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BEPPU, Japan (AFP) — Utilizing geothermal sources to generate electrical energy is a divisive prospect in Japan, however there’s little disagreement about one other use for it: pure steam for cooking.
The geothermal sources that make Japan a haven for warm springs or onsen are additionally used to provide a variety of delicacies.
There’s the “onsen tamago” — eggs cooked in geothermally heated water at round 65 levels (149 levels Fahrenheit) to provide a comparatively agency yolk with a creamy tender white.
After which there are small spherical muffins referred to as “onsen manju”, a preferred snack bought on the roughly 2,900 sizzling spring places throughout Japan.
Filled with pink bean paste, they’re cooked with the steam that rises from onsen water.
In Beppu, a small coastal city in Japan’s southwestern Kyushu, an abundance of pure sizzling springs has given rise to a neighborhood speciality: “jigoku mushi” or “hell steaming”.
Clients should buy meat, fish and greens on website at an onsen, and cook dinner them in containers linked on to the steam emanating from a close-by pure sizzling spring.
“This technique of cooking was already being talked about in native historic paperwork way back to 200 years in the past,” Hitoshi Tanaka, president of Hyotan Onsen — which gives “jigoku mushi” to its clients — instructed AFP.
With steam at temperatures of 100-110 levels Celsius (212-230 Fahrenheit), cooking usually takes not more than 5 to 10 minutes, “so the meals retains its unique color”, Tanaka explains.
The sulfur current within the steam imparts an “umami” to the meal, a flavour enhancer thought of key to Japanese delicacies, and it comprises iron, a hint aspect essential for well being, he added.
“You savour it together with your eyes, you odor the steam, you hear the sound of the supply of the recent spring: so that you recognize the meals right here together with your complete physique.”
The approach has one other profit: no want for electrical energy or gasoline at a time when Japan, like many different nations, is coping with hovering vitality costs.
© Agence France-Presse
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