October 24, 2016
I’m always stealing ideas from my family. The latest cooking technique I stole was from my Aunt Judy (who also inspired Kayoko’s Happy Hour post last week), who specializes in making drinks and savory foods to along with it. Aunt Judy had read somewhere that a beef restaurant in Japan was trying to find […]
April 20, 2015
Since this month commemorates Umami Mart’s Japanese beer and sake shop debut, here is another post on sake-related cooking. Sakekasu (sake lees) is a quintessential Japanese ingredient because of the concept of mottainai (no waste!). Japanese people try not to waste anything. For example, after squeezing soy beans when making tofu, the leftover scraps (called okara) can be […]
January 5, 2012
If you can get your hands on sake kasu (sake lees, a yeast by-product of sake making) a subculture of cooking opens up to you. Most commonly used for marinating fish and pickling, sake kasu looks like pizza dough with the consistency of wet clay and aroma of nama (unpasteurized) sake. It’s usually available for […]