I don't post English translation of Japanese recipes without permissions from the recipe authors. But feel free to contact me about the dishes you're interested in.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Our First Harvest of Watermelon
Actually this photo was taken about a week ago. The first watermelon from dad's veggie garden. Compared to the luncheon mat underneath, I guess you can tell the size of it. Yep, pretty big-- too big for the fridge in our kitchen. So as we always do, we cut the watermelon into slices and cut off all green parts so that all we have left was flat slabs of edible parts only. Then we put them into big tupperwares, as flat as possible, to fit them into any room left in the fridge. ;P And I gave the rest to my friends.
Seems like we are going to have fewer but sweeter watermelons than last year.
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Monday, July 19, 2010
Hometown Fair
This festive event is held at a local fishing port in mid July every year and features boat paddling race, outdoor amateur singing contest and fireworks at night. This year, someone in the same workplace (but different department) participated in the singing contest, and I was there as a member of the "cheering squad" :P with my colleagues.
I didn't go to the fireworks, but it was on the local TV news this morning. Looks like many young people in yukata came from other towns to make a decent crowd. Good!
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Thursday, July 08, 2010
Colorful Souvenir
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Ume Juice, Again
Forgive me for posting about this juice this late -- in July! Maybe some of you were planning to give it a try this year? But ume plum season is over now and I don't think anyone in Japan can find green, unripe ume plum at the store any more. Well, I could be wrong. I don't know about northern part of Japan like Hokkaido island...
Anyway, let me post this recipe for future reference. This is not a translation of any particular recipe -- it is more like a summary of several similar Japanese recipes.
UME PLUM JUICE
Ingredient
1 kg green, unripe ume plums
1 kg sugar
Wash and pat dry ume. Using a toothpick or something, remove the scab-like thing remaining at where the stem end was. Put the plums in a plastic bag and freeze for more than 24 hours. Place the frozen ume and sugar alternately in a jar. Close the lid and keep in a cool, dark place. Juice will start to come out in a few days and sugar will melt. Eventually it will be like thick syrup. It should be ready when the sugar is completely melt -- in about 10 days. Strain the syrup with a strainer lined with a paper towel or cheesecloth into another container. ** Refrigerate. To make a drink, thin the ume-flavored syrup with water. Adjust the amount of water depending on how strong you want the drink to be. Serve cold.
** My family usually skips this step so I didn't mention it before, but, according to some websites, the syrup will keep longer if you boil it. You could strain it back into the same jar and place it in a big pot with boiling water for about 10 minutes. Cool and refrigerate.
This site has good photos showing the procedure.
I used crystal sugar as in the top photo, but if you live in a warm region, maybe regular sugar is safer, because it melts faster with less risk of alcoholic fermentation occurring in the jar.
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