Tag: cooking | RocketNews24

cooking

Boiling Spaghetti with Salt Shown to Do No Good for It

May 15, 2013 by Master Blaster
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I freaking knew it!

Spaghetti and other pasta recipes have repeatedly asked us to “boil with salt” – a rule that has always baffled me. Once, early on in my cooking life, I decided to be a good boy and add the salt as requested only to find that it didn’t make a lick of difference to the end result. I haven’t looked back since.

In an interview with website, President Online, Tokyo Kasei University Graduate School of Home Economics, Keiko Nagao, puts this myth of boiling with salt to rest once and for all, thus saving us from a needless cooking step. Read More

How to Make a Hatsune Miku Bento

Apr 30, 2013 by Michelle
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Hatsune Miku is now coming to a bento near you (that is if you have to time and patience to make her). The folks over at Japanese culture website, Kawaii Kakkoii Sugoi, have just created a step-by-step video explaining how to make an edible version of everyone’s favorite vocaloid.

Apr 26, 2013 by Michelle
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How do you usually cook a sunny side up egg? We’re guessing most people plop an egg into a frying pan with a little oil and hope for the best. However, our reporter Kuzo has just discovered a new way to eat eggs thanks to the “Rollie EggMaster.” Straight from, you guessed it, the USA, the Rollie EggMaster works like a toaster to cook an egg in minutes. Although the Rollie EggMaster is sold in North America and cannot be shipped to Japan, Kuzo was able to get his hands on one and proudly made an “egg on a stick” for the entire RocketNews24 office, delighting our Japanese editorial team.

Apr 15, 2013 by Michelle
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Yoshinoya has been serving “tasty, low-priced and quick” gyudon (beef bowls) in Japan for over a century. In recent years, the chain’s bright orange signs can also be found at around 600 locations throughout Southeast Asia and the United States. It seems the world has fallen in love with the original Japanese fast food.

Now anyone can enjoy the beefy goodness of gyudon from the comfort of their own home thanks to this easy recipe. It’s the closest you’ll get to an authentic Yoshinoya beef bowl without having to put on pants.

Mar 30, 2013 by Jessica
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Ah, garlic. It’s so fragrant and delicious. These days, cooks are using fresh garlic even for everyday dishes because it’s just so tasty and relatively easy to use. There’s just one small problem: getting that papery skin off the clove without ending up with bits of it all over the kitchen! More people would probably use that delicious, delicious garlic if it didn’t make such a mess.

No need to worry about that any more, though, because we’ve discovered a simple tip that will remove those pesky skins cleanly and easily. Read on to discover how. Read More

Wow Guests at Your Next Party with 50 Egg Yolks Straight from the Rice Cooker

Mar 23, 2013 by Master Blaster
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Here at RocketNews24 we are no strangers to excessive consumption of ordinary foodstuffs. We even once constructed a bowl of gyudon with 10 raw eggs on top.

Still, we have to doff our caps to this gent who dreamed a dream and successfully cooked 50 egg yolks in a rice cooker. We say “successfully” because the end result actually looks pretty good – if not lethal.

Feb 13, 2013 by Andrew Miller
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When it comes to preparing a gourmet meal you can be proud of, an investment of time and a good recipe book are often required. If you’re a busy parent or living alone while working full time, just dashing out to gather the ingredients — not to mention actually preparing the meal — can prove rather time consuming and, let’s admit, a little bothersome.

The intricacies of it all leave many abandoning hope, opting for the greasier ‘ready prepared’ meal option or dining out at a local restaurant. But even those who do make the effort to cook have probably found themselves saying “This just doesn’t have the same impact as the dish I tried at the restaurant the other day,” every so often. If only there were a way to replicate the same taste at home!

If you live in Japan, a collaboration between convenience store chain Lawson and Yahoo! (yes, that Yahoo!) may be the answer to your culinary conundrums: a new home delivery service that offers not ready-to-eat meals, but rather a combination of ready-to-cook dishes that can be thrown together to create a tasty meal of your own.

Feb 6, 2013 by Master Blaster
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Although it’s hard to tell just by looking at them, people in Japan love fried food. As delicious as food fried in oil is, it’s high in calories and cholesterol, flammable, and messy. But thanks to the recent development of air fryers, we can now get crispy French fries without the greasy baggage that comes along with it.

From 20 April, Ashikaga-based appliance manufacturer TMY will release its own version of oil-free fryer, named Air Fryer, across the country.

Jan 28, 2013 by Andrew Miller
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Few meat eaters have ever had to butcher their own meat, and we’d wager that most, given the choice of “slaughter and prepare your own or go vegetarian”, would choose to lead a herbivorous life over getting busy with a cleaver. But not Japanese blogger Chiharu-san!

In her blog, “Chiharu no Mori”, writer Chiharu details her experiences living a life of self-sufficiency and, in this particular episode, butchering and preparing a wild boar. It’s a fascinating look at a process that few of us have experienced nor would ever care to partake in, and we have to commend Chiharu for being brave enough to actually get her hands dirty like this. Be warned, though, the following images are not for the squeamish.

Jan 11, 2013 by Kay
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Had enough turkey and chicken over the holidays? Or if you’re in Japan, maybe you’re tired of the traditional osechi food that you’ve had to eat the first few days of the New Year.

If so, here’s something a bit different you may want to try to spice things up a little — a curry recipe from the African island of Mauritius. Our reporter from our Japanese sister site Pouch gives us the following lesson in “curry à la Mauritius” (taught by a native Mauritian no less), and the resulting dish certainly looks good enough to feature in your next meal! Read More

Japanese YouTubers Giving Away Cute Sandwich Cutters Worldwide in Creative Collaboration

Dec 22, 2012 by Steven
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One of the the things people find most charming about food in Japan is how creative the presentation can be. From adorable panda rice balls to over the top bento lunchboxes, the Japanese have perfected the art of making food something that you can enjoy with both your eyes and your mouth.

If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at food presentation à la Japan, six Japanese YouTube channels are holding a giveaway for a set of cute sandwich cutters, as well as introducing six creative ways to use them.

Nov 30, 2012 by Philip Kendall
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Japanese kitchens are not the warm, oven-centred hubs that many westerners are used to. The majority of people here get by with a grill/broiler, a couple of gas burners and maybe a handful of kitchen devices like a rice cooker or, if they’re really swish, a bread maker.

True, more expensive microwave ovens often have an “oven” setting, allowing half-baked (sorry) chefs to cook things like pizzas and simple cakes and cookies, but since most microwaves are limited in size you can forget about cooking anything like a whole chicken or a nice ham around Christmas time.

Although vertically-loading toasters are few and far between, small toaster ovens like the one pictured above are very popular in Japan, and, as we’re about to see, can be put to incredible use so long as there’s a little creativity involved.

So, if you’re a foreigner arriving in Japan and bemoaning the lack of a gas oven like you had back home, feast your eyes on some of the mouth-watering creations that clever Japanese toaster oven users have put together.

Nov 19, 2012 by Philip Kendall
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Few things could delight kids (and big kids!) more than mimicking their favourite TV shows, movies and videogames, and sitting down to the exact same meal that their heroes enjoy.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles always had the most mouth-watering pizza; Ponyo and Sousuke had home-made ramen noodles; Pop-eye had canned spinach… OK, so maybe not every cartoon meal is the greatest, but putting together food that looks exactly as it did in our favourite shows is sure to inspire even the most kitchen-shy of us to have a go, not to mention encourage fussy eaters to try something new.

If it’s anime-inspired food you’re looking for, cooking website Bistro Animeshi (a combination of “anime” and “meshi”, meaning rice or food) has everything from the fish pie delivered by Kiki herself in Kiki’s Delivery Service to Naruto’s favourite ramen noodles. As well as providing step-by-step recipes for each dish, the food blog makes every effort to match the original dishes as much as possible. We’re sure that you’ll be blown away by what they have to offer.

Plenty of tantalising food photos after the jump!

Nov 17, 2012 by Steven
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One of the most common stereotypes of nerds, or otaku as they’re known in Japan, is that they cannot cook and subsist on a diet of instant noodles and soft drinks.

Kitchen a la Mode is a new cooking school in Akihabara that hopes to get otaku off their chairs and into the kitchen by providing simple, hands-on cooking lessons with cute girls.

You may remember reading about Kitchen a la Mode on our site last month. Curious as to how the school has been doing since opening, RocketNews24 sent its handsomest American correspondent (me) to Kitchen a la Mode to experience moé cooking firsthand. Check out his (my) report below!

Oct 12, 2012 by Philip Kendall
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Akihabara; world-famous home to everything otaku! Cosplay, electronics, comic-books, videogames, maid cafés, pop idol pubs, trading card stores; Akihabara- or Akiba to the locals- is where it’s at.

For years, swarms of young men with poor social skills (and cool folks like you and me, too…) have been heading into Akihabara to buy figure models of girls in bikinis with disproportionately large breasts, locate hardware for their new gaming PC, or spend an hour in the company of cute girls dressed as maids who giggle as they put “love spells” on guests’ food before sending them home more frustrated than ever.

As reported by Hamster Sokuhou earlier today, a fun new establishment has recently thrown its doors open to Akihabara’s masses, inviting them to come and cook with their cast of female chefs, each ready to guide the hands of young men who, until now, were perhaps too shy to touch a woman’s measuring jugs for real.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! Prepare yourselves for the next level in awkward interaction with females in exchange for cash!

Oct 3, 2012 by Karen Bremer Masuda
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Mr. Kazumasa Hirayama, a representative from the Cooking Technology Research Society, claims that washing wilted produce in 50℃ water (122°F) will restore its freshness. Could it be true?

This magical method is now all the rave in food preparation circles. The technique was contrived by Mr. Hirayama, who began spreading the word making it a recent hot topic among restaurateurs According to Mr. Hirayama, its use is not only limited to fruit and vegetable produce, but also works with a number of other food products as well and can even make food taste better. Read More

Would a Pancake by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet? Apparently No, No It Would Not

Sep 12, 2012 by Master Blaster
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If I was to suggest that there was a difference between “pancakes” and “hotcakes” you’d probably say, “You’re crazy. Get off my internet!”

And yet if you go into a supermarket in Japan you will find two products made by the same company distinctly classified as “Hotcake Mix” (hottoke-ki mikkusu) and “Pancake Mix” (panke-ki mikkusu).

Either this is some clever ruse concocted by the pancake cartels of Japan or maybe they tapped into something we always knew subconsciously but never fully realized.

Aug 8, 2012 by Steven
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The Shiba Inu is one adorable little ball of fluff, especially from behind. I mean, who can resist that curled up tail nestled atop a plump little posterior that shakes back and forth as they trot along.

Japanese blogger and Shiba Inu-lover Takedatake has recently found inspiration in that captivating rear view for a novel at-home recipe he calls: “Shiba Inu Plump Booty Curry.”

Instructions on how to make the dish follow below:

Jul 12, 2012 by Steven
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Wish there was a faster and easier way to make sushi at home? Wish there was a way to load rice and fillings into a tube and blast a large sushi roll out the end like a bazooka?

The Suhezi, or “Extra-Thick Bazooka Sushi Jiro” as it’s now known in Japan, may be the sushi bazooka for you.

Jun 24, 2012 by danielnishina
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Whether it’s a savory slab of salmon, or a sweet cheesecake, lemon juice can enhance a multitude of foods. But the squeezing of lemons to get their fresh juice is often tedious and seems to bear little reward. How do you all normally squeeze lemons? Most people typically cut it in half and get to squeezing straight away. But there’s a method that will yield much much much more juice, as we present below: Read More