10-17-2009, 10:35 PM
I lived in Japan for 2 years. My dad's military so we get to move around.
In the Aomori prefecture ( that's reeeely far north ) a traditional day of food would go something like this:
Breakfast- miso soup, a little grilled fish or tofu, and a glass of hot green tea. OR a thick piece of white bread toast (like texas toast) with apple preserves and rice with a raw egg cracked over it with soy sauce.
Lunch- Curry! My favorite is Katsu Curry. It's a tempura battered and breaded thin pork fillet on top of the usual curry with carrots onions potatoes, and a little pickled ginger on the side, over rice. It's great with any white cheese (like mozzerella or monterey jack) too!
-Ramen! Japanese ramen is filled with veggies and slices of pork, even shredded chicken depending on what recipe and what mood you're in.
-Rice balls! These are harder to make. If you find a good sushi rice recipe and buy some Furikake to roll it in you can use a simple mix of canned tuna, mayonnaise (NOT miracle whip! I made that mistake once last year. ICK!), and radish (Daikon if you can get, it if not red radish isn't too far off just use less of it)
Dinner- dinner is more simple than you'd think. Sticky rice with some kind of stir fried veggies and meat. My favorite is lotus and bardock root simmered with potatoes in miso and sirfried with pork or chicken. It's really hearty and yummy. USE Sesame oil or butter NOT olive or other cooking oils. This'll make it taste more like the cooking in the region I lived in.
-Curry is also a dinner food if you want something easy.
- Yakisoba: stir fried noodles and meat and veggies.
- steamed fish and veggies: Tuna or Salmon are less fishy and you can get them fresh(ish) in the states. I recommend steaming them with a quartered onion, potato, if you can find celery root, large chunked carrots, or cabbage (nappa or otherwise).
-Okunomiyaki: if you can find it... this is my FAVORITE food ever! You have to buy the sauce too! the asian market might carry it... not sure. It's like a pancake only you fill it with cabbage, meat of your choice thinly sliced, and whatever veggies you want. The sky is the limit. This time of year (october) you traditionally use lots of different mushrooms and pork/bacon.
Service!
Salad: Japanese like salad too. And it's easy. 1 part lettuce, two parts shredded cabbage, 1 part corn, 1/2 part onion and or radish.
The dressing that my friend Masako taught me to make before I left is as follows
1/2 cup sesame oil
1/2 cup diluted soy sauce (1 part soy to 3 parts water is what I prefer but however salty
you want it really)
dash of garlic powder, curry powder, or ginger powder (whatever you're in the mood for)
Use like italian dressing! If you want to be fancy you can add some whole sesame to it.
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