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In that case, do you know much about Japanese culture being half? Like diet, language, or mannerisms?

You don't seem to be fond of rice for breakfast.

T
K

I didn't have a typical Japanese upbringing, and I've lived in over 11 countries, and I left Japan about 18 years ago so I don't feel particularly Japanese myself (I don't really feel much of an attachment to any country or culture) but yes, I did become somewhat familiar. As a kid I could speak Japanese, but along the way I lost most of that.

I don't really mind rice that much for breakfast if I'm hungry, but I usually don't eat a real meal till a few hours after I wake up. Because I don't eat seafood a lot of the Japanese food was lost on me.

Earlier you mentioned that you found fried rice for dinner to be odd, I thought that was interesting. Here in Costa Rica they eat a dish called "gallo pinto" for breakfast which is basically their beans and rice leftovers from lunch and dinner re-fried with some spices. I often eat it for lunch or dinner and my Tico friends find it odd. I find that odd, after all it's the same food they are eating but mixed, and beans and rice for breakfast seems odd to foreigners.

In Brazil, people find American breakfasts (or at least their image of it) to be outrageous. They think eating meat (bacon, sausage) for breakfast is horrifying. But then again, there's no such thing as "eating breakfast" in Brazil. The way to say that is "taking coffee" and that's pretty much their breakfast. They usually will have a piece of bread or some fruit with their coffee and don't like eating much then.

I guess everyone's got their routines. I'm pretty flexible with different cultures, but I just don't like eating much till a bit after I wake up and don't like seafood. So the dishes I liked in Japan were often not very traditional. My favorites were yaki-soba, onigiri, yakitori, karage, okonomiyaki, gyoza, curry rice (I like Indian, Thai and Japanese varieties of curry), tonkatsu, ramen etc.

I also liked nato (fermented beans for those who don't know it) as a kid, but find it kinda icky now. I really didn't like fish and tofu (except the fried tofu pockets), but I liked snacks like nori, calpis or yakult, sembe, pocky, and I absolutely adore koroke.

This is making me hungry!

I need to learn how to prepare a nice Japanese curry. If only to expose my friends to it. They hear curry and they think about Indian or Thai food.

T
K
O

I have never seen anyone make it from scratch, everyone I know starts with these curry blocks (or curry cubes) that make it pretty easy. You should be able to get them at your local Japanese emporium and follow the directions on the box.

Now I, in turn, am dying to figure out how to make a good panang curry, which I've never seen home made. Down here there is a Thai restaurant that butchers it, and it's one of my favorite dishes.

Well, we've been talking about starting a curry thread, from simple with cubes or just powder to the regional and complex.

A lot of us are interested from different viewpoints. I've two curries in mind, one, a yellow thai curry cheapo lunch dish that was a comfort food for me at a neighborhood place, and another bunch, the then to me wildly hot indian curries at the restaurant below our studio gallery in the seventies, which I take as multiply more complex. Naturally, I'd be interested in panang curry. Recipes for that are probably in some food blogs, but, as usual, they may vary.

Back later..

Panang Curry eh? If you're ever in DC, hit me up. Lots of good Thai food in my neighborhood.

T
K
O

I left a Charmaine Solomon (very well-respected Asian food author here) one for you on the last thread you complained about this on.

Not sure if you didn't see it, or turned up your nose at it?

If you just didn't see it, I'll look for it again.

If you didn't like it, I won't.

It didn't seem to be the kind I'm looking for (there seem to be very different curries going under that name), but without access to the ingredients in Costa Rica I really can't tell.

Edit: just read it again. I'm pretty sure it's quite different from what I want.

DC never struck me as very interesting but if the barbarian hordes force me there one day I'll have to take you up on that.

DTKO your breakfast rice dish is a staple here in Hawaii. "Breakfast, lunch and dinner".

Fair enough.


I literally have hundreds of Asian food recipes, as I am sure do others, so if you can ever be bothered describing what you want a bit, I imagine somebody will have something resembling it to offer you.

Well, I started the Curry thread. I ventured into panang curry, and did run into something the sent my computer whiffling, cursor doing a jig, and so on. But I'll be back on that. In my quick look, panang curries seemed to vary a lot.

Please post your mems of panang curries, Robert, so we can help to sift what is out there.
http://able2know.org/topic/135195-1

There's also the fact that it seems way more involved than I'm willing to do.

I just read that you do curry from scratch, while my idea of doing curry from scratch is to start with curry powders and make the sauce (as opposed to curry blocks that have both the curry powder and the rest).

It sounds like the curry I want really does need to be made from scratch, so I'll probably not do it at all (this is my disclaimer so that others don't work to dig up stuff for me that I won't use) but what I ate was like this photo:



Except it was a chicken curry, and a lot lighter (seemed to have coconut milk) than what I've read is a typical panang and served with fresh basil in it. Others from San Diego might know what I'm talking about from the Spices restaurants there are there.

Anywho, I suspect that the reason the Thai restaurants here butcher it is because some of the spices aren't available, and I further suspect that even if they were it would be a bit too involved for me to try on my own. So I don't want to trouble you with recipes.

That's beginning to sound like a thai yellow curry (chicken) that I like, which also probably had coconut milk and basil, at a certain restaurant. I did some googleing a few weeks ago on thai yellow curries, and remember some products in bottles and packages.. which I didn't pay that much attention to as I was going to do it on my own from the spices (fat chance). I already saved recipes. I'll post if I find a short and snappy one.

Here's one I saved, and it does use curry powder not unlike the one I have.

I won't do any more recipe chasing, but you might be able to adapt this one -

file:///Users/ossomele/Documents/Curry%20Chicken%20-%20Thai%20Curry%20Chicken%20Recipe.webarchive

Oy, here -
http://thaifood.about.com/od/thairecipes/r/yellowcurrychic.htm

Anyway, this one seems simple enough and would probably still be good minus a few items.

I'm going to try it anyway.

I got Dys, famous tofu hater, to admit he likes tofu pockets when I mentioned liking tofu crisp on the outside with spicy sausage or some such on the inside. Some tofu hate has to do with teasing others who are tofu lovers.

Now I have to look up kaboke, or whatever it was.

Or were you talking the pockets (little bags) with rice and rice vinegar? I like those too... I've got a small can of Inarizushi-no-moto waiting for me to just make some rice already.

Yes....it looks like a yellow curry base, with basil and coconut and mebbe stock added.

Or, probably not basil, but kaffir lime leaves, which I've never seen in all my foodie (I was a foodie long before most ever heard the word and all those other people have been obnoxious) life, not even at Talin, a cool place we have here too many miles away. I do admit to having some Thai basil growing in sand, literally sand, near my front door. That's quite near the goathead weeds that I just weeded.

Hmmmm.

I LOVE those lime leaves....but Robert specifically said it had fresh basil in it.


Not that this excludes the lime leaves!


Can you not get them where you are? They are a wonderful ingredient...usually left whole and steeped in the curry liquid during cooking.