One week. That´s all it took for me to become totally hooked on all food Japanese, one glorious week in Tokyo. The problem is that Norway is not the easiest place to find authentic Japanese food or ingredients. So imagine my joy of joys when a quick Google search alerted me to
Japantorget (
update: now sadly closed), a Japanese food store in Oslo that was mere yards from my office. Could it be true?
The shop itself is not that large but contained a large variety of Japanese ingredients as well as kitchen utensils, crockery and
yukatas. OK, so most of the products are of the long shelf-life variety (dried, canned, or frozen) as I can´t imagine turnover of stock is very high here but there were certainly enough things to do justice to Japanese cooking in Norway. I´m a very happy bunny.
Here´s a picture of my stash:
Left to right from the back row: Ramune, curry sauce,
dashi, soy sauce, wasabi,
mirin,
Oishi green tea , Strawberry
Pocky (my daughter loves this), Beni shoga (shredded pickled ginger), instant miso soup, Nishiki sushi rice, panko breadcrumbs, white miso paste, dried
wakame, Iri goma (black sesame seeds), Udon noodles, rice crackers.
Now I´m going to have to think of some things to make with the stuff. Stay tuned for some of my attempts at creating authentic Japanese food in Norway...
One of my favorite and one of the easiest Japanese recipes to butcher - I mean, replicate - is tempura (天ぷら).
ReplyDeleteAll you need is the tempura flour, readily available at these kinds of stores, and some stuff to fry.
I like sweet potato, squash, carrots, onions, broccoli and peppers best. Shrimp are the classic.
Prepare the batter, dunk the veggies, etc., and deep fry or just fry with a decent amount of oil. Let them sit on some paper towels for a bit, then enjoy with soy sauce or your sauce of choice and some rice.
Mmmm.
Thanks, good idea! When I was in Tokyo I had some truly wonderful, light tempura from Tsunahachi, although I somehow think my attempts won't be anywhere near as good!
ReplyDeleteJust stopping by while googling for beni shoga for sale in Oslo (will make takoyaki!) Good news for you: Japantorget closed, but the owners have opened a new place downtown, it is called Obento. Also there is a obento take out at Mathallen. PS: Lucky me get to og to Tokyo in a week!
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