Blue Lotus

Bukkake udon

I'm always reluctant to post about a style of noodles called bukkake, because whenever I do I get comments and emails asking if I've made some kind of spelling mistake, and kindly explaining what bukkake "really" means.

Well let me pre-empt that this time: bukkake means to pour, throw or splash liquid onto something, and is most often used to describe a style of udon (wheat noodles). Bukkake udon is a shallow bowl of cold udon, splashed with a small amount of mentsuyu (soy-based noodle broth) and a few toppings. I knowwhat the other meaning is, thank you very much, and thanks to the wonders of the internets so does the entire rest of the world. Except, of course, the average Japanese person, to whom bukkake means nothing more than a quick bowl of noodles. So get your minds of the gutter, folks. No emails, rude comments, helpful explanations, jokes, giggling, or other tomfoolery will be tolerated.

Now, with that off my chest (sorry), here's a recent dinner:

Bukkake udon topped with ground sesame seeds, katsuobushi (smoked bonito flakes), wakame seaweed, umeboshi(salt-pickled ume), and shichimi(seven spice mix); walnut, wakame, spinach and mizuna salad dressed with ponzu and olive oil; maguro-kake tofu: cold tofu with a topping of chopped tuna sashimi dressed with soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds and shiso(perilla). On the left is zaru udon(cold udon on a basket with dipping sauce) for Hideaki, who wanted something simple.

Bukkake udon is easy to make so is highly recommended for those new to Japanese cuisine. Here's how it's done:

The noodles are boiled as per package directions (I always shave a few minutes off the recommended cooking time as I like my udon chewy), drained, and rubbed with both hands while soaking in cold water. This last step is called momi-arai(literally "rub-washing") and gives the udon a firm chewy texture and also fully removes excess starch, making the noodles slippery rather than sticky.

The drained noodles are added to a bowl and splashed with mentsuyu--bottled is fine, either full strength or diluted with water. Dashi-joyu(soy sauce with dashi) can also be used.

Then the toppings are added: other than those listed above, you can use thinly sliced negi(long onion); thinly sliced shiso; tenkasu (little balls of fried tempura batter); a raw egg yolk, a whole raw quail egg, or an onsen tamago (hot spring-poached egg); nattou(fermented soy beans); grated ginger; grated daikon; or pretty much anything you can imagine. Try different combinations to find one you like (other than the one above, I really like negi, egg yolk and tenkasu). Just try not to add too much stuff at once, as the udon should be the main focus of the dish.

Pasta and noodles

Perhaps my favourite category of food, if it can be considered a single category, is noodles and pasta. I love carbs in all forms but noodles are just extra special-- there's something comforting about them, yet the endless ways they can be cooked makes them exciting. I could eat noodles or pasta every day for the rest of my life but with the amazing variety of both the noodles themselves and the sauces (or soups, or toppings) that accompany them, I'd never ever get bored.

Recently I have indeed been eating noodles or pasta every day, or at least almost every day. Mostly it's stuff I've blogged before (like tomato-based sauces or simple spaghetti with eggs) so I don't bother taking a picture, but here are a few I thought I'd share:

This is kamo-nanban soba (soba noodles with duck and long onions), one of my favourite soba dishes. I often order it at soba restaurants but have never made it before as duck can be hard to find and tends to be pricey. But when I saw a single duck breast on sale recently I knew it was time to make my first attempt.

The broth turned out perfectly, with a rich ducky flavour and thick slippery texture. The duck itself was less successful: although I'd sliced the breast thinly, the pieces were rather tough, so I postponed the meal until the next evening. But the long simmer and overnight sit in the fridge that usually manages to tenderize the toughest cut of meat failed to help the duck-- it went from hard and chewy to slightly less hard and stringy-- and almost flavourless to boot. But the broth, having absorbed all of the duck's flavour, was fantastic so I can't complain too much.

I was afraid something like this would happen, as when I was checking out recipes online I noticed that they all called for ai-gamo (which I believe is a kind of hybrid duck), but what I had bought was hon-gamo (true duck). So next time I'll try it with ai-gamo and see if I can't get both tasty broth and tasty duck.

A bit about the name "kamo nanban soba": kamo (or gamo when used in a compound word) means "duck", and nanban means "southern barbarian". I assumed the dish is so named because visiting barbarians (the name nanban was used for foreign traders of entering Japan from the south, especially Southeast Asians and Europeans) introduced the practice of eating duck to the Japanese, to whom meat was officially forbidden until relatively recently. But while searching for a recipe online I discovered one site that claims that negi (long onions) were called "nanba" or "nanban" in the Edo era, and a dish called nanban soba, consisting of negi and soba in hot broth, was popular.

It sounds a bit dubious, since the word "nanban" is already used to name a few dishes originally introduced or inspired by foreigners (like the escovitch-derived nanban-zuke). But then again, the two other "nanban" soba dishes, tori-nanban soba (soba with chicken) and kare-nanban soba (soba with curry broth) are chock-full of negi. So who knows. I'm probably the only one intrigued by food etymology mysteries like this anyway.

Next up is fusilli with asari clams. I believe the classic pastas for vongole sauce are linguine and spaghetti, but somehow I love it with fusilli (heck, I love any sauce with fusilli).

Clams are in season now, and while I love them enough to never tire of them, it's nice to occasionally have a break from my two favourite ways to eat them (which are the pasta above, and steamed with sake). So here is asari udon (udon noodles with asari clams). It is really just udon noodles topped with my regular steamed clams (the clams are steamed in sake, then splashed with soy sauce, a small pat of butter and finely chopped negi) with just a little more liquid than usual. But a small change makes a completely new dish, and now my clam repertoire has expanded.

Pho

In my last post I mentioned making beef stock, and this is what it was for:

Pho bo (Vietnamese noodle soup with beef). Soaked rice noodles are added to a bowl, topped with thinly sliced raw beef, and piping hot beef broth is poured over both, cooking the beef and billing the bowl with fragrant, delicious, spicy beefiness.

This is it at the table, the beef still cooking. The toppings are basil, thinly sliced green chili, bean sprouts, cilantro and lime. Extra fish sauce and sriracha were also on hand.

I'll admit that this homemade version is not as good as the pho we can get back home (or presumably in Vietnam). The broth ended up too dark and cloudy and the toppings weren't quite right. I'd never even bother making it if I still lived in Canada. But this stuff was loads better than anything I've tried in Japan, where pho tends to be made with a simple unspiced chicken or beef broth and few toppings.

I've heard rumors of a decent pho place in Fujisawa, so next time I'm down that way (it's not far from Kamakura or Enoshima) I'll be checking it out. Maybe my pho making days are numbered.

Away this week

You may have noticed I'm posting even less than usual recently. One reason is because I am doing a week-long food blog at eGullet, a wonderful website devoted to food. With the eGullet food blog I go into quite a bit more detail than I usually do here on this blog, listing everything I eat and showing what life is like here in Japan. If you're interested, go have a look.

And to (hopefully) keep you occupied here for a while, I'm doing a round-up of stuff from the past month or so.

A few weeks back my husband and I had sushi at a local kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi) place. Most of the phone camera pictures didn't turn out, but here are the ones that did (kind of). Above is tai (sea bream) and tororo okura (grated yam and chopped okra).

Miso soup with crab and shirako (cod milt). The crab was just used to flavour the broth, it didn't have enough meat to eat (although I tried my hardest).

Aburisamon (seared salmon) topped with sliced negi (green onion), pepper and sea salt. We ate 9 plates each, plus the soup: the most we've had in years.

On the way home we discovered the fabled flock of parrots. I've heard of it, and know that many other big cities have parrots, but I didn't quite believe it till I saw these guys. Dozens of them were in someone's yard, sharing the trees peacefully (but noisily) with sparrows, all the same size and colour. Amazing.

A student brought back sanuki udon (a specialty wheat noodle from Kanagawa prefecture) so I made bukkake udon: the noodles are topped with cold broth along with katsuobushi (bonito flakes), negi, tenkasu (tempura batter) and umeboshi (pickled plum). It was good, but not the reason I'm sharing this picture. Check out the plate in the back: that's dashimaki tamago (thick omelet). I finally made it, and it didn't turn out half bad! It was far easier than I thought, and although this one wasn't very pretty it seemed to have the right taste and texture. I can't wait to try this again.

Lunch at an Indian place in Hibarigaoka. It took over the space where a really good Thai restaurant used to be, and we were pretty sad at first. But this place is pretty good. My chicken curry and daal were OK, but the naan was really good (despite the burnt tip on this one) and Hideaki's keema curry and egg curry were fantastic. Will go again.

Sauteed chijimi horensou (winter spinach), scallops with soy sauce and butter, penne with roasted tomato sauce. My sister introduced me to sauce made from roasted tomatoes last year, but this sauce uses canned tomatoes rather than fresh. The idea comes from last week's Mark Bittman column in the New York Times (the recipe given is for tomato soup but the idea works equally well for pasta sauce). Bittman now has a blog, by the way, and it's full of good ideas.

A quick lunch last week: instant miso soup and futomaki (thick rolled sushi) with a thick omelet, negitoro (chopped tuna belly), cucumber, shake no naka-ochi (chopped salmon), shake (salmon), maguro (tuna) and thin omelete.

Here's a healthy dinner of sake-steamed clams; atsu-age (fried tofu) and komatuna greens; quick-pickled cabbage and cucumbers, squid and broccoli sauteed with miso sauce; miso soup with shimeji mushrooms, wakame seaweed and mitsuba (trefoil), and mugigohan (white rice and barley) topped with umeboshi (pickled plum). Now that spring is almost here clams are cheap and widely available, and I'm very glad.

I had clay pot rice at a Chinese place in Roppongi Hills with a friend. Not the most attractive presentation, but pretty good: rice topped with bok choy, pork belly, tororo (grated yam) and a thick soy-based sauce. The rice was perfectly crispy on the bottom and I'd love to have this again, if only it weren't so pricey. I wonder if they have a lunch special?

鍋焼きうどん

It's been a while since I made nabeyaki udon, a favourite winter noodle dish, but the recent cold weather made me crave it. Nabeyaki udon, also called nikomi udon, consists of udon (fat wheat noodles) cooked in broth with chicken and vegetables and is usually topped with a partly cooked egg and a large piece of shrimp tempura, but when made at home can be one of those "add whatever you have" kind of meals.

I made a miso broth and used shiitake, carrot, spinach, negi (long onions) and atsu-age (deep-fried tofu) and skipped the eggs since we'd had them for breakfast. I also skipped the shrimp tempura as it's a bit expensive (and forget making it from scratch) and I can't stand soggy tempura. So I used (store-bought) kabocha squash tempura and instead of simmering it with the noodles I added it to my bowl so it stayed nice and crispy. Yum! Pure comfort food, and healthy too.

モダン焼

I miss my husband's cooking. Not that my husband ever cooked a lot, but now that he is working at his new job he almost never has the time or energy to do much in the kitchen. Luckily he finally gave in to my begging and agreed to cook dinner tonight, choosing the very thing that I miss the most: okonomiyaki (savoury pancake).

He cooked it at the table on the teppan (tabletop skillet), which helped make it seem less like work and more like fun. Above is his first one: a standard okonomiyaki, with a batter made of flour, grated yamaimo (yam), cabbage, dashi (Japanese stock) powder and benishouga (pickled red ginger) and topped with pork, okonomiyaki sauce and katsuobushi (bonito flakes).

And then he made a special treat: modanyaki (okonomiyaki with noodles). He started by dry sauteing chukamen (chinese style noodles, the same kind as for yakisoba) with a little salt and pepper until they were just a bit crispy.

Next he added okonomiyaki sauce (like a lighter, sweeter version of HP sauce) to the noodles and sauteed them a bit more, then moved them aside and started an okonomiyaki.

The noodles were placed on top of the okonomiyaki, and then more batter was poured on top.

Thinly sliced pork was added on top of that.

The whole thing was flipped over (it takes great skill to keep it all in one peice) and cooked till the pork was crispy.

Then it was flipped over again and drizzled with okonomiyaki sauce.

The sauce was left to cook a bit, then katsuobushi was sprinkled over it and it was cut in two and served. And then he did it a few more times, and we ate until we were stuffed.

I was going to include the recipe, but I've just realized there are already several good okonomiyaki recipes on the web and that modanyaki is simple enough that it doesn't really need its own recipe. This recipe is from a kid's site, but I like it because it has very clear instructions with pictures and includes a recipe for the okonomiyaki sauce. To make it into modanyaki just saute the noodles as above, using my basic instructions. (Note that the recipe in the link doesn't include dashi powder or yamaimo. Neither are necessary but using them will improve the flavour or texture, so add them if you like: a dash of dashi powder and a Tbsp of grated yamaimo will do.)

New Year's Eve

So Hideaki and I arrived at his parent's house in Northern Osaka on December 30th, and on that day there was another arrival: 3 crabs from Hokkaido, where my brother-in-law lives. We haven't seen him in years, but apparently he still remembers he has a family and last New Year's he sent us some crabs. It seems word got back to him that we liked them so he did the same thing again this time, and we're hoping it becomes a tradition. It would be great if he himself could make it down for a visit, but as long as the seafood keeps coming I have little complaint.

On the left is a tarabagani (king crab) and on the right are two kegani (literally "hairy crab", called horsehair crab in English), both arriving boiled but very fresh. The picture makes them look quite small but keep in mind they are on large serving platters.

Here is a closer look at the kegani, just in case you were wondering where the name comes from.

Before eating they were broken up, with the body served along with the legs. There is plenty of good meat in a crab's body, not to mention the kanimiso (tomalley), and in Japan it is all eaten as-is or dipped in ponzu (citrus soy sauce). Which is exactly how we did it, and it tasted so good I had no wish for the garlic butter we use back home.

Kegani is probably the best-loved crab in Japan, due to its delicate flavour and rich kanimiso, and last year we all agreed that the kegani was superior (although I think kegani loses points for the way the flesh flakes out the shell rather than staying in one big, juicy piece). This year, strangely enough, the opposite was true: both the meat and kanimiso of the tarabagani was better. Do crabs have good and bad vintages? Both were fantastic, mind you, so it was a close call and we were happy just to have the rare chance to compare two types of crab.

My niece Marya was her usual cute self, but sadly as I was sick I wasn't able to play with her as much as I wanted. Almost three, she's at that age where she has very specific ideas about how things should be done, so once she learned a new game it had to be done in exactly the right way, by exactly the right person. The tucking-in above was my work, as was "eentsy-weentsy spider", the train crossing game, and the shopping game, so I tired myself out a bit on those. Luckily I wasn't allowed to participate in other stuff, like dancing to the Winnie the Pooh song, so I did get to rest occasionally. Kids are so funny.

New Year's Eve the shellfish indulgence continued, with a whole ise-ebi (spiny lobster) each. The uma-ni (braised vegetables) beside it is a traditional New Year's dish and includes kuwai (arrowroot bulb), a round potato-like vegetable with a spike on top that is considered auspicious for some reason that I can't recall.

The meal was finished off with the traditional toshikoshi soba (literally "year-crossing noodles). It is said that the long noodles symbolize a long life, but the exact reasons for eating toshikoshi soba are not exactly clear. The soba was supposed to be topped with ebi tempura (shrimp tempura), which continued the shellfish theme, but as much as I love ebi tempura I can't stand it in my soba-- I hate how the crispy batter gets soggy. So I opted for nishin soba (soba topped with braised herring) instead.

And after a good game of hanafuda the new year began, and with Marya in bed we had the TV tuned in to NHK, which had live broadcasts from dozens of temples and shrines throughout Japan-- always a treat to watch and a stark contrast to the horrible programming on offer during the rest of the holidays. Thank goodness Marya doesn't watch TV so as long as she's around the idiot box stays off, but just this once I enjoyed seeing the picturesque shrines and hearing the sound of temple bells all over the country as they were rung 108 times to welcome the new year.

Christmas in Nasu

Christmas fell on a weekday last year, which meant it was just another workday in Japan. I had the day off but Hideaki went to work as usual, and as I couldn't stand the thought of staying home alone on Christmas I headed up to Nasu, a resort town in Tochigi Prefecture, with my friend Emi. It made sense as Nasu happens to be the location of the English ski camp I was to work at starting from the next day. And Emi is from Tochigi and frequents a certain fancy hotel often enough to get us a super discount. So I was able to enjoy a lovely day of relaxation before the four-day ski camp and week-long visit to the in-laws.

Upon arriving in Nasu we stopped by a soba shop for lunch. I ordered gobou-soba, soba noodles in hot broth topped with gobou kaki-age (burdock root tempura). It was fantastic, and the gobou kaki-age (a first for me) had a lovely earthy flavour and crisp texture.

We stayed at Hotel Epinard, a large resort hotel with a nice onsen (hot spring bath). The lobby was decorated for Christmas, but there was surprisingly little going on-- I guess because it was a weekday. The only Christmas-related entertainment on offer was a hand bell concert, which I skipped in favour of getting an early sleep (I knew I wouldn't getting much sleep during camp). Emi stayed up past one, getting spa treatments and soaking in the rotemburo (outdoor hot spring).

Christmas dinner was shabushabu, a tradition when we stay at this hotel. Above is the shabushabu nabe (shabushabu pot, modeled on the Mongolian hotpot) with three dips: the usual ponzu (citrus soy sauce) and goma-dare (sesame sauce) along with a new one: yuzu-miso (yuzu citrus and miso).

The beef was local and very nicely marbled. It was less rich than top quality wagyu but still very good, and best of all it was all-you-can-eat. We managed two and a half plates.

The veggies are also said to be local and are really good, but you only get the one plate. Included are shiitake, hakusai (napa cabbage), shungiku (chrysanthemum greens), nira (garlic chives), chingensai (bok choi), negi (long onion), nasu (eggplant), shimeji mushroom, enokidake mushroom, and a few decorative slices of carrot and daikon. Also included are yakumi (flavourful garnishes) for the dips: negi and momiji-oroshi (daikon grated with chili pepper).

Shabu-shabu is cooked by taking a slice of beef with your chopsticks and swishing it around in the hot broth for a few seconds until it is cooked to your liking (a little on the rare side is best; good beef like this is perfectly safe to eat raw). The vegetables are left to simmer in the broth and taken out and eaten whenever you feel like it.

At this hotel the shabu-shabu is finished not with the traditional udon noodles, but with ramen. Salt and light chicken stock are added to the remaining broth along with ramen noodles, negi and bean sprouts. It is utterly delicious and I could have finished up all of the broth, if not for a little accident:

While Emi was passing me the pepper shaker (nothing is better with ramen than black pepper) one of us-- we are still in dispute about exactly who-- dropped it into the broth. I would have been happy to ignore it and keep eating but we were advised not to. so our dinner ended there. Oops.

The next morning I woke up early enjoyed the above view of the mountains where I'd soon be skiing. Not much snow yet for this time of year, but pretty nonetheless.

Breakfast was buffet-style, and if you've never had a buffet breakfast at a good Japanese hotel you're missing out. The above plate was all I had time to eat, but represented just a quarter of the offerings, most of which featured local food (especially eggs, dairy products and vegetables). Very good and it sustained me over the next several hours, as I said good-bye to Emi and headed to the campsite to prepare for the ski camp.

Hotel Epinard Nasu
0287-78-6000
1 Takakuhei, Nasu-machi, Nasu-gun, Tochigi

Autumn weekend

I had a busy long weekend working for English adventure, starting with a one-night camp for kids. We collected colourful autumn leaves and acorns, learned the names of the trees, had a big bonfire, and went on a night walk where we saw a flying squirrel. Only two people actually saw it "fly" (glide, actually) but all of us got to see its glow-in-the dark eyes staring down at us from high up in the trees.

The leaves were laminated and the acorns were turned into tiny people (and fish, owls and ladybugs). Cute huh!

Sunday's event was a nature walk on Mount Takao, where the autumn leaves were just at their peak. And it seemed like all of Tokyo had showed up to see them: I've never seen the place so crowded. Our group was large with an age range of 4 to 82, so we took the chair lift up and down and did a few hours of slow hiking around the top of the mountain.

Everyone had their cameras out with swarms of people collecting around any tree that showed colour. It was so crowded that in most of my pictures the people outnumbered the leaves. 

But as long as I looked up, the view was beautiful. And we were eventually able to slip away from the crowds and take a lesser-known route along the ridge of the mountain, where it was lovely and quiet and the the trees outnumbered the people by a good margin.

It was dark by the time we headed back down, but the beautiful full moon helped light the way. The ride was too bumpy to get a good picture of the sky, but I did get a few fuzzy shots on the way down, including this one, the one below with the Tokyo skyline in the background, and one showing the footwear of the lady in front of us. She was wearing the leather f*me boots with 10cm spike heels that are ubiquitous in Tokyo during the cold months, and I couldn't help but wonder what in God's name had possessed her to put them on that morning. My own feet were killing me in my comfy hiking shoes, so she had to have been feeling some degree of pain (granted, her feet probably carry about half the weight that mine carry, but still). It was a funny way to remind myself that even up on a mountain and surrounded by fresh air and nature, we were still, after all, in Tokyo.

しゃぶしゃぶ

Tonight I wanted to cook something special, to celebrate Hideaki starting his new job tomorrow: shabu-shabu. Shabu-shabu is a type of nabemono (hot-pot) in which ingredients are quickly cooked by being swished around with chopsticks in a light broth. Thinly sliced beef is usually the main ingredient, but shabu-shabu can really be made with anything.

Above are the condiments used to dip the cooked ingredients: negi (long onion), yuzu-koshou (yuzu citrus with green chiles), goma-dare (sesame sauce), shichimi (seven-spice mix), yuzu-ponzu (soy sauce with yuzu citrus), daikon oroshi (grated daikon radish. The goma dare is used on its own, while the ponzu is mixed with the daikon oroshi and whatever of the other condiments are desired.

Our main ingredients were salmon and pork, accompanied by spinach, tofu, hakusai (Chinese cabbage), kuzu-kiri (glass noodles), negi (long onions), shiitake and kishimen (flat wheat noodles). The tofu, hakusai, kuzu-kiri, negi and shiitake are traditional, with the spinach and kishimen replacing the more usual shungiku (chrysanthemum greens) and udon noodles.

Shabu-shabu is traditionally cooked in a shabu-shabu nabe, similar to a Mongolian hot pot, although a regular pot works fine. Inside the shabu-shabu nabe is kombu-dashi (a simple broth made from kelp) lightly flavoured with salt, sake and mirin (sweet sake).

To cook shabu-shabu, ingredients like tofu, kuzu-kiri, negi and shiitake, which take longer to cook, are added first and left for a while. Meanwhile, you pick up your quick-cooking ingredient of choice with your chopsticks and swish it around in the hot broth. "Shabu-shabu" is the swish-swish sound the ingredients make as they are moved around in the broth.

The salmon was sashimi-grade, so we only swished it around for a few seconds, until just the outside was cooked. Very good beef is cooked in the same way, and cooking it any more than rare will melt away the fat and make it tough. Pork is of course fully cooked, but again care is taken not to overcook it.

The cooked ingredient is then dunked in your dip of choice. The salmon was best in the ponzu, with the refreshing citrus nicely cutting through the salmon's grease and fishy flavours. The tofu and spinach were best in the goma-dare, and the pork was good in both. But that's just me, and every diner has a favourite combination.

The kishimen (or more usually, udon) is saved for the end. By now the broth has become richly flavoured from all the ingredients being cooked in it. The noodles are added to this tasty brew, and when they are cooked they are added to what's left of the ponzu and topped up with the broth.

Normally we save whatever is left of the broth to use for lunch the next day, either with more noodles or cooked with rice to make zousui. But with Hideaki at work all day I don't know what I'll do: I'd feel kind of guilty using up this yummy broth all by myself.

It's going to be weird having him away all day...

More birthday eating

Recovered from his cold, Hideaki made my real birthday dinner tonight. A few weeks late but worth the delay:

• Shio-aji yaki-soba (fried noodles flavoured with salt rather than the usual sauce) with pork, cabbage, carrot and white shimeji mushrooms, topped with katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and aonori seaweed flakes
• Egg-drop corn soup
• An ice-cold can of Ebisu beer

My perfect birthday meal. But that's not all: he included a bouquet of flowers in the deal, as well as dessert:

A chocolate cake from Planetes, our local cake shop. I'm not a big cake person, but if there's no whipped cream or custard or other gooey stuff I'll happily eat it. This is quite a small cake, but rich and chocolatey enough that a little piece is plenty satisfying.

豚キムチの焼そば

Buta-kimchi no yakisoba: fried noodles with pork and kimchi (spicy Korean pickles).

Can you tell my husband made this? Not that I'm complaining. Buta-kimchi and yakisoba are two dishes I'll never tire of, and I think combining them is pure genious.

It's also really easy to make (which I guess is why Hideaki made it): just sautee thinly sliced pork (100 to 150g per person), add triple that amount (more or less, depending on your tastes) of kimchi, then throw in some noodles. The next steps depends on the type of noodles you're using: if you use yakisoba noodles, add one package of noodles per person along with a splash each of soy sauce, sake, and water, then stir well and cover the pan and steam for a few minutes. If you're using fresh or dried Chinese noodles or spaghetti, you can skip the water and steaming: just add the freshly boiled noodles to the pork/kimchi mix with a little soy sauce and sake, cook for a few more minutes, and serve.

This dish can be doctored up a bit: bean sprouts, negi (long onion) or thinly sliced peppers are nice to add, and you can add other seasonings (like yakisoba sauce or oyster sauce). But when the point is speed and simplicity, the basic recipe is more than enough to satisfy.

Curry two ways

This is the curry rice I made a few nights ago: a Japanese style curry served over rice (in this case the curry is made with lamb, potatoes and mushrooms and the rice is the shirataki-gohan I've been experimenting with recently).

The next night Hideaki made curry-udon. This is a bit unorthodox, as curry udon is supposed to be a noodle soup, with the curry thinned out with dashi (Japanese stock). But we liked the curry so much we kept it as-is and just mixed it with udon noodles. It was good-- far better than it looked, and may become our standard way to serve leftover curry. Especially in the summer, when regular curry-udon is just too hot.

Hideaki cooks

So my camera is back! All fixed up and better than ever, although it makes a funny noise when the lens opens-- perhaps from mold damage. Apparently one of the problems was that there was kabi (mold, mildew or fungus) in the lens-- no idea how that happened or how to prevent it from happening again. Any advice?

Something else is new around here: Hideaki (still between jobs) has become something of a househusband, doing more cleaning and cooking than he ever has before. OK, let's be honest. He's doing more than I ever have, especially in the cleaning department. He does the jobs that I hate, like cleaning the floor-- and he won't just vacuum it, he'll wash it too. Whereas I was content with the occasional sweep, only washing the floor a few times a year. If that. He also makes the dishes disappear right away, rather than letting them gather in the sink for days (and if they all get put away wrong, I'm not complaining).

But as much as I love the clean floors and the magically vanishing dishes, it's the cooking I like best. I've been rather busy recently, and it's so nice to have my husband in the kitchen, helping with the chopping or washing up. Even nicer is to stay out of the kitchen altogether and have a meal presented to me.

This was my dinner on my first day back from camp, when I was still too sore and tired to go out: kaiware-na (daikon sprouts) and okra dressed with sesame and ponzu (citrus soy sauce); sui-gyoza (boiled dumplings, store-bought); and yakisoba (fried noodles) with pork and cabbage, topped with katsuo-bushi (bonito flakes).

It's quite a step up from the usual man style cooking, in that it doesn't all fit onto one plate, and there is more than one vegetable. And it was innovative: he made the kaiware-na dish up himself. And above all, it was delicious.

As much as I love cooking, and as much as we need a double income, I am r