i have never tried any Japanese food.
Any nice websites with easy recipes i can make some at home then! :]

If you would read the thread, Jiji just provided an extremely easy recipe to follow. An more international market like Trader Joe's should have the Mirin and Sake that you need. However, you will need a parent with ID.

Use it as a marinade. It's just that simple.

@Jiji: Thanks for the recipe. The sugar in bottled teriyaki sauce can be a real pain since it burns so easily.

oh i didnt read it all sorry! Thanks for telling me! :] thanks :]

Wow thanks for the recipe,Jiji. i have to try to make that :D

@tripperazn & Miko Miko - :D

I have a couple of sites I go to for lots of ideas, although I can't really say how *easy* their recipes are. Some are easy...some are not. Don't let that discourage you!

Yasuko-san's site just underwent a redesign, but she still puts up a daily menu, which is just fun to read each day, as if I had a Japanese "kaa-san" cooking for me. <3

Bob and Angie have translated a small part of their recipes into english, which always makes me wonder what I'm missing out on. Still, they have some good advice and recipes.

I don't often go to Hiromi's Room, but it has some basic advice and recipes, too.

Lastly, there was lots of interest in ramen in this thread, so here's a fun page for ramen, the Official Ramen Homepage. This is all about things to do with instant ramen packs. There's one recipe on there for a kind of easy Thai peanut noodles, which I don't dare make too often since it tastes wonderful and is fattening as all get-out. :D

Thanks so much for the links! :D:D:D

Sushi:
FUN to make by yourself if you have a reliable fish source that you trust. Make sure the fish is cleaned properly! Living in Alaska means we've got plenty of fresh salmon (red of course) and halibut, which both go excellently on sushi and as sashimi.

Something simple I really like doing is using these purple seaweed flake thingys in my rice (yukari gohan). Tastes GREAT.

Some of my favorites include: Curry, ramen, yakisoba, sushi/sashimi, tonkatsu, and of course the sweets! I happen to be a huge fan of the sweet bean paste found in many of their desserts, although I know plenty of people don't like it. The great thing is that I've had two Japanese exchange students stay w/ my family, so every holiday (christmas, birthdays) we send boxes back and forth with various gifts from our homes...and trust me, I always ask for food :p

Last year I visited Japan, and I can't say there was any food I disliked. Only those trainstation bento's...
My favorites were: Unaju, Ami-Yaki, Shabu-Shabu and Yakitori
Also: whisked green tea

When I visited Japan,I tasted traditionnal food I never tasted before during my mothergod's meals(she's Japanese,so...).And quite frankly,what i liked most was onigiri(only rice and seaweed,without the fruit).I also really enjoyed ramens(both cold and hot).I like maki too,but less than onigiri and ramen.

I just absolutely love sushi! :D I think it tastes so good! Hmm... Thursday going to some japanese restaurant again.. Can't wait! :D

I actually bought alot of candies and sweet from Japan back then. You know those with really nice boxes and stuff? Oh man, whats inside is really yurky for me. The texture is like mashmallow but it smelled like rice. =(

Aww. I wanna go to Japan too! :D Need to learn some japanese first and grow up. :P

Like the Chinese candies.Good Lord,that's weird!And you can find every taste you want(meat,milk...etc).That's...should I say horrible...:twitch:

Tobi likes Rice Cakes and Ramen, with a little greenTea-Saki mix on the side. (^ )
Tobi will bring some over. (for a little ¥, I'Il hide it from Kakazu)

I'd post some of my wife's recipes and ones I've discovered.. but really --- just ask over at recipes.com or about.com and you can find tons of likely items.

http://bento.com/tokyofood.html is a good starting point.

Favorites at our house include teriyaki chicken on rice, chicken'n'veggies with rice, okonomiyaki, super-miso (my wife's enhanced version), mochi, taiyaki, sukiyaki, shabu-shabu, warm hijiki salad, umeboshi, and a few dozen others. We're also hooked on a variety of "sprinkles" (furikake: seaweed or fish flakes with various whatnot).

Favorite snacks include nori rice crackers, wasabi-fied peas, squid jerky, various forms of sushi (meaning "stuff on rice with seaweed or wrapped in rice" ... we don't do the raw fish at home).

*shudder* MOCHI.

All you inexperienced fans of Japanese food out there, BEWARE mochi. Do not cook it unless you have a contingency plan in place. For at least your first try, don't cook with anything (anything meaning utensils, cookware, rooms of your house) that you can't easily throw away.

I can spend all afternoon typing about how thick and sticky mochi is, about how impossible it is to clean, but you just can't know.

In my efforts to teach her about her Japanese heritage, I tried to make daifuku for my sister. After meeting utter failure in our attempts to make paste out of azuki beans, we moved on to the mochi. Mochi made with rice flour, not counting cooling time, can be made in fifteen minutes. Supposedly.

I started at 4:00pm. At 5:30 I had to send my sister home empty-handed, as it still wasn't nearly cool enough to work with.
I finally finished cleaning the kitchen at 11:00pm.

Some notes: Corn starch is no substitute for potato starch. You can try a hand-held electric mixer, but pray the motor doesn't burn out. If you pick up a piece of the mochi before it's cool (and by that I don't mean "cool enough to not burn", but "at least, but preferably below, room temperature), it will stick to you and not come off. You can walk outside and try to throw it away, but, like a wad of bubble gum in a cartoon, it won't come off. And good luck cleaning anything the mochi has touched (aside from the pan which SHOULD have been greased and God help you if it wasn't). You can't put the mochi in the garbage if you aren't taking it out soon, because it will rot. You can't put it in the sink or down the garbage disposal, because it will clog. All you can do is repeatedly soak it in hot water and scrape and scrub, dissolving it layer by layer until it's all gone. That's if you start washing immediately. If you let it dry, good luck ever getting it clean.

I would rather fight a tar baby.

When we got done cooking, my sister informed me that she remembered that she'd had mochi once already, and didn't care for it. If I hadn't been so exhausted, she probably wouldn't be here today.

Mochi is great (and much more filling than it looks... afterall it's condensed rice :heh:) for any occasion, but yeah, be careful when cooking.
It can literally explode if you do it wrong. :rolleyes:

And be careful when you eat it.
Every year, a few people in Japan die because they get the super-sticky gooey mochi stuck in their throat, and suffocate.

Mochi cooked right taste very good though.
My suggestion? If it's your first time, go BUY ONE and eat it... rather than challenging from start. :heh:

Kyuusai's experience with mochi sounds like the one and only experience my wife and I had with trying to make bagels: We happily BUY bagels now and grovel before the makers of it.

Mochi is easier to buy than make -- and then you can do all sorts of things to it.

We're considering a go at the rice-pounding ritual this next New Years though >>> :)

So what i'm always calling: "Sticky Rice" is called mochi? I learned a new thing! :D
Anyone ate a fish that inflates itself with water and gets a spiky ball? (Whats it name again?)


P.S.: Sorry for last off topic post. I'll try to keep it ontopic. ;)

Well, to be accurate, mochi is a very, very dense paste made from "sticky rice". :)

Actually, the spiked fish (the porcupinefish aka the blowfish) is a close relative of the fish that's known for being a dangerous delicacy in Japan, which is the Tetraodontidae, aka the pufferfish/the balloonfish/fugu.

I've never had it, but I have a feeling the thrill of danger and necessary skill of the chef (resulting in a high cost of labor) is what creates demand for it.

Blowfish poison is one of the most powerful poison found in nature, period.
One blowfish has enough poison to kill HUNDREDS of adult human beings.

Needless to say, you have to have a license to cook one.
Cooking and serving a blowfish without license will put you in jail for life.
In professional hands, the chance of you getting poisoned is close to none, but it's not zero. Every year a few people die from accidental blowfish poisoning from eating it.

So yeah, be careful. :heh: