The Premise

Food! Wait, I’ve said that already, haven’t I? Well, I suppose it bears saying again. Food!! Food is important, yes?

This new arrangement is entirely based on dinners. We pick a day during the week that both of us can deal with, trading off who has to
plan the meal and cook.

The host picks a theme, usually a country, and then a few dishes to go with a main course. I was lucky enough to get the first go and my sister requested that I go with some Japanese food.

The First Meal

I decided on something fairly simple. A vegetable, an appetizer, and the main course were the order of the day.

For the main course, my sister requested something noodly, but I wanted soup. So, a compromise was in order… niku jaga! Niku is meat and jaga is potato in Japanese. Make sure those and the onions are sauteed in the pot. Throw in some dashi stock, shirataki noodles, and sauces such as soy and sake and you’ve got one tasty soup!

But such a meal would be incomplete without vegetable tempura and gyoza! All in all, the entire thing went so well!

What It Is

One Of My Favorites!

Furikake is essentially little bits of dry goodness meant to be sprinkled atop white rice. This sounds much less tasty than it actually is, I assure you. If you spend a lot of time eating rice, this may be just the condiment for you.

It frequently contains seaweed, bits of fish, sesame seeds, and other delicious bits. The downside is that it frequently contains both a massive amount of sugar and salt. With the proper amount of restraint, it adds some wonderful flavor to the rice.

The Varieties

I cannot even explain the amount of varieties this tasty topping comes in. Some of these varieties are as simple as sugar and sesame seeds. Others are extremely complicated including bits of more than one variety of fish. For the super adventurous, there are even varieties that contain wasabi. Have I mentioned how awesome wasabi is?

What You Can Do At Home

An Example of Deliciousness

If you’re really adventurous, you can always make your own at home.  One of the blogs I follow regularly, known as Just Hungry, has an entire host of easy-to-complete recipes for furikake. One day, I may even be adventurous enough to try to make one of them.

Until then, I’ve got delicious photos, tasty rice, and a spot of tea.

Do you lot have a favorite condiment?

One of the beauties of the store is the variety of food you can find there. Occasionally, you hit a real gem.Walking down the isles of the food labeled in Japanese, Chinese, and very possibly other Asian languages that I can’t read, I happened upon two awesome finds. These were better than the strange animal body parts. These are items with funky labels.

Made with real house wives!

I bring to you House Wife soy sauce. It provides you all the saltiness of regular soy sauce, but with an added 10% house wife in every bottle!

I would like to know who names this stuff. Who looks at this and goes “this would do wonderfully in an American market”? Do they even expect Americans to buy it? Are they banking on people like me to purchase the item for shits and giggles? I managed to leave this particular item on the shelf.

What I couldn’t get away without buying was a .69 cent can of Hello Boss. Nothing helps you wake up in the morning like a delicious can of iced coffee made in Taiwan. Wait… what?

Taking a closer look at this product, the ingredient list was a good sign. Naturally, my friend pointed out that in most other countries food regulations are not so strict. Every single additive in the drink may not be listed. Still, I was hopeful: Water, coffee, sugar, milk powder, natural flavor.

Good morning, employer.

Just a little below the ingredients, I ran across this frightening little disclaimer:

* Milk fat may sometimes solidify. This however will not affect the quality of your beverage.

Something between the ingredients, the warning, and the cute little title made me buy a can. I was excited to discover how terrible it was.

After two days and much hemhawing, I finally cracked open the vacuum sealed tab and took a swig. Tasty. Hello Boss tasted no different than the Starbuck’s bottled coffee. Way to be anti-climactic.

I feel as though I’m being lulled into a false sense of security. Next time I try that tasty dumpling looking thing on the shelf, I’ll regret my complacency.

Umeboshi is essentially a pickled plum. I thought, okay… pickles. I can do pickled. I’ve had kosher, dill, and Japanese style pickles. Those, I can deal with. Those, I even like.

Evil, evil wrinkly grossness.

So, I decided to package this thing in a real onigiri. There were a few problems… First off, I didn’t salt the rice enough. Secondly, I used too much rice. Third, was the umeboshi itself.

I take a large bite into the onigiri and feel my teeth sink into something grainy. I felt squishy sand on my teeth, similar to a pear’s texture. Okay, that’s a texture I can deal with… I think. Then the little morsel hits my tongue. SALT. I salt my salt, but this was even more ridiculous than that. It was so ludicrous, that I made Chris try it right then and there, just to see his expression. It was well worth it.

We will not be buying umeboshi again, unless by some miracle of my taste buds, they reverse their decision as we whittle this pack down.

My very first onigiri!

Like it said in the tutorial, it all started with some sushi rice, a bowl, some salt, and a bit of plastic wrap. I spent more time fighting with the plastic wrap than I spent actually making my tasty treats. What was really interesting to me is how the rice came out in the end. It created a shell around the filling that was chewy and oddly solid. Only on one of my attempts did my filling of tuna, mayo, pepper, and salt come leaking out the face.

I’m looking forward to experimenting with different, more traditional fillings. This particular treat just may become a staple of my lunches. I’d like to start making bento lunches on a daily basis. It’ll help make sure that I cook frequently and eat healthy lunches. Bento continues to seem a great way to get both of those ideas up and running.

I suppose one of the next questions should be why I’m making Japanese food as a precursor to the bird carcass for Thanksgiving.

I was not prepared.

My sister finds this whole thing hilarious. Chris does, too. Chris doesn’t threaten to chase me around the house with the giblets. This is a mark in his favor, and a black mark on my sister. She wants to chase me… making gobbling noises all the while.

I know that select organs and the neck are packaged and shoved into the bird’s now gaping cavity. What I didn’t realize was how long the neck on a turkey was or the sound it would make as it was pulled from the body. I could hear when it gave. Ghuh…

At least the turkey is into bondage. We bought special string and everything.