they became "stale" rather quickly. Plus I had just returned from Japan where I had loads of the real things so it was never gonna be close to my expectations.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I am going to make Tonkostu broth on Sunday day using the pressure cooker method to see how it compares to the traditional way.

However, due to Covid I can't get Shitake mushrooms. I have a lot of self-dried porcini mushrooms though. That should work as a substitute right?

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Yeah sadly both fresh and dried shiitake supplies seem to have "dried up" due to covid. But I have boatload of porcini my dad gathers and dried every year up in sweden. So I don't mind chucking double or triple amounts in. It won't match up with the 15x flavour boost but it should work.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
So, if you have considered it, don't try to make pressure cooker tonkotsu. It takes "only" about 5 hours but the result sucks.

The recipe was very close to the serious eats tonkotsu I made before, but unlike the traditional method tonkotsu, this pressure cooker variety is just mostly tasteless yet it smells good. very weird. It can be turned into a decent ramen broth by adding garlic powder, sesame oil and soy sauce, but a that point I could just make a quick soy sauce based broth in 1/5th of the time.

Not sure what went wrong, but I am not doing that again. Tonkotsu is just not practical to make at home.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Yeah true, maybe I need to improve my workflow but last time I made it the traditional way, 15 hours of cooking yielded 6 bowls worth of broth. And that was using my biggest pot, I don't have a bigger pot or even the capabilities to heat a bigger pot. I just don't think that is worth the effort you have to put in, considering you can't leave the house for an entire day.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
You guys made me crave okonomyaki... How essential are the tenkasu? I can't get them here and I don't want to deep fry batter just for the one time use.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Good to know, I have the mayo and dashi powder, I even have enough kombu and katsobushi to make dashi from scratch, plus some dried shitake, porkbelly, shrimps, a fresh cabbage and I know I should be able to buy okonomi sauce at the Asian grocery, alternatively I have everything to make my own.

I'll make them on Friday and will let you know how it went.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Okonomiyaki trip report. Made Osaka style, it was okay but too doughy and the cabbage was not right. Taste was spot on though, will try again.

"cabbage" is a suboptimal ingredient name. It can be literally 6 or 7 different things. China cabbage, green cabbage, white cabbage...

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Do you have a gas range? If so you could try at an Asian grocery store. Over here they also sell woks. They look a bit flimsy compared to cast iron and other fancy consumer style woks western potmakers want to sell you but are the real deal. A proper wok should be thin so it heats the ingredients fast and provide a temperature gradient from bottom to top. Cast iron for example doesn't really do this and is way too heavy to wok properly. And you are right a wok shouldn't be coated with anything so you can scrape around in it without worry.
Bonus is the Asian store ones usually cost so little, if it doesn't work for you you haven't spent a lot.

If you don't have a gas range that's trickier, someone else will have to chime in there as I never condone that works properly on ceramic stoves. You could ask in the Chinese cooking thread, I think it is fittingly called "wok this way" IIRC ;-) or the general questions thread, I am sure someone can recommend a brand.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I seem to remember someone posting an easy Miso rice recipe, but I can't find it. I have both brown and white miso I need to use up.
Any recommendations for simple dishes?

I made Tonjiru with it but had to buy more than I needed. Tonjiru is AMAZING comfort food. Highly recommended. I subbed turnip for daikon and leek for Negi, and regular mushroom for fresh shitake and it was really really good.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer

hallo spacedog posted:

I don't remember the miso rice recipe but if it is any consolation the miso should last a really long time in your fridge so no rush to use up.

Edit: do you like fish? If so then maybe saba misoni?

Weird, maybe the Miso rice recipe was another thread.
I love fish and will try to get mackerel.

My one Miso says "store in fridge after opening and use within 14 days" the other just says "use up soon". I have no idea how accurate that is. How long should it be good for roughly? 1 month, 2 months...?

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer

hallo spacedog posted:

That's really odd but if I remember correctly you're in Europe? So the brands might be different but as a fermented food my experience with the miso I have is it seems to keep some what indefinitely in the fridge.

Edit- like if it grows visible mold or discolors or starts to taste or smell off then it's not good, otherwise I can keep it for like 6 months plus easily.

Yeah in Germany, the one that says 14 days is some European miso brand, the one that says soon is from an Asian grocery store and imported from Japan. Thanks for the advice, this is my first time using miso so I am in uncharted territory...

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
The Tonjiru from Justonecookbook is amazing and easy to do. It's pretty much winter here so a warm soup was exactly the right choice.
I substituted daikon and taro with a turnip and a potato and it worked really well. And instead of negi I used leek.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
Cauliflower works reasonably well but only if you serve the rice as a side dish with something not if you cook a dish that contains rice. You just shred it until it has the approximate grain size, then put it in the microwave for 3 minutes to release some steam and then fry it up in a pan with a splotch of butter until slightly browned.

Not perfect but also not bad.

Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I saw a cheap cake pop maker at aldi and bought it for 15€ on a whim because I was thinking "this should work for takoyaki maybe". I turned out that there is a whole lot of people on the web making takoyaki in cakepop makers.

So unless you want/already have a pan, a cakepop maker is a really good alternative.

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Hopper
Dec 28, 2004

BOOING! BOOING!
Grimey Drawer
I lucked into a small fishmonger place that sells individual octopus arms.

But you can also buy pre-cooked frozen octopus (if super lucky packs of all legs) in larger stores usually. Just cut all the legs apart and keep them frozen Individually. Not ideal but it works and if you thaw them in the fridge they are good to go the next day.

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