After my son’s impromptu vinegar tasting session at midday, we decided that we needed to do a whole family vinegar tasting session. Terms were agreed, small tasting glasses and big water glasses acquired, pen and paper supplied, so that we could mark our findings down.

There were some big surprises:
A) all of us really like the cheap but strong table vinegar.
B) the Chinese rice vinegar was much stronger than the Japanese one, so they really can’t substitute each other.
C) the Ume vinegar was very salty compared to the others. It makes sense considering that it’s made with salted plums but still caught us out.

When done we looked for the highest ranking ones across the group and found that the punchy table vinegar, the fruity apple cider vinegar, the suave Condimento Bianco, the lovely Balsamico, the mild Japanese rice vinegar and (on a single person’s high vote) the sweetish Japanese red sushi vinegar were the best ones of the lot. At least according to tasting them pure.

Things would probably change somewhat when preparing certain dishes.

In a way for me all of them are necessary in my kitchen, apart from, maybe, the red wine one. The three seasoned Japanese variations are somewhat hard to come by so they won’t always be there either.

Again: is there any type of vinegar you would not go without in your house? Let me know!

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Something different today! My son did a vinegar tasting while preparing lunch and we realised just how many different vinegars we have in the house 😅

🇩🇪 Tafelessig - table vinegar, the cheapest kind of all vinegars in Germany, made mainly from distilled alcohol and almost tasteless apart from being quite sour, in this household mostly used for its anti limescale powers
🇩🇪 Apfelessig - cider vinegar, made from apples, I like this in salads
🇮🇹 Condimento Bianco - a white wine vinegar with grape juice, also for salads
🇩🇪 Rotweinessig - red wine vinegar, in theory also for salads
🇩🇪 Blaubeer-Balsamessig - blueberry balsamic vinegar, a specialty vinegar
🇬🇧 Malt vinegar - we use this for some British and African dishes
🇮🇹 Balsamessig/Balsamico - balsamic vinegar (in an old refilled bottle as it fits into my cupboard), lovely for salads
🇨🇳 A clear Chinese rice vinegar in the wrong bottle (as it fits into the cupboard), bought instead of Japanese rice vinegar when I had trouble finding that one
🇯🇵 Kome zu, Japanese rice vinegar, used for many Japanese dishes
🇯🇵 Red sushi vinegar, a Japanese rice based red vinegar, a specialty vinegar
🇯🇵 Tosa zu, a Japanese vinegar with flavourings, great for Japanese style salads
🇯🇵 Ume zu, a Japanese vinegar with umeboshi (pickled plums), also for Japanese style salads
🇨🇳 Chinkiang, a Chinese rice based black vinegar, can be used similarly to Balsamico and obviously for Chinese cooking

All of these vinegar varieties get used in varying amounts. I think the red wine vinegar is the one least used. The most used is probably the simple Japanese rice vinegar.

The Blueberry and the Japanese red sushi vinegars are quite sweet, I’m never quite sure that I get what to use them for.

Is there any type of vinegar you would not go without in your house? Let me know!

#Mastonom #HomeCooking #Cooking #Vinegar #InternationalFood #FusionKitchen #SylkewebFood #SylkewebFood202506 #Sylkeweb202506 @foodiverse@a.gup.pe

I’ve finally bought some frozen Japanese Natto at the Asian supermarket. It defrosted perfectly overnight and on inspection I found it came with sauce and mustard in little sachets.

When I researched how to eat Natto, it boiled down to “mix vigorously with sauce and mustard, and serve over rice with toppings that you like”. I found a recipe (linked below) which gave good suggestions of what to add, so we had our Natto with a selection of items: chopped spring onions, mashed umeboshi, kimchi, grated daikon, boiled egg, and (as suggested somewhere else) blanched Pak Choi. We had this as our main meal of the day, so I was quite happy with having all of these different add-ons.

Yes, Natto is very sticky and slimy once you’ve mixed it with sauce and mustard and apparently that is what many people don’t find very appealing. I have no trouble with that, it’s a bit like okra in that regard. I’ve also read that it’s supposed to have a pungent smell but ours didn’t have much smell at all. The whole experience was a bit underwhelming really, I kind of had hoped for something that I would find harder to eat… 😅 Would I eat Natto again? Yes, but not urgently.

Recipe (with useful short video): https://chefjacooks.com/en/natto-gohan-recipe/

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The husband and wife team prepared Menchi Katsu, Japanese hamburger steaks with egg and Panko covering. Very moreish, especially if you make them with lamb mince (well OK, this was 50% beef actually). We had these with Tonkatsu sauce, a dollop of Karashi mustard, shredded Napa cabbage, a Japanese style cucumber salad and, of course, rice with furikake.

Recipes used:
https://www.justonecookbook.com/menchi-katsu/
https://www.copymethat.com/r/b7GD1DW2k/japanese-style-cucumber-salad/

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We had delicious Shogayaki (Chili Oil Ginger Pork) cooked by my son. My recipe database indicates that I made this only once before (in 2020) and my previous photo shows me something definitively not looking as good as this. I think I need to make him cook more often.

I prepared all the other items:
🥢 Enoki Mushrooms with Garlic & Spring Onion Sauce
🥢 Hokkaido seaweed salad
🥢 Miso soup
🥢 Japanese rice

I also used some furikake on my rice which came from an assorted box and turned out to be “small fish taste” - this made my meal VERY Japanese all of a sudden 🤣

Recipes used:
https://www.kokorocares.com/blogs/recipes/chili-oil-ginger-pork-shogayaki
https://thewoksoflife.com/enoki-mushrooms-garlic-scallion-sauce/
https://kokorocares.com/products/hokkaido-seaweed-salad with ponzu

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Japanese style Kyushu Dashi hot pot soup. So popular in this house that today my son asked for this as a celebratory lunch on the day he hears about his leaving exam grades from school. We still don’t know when exactly that day is but I’m happy to oblige.

Once you have all the ingredients in the house (hence the trip to the Asian supermarket the other week) this is really easy to prepare, but a cooker for the table is helpful - so that each participant can cook their own items. I’m using a special pre-made Kyushu Dashi soup base but any other Japanese soup base should do too. The ingredients are up to you, we love some thinly cut frozen pork rolls and dumplings in addition to various vegetables.

Recipe used:
https://www.copymethat.com/r/xwcrpveejd/kyushu-dashi-hot-pot-soup/

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Simple to prepare, yet very satisfying. I asked my son to help as time was running away and while I washed the rice for the rice cooker he had basically gathered and cut up everything we needed. He made the salad and started with the tofu puffs. Then we folded the dry clothes and hung up the laundry while the rice cooker and the tofu puffs did their thing. On top of that I had to cut a spring onion, decided to use up some leftover toasted sesame seeds, and turned the tofu in the sauce at some point but this was not much work at all.

Recipes used:
https://www.copymethat.com/r/7sy93wcjke/tofu-puffs-in-sweet-chilli-sauce/
https://www.copymethat.com/r/NojicTP3s/lillians-cabbage-salad/

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This dish is a family favourite as we all like smoked fish. Every time we eat this it’s slightly different. All you need is some buttery parsley potatoes, a simple side salad, and various kinds of smoked fish. We had mackerel, trout and hot smoked salmon. The greatest challenge was the whole mackerel because of the fish bones but even that worked fairly well. I also made a dip of mayonnaise with harissa paste and a simple cucumber salad. Everyone was happy and I was told the potatoes were perfect 🤩

Recipes used:
https://www.copymethat.com/r/gVfFftS9c/new-potatoes-with-smoked-fish-fillets-an/
https://www.copymethat.com/r/vxhebf8b9t/simple-cucumber-salad/

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