Naga-imo | Yoshizen's Blog

Yamakake — Delicacy only for Japanese

Posted in 001-ABOUT the BLOG, Cooking, East and West, Emotion, Empowerment, Existentialism, Fun to read :-D, Photography, Subconsciousness, Who is Yoshizen, Zen in Action by yoshizen on December 29, 2013

——– (Soft-yam from Jamaica. This 2.5″ thick 3″ long (6cm x 7.5 cm)

——— piece will make enough Tororo for two persons)

What is Yamakake or Tororo ?

It is a kind of cooking with a special source made out of root-vegetable

called Tororo, and Yamakake is a type of Sashimi eaten with this source.

This root vegetable was botanically called Dioscorea, commonly known as

Soft-Yam or Sweet-Yam which spread most of the hot countries and there

said to be over 600 species, and normally eaten boiled, like a Potato.

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In Japan they are called Naga-imo, Yama-imo, Jinen-jo and in medieval time

they said to be eaten boiled as well (described in a story “Imo-gayu”) though,

now they are cooked only for Tororo and make Yamakake Sashimi.

(Yet in Osaka area, small amount of Tororo was added for Okonomi-yaki and

the Tororo Soba also exists but not very popular.)

Sometime, I cook Sashimi of tuna in Yamakake style, when I got Soft-yam.

What makes Tororo unique is = in the world, only the Japanese eat it raw.

Raw mean just grated it to make slimy juice ! Sound yummy isn’t it ! 😀

(In love with such slimy texture, Japanese eat Okura also raw —— just

sliced and mixed with Katsuo-bushi and Soy-source ! = Yummy again. 🙂 )

So that, Japanese has specially designed Grater (Photo left) called

Oroshi-gane (to make Daikon-Oroshi etc. Oroshi of Yama-imo is a Tororo).

To England, Soft-yam comes from Jamaica etc. even from France though,

seemingly it depends on the soil it grows, if it contains such as lots of iron,

it changes the color darker by oxidation and not nice for Yamakake. 😦

(Trouble is, we only discover it after cooked. :-D)

After grated, concentrated Dashi with Soy-source and a raw egg was mixed.

This raw source / Tororo was served on the Sashimi / raw fish =

So that, it makes a tasty Yamakake. Wow !

Purist prefer to put pure Tororo for Yamakake though, I mixed it with

Dashi, Soy-source and raw egg to make it like Tororo-jiru for Tororo-gohan.

And it is advisable to put small fragment of Lime skin (Yuzu or Kunenbo in

an authentic Japanese cooking ) to Tororo, and eat it together with some

Nori ( dried Sea-weed) on top. Or, some Wasabi is good additive though,

it’s better to chose either Nori or Wasabi to keep a flavour not conflicting.

Though, eat a fish raw, is a bit

tricky business in the west.

So, I found a frozen salmon pack

which was made in an automated

process without having touched by

a man’s hand (or least touched)

seems to be a safer choice.

(it comes from Lidl)

—– though, this was an old story.

It was the Lidl’s harsh practice when

the item got good publicity kind (like this blog) and started to sell more, Lidl push the price up (in this case to £2 each piece) to suck more profit = soon or later, the fed-up customer dwindled = when Lidl realized that they no longer able to sell, they just stop to sell, instead to put the price back. So, you can’t see this salmon there any more.

And in the same reason, I used to buy a packed raw tuna from Tesco though, after the price of tuna rocketed, I couldn’t find them any more.

= So, this time I made a Yamakake of Salmon here. The taste and it’s texture, melt in the mouth is an exquisite to us !

—– But, I wouldn’t say “Try” to you at all. ( You better look away. ;-)) (So far, no westerner ever touched this = it’s exclusively for Japanese)

Thence, I prepared and stocked-up only for myself for coming new-year.

Bon appetite to me. 😀

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PS : I asked my Chinese friend Shing Lee how they eat Yam, as I saw

Chinese shop also selling Soft-yam.

So, he sent me the information and the photos.

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The Yam is called 山药 or 淮山 in Chinese. It both grows in

wild at high mountains and man-grown in the field.

Normally, we have two methods to eat: