Shio kombu (塩昆布) is one of the great Japanese pantry secrets — thin dark strips of glossy, salty, umami-packed kelp that lift almost anything they touch. A pinch turns a bowl of rice into a meal, makes a cucumber salad taste like an izakaya pickle, and gives pasta a mysterious depth that people cannot place….
Gyusuji nikomi is one of those Japanese dishes that turns cheap beef into something you crave: braised beef sinew, daikon, and konnyaku simmered in a sweet-savoury miso broth until the meat is fall-apart tender and gelatinous. It is comfort food eaten across Japan, from Osaka izakaya counters to Kyushu home kitchens. The trick is patience….
Tataki ume kyuri is a five-minute Japanese smashed cucumber salad that clears the palate between richer courses. You smash a cucumber with a rolling pin, mix it with chopped umeboshi (salted plum), a shower of katsuobushi (bonito flakes), and a splash of mentsuyu — that is the whole recipe. The smashed cucumber grabs onto the…
Buta no kakuni (豚の角煮) — Japanese braised pork belly — is the kind of dish that quietly justifies an entire afternoon in the kitchen. Thick cubes of pork belly, simmered first in rice water to render the fat and then slowly braised in a soy-and-sake glaze until they collapse under the weight of a chopstick….
When people ask me what equipment they need to cook Japanese food at home, my honest answer is: less than you think. Most Japanese home cooking is done with a regular frying pan, a saucepan, and a sharp knife. But there’s a small handful of specialty tools that, once you have them, transform how easy…
If you want to cook Japanese food at home — not “Asian-inspired” food, but the real thing — you need to start with the pantry. The good news is that Japanese cooking is built on a small set of foundational ingredients. Once you have them on your shelf, hundreds of recipes open up, from a…
This is the kind of stir-fry I make on a Wednesday evening when I want something deeply savoury, a little sweet, and on the table in 15 minutes. Thinly sliced pork, julienned carrot, onion, and green pepper, all tossed in a glossy sweet-and-sour soy glaze and served over rice. It’s not Chinese sweet-and-sour pork —…
Nasu no yakibitashi (なすの焼き浸し) is one of those quietly perfect Japanese summer side dishes — and one of my favourite Japanese eggplant recipes. Pan-fried eggplant and pepper are soaked in a chilled dashi-soy broth, served cold with fresh shiso and myoga and a snowfall of bonito flakes. It tastes light, savoury, and deeply satisfying in…
Ebi fry (エビフライ) is a treat in our house — plump shrimp coated in panko and fried until shatteringly golden, served with a generous spoonful of homemade tartar sauce. It’s one of those yoshoku (Japanese-style Western) dishes that’s been adopted so completely into Japanese home cooking that most people forget it isn’t actually Japanese in…
If you grew up around Hawaii or Okinawa, you already know how good Spam can be when it’s sliced thick, pan-fried until the edges turn caramelised, and tucked into a rice ball. The Hawaiian version — Spam musubi — is the famous one. But the Japanese version we make at home is a little different:…