Tag: Japanese Food

This is a super basic roux-based “curry”. The three ingredients are fat, flour, and curry powder. You can optionally add salt and soy sauce, but I never do. Over low heat, heat half a cup of fat in a frying pan. You can use anything, but lard seems to be the one used in the…

Someone on FB was asking, so I answered. Futomaki and inari (without complicated fillings), is the OG Japanese American sushi from the early 1900s to the 1980s. The other common one, which seems to be the main sushi at temple and church bazaars until the 1990s, was chirashizushi, which is more like a mixed rice…

I pulled out the plums from the batch that I tried to “cure” with alcohol, called 3rd 2. It was soaked in weak sake that had been diluted a bit, and then salted, and it was way too hard. The alcohol killed off too much of the plum, and left it unable to ripen. I’m…

All over the web, there are people asking what to do with umeboshi, or the green fruit, prunus mume, aka, ume, aka Japanese plum, aka xi muoi, aka, maesil, aka Korean green plum, aka muoi, aka mume. Here in the San Gabriel Valley, nearly everyone eats something connected to this plant. Mexicans use chamoy sauce,…

I opened up the two pressing vessels and repacked them into jars. One was seven days old, and the other was six days old. They both had some moldy plums, so I pulled the moldy ones. The mold problem wasn’t that serious. It was very little bread mold, and small spots of black mold. So,…

We had a big crop of ume this year – only around 10-15 pounds, but that’s good to me. Here are the results so far. My mom and I clashed over how to do this. She was of the “press large batches”, don’t clean too much, and salt enough school of thought. I’m of the…

Takana Recipe If you have a pickle press, it’s easy to make takana with mustard greens (they have them at the Chinese store if you don’t have a Japanese store nearby). Separate and soak the leaves for a few minutes in warm water, rubbing them to remove any dirt. Remove any rotting bits of leaf.…