The Tokyo Chapter: What's for dinner?

There are some recipes I have been making for years and years. They are my go to comfort foods. In the US I always have the ingredients on hand, which makes for an easy dinner. But it is not the case in Japan. Sometimes ingredients are hard to come by and some ingredients are so expensive I don't normally have them just waiting to be used in my kitchen. Therefore, there are many recipes that I simply don't make here. I miss them.

Oh, how I wish I could whip up my favorite Soulful Stew or Enchiladas Verde. For these, I am just plain out of luck since some of the main ingredients cannot be found here. Trust me, I have asked and asked - people don't even know what a tomatillo is!

I have made some accommodations. My lasagna is now a quick and easy version that consists of using jarred sauce (versus homemade), no boil noodles that I buy at the import store, dry cottage cheese (in place of ricotta, which I also buy at the import store), and mozzarella cheese. It used to cost me over $100USD to make a pan of vegetarian lasagna. This new version only costs about $25USD. It isn't amazing, but much better than nothing.

Tonight's dinner was made to fill a craving for Hungarian Pork Goulash. I brought the Sweet Hungarian Paprika with me from the US. I buy my favorite spices from Penzey's and have never had an issue with bringing them into the country. Without the perfect paprika for this recipe, it is so disappointing and not worth the effort.

I needed to purchase the second most important ingredient: the meat. Since most meat is sold in very small pieces and small quantities here, it took a bit of calculation on my part. I found a butcher that carried very small roasts and stew meat. The stew meat was much cheaper than the roast per gram, so I ended up buying stew meat. I purchased all 6 packages on the shelf. It still didn't give me the 5 pounds I was wanting, but since it was almost $40USD, I was fine with the shortage.

The onion, mushrooms (my personal addition), and garlic were easy to find. Tomato paste comes in 1 tablespoon packets here. I have not seen it in the little cans or tubes that I am used to. So I ended up buying 2 boxes of packets in order to get the 1/2 cup I needed. One frustrating part of getting the tomato paste was finding it. It is not with the other tomato products like ketchup, canned tomatoes, and so forth. It is with all the curries in an entirely different aisle!

I already had the flour and salt in my pantry. I also had potatoes on hand from the garden.

When I got home from the store, it was easy to bring the recipe together on the stove and then put in the oven to simmer for a while. Cook the onions and mushrooms with the garlic in the dutch oven. Add the tomato paste and paprika and set aside. Brown the meat and add to the onion mixture in batches. Mix in some water and salt. Bring to a boil and put into the oven.

As I prepped everything, I once again felt so grateful that my husband convinced me to buy the oven. I always double the recipe in my dutch oven (which is why I needed 5 pounds of meat), which proved to be a pain here since I only have a 4 quart pot in Japan. Even if I wanted to have a bigger dutch oven, it wouldn't fit into my oven, so there is no point in getting a bigger one. The food filled my dutch oven, so after the initial hour and 15 minutes of baking, I pulled half of it out to freeze for a later date. I then tossed in the potatoes and baked for the remaining 30 minutes.

The results did not disappoint. I don't typically spend over $50USD on a weeknight dinner at home, but it was worth it.