Basic Japanese Cooking

I think I mentioned last night in class that if I were to eat only 1 cuisine for the rest of my life, it would be Japanese. The clean simple flavours make me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. I love the use of soy, seaweed, miso, and fresh fish. For those who have been to Japan or has experienced the Japanese culture will know what I'm talking about. It's not just the food, but the people and traditions around food. Each dish is a well thought out and precise item from a simple miso soup to a more elaborate Kaiseki meal.
We didn't get as intense as a Keiseki, but we did touch upon some of the basics.

Zaru Soba
~
Okonomiyaki
~
Yakitori Chicken Meatballs
~
Oyako Don

The first thing we did was make Dashi. I consider this the life-blood of Japanese cooking. It is an ingredient that is in many dishes from sauces to soups and stews. The base is Kombu, which is a dried kelp, and Bonito flakes, which are dried and smoked bonito fish. A very flavourful broth that only takes about 15 minutes to make.

The first dish we made is a standard in Japanese cuisine. I have a fond memory of walking into a soba restaurant in Tokyo where the chef was cutting fresh soba noodles with a huge sword in the front window.
Here, we just buy Buckwheat soba noodles. The are prepared very simply by boiling for a short time and making a dipping sauce of dashi, soy and mirin. We garnished with some toasted nori seaweed and a bit of grated daikon radish. To eat, the noodles are picked up and dipped into the sauce and slurped away.
This "salad" is a great starter because of the clean flavours. The sauce really makes the noodles come alive.

I loved the next dish. When I was a kid, my mom used to take in Japanese Exchange students. When they cooked, this was one that they always prepared for us. I consider Okononiyaki a student food. Sort of like Kraft Dinner or instant noodles. Except this is made from scratch. It is essentially an savory pancake with a variety of fillings.
When I visited a former student of ours, Miho, in Japan she took me to a cool little lunch counter that had a flat-top grill embedded in the counter top and wrapped all the way around. You would order the okonomiyaki with what ever filling you want and they cook it directly in front of you.
We did pretty much the same thing here. We did a simple batter of flour, eggs, and dashi. We filled the pancake with the standard shredded napa cabbage and dried shrimp. At this point, one could put anything in from assorted seafood, chicken or beef. We fry it like a pancake in a pan and serve it with a couple of sauces. Traditionally, Kewpie Mayonnaise (Japanese mayo) and Tonkatsu Sauce (a sweet savory sauce) is drizzled on top along with a sprinkle of bonito flakes.
The pancake itself is rather simple in flavour, but the sauces really wakens it up. I can also imagine that with more "stuff" inside the pancake, the flavour would be more intense. It's an amazingly simple dish ready in minutes. I can see why students who have NO cooking skill can make this.

Next we did a yakitori. Yakitori joints scatter the Japanese alleyways and street. Small little restaurants with small stools and tables are usually packed late at night with beer guzzling Japanese business men looking to grab a hearty snack after work. Yakitori is pretty much meat on a stick. In this case, it was ground chicken egg, Japanese breadcrumbs and ginger. They were molded into small meatballs and skewered. We grilled them on the BBQ until brown and crispy on the outside and juicy in the middle.
Meanwhile, we made a sauce of sake, soy, sugar and mirin that was thickened with a bit of cornstarch. The sauce was brushed over the skewers and served. The char on the chicken, mixed with the sweet and salty sauce reminds me of the streets of Tokyo. A dish like this is perfect for the upcoming BBQ season. A variety of different yakitori would be great for a party.

The last dish is dish that reminds me of my teenage years in Vancouver. I've always wanted to learn to make it. If I knew it was this easy, I would have been doing it my whole life. But tonight was the first time.
I think it's the combination of the dashi, soy, sugar and egg that really makes this a savory and hearty dish. It can be made with any meat of fish that you have around. In this case, we used chicken what was cooked inside the mixture of dashi, soy and sugar. Once cooked, we cracked in a couple eggs that cooked and thickened up the sauce slightly. Served over rice, it looked just like what i had always ordered in the Japanese restaurants in Vancouver. But it tasted better, because I made it myself.

For all these recipes, i didn't change anything. I kept it pretty much by the book. The great thing about Japanese is that there are minimal ingredients so a few basic things in your pantry can put together a great Japanese meal. This book really makes it easy. Just like the Basic Thai Cooking last night, Basic Japanese cooking is great for people wanting to get into this style but wants to avoid complication. The recipes are easy to read with many pictures strewn throughout.
I'll definitely go back to this for the basics.

Next Class: Gourmet Today