I wanted to make some Japanese potato salad and went hunting for a recipe. Came across this website that had some very interesting stuff.

https://www.justonecookbook.com/

SK and Mr SK can tell us how authentic the recipes are!

I posted Mr. SK's potato salad recipe here a year or so ago. Here it is again:

Japanese Potato Salad


Potatoes - about 4 (00-600 grams)
Carrot - 50 grams (Mr. SK said "as many as you want)
Cucumber - 1 if it's large-ish

Vinegar - 1.5 teaspoons
Salad (?) Oil 1 tablespoon (Mr. SK uses canola; what's "salad oil" in Japanese might just be vegetable oil)
Salt 1/2 teaspoon
Pepper - as you like
Kewpie mayo (Mr. SK said the recipe calls for 4-5 tablespoons but he just does one squirt without measuring, maybe the size of a fist)

1) Prepping the potatoes
Boil the potatoes until they're soft
Peel while still hot
Smush the potatoes in a large bowl
Mix in salt, pepper, vinegar vinegar

2) Prepping the carrots
Cut the carrots (slice/chunk them)
Boil water, when it comes to a boil add salt (as you like)
Put the carrots into the water until they're soft

3) Prepping the cucumbers
Chop/slice similar to the carrots (Mr SK cuts first in fourths and then slices)
Put the cut cucumbers on top of paper towel and gently squeeze to get rid of some of the water

4) Putting it all together
Mix the carrots and cucumbers in with the potatoes
Add mayo and mix

Mr. SK said that's the recipe but he mostly does it to taste.

He also reminded me that he makes American style cole slaw but with Kewpie mayo instead of American mayo.

P.S. The Just One Cookbook site looks pretty good!

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
I posted Mr. SK's potato salad recipe here a year or so ago.

quote:

Here it is again

We had salmon baked in foil with chives (fresh from my garden), ginger, soy sauce, and a bit of toasted sesame oil baked in the Omni countertop oven! Side of potato salad.....we added some thinly sliced radishes to Mr SK's recipe for a little extra color and crunch.

Bet it was delish!!

That sounds great!

Sharon just left for Ohio and I’m batching it until Monday night. Tonight’s dinner was leftover Chinese food, shared with Sam while watching random YouTube videos.

SK, yum again! I’ve only made potato salad once in my life, and it was when you posted this last year. It was delish!

Here's a question for those of you with more knowledge of Asian cooking than me.

I grew bitter melons last year for the first time. They're bitter, for sure, and they're an acquired taste that I've only halfway acquired. The bitterness is supposed to come from a chemical that lowers blood sugar, which I need, so I'm planning to keep acquiring that taste. I only got a few melons last year, but I've planted more this year. So I need recipes.

(I know Asia's a big place, but my seeds say they're from Okinawa, while other seed packets mentioned other places in Japan and also India and perhaps Indonesia. I think maybe bitter melon is widespread in the warmer parts of Asia?)

I know about salting them to draw out some of the bitterness. (Although maybe that decreases the therapeutic effect?) I enjoyed them stirfried with garlic and fermented black beans with some kind of protein, usually beef or shrimp, but I've seen other recipes of them pickled or scrambled with eggs.

Any other recommendations?

Can't help on bitter melon recipes but regarding blood sugar (and the related hormone insulin)....

Have you looked at any of the studies that link a sweet taste in the mouth (natural or artificial sweeteners) to an insulin response?

Just a couple:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18556090/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17510492/

And a discussion about sweet and bitter taste receptors:

https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/f...ter-taste-receptors/

Still more questions than answers as far as the science, but I can share my personal experience.

One of the things I've changed about my eating habits recently is not drinking any flavored beverages in between meals. I'm not talking sugar or sweeteners for the most part, but just anything that has a sweet taste.

I've never been a regular drinker of sugared carbonated beverages or fruit juices. A few times a day, though, I used to make a cup of herbal tea (fruity but not sweetened), or black tea (with a little sugar and splash of milk). During the summer when warm beverages aren't as appealing, I would have a glass of water with an orange wedge or other piece of fruit in it. Now I just drink plain (well, fizzy from the Sodastream) water.

I've always been a "grazer", feeling hungry and snacking a little between meals. Since I stopped drinking anything flavored, I rarely feel hungry between meals.

Makes me wonder if there's something to the notion that sweet taste is correlated to blood sugar/insulin/hunger.

quote:

bitter melons

Ok, I had to google and ask what the Japanese was for bitter melons -- it's goya. It's actually a long vowel, ゴーヤ so not like the brand Goya that makes beans...

Anyway, I would never in a billion years have called goya anything melon-like. I always thought of goya as being like zucchini only ... bitter. I love zucchini, but goya? Not so much.

Anyway, yes, in Japan, that's seen as from Okinawa and the dishes that use it are considered Okinawan. There are a few dishes that have goya as an ingredient, the most famous one is Goya chanpuru (some people write it as champuru). I always like the chanpuru dishes themselves, just not the goya!

As you can imagine, we never really bought that when we lived in Japan. But I'll ask Mr. SK if he has any suggestions. And if you haven't, google "Okinawan goya chanpuru" and maybe also "how to cook Okinawan goya."

P.S. WTG the stuff about sweet taste is super interesting! I'm sure it's connected!!

It's one of the tidbits I took away from Gin Stephens' book on intermittent fasting. Also kluurs' observation that when he cut out most sugar he feels more energetic and doesn't have the midafternoon crash.

Stephens talks a lot about insulin, blood sugar, ghrelin, and leptin, and how they interact with each other. She mentioned some of the studies that seem to indicate an insulin response when someone just tastes sweet.

I figure it's a really easy thing to do, so it was worth a try. I think I'm seeing a positive effect.

I've been making some half-azzed changes, but I do really like sweet things--not always flat-out sweet things like hard candy, but sweetness mixed with acid and bitterness (Coca-Cola and, to an extent, chocolate) or in a creamy context (cheesecake, ice cream, chocolate, coffee with cream and sugar, and such). I developed these tastes when my metabolism burned so hot that I would have perished of malnutrition without those calories. Alas, this is no longer true.

It is going to be very hard for me to give all of those things up completely, if it should prove to be necessary. My doctor would like me to do this, but she tells everybody to do this. My numbers aren't the best, but they're not that bad and they've been stable for at least five years. I am certainly not diabetic. She and I differ, in that I would like to balance quality of life against pleasurable foods that may not be all that bad for me. She views these food as poison. Until I darken her door for my semi-annual appointment, I feel like I'm in pretty good shape for somebody who's about to be sixty, but she always manages to make me feel like carp.

I don't drink or ingest other illegal or legal mind-altering substances. I eat tons of organic vegetables. If I lose five more pounds, she can't even call me overweight any more. Am I really supposed to be at my youthful weight into my dotage? Old Lady Me is going to want to drink a Coca-Cola from time to time in the nursing home cafeteria.

Anyway. I've lost about eight pounds with my half-azzed approach that echoes some of the things you all are saying. More days than not, I don't have anything but coffee and milk before lunch, with no sugar. I've always been a grazer, but I'd guess that I've eliminated about half of the between-meal snacks I used to eat. After-dinner snacks have become rare. I only have those if I'm actively hungry and it's going to interfere with my sleeping. I've scaled back on mealtime carbs and my meals are generally much smaller. My exercise motivation comes and goes. Sometimes I get on an aerobics kick and do some mild exercise of that sort. Sometimes it's just yoga.

Is this going to be enough for my martinet doctor?

No. It is not.

You've gone much farther than I when it comes to reducing carbs and sugar.

I really haven't changed what I eat at meals. My eating habits have always been OK, but not nearly as healthy as what you describe. I still have dessert occasionally and I've never been a carb watcher.

It's primarily the timing of the meals (and I'm not anywhere near calling myself an intermittent faster); I don't eat after about 5 pm and I eat breakfast at around 7:30 am. I eat three meals, no snacking.

I've also become more away of my body's hunger and satiety signals and tend to eat a little less because I'm paying attention to what my body is saying. I mostly avoid alcohol because it totally messes up my hunger signals; I know I eat *way* more when I have an adult beverage before or with a meal. Between meals, I don't snack and I only drink plain water.

I think we're all very different when it comes to how we process food. You just have to experiment to find what works for you and makes you feel good. Then it's easy to keep eating that way.

edit: The good doctor needs to lighten up a bit....