Dear food knowledge / 食材

If you live in Europe, you may often find yourself wanting to eat Japanese food.

Do you know what ingredients you can find at the supermarket?

So this time, I would like to explain about Japanese food ingredients that you can buy at supermarkets and shops in Europe.

Ingredients for Japanese food that you can buy at supermarkets and shops in Europe

We will introduce the basic ingredients used in Japanese food that are necessary when making various Japanese dishes.

Especially if you are planning to move to Europe, knowing foods that are easy to obtain will help you decide what to prioritize and bring from Japan when you move.

Basic sashisuseno "se", soy sauce: Obtaining difficulty ☆

Soy sauce is required to prepare most Japanese dishes.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of supermarkets in Europe that have small corners for Asian ingredients.

So it's becoming relatively easy to get your hands on soy sauce.
Kikkoman's bottle type soy sauce is placed in a nearby supermarket.

However, the options are limited, so if you want variety and a range of sizes, we recommend using Japanese food stores or online shops.
There is a high possibility that both light and dark soy sauce are available, and not only that, but also sashimi soy sauce.
You will find the type of soy sauce that you need.

Useful for binders and fried foods, Bread crumbs: Difficulty of obtaining: ☆ ☆

Bread crumbs are necessary when making hamburgers, pork cutlets, etc.
You can substitute it by shaving hard or dry bread, but it takes time and often does not shave cleanly.

Therefore, you may want bread crumbs that are sold in bags.

Depending on the store, it is possible to buy bread crumbs at the supermarket, but to put it the other way around, it is not everywhere.
If you can't find it at a nearby store, there is a high probability that you can find bread crumbs at a Japanese food store or an Asian store.
Larger supermarkets often carry it.

By the way, flour, which is also necessary for frying, is sold at supermarkets in Europe.
They are often bundled together in powder form and are easy to find.
However, it depends on the store whether they have all kinds of flour, medium flour, and strong flour, so you need to be careful.

When making sushi at home, wasabi: Obtaining difficulty ☆☆

Wasabi is rarely used, but it's something you'll crave when making sushi at home.

When I live in Europe, I sometimes have local friends and colleagues who want to try sushi, so I have a sushi party at home.
In fact, the popularity of wasabi is increasing, with people from overseas saying they want to try wasabi.

Some European supermarkets have recently started selling wasabi.
Whether wasabi is used as a spice in creative dishes and rankings, or because Japanese food is becoming more popular, it is sometimes put together with the above-mentioned soy sauce in the Asian food section.

Dashi and Miso Necessary for Various Japanese Foods: Obtaining Difficulty ☆☆

In Europe, it is very difficult to obtain dashi from katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and kombu (kelp).

Also, it is basically impossible to buy dashi soup at supermarkets in Europe, so these are not sold at all.

Dashi-related ingredients must be purchased at Japanese food stores, Asian shops, or online.

In these places, you can find a wide variety of dashi soup stocks.
However, there are cases where granule-type or packed dashi is available at large supermarkets.
With this, you don't have to use ingredients that are hard to get in Europe to make the dashi stock, and you can complete the dish in a short amount of time.

Besides miso soup, of course it is necessary as a base for Japanese food, and it can also be used as a base for mixed rice.

Of course, miso is required to make miso soup.
This miso is also hard to find in European supermarkets, except for large supermarkets.

In addition, there is an increasing number of BIO-affiliated shops that sell health-conscious foods in Europe that sell miso as a healthy food.

As for the size, they are rarely sold in packs of the size commonly seen in Japan, so they are sold in smaller packs and bags.
If you don't need a large amount, or if you're looking for a small size for traveling or at a friend's house, you can find it at BIO stores.

Lastly, I would like to introduce some foods that you can buy anywhere in Japan, but are surprisingly difficult to buy in Europe.

Furikake to accompany white rice: Difficulty of obtaining: ☆☆☆

When you eat rice, you may feel lonely with only white rice.

In such a case, the rice will be dramatically delicious just by adding furikake.
Furikake is usually sprinkled over rice, but there are many other ways to use it, such as adding hot water to turn it into ochazuke.

In Europe, where rice is not a staple food, and in countries where japonica rice is not as sticky as it is dry, furikake is not a familiar dish.

Unfortunately, furikake is not readily available in European supermarkets, and can be purchased at Japanese food stores.

If you don't have a Japanese food store in your living area, or if you don't want to bother, you can also look for it from the online shop.

lastly

What did you think about the Japanese ingredients and foods that you can buy in European shops?

For those who have lived abroad, it is important to know that living in Japan and moving to Europe for the first time makes decisions about what can and cannot be bought. This is a confusing point.

Small condiments such as furikake don't take up space in the bag, so we recommend you bring a few of your favorite items.

On the other hand, liquids such as soy sauce are heavy and bulky, so it is convenient to procure locally.
Our Germany-based online shop also carries soy sauce, mirin, and various other Japanese foodstuffs, ranging from table-sized to commercial use.

When Japanese people move to Germany, there are many things to do, such as procedures, commuting to work or school, and purchasing and organizing necessary items for living. Among them, one of the points that should not be forgotten is Japan's food procurement route.

When Japanese people move to Germany, they generally think about what kind of Japanese foods and ingredients to bring and take as much as possible, but it can be a big burden to bring liquids and heavy items. .

Unfortunately, no matter how much Japanese food you bring with you, it will eventually run out, and eventually you will need to procure ingredients locally.

This time, we will take a look at where Japanese people buy Japanese ingredients in Germany.

Where can you buy Japanese food in Germany? Japanese food procurement route

If you're staying in Germany for a short period of time, you don't have to think too much about ingredients, but for Japanese people who stay for a long time, food is one of the most important points in their lives.

In particular, Japanese people who live for more than half a year or a year spare no effort to buy Japanese food locally.

So where can Japanese people buy ingredients in the first place?
This is pretty much a pattern no matter where you live in Germany.
This is because the procurement routes for ingredients are inevitably limited.

1 : Local supermarket

Some Japanese foods are also available at supermarkets.

Small supermarkets do not carry foreign ingredients, but medium-sized supermarkets have an Asian section, where some Chinese and Japanese ingredients are placed.

In Japan, sushi roll sets (including japonica rice), gari, sushi vinegar for sushi, and soy sauce are the staples, and depending on the location, miso and teriyaki sauce may also be available.

However, you can't expect more handling than that except for large supermarkets, and the number of handling is basically not many.
Even when it comes to soy sauce, many places only sell Kikkoman's basic soy sauce and often don't carry other types of soy sauce.
Also, the price is often relatively high, and the point is that small bottles of soy sauce, in particular, are not economically viable for regular purchases.

2 : Japanese food store

After all, Japanese food stores have the largest variety of Japanese ingredients.

In areas where many Japanese live, such as Düsseldorf, Hamburg, and Berlin, you can access Japanese food stores.
Japanese families are looking for ingredients because they have many ingredients from Japanese food manufacturers, seasonings that are familiar to Japanese people, rice, miso, and Japanese sweets. Stability is excellent for

However, to put it the other way around, Japanese food stores are limited to areas where many Japanese live, big cities, and so on.
Also, due to the high quality of the food, the price of ingredients imported from Japan can be relatively high.

3 : Korean food store

South Korea is smaller than Japan and has a population of over 50 million people.

If the population is small, the number of Koreans living in Europe will naturally decrease, but many people are actively going abroad, and depending on the country or city, there are as many Koreans as there are Japanese. Sometimes there are.

In places where Koreans have expanded, Korean food stores and wholesalers of food ingredients have appeared in the area accordingly, and Japanese food ingredients are also sold.

In some countries, there are more Korean food stores than Japanese food stores, and there are also Korean food stores in places where there are no Japanese food stores.

There are similarities and differences between Japanese and Korean food.
The common point is that Japonica rice is the staple food and soy sauce is used, but the difference is that Korea has a lot of meat dishes and spicy food is preferred.
There are also similarities, such as large-sized japonica rice and soy sauce, udon, soba, curry roux, seaweed, and some seasonings such as wasabi, which are easy to handle.

In addition, instant noodles are a very familiar food to the common people in South Korea, but there is a tendency to prefer spicy food, and Korean instant noodles are basically all spicy, and Japanese instant noodles are handled. etc. is inevitably limited.

I can't say anything about the price, but Korean products tend to be the center of handling, and Japanese ingredients are sometimes set a little higher than Korean ingredients.

4 : Other Asian shops

Korean food stores are often expanding in urban areas, but there is still a limit.

Korean food stores are a relatively new Asian food store in Europe, and there are many traditional Chinese food stores and other Asian food stores in Germany and Europe.

Asian shops can be found not only in urban areas, but also in regional cities, and even people living in rural areas can easily access them.

There are overwhelmingly more stores than Japanese or Korean food stores, and there are large stores and Asian wholesalers in the whole area, so you can get various large and small products, foods, and ingredients. increase.

There are not only Chinese shops, but also Asian shops such as Vietnamese, and there are a wide variety of products that are completely unfamiliar to Japanese people and ingredients that we do not know the purpose of use.

There are relatively many Japanese foods, but among them, there are foods, sweets, and snacks produced in Asian countries by manufacturers you have never seen or heard of, so it's like a bit of a treasure hunt. element comes out.

The price is not very high, and in many cases it is cheaper than Korean or Japanese food stores. Other cases can also occur.

The best way to avoid mistakes here is to buy foods and seasonings that you know.

5 : Online shop

Online shops are a great way to access Japanese food ingredients, even if you live in the countryside or find it difficult to visit a physical store.

Our online shop also handles a variety of Japanese food ingredients, so you can shop without worrying about time or place.
In addition, if you spend 50 euros or more at our company, we can deliver free shipping within Germany. No need to worry about time and effort.

We have a wide range of products from general household use to commercial use, so please check it out and use it as a help for your home dining table.

People who come to Europe as expatriates, people who find a job locally, people who get a working holiday visa, people who come to study or do research, people who come with their husbands or wives, or people who marry their European lovers. Japanese people from various backgrounds live in various countries in Europe, such as those who come to immigrate and, of course, those who come to Europe on vacation.

Food is a problem that every Japanese living in Europe worries about. The eating habits of Japanese living abroad are very different from those of Europeans.

However, due to this difference in eating habits, it is often the case that you cannot find the ingredients you used to buy in Japan even when you go to your local supermarket. Also, it is not uncommon to find the same ingredients, but when you buy them, the taste is completely different from that of Japan. Let's take a look at the hard-to-find ingredients and things with different tastes that Japanese people face in Europe.

Difficulty in procuring ingredients for many Japanese overseas

The number of Japanese residents in each country and the degree of expansion of Japanese companies vary from country to country. Compared to other European countries, the UK, Germany, and France have a relatively large number of Japanese companies operating in them, and as many Japanese people live there, it is easy to access Japanese foods.

On the other hand, as you go to Eastern Europe, the number of Japanese residents will decrease, and the demand for Japanese food will decrease, so the amount handled will decrease and the difficulty of procurement will increase. There are similar foods in Chinese and Korean brands, but this time I will exclude them and talk about Japanese brand foods.

 

Hon mirin and cooking sake

Hard-to-find condiments that are surprisingly hard to come by are hon-mirin and cooking sake, which are often used in making Japanese food. You can find mirin-style seasonings in Asian shops and Japanese food stores, but you won't find hon mirin very often.

There is a reason for this, since Hon mirin and cooking sake contain alcohol. Both hon mirin and cooking sake have an alcohol content of around 14% and are taxed.

Also, depending on the country, there are regulations on the sale of food containing alcohol, and it is necessary to obtain a separate permit to sell alcohol. For example, in Sweden, beverages with an alcohol content of 3.5% or more cannot be sold in supermarkets, and products with alcohol content of 3.5% or more can only be sold at a state-run store called Systembolaget . However, Systembolaget is a shop that sells liquor for drinking, so it does not handle food for cooking.

In this way, depending on the country, it is difficult for retailers to sell hon mirin and cooking sake due to the influence of regulations, and the liquor tax is imposed, so the price is also high, making it difficult for retailers to sell.

On the other hand, mirin-style seasonings have an alcohol content of less than 1% , so they are not subject to liquor tax and are inexpensive, making them easy to handle in European supermarkets.

 

Bonito

It is commonly used as an accompaniment to tofu and okonomiyaki, or as a soup stock.Katsuobushi is a standard ingredient in rice balls, and katsuobushi is a familiar product that is treasured by Japanese people, but it is also difficult to obtain in Europe. .

Those of you who have been to or lived in Europe may have noticed that you never see katsuobushi, but why is there no katsuobushi in Europe in the first place?

Katsuobushi contains a carcinogenic substance called "benzopyrene," which adheres to katsuobushi during the production process and exceeds the EU standards. Japanese people may be surprised and wonder if katsuobushi, which they have been eating for many years, is bad for their health.

Katsuobushi is available in some parts of Europe, but the foods sold are products that meet EU standards. Katsuobushi is such a complicated matter, but there is one interesting incident in the story of katsuobushi in the EU .

Expo Milano 2015 was held in Italy. Japan saw the Milan Expo as a great opportunity to promote Japanese food in Italy and Europe, and aimed to promote Japanese food on a large scale. However, katsuobushi will be caught in the food import regulations introduced above. Therefore, the Japanese government negotiated with the EU and others, and was granted a special exception that it could only be used as a special measure for consumption within the Milan Expo site.

For Japanese people, katsuobushi is one of the basic seasonings that can be bought at any supermarket, but katsuobushi, which is indispensable for making dashi, is a food that Japan and the EU are moving together nationally.

 

sliced ​​or minced meat

Sliced ​​and shredded meat is a popular ingredient for Japanese people who appears in various dishes for those who cook, such as ginger-grilled pork, gyudon, and stir-fried dishes.

However, in fact, meat cut like this is rarely seen in European supermarkets. In Europe, when we talk about meat, we tend to think of it as steak, stewed dishes, or minced meat such as hamburgers and meatballs, and there are no dishes that use sliced ​​or shredded meat.

Supermarkets and butchers have slicers, so if you ask the clerk, you may be able to get sliced ​​meat. In some cases, the meat is not sliced ​​or shredded as intended, and pork is not mixed with Muslim halal meat (is the meat made in an Islamic certified manner?).

If you go to a store that sells Japanese ingredients or an Asian shop, you can buy it, but there are different difficulties than the ones introduced above.

Mirin and katsuobushi can be purchased online as long as they are available, but the difficult part about meat is that both thinly sliced ​​and shredded meat are fresh foods, so they cannot be purchased online.

If you can't buy it in your living area, it's very troublesome, but you can only buy a home slicer and cut the meat yourself.

 

pickles

Pickles go very well with rice, but in Europe, the staple food is potatoes and bread, so Japanese pickles are hard to find.

You can still find takuan and gari for sushi, but pickled cucumbers and shibazuke are much more difficult to find.

In addition, there are many types of pickles, from major pickles to those that are not widely distributed in certain regions, but it is rare to find such local pickles in Europe.

For example, Takana-zuke is a relatively popular pickle in Kyushu. Takana pickles are familiar to Japanese people because they are topped with pork bone ramen and other dishes, but for those from Kyushu, it is one of the pickles that they usually eat. However, takana pickles are hard to find in Europe, as they are only available in some places such as London.

Pickles are so-called " acquired taste " foods in English. In other words, it becomes a food that you get accustomed to eating and feel delicious, and it is rare for foreigners to feel that it is delicious immediately after eating it for the first time.

Since it is the kind of food that you gradually come to like after eating it a few times, you can hardly expect demand from Chinese and Koreans. is.

When living in Europe as a student or member of society, there are Japanese foods and ingredients that you absolutely want to eat.
When you cook for yourself or your family, there are many times when you want to enjoy the familiar taste of Japan.
Here, we will mainly explain the ingredients necessary for Japanese food that you can buy at supermarkets and shops in Europe.

Procure ingredients in Europe and make curry

Curry is an easy and convenient dish for students to stock up on.
It's the same for working people and people with households, and it's a dish that will make your family happy.
This time, I will explain the ingredients used to make Japanese curry in Europe.

Ingredients for curry bought at European supermarkets

First, let's take a look at the typical curry ingredients: carrots, onions, potatoes, and meat.

Carrots, onions, and potatoes, these three types of vegetables can be purchased in European supermarkets as well as in Japanese supermarkets.

However, there are differences in the size and taste of vegetables, and of course, the price, depending on the country or region.

Here is an example of European carrots.
Compared to Japanese carrots, they are slender and shorter.
Many of the carrots sold in European supermarkets are of this type, and if you are expecting the same kind of carrots as in Japan, you may be a little disappointed.
However, when you actually eat it, there is no big difference in taste.

Next is onions.
This is also a little smaller than Japanese onions like carrots.
Many supermarkets have yellow onions, white onions, and red onions.
Buy according to your taste.

The last is potatoes.
This is almost the same as what you can buy at Japanese supermarkets.
Personally, I think Baron or May Queen is closer to Baron.

Potatoes are often sold in 1kg bags, so if you put a lot of potatoes in the curry and still can't use it all, it's delicious to make French fries or potato chips.

Meat that is sold but difficult to procure

And regarding meat, unlike Japan, they don't sell thinly sliced ​​meat.
If you really want it, I think you have to go to a butcher who sells it by the piece and have it sliced ​​thinly.

It may not go well with curry, but if you have a tongue (tongue) handling, most tongues are thinly sliced, so you might want to consider that.

It may be one way to enjoy the curry made in Europe to enjoy the large chunky meat.

Extra: Japanese curry roux not sold in local supermarkets

It is very difficult to find retort curry roux like those sold in Japanese supermarkets in European supermarkets.

Basically, it is difficult to get it unless you buy it at a Japanese grocery store, an Asian shop, or an online store.

Of course, if you don't mind spending time and money, you can make curry without using Japanese retort curry roux.
You can buy a wide variety of spices in most European supermarkets.

Of course, you can combine various spices to make Indian-style curry, and you can also add bouillon to make it Japanese-style.

They also sell small bottles of spices labeled Indian curry or British curry.
In that case, it is possible to get closer to the curry you want to eat with just that spice, but since the contents are small in the first place, depending on the amount you make, you may need a whole bottle or more at a time.

However, it's still difficult to make curry that tastes like Japanese retort curry, so buying curry roux at a store like the one mentioned above may be the best solution.

Remarks: About rice

Even if you eat curry, nothing will start without this rice.
Most supermarkets in Europe sell rice itself.

However, most of it is rice for risotto, and there are cases where the heart remains in the rice even after it is cooked.

Indica rice is sometimes sold, so there is something different, but you can eat curry more deliciously than rice for risotto.

If you really want to eat Japanese rice, you need to buy it at a Japanese grocery store or online store, just like Japanese curry roux.

There are several types of Japanese rice available in Europe, but one of the most famous is Yumenishiki.

It's Japanese rice from Italy, but it's just like the rice you buy in Japan.

If it is this, compatibility with Japanese curry is perfect and you can enjoy it deliciously.

Ingredients that are delicious when added to other curries

In addition to the basic ingredients, there are many ingredients that make curry delicious.
I will extract and explain some of the ingredients available in Europe from among them.

Garlic for example.
Adding garlic when making curry enhances the flavor and makes it very appetizing.
You can get it as easily as in Japan at supermarkets in Europe.
European garlic has a good flavor and can be enjoyed deliciously.

Eggplant is delicious when added to the dish.
Compared to the eggplant in Japan, it feels very large.
The appearance is similar to Japanese round eggplant, but the size is larger than that.
Even if it looks different, it doesn't taste bad, and of course it's delicious even if you put it in curry.

There is also paprika.
European supermarkets sell large paprikas whole.
Paprika has a unique taste that is different from bell peppers, and it is very delicious as an ingredient to add to curry.

Also, paprika powder is often lined up in the spice corner as a seasoning and coloring, so you may be able to use that as well.