Doing Groceries in Japan

 

Alright .

You’re in Japan .

There’s all these street foods you want to try out. And Izakayas. And restaurants.And Patisserie.And bakeries.And cafes .

Matcha in creams , squids in packs, octopus in balls , chicken on sticks , beef on teppan, eels in rice bowls, pork in pots , oysters on grills,sushis on conveyor belts and all that craziness

Wait a moment here .

What if you were here not as a tourist but on a working holiday .

What if you were doing odd jobs , trying to save as money as possible BUT did not want to die from an overdose of cup ramen and food high in cholesterol, salt and preservatives.

Looks like you are in for a big trouble.

Don’t worry , I have been there and I am still learning everyday and honing my skills of smart grocery shopping. And I thought I might share some of the things I learnt with people in the same food crisis that I am in.

First of all , I recommend you to go around in your town and go to different supermarkets . One easy way to remember them is by their logos that they usually have in big neon lighting.

The tricky part is that different supermarkets are good or cheap for different items .

When I used to live in Kyoto , one of the supermarkets that I used to go often was Fresco. They had a baby carrot package for 100 yen that I could not find anywhere else , also a big packet of green leaf for 100 yen that I could find only in one branch of fresco . You get my point , the first rule is to go around , observe and to take mental notes .

Also many supermarkets have a bakery of their own and they sell baked goods like different kinds of bread, donuts , croissants and cakes. The technique here for saving money is to go near the supermarket’s closing time , they start giving discounts which can even go up to 50% . In those cases they will put a red or yellow sticker which says how much discount each item has.

Also , most supermarkets have a bento or cooked food corner where you will find maki rolls , fried foods, yakitori , bento , salads, sandwitches and noodles. They can be expensive but it also varies from one place to another.For example, in Osaka there is a chain supermarket called Tamade , and compared to the supermarkets in Kyoto the cooked food here is a lot cheaper .

These cooked food , also has times where they get the discount stickers on them because they have a limited shelf life.

There is another option for doing groceries which is shopping streets or local grocery shops.Thee shopping streets have shorter business hours compared to the supermarkets so if you have a busy schedule or you can not do your groceries during daytime then it’s not suitable for you.But do check out the grocery stores in shopping streets because they sometimes have vegetables and fruits in lot cheaper price and also you can find fresher vegetables in these shops. I used to go to a store in Kyoto’s Sanjo shotengai ( A shopping street near Nijo castle) and it was the only shop in that area that had spicy green chilli.

The next type of shop that needs a little bit of looking for but they are a paradise once you’ve found them is wholesale markets. So these are the shops where people go to buy food stuff in bulk and as you can imagine they have a lot of varieties and it’s cheap! The one thing that you wouldn’t probably expect to be cheap but are , are ice creams.Remember that blueberry cheesecake flavored icecream that you couldn’t but in Family mart because it’s too expensive , you can buy it here for a lot cheaper.I have seen ice creams that cost 140 yen in a normal convenience store for around 80 yen in one of these wholesale supermarkets.Not just ice creams , but everything from milk , chips , yogurt, desserts , sauces , powders , everything can be found for at lot cheaper price.The best thing is that although they are wholesale shops , they don’t require you to buy a whole carton of something.You can shop just as you would in any other shop. The only drawback of these wholesale shops is that they almost always have a line at the register since you and me are not the only one training to attain ninja skills at grocery shopping.

Alright , there is this one more shop I can’t skip and it is Lawson 100yen store. They are a chain shop ( Lawson duh) but they are different from other convenience stores. They sell salad packets , meat products like bacon and chorizo slices , apples , oranges , tomatoes , lettuce , onions , etc for 100 yen ( 108 yen with VAT) along with cycle locks, soaps, detergents, gloves , stationaries etc . Well, when it comes to sauces , cup noodles, cooking paste tubes , spices and other food products there are other 100 yen shops like Flets and Daiso that have things for 100 yen.But Lawson 100 yen is a winner when it comes to fresh vegetables , fried chicken items and breads in terms of variations , quality and amount. They also have the discount stickers just like the supermarkets which is a huge plus point.

Before I end , I will give a tiny list of items divided according to their prices :

Expensive :

1. Meat
2. Fish, sea food
3. Cheese
4. Tomatoes
5. Grapes , Figs , Pineapples , most fruits
6. Tea , coffee , cocoa , wine
7. Sauces used to cook meat
8. Sandwitch ( I don’t know why but whether it’s bakeries or convenience stores or supermarkets , sandwitches are more expensive compared to other bread items)

Medium price :

1. Kimchi
2. Persimmons
3. Grapefruit
4. Capsicum
5. Jam
6. Miso
7. Cucumber ( Depends )
8. Cabbage
9. Milk
10. Green leafy vegetables

Cheap :

1. Carrots
2. Beer
3. Tofu
4. Onions
5. Nattou
6. Been sprouts
7. Vinegar for cooking
8. Yogurt
9. Snacks (chips,biscuits , cookies , crackers , chocolates, candies , senbei)
10. pastes ( wasabi , mustard , karashi , momijioroshi , garlic , ginger , ume)
11. Grapefruits
12. Bananas
13. Juice , carbonated drinks , cold tea , liquid coffee drinks
14. Bread
15. Canned food ( Tuna, sweet corn, tomatoes , fruits like oranges and peach , mushrooms, different kinds of fishes , crabs , etc)
16. Prepared food for microwaving ( Curry , pasta , etc)
17. Frozen gyoza
18. Packaged crab meat , kamaboko ( fish cakes) , Chikuwa
19. Negi ( Long onion)
20. Potatoes

I hope you have fun grocery shopping !

Cheesy Shoyu Yukari Pasta

It’s a rainy holiday.

You have a great movie waiting to be watched.

Or a great book waiting to be read.

And all you want to do is to curl up in your favorite comfort zone, the couch or the bed .

But. You still need to eat.

This quick and super easy spaghetti recipe is here to save your day.

Cut onions and long beans into small pieces.

Dice sausages .(Don’t make them too small).

Slice two or three green chili into halves.

Boil spaghetti and strain it.

Take a pan, add some olive oil (soybean oil works just fine) . Add the long bean, green chili, onions and the sausages. Add yukari powder and salt to it. Cover it for a bit.

Yum factor : Juicy and tangy ! 

Yukari powder is a Japanese seasoning powder made from dried purple shiso leaves and salt. It has a tangy flavor to it, giving the dish a refreshing taste.

Yukari : The purple magic powder .

 

Add the spaghetti to it. Add a bit of Worcestershire sauce, sprinkle tiny bit of sugar and then add some shoyu sauce. And there you have it, your wafuu (Japanese style pasta).

Wait, it’s not over yet. Take a paneer, a grater and make cheese snow on your spaghetti and mix it well.

Be generous on the cheese !

Take this in a bowl and enjoy it in your sweetest comfort zone .

Fried Mushrooms and Spaghetti

One of the most interesting things for me to do is to cook with this person I call the Grinch .Cooking with him is like watching the flame test for the first time in a Chemistry lab (Or watch the Christmas tree go up in flames )

Grinch and I cooked lunch today . It was :

• Fried Mushrooms ( Appetizer )
• Spaghetti with minced beef and spring onion ( main dish )

How to make :

Fried Mushrooms :

We got bunches of beautiful pearl white Oyster mushrooms .

Peaking into Santa’s bag.

Absolute beauties.

Wash the mushrooms and tear the individual caps from the bunch . Leave them to dry while you make the batter .

Use mortar and pestle to grind some black and white peppers .

Flavor eggs

Take some flour in a bowl.

Conquer your tabula rasa

Add a spoonful of baking soda . Add a pinch of salt , a pinch of red chili powder ( or Cayenne pepper ) , a pinch of turmeric powder and sprinkle some thyme and the ground pepper that you made .

Before doing this , Grinch said he is going to add a secret ingredient to it and brought out cold beer from the fridge .

Add that beer and start mixing until you get the desired viscosity of the batter . The batter looks thick and nice and smells even nicer .

Heat up some oil in a pan . Dip the mushrooms in the batter and fry it . ( too bad we couldn’t deep fry it due to lack of oil and utensils ) .

Place a kitchen roll on a plate to soak out the excess oil and place the fried mushrooms on it .

Fermentation on Fungi : Crunchy and spritzy on the outside , succulent on the inside.

Spaghetti with minced beef and spring onion :

He got me flowers !(I mean spring onions!)

Wash the spring onion and chop it into thin ( not super thin ) rings . Cut bell peppers into cubes .

Sometimes I just feel like stringing them together into a necklace.

Take whole baby corns , boil them for very small amount of time ( you don’t want them to lose the crunchiness) .

Cut them into medium small pieces after boiling . cut some green chilies.Slice some onions .

Now , season the minced beef .First , let water flow through the minced beef to get rid of the excess blood. Then add ground black and white pepper , salt , Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco to the minced beef and mix it . You don’t want to squeeze it too hard and turn it into a patty .

A volcano full of flavors ready to erupt .

Boil the spaghetti .

I’m going to give a quick info about the ingredients and the prices because most of these are rarely used in most Bengali kitchen : 1.Beef 172g 103 BDT (~1 USD) 2.Worcestershire sauce 180 BDT (~2 USD ) 3.Tabasco 135 BDT( ~2 USD)  4. Spaghetti 85BDT (~1 USD )

Add the seasoned minced beef to a pan of heated oil and stir it a little . Add onions . Stir it a bit more and let the water from the meat evaporate so that the spaghetti doesn’t turn soggy .Add the spring onion , bell pepper , baby corn and green chili. Then add boiled Spaghetti . Mix it well .

The 2B wonder  : Beef and  Black pepper .

Take out the remaining beer out from the fridge and enjoy with your lunch  !

Happy mushrooming  !

Cornpaneeronion is your best companion

It’s winter and it’s the best time for having corns in Bangladesh, actually the only time you can find corn other than the canned ones. My mother went on a crazy corn hoarding rampage and bought home a lot of corns and she packed me boiled corncobs for lunch.I have had corn cobs the night before and also for breakfast and didn’t feel like having corn again. After I came back home in the evening, I was left with corns in my bag and that’s when it poppped up in my head : Corn, paneer and onions !

First , remove the kernels from the boiled corncob . Mince some onions and green chillies. Grate paneer onto the kernels and mix the onions, chillies and grated paneer with salt, powdered black pepper and a tiny pinch of sugar.

And it was all yellow

I opened my fridge and with utter horror it hit me that I didn’t have any butter. So I used vegetable oil. If you have butter, heat it on a pan, add the corn , onion and paneer mix and stir fry it on medium heat. (Tip: If the heat is too strong, the paneer is going to burn before being mixed well with the corn) If you want a bit of meat, you can always add minced meat or sliced sausages (Or if you are a seafood person like me you can add prawn or crab meat ; crab works very well with corn).

Serve it with some coriander sprinkled on top.

Rather be corny than lonely.😂

Rice salad and Chicken with yogurt gravy

I had the lucky chance of being an apprentice to Grinch today. And today’s lunch turned out exceptionally comforting and delicious at the same time . We had lunch while watching Princess diaries on the TV and the food was so good it made my foot pop.So I decided to share this refreshing recipe so that everyone can get their feet popped.

Rice is the staple food for Bangladeshi people but it does become a bit mundane when you have white rice twice every single day. Moreover I have an insatiable obsession with salad so you can imagine how excited I was to have something that we named rice salad.

First , you have to cook rice.

Take some rice in a pot and wash thoroughly. Keep throwing away the water and adding clean water until the water you are washing the rice with turns from cloudy to clear. Press down your palm on the rice and fill up the pot with water upto your wrist.Then put it on heat until the rice gets cooked.

When the rice is cooked , drain it. Hold down the lid tightly,only keeping a narrow slit for the water to flow out, using pot-holders. Place the rice with the lid on , and slanted on a pot.

The struggle is real. The first time I did it , I dropped a quarter of the rice on the floor.

Cut baby corn , bell peppers and spring onion and onions.

Baby sunflowers

Heat some oil in a pan, add salt , rice and the seasonings and stir it until everything is mixed well.

Your rice salad is ready to make you feel healthy.

Now , the chicken with yogurt gravy.

Start by seasoning your chicken with salt, dhone gura (coriander seed powder), turmeric powder, red chili powder and nutmeg powder.Leave it in the fridge.

Cut some mushrooms, broccoli and string beans to cook with chicken and then boil them.

While the veggies are being boiled, get started on the gravy. Take yogurt in a small bowl, add butter (be generous and don’t worry about calories) and mix well. You’ll be amazed at how creamy the butter turns the yogurt. Add minced onions , fenugreek powder, salt ,rosemary and tabasco.

 

Kitchen serendipity: Tabasco made a face.

Then you add a magic ingredient : sesame seeds toasted in mustard oil. Heat a small amount of mustard oil in a pan and add sesame seeds and toast till the seeds become light brown (be careful not to burn them).

So . So . Exciting .

Mix the magic ingredient with the gravy and it’s done. Put it in the fridge to cool it down.

Now get back to the chicken. Heat some oil in a pan.Add the.chicken and when the meat starts getting cooked, add the mushroom.

Chicken, mushroom and spice is chemistry done right.

Then add the veggies.

Almost done !

I can not wait anymore.

Get your grooves on with the gravy.

Nostalgic cafe

“The Greek word for “return” is nostos. Algos means “suffering.” So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”
― Milan Kundera , Innocence

 

Today , me , my mother and my sister were looking for a place to have lunch at, in the middle of Dhanmondi , a place far away from home and a place that we don’t know very well. Right when I was looking up at the sky for a miracle , I saw a sign that said “NOSTALGIC” at the top of a red , tall building .In front of the building , there were cards hanging from a tree that read ” Nostalgic cafe. Meet . Eat . Repeat. ” All three of us were excited to be nostalgic ( No, we were just too hungry to walk any further) so we went up to the 9th floor of the building where Nostalgic cafe was located .

At the entrance , we were met by two large pots containing tiny fish swimming inside and there was a spacious interior decorated with paintings on glass walls , tiny plant pots on the wall and painted trees on pillars and the ceilings . We chose a table beside the window and it was very nice for someone like me who likes views from a height .

The napkins remind me of yacht sailing with their masts open.

 

You can sit under a concrete tree and reminisce about sitting under the a real tree.

 

There are many plants inside the cafe so if you like greenery around you even if it’s potted, you would love the place.

 

 

As I’ve said , LOTS of photosynthesis going on. The plants need to eat too!

 

No , it doesn’t turn . But the cushions are certainly nice ( and yellow ) .

The menu looked very artsy too with bicycles and rikshas sketched across brown paper .Charmed by the nice decor , I was still humming , until I stopped abruptly as I went through the menu. It was way more expensive than I had expected . But the cafe does accept cards and that was a great relief for me .

The moment when brown paper starts titillating the olfactory senses.

We ordered a seafood soup for three people from the Group soup section , grilled potatoes and steamed chicken momo . For drinks , we ordered a lemonade and a glass of sprite.

It also had salad , Indian cuisine , a pasta section , steaks , chicken side dishes , chowmein , paratha wraps , frappes , mock tails and coffee drinks on their menu.

These potato wedges gave my mom the nostalgia moment. She said the sauce tasted like Frankfurter sausages that my grandmother used to cook for my mother’s tiffin.

The steamed momo was nice but the skin could have been a bit more softer . And beware , the dip is very spicy.

I am eating Pyramids.

Mushrooms , Prawn , Lemon grass , coriander , chicken , squid.

Heartwarming.

I was very happy to see that the soup was clear unlike many places in Dhaka ,where soup is so thick it is almost like a sauce or gravy . A funny thing happened with the soup. The waiter who brought the soup furrowed his brows and confusedly looked down at the soup for a few seconds and said , ” There is no squid in the soup.” and took away the soup with him and came back with SQUIDDED soup a few minutes later .

The cafe also has a large smoking zone with a small balcony which I liked because in most places , smoking zones are tiny stuffy rooms .

Cute plants in the balcony 

 

I loved their wooden board that the bill came with .

The total bill was 1300 BDT ( around 15 USD) which pulled me out of the nostalgia and gave me a reality check .

They said hi ! 

Their address is Level 9,51, Satmasjid Road, Dhanmondi.(Beside dhanmondi pizza hut and above Standard Chartered Bank – Dhanmondi Branch) ; check it out if you are around that place and craving some nostalgia .

20 minutes white sauce Conchiglie

Today my mother came back from her office and found her three little (maybe not so little,just lazy) hungry children waiting for lunch. I went to see what she was going to cook and by that time she had already taken out the ingredients on the cutting board. She wanted to use chicken but it was frozen and we did not have time for it so she defrosted a packet of sausages by dipping it in warm water.By that time I realized I’m too slow paced compared to my mother so I decided to spread her wisdom of 20 minutes cooking through my blog instead of helping her .

Chop some onions , slice some garlics,slice your sausages and then heat some oil in a pan, throw the onions, garlics and sausages into the pan.

Eco-friendly cooking: Fry your onions using solar energy . 😂

Don’t stop mixing !

When the onions start looking beige , add some flour. Then let the flour heat up a bit for about 30 seconds . Then add some milk(you can use liquid milk or powder milk mixed with water) and butter(or margerine), then keep on mixing so that the white sauce does not become clumpy.

Add some black pepper to it and some salt and a very little bit of hondashi.

While that is happening , cut some bell peppers. I found two absolutely gorgeous red and yellow bell peppers in the fridge (I would have used something other than bell peppers but those were the only vegetables we had in the fridge ). Cube them and add them to the white sauce . With the bell peppers also add a generous amount of paneer ,sliced thinly (so that it melts easily).

While the sauce is being made on one side of the stove use the other side for boiling your Conchiglie (Shell pasta).

Pasta can be pretty expensive in Dhaka. We usually use this brand. 500g for 130 BDT is not too bad.

My level of patience is being tested.

After it’s boiled, add the Conchiglie to the white sauce and mix well on low heat for a very short time.

Couldn’t resist the joy of watching my paneer stretch.

And..It’s done.

Although white sauce is not supposed to be spicy, I still wanted some chilli in my mouth so I cut a small piece from the tip of a super hot Naga chili for a topping.

I also sprinkled some oregano on the top.

YUM!

The only sad thing about the pasta was that the beautiful colors of the bell peppers became covered in white sauce. But other than that it was a very quick, nice lunch.

Happy Conchiglieing!

 

 

Of Palmyra seeds, juice and fruits

Taal.

Taal is the bangla word for what I have known all my life to be palm. Today ,while doing a little personal research on the fruit, I came to know that it is actually called Palmyra .What inspired me to do the googling, is a delicious dessert made from the fruit that I had this afternoon. It was interesting because this dessert was made by a lady and when she was explaining to me about what the dessert was made from, her husband came and corrected her saying she was being confusing and he started giving his version of the science-behind-the-dessert and after a minute , their son joined in and started giving a summerized version of the explanation.And there I was ,sitting in the middle of three amazing people trying to enlighten me about Palmyra .

The complicated and fascinating thing about Palmyra is that it is considered a fruit but what we really eat when it is unripe is its seed and also, the seed coating that we eat is very fleshy and juicy so it is natural for us to mistake the seed to be the fruit.

The dessert that I had today is called Nobanno and it is named after the Bengali rice harvest festival of the same name which is celebrated on the first day of the month of Agrahayan. The dessert was made from the juice that is extracted from ripe Palmyra and another interesting thing called Taaler shaash.Now , this taaler shaash has a story behind it: this actually is the Palmyra seed’s shell .The seeds from the fruit are planted and made to germinate ; when the time is right, the seeds are dug out from the ground and the germinated seed’s hard shell is cut open to take out the crunchy kernel, which tastes like a sweeter water chestnut.So the Nobanno dessert I had today had ginger , taal juice , taaler shaash ,salt and jaggery . According to the lady ,it can also have coconut and milk in it.

The white chunks on the plate are the taaler shaash and the orange jam on the spoon is the concentrated ripe Palmyra juice (which I was suggested to have with puffed rice) and the dessert is in the bowl.

Desserts certainly are educational. So I should go and look for desserts in the fridge now to help me with my next week’s exams.

Happy desserting !

 

Ramen 101

Chef : Mother

How to cook : I have to ask my mother how.

Key Ingredients : Bean sprout , Sea weed, onion, green chilli, Shoyu, onion, hondashi, egg , chicken , black pepper.

Tastes awesome.