· James Torr · Personal · 1 min read
Nice natto idea from @nattodad. Toast rubbed with garlic after toasting with some rapeseed oil. Natto mixed with a tbsp of home fermented whole grain mustard, a tsp each of cider vinegar and soy. Yum! The home made batch wasn’t at all slimey after a few days in the fridge.
Umeboshi! Japanese fermented salty sour plum. These are a Mirabelle/cherry plum growing close to my house, local as it gets. They're used in dressings, cooked in a sardine stew, or eaten with rice in Japan. Super salty and a bit sour, best not eaten on their own.
This rather sticky looking stuff is natto. Fermented soybeans with Bacillus bacteria. It's chock full of some pretty healthy nutrients (Vitamin K2, nattokinase and others), and is traditionally eaten for breakfast in Japan. Just a few tablespoons mixed with a tare (sauce) of soy, mustard and mirin. The latter can be subbed with a pinch of sugar, msg and a tsp of water.
I've been eating a lot of rice bowls lately and I thought I'd share some basics that I've learned since eating them. I started with some of the donburi style Japanese rice bowls. Oyakodon is lovely, simple chicken vs egg with dashi, sugar and soy, likely ginger and garlic. Gyudon is thin sliced beef with something similar. Korean rice bowls (Bibimbap) are a bit more relaxed and have more variety of toppings.
Yakitori time! Unfortunately we were too busy eating the skewers for me to get any good shots. I've used a small portable BBQ (Weber Go Anywhere) with some lumpwood charcoal (Big K Restaurant grade) to grill these. As some of you may know, the Japanese use a special grade of oak charcoal called binchotan. This burns for a very long time and provides a certain type of radiant heat.