Anago Maker

http://anago.crap.jp/

Anago == garden eel.

I saw several of my Twitter peeps changing their profile pic simultaneously about last week with similar-style worm-like cute picture.

It's kind of like a simplified version of dressing up a character. Try it, it's fun, and you can save the anago design that you made. If you don't understand Japanese, try using logic and figure out what the buttons are for. They're much simpler than a purikura machine.

Here's mine!

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Because we are humans

Because we are humans, just the normal humans,
We do not communicate through telepathy.

If you don't tell the other party what you exactly want,
Misunderstanding will rise.

When you try to avoid the problem,
The problem will just drag and nothing will be solved.

I am sure you have heard these somewhere,
But indeed doing it right is harder than thinking and listening about these things.

I wish that we humans do not give in to our weak selves
I wish I can explain things better
and I wish that they trust each other more.

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No pictures!

I have never intended to make this blog a food blog, but since my life revolves around food, be it at work or back in my apartment, you'll see so many food-related entries here. So, no pictures this time since I  want to do a reflective entry.

It seemed like a long ago but I just skydived yesterday. How I felt about it? Awesome.

Before I decided to go for a skydive my brother tried to convince me not to jump by showing death and accident stats. It didn't convince me knowing that the death rate is 4 deaths in 4 years, and the most recent death was actually this March, when a Philly mayor got into an accident. And he was not on tandem.

My parents were very reluctant to let me jump but they know I am very stubborn once I have an idea in my head. I felt bad for making them worry, but I decided to do it.

My gut feeling told me that I will be safe. I would jump, and then I would laugh.

And hey, I survived the skydive with no scratch or pain, physically and mentally. And spiritually, if you'd like to add that.

I have been thinking about this but I think I have an overflowing positive attitude to the point that it's scary. I feel that I am very lucky. Well, not lucky enough to win a jackpot in the casino, but whenever I try hard, I always gain something, both in the short term and in the long term.

Somehow, there's a tiny little critter in my head telling me "it's gonna be ok".

Is it God, or is it my inner self? Or maybe a demon? Who knows. I'm alive and kicking, and I'm a lucky girl.

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Instant Noodle: around the world part 4

Okay peeps I'm back with more instant noodles! Yes, this just means that for a couple of days I had been eating instant noodles for dinner. No big deal, I don't do it every week.

Part 1: http://anitalucius.blogspot.com/2011/08/instant-noodles-around-world.html
Part 2: http://anitalucius.blogspot.com/2011/08/instant-noodles-around-world-2.html
Part 3: http://anitalucius.blogspot.com/2011/10/instant-noodle-around-world-3.html

So everyone remember the Chukazanmai? Yep, this is another version, but it's the cold version, and it's sesame flavor. Sesame has been... overly used in a lot of Americanized Chinese cuisine, as I probably have mentioned before. To those who aren't so adventurous and have not had sesame in any forms, it actually has a nutty profile. And I find sesame very complimentary to soy sauce.

Cooking instruction is pretty simple: boil the noodle, rinse in cold water, mix with the condiments. Done. But the instruction also says to garnish with sliced cucumber, tomato and ham. I didn't have those at home when I was making this, so... too bad, I garnished it with SPAM cubes. I mean, it's close to ham: it's been cured using nitrates (and that's why hams, SPAM, and bacon are pink colored!)

The noodle isn't different from the hot soup version.

As usual, condiments are pretty fancy. The bigger pouch is the soup base, the small packet is yellow mustard.

Now, the fun part: ingredients. This time I'll touch on yellow food coloring added. Why add yellow color to the noodle? Apparently consumers in general believe that noodles are supposed to be yellow (with exception of certain noodles like soba and udon). Without yellow color, noodles naturally look light beige / off tan. Which explains why a lot of handmade/homemade noodles generally have paler complexion.

But I wonder why they use Yellow 5 (tartrazine, a synthetic food dye). I thought Japan is against artificial food coloring. Hmm. Maybe for export quality only? Or maybe the laws changed.

And the other thing I totally missed last time was sodium level.It's so SCARY. 70% of your Daily Value? That's insanely high!!

If you add ham.. the total sodium count will be.... OMG I don't want to think about it anymore. How much sodium did I have on that day?!

Nevertheless, it has a very refreshing soup base. A little vinegar in umami (and sodium) rich thin sauce. It's perfect for summer times.

BUT

That refreshing sensation actually makes me hungry even more. SO, I DECIDED TO HAVE ANOTHER GO.

I finally touch on Indonesian instant noodle. Indonesians simply call every single instant noodle "Supermi" or "Indomie" just because those two brands have existed long time ago and they're really good. Nowadays we have numerous brands, but Supermi and Indomie kind of stick to the hearts of Indonesians.

I selected an uncommon flavor: Soto Banjar Limau Kuit. Translation? None. The only translatable word is limau, which is pretty easy to guess: lime. This variety has a very complex flavor combination of spices, coconut and lime. To imagine what it looks and taste like in a very simple manner, it's like the thinner version of Thai green curry. In reality, it's more complex than that.

I missed the sodium level but by rough estimate it would be around 60-65% Daily Value. Which is also pretty high if you imagine eating one packet for breakfast (it's common for Indonesians to have heavy breakfast), one for lunch, and one for dinner. And I've known people who do that. Mostly students who live in dorms and kos (a kind of housing where you can rent a room in a privately owned house).

The noodle is rather thick as compared to the Myojo Chukazanmai, but not as thick as Shin Ramyun.

The condiments are slightly different than other countries' instant noodle. It's only recent (like, I know at least within 5 years) that they start including fried shallots (they always say fried onion but it's actually fried shallot just because the word shallot is pretty uncommon. We all know Onion Head emotes, but Shallot Head? Nope, never heard of that). Chili pepper is always on a separate pouch than the soup seasoning. Additionally, they may include spiced/seasoned vegetable oil and, in this case, coconut milk. Coconut milk powder was separated from the soup base because it needs to be added at a temperature lower than the boiling point, or else the coconut will start curdling. At least that's what I get from my observation; it's not backed up with a scientific explanation.

Last but not least, it's common to add egg to instant noodle in Indonesia. If you can afford it. It gives you more flavor and it makes you more full, but on the other hand it makes the appearance slightly murky. You can cook the egg separately (that's what they do on commercials), but what's the point of having it instant if you have to prepare the other stuffs? Just dump the egg in and let it cook!

Sodium fiesta!

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International Yogurt Part II

Well... I'm not sure if I should call it "international" but yeah they are different yogurt styles from different countries. Or maybe not; maybe it's just a new name that a company came up with and then the rest just follows. But anyways, in my previous post I covered French yogurt. And as I promised, we'll touch on Greek yogurt.

I started with Dannon just because I'm a big fan of Dannon's Activia and I have seen my coworkers enjoying it.

It certainly looks a little thicker than normal yogurt.

But what's so different about Greek yogurt? I had a chat with other food technologists at work and it seems that currently there is no standard of identity established. Most "new trend" foods don't have standards of identity. A good example to illustrate this is frozen yogurt. There is no definition of how much yogurt it should contain, how much fat, how much milk particles, etc. to make it definable as "frozen yogurt". Another example is smoothie. When you ask people, "what is a smoothie?", they will give you different answers. Fruit puree? Fruit juice? Fruit with ice? With yogurt? Certainly it's a cold beverage, but there is no standard as to what kind of ingredients and at what level they should be, should not be, or must be included.

Greek yogurt is basically concentrated yogurt. The whey protein is removed from the yogurt, making it close to the consistency of a cheese.

But hey, beware: apparently there is a difference between Greek yogurt and Greek-style yogurt.

What is the difference between Real Greek yoghurt and Greek "style" yoghurt?
Real Greek yoghurt is made using natural ingredients (milk and honey) and has a thick, creamy consistency due to the traditional techniques applied to make Greek yoghurt. Greek "style" yoghurt contains one or more of the following ingredients; cream, gelatine, gum blends, stabilizers, preservatives, non-fat milk solids and milk solids. Greek "style" yoghurt is thick because of these thickening agents. Greek "style" yoghurt is not Real Greek yoghurt

(Obtained from http://www.greekyoghurt.com.au/component/option,com_page/id,3/Itemid,27/)

And if you look closely at the ingredients statement on Dannon's Greek yogurt displayed on the website (note: on the package it says "Greek Yogurt" and not "Greek Style Yogurt")

it contains carrageenan. It's a gum used to thicken a system. They did strain the whey out using traditional methods (or so the website says) but what's this carrageenan doing here? I guess it makes more sense if you remember that this Dannon Greek yogurt is non-fat. Without the use of gums, it would have a "dry", non-creamy texture. Forgivable? Yes, I'd consider that forgivable. 

And I guess instead of honey, they use sugar (sucrose) and fructose (the main sugar in honey and plant-based ingredients). Probably cheaper and easier to use than honey when you think about large scale productions. Forgivable.

Overall I prefer Greek yogurt than French yogurt. 

Next on international yogurt: Icelandic skyr (yogurt)

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Fettucini Craze

My mum doesn't like Western food in general, but she likes anything with fettucini. So do I.

Wegmans sells a huge variety of imported international goods, and I found this pasta brand that is really awesome: De Cecco. I thought Barilla was like the best pasta ever, but I guess not.

I tried the spaghetti. It's awesome too! The texture is just so... different. Really. I'm not the craziest pasta fan out there but I love this brand a lot.

I made fettucini alfredo with ham (read: SPAM), cayenne pepper and McCormick dried Italian seasoning (marjoram, thyme, rosemary, savory, sage, oregano and basil). It's a really good blend that is easy to use, even for seasoning spaghetti aglio-oglio (garlic and olive oil based). The alfredo is topped with roasted bell peppers (my recent new craze):

Fettucini is also good with tomato-based sauce. I used store-bought creamy vodka sauce and meatballs.

Delicious!

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French Yogurt, sil vous plait!

Well well... what did I discover on the yogurt aisle last Thursday?

French yogurt! I've never heard or seen it before. Maybe because I'm not really a yogurt person in the first place. The only time I was crazy about yogurt was last year, and that craze didn't even last that long.

Many eat yogurt for its taste and texture, including me. Of course, yogurt consumption also has an added benefit: it helps you grow the bacteria in your gut so you can poo-poo easily- hold on, GROW BACTERIA IN YOUR STOMACH?? ISN'T BACTERIA DANGEROUS!?

No, not all bacteria are dangerous. In fact, without the nice bacteria in your guts, you won't feel good. Ever experienced riding an overcrowded train and felt like a sardine packed in a can, and you can't breathe because there is just no space for you? The same concept goes to our good stomach bacteria: they prevent the bad bacteria from invading your stomach by competing against them for survival.

If you've bought something that says pro-biotic or pre-biotic, then you've unknowingly supported the growth of good bacteria in your stomach. So what do pro- and pre-biotic mean? Pro-biotic means that the contents of the food help the good stomach bacteria grow healthier, while pre-biotic means that the contents of the food contain live, active bacteria good for your stomach. Dead cells don't count as pre-biotics.

Now, don't start thinking "Eeew I've been eating live bacteria all the time!?". Microbes float around you all the time. Millions or billions of them. You've been inhaling them as you breathe. It's okay, you're not gonna die.

Back to the French yogurt. This French yogurt didn't look anything too different from the other Activia yogurts that I've had tasted before. There are chunks of mango, but growing up eating fresh mango grown in my house's backyard, this mango tasted weird. Like unripe mango. It's not the creamy mango I had expected. But the yogurt itself not too bad!

Calories.. not too bad. I mean, it's yogurt. It's bound to have some fats and proteins. And sugar, if it's flavored. Yogurt without sugar is just too tart for me.

Saturated fat.. I'm a little worried but hey it's not like I can eat 5 cups of yogurt in a day.

So if you notice on the ingredients list, there is modified corn starch. What the hell is that? Some corn starch mutant? I don't know either, but from my experience attending food suppliers expo, my guess is that it provides dietary fiber. If I have the chance, I'll talk more about dietary fiber and how it's actually not coming from sources you think they would come from. 

Next to explore: Greek yogurt. It's been invading the yogurt aisle on groceries store to the point that it has its own section.

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Pasta? Pasta!

I haven't been posting any of the dishes I made for dinner because they have been boring for quite some time. Whenever I go back from work, I crave something homey (in simpler sense, I crave for instant noodle LOL).

And I have quite a variety of pasta sauces, which I cannot post here just because I don't want to get in trouble for making "a dirty attempt to advertise my company's products". I think not being able to post anything related to your company's product is another downside of working in a food company. Whether you're being critical or biased about the products, there are always people who would think that the posts are part of the company's propaganda.

Nevertheless, in case anyone doesn't know, pasta is one of my favorite food since I was in elementary school. At that time, spaghetti was considered a luxury food. Every time my mother cooked me pasta for my lunch I would get very excited. Although I had a love-hate relationship with the tartness of pasta sauce.

My father, raised at Italian fraternity because he lost his father when he was very young and his mother was not able to raise him, grew a liking for spaghetti bolognaise. I don't even know what we Indonesians consider as "bolognaise" is the real bolognaise, but jarred commercial pasta sauce + ground beef + spaghetti would make a spaghetti bolognaise.

And whenever we go to a western food restaurant, he would try to find spaghetti bolognaise. No matter how scrumptious sounding other pasta can be, he would always stick to bolognaise.

As for me, I love it when my mother adds canned button mushroom to the sauce in addition to the ground meat.

It definitely look like some cheap, unauthentic pasta dish.Yes, I've had wonderful pasta from many authentic Italian restaurants. They're awesome, rich in flavor, perfectly cook. There's nothing I would complain about them. But this simple bolognaise will always stay in my heart. It's a dish that connects me with my parents.

Buon appetitto!

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Instant Noodles: around the world 3

More instant noodles!! (read Part 1 here and Part 2 here if interested)

After getting an oil change for my car last Saturday I decided to drive down Route 70 without using a map or GPS at all and stop by any places I see interesting.

One of them was the Asian Food Market. The sign was red and huge, pretty easy to notice. I stopped by and checked around. They have a huge variety of Chinese goods (and from their language, it seems that the store is Chinese-owned, as compared to the Vietnamese Sun Seng on Route 38). They also have a wide variety of authentic Chinese dishes for to go. Oh, and they also sell fresh soy milk!

And then I went on, and found H Mart. It's a Korean supermarket chain. At first I didn't have a good impression; I've been to H Mart in Manhattan and it was crowded and messy and unpleasant. The H Mart here is pretty huge, and all the ahjumma there are really nice.

I checked out the instant noodle aisle and bought these Chukazanmai. It's made by Myojo, and it's imported from Japan, so I'm not too worried about the ingredients. After all, as far as I remember Japan has one of the strictest regulations on food.

I'm not sure what Oriental Flavor really means, so I decided to get try it. There might be a specific concept of "Oriental Flavor" in Japan, just like how Americans in general think that anything with sesame seed or dressing is "Asian". You know, like "Asian Salad" (even though back in Asia the term 'salad' generally implies that it's a dish introduced or influenced by the West).

The noodle is really thin and randomly arranged. Most instant noodles strings I've seen are packed straight; this one goes haywire in almost every direction but formed into a square shape. I wonder how these noodles were processed.

The noodle is thin and chewy - I hardly see any thin noodles as chewy as this. I love it! I'm not a big fan of soft, soggy noodles. The soup is pretty much soy sauce based. It's delicious and very savory. After looking at the ingredients list of the dry seasoning and liquid soup base, guess what's in there:

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG - YUMM), yeast extract, Chinese cabbage extract, soy sauce, bonito extract. All of them provide umami / savory component. Yeast extract and Chinese cabbage are natural sources of glutamate (the family of MSG, yes). I'm not familiar with disodium inosinate but I would assume it is some sort of flavor enhancer that works similarly to MSG as well. Oh guess what, I was right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disodium_inosinate

FYI, if you're interested in umami-rich foods (in other words, food with naturally high MSG content), you should check this Umami Information Center website out: http://www.umamiinfo.com/2011/03/umami-rich-food-vegetables.php/

Now you know why in steamboat/hotpot/shabu shabu or whatever you call it, they always put Chinese cabbage / sawi putih / Napa cabbage. BECAUSE IT'S A NATURAL SOURCE OF MSG! Chinese people are so clever. And my mom knows Chinese cabbage makes soups taste so good without knowing about this fact. I told this to her about half a month ago, though. So now she knows!


Alright, moving on to the next one!

This one seems very interesting: curry flavor. I know it's probably not Indian curry but somewhere close to sweet, thick Japanese curry.

The noodle is pretty thick, close to instant u-dong/ udon. The surface is a little rough, so my guess is that this noodle is most likely processed by deep frying, just like most noodles out there. Some noodles, especially the "premium quality" noodles, are hot air dried. It's slower but I guess from nutrition standpoint it's healthier. I'm not exactly sure about textural differences, though.

Another thing I'd like to mention: nutrition facts label. Yes, if you are not familiar with it, you probably will take quite some time to figure out what is telling you what. And it's really deceptive primarily because there is no standard for serving size. Like this one:

The first thing that you have to read, and you definitely must read, is the Serving per Container. Why? Because like this instant noodle, it actually contains TWO servings per container. That means you will have to multiply all the values listed by two, unless you're the kind of person who would break instant noodle into half, use only half of the seasoning, and use only half of the condiment, and save the rest for later. No, I don't see a lot of people doing that because it defeats the purpose of making individual packets: convenience.

At a glance, you'd think that this instant noodle is healthy because it only has 210 Calories while in general most instant noodles have around 300-400 Calories. This noodle is no different than the majority: multiply the Calorie content by 2 and you'll get 420 Calories. Is it their fault for tricking you into thinking that this noodle is healthy? No, because by putting the label it is now YOUR responsibility to check the label.

(And oh, beware of the sodium level. It's 40% of the recommended amount you can take in a day; multiply it by 2 and you'll get 80%!! The upper limit is 2300mg, so that leaves you 460 mg of sodium which is equivalent to less than 1/4 teaspoon of salt!)

Here, they don't use straight MSG. I see that they include mushroom powder (HINT: mushroom is a good source of MSG and I don't think they add this powder for flavor in this case, just because people don't really make Japanese curry with mushroom bits at all), yeast extract powder, kelp extract powder and disodium inosinate. Again, kelp is another good source of natural MSG.

Something a little extra about cooking directions: I can't read Korean but apparently they put an exclamation mark on the 450cc (of water, I'm going to assume). Seems like it's an important step or amount of water. Not that important but maybe there are consumers who use too much water and ended up not getting the right end product.

As I expected, it's chewy, somewhat close to Shin Ramyun noodle but somewhat not as chewy as Shin Ramyun. The curry is not as thick as I thought it would be but it's pretty decent. It's pretty spicy for this type of curry but I love spicy foods and I can handle them. I'm a little disappointed at the dried vegetables included; it needs more carrot. There were only 2 pieces of carrot in mine, and they're like super tiny. The rest of the dry condiment package was just dried green onions.

Will post more stuffs next time. I've been busy with graduate school applications and other stuffs. And when I got back from work I just feel tired, not excited to do anything much. I haven't been cooking anything fancy lately, too.

But work is fun, so I've been feeling hyped up every day!

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