Melon

Aug 12, 2019 | Kitchen Culture, Summer

Luscious, ripe melon bursting with delicious juice… Not wanting to waste a single drop, I scrape the seeds into a strainer set over a bowl to collect the juice… to make aspic.

In Japan, fresh fruit is often a gift item, especially melons that can be exceedingly expensive. Even in ordinary supermarkets where home cooks shop to serve their families, melons such as the Kumamoto-grown Andes melon you see pictured here can fetch the equivalent of $20 a piece! Not wanting to waste a single drop of the precious, delicious juice that trickled out when I cut the melon in half, I made refreshing aspic from it.

寒天 Kanten

Known as agar-agar in most English-speaking countries, kanten is shelf-stable, unlike its perishable predecessor tokoroten, a stiff jelly processed from aquatic plants called tengusa. Traditionally kanten had been sold in sticks that needed to be soaked, softened and shredded before using. Nowadays, kanten is sold in convenient powdered form. Typically sold in Asian grocery stores in boxes of smaller packets (the one pictured here contains 20, four-gram/2-teaspoon packets), each for use with about 200 cc (about 4/5 American-sized cup) liquid.

 DOWNLOAD recipe for MELON kanten

Summer Festival Food: YATAI

Summer Festival Food: YATAI

Throughout Japan summertime is a time for natsu matsuri: summer festivals. And that means hanabi 花火 (fireworks), mikoshi 神輿 (portable Shinto shrines paraded through the streets during festivals), and bon odori 盆おどりdancing in addition to yatai 屋台 food stalls. Lilting...

Hand-Stretched Noodles

Hand-Stretched Noodles

Hand-Stretched Noodles  手延べ素麺 TÉNOBÉ SŌMEN As the heat and humidity of summer settles in, appetites begin to wane. That’s when chilled sōmen noodles provide solace. Indeed, sōmen have been refreshing heat-weary Japanese since at least the 8th century. Sōmen noodles...

Small Plates

Small Plates

MAMÉ-ZARA   豆皿  (Small Plates) One of the distinctive features of Japanese food arrangement is the use of many small plates and bowls in serving a meal. These vessels are typically varied in appearance (color, shape, design) and generally hold small portions of food...

Seasonal Word Play

Seasonal Word Play

In Japanese, the words for martial spirit (shōbu, 尚武), victory (shōbu, 勝負), and a reed that is a botanical relative of the iris flower (shōbu 菖蒲) make a fortuitous pun. Throughout Japan, during Golden Week, fragrant bunches of shōbu (iris reeds), are sold in...

Recent Posts & Projects