Kotatsu and Clear Soup with Japanese Clams

Today, I armed myself with new recipes and went to the grocery store. I was determined, today, to prepare some sort of seafood for dinner, be it octopus, clams, mackerel or ishitai (striped beakfish). Luckily, I had little choice in the matter, as most of the other aisles were still being stocked. There wasn't any ishitai (it's not one of the most common fishes we get here, but I see it in the grocery store once every few weeks). We can't get some of the ingredients for the octopus recipes I had on hand (dill or cloves) so I put that on hold until I can figure out some good substitutions. Mackerel was...well, I forgot my list of fish names written in kanji (the Chinese characters in the Japanese writing system), so I couldn't tell what fish was mackerel. We'll try this again some other time. Clams it was. I also managed to pick up a small bag of bay leaves. They were actually at the store this whole time, but I only just realized what they were. Part of the problem was that they were labeled in French, since the Japanese borrowed the French name of the herb (laurier). For those who don't know, a bay tree is also known as a laurel. I have been aware of the dual name of the bay/laurel for a long time, so I felt a little foolish that I hadn't realized what "laurier" was earlier. Especially since there was a picture of the leaves on the bag.

After dropping my groceries at home, I grabbed an umbrella (it's started to rain) and headed back out to go to our household goods store, Komeri. I picked up a cord for our kotatsu. A kotatsu is a low table with a heating element underneath. The top of the table is removable so that you can place a kotatsu blanket over the rest of the frame to keep the heat under the table. People then sit with their legs under the kotatsu to keep warm in the colder months. We have two of these. We didn't have any cords for either of them. So I picked one up and headed home. I would have bought two, but I wasn't sure if I had the right thing just yet.

On the way home, the sun was shining, and I tried a different route. Walking by the bay, I saw some flying fish jumping out of the water. It was pretty cool. I didn't have the camera with me (Nat had it for English recitation competition, which she may or may not write up a blog about later), but I have some pictures from the last time I was by the bay. Today was definitely more photogenic

When I got home, Nat was there! Yay! Apparently, today is some sort of holiday and her only duty at work was to attend the English recitation competition. So work was only a half-day!

Today's dinner was Japanese pumpkin cooked like acorn squash (that recipe with the brown sugar and butter and sometimes walnuts), clear soup with Japanese clams and sushi (if you get to the grocery store early, you can buy whole, uncut sushi rolls for much cheaper than the pre-cut ones).

For the soup, I basically used the recipe by Setsuko Yoshizuka at About.com, except I used green onion for the "garnish" and added some grated myoga. Mmmm! I spilled a little too much sake in it, but it was still pretty good.

For those wondering what myoga is, it's this stuff to the left, here. It's the sort of flower bud/sprout thing. Not the clams. It's sometimes called myoga ginger or Japanese wild ginger. I don't know if it's actually related to ginger or not. For the soup, I grated it really fine and let it simmer in the broth.

Supposedly, much of the myoga plant is toxic, but this part is considered safe. Still, I'm told that telling someone that they eat too much myoga in Japan is like asking someone if they ate paint chips as a child in the USA. We're going to play it safe and only eat a little bit...rarely.

We found a casserole dish. I don't really know why it's here. It doesn't fit in our microwave. We don't have an oven. I can't wait until I know how to get to the thrift store (or "recycle shop", as they call them here).