japanese

Here's a rather unusual (to Western tastes anyway) way to enjoy cold soba noodles - with slimy grated nagaimo root.

It's matsutake season! Let's see just how much you pay for one of the most expensive foodstuffs on earth.

A simple side dish or salad to serve as part of a Japanese meal, or on its own. Plus, take a look at a couple of real Japanese home meals!

So you love fried rice, but don't have a wok, or even a gas range? Here's how to make great fried rice with a frying pan, even if it's on an electric hotplate. (Note: this is not a low carb dish.)

Konnyaku is a wonderful food for anyone on any kind of diet - provided, of course, that you like it. I do like it - it has a very unique chewy-bouncy texture. I have described konnyaku and its noodle-shaped cousin, sharataki, before, but briefly, konnyaku is a grey to white colored, gelatinous mass which basically consists of water and fiber. It has almost no calories. Right out of the package, konnyaku and shirataki have an odd smell, but if you treat it properly (directions given below) you can get rid of that and just have the flavorless yet curiously interesting mass of goo that is going to fill up your belly in a very useful way.

This is something very easy to make in a jiffy. It's basically taking a classic Italian spaghetti recipe and applying it to konnyaku. You could make this with shirataki too, in which case it will actually look like noodles, but I rather prefer the chewier texture of konnyaku. The only thing to watch for if you are on a diet is the amount of olive oil and optional cheese you use.

A new article and recipe by yours truly is now available on The Japan Times web site, as well as in its print edition if you're in Japan. The subject this time is eggplants (aubergines). It also includes a recipe of course! The recipe combines delicious fall eggplants with a miso-meat sauce or sorts.

Incidentally, although the original recipe calls for thinly sliced beef, it works well with ground beef too. This is a shot of a version I made using ground beef.

This dish is great hot or cold, so make some for dinner and save a little for your bento the next day. Really yum!

A low-carb, low-key tofu dish that serves as a background element to a meal, serving the role that rice usually plays.

Since I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes, I've been doing a lot of research into what is recommended for diabetics in Japan to eat. There are several issues to keep in mind when eating or making Japanese style dishes, so I thought I'd share these here. Whether you're planning to travel to Japan or are just a fan of Japanese cooking and restaurants, I hope you'll find this useful.

Ahh, tomatoes. What temperature is right for them?