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.