Stand in front of the miso shelf at a Japanese grocery store and it’s genuinely confusing — white, red, brown, “awase,” pouches and tubs in every shade, half of them labeled only in Japanese. As a Japanese home cook, let me make it simple. Miso (味噌) is fermented soybean paste, and while there are dozens…
Yakiniku don (焼肉丼) is about as simple as a Japanese dinner gets: beef marinated in bottled yakiniku sauce, seared hard in a hot pan, and piled on a bowl of rice with a shake of sesame seeds. No dashi, no simmering, no special technique. It’s the kind of thing we make on a weeknight when…
Dashi (出汁) is the savory Japanese soup stock that sits underneath almost everything we cook — miso soup, simmered dishes, noodle broths, tamagoyaki. It’s made from just two humble ingredients: kombu (dried kelp) and katsuobushi (bonito flakes). And while I’ll be the first to admit that most Japanese families reach for a dashi packet on…
Japanese potato salad (ポテトサラダ) is a little different from the Western kind — the potatoes are partly mashed rather than left in firm chunks, the vegetables are sliced thin, and it’s bound with rich, tangy Japanese mayonnaise. It’s a staple side dish (and a deli favorite) all over Japan, and it turns up on our…
Tebasaki (手羽先) — Nagoya-style fried chicken wings — are one of the great izakaya snacks of Japan: crispy deep-fried wings brushed with a sweet-savory soy sauce and dusted with a peppery salt blend. They’re the specialty of Nagoya, made famous by chains like Sekai no Yamachan and Furaibo, and they are absolutely made for eating…
Namul (ナムル) is the Korean-style seasoned vegetable side dish that shows up constantly in Japanese homes too — especially as the colorful topping for bibimbap. This is the three-color version I make: komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach), carrot, and bean sprouts, each blanched and tossed in a simple sesame-and-garlic seasoning. It’s bright, healthy, keeps well, and…
Bibimbap (ビビンバ) — a bowl of rice topped with seasoned vegetables, savory meat, and an egg, all mixed together before eating — is one of our favorite ways to turn a batch of namul into a proper meal. This is the easy home version I make: a quick sweet-and-savory ground meat topping, three-color namul, a…
You’re halfway through a Japanese recipe, you reach for the dashi… and there’s none left. It happens to me too. Dashi — the savory Japanese soup stock made from kombu and bonito — is the umami backbone of miso soup, simmered dishes, and noodle broths, so running out feels like a dead end. The good…
Almost every savory Japanese dish starts with dashi — the light, deeply savory stock that gives miso soup, simmered dishes, and noodle broths their backbone. And here’s the honest truth from a Japanese kitchen: most of us don’t shave bonito and steep kombu from scratch every day. We use a dashi packet or a spoon…
Chashu (チャーシュー) is the glossy, melting slice of braised pork that sits on top of a bowl of ramen — and making it at home is far easier than most people think, especially with an electric pressure cooker. This weekend I made a batch with a block of pork belly, exactly the way we do…