Posted by Benjamin Martin, a 5th year JET in Okinawa, publisher of the blog MoreThingsJapanese.com and author of the YA fantasy novel Samurai Awakening (Tuttle).
Chahan is an Okinawan take on fried rice. Like many Okinawan dishes it is heavily influenced by Chinese cuisine. Like Chanpuru, a similar category of Okinawa cuisine, Chahan’s basic flavor comes from a combination of soy, garlic, and dashi. Since there are many ways to make or buy dashi, the final flavor of the dish, and the ease of its recipe can be changed depending on your approach. Modern Chahan also often has an American influence in the addition of spam. Below is a modern, yet quick take on this Okinawan dish. It is by far my most popular post on MoreThingsJapanese.com. I hope you enjoy my take on a classic Okinawan favorite.
Ingredients
- 3 servings cooked white rice
- 1 piman (green pepper)
- 1 tamanegi (onion)
- 1 package frozen vegetables
- 2 large eggs
- 170g meat (sausage, pork, chicken, spam, whatever)
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil or no-stick cooking spray
Seasoning
- 1/4 tsp ginger
- 2 tsp hachimitsu (honey)
- 1 pkt dashi (5g)
- 1 tbsp powdered or minced garlic
- 4 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sake (cooking, mirin, awamori, nihonshu, etc)
I’ll Make It Myself!: Thanksgiving Recipe Round-up
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel, ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
On my first Thanksgiving in Japan as an exchange student, I had cold tofu for lunch and felt exceptionally sad. After two years of not celebrating the holiday while I was in rural Japan, I decided to host a Thanksgiving potluck for my friends last year, and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Everyone’s favorite dishes–even ones I really disliked as a child, like green bean casserole–were exceptionally good. The atmosphere was good, too–everyone seemed really excited to be there and to share their dish; plus, there was no weird gender segregation in the kitchen!
If you’re living in Japan, making your favorite holiday dishes can be somewhat difficult. Maybe there aren’t fresh green beans in late November at your store; maybe your moven is too small for a turkey. I’ve gathered up some of my recipes (and some from other blogs) that would work well for your fall/winter holiday parties below.
I’ll Make It Myself!: Kabocha Hummus
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel, ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
On the themes of both autumn and non-chickpea hummus-adjacent spreads, I present kabocha hummus, one of the many fine uses for kabocha purée. As I stated in my baba ghanoush recipe, chickpeas/garbanzo beans (Japanese: hiyokomame, ひよこ豆) are relatively expensive in Japan, so I’ve been trying to less expensive chickpea alternatives. If chickpeas are cheap where you live, consider this recipe an interesting seasonal twist on a classic.
I’ll Make It Myself!: Pumpkin Spice Latte with Kabocha Purée (Bonus: Pumpkin Pie Spice Recipe)
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to L.M.at jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
If every Japan food blogger is required by law to cover okonomiyaki (twice), then every food blogger in the US and Canada is required to offer a homemade version of Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.
The most popular variety has pumpkin purée rather than syrup mixed into it. Whether you live in Japan or the US, you don’t have to worrying about buying canned pumpkin before the Thanksgiving hoarders get to it or even stocking up on the orange pumpkins that seem to disappear on November 1 to make your own purée. Where there is squash, there can be “pumpkin” spice latte. No import store required.
I’ll Make It Myself: Kabocha Squash Purée (Pumpkin Purée Substitute)
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Trying to shift your mentality of “I can’t have it because I can’t buy it in Japan” to “I’ll make it myself!” is hard. Really hard. For example, let’s take my recent discovery of how to purée kabocha to substitute for pumpkin purée/canned pumpkin in American recipes. Kabocha and pumpkin have different textures. Pumpkin has more water content, so mashing and processing boiled or baked pumpkin (something I might have phoned my mom about in grad school) results in a texture like thick applesauce. Mashed kabocha is more like mashed potatoes.
Trying to substitute mashed kabocha for canned pumpkin does not work. This is what I was told, and it’s true. But that doesn’t mean you can’t purée it by adding water and blending.
I know, I know.
I’ll Make It Myself!: Baba Ghanoush (Roasted Eggplant and Sesame Spread)
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
I’ve covered bread here, so let’s move on to sandwich fillings, specifically pita. Hummus or falafel seem like obvious choices and are very easy to make at home if you can get the ingredients. In Ishikawa, chickpeas are mostly relegated to the import stores (and are expensive), and my first blender was a cheap plastic thing that did not like anything with a consistency harder than melted butter. Hummus, therefore, was not a food I could make consistently while living out in the country.
Fortunately, I discovered baba ghanoush after yet another incident where I had too many eggplants. This magical food solves all of the making-hummus-in-Japan problems. This eggplant-based spread uses no chickpeas, which means no special trips to the import store; eggplants are plentiful and cheap; and the soft consistency of the vegetable base means you won’t murder your blender. Instead of tahini, which is also import-store-only, we’re going to use white nerigoma, Japanese sesame paste. Tahini is a paste made of roasted sesame seeds; nerigoma is paste made with sesame seeds that haven’t been roasted, so to get a smokier flavor, we’re going to add cumin.
I’ll Make It Myself!: “Korinky Squash Chijimi”
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to L.M. at jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
When I mentioned eating all that squash, you didn’t think I’d leave you hanging, did you?
Korinky (konrinkî, コリンキー) is a strange little squash. I bought it without recognizing the name, since many orange squashes are more or less interchangeable, and to my horror, I found no information on it in English other than this page, but apparently these round or football-shaped brindled beauties can be eaten raw! It’s not bad–reminds me of a cross between a fuyu persimmon (color and texture) and a squash. I had no idea what to do with it, so I turned to facebook and Cookpad before settling on this recipe, which I tweaked to suit my palate.
I’ll Make It Myself!: “Kitchen Library – 9.6.2012”
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to L.M. at jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
A bit of press to start off this reader: a review of this blog from Tony at What Can I Do with a B.A. in Japanese Studies! Welcome, new readers, and よろしくお願いいたします！
I’ll Make It Myself!: “Kitchen Library – 8.28.2012”
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Who wants to go behind the scenes of I’ll Make It Myself?
Not everything I do culinarily makes it to the pages of this blog. Some recipes require a special trip to the cheese counter of a department store–seems a bit unfair for my readers in rural Japan, and trust me, I have been there. Some articles are interesting but don’t merit a full rant–er, analysis.
Click HERE to read more.
I’ll Make It Myself!: “Together in the Kitchen with a Whole Bunch of Eggplants: Eggplant Curry”
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to L.M. at jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
This time on “why did I buy a whole box of this vegetable?”: what to do with six eggplants?
Cheruko is harvesting eggplants–many, many eggplants. They brought eleven of them to dinner a couple weeks ago to distribute, and I took six. My go-to recipes when I am cooking for myself are Italian- and French-style dishes that pair the eggplants with tomatoes, basil, and parsley: ratatouille, gratin, vegetable lasagna. When I am alone in kitchen with an eggplant, these are the dishes I make. However, the texture of these dishes is, unfortunately, precisely what our spouses dislike about eggplants. (Though mine does like Summer Pasta with Eggplant Sauce because the eggplant is cooked down a lot.)
I’ll Make It Myself!: “Summer Pasta with Eggplant Sauce”
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel (formerly The Art of Japan: Kanazawa & Discover Kanazawa), ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
Enjoy Japan’s excellent eggplants and tomatoes in this summery dish! -L
Who needs meat when you have the bounty of summer produce? Today I’m happy to share a recipe I think would be amazing at a dinner party–or simply to make something nice for yourself on a quiet evening at home. Bring out the best in summer tomatoes and eggplants with fresh basil, garlic, and a bit of cheese.
The Rice Cooker Chronicles: “’Rice’ Cooker” by Adam H. Lisbon
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The Rice Cooker Chronicles is a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan. The brain-child of JETwit founder Steven Horowitz (Aichi-ken, Kariya-shi, 1992-94) (and inspired by the book Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant), this series is curated by L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11), the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel/ The Art of Japan: Kanazawa, ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan.
New submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
“Rice” Cooker
by Adam H Lisbon (ALT, Kobe-shi, Hyogo-ken; 2004-2007), Program Associate at the North American Coordinating Council of Japanese Library Resources & Instructor of Japanese Studies at the University at Albany. Adam just finished his graduate program, receiving a master’s in information science. He is currently undertaking the perilous journey to become an academic librarian.
I fry eggs in my rice cooker. If I were still in Japan this would the kind of story I’d tell at the enkai, or to junior high students during my jikoshokai, explaining my wacky foreigner ways. But the truth is I got the idea from Japanese reality TV. The premise? Survive on 百万円 for one month. One contestant cooked everything in her rice cooker…at work, to cut back on her electricity use.
I’ll Make It Myself!: “Hot Weather, Cool Kitchen: Overnight Oats”
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Travel/ The Art of Japan: Kanazawa, ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
There are two import foods I can’t live without: peanut butter and oats.
Let’s talk about oats–I’ll get to the peanut butter later. Sometimes I buy Quaker Oats in bulk from online import stores; sometimes I buy Alishan or Alara jumbo organic oats at Diamond in Omicho Market; sometimes I get Nisshoku oatmeal from the regular supermarket, though I prefer bigger oats. At any rate, there’s a constant supply of oatmeal in my kitchen, which keeps my cereal-obsessed American self quite happy, especially in the dead of the Hokuriku winter when the morning oatmeal warms the kitchen and dining room.
But what about in summer?
I’ll Make It Myself!: Whole-Wheat Pitas (Bread Revolution Series)
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Japan: Kanazawa and Discover Kanazawa, ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
More Bread Revolution and Guide to Flour.
“Pita pockets” didn’t excite me as a kid. Toted as a kid-friendly food, the charm of stuffing sandwich fillings into a bread with a pocket was lost on me. I rediscovered pita–fresh pita–in university at Middle-Eastern diners and as (store-bought) hummus became more mainstream. In Japan, I sometimes bought stacks of pita from the import store, but after preparing for an international cooking lesson, I discovered pita are really simple to make, and more importantly, make a great bread substitute for proper sandwiches in Japan. Save the trip to the import store for chickpeas–you don’t even need to make hummus to go with it!*
I’ll Make It Myself!: Easy Whole-Wheat Pizza Dough (Bread Revolution Series)
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L.M. Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) is the editor of The Ishikawa JET Kitchen: Cooking in Japan Without a Fight. A writer and web administrator for The Art of Japan: Kanazawa and Discover Kanazawa, ze also writes I’ll Make It Myself!, a blog about food culture in Japan, and curates The Rice Cooker Chronicles, a series of essays by JETs and JET alumni on the theme of cooking/eating and being alone in Japan.
New Rice Cooker Chronicles submissions always welcome. Just e-mail it to jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
One thing that always amazes me when I return to the US is the sheer amount of choice one has about food. Order a pizza in the US and you can usually choose whole-wheat or white crust (sometimes even gluten-free); thick or thin crust; marinara sauce or white sauce; any combination of toppings. With the sheer amount of kinds of pizzerias in towns like Ann Arbor–everything from national chains to Silvio’s organic pizza–the sky was the limit.
I know most of my posts start with me gushing about Ann Arbor, then complaining about Japan, then resolving into my resolution to make it myself, but going from choosing the tiniest details of my pizza to angrily eyeing the corn-and-mayo pizza on a rare trip to Coco’s actually wasn’t that shocking until I came back to the US on business in the winter.
