Sunday, February 19, 2012

Japanese food

I am often asked what kind of food I cook at home and my usual answer is that I cook a mix of Japanese and "Western" food - perhaps lately with more of an emphasis on the Japanese food. Most Japanese dishes use a combination of 7 basic seasonings - soya sauce, mirin, sake, vinegar, salt, miso and sugar. I like the fact that the flavours are not overpowering, but tasty enough to bring out the best of the vegetables etc. I am pretty good at reading Japanese cookbooks and producing more or less what the picture shows.
The only area I really struggle in is fish. I don't really like fish all that much anyway, but the kids love it and I know I should try harder to cook it. But the majority of fish in the shops is whole and is often still moving. I don't like bones and I hate the smell of fish on my hands so unless I can find some fillets I very rarely buy it, which is such a shame as there really is a lot of fresh fish available near us.
Fortunately my husband sometimes brings home special treats for the kids - like these little beauties. Both kids went crazy tonight over these dried out whole little fishy things. I almost had to leave the room as they were being lightly grilled.... the smell, the sight, everything about them just makes my stomach turn. But the kids had great fun chomping them down... chewing at their heads, grinding on their tails. Now if it was a good ole lamb chop bone I would be happy, but... these fish are just evil!

2 comments:

  1. shudder...I don't think I would ever eat those by choice. They remind me of all the strange things our dad would force us to eat when I was growing up. He always referred to them as "character building foods".

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  2. I could have written this post. I suck at fish too. Don't mind eating it as long as there are no eyeballs involved, but buying and grilling (aka stinking) is usually beyond me.

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