I think I´m turning Japanese...

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...