Nasu no yakibitashi (なすの焼き浸し) is one of those quietly perfect Japanese summer side dishes — and one of my favorite 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, savory, 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 caramelized, 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:…

Kitsune udon is the bowl I reach for when I want something warm and gentle — udon noodles in a clear, golden dashi broth topped with a sweet simmered tofu pouch. It’s one of the most loved noodle dishes in Japan, especially in Kansai (Osaka and Kyoto), where the broth is kept light so the…

If you’ve ever ordered kitsune udon at a Japanese restaurant, the star of the dish is that sweet, juicy, golden pouch of fried tofu floating on top of the noodles. In Japanese it’s just called age (揚げ) — short for aburaage (油揚げ), the thin sheets of fried tofu — but when seasoned this way for…

Kinpira gobo (きんぴらごぼう) is one of those side dishes that appears on Japanese tables so regularly it barely gets noticed — I usually make a batch at the start of the week and pull it from the fridge on busy nights. And yet it’s one of the most satisfying things to eat alongside a bowl…

In our house, tonkatsu is a Friday-night kind of dinner — the sort of meal that turns an ordinary evening into a small treat. It’s a thick piece of pork loin, coated in panko breadcrumbs, fried golden and served with a tall pile of shredded cabbage and tonkatsu sauce. One of Japan’s most beloved home…

Ask a Japanese family what’s for dinner on a tired weeknight and “curry” is one of the most common answers — ours included. Japanese curry rice — kare raisu — is one of the most popular home-cooked meals in Japan. Almost every Japanese household has a box of curry roux in the pantry, and everyone…

There’s a dish I come back to again and again when I want something deeply comforting — daikon simmered with thinly sliced beef in a savory-sweet dashi broth. In Japanese, it’s called daikon to gyūniku no nimono (大根と牛肉の煮物), and it’s one of those side dishes that makes a bowl of plain rice taste like a…

Nanban Zuke — Japanese Sweet and Sour Fried Fish Nanban zuke (南蛮漬け) is one of my favorite things to make ahead — fried fish marinated in a sweet-and-sour sauce with vegetables that actually gets better as it sits in the fridge. The fish drinks up the vinegar marinade and the flavors deepen overnight, so I…