Hello!

It's been a while since I added anything to this blog, due to a combination of having little to say and little time in which to say it. Anyhow, I'm back again, and with a new load of recipes from which to draw.

I came home to a nice surprise the other day. Christmas shopping has started early this year, and Louise mailed me at work to tell me she'd already got some of my presents (now that's organised!). However she was also busy with college work and some commissions for her business, and by the time I'd got home she'd not got round to hiding them (that's much less organised, granted...). As a consequence, since I saw one of them, I got to have it early. Hurrah! It's a recipe book by my favourite Japanese chef Harumi Kurihara, of Your Japanese Kitchen fame on NHK.


It's full of great recipes and brilliant photographs. It's one of those books that never fails to make you hungry as soon as you open it. I'm no fan of shellfish, but even these dishes look amazingly tempting.

The first recipe I made out of it - well adapted from it, as I was missing some vital ingredients - was egg-drop soup. It's originally a Chinese dish, but it's been given a very Japanese twist by Kurihara-san with a dashi-stock base. I didn't have access to the bonito or konbu required for dashi, so I used a chicken stock. I also added dried ginger since I think chicken stock is a little plain on its own - leave it out if you're using dashi. So here's my jerry-rigged version:

900ml good chicken stock
2tbsp mirin
4tbsp light soy sauce
1/2tsp dried ginger
1tsp cornflour or potato starch mixed with a bit (50-100ml) cold water
3 large eggs

Mix the eggs in a bowl and put to a side.
Bring the stock to the boil (merely heat it if it's dashi, but boil it for a spell if it's chicken stock). Add the mirin, ginger & soy sauce.
Once it's fully heated through, add the starch & water mix, and stir well. This gives the soup a really nice, silky thickness. After just a few minutes, it's almost ready...
Drop in the eggs, and stir, quickly (cooking chopsticks are awesome for this, as I think a whisk would mix it too finely), and almost immediately take it off the heat. The eggs need almost no cooking, since the stirring will break them into tiny strands - the greater surface area means greater contact with the hot liquid, so the heat transfer is more efficient. Wow, that was surprisingly boring and sciency of me - apologies!

Anyway, I was thrilled when mine came out looking like this:

It's almost exactly how it's supposed to look, which is rather unusual for me. I would have got a better picture, but I was too hungry at this point to bother finding my camera, so just snapped this with my phone.

I hope this recipe's useful, and that it inspires people to seek out more from NHK's excellent Your Japanese Kitchen, which is on Mondays, NHK, wherever you are in the world (here in the UK it's on Sky channel 516).

Coincidentally, NHK is also the home of JIB - another, smaller, Japanese broadcaster, who recently employed me as a programme monitor. I'm getting paid in Amazon vouchers for watching Japanese documentaries - it's my perfect job! If only it was full-time... So far I've seen all sorts of fascinating programmes that I'd never have seen otherwise. And I'm getting paid for the privilege! I feel pretty lucky sometimes...

Here's to soup, telly, and good old Japan.

All best to all,
Rob.

Hello!

I've recently finished rewatching Twin Peaks season two - Louise hadn't seen it before so I begged/borrowed/stole (ok I didn't actually steal...) the various DVDs from friends and family. Thirty brilliant episodes later (well, maybe 28.5 brilliant episodes - some of Ben Horne's storylines were a little weak!) and now I'm left with a renewed sense of opportunities lost, and questions unanswered. It was so very good, yet I get the impression the studio limited David Lynch so much with what he could or couldn't do, and with the time in which he had to do it.

After the first half of series two heralded a conclusion to the original whodunnit mystery, many people thought it went a bit off the boil. But I wonder whether it was more a case of having a vast story arc to bring to a conclusion, while knowing it's unlikely that you'll get picked up for a third series.

The film helped a little, but again it was a case of too much to say in such a short length of time. I heard rumours that Lynch may be working on a new series or another film pre/sequel, and I'm holding my breath...

In other news, I have scribbled down my recipe for tonkatsu, one of my favourite Japanese dishes. Now I should probably mention that this is not a 'proper' recipe as such - just something I figured out, half from watching a cookery show with the sound off in the hotel in Tokyo, and half from experimenting. I also use five-spice and cayenne in the breadcrumbs, which neither of which are very Japanese, but I think the flavour works really well. Finally, I believe this would normally be deep-fried but for health's sake I figured out how to roast it instead. Hope it works out for you!

2 x pork cuts (flattened tenderloin works great, or loin/chop/etc)
1 slice stale bread
pinch cayenne
1 tsp five-spice
2tbs cornflour
2tbs soy sauce
2tbs mirin
toasted sesame oil (in a spray if possible)

Mix the cornflour with the soy & mirin until it's entirely liquid. Make breadcrumbs from the bread and mix in the spices. Prepare the pork as required, and soak it in the cornflour mix. Remove, and coat fully with breadcrumbs. Put on a baking sheet and lightly spray with sesame oil. Cook at about 200c for about 25mins (longer if you're using a big cut of meat - trust your judgment!).

Cut into slices and serve atop a bed of shredded sweetheart cabbage, with a bowl of rice.

Hmn, my first-ever recipe - let me know how you get on, and please feel free to give me any tweaks/improvements!