The 3 ‘R’s to good eating – Restaurants, Reviews & Recipes

The 3 ‘R’s to good eating – Restaurants,

Reviews & Recipes

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STRIPES JAPANA TA

STE OF JAPAN2AUGUST 20 – AUGUST 26, 2021

A taste of Yokosuka you’ll never forget

We ensure that in every dish we prepare, we add the best herbs and spices specially handpicked from Nepal and India. With our belief deeply rooted in the Eastern philosophy, we regard every customer as a god, and make sure in every way that we treat them as one. Our 5-star experienced cooks and chefs ensure the food looks as good as it is healthy. Once you come and visit us, we are confident that you will make plans to come again. We eagerly await the opportunity to serve you our delicacies!!

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American craft beer is our specialty!

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BY ALEKSANDER SZOJER AND ANNA JASSEM, METROPOLIS MAGAZINE

The trademarks of the Japanese summer are the endless concerts of crickets and the unbearable heat

and humidity aggravated by frequent rains and typhoons. The Japanese have a special term (mushi-atsui) to describe the steaming hot summer weather, an-other one (natsubate) for summer fatigue, as well as some fifty words for different types of rain. Summer dishes are there-fore meant to cool you down and give you stamina to survive this hottest time of the year.

While other Asian countries deal with high temperatures (and bacteria) by add-ing spices, the Japanese seek relief in cold dishes. Thus, not only tea and coffee but also any of your favourite noodles — be it ramen, udon, soba or somen — will be served chilled or even with ice cubes. Unusual or even bizarre as that may sound, it’s actually an excellent idea on a hot, sweaty day. Serving the noodles cold also better reveals their texture and unique taste, making them a real treat.

The most popular summer noodles are thin somen, which can be boiled instantly

and equally quickly chilled in ice cold wa-ter. The favoured way of eating them is as nagashi somen, literally meaning “flow-ing somen.” You cut the bamboo, let the

somen noodles flow with wa-ter and catch them with your chopsticks. It’s great fun! Some countryside restaurants offer a more adventurous ver-

sion in which the noodles are flown down a mountain stream from which the guests fish them directly with chopsticks, to the great joy of children.

For a chilling dessert, nothing beats a

local non-dairy version of ice-cream — that is, kakigōri (crushed ice). This treat resembles a mountain of snow topped with fruit syrup or — in a more traditional version — with sweet azuki beans, matcha syrup and small mochi. It’s a must at any summer festival, along with some heavier take-away specialties such as takoyaki (octopus balls), okonomiyaki (savoury pancakes with cabbage) and yakisoba (fried ramen-style noodles with pork and vegetables).

Summer is also the ideal time to enjoy fresh summer fruits (melons,

watermelons, peaches) and vegetables (cucumbers, tomatoes, aubergines, pep-pers). One popular summer game played at beaches and picnics is suika wari (wa-termelon splitting). Like in the Mexican piñata, the players are blindfolded and try to break a watermelon with a wooden stick. The person who cracks the water-melon open wins and afterwards all par-ticipants enjoy eating it.

Another, somewhat surprising, sum-mer specialty is fatty eel. It’s eaten par-ticularly on doyo-no-ushi-no-hi, which is considered the hottest time of the year. Doyo means 18 days before changing of the seasons, and ushi stands for an ox — one of the summer zodiac symbols. The presence of this rather heavy fish on sum-mer menus is linked to a somewhat com-plicated story tracing back to the Edo pe-riod. Legend has it that Hiraga Gennai, a famous 18-century inventor, advised the restaurateurs to market unagi (eel) as an ideal fish to be eaten on a day starting with a letter “u” – ushi-no-hi – in order to help survive the challenging Japanese summer in good health. This was most likely one of the first marketing campaigns in Japan. However, it also has some reason to it, as eating eel indeed does give you stamina to deal with summer fatigue. It tastes very good too.

Photo by Wiktor Staniecki

Battle fatigue and humidity with Japanese dishesCool down this summer with noodles and eel

It tastes as goodas it sounds

Beginning with an Eric Clapton guitar, Hard Rock Cafe owns the world’s greatest collection of music memora-bilia, which is displayed at its locations around the globe. For fans of music, great food and good times, Hard Rock is the go-to restaurant to get that authentic American diner-inspired cuisine wrapped in a unique musical ex-perience. So, it’s time to strike up the band! Events, like great music, are born to inspire others. At Hard Rock Cafe, we pride ourselves on delivering an exceptional ex-perience with a rock ‘n’ roll twist for each and every one of our guests.

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“The most tasty and well-shain Okinawa is caught in May,” sayGushiken of Motobu Fishermen’He adds that the fishing season cfrom March to November but, “mertime is nothing but bonito fiseason for us.”

In fact, in Motobu Town, onOkinawa’s main bonito fishery residents fly “katsuo-nobori,” or bbanners, instead of the koi-noborbanners) used throughout Japanebrate the Children’s Day holiday

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Okinawa used to catch more boture in the nation. But wartime baies. Fishing grounds were also claduring the occupation. Along witof U.S. military bases and the riseomy, these events devastated the according to Fujio Ueda, professoversity.

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STRIPES JAPANA TA


Photos (above and right) courtesy of Motobu Fishermens Coop

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ry blossoms and greening may be telltale signs that

s nigh for most. For many ver, the real harbinger of he sight of the first freshly at the market.

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“Dried bonito is simmered to make a strong thick stock which is indispensable for cooking many Okinawan dishes,” says Ueda. “That is why so much dried bonito is consumed in Okinawa.”

Okinawans also consume a lot of canned bonito and other fish (another local staple) – 2,034 yen worth per person com-pared to a national average of 921 yen, according the same ministry report.

In fact, all of Japan’s long-term love of bonito is contribut-ing to a shrinking supply, according to Daisuke Nakamura of Kochi Fishermen’s Co-op.

“There are a lot of factors, such as overfishing in the south-ern ocean, seawater warming and shrinking populations of smaller fish that they feed on,” he says. “The amount of bo-

nito caught in Kochi and fishery ports in mainland Japan have declined significantly in the last decade.”

In Okinawa alone, the annual catch of bonito fell from 55,486 (1974) to 5,256 tons in 1982,

and more recently 539 tons in 2018, accord-ing to the data of Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. To make up the shortage, more than 30,000 tons of frozen bonito are now import-ed from Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries annually. Luckily, there’s also still plenty of fresh bonito

to be had – especially this time of year.Bonito spoils easily so it’s best enjoyed

soon after it’s caught. Nakamura says the best way to tell if bonito is fresh is to look it

dead in the eyes.“If the eyes are white and cloudy the bonito is not the

catch of the day,” he says. So don’t choose it. Try to get one with clean and transparent eyes.”

There are many ways to enjoy the bonito but Okina-wa’s Hirata recommends giving Japan’s southern style a try.

“Okinawans usually enjoy raw bonito by dipping it in miso, shekwasha (flat lemon) or red pepper and with awamori (Okinawan liquor),” she says. “You can enrich the flavor in that way.”

However you choose to have your bonito, don’t miss out on an opportunity to try this local deli-cacy while it’s in [email protected]

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“K atsuobushi,” or dried bonito, plays a major role in the Japan’s “dashi” (stock) culture. Along with kombu, or dried kelp, it is an indispensable ingredient in miso soup and broths for

various types of noodles.Dried bonito was originally sold in wood-like blocks. A wood planer-

like shaver called a “katsuobushi kezuri” was used to shave off the dried flakes for use.

Traditional, katsuobushi is made through a complicated processes that includes simmering, smoking, sun drying and fermenting. The whole process takes more than a month. When perfected, the remaining chunk of dried bonito is less than 20 percent of its original weight.

Today, you can get dried bonito flakes in bags at any grocery store or supermarket. There are several different sizes. The small pink-brown shavings can be used as a flavoring and topping for dishes like savory “okonomiyaki” pancakes, tofu or even pizza and pasta. The large thicker shavings are used to make the various types of stock.

According to Okinawa Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Kyoko Hirata, there is a simple drink called “kachuuyu” in Okinawa.

“It is a very simple but popular home drink,” she says. “You can make it easily by putting some bonito flakes in a cup and pouring hot water into it.”

“We drink kachuuyu when we feel weak or tired just like an energy drink,” she says.

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STRIPES JAPANA TA


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STRIPES JAPANA TA


kabocha recipes6 that’ll turn you into a Japanese pumpkin lover

1

STORY AND PHOTOS BY JORDAN GREEN,BYFOOD

If you’ve ever made potato salad, pumpkin salad is a very simple task. For this recipe you’ll need:

• Pumpkin 300g• Bacon 30g• Half a cucumber 50g• Salt to taste• Pepper to taste• Mayonnaise 2-3 tbsp

Slice through the pumpkin and place it in a pot of boiling water on the stove until it’s easily pierced with a fork.

As the pumpkin cooks, start prepping your other ingredients; kabocha salad requires thinly-sliced cu-cumber so grab your sharpest knife and slice half a cucumber into perfectly thin circles.

Once the pumpkin is soft, place it in a bowl to cool while you fry your bacon. If you want to add another texture to the dish, perhaps frying the bacon until crisp is best.

After the bacon is fried, place it in a bowl with the pumpkin and mix. You want to mix and slightly crush the pumpkin without smoothing it out into a fine paste, we’re not making mashed potato here. Once com-bined, taste for seasoning and serve.

For those of you who are going down the list and cooking each item one at a time, it’s at this stage I can offer you a tip. For the pumpkin salad, instead of us-ing plain boiled pumpkin use your leftover nimono (if any) as a substitution and carefully mix with mayo, pepper, cucumber, and bacon, If you are using the ni-mono you won’t require any extra salt as the pumpkin will already be perfectly seasoned.

Pro Tip: When making the potato salad with nimono instead of boiled pumpkin, be careful when mixing as the nimono pumpkin is a lot softer than you might think and over-mixing will lead to more of a, albeit de-licious, pumpkin mash.

T he coming of autumn brings the arrival of kab-ocha, Japanese pumpkin, to our supermarket shelves. But how does one actually cook and

prepare Japanese pumpkin?This hard-skinned squash can be a tricky ingredi-

ent to work with but with an abundance of kabocha recipes from roasted kabocha squash to kabocha pie out there, we’d be foolish not to create a quick round up of some of our favorite kabocha dishes for autumn.

3

In Japanese cuisine, cooking food by boiling or stewing it is referred to as nimono. Although simple, this cooking method can create dishes overflowing with complex flavors and textures, and when pump-kin is prepared using this style, the full range of fla-vors can be uncovered.

To cook your own kabocha no nimono at home, you’ll need the following ingredients:

• Water 300ml• Pumpkin 300g• Granulated dashi 1 tbsp• Soy sauce 1 tbsp• Sugar 1 tbsp• Salt ¼ tsp• Sake 1 tbsp

Start by scooping the seeds and pulp out of your kabocha pumpkin and rinse it under warm water, making sure to clean the skin well, as it is edible and we will be using it in this dish. Slice your pumpkin into slightly larger than bitesize pieces and place it to one side.

Once you have cut your pumpkin into slices, start on your nimono broth, heating up 300ml of water in a medium size pot. After the water begins to heat up, add your dashi to the pot and allow it to dissolve com-pletely before adding the rest of your seasonings.

Stir until all the seasonings have completely com-bined with the dashi mixture, and then add your pumpkin to the newly-formed broth. The pumpkin shouldn’t be completely submerged in the water; as long as the pumpkin us at least 80% submerged, the nimono will turn out just fine.

With the heat set low, slowly simmer the pumpkin in the broth. This will give the pumpkin a chance to absorb all the flavors of the broth while it cooks. Al-low the pumpkin to slowly simmer on a low to me-dium heat for 20-45 minutes depending on how large your pumpkin pieces are.

Once the pumpkin is tender enough to be easily pierced with a fork, it’s ready. Remove from the heat and serve.

Sadly, the broth isn’t really for drinking and can be thrown out once the pumpkin is ready.

Pro Tip: Leaving the skin on the pumpkin allows for the finished nimono to have an extra layer of texture.

2

Once the kabocha has been shaped into discs, place them into a hot pan with a little oil and fry them on both sides until the kabocha browns. Plate up and serve them to what I’m sure are hungry little helpers.

For more savory dango, add a little salt and pep-per during the mixing process and instead of frying the dango, boil it in a little seasoned broth or add it to a vegetable soup of your choosing for a little extra texture.

Kabocha dango is an easy way to introduce kab-ocha to a fussy eater. The kabocha’s simple flavors shine through in this simple dish, and while it only contains two ingredients, the dish is infinitely cus-tomizable. With the ability to transform into a sweet or savory dish, the possibilities for kabocha are end-less. For this dish you’ll need:

• Kabocha 140g• Potato starch 1 tbsp

Carefully slice the kabocha into manageable pieces and steam or boil them until they are easily pierced with a fork. If you don’t have a steamer you can boil or microwave the kabocha; anything to get them soft.

Once soft, move the cooked kabocha into a bowl and allow it to cool for a few minutes. Take the cooled kabocha and mash it into a paste and then add the potato starch. The starch will firm up the kabocha, allowing it to be easily shaped.

Shape the kabocha into disks and place them to one side for frying (this is the perfect time to get little helpers involved).

If you want to place anything inside the dango, this is the stage to do it. Azuki paste goes surprisingly well with kabocha dango, while chocolate can be hit or miss. Try out a few different ingredients and see which one you enjoy the most.

Japanese

Kabocha no

JJ pp eekabocha salad

nimono

Kabocha dango

File photo

Courtesy photos

STORY AND PHOTOS BY JORDDDANANNAN GREGREGRERGREENNEN,EN,EN,BYFOOD

coming of autumn brings the arrival of kab-h J ki t k t KKKaaaKKK bboocchhaa

File photo

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byFood is a platform for food events in Tokyo, with over 80 experiences to choose from and a fantastic resource for learning about Japan’s thriving food culture! What’s more, byFood runs a chari-table outreach program, the Food for Happiness Project, which donates 10 meals to children in Cambodia for each person who books a food event through our platform!

While a shallow or deep pie crust will create a de-licious pumpkin pie, for those looking for more tra-ditional American style pumpkin pie, a deeper dish should be used.

Add your pumpkin pie filling to your chosen pie crust and place it into an oven preheated to 170-180 degrees Celsius (around 338-356F) for around 45-50 minutes. If you are using a shallower pie crust, lower the oven temperature to around 160 degrees Celsius (320F) and cook for around 35-45 minutes.

Allow the pie to cool for at least an hour before digging in. This classic is best served with a heaping helping of homemade whipped cream.

From sweet to savory and everything in between, kabocha, or Japanese pumpkin, is an amazingly flex-ible ingredient able to take the form of an afternoon snack, a full meal, or even a dessert.

Start by cutting your kabocha. For this dish, the skin is not needed. Kabocha skin is pretty tough, so consider peeling it after the kabocha has been cooked if you don’t own a relatively sharp peeler.

Once sliced into manageable pieces, steam or boil the pumpkin until soft. Remove the kabocha skin, placing the cooked pumpkin into a separate bowl, and start on your pumpkin spice.

Those without pre-made pumpkin spice can easily recreate this classic with a few supermarket spices. In a small bowl mix together 1 tablespoon of cinna-mon, 2 teaspoons of ground ginger, and half a tea-spoon each of allspice, ground cloves and nutmeg. This should yield around 2 tablespoons of pumpkin spice.

For those who own a food processor, blitz the cooked pumpkin until smooth and silky. For those without a processor, the same result can be achieved with a potato masher, a fork, or even a spoon, but a little more effort might be required.

Find yourself a large bowl and mix together your unsalted butter and white sugar until combined. Once the mixture has fully combined, add your eggs and egg yolk to the butter-sugar mixture and whisk until fully incorporated.

This is when we want to add our smooth pumpkin paste to the party. Fold and whisk the pumpkin paste into the mixture until an orange-y batter is formed.

Next, we want to add our dry ingredients: brown sugar, a pinch of salt, and our homemade pumpkin spice.

Whisk together well before slowly adding our dou-ble cream to the mix bit by bit, whisking in between additions. For those who want to make a more adult version, add a splash of rum to the batter and stir it in alongside the double cream.

4

5

While the name is shared with its spicy Chinese counterpart, this pumpkin-infused dish has an en-tirely different flavor. For this recipe, you’ll need these ingredients:

• Minced beef 200g• Half an onion• Soy sauce 1½ tsp• Mirin ½ tsp• Kabocha - 200g• Dashi 1 tsp• Ginger 2 tsp• Finely-sliced chili (optional)

Cut your kabocha into large chunks and place them in a steamer or a pot of hot water to cook until soft.

While the kabocha softens, slice your onion into small pieces and place it into a hot pan with a little butter. Slowly cook the onions until they have soft-ened, then add your minced beef.

Fry the minced beef until it has gained a little color and then add your spices. For those who are using fresh ginger, slice the ginger into thin shards and then add them to the mix. For those using a pre-crushed ginger, about a half a tablespoon will do.

Mix well before adding in your steamed pumpkin to the pan. Fold the pumpkin into the mixture so as to not break apart the pumpkin into too small pieces.

Allow the mixture to simmer for a few minutes be-fore serving on top of rice.

Pro Tip: For lovers of spicy food, a finely sliced chili will be a great addition (note that a little added spice goes a long way in this dish).

Pro Tip 2: This dish also works well with udon; just increase the water from 20ml to 30-40ml to create more of a soup for the udon noodles to cling to.

6

These bitesize kabocha korokke (croquettes) are the perfect addition to the dinner table of any pump-kin lover. The crispy, fried outsides paired with the slightly sweet kabocha within create a sweet-salty balance that is very moreish.

For this simple kabocha korokke you’ll need to prepare a few ingredients:

• Kabocha 300g• Onion 1 small• Bacon 20g• Butter for frying• Oil for frying• Flour• 1 Egg• Salt and pepper• Panko crumbs

Prepare your kabocha by steaming or boiling it until the kabocha is soft and malleable. For those without a steamer, you can always opt for microwave steaming. Place the sliced kabocha into a bowl with a little water, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and mi-crowave, checking every 35-40 seconds to make sure the kabocha isn’t overcooking.

Chop the onions into small pieces and fry in a pan with some butter. After the onions start to get a little color, add your bacon to the mixture and fry until cooked. Once the onion-bacon mixture is complete, place it into a separate bowl with the cooked pump-kin. Bacon and kabocha pair very well in this korokke but the protein element of this dish is pretty flexible and thus customization is welcomed!

Add a little salt and pepper into the kabocha mix-ture and begin to mash and stir the kabocha until combined. The mixture should have the same consis-tency as mashed potato when complete.

Sprinkle a little flour onto your work surface and hands and begin to form small slightly larger than bitesize balls with the kabocha mixture. Flour is your best friend at this stage as the mixture will be very sticky and a little hard to work with.

Place your kabocha balls into the fridge to firm up for around 10-15 minutes.

Then, take the balls out of the fridge and coat them first with a beaten egg, and then into panko crumbs.

Fry the korokke in small batches so as to not over-crowd each other in the oil, and finish with a final sprinkle of salt.

Perfect kabocha korokke for any occasion.

Pro Tip: Keeping the kabocha skin on is perfectly fine; the final korokke will just have a darker color inside. For those who want a brighter orange color, consider peeling the kabocha before steaming or boiling it.

An unmistakable American classic, the pumpkin pie is a delicious autumn treat. By using kabocha, we can adapt this American classic from an American pumpkin pie to a Japanese kabocha pie!

We will need the following ingredients:

• Pie dough (ready-made or homemade)• Kabocha pumpkin 450g• Unsalted butter 30g• 1 large egg yolk• 2 eggs• 72g brown sugar• 200ml whipping cream (double cream)• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (1 tbsp cinnamon, 2 tsp

nutmeg, ½ tsp ginger, ½ tsp cloves and ½ tsp all-spice)

• Sugar 30g• ½ tsp salt• Splash of rum (optional)

Pumpkin pie

Mabo kabocha

Kabocha korokke

STRIPES JAPANA TA


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The 3 ‘R’s to good eating – Restaurants, Reviews & Recipes