Shichimi spice powder question

I came across this and thought it must be like the Chinese five spice powder. I have not found it in a store (asian markets in NJ are very weak on Japanese items). When I looked up recipes I saw it was totally different from the Chinese mixture. Have you used it, bought it, made it? I am curious about it. If you make it how long do you keep it?

Different online sources have different ingredients listed, here is one. You dry the orange or tangerine peel well in the oven then grind. Be careful not to grind the sesame seeds all the way to a paste, you want a powder you can sprinkle:

hemp seeds, shelled
ground red chili powder
sansho (Szechuan peppercorns)
dried mandarin orange peel
toasted, shredded nori
poppy seeds
white sesame seeds

And hey, Dude, where do I get hemp seeds?

Frank

And hey, Dude, where do I get hemp seeds?

Not that this will help you, but I saw them in a store for the first time on Saturday in Missoula, Montana. I had never run across them before. No, I didn't buy any since I couldn't think of what I'd use them for.

The name of the grocery is Good Food Store. Seriously, that's the name of the place.

I bought some Shichimi Togarashi on Amazon. It is surprising how much you can find there. I also found "kits" for Okonomiyaki pancakes, and the Okonomi sauce, and a special mayonnaise (Kewpie). Not the cheapest way to shop but when all that stuff arrives I will really be in business.

F

We have a jar of it in the cupboard. LOVE it on my ramen. It should be easy to source mail-order. Of course, it's on every Safeway shelf in California...

We use it, Betsy has a Japanese pork chop recipe that uses it, and it's good as a noodle or rice topping. Different brands vary a lot in heat, some are really hot. But great stuff.
Dale

PS Like anything with Sichuan peppercorns, it makes for a tough wine match.

So that's what that stuff is! My first encounter with it was in a ramen place here in Sacramento, where they kept little shakers of it on the tables. The first time I went there, I remember pulling one of the seeds out of my ramen bowl and wondering just what kind of herb was in that shaker.

I have a shaker jar of it that I inherited from my Japanese roommate in grad school. It's a must on most noodle dishes for me, but I use it exclusively as a condiment, not as a cooking ingredient (probably just showing my limited understanding of Japanese cooking).

Mark Lipton

It is indeed a condiment -- sometimes the last step in a recipe says "serve soup and pass Shichimi for seasoning."

But it gets mentioned in a wide variety of recipes.

FWIW it's only supposed to last a couple of months, it is possible that if you have a bottle that's more than a year old, you aren't really tasting/smelling what you are supposed to be tasting/smelling. But that's true of most spices.

Frank

I have a shaker jar of it that I inherited from my Japanese roommate in grad school. It's a must on most noodle dishes for me, but I use it exclusively as a condiment, not as a cooking ingredient (probably just showing my limited understanding of Japanese cooking).

Try this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/dinin ... ork&st=cse

I've also had "angry calamari" that is very good

My sushi chef friend uses it to crust his tuna before he sears it. He also uses it in his spicy tuna mix for hand rolls.

I love the stuff.

rwj

OK I am going to make an embarrassing admission. After ordering a bottle of this stuff from Amazon, and paying something like $8 shipping for a small bottle -- I went back to the "Japan" aisle in my nearest Asian supermarket and found it sitting on the shelf. I understand what happened, the picture on Amazon allowed me to have a realistic "search image." I went ahead and bought a bottle even though the other will be coming. Less than $2. And when I was looking for it before, I know I was standing with my head two feet from it searching and searching through all those Chinese and Japanese characters on the labels...

Frank

It'll be interesting to see which one you like better.