I am a native Japanese speaker teaching Japanese in a university somewhere on this planet. This blog is usually written in English, but sometimes Japanese and Chinese appear. Please don't care what you cannot read. They are for my students.
There is a Smoking Booth near Bandaiguchi-Exit on JR Niigata station. Oh, but let me tell you, I am not a smoking person. I have never ever smoked even a single cigarette through my life of more than a half century. Passive smoking was terrible when I was a young company man, but I have already retired from company work. Now I am free from smoke of others.
Anyway, I took the photo above, and then I walked to the other side of this smoking booth. What I found there was…
Smoking Booth with Warning Written in Big Letters
It reads; BAN on Smoking Outside This Facility; A lot of complaints are coming (to the City Office) due to part of users with bad manner. If this situation continues, this smoking booth would need to be demolished. We ask you to smoke only inside of the facility.
As if these big letters indicate how the Niigata municipal government is angry with bad smoking people. And I thought that, if there are a lot of complaints, it would not be “part of users” but it might be “many of users”.
This time, I bought Small Horse Mackerels. They costed only 138 JPY (approx. 1 USD)I wouldn’t show you the most cruel process of the cooking. Opened Horse Mackerels were wrapped with Potato Starch.They were fried in Iron Skillet; I don’t like to use Teflon Skillet. Price hike does affect cooking oil also in Japan. So I tried using less oil as possible.It took more than 10 minutes to make them fried well.Sweet Vinegar with Soy Sauce was poured onto Them. Then They were kept in Refrigerator for several hours so that the Sauce could go into the Fries. By doing so, vinegar would make fish bones soft.There you go.
Thank you for taking a look at this post until the end. Good day,
A Horse Mackerel that I bought from nearby supermarket today. It was 398 JPYSlices of Horse Mackerel are coated with mixture of wheat and egg.So this is the main dish of today’s my supper. The white things are Tofu.
It took more than one and a half hour for me to cook tonight’s supper.
Horse Mackerel that I bought in a Super Market in Northern town in JAPAN
When it comes to Horse Mackerel, it always start with getting rid of hard scales First.Internal Organs were Removed. Several Cuts for Effective Heating in the Grill They were placed on the tray to go into the Fish Grill in Gas StoveWell- DoneMy Supper Yesterday
The photo above is yesterday’s. I boiled sweet potato in the pan. Those were the potato that I planted in my garden last year.
Still the Ground is Covered with Snow in my Region
This is a photo of today. I wanted to take a picture of train running, but those local trains do not come so frequently.
Mackerel in the Package about 4 USD
Today I bought the fish Mackerel. That was not “Horse Mackerel”, but simply “Mackerel”. This is Japan, but we usually see on the supermarket shelves, “Mackerel from Norway”. The mackerel in the photo was not from Norway, but from an Island of Sado which is the major island of Niigata Prefecture.
Mackerel being Boiled with Miso
I boiled them with Miso which is salty soy bean paste for seasoning. Not only Miso, I used also a little bit of sugar, ginger slices, pieces of red pepper, and Japanese Sake for seasoning.
Boiled Mackerel on a Plate
The white slices accompanying with Mackerel is white part of green onion.
My Supper Tonight
Now it’s already the last third (we call it “Gejun”) of Februray. But this winter is cold and still going on. Since the spring semester will start from the coming week, I have been just making PPT slides all day for my classes.
I found them in the supermarket where I always go buy food. Many packages of small horse mackerels were left unsold on the shelve. They were 30 percent discounted from the original price. But the original price was already reasonable because it was less than Two USD. I think that the problem was that they were too small to cook and eat. It was obvious that soon a lot of small horse mackerels were going to be thrown to be waste. Feeling sorry for that, I decided buying them.
Horse Mackerels’ Hard Scale
When you cook horse mackerels, you need to cut the hard scales off from the body side from the tale.
Opened Body of Horse Mackerel
I wouldn’t show you the most cruel part of the cooking process.
Fishes Wrapped with Potato Starch
Put a lot of Potato Starch around the fishes. I didn’t use fresh egg between the fishes and the starch. I just put the starch directly to the fishes.
Fry in a Pan with Oil
Frying uses a lot of Oil. I usually use a good oil (a little expensive one), but for frying, I bought a cheap cooking oil.
The municipal government where I live has been collecting those cooking oils for recycling. I saw many bottles of dirty brown cooking oil were gathered at the entrance of the community center. Since there is a library in that building, I saw it every time I go to borrow books. But recently the city decided to stop collecting the oil. I don’t know why, because the city government doesn’t say anything about the reason explicitly to us. Recycling is good, so I think there must be a reason for stopping the recycling of used cooking oil.
Draining Excess Oil with Cooking Paper
Oil is not good for our health. I put fried fishes onto cooking paper in order to remove excess oil.
Fried Horse Mackerels with Lemon Slice
Actually this is not the completion of the frying horse mackerels with potato starch. But I didn’t have time to do the end process of the cooking because I wanted to serve this for the dinner soon.
We Japanese usually put the fried horse mackerels into a sour sauce and keep it at least one night. The sauce is made of soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar. Ginger and red pepper are used for seasoning. Plus, slices of Carrots, onions, and peppers are accompanied. Those sauce and slices are poured onto fried mackerels and they are kept in the refrigerator. A good things of that are not only good taste, but also the vinegar makes the fish bones softer. When you come to Japan, please try to eat this menu that is “Aji no Namban Dzuke”.
Now my garden is covered with snow. I have to get rid of snow in order to harvest those green vegetables. Since I don’t have good gloves, I feel like my fingers could be frozen when I do that every afternoon. Now I am thinking about buying those green vegetable from a supermarket. When spring come, I will be able to get my vegetables in the garden again.
So this is my miso soup tonight. Although the slices of green onion (look white in the photo) came from a supermarket, the green leaves were really taken from my garden.
Actually today’s miso soup tasted a little salty. I usually use the dried and chopped fishes that are the mixture of three types; sardine, mackerel, and horse mackerel, when I cook my miso soup. But today I used bones and head of salted salmon. I always try to cook with less salt for my health. So the miso soup tonight might have been a bad one.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 