by Doris Janzen Longacre

A classic Mennonite cookbook originally published in the late 1960s, More with Less features healthy, whole foods recipes that can be easily adapted to Japanese kitchens. The focus is on simple recipes that make excellent use of leftovers and “skimmings,” as well as cooking from scratch. A classic, and also recommended for those in rural Japan who might not have access to international foods on a regular basis.

Why Japanese cooking? Well, for one very good reason – we’re in Japan. In most cases, it’s almost always cheaper to cook in the local cuisine using ingredients that can be bought at the neighborhood supermarket. However, this isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Language difficulties, a lack of experience, and a different set of taste buds can making cooking Japanese food a real headache.What’s a Frugalite to do?

Well, the Oct. 21 Nikkei Shimbun had a few very useful tips that I thought I would share with you. Their “Nandemo Ranking” Saturday column lists weekly results of surveys of readers, and this week’s was the Top 5 Effective Cooking Tips and Top Five Basic Cooking Techniques for Japanese cooking. Interested? Here they are.

Part I: Top Five Effective Cooking Tips

1) When grilling fish, coat the grill tray with cooking oil, and the fish with Japanese vinegar (su).
The oil keeps the fish from sticking to the tray, while a light coat of vinegar reduces the “fishy” smell.

2) When simmering fish, layer a ‘cooking sheet’ (usually thick paper, but a paper towel will do) *under* the fish.
The fish won’t stick to the pan, and won’t fall apart.

3) Adding a few drops of vinegar to grated daikon can help reduce the bitter taste.
Particularly effective for the skinny end of the daikon.

4) When boiling potatoes, leave the skins on.
Helps prevent watery potatoes when cooking for croquettes and other dishes.

5) Chill onions for 15 minutes in the fridge before cutting.
This, and cutting with a well-sharpened knife, can help reduce ‘onion tears.’

Part II: Top Five Basic Cooking Techniques

1) When making miso soup, dissolve the miso paste in LAST!
Boiling the miso base too long reduces the flavor.

2) Use a drop lid when simmering fish.
Using a smaller lid (or square of alunimum foil) when boiling fish makes for a richer, moister taste.

3) Chill green vegetables rapidly after boiling.
Rapidly chilling green vegetables (like spinach) after boiling in ice water helps retain freshness.

4) Break up konyaku used in simmered dishes with your hands.
This method makes it easier for the flavor to seep in vs. cutting w/a knife.

5) After slicing gobo (burdock root), let it soak in water with a few tablespoons of vinegar.
Helps maintain freshness, also works with lotus root (renkon).

Hopefully the tips above provided you with a few gems of Japanese cooking wisdom. 633 Japanese readers (most of them veteran housewives, I’m sure) can’t be wrong. Enjoy!

© 2006 Wendy J. Imura.

The Freezer

Most freezers are frost-free but that doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate being cleaned out. Take everything out of the freezer and wipe it down with a damp cloth. Placing a metal sheet (a cookie tray works well) on the bottom of the freezer helps freeze foods fast as the metal transmits cold better than plastic. Place foods on this tray to freeze and then put them elsewhere in the freezer to free up the tray for next time. Most people know that an overfull freezer is not energy efficient but it is not so well known that neither is an empty freezer. If you don’t have a lot in your freezer, fill some small plastic bags with water and tie them off. These freeze quickly, can be discarded when the freezer is fuller, and are great for first aid emergencies too.

Packaging

Proper packaging is the key to freezing food. Contact with air, and moisture loss, are the two biggest problems when freezing. They cause freezer burn (discoloration and drying of frozen food), and loss of flavour. Both can be avoided by packaging food carefully.

The white polystyrene trays from the supermarket are NOT suitable for freezing. The plastic film is made to allow air to flow through as this ensures the meet stays an appealing colour in the supermarket fridge. Before freezing you need to repackage the meat into an airtight container. This can be a Tupperware (R) type container, zip lock bag or even heavy-duty tinfoil. Square or rectangular containers reduce wasted space in the freezer.

Bigger Isn’t Better

Choose a container that will just fit the product you wish to freeze to minimize the amount of air in the container. Freezing in small quantities shortens freezing time, decreasing the risk of bacteria breeding. Freezing in one-meal quantities also makes for easy meal planning. The exception to the smaller is better rule is when freezing liquids. When freezing juice, milk, soup or other liquids allow at least 5cm of space at the top of the container as liquids expand when they freeze.

Labeling each container with the contents, quantity and date frozen helps ensure you use each item when it’s at its best and prevents UFOs (unidentifiable frozen objects).

Freezing Homemade Food

When freezing homemade food it is important to allow it to cool completely before freezing. Putting still warm foods in the freezer not only slows the freezing time of the warm item but warms the freezer, putting other foodstuffs at risk of spoilage as well.

When making lasagna, gratin, tuna casserole or other baked dishes you can make a double batch and freeze the extra in the baking dish. Wrap the cooled dish tightly with plastic wrap and put the entire dish in an airtight container or bag and then straight into the freezer. When it comes time to eat the dish it can go straight from the freezer to the microwave to the table.

What and For How Long

Not all foods are created equal. Some freeze well, some lose flavour or change texture when frozen. The following is a guide to the length of time that foods can be frozen without losing their nutritional value, flavour or appearance. There are many such tables available on the Internet with very little variation in content.

Source: http://www.bhg.com.au/food.nsf/Content/bhg_article_june01_freezing

The No Go List

Some foods don’t freeze well even for a short time. These include mayonnaise (it will separate), raw vegetables with a high water content (they will become limp and discoloured), cooked egg whites (they will become tough and rubbery) and soft cheeses (they may separate). Foods with a high fat or salt content should be frozen for as short a time as possible as the salt and fat content of foods causes it to go rancid. Removing excess fat from meat before freezing will help alleviate this problem.

Tofu

The consistency of tofu changes quite dramatically when frozen. It becomes chewy and holey- a little like a sponge. Many people find this new texture unappealing, however, cooking with tofu that has been frozen increases the amount of flavour that is imbedded in the tofu so it can actually be an improvement. It’s one of those things you just have to try and see if it suits you. www.vegsource.com/talk/soy/messages/15258.html has some hints for cooking with frozen tofu.

The “Freezing Is Better” List

Some items keep their quality better when frozen than in the fridge or on the bench. These include nuts, coffee beans and ground coffee (not instant), bread, yeast and bread mixes.

Defrosting

The quickest way to defrost food is in the microwave but this substantially eats into the frugality of freezing so when possible it’s best to choose an alternative method.

In the Fridge
The safest way to defrost food without damaging it is to move it from the freezer to the fridge the night before you want to use it. This allows the food to defrost slowly while remaining at a safe temperature. The amount of time necessary to defrost this way depends on the quantity and density of the frozen item but most items will take at least 12 hours so some planning is necessary.

In Cold Water
For quicker defrosting or very large items (such as turkeys at this time of year) a cold water bath can be used to defrost. Make sure the item is in a watertight container though or you may end up with soup!

On the Kitchen Counter
This method of defrosting is not recommended for meat and raw goods and not the preferable option for baked goods as raising the temperature of food to room temperature creates an ideal environment for bacteria growth. If you are out during the day and your uninsulated Japanese apartment/ house is left unheated though, you may find it’s colder on the counter than in the fridge over the coming months!

The Next Step

Once you’ve caught the freezing bug you might want to try a very frugal practice – the once a month cook up. You buy in bulk, cook solidly for a day, and eat the results for a month. This saves you on food, utilities, last minute takeaways and time as well. In most Japanese kitchens a once a week cookup might be more realistic though! There are plenty of websites with freezing tips, recipe ideas and discussion forums. It’s quite a movement, complete with its own acronym- OAMC. Try http://busycooks.about.com/library/lessons/blOAMC.htm for a start.

References

• Martha Stewart
• http://www.cafecreosote.com/Reference/FreezingTips.php3 (Ed’s note: Link no longer valid.)
• http://www.bhg.com.au/food.nsf/Content/bhg_article_june01_freezing
• http://asiarecipe.com/freezing.html
• http://www.busycooks.about.com/od/freezingfood
• http://www.vegsource.com/talk/soy/messages/15258.html
• http://busycooks.about.com/library/lessons/blOAMC.htm

© 2004 H. Fukase.

Electricity use

Is your house lit up like a Christmas tree even after you turn off all the lights for the night? All those little red and green LEDs blinking and clocks keeping time are using electricity. Called ’standby power’ the amount of electricity used by appliances left in standby mode is not inconsiderable. Research in Australia found that 11.5% of home energy consumption was used in this way. Not all appliances use the same amount of power when in standby mode, and there is some variation between brands, but in general VCRs (19 watts), fax machines (30 watts) and stereo systems (10 watts) are heavy standby power users. A stereo that uses 11.7 watts of power when in use was found to use 9.5 watts in standby mode! Similarly, left plugged in, a microwave oven uses more power over a year in standby than it does when in use.

While some appliances need to be left on (turning your fridge off each night would not be very healthy or frugal!) there are many appliances in our homes that don’t need to be left on all day, everyday. A little extra effort could save you a lot of money.

In the Home Office

Many computer peripherals do not shut down completely when you turn the computer off. Printers, speakers, modems, external CD-ROMs etc do not need to be on when the computer is off. Putting all these devices on to one switched powerboard allows you to shut everything down with the flick of one switch. Many appliances come with AC power adapters (usually small black boxes). These devices change the 110-volt electricity from the wall socket into the lower voltage required by each appliance. During this conversion much of the unwanted electricity is dispersed as heat. Even if you are not using your laptop, speakers or mobile phone charger, if the adapter is warm to the touch, energy is being used. Therefore turning off the appliance at the switch is the most frugal way of shutting down such equipment.

If turning your computer off completely is not practical there are still steps you can take to minimize wasted electricity. http://www.rmfdevelopment.com/DesktopConservation.html describes how Windows and Linux users can create personal settings for their computer’s standby, suspend and hibernation modes and maximize power conservation.

In the Living Room

Getting up and turning the TV, VCR, DVD player and stereo at the switch rather than with the remote will save you considerable energy.

One of the biggest energy consumers in the living room is heating. Whether you use an air conditioner/ heater unit, hot carpet, fan forced kerosene stove or kotatsu heated table there are steps you can take to keep warm AND frugal.

Air-Conditioner Unit

Clean or change the filters regularly. Running the air conditioner unit with dirty filters uses 5-10% more electricity than if the same unit was cleaned.

Grab a jumper/sweater. Are you guilty of walking around in the wintertime in a t-shirt? By grabbing a jumper/sweater and turning the heating down only 2 degrees you can save as much as 10% of the energy consumed by the air conditioner.

Hot Carpet (Electric Carpet)

If your living room floor is wood or linoleum, placing a mat, towels, rug or newspaper between the floor and the hot carpet will provide insulation and stop heat loss.

When using a hot carpet sitting directly on the carpet (without using a floor cushion or seat) will give you best results.

Fan-Forced Heater

When selecting a heater look for one with a low energy mode (sho-ene or jaku unten). If you don’t have small children or animals that may get burnt, a kerosene-only heater uses no electricity at all, relying instead on radiant energy. As with an air-conditioning unit keeping the thermostat at 22 degrees will help keep running costs down.

Kotatsu (Japanese Low Table with Heat Lamp, Covered by Large Coverlet)

Thick equals warm. Changing the futon coverlet covering your kotatsu (kakebuton) from a 3cm thick one to a 10cm thick one will save you around 20% energy. If you don’t have a 10cm think futon you can double up with two thinner ones. With a thick mat under the kotatsu (shikibuton) and a thick futon on top large enough to stop cold air getting in around the edges you will find that once you use the electric heater to warm the kotatsu you can turn it off and stay warm for quite some time.

Whichever method you use to heat your house you can make a big difference to your heating costs by ensuring that no drafts are getting in and using thick blinds or curtains on the windows. 10% of heat is lost through windows so if you don’t mind how it looks a layer of clear bubble wrap fixed to the inside of the window is a good DIY double glazing trick.

In the Kitchen

The Fridge
One of the biggest users of electricity in the home is the fridge. A few simple steps can reduce the energy consumed in keeping your foodstuffs cool.

Location, Location, Location
In many Japanese kitchens you don’t have a lot of choice where to place the fridge. If you do, however, aim for a cool place. According to the Centre for Environmental Information Science running your fridge where the surrounding air is 30 degrees uses 80% more electricity than the same appliance run in a 15 degree environment. Leaving adequate space around the fridge (at least 10cm on all sides) helps air circulate and aids efficient cooling. If your fridge is not too heavy to move, vacuuming the coils at the back will also help it run better. But be careful you don’t knock or damage the coils as refrigerator gas is poisonous.

Optimum Capacity
An over-full fridge uses a lot of energy. It is also not wise to let your fridge get too empty though as it takes more energy to cool air than foodstuffs. This is particularly true in the freezer. If you don’t keep a lot of things in the freezer fill some containers with water or keep your freezer packs in there to reduce energy costs. Placing hot foods straight from stove to freezer is another energy waster. Try to leave dishes to cool to room temperature before freezing.

And opening the door to the fridge and THEN thinking about what you want to eat is an energy black hole. It can take up to eight minutes for the fridge to return to its set temperature after the door has been opened.

Rice Cooker
Do you cook rice for the day all at once? It can actually be more frugal to cook rice twice than to keep it warm all day. For example, if you cook 4 cups of rice in the morning and keep it warm till dinner time you use more energy than you would have cooking two cups in the morning and another two for dinner. Some rice cookers have a low energy switch. Be careful though: in many cases this is not an energy efficient option as the same amount of energy is used- just over a longer period of time. This switch is designed to minimize the amount of energy used at one time so as not to overload the ampage breaker.

Hot Water Pot
In most cases a very energy inefficient appliance. If you need hot water on demand throughout the day (or have just got too used to having one to do without!) unplugging the pot before you go to bed saves you keeping all that water hot when noone will be using it. The hot water in the pot when you turn it off can be recycled into your hot water bottle.

If you need any more incentive to become energy efficient around the house check out the Kansai Electric Power Company’s fun eco-check page: www.kepco.co.jp/sho-ene/ec/ec.html. All you need is a copy of your last electricity bill and in a couple of minutes you can see how many yen you could be saving by taking a few small steps to conserve energy.

References

• http://enduse.lbl.gov/info/40295-abstract.html
• http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/almanac.htm#Refrigeration
• http://extratv.warnerbros.com/dailynews/consumer/04_01/04_04b.html
• http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/columns/probe22.html
• http://standby.lbl.gov/data.html
• http://www.rmfdevelopment.com/energysa.html
• http://www.rmfdevelopment.com/DesktopConservation.html (Ed’s note: link no longer valid)
• http://www.ceis.or.jp/ecolife/eco1.html
• http://www.kepco.co.jp/sho-ene/ec/ec.html?kwh0=2222 (Ed’s note: link no longer valid)
• http://www.zds-osaka.or.jp/kaden/kufu/kufu.htm

© 2004 H. Fukase.

The dish in question is “nabemono,” or hot-pot dishes. Most people are familiar with some of the more famous nabe, including sukiyaki or shabu-shabu. However, despite what Japanese supermarkets want you to think, you don’t need a lot of special ingredients to make good nabemono, or to eat them almost every day.

In our house, nabe are fixed very simply — the soup in the pot is usually a package of instant dashi (or homemade, if we’re feeling finicky), plus a half ladleful each of mirin and soy sauce. You can vary the seasonings for different kinds of nabe, but frankly — this base works almost every time.

Then ingredients are equally simple: ample portions of whatever vegetables are in the refrigerator, a meat or fish of some sort, and an extra. Almost any vegetable will work in nabe, though some need to be cooked longer than others. Root vegetables and thicker cabbage slices should be put in the pot first, followed by mushrooms and finally leafy vegetables last. All different kinds of fish can be used, even ‘ara,’ or the head and trimmings of the fish, if you’re feeling adventurous. The fish or fish products (fish balls, etc) can be added together with the root vegetables to give the soup flavor.

Meat can be simmered in chunks with root vegetables, or cooked shabu-shabu style while eating if you have thick slices. Both pork and beef make a nice shabu-shabu style nabe. Finally, the extra: this can be anything from regular tofu, fried tofu (agedofu) cut in squares, fish or chicken balls, or some kind of clear noodle like shirataki or harusame. The key to avoid overcooking is to leave the leafy vegetables for last! For the dipping sauce, we usually choose something simple like store-bought ponzu (a sour soy-based sauce) or sesame-flavored sauce.

Finally, after you’ve eaten most of the vegetables and meat, you might try adding frozen udon or leftover rice with one beaten egg to the soup. Let this simmer, and you have a great end to you meal.

Nabemono are great party foods, family foods, or even last-minute foods, as preparation time is very short. Just slice the vegetables, season the soup, and basically you’re done! I also find nabemono very frugal, as the variety of ingredients you can put in a simple nabe means you can make a good use of bargains. Finally, nabemono are very healthy — tons of vegetables, very little meat, and it’s home-cooked.

I recently gained a new addition to my resource collection in Japanese: the monthly Ohanashi Salad newsletter from my organic coop featured a special “EcoLife” section in September, and I thought I’d share some of their unique ideas for trash reduction, efficient energy usage and recycling that I gleaned. Here are a few highlights:

Efficient Energy Use

“Reducing the amount of ’stuff’ in my house has made cleaning easier and improved air flow. We no longer need to use the air conditioner.”

“One night a week, I have a romantic ‘candle night.’ We use candles for reading/dining, and don’t use electricity.” (Editor’s Note: Be mindful of the potential for fires!)

Cooking

“I food process leftover vegetables (excluding onions) into a paste, and freeze it. The paste can be added to soups or sauces to give it extra flavor.”

“When making ‘nimono’ (simmered dishes) or other similar dishes, I take the pot off the stove when the the dish is about 2/3 cooked, and then wrap it in a bath towel. The lingering heat cooks the rest of the food, saving on gas expenses and preventing overcooking.”

Reuse/Recycling

“Coffee grounds and tea leaves can be mixed in with potting soil for extra nutrients.”

“I rip up old telephone books into sections two or three pages thick. I use these for wiping up leftover oil in frying pans. They are also useful for wiping my hands, lining refrigerator drawers, or wrapping vegetables.”

One last tip from the Ohanashi Salad newsletter:

Make Time

“I realized that, when I’m in a hurry, my activities produce a lot of waste and use up a lot of electricity. For example: if I’m running late for work, I’ll often drop by the convenience store to grab
breakfast, or use a taxi to get to work instead of the train. In short: my philosophy for an ecological lifestyle is to make sure I have plenty of time to get where I’m going, and to do what I need to do.”

Some of the above tips may be old news to you, others may be useful. The resourcefulness of Japanese folks of a certain age never ceases to surprise me. I did find this final piece of advice from a 30-year-old housewife quite revealing:

“The most important thing to me is NOT trying to have a more convenient lifestyle. In other words, not getting too used to too much convenience.”

(For those not in the know, gazpacho is a cold tomato base soup originating in Spain. My grandmother made a wonderful version, so I always thought it was a traditional Southern food! Little did I know it was originally European.)

Ingredients

Vegetables:
Ripe tomatoes (1 kg, or 8 or 9 medium-size tomatoes)
(Note: Apparently, only the very red tomatoes will work. The paler pinkish tomatoes do not have enough flavor to make a good soup.)
Onion (1/2)
Small green peppers (3)
Cucumbers, peeled (2)
Chop the above vegetables until they are chunky.

Seasoning:
Stale bread, broken up into crumbs (30g.)
Garlic, peeled and crushed (one clove — you can add more according to taste)
Olive oil (5 to 6 tablespoons or oosaji)
Salt (1 to 2 tablespoons according to taste)
Wine vinegar (3 to 3 1/2 tablespoons — other types of vinegar may be used)
Cumin, if you have it (a little to taste)

Instructions:
Add the mixed seasonings to the chopped vegetables in a bowl. Mix well.
Let the mixture “marinate” for 2-3 hours, preferably in the refrigerator.
Run the mixture through a blender. Add one cup of water to thin out the mixture.
Very easy, and very refreshing for summer. Serve in a chilled dish and with parsley sprigs for garnish.

© 2004 Wendy J. Imura.