![]() Next, she stuffed the meat mixture into the head of the mushroom… Her hands still trembled a bit as she dipped the heads in potato starch, though. “This has got to be how celebrities eat matsutake!” Ikuna thought as she diligently mixed the ingredients together. Then, so as not to waste the stalks, she finely chopped them… To clean the dirt off, Ikuna didn’t wash them but instead wiped them down with a damp cloth. The head of the mushroom looked exactly like a shiitake mushroom. With only a few, carefully suppressed reservations, Ikuna sliced off the top of the mushrooms. The standard method of cooking matsutake mushrooms is usually thin-slicing and grilling or steaming them, but Ikuna wanted to try something a little bit different: stuffing them with meat. Some might consider this a waste of such a luxury ingredient, but Ikuna thought that by preparing them like ordinary, less expensive shiitake mushrooms, she could make herself feel like a rich person. It was so strong that Ikuna was inclined to recoil, but didn’t out of the respect for how much money she could have spent on them. “ Now I can live my dream of casually snacking on matsutake mushrooms,” Ikuna thought, clutching the vinyl plastic bag to her chest with stars in her eyes.Īs soon as she got back to the office and opened up the package, the mushrooms’ rich, spicy smell filled her nostrils. “I usually sell three matsutake stalks for 8,000 yen (US$55.46), but since you’re so beautiful I’ll give them to you at the special price of 3,000 yen!” Ikuna didn’t have to be told twice she gave the man her money and ran off with her matsutake in hand, in case he changed his mind. With Ikuna’s attention sufficiently captured, he proceeded to further woo her with sweet words. “Miss! I’ve got cheap matsutake just for you!” Ikuna was strolling through the Ueno-Tokyo shopping neighborhood of Ameyokocho when a shop attendant hailed her from the sidelines. That’s why when our Japanese-language reporter Ikuna Kamezawa was offered a steal of a deal for Matsutake mushrooms, she had to take it. But there’s one fall ingredient that every Japanese person dreams of being able to eat on the regular, and that’s matsutake mushrooms.įaced with a dwindling of the pine forest habitats in which they grow, and being almost completely impossible to grow commercially, matsutake mushrooms have become a delicacy that comes with a price tag many can’t afford. Those are all ingredients that your average, everyday consumer can afford, which is nice if you feel like getting into the fall spirit. ![]() When you think of fall food in Japan, a lot of different flavors come to mind: chestnuts, sweet potatoes, persimmons… Because 23 is too many to say “I’ll just drink all of them,” unless you’re us, that is.A bargain deal on expensive ingredients makes our reporter think twice about her ideas of cooking. Kikkoman is, first and foremost, a soy sauce maker. What you might not know, though, is that the company also sells a huge variety of soy milk, or tonyu, as it’s called in Japanese. You can find Kikkoman soy milk in any supermarket or convenience store in Japan, available in paper drink boxes for an on-the-go-thirst quencher. On our recent trip to the grocery store, we counted 23 different kinds…so we bought them all to see which are the best.īefore we go any further, let’s look at our complete list of contenders.įrom left to right, staring in the top row and working our way down, those are: However, when we say Kikkoman has a lot of different types of soy milk, we mean a lot. To start off, our taste tester Ikuna Kamezawa took back-to-back sips of the two most basic varieties, Processed and Raw Soy Milk, seen on the left and right, respectively, in the photo below. There’s actually a pretty striking difference between the two, as the Raw one has a very subtle flavor. It’s so subtle that Ikuna recommends it only for soy milk veterans whose taste buds are attuned to the drink’s baseline taste, as others might find it too bland for their liking. ![]() ![]() “It’s sort of the opposite situation from cow’s milk, where processing tends to remove flavor,” says Ikuna.Īnd with that, it was time to see how the other, more creative flavors of Kikkoman soy milk taste.Īfter trying each and every one, Ikuna put together a list of her top five recommendations for palate-pleasing, smooth-drinking soy sipping. Like with a lot of food and drinks in Japan, Kikkoman has an ever-changing lineup of seasonal flavors for its soy milk, which is why there are so many tropical ones in stores right now.
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