Monday, December 10, 2012

CULINARY JAPAN

culinary japan
The next is the food Takoyaki


TAKOYAKI

Takoyaki (たこ焼き or 蛸焼) is a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special takoyaki pan. It is typically filled with minced or diced octopus, tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled ginger, and green onion. Takoyaki are brushed with takoyaki sauce, a sauce similar to Worcestershire sauce, and mayonnaise. The takoyaki is then sprinkled with green laver (aonori) and shavings of dried bonito (katsuobushi). There are many variations to the takoyaki recipe. For example, ponzu i.e. soy sauce with dashi and citrus vinegar, goma-dare i.e. sesame-and-vinegar sauce or vinegared dashi.
Takoyaki was first popularized in Osaka, where a street vendor named Tomekichi Endo is credited with its invention in 1935. Takoyaki inspired by Akashiyaki, a small round dumpling from the city of Akashi in Hyōgo Prefecture made of an egg-rich batter and octopus. Takoyaki was initially popular in the Kansai region, but later spread to the Kantō region and other areas of Japan. Takoyaki is associated with yatai street food stalls, but there are many well-established takoyaki specialty restaurants, particularly in the Kansai region. Takoyaki is now sold at commercial outlets, such as supermarkets and 24-hour convenience stores.
Yaki is derived from "yaku" (焼く) which is one of the cooking methods in Japanese cuisine, meaning "to fry or grill", and can be found in the names of other Japanese cuisine items such as teppanyaki, yakitori, teriyaki and sukiyaki.

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Sunday, December 9, 2012

CULINARY JAPAN

culinary japan
The next is the food
Tempura



TEMPURA

(天ぷら or 天麩羅 tenpura) is a Japanese dish of seafood or vegetables that have been battered and deep fried.










  
Origins

The recipe tempura was introduced to Japan by Portuguese Jesuit missionaries particularly active in the city of Nagasaki also founded by the Portuguese, during the sixteenth century. Portuguese Jesuit, during the same period that panko and such dishes as tonkatsu were also introduced from Portugal. Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan, reportedly loved tempura

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Saturday, December 8, 2012

CULINARY JAPAN

culinary japan
The next is the food
Ramen


ONIGIRI 

       O-nigiri (お握り or 御握り; おにぎり), also known as o-musubi (お結び; おむすび) or rice ball, is a Japanese food made from white rice formed into triangular or oval shapes and often wrapped in nori (seaweed). Traditionally, an onigiri is filled with pickled ume (umeboshi), salted salmon, katsuobushi, kombu, tarako, or any other salty or sour ingredient as a natural preservative. Because of the popularity of onigiri in Japan, most convenience stores stock their onigiri with various fillings and flavors. There are even specialized shops which only sell onigiri to take away.


 HISTORY 

In Lady Murasaki's 11th-century diary Murasaki Shikibu Nikki, she writes of people eating rice balls. At that time, onigiri were called tonjiki and often consumed at outdoor picnic lunches.[8] Other writings, dating back as far as the seventeenth century, state that many samurai stored rice balls wrapped in bamboo sheath as a quick lunchtime meal during war, but the origins of onigiri are much earlier even than Lady Murasaki. Before the use of chopsticks became widespread, in the Nara period, rice was often rolled into a small ball so that it could be easily picked up. In the Heian period, rice was also made into small rectangular shapes known as tonjiki so that they could be piled onto a plate and easily eaten.
From the Kamakura period to the early Edo period, onigiri was used as a quick meal. This made sense as cooks simply had to think about making enough onigiri and did not have to concern themselves with serving. These onigiri were simply balls of rice flavored with salt. Nori did not become widely available until the Genroku era in the mid-Edo period, when the farming of nori and fashioning it into sheets became widespread.
It was believed that onigiri could not be mass produced as the hand-rolling technique was considered too difficult for a machine to replicate. In the 1980s, however, a machine that made triangular onigiri was devised. This was initially met with skepticism because, rather than having the filling traditionally rolled inside, the flavoring was simply put into a hole in the onigiri, and the hole was hidden by nori. Since the onigiri made by this machine came with nori already applied to the rice ball, over time the nori became unpleasantly moist and sticky, clinging to the rice. A packaging improvement allowed the nori to be stored separately from the rice. Before eating, the diner could open the packet of nori and wrap the onigiri. The limitation of the machines that required using a hole for filling the onigiri instead of rolling the filling with the rice actually made new flavors of onigiri easier to produce as this cooking process did not require changes from ingredient to ingredient. Modern mechanically wrapped onigiri are specially folded so that the plastic wrapping is actually folded between the nori and rice to act as a moisture barrier. When the packaging is pulled open at both ends, the nori and rice come into contact.

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Friday, December 7, 2012

CULINARY JAPAN

Still culinary Japan
The next is the food Ramen


RAMEN 

       Ramen (ラーメン rāmen, IPA: [ɽaːmeɴ]) is a Japanese noodle dish. It consists of Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a meat- or (occasionally) fish-based broth, often flavored with soy sauce or miso, and uses toppings such as sliced pork (チャーシュー chāshū), dried seaweed (海苔 nori), kamaboko, green onions, and occasionally corn. Almost every locality in Japan has its own variation of ramen, from the tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen of Kyushu to the miso ramen of Hokkaido.

HISTORI

Ramen is of Chinese origin; however, it is unclear when ramen was introduced to Japan. The etymology of ramen is a topic of debate. One theory is that ramen is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese lamian (拉麺), meaning "hand-pulled noodles." A second theory proposes 老麺 (laomian, "old noodles") as the original form, while another states that ramen was initially 鹵麺 (lǔmiàn), noodles cooked in a thick, starchy sauce. A fourth theory is that the word derives from 撈麵 (lāomiàn, "lo mein"), which in Cantonese 撈 means to "stir", and the name refers to the method of preparation by stirring the noodles with a sauce.
Until the 1950s, ramen was called shina soba (支那そば, literally "Chinese soba") but today chūka soba (中華そば, also meaning "Chinese soba") or just Ramen (ラーメン) are more common, as the word "支那" (shina, meaning "China") acquired a pejorative connotation.[4]
By 1900, restaurants serving Chinese cuisine from Canton and Shanghai offered a simple ramen dish of noodles (cut rather than hand pulled), a few toppings, and a broth flavored with salt and pork bones. Many Chinese also pulled portable food stalls, selling ramen and gyōza dumplings to workers. By the mid 1900s, these stalls used a type of a musical horn called a charumera (チャルメラ, from the Portuguese charamela) to advertise their presence, a practice some vendors still retain via a loudspeaker and a looped recording. By the early Shōwa period, ramen had become a popular dish when eating out.
After World War II, cheap flour imported from the U.S. swept the Japanese market. At the same time, millions of Japanese troops had returned from China and continental East Asia from their posts in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Many of these returnees had become familiar with Chinese cuisine and subsequently set up Chinese restaurants across Japan. Eating ramen, while popular, was still a special occasion that required going out.
In 1958, instant noodles were invented by Momofuku Ando, the Taiwanese-Japanese founder and chairman of Nissin Foods, now run by his son Koki Ando. Named the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century in a Japanese poll, instant ramen allowed anyone to make this dish simply by adding boiling water.
Beginning in the 1980s, ramen became a Japanese cultural icon and was studied around the world from many perspectives. At the same time, local varieties of ramen were hitting the national market and could even be ordered by their regional names. A ramen museum opened in Yokohama in 1994.

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Thursday, December 6, 2012

CULINARY JAPAN

 Japanese culinary first I will introduce is sushi

SUSHI


         Sushi (すし, 寿司, 鮨, 鮓, 寿斗, 寿し, 壽司) is a Japanese food consisting of cooked vinegared rice (shari) combined with other ingredients (neta), usually raw fish or other seafood. Neta and forms of sushi presentation vary, but the ingredient which all sushi have in common is vinegared rice called sushi-meshi.



History


The original type of sushi, known today as nare-zushi (馴れ寿司, 熟寿司) was first developed in Southeast Asia possibly along what is now known as the Mekong River and then spread to southern China before introduction to Japan.[citation needed] The term sushi comes from an archaic grammatical form no longer used in other contexts; literally, sushi means "sour-tasting", a reflection of its historic fermented roots. The oldest form of sushi in Japan, narezushi, still very closely resembles this process, wherein fish is fermented via being wrapped in soured fermenting rice. The fish proteins break down via fermentation into its constituent amino acids. The fermenting rice and fish results in a sour taste and also one of the five basic tastes, called umami in Japanese. In Japan, narezushi evolved into oshizushi and ultimately Edomae nigirizushi, which is what the world today knows as "sushi".
Contemporary Japanese sushi has little resemblance to the traditional lacto-fermented rice dish. Originally, when the fermented fish was taken out of the rice, only the fish was consumed and the fermented rice was discarded. The strong-tasting and smelling funazushi, a kind of narezushi made near Lake Biwa in Japan, resembles the traditional fermented dish. Beginning in the Muromachi period (AD 1336–1573) of Japan, vinegar was added to the mixture for better taste and preservation. The vinegar accentuated the rice's sourness and was known to increase its shelf life, allowing the fermentation process to be shortened and eventually abandoned. In the following centuries, sushi in Osaka evolved into oshi-zushi. The seafood and rice were pressed using wooden (usually bamboo) molds. By the mid 18th century, this form of sushi had reached Edo (contemporary Tokyo).
The contemporary version, internationally known as "sushi", was created by Hanaya Yohei (1799–1858) at the end of the Edo period in Edo. The sushi invented by Hanaya was an early form of fast food that was not fermented (therefore prepared quickly) and could be eaten with one's hands at a roadside or in a theatre. Originally, this sushi was known as Edomae zushi because it used freshly caught fish in the Edo-mae (Edo Bay or Tokyo Bay). Though the fish used in modern sushi no longer usually comes from Tokyo Bay, it is still formally known as Edomae nigirizushi.

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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

INDONESIAN CULINARY

Still culinary Indonesia
The next is the food bakso (meatballs)


BAKSO (MEATBALLS) 


        Bakso or baso is Indonesian meatball or meat paste made from beef surimi and is similar in texture to the Chinese beef ball, fish ball, or pork ball.Bakso is commonly made from beef with a small quantity of tapioca flour, however bakso can also be made from other ingredients, such as chicken, fish, or shrimp. Bakso are usually served in a bowl of beef broth, with yellow noodles, bihun (rice vermicelli), salted vegetables, tofu, egg (wrapped within bakso), Chinese green cabbage, bean sprout, siomay or steamed meat dumpling, and crisp wonton, sprinkled with fried shallots and celery. Bakso can be found all across Indonesia; from the traveling cart street vendors to restaurants. Today various types of ready to cook bakso also available as frozen food commonly sold in supermarkets in Indonesia. Slices of bakso often used and mixed as compliments in mi goreng, nasi goreng, or cap cai recipes.
Unlike other meatball recipes, bakso has a consistent firm, dense, homogeneous texture due to the polymerization of myosin in the beef surimi.


Origin


The name Bakso originated from bak-so (肉酥, Pe̍h-ōe-jī: bah-so·), the Hokkien pronunciation for "shredded meat" (Rousong). This suggests that bakso has Indonesian Chinese cuisine origin. Today most of the bakso vendors are Javanese from Wonogiri (a town near Solo) and Malang. Bakso Solo and Bakso Malang are the most popular variant; the name comes from the city it comes from, Solo in Central Java and Malang in East Java. In Malang, Bakso Bakar (roasted bakso) is also popular. As most Indonesians are Muslim, generally Bakso is made from beef or is mixed with chicken.

 
Variations
  • Bakso urat: bakso filled with tendons and coarse meat
  • Bakso ayam: chicken bakso
  • Bakso bola tenis or bakso telur: tennis ball sized bakso with boiled chicken egg wrapped inside
  • Bakso gepeng: flat bakso
  • Bakso ikan: fish bakso (fish ball)
  • Bakso udang: shrimp bakso
  • Bakso Malang: A bowl of bakso dish from Malang city, East Java; complete with noodle, tofu, siomay and fried wonton
  • Bakso keju: new recipe bakso filled with cheese

Health issue


In Indonesia, borax is often added into beef surimi mixture in order to preserve the produced bakso, also to made bakso more chewy (from borax induced myosin cross-linking) with less usage of meat. As a result, bakso is often listed by Indonesian Food and Drug Administration as an unhealthy foodstuff. The country's Directorate of Consumer Protection warns of the risk of liver cancer caused by high consumption over a period of 5–10 years. Therefore, frozen bakso being sold at supermarkets and also traditional markets in Indonesia are required to be borax free.

Price
approximately Rp. 7,000 to Rp. 20,000


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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

INDONESIAN CULINARY

Still in culinary Indonesia
The next is the food gudeg


GUDEG

     Gudeg is a traditional food from Yogyakarta and Central Java, Indonesia. Gudeg is made from young Nangka (jack fruit) boiled for several hours with palm sugar, and coconut milk. Additional spices include garlic, shallot, candlenut, coriander seed, galangal, bay leaves, and teak leaves, the latter giving a reddish brown color to the dish. It is also called Green Jack Fruit Sweet Stew.
Gudeg is served with white rice, chicken, hard-boiled egg, tofu and/or tempeh, and a stew made of crisp beef skins (sambal goreng krecek).
There are several types of gudeg; dry, wet, Yogyakarta style, Solo style and East-Javanese style. Dry gudeg has only a bit of coconut milk and thus has little sauce. Wet gudeg includes more coconut milk. The most common gudeg comes from Yogyakarta, and is usually sweeter, drier and reddish in color because of the addition of teak leaves. Solo gudeg from the city of Surakarta and is more watery and soupy with lots of coconut milk and whitish in color because teak leaves are generally not added. The East-Javanese style of gudeg has a spicier and hotter taste compared to the Yogyakarta-style gudeg (which is sweeter).
Gudeg is traditionally associated with Yogyakarta, and Yogyakarta is sometimes nicknamed "Kota Gudeg" (city of gudeg). The center of Yogyakarta gudeg restaurants is in the Wijilan area to the east side of the Yogyakarta Kraton (Sultan's palace).


Price
approximately Rp. 7,000 to Rp. 50,000

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