The most common aemono (dressed salads) are: shira-ae, the tofu-based dressing that we looked at last week; goma-ae, a simple sesame dressing; and finally miso-ae, miso dressing. I presented a version of miso-ae — vinegared and with mustard — when I wrote about the ...
The first course in a Japanese formal meal is often called the tsuki-dashi or the saki-zuke — either word referring to the small dish that comes out automatically when a guest sits down. It corresponds roughly with the idea of amuse bouche, or little ...
Washoku is a feeling as much as it is a style of cooking or a way of seasoning. Mastering basic techniques — no matter what the season or the ingredients used — and developing the confidence to adapt recipes will help you to incorporate ...
There are three smells that I associate with summer in Japan: the scent of katorisenko — the green, spiral-shaped incense that is used to ward off pesky mosquitoes; the sweet-sticky smell of the colored syrup in seasonal kaki-gori shaved-ice shops; and the odors of ...
I was an adventurous kid, but that didn't make it easier for me to eat my first cabbage pancake. I encountered the overstuffed okonomi-yaki — a griddle-fried savory pancake — one Saturday afternoon at the temple-cum-community center in Northern California, where I took Japanese-language ...
I have a love/hate relationship with takoyaki. I really like the little dumplings but I'm opposed to anything being drowned in too much sauce, and the trend, especially at summer festivals, is to slather on too much of that gooey, brown Bulldog sauce. Takoyaki ...
Utter silence — Piercing the stone walls, The cicada's cry — Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) The king of the modern yatai is fresh fish, grilled or glazed, like these charcoal-grilled sweetfish. In the fall of 1989 I started living on the "other side of the mountain" — as former ...
Fall is the season for the tubers in the taro family, but the stalks of several taro are just coming to their midsummer peak. In Japan, these taro stalks are referred to as zuiki in general, and they feature prominently on the classic summer ...
Globally the most common spice or flavor-enhancing element used today is the chili pepper. Chilies are used raw, cooked or pickled as a vegetable or dried (ground into a powder or reconstituted) as a seasoning in almost every corner of the world. There are ...
Several years ago NHK broadcast an exhaustive special on natto, containing more than you ever cared to know about that much-maligned sticky, stinky dish of fermented soybeans. One of the exciting pieces of information that NHK's crack investigative journalism revealed was the number of ...
