16 Aug 2011 4 Comments
in Observations, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: butter, Deliboy, japan, Japanese culture, Little Osaka, Sawtelle, tomato, Tomato Bank
Sometimes in life you stumble upon an odd confluence of food and commerce. And more often than not, the Japanese are behind it. Witness the business I noticed today on a sojourn to L.A.’s Little Osaka to pick up some fish: The Tomato Bank.
Happy customer leaving the Tomato Bank
I’m not sure I would feel confident entrusting my savings to the Tomato Bank. But maybe that’s not what kind of bank it is. More
15 Jan 2011 2 Comments
in Cooking Tips, Observations, Recipes Tags: dashi, japan, taste, umami
I love the Japanese! You know why? They make everything taste so good!
I got an email from my mom not long ago, asking me if I knew where her friend could find a product called “Umami” in a tube. Some clever person has pureed tomatoes, anchovies, mushrooms, etc., and put them in a nicely designed tube and is charging an obscene amount of money for it. More power to them. “That’s a lot to pay for tomato paste,” I said when my mom asked my opinion.
In case you’ve been stuck in your cave in the past several years and haven’t heard of “umami,” it’s the “fifth taste”. In other words, it adds “savory” to the canon of sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Umami was “discovered” in 1908 by the Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda. It was found in konbu seaweed and dried bonito flakes — the makings of the Japanese fish stock known as dashi. Later, it was identified and synthesized into the dreaded substance, monosodium glutamate. MSG. Voila! The reason everything the Japanese do tastes so good. (Well, not the only reason. But a big part…)
Fast forward, and every chef and his foodie brother is talking umami. It’s on menus, in cookbooks… people have even put it in the name of their restaurants. The Italians and French are singing its praises, even the Germans are jumping on board. And of course, many of the things they’ve always made and cooked with — parmesan cheese, fish, mushrooms, sauerkraut — are all rich in the unique profile of amino acids and ribonucleotides known as umami. Heck, it’s found in breast milk. The taste for umami is established early!
Is “umami” real? Can you add it to your food? Should you buy a tube of umami and will that catapult you into the stratosphere of the world’s finest chefs? Ummm…
My advice? Save the money you were gonna spend on your tube of umami paste for some nice steak or a lobster. Here’s how to make an umami paste yourself — you may find it adds savory zest to your food. Or go out and get yourself some MSG:
Umami Bomb
Add a tablespoon or so to pasta sauce, soup, sandwiches, whatever… And may the fifth taste be with you.
In a small food processor, place the following:
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
2 anchovy fillets
6 oil cured black olives, pits removed
1 tsp capers
2 tbsp olive oil
Store in a small jar in your fridge. Will keep for a month or more.
15 Oct 2010 4 Comments
in Markets & Stores, Video Tags: japan, japanese, rice crackers, snacks
We call them “crack” snacks, because they’re so good that they’re addictive. And you’ll find yourself plotting ways of hiding the half a bag that’s left from your spouse and kids because you want them all for yourself.
In short, they bring out the worst in you. But man, are they tasty.
Some crack snacks I bought yesterday that my wife has already gotten into
Why is it that the Japanese make snacks that are so much better than our snacks? I don’t know. They’re sometimes salty and sometimes kinda sweet and sometimes both at once. Sometimes they have a little MSG in them, which unless you’re allergic to you can live with.
I first encountered these rice cracker snacks when I was in Tokyo. I went into a convenience store and bought a whole bunch of bags of them to bring home. I didn’t know what any were, since I can’t read Japanese. Some had strange things in them like busted up little crabs or powdered squid. (You can usually avoid those kinds if you want to because they’ll have little pictures of crabs or squids on them … I realized later). Some are spicy with chili, others made with sweet nori seaweed.
How do you know which ones to get? You don’t. Just get the ones that look best to you. And where do you get them? I get mine at the Japanese markets here in Los Angeles — the Nijiya Market on Sawtelle or in Little Tokyo, and the Mitsuwa Market on Venice and Centinela. If you’re in a city you can find them in your own Japanese market. Otherwise, have fun online at asianfoodgrocer.com (look under “Pocky, Snacks & Candy” and click “Rice Crackers”).
In the meantime, come Japanese snack shopping with me:
skinny girls & mayonnaise 