Japanese inspired food

I feel like I have been extra inspired from japanese cooking lately. Trying new kind of recipes and studying about not-so-well-known-ingredients (at least here in my country;Finland) hasn't been a problem to me and that sure is a requirement to learn and do this properly. You will have to go through some trouble for sure when learning about something that you aren't familiar with. That much can be expected right?  I think it's usually worth it in the end and a lot of fun too.

I really meant it when I mentioned 'studying'. I spent hours reading and watching videos about Asian and japanese food ^_^ Haha at first I was completely lost and everything looked so hard to make. Even finding the most basic ingredients was so difficult for me. I can remember myself searching bonito-flakes in the Asian styled market for ages without knowing what kind of product I was even looking for.

The reason why I'm so interested in japanese food particularly I would say that I have heard so much good things about it and my own a few experiences have been just as great. I'm already interested in the coulture and language so it's not hard to figure out why I'm into this so much now~ 

Japanese food is often said to be healthy with lots of fresh fish and vegetables on it. That's something I need to have more in my diet as well. Healthiness can't be a bad thing right?

In Japan the breakfast is often the most important meal of the day and also the most energy rich meal you'll have during the day. Here where I live it's usually lunch or dinner. Many people here like to skip breakfast completely. I didn't even questionize it before. For example my parents still think it's weird to have rice as a breakfast ^^o That describes well the culture differences and what people are used to. I was ready to try breaking these rules~ Now that I have tried different diet systems I myself perfer bigger breakfast and smaller lunch and tiny dinner. That way I get a great start for a day and there is less craving for sweets etc.

 

Breakfast this morning

rice, ふりかけ(furikake-rice seasoning)(on top of the rice), tamagoyaki(to put it simple it's a fried egg roll and green tea <3

Here is the recipe I used for my tamagoyaki. I made a smaller portion and that's the reason my tamagoyaki roll isn't as chubby as it should but a little flat :o. The recipe is originally from Japanesecooking101

If you are also interested in japanese cooking you should go check them out! I love their site and I have already tried many of their recipes.

Usually you use a special pan to make tamagoyaki (like on the picture down there) but I don't have it yet so I used a round frying pan.

link for the photo of the tamagoyaki pan

Breakfast part 2

Rice, natto, green onions, wakame, furikake and tea

In Finland you can find natto from East Asian Mart located in Tampere or Tokyokan located in Helsinki. I don't know if there are other places available at the moment but at least these two.

 Breakfast part 3

Miso soup, rice and umeboshi paste (again I have to mention that's supposed to be an umeboshi there but they were out of umeboshi in EastAsianMart the last time I visited so I replaced it with umeboshi paste ^^'), tea

Other dishes:

Sushi

- tuna and green onions maki roll

- california roll with salmon, cucumber and green onions

- maki roll with avokado and salmon

- one single temaki on top with salad and salmon and onions (lol didn't have more rice for more temakis :D)

Sushi is well known in my country already. Especially maki and california rolls i think. But there is also many other kind of delicious sushi. More about that that later.

 

Japanese styled fish soup

dashi, salmon, raddish, ginger, soy sauce, chinese cabbage, leek, shiitake

Here I tried one of the recepies in my Asian styled cooking book I own. It's called Sushi Slim by Makiko Sano.

We'll I guess that was all this time. I'll be back with the cooking topic later~  thanks for visiting

- Evcelia