For my birthday on Thursday May and I are going to head down to the local Mos Burger as a treat. And when I say 'local', I mean 90 seconds walk away from our apartment building! Mos Burger is kind of like the Japanese McDonald's (although they have Makudonarudo here too) but the food is much nicer, healthier and cheaper. It's May's birthday on the 24th so we're going out for dinner somewhere even nicer than Mos Burger as a joint celebration at the weekend.
Anyway, I thought I would share today's lunch experience with everybody. All you need is some Japanese rice and some sweet tofu bags. Cook the rice, put a spoonful into each bag, fold the sides over, et voilà! I don't know what these things are called. I just call them Sweet Tofu Rice Bags, but if you have any more creative suggestions for names I would be interested to hear them. They sure are yummy though.
4 comments:
Hi. This is my first time to post here.
Just in case you don't know, we Japanese usually don't wear slippers on Tatami mats. You walk around with barefeet or socks on, but not with indoor slippers on.
In another entry, you said you bought an umbrella. I hope it's not the type of umbrella you use on a rainy day. The type of umbrella you use to prevent direct sun rays is different from the one you use on a rainy day. Fabric is different.
The barrels you saw in Meiji Shrine is for sake or Japanese liquer. The Japanese characters you found on them shows brands of sake. They are offerings to the shrine, I think.
The food in the photo is called Inarizushi. As you may know, it's a type of Sushi. (If you put a word before "sushi," the sound change to "zushi.") You don't put in plain rice although the "bags" themselves are seasoned and you don't feel any need to season plain rice. You use sushi rice to make Inarizushi. If you are interested in how to make sushi rice, the following websites gives you some info.
http://www.justhungry.com/2005/03/inarizushi_sush.html
http://www.jadedragon.com/archives/cooking/inarizus.html
Ah, hai wakarimashita... inarizushi... sou desu ne... Yes, I came across it in England, now I remember! So what is the difference between regular Japanese rice and sushi rice?
Thank you for the info on the shrine barrels, and the umbrella... the umbrella I bought doesn`t protect you from the sun but I use it just as a form of shade, and when it is raining, of course.
Yes, I did know about not wearing shoes or slippers on tatami. When I was first told about that I wondered why it was such a big deal, but now I wouldn`t dream of doing it!
Hi Lily, I just remembered they were called inarizushi and logged in (at 5am here - couldn't sleep) to tell you - but Hiro beat me to it. I'm guessing he's not THE Hiro - shame ;-)
I sometimes put other stuff in as well as some rice - like avocado, or fermented aduki beans... but that might just be me.
Sushi rice is a shorter, rounder grain than we get here (typically) in English supermarkets, which is a longer grain grown in various countries other than Japan. Sushi rice goes sticky much easier. When I prepare the cooked rice for sushi, I add a little rice vinegar plus mirin or sake to the still-warm rice, mix really well then let it cool. This flavours it and also helps it to bind together better for forming shapes. I can't tell you how much exactly because it depends on the quantity of rice and I judge by taste anyway, but I reckon around a teaspoon of vinegar and a half teaspoon of mirin/sake per full rice-bowl of rice. You try it and see.
Happy Birthday, lily monk!
You wrote the first sentense in Japanese. Good Job! ^_^ I'm not much of a cook so I'm not so sure about what you should add to plain rice to make sushi rice. I skimmed through the links I had put up above and they seem to explain very well how to make it.
professoryackle's explanation about how to make shushi rice sounds good, too. I do remember you add vinegar, mirin and all that to make sushi rice.
professoryackle, I take it that there were another Hiro but actually I'm new here. As I wrote, that was my first time to post here, although I have been dropping by lily monk's blog for I-don't remember-months. I don't remember how I got to know this blog, either. Maybe I followed some links and that led me here. I read some blogs written by foreigners living in Japan. Reading different perspectives about Japan by foreign people is interesting. :)
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