Dinner on 21/12/07

Menu: chicken & vegetable nabe, udon and rice

It's been very cold here in England, so we decided to have a nabe dish for dinner. I used chicken thighs and lots of vegetables such as carrots, leek, Chinese cabbage, nira (kow choi in Chinese) and daikon. We haven't got a proper nabe pot and normally use a regular pot with a camping stove to cook on the table. However, the gas has run out, so I cooked it on the hob.
First of all, I boiled the chicken for a couple of minutes and rinsed it. Then I cooked the chicken with some water, cooking sake and ginger with the vegetables. My husband ate it dipping in *Ajipon, and I made a dipping sauce for myself using soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil. It was delicious and warmed up our bodies. I love nabe dishes as I can eat lots of vegetables.

*Mitsukan - Ajipon (Citrus Seasoned Soy Sauce) 12 Oz.

Hungarian-Style Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

I've got a Hungarian friend who likes Japanese cooking, and we used to exchange our recipes. I learned how to cook Hungarian-style chicken with tomato & paprika from her, and I used to cook it once a week or so. One day, I felt like making meatballs and decided to cook them with tomatoes. As I was cooking them, I wondered how it would be like to add paprika. It was a spontaneous decision, but I used paprika for this dish. It turned out to be really nice! I like changing recipes and being creative.

Stir-fry with Ginger & Pork

Serves 4

200g thin sliced pork, sliced in 1cm strips
2 green peppers, thinly sliced
100g bamboo shoot, thinly sliced
5g fresh root ginger, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2 tsp potato starch (or corn flour)
2 tsp vegetable oil

Marinade
2 tsp cooking sake(or dry sherry), soy sauce,
a pinch of black pepper

Sauce
4 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp water
1/2 tsp powder dashi stock
2 tsp oyster sauce, cooking sake, potato starch, sesame oil
a pinch of salt

1. Combine the marinade sauce, and marinate the pork in the mixture for about 10 minutes. Coat the pork with the potato starch.
2. Heat the oil in a wok (or a large frying pan), and fry the bamboo shoots and green peppers. Cook until they are slightly soft. Take them out and put aside.
3. Heat the oil in the same wok, and fry the garlic and ginger on a low heat. Add the pork and stir fry on a medium heat until it changes colour.
4. Add the partly cooked vegetables and the sauce in the wok. Stir fry altogether for a short time as everything is already cooked.

Dinner on 03/12/07

Menu: miso soup with vegetables, rice with umeboshi puree, hijiki, kabocha, haddock(oven baked in a foil)

As I wrote before, I like cooking fish simply. On that day, I cooked haddock in the oven wrapped in foil. I sprinkled some cooking sake, sesame oil, ginger, leek, salt and pepper on the fish. I made a simple sauce with some fish juices, vinegar and sesame oil, but it turned out to be a failier. I cooked breast chicken the same way, except that I steamed the chicken, and I wanted to try the same recipe with white fish. Well, it's always good to try new things, but it didn't work out this time. The sauce overpowered the fish, and we couldn't taste it.

Hijiki is a type of seaweed and is commonly eaten in Japan. I love it. I added carrots and sprinkled spring onions on top. Kabocha is a type of pumpkin and is the orange dish at the top of the photo. I simply boiled it and added a drop of soy sauce. You could add some sugar as well.

I love simple food like these.

Videos of Okinawa by James Knott

James Knott has made nice videos of Okinawa. Check them out!

Okinawa, Japan 1: Intro


Okinawa, Japan 2: Heading North


Okinawa, Japan 3: Hedo Misaki


Okinawa, Japan 4: Hiking Route 58


Okinawa, Japan 5: Hentona to Ogimi

Beef Stew

Beef stew with demi-glace sauce is one of the popular dishes in Japan, and I wanted to make it for my husband.

As I was a vegetarian for almost 10 years, I had never made beef stew from scratch. I looked for a recipe for demi-glace sauce to start with, and I kind of created my own recipe.

I soaked some beef in red wine for a few days and cooked the meat with other vegetables. The beef was so tender and melted in my mouth. It was like a restaurant dish!

My husband was very impressed with it and enjoyed it thoroughly :-)

I will try to write a recipe for it some time.

If you don't know what demi-glace is, click here for information.

Ikasumijiru Teishoku （イカ墨汁定食）

This was my lunch when we went to Ohjima. You must be thinking,
"What's that in the big bowl?"
Have a guess. Yes, it's Squid ink soup.
It is one of the Okinawan dishes and is very good for your health.

If you would like to know more about the soup, click here for information.

Actually, I rarely eat this soup. It was the second time for me to try it. The taste was very nice, and my husband tried it :-) He wasn't too keen on it though.

As I was eating the soup, I found that my husband was giggling. I looked at myself in the mirror and burst into laughter. I had black teeth and lips!!! I looked scary. It's not recommended to try it on a first date.


By the way, this is southern mainland Okinawa. It's very close to Ohjima (Oh island). Isn't it beautiful? It was taken towards the end of October. As Okinawa is subtropical, the climate is very mild all year round. It gets cold around February, but rarely does it fall as low as 12 degrees centigrade or so. If you are used to living there, you feel really cold in that temperature. Everybody in Okinawa wears coats and scarfs saying "It's cold!" It's not a joke.

Sashimi Teishoku （刺身定食）

This photo was taken more than a year ago when we went back to Okinawa. I went to one of the small Okinawan islands called Ohjima with my husband and daughter. When I was living with my parents in Okinawa, my mother and I would go there to buy fresh sashimi which was caught on the island. You can buy good quality sashimi cheaply there, and we were often lucky enough to be given something extra for free, which was very nice of them. Nothing expensive, but something like fish meat close to the bone which makes really good soup etc.

Anyway, we went to one of the restaurants on Ohjima, and my husband ordered "sashimi teshoku (sashimi set-menu)" as you see on the photo. Isn't it gorgeous? (well, not for the people who are not sashimi eaters, I suppose.) It's very common to have sashimi with shredded daikon and Perilla (or shiso as we call it.) I love shiso! I like eating sashimi with shredded daikon and wrap them up with shiso. It's REALLY nice! You should try it when you have a chance.

The black stuff in a white bowl on top is mozuku (a type of seaweed.) As I might mention before, we Okinawans eat lots of seaweed. I have no idea how many types of seaweed is out there, but we eat it a lot. We are well-known for that.

If you ever have a chance to go to Okinawa, you should visit the island which is located close to Southern mainland Okinawa. (There is a bridge across to the island, so you can drive there.)

Sweet and Sour Chicken Skewers

I was watching a cooking programme by Ching-He Huang about eight months ago, and the dish she was cooking looked gorgeous, but easy to cook. So, I decided to try it. I bought all the ingredients for this dish and was getting excited thinking about my husband's reaction. He was very impressed with it :-)

Click here for the recipe.

*I changed the recipe a bit and used more vegetables.

If you would like to know more about Ching-He Huang, visit her website.

Spaghetti with Mushroom

Serves 4

350g dried spaghetti, boiled following the instruction

2 good handfulls of mushrooms (fresh Shiitake, maitake, enoki etc. can be used as well), sliced thinly

1 whole spring onion, chopped finely

1 clove of garlic, chopped finely

1-2 tbsp of butter (or margarine)

A few drops of soy sauce

a pinch of black pepper

1. Heat the butter in a frying pan and cook garlic and mushroom until soften.
2. Add cooked spaghetti in the pan and mix well. (If it's too dry, more butter can be added.)
3. Add soy sauce (no more than 1/2 tsp) and cook over a high heat for about 10 seconds. Season with black pepper.
4. Transfer to serving bowl and sprinkle spring onion on top.

Zenzai （ぜんざい）

I cooked black beans the other day, and I thought the taste was very similar to red kidney beans. (I'm not sure if everybody agrees with me though.) So, I decided to have them as hot Zenzai adding glutinous rice flour dumplings.

In Japan, azuki beans are used for Zenzai while red kidney beans are commonly used in Okinawa. Okinawan zenzai is topped with crushed ice, and if it's without ice and served hot, we simply call it "hot zenzai."

Dinner on 02/11/07

Menu: Chicken coconut curry

I wanted to cook something easy today, so I made coconut curry. I had never made coconut curry before coming to England as I was unfamiliar with it. While watching a cooking programme a few years ago, a chef was showing how to make it. Surprisingly, it looked very easy to make, so I decided to give it a go that evening. Since then, I make it every couple of months or so. I think the coconut curry I make is a very easy version, and depending on what we have in the fridge, I change the ingredients accordingly.

Today, I used potatoes, carrots, onions, courgettes, green & yellow peppers along with a few chicken thighs. My daughter tried it for the first time, but she wasn't too keen on it (I didn't use much curry powder, and it was very mild though.)

By the way, I used an old photo taken about ten months ago. We had deep fried onions and garlic with the curry then. They go together very well.

Chinbin (Okinawan-style crepe)

We have some kinds of crepes in Okinawa, but today I'm going to write about a sweet crepe called Chinbin. It is very simple, but really tasty. I have never made it from scratch and always use this packet mix. There are only simple ingredients in the mix: wheat flour, Glutinous riceflour, baking powder, brown sugar and salt. I just add water to the mix, and then fry it as you would any other crepe mix.

Our crepe has a distinctive brown sugar flavour and tastes really nice. We commonly use brown sugar which is much more nutritious than refined white sugar. (we grow sugarcane, and brown sugar is one of the popular souvenirs from Okinawa.)

When I make Chinbin from scratch, I will write a recipe for it, so you can try :-)

Dinner on 30/10/07

Menu: Okonomiyaki

My husband wanted something different for dinner, so I decided to make simple Okonomiyaki. I wanted my daughter to try some, so I used cornmeal flour and rice flour instead of wheat flour (she had a mild wheat allergy and is supposed to be fine now, but I don't give her a lot of flour.) I only used finely chopped cabbage, onion, green onion, grated potatoes and two kinds of flour mixed with water (I used a bit of mince beef for my husband.)

We didn't have Okonomiyaki sauce, so we used Bull Dog Tonkatsu Sauce instead. My husband truly enjoyed his dinner!



Okonomiyaki kit / Japanese pizza - 4.3 oz x 3

Dinner on 29/10/07

Menu: Stir-fry with moyashi and bacon, miso soup, rice and umeboshi puree

We went food shopping at Tesco before dinner in the evening. When we came back, I started cooking right away and decided to make a stir-fry as we had just bought fresh moyashi. We had two slices of bacon to use, so I used this as well as green pepper, onion, ginger and garlic. I made the stir-fry nice and simple without adding too much seasoning. In the miso soup, I used onion, carrot, leek, brussel sprouts and parsnip.

I will write a recipe for the stir-fry which is really easy to make.

Bibimbap (Bibinba)

This is a famous Korean dish called Bibimbap (or Bibinba as we call it.) I found an easy recipe for it, so I decided to make it (it must have been more than a couple of years ago.) As I was a vegetarian for almost ten years, I had never tried this dish until I made it for myself.

It was really easy to make, and really tasty. My husband who had never tried it before loved it very much, and I ended up making it twice in a week!

I will write a recipe for it soon.

Pork Pilaf

Serves 4

3 cups (600cc) of short-grain rice
200g thin sliced pork, cut in thin short strips
1/2 onion, cut in 1cm cubes
1/2 celery, cut in 1cm cubes
1 carrot, cut in 5mm slices, cut into quarters (gingko-leaf shaped slices)
1 clove garlic, cut finely
50g frozen peas
3 cups (600cc) of soup stock (I would use chicken stock)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp curry powder
1/2tbsp turmeric
1 bay leaf
a pinch of sea salt & pepper

1. Wash rice a few hours before cooking and let it dry.
2. In a pre-heated flameproof casserole dish, add oil, onion, celery and stir over medium heat until they are soft.
3. Add carrot and stir for a couple of minutes and then add pork and garlic.
4. When pork changes to a white colour, add rice and mix them together.
5. When the rice is coated in oil, add curry powder and turmeric and stir for a further couple of minutes.
6. Stir in hot soup stock, bay leaf, salt & pepper and make the surface flat with a wooden spoon, and then bring to boil.
7. Reduce heat, stir in peas, cover and let it simmer over a low heat for about 25 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed.
8. Remove from heat and let it simmer for further 10 minutes.
9. Stir through pilaf with wooden spoon and serve.

Dinner on 22/10/07

Menu: Meatballs and vegetables, miso soup and rice balls

This type of meatball is popular in Japan and is one of the popular lunch box menus. These meatballs remind me of my childhood. Especially, they are popular amongst kids.

I hadn't had meatballs for a long time, and I decided to make them from scratch. It was very easy to make. I made rice balls to go with them. My daughter had the same, and we all enjoyed our dinner.

By the way, I completely recovered from flu which went on for a while. One of my ears was congested until a couple of days ago, and it was difficult for me to talk to other people. (I could hear my own voice and breathing while talking, and it was bothering me.) My daughter coughs sometimes, but we all are feeling fine now.

Flu.....

Yes, I did catch a cold... really bad one. I recon we had a flu or something as it was really really bad. We suffered a lot. I started feeling achy and shively just before going to bed on Wedneseday night. The following day was like a hell to me. The muscle of my both legs and knees felt achy, and I had a terrible headache. Each hair was like a needle, and I just felt awful. I didn't have an apetite either. I felt sick for a couple of days.

My daughter had a temperature on Tuesday night, but it went down back to normal on the following morning. Amazing recovery!

I didn't enjoy cooking when I felt sick. I knew that I needed to eat something, but I didn't know what to eat. I was too ill to think about it. While in the kitchen feeling very sick, I thought of my mum. I really missed my family back home. In my culture, it's quite normal to help each other when somebody is in that kind of situation, especially, if the person is a family member.
We can't stand not doing anything for the person.

It wasn't easy to look after my daughter who was also unwell, when I was very ill, but I'm getting better and better day by day.

Last night, I cooked rice with Daikon (Japanese radish) & Aburaage (fried tofu) and miso soup with Chinese cabbage and Daikon. I cooked pork with suger, soy sauce, cooking sake & garlic for my husband. I was almost crying in the kitchen as I felt really sick and realising there's nobody to help me. I felt homesick.

I feel much better today and cooked a nice soup which I'm going to write about next time.

Lunch on 02/10/07

Menu: Vegetable & bacon puree soup

My husband and daughter have a cold at the moment, and I made soup for them. I think that soups are comforting food, especially, when you are ill. Luckily, they seemed to have an appetite, so I made the soup quite thick. I used potatoes, carrots, onions, peas, bacon, garlic, ginger, cooking sake and pepper to taste. (I made soup without bacon for my daughter.) I used a hand blender (for the first time!) to puree the soup. It was very easy to make. I will write the recipe for it some time soon. I made it following what my heart told me, and I didn't measure the ingredients.

Hope they will get over the cold soon before I catch it...

Dinner on 14/09/07

Menu: cottage pie and peas

As we had a lot of potatoes which had to be used, I wanted to make something using lots of potatoes. I was looking through my recipe books to find some ideas for what to make for dinner. I wanted something easy, and cottage pie and croquettes caught my eye. "Which one should I make??" I was in two minds, but finally decided to go for cottage pie.

I was in a good mood while cooking, playing some music and humming along. However, it suddenly changed when the knife cut into one of my fingers.

"Ouch!!!"

I tried to stop the blood, but it wouldn't stop. I used quite a lot of tissues which turned to red. My daughter looked worried and holding my shoulder. I had to stop for a while. I rarely cut my fingers while cooking, and I'm not used to dealing with that kind of situation. Eventually my husband came home, and I felt bad about the dinner not being ready yet.

I went back to the kitchen to start cooking again. I carried on cutting carrots, and as I tried to cut a carrot, the carrot rolled again. This was the carrot which made me cut my finger.

"Evil carrot!"

It must have been cursed or something. I snapped in half and put it in the bin.

The cottage pie turned out to be fairly nice, but I wasn't sure if it was supposed to taste like that. I haven't had enough cottage pies to judge it. Well, my husband liked it, and so did my daughter.

I made a big one, so we gave some to my husband's grandfather who lives on his own. Hope he likes it.

Cinnamon & Sugar on Toast

I like toasted bread, and my favourite toppings are marmalade, strawberry jam and cinnamon & sugar.

You might be thinking "cinnamon & sugar on toast?! What's that?", but actually it's really nice.

If you go to coffee shops or somewhere in Japan, you will see "cinnamon on toast" on their menu. Normally, they use extra thick slices of bread for toasts.
When I say extra thick, it's really thick.

Anyway, I had cinnamon & sugar on toast earlier, and it was lovely! What you do is just sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar on top of buttered toasts. It's that easy.

If you like the sound of it, try it and let me know what you think :-)

Botamochi or Ohagi?!

I just found some information on Ohagi and am a bit confused. Were the rice cakes I made a few days ago Ohagi or Botamochi? To be honest, I don't know.

These rice cakes are Japanese sweets, and not Okinawan sweets, so I don't know much about them. As we have our own sweets in Okinawa, I'm not that familiar with Japanese sweets. There are some popular Japanese sweets in Okinawa, but we like our own sweets :-)

Anmitsu seems to be popular, but I didn't know much about it until a few months ago. I had heard of the name, but never tried it before.

I was at my Japanese friend's, and she made Anmitsu . My other friends there went crazy and got excited about it. They all couldn't believe it when I said I had never tried it before - I didn't even know what exactly was in it.

Actually, I have had Ohagi or Botamochi only a few times in my life, so I didn't really know if my Ohagi or Botamochi was good or not.

Pork Dumplings

dumpling pastry
vegetable oil
sesame oil
For the filling

200g minced pork

300g Chinese cabbage, finely chopped

2 spring onion, thinly sliced

1 small root ginger, finely chopped

1 small garlic, finely chopped (optional)

2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
A pinch of salt & pepper

Dipping Sauce

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp Mitsukan Rice Vinegar

A drop of S&B - La-Yu Chili Oil With Chili Pepper 1.11 Fl. Oz

1. Mix the filling in a bowl, add the sauce and mix together well.
2. Place a pastry in one hand, and put 1 teaspoon sized ball of filling in the middle. Wipe water around the edge of the pastry, fold in half, and pleat the top half.
3. Heat some vegetable oil in a pan, and place the dumplings close together, but not touching. Cook them over a medium heat.
4. When the bottoms of the dumplings are brown, add hot water until they are half submerged and cover with lid.
5. When the water has boiled away, add some sesame oil and fry until the bottoms are crisp.

Fried Aubergine & Green Peppers

I found this photo taken some time last year and thought it would be good to write an article about it.

I love having vegetables or fish without adding too much flavour - that way, you can really enjoy the taste of them. Anyway, I simply fried aubergine and green peppers (could be yellow or red peppers) in a frying pan with some oil, put them on a plate and sprinkled a dash of soy sauce, grated ginger and katsuobushi (Nishimoto - Dried Shaved Bonito Flakes). They are really nice, and my husband loves them. For vegetarian people, you don't have to use katsuobushi - just use soy sauce and ginger.

Ohagi (Rice Ball covered in Sweet Azuki )

I cooked rice too soft this morning, and I thought of using it to make rice cakes. For sweet rice cakes, we normally use Mochi Gome - Sweet Rice instead of using normal Japanese rice.

I made Koshian (mashed sweet azuki beans) using tinned azuki which I bought from Sainsbury's and mashed up the rice. I formed the rice into balls in my hands and put sweet azuki around the balls.

It turned out to be okay for the first try - but not amazingly tasty. It was spontaneous, so maybe next time, I will get the right recipe.

Rice Salad

This is the rice salad I mentioned earlier. You can add any vegetables you like. I like using mix vegetables, cucumber, tomato and parsley. We had the rice with ham - really summery, isn't it.

Actually, I didn't like rice salad before. I didn't like the concept of having rice as salad. I first saw rice salad when I was living in Seattle. I thought "Rice salad?!?! What's that? It sounds and looks weird" and wouldn't want to try it. I had the same feeling when I first saw rice pudding. "Rice with milk and sugar?!?! It sounds awful."

I came to like rice salad a few months ago. When I made the potato salad dressing, I thought "well actually, this dressing might go well with rice. The concept of mixing vinegar and other ingredients together with rice sounds like chirashi zushi (a type of sushi) ." Then I decided to make rice salad using the potato salad dressing. It turned out to be really nice.

It goes really well with meat or meaty fish (salmon etc..).

Simple Pasta & Potato Salad

This was the lunch we had a while ago. As we had a lot of tomatoes, I made a simple tomato sauce with some garlic, onion, salt & pepper to taste. I sprinkled some fresh basil on top. I love basil, and it is definitely one of my favourite herbs. As a side dish, I made potato salad using leftover chicken from the day before. I made dressing using olive oil, white wine vinegar, mustard powder and salt & pepper. This dressing is very useful and goes well with rice salad. The taste is very refreshing and summery. I will write the recipe for this dressing soon.

Making pork dumplings

Chinese food is very popular in Japan, and some of the dishes are commonly cooked at home. Dumplings (or gyoza) are very popular: there are different kinds of dumplings, but I think that pork dumplings are popular amongst them. They are very easy to make.

I remember making dumplings with my mum when I was living with my parents. Mum would make a filling, and we would put the filling in pastries together whilst chatting. I learned the tecnique from her, but I could never make pork dumplings as nice as hers.

That's me in the photo making pork dumplings when I was pregnant (it was twelve days before my daughter was born!) I was thinking of my mum as I made them :-)

I would like to teach my daughter how to make pork dumplings when she is older. That will be fun :-)

Dinner on 10/07/07

Menu: Tomato & vegetable soup; baked potatoes; rice

I felt like having lots of vegetables, so I made this soup. I put in onions, garlic, carrots, celery, aubergine, courgettes, kidney beans and tinned tomatoes. We had it with baked potatoes and rice. My daughter had the same.

It was a lovely evening, so we decided to eat in our garden, which was enjoyable until it became chilly. We went back inside and had a cup of tea which warmed us up.

Dinner on 08/07/07

Menu: Steak & ale pie with boiled potatoes & vegetables

My husband occasionally cooks, and when he does, he doesn't like being interfered with. If we are in the kitchen together, we always end up arguing! So, he doesn't want me to be in the kitchen which is fair enough.

I give him advice when he needs, but I try not to interfere with him. He likes taking control in the kitchen when he cooks. Although we have different ways of cooking, his food always comes out really nice!

On that day, he made beef and ale pie for everybody. He made three pies - a big one for his parents, a medium size for us and a small size for his grand father.
Every one of us loved this pie, and I'm sure it put a smile on everybody's face :-)

Dinner on 07/07/07

Menu: Miso soup; fried rice with salmon & chick peas

I had to use chick peas and tinned salmon, so I came up with an idea of making fried rice using these ingredients. I simply fried chopped ginger and garlic first and added cooked rice, salmon and spring onions.
I added a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil to taste.
It was very simple, but really nice. I had never used chick peas in my fried rice before, but they went well together. It's become my original recipe, and I will write the proper recipe for it some time soon.

Nabe

This is a typical and popular winter dish in Japan. This dish is cooked at the dining table. People sit around the hot pot and cook for themselves and eat. There are many kinds of nabe dishes - using beef, pork, chicken, seafood, vegetables, tofu, shiitake, mushrooms and so on. Sukiyaki is one of the famous nabe dishes using thin sliced beef and vegetables.

There are several kinds of sauce to go with nabe dishes. Ponzu(soy sauce and yuzu orange) and gomadare(soy sauce and sesame) are my favourites. Normally, we cook ingredients in dashi stock, and dip them in the sauce, but with sukiyaki, we cook it in a soy based sauce, and dip cooked ingredients in a beaten raw egg. It tastes really nice.

We eat nabe dish with rice, and cook udon (a type of noodle) with other ingredients in the hot pot.

I cook nabe dishes in winter, but never made sukiyaki here in England. I can't get hold of thin sliced beef to start with and am too scared to eat raw eggs in England. So, I always use chicken, tofu and vegetables.


Nabe dishes are very much a hands-on interactive experience, and this adds an element of fun to mealtimes.

I love nabe dishes, and so does my husband :-)

Chinese vegetables

We eat many kinds of vegetables and herbs in Okinawa. We eat Chinese vegetables which Japanese people are unfamiliar with as well. There is a history behind it.

Okinawa used to be the kingdom of Ryukyu which existed until 1879 when it became a part of Japan. We had a good relationship with China and used to trade with Japan, Korea and the Southeast Asian countries. For more details, visit this website.

Because of our history, we have many cultural influences from these countries, especially China. That's why Chinese vegetables are commonly eaten in Okinawa.

The leaf vegetable in the photo is one of the Chinese vegetables called "Unchee" in Okinawan dialect. We have our own names for each Chinese vegetable in our language. Therefore, we don't use Chinese names. These vegetables are only available in Chinese markets in the UK. We find it hard to recognise them because they used their own names.

A typical Japanese meal

As Japan is surrounded by the sea, we eat fish often. This is one of my favourite fish, rainbow trout, and I remember eating trout for the first time in Nagano.

I lived in Nagano for a few months when I was about 22, and I saw trouts in the local super market close to where I lived. I got really excited then because I had never seen trout before. In Okinawa, we have many kinds of seafood, but not river fish. I bought a couple of trout and had it two days in a row. I simply grilled the trout and had it with some grated daikon and soy sauce - it was delicious! Since then, it became one of my favourite fish.

When I have trout, I always like eating it with grated daikon, a dash of soy sauce, rice and miso soup. It is one of the typical Japanese meals. On that day, I had wholegrain rice, umeboshi (Japanese plum)paste, boiled spinach, miso soup, and of course grated daikon with trout. Both umeboshi and daikon help us digest food properly and kill germs, so they are great combinations with meat and seafood.

I'm glad that I can buy trout here in England.

Cooking and me

Yesterday I wrote the recipe for Chicken soup with daikon, which is one of my favourite dishes. I would say that it's a typical Okinawan dish because we like using meat, kelp, and vegetables together in the same dish, but normally we use pork instead of chicken. Actually, it's my mum's recipe. She improved the recipe by using leaf vegetable and chicken. It's nice with pork, but I like it with chicken in the soup. She makes it often, and it's one of those dishes which reminds me of home. I remember helping my mum in the kitchen when I was living with my parents.

Believe it or not, I started cooking when I was six! My earliest memory of cooking is making Japanese-style curry with my mum. I still remember standing on a small chair or something while washing vegetables and cooking
as I was still small. It was always exciting for me to cook with my mum.

One of the reasons why I like cooking is because I simply like eating. I like eating out occasionally, but you don't know what's in it. As my mum used to say "you are what you eat", I believe that it's very important to eat healthily to maintain our health. I don't want to eat rubbish food all the time. I sometimes eat junk food, but if I keep eating it, I feel sick. When I don't eat well, my body tells me what to eat. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't eaten enough vegetables for a few days, and I started feeling sick. I could tell that my body needed vegetables, so I made a vegetable soup which made me feel better.

I really appreciate what my mum taught me in terms of cooking and healthy eating.

Chicken Soup with Daikon

Serves 4

600g chicken thighs (or drumsticks)

600g daikon chunky slices and cut those in half

10 mustard greens boiled for 20 seconds, squeeze out the water, and cut them in 5cm pieces

50g dried konbu (kelp) soaked in water

2 liters dashi stock

1/4 liter cooking sake
1 small root ginger cut in slices

1/2 tsp soy sauce

sea salt to taste

1. Put the chicken in the boiled water and then rinse.
2. Tie the kelp into knots 10cm apart and cut between the knots.
3. Boil the daikon until soften, drain and put them aside.
4. In a large saucepan, pour over the stock, add ginger, chicken, kelp, sake and bring to the boil skimming off any scum which floats on the surface.
5. Reduce the heat to low/moderate and cook until the ingredients are soft.
6. Add soy sauce and salt to taste. Add the boiled daikon and cook until the soup is soaked in. Add the boiled greens towards the end.　　

*Pak choi or spinach can be used instead of mustard greens.

Ju-shi (Okinawan-Style Pork Rice)

Serves 4

3 cups of short-grain rice
2 dried shiitake, chopped finely after being soaked in water
1 small carrot, chopped finely
1 spring onion, thinly sliced
120g pork, chopped finely after being boiled for 30min.
A total of 3 cups of dashi stock and pork stock

Sauce
2tbsp soy sauce
3tbsp oyster sauce

1. Wash the rice and put shiitake, carrot, pork, sauce and water into the pot. Mix them altogether.
2. Cook the rice.
3. When it's cooked, mix the rice and add spring onion. Mix and let it simmer for 5-10 minutes.
   

Okinawan dishes

I found this photo taken a while ago. Apart from miso soup, three other dishes are typical Okinawan dishes. The rice dish is called "Ju-shi" which contains pork, carrots, shiitake and spring onion. I added hijiki, a type of seaweed, that time. The carrot dish is called "Ninjin shirishiri" which contains carrots and eggs. The other dish you can't see clearly is actually a pork dish called "Rafute."

I love those three dishes.

As you might notice, we have many pork dishes in Okinawa. We eat almost every part of the pig - even pig's ears! It might sound disgusting, but actually really nice and crunchy :-) When we have pork, we always boil it and wash off excess fat and boil again. I do that a few times to remove fat when I use pork in cooking. Traditionally, we eat pork with lots of other vegetables and seaweed, so pork would a small portion of the meal. (especially, in pre-war time, pork was eaten only on special occasions.)

We eat a big portion of seaweed, vegetables, herbs, tofu (Okinawan tofu is the best!), and have many kinds of dishes which are different from Japanese.

I will write more recipes for our dishes.

Dinner on 05/07/07

Menu: Fried vegetable noodle; tinned salmon with cucumber & radish

We are running out of vegetables, but I found bits and pieces and managed to make a really nice fried noodle. As we don't have fresh carrots anymore, I decided to use frozen mix vegetables which contains carrots. I used fresh green peppers, onions, spring onions, ginger, garlic, cabbage as well as some dried shiitake (a type of mashroom.) I was going to put tinned salmon in it, but I thought it was nice as it was, so decided not to. Instead, I made a simple salad with cucumber, radish and spring onion on top.

I used rice noodle which I bought from a Chinese market the other day. A bag of rice noodle only costs about 55p or so, and it was really tasty. I should get some more and use it often. As my daughter has a wheat allergy, I'm trying to avoid wheat products and find alternatives. I don't think I had bought rice noodle when I was in Okinawa, but I really like it.

We truly enjoyed our dinner. I will write the recipe soon.

Dinner on 04/07/07

Menu: Pot-au-feu

We had a pack of sausages which my husband had opened last Saturday, so I made Pot-au-feu using the vegetables in the fridge.

I make this soup whenever we have some meat and vegetables which have to be used up - it's very simple, but very tasty.

I used sausages, potatoes, Chinese cabbage, cabbage, onions, garlic and celery. We had it with wholegrain mustard.

Dinner on 03/07/07

Menu: Fried cod; fried cabbage with ginger; fried rice; tomatoes; radish; miso soup

We had a pack of cod fillets in the freezer, and I decided to use them for dinner. Well, actually, it was my husband's request. I found some pork ham in the fridge which my husband had bought a few days ago, so I made fried rice. This time, I used brown rice instead of normal rice. I had never made fried rice with brown rice before, but it was really nice. I used onions, green peppers, garlic, ginger, frozen mix vegetables, spring onion and ham for the fried rice.

For the cod, I put on some salt & pepper and fried it. We sprinkled some lemon juice on it just before eating it. It was nice and simple.

We had a bowl of miso soup as well.

Lunch on 02/07/07

I looked in the fridge to see what I had and could use for my lunch. I had some leftover tuna in oil to use. I saw a cabbage in the back of the fridge. So, I made cabbage & tuna stir-fry.

It's really easy to make. I just fried cabbage in tuna oil and added tuna towards the end. I didn't even bother adding sauce or seasoning. It was delicious as it was. I put in some Chinese five spices to see if it's nice. Yes, it was nice! There was a fair amount of cabbage, but it was shrank while being cooked. In that way, you can eat lots of vegetables.

I had it with a bowl of rice. I enjoyed my lunch :-)

Pork Soup

Last Saturday, I heard that my mother in law was ill, so I decided to make some soup for her. When you are ill, you don't want to think about food or cooking. In my case, I feel homesick everytime I'm ill. When I was back home, there was always somebody to look after me, making nice soup or a meal. It's just a lovely feeling that somebody cares for me.

I remember that my mum used to make the soup called "Chimushinji" which is good for colds. In Chimushinji, we use pork liver, pork, yellow carrots, lots of garlic and sometimes, miso paste. It's a quite well-known soup in Okinawa. My grandmother used to make it for my mum.

Anyway, I didn't have pork liver, so I just used pork. I changed the recipe a bit and made my own version of it. I used Chinese cooking sake, leek, garlic and pork. I saved some for my husband and put ginger in the soup. (my mother in law doesn't like ginger, so I didn't use it.)

I think that the soup is the best food to eat when you don't feel well and haven't got much appetite.

Kasutera/Castella

We have different kinds of cakes in Japan. Most of them are french-style, I think. Of course, we have our own sweets and cakes, but the western-style cakes are popular as well. One of my favourites is kasutera, a sponge cake which is a specialty of Nagasaki. Apparently, it was originally from Spain and brought to Japan in the 16th century.

A couple of years ago, I was dying to eat this sponge cake, so made my own. It turned out to be really easy to make, actually. When I was in Okinawa, I had never baked cakes. I didn't grow up using the oven to start with and always thought that baking was pain in the neck. When I cook, I don't normally measure the ingredients. It works that way in cooking, but not in baking. You have to be accurate how much flour to use and so on. Otherwise, it will be spoiled.

When I baked kasutera for the first time, I was amazed how easy it was and how good it was. It was a real kasutera! I had never thought I could make my own kasutera in my life.

Baking is still not my expertise, but there are a few things I can bake.I will write the recipe for kasutera soon.

*The shape of kasutera is normally rectangle, but mine is rounded as I didn't have the right baking tin... Sorry about the bad photo. It's a bit blurred.

Pork with Ginger & Soy Sauce

Serves 4

4 thin sliced pork
1 big green pepper (optional)
1 medium size onion (optional)

Marinade
2 tbsp soy sauce
2.5 tbsp Japanese/Chinese cooking sake (or dry sherry)
1.5 tbsp sugar
1.5 tbsp grated ginger

1. Combine the marinade sauce, and marinate the pork in the mixture for about 15 minutes.
2. In a frying pan, fry the sliced pepper and onion. Add some salt & pepper to taste and put aside.
3. In the same frying pan, heat some oil and add the pork (shake off the sauce.) Fry until browned on both side.
4. Pour the sauce over the pork and bring to the boil.
5. Cook until the sauce thickens.

Serve with boiled rice; it goes well with the pork :-)

Dinner on 29/06/07

Menu: Roast chicken; boiled potatoes; boiled carrots; peas; roasted aubergine & onions

We had chicken two nights in a row... We had to use the chicken legs, so no choice.

I soaked the chicken legs over night in salty herb water and roasted them in the oven. I sprinkled sage on the potatoes - it goes well with them! The chicken was lovely and tender. Soaking it in salty herb water helps to make the chicken tender and moist. We both enjoyed it.

We are a bit naughty and having rice pudding again. It's ready to be eaten in a minute. Can't wait to eat it!

Dinner on 28/06/07

Menu: Chicken pilaf; salad

My husband has come back from his business trip. I wanted to cook something nice using chicken (we bought a pack of chicken legs the other day, and they had to be used soon.) I didn't want to stand in the kitchen for a long time, so I decided to make chicken pilaf which is quite easy to make. I used tomatoes, onions, garlic, peas and chicken. I will write the recipe soon.

It was quite nice, and my husband enjoyed it :-)

Dinner on 27/06/07, Rice Pudding

I made dinner just for myself last night. My husband has gone to Ukraine on business and are staying there over night. I had a simple supper: tuna salad and baked potatoes. The salad was really nice. I used lettuce, cucumber, carrots, celery, radish, red peppers, chickpeas, tuna and fried onions! I like having salad with tuna and don't use any dressing. I used fried onions for salad for the first time - they went well with salad.

The night before, I made rice pudding for the first time! We bought a bag of pudding rice the other day, and I heard my husband saying "Rice pudding! Oh, that would be lovely!" I bought it to use for cooking, but I decided to make the pudding for him. After having the salmon, I got the pudding out of the oven saying "Are you ready for pudding?" My husband was very surprised and really enjoyed it. I wasn't sure if I made it right as I had never tried a proper rice pudding before. It seemed to be a success :-)

Dinner on 26/06/07

Menu: Salmon steak; boiled sweetcorn; rice salad; radish

We had salmon steak for dinner. Normally, we buy rainbow trouts, but this time, we bought salmon instead. I like cooking fish simply without adding too much seasoning or sauce. I just sprinkled salt & pepper as well as potato flour on the salmon. It was really nice. I love rice salad these days because it's refreshing. It goes well with meat. I like eating radish when I have fish. Again, I couldn't eat all the fish, so I saved some for tomorrow.