Virtual Obachan Cooks a Japanese-Style Mentaiko Pasta With Okra and Shiso on Morning Stream

INDEPENDENT — Virtual Obachan showed viewers how to make a new mentaiko pasta of her own devising on her Sunday morning stream, announcing the cooking segment as the clock reached 7:07 a.m. Mentaiko is spiced pollock roe, a staple topping for Japanese pasta.

She boiled a large pot of water, simmered okra in it first, then chopped the okra with green onion and shiso leaves. In a bowl she mixed about 10 grams of melted butter, mentaiko squeezed from its skin, a tablespoon of mentsuyu (a Japanese noodle-soup base) and a little black pepper, and worked it together with her hands. She boiled the pasta for about four minutes, a minute short of the package time, so that it would finish softening when tossed. The hot noodles went straight from the pot into the bowl without draining, with a splash of cooking water added. She described the result as light and Japanese in flavor, made without oil, and said it was the best pasta she had made so far.

“The better the mentaiko you use, the better it tastes. Please splurge and give it a try.” — Virtual Obachan, after presenting the recipe

Once the dish was plated, she moved to a violin corner. She played a tune about a town by the sea, chosen for the Italian theme, and said she practices 30 minutes a day. Next came a segment of pasta-themed submissions from viewers, read aloud under pen names. The entries ranged from a warning against ordering napolitan in a white shirt, to homegrown basil for pesto, to a childhood summer spent eating a mother’s pasta at home with a brother. Others covered natto on pasta, the argument over slurping and spoons, and saving the cooking water to clean greasy pans. A reading of one entry titled “Assassin Spaghetti” turned into a mock detective drama, with chat comparing it to the television detective Furuhata. Obachan said she wanted to try natto with her own pasta.

Chat opened with talk of rain in Tokyo, a coming typhoon and the sudden cold, then followed the recipe closely, with some viewers asking for it to be shared. Closing out the stream, Obachan listed what she planned to do next, including oil painting, for which she said her paint set had arrived, along with dressmaking, embroidery and video games.