Authentic Japanese Home Cooking
Tataki kyuri (smashed cucumber salad) is a simple but unique cucumber salad. By smashing the cucumbers, the dressing penetrates into each piece. Ginger and soy sauce in the dressing gives this salad a Japanese touch.
I must say this salad is a very summery salad. Although you see cucumbers all year round in the shops these days, it is actually a summer vegetable and the quality of the cucumbers is the best in summer….
Yakibuta ( Braised Pork) is a chunk of pork cooked in soy flavoured sauce over a couple of hours. It takes time to cook but it is quite simple to make. The flavour penetrates into the meat and the meat is so tender and flavoursome. Slice thinly to serve as a main dish, appetiser or…
For those in the northern hemisphere suffering from summer heat, how about a cold ramen? Hiyashi chūka is made with cold Chinese-style egg noodles, with sweet vinegar sauce and topped with vegetables, egg and ham. It is a great dish to have on a hot summer day. I came back from a Canada/US trip a…
Gomoku Gohan (Japanese Mixed Rice) is rice cooked in seasoned dashi stock with 5 vegetables. The rice is cooked in the seasoned dashi stock that the vegetables are pre-cooked in, so the cooked rice gets a good flavour from the vegetables. You can almost eat the rice by itself without any other dishes! Gomoku gohan (五目ご飯)…
Chrysanthemum Leaves Goma-ae (胡麻和え) is a side dish made with sweet sesame dressing. This is a pure vegetarian dish and very quick to make. The dressing has the full flavour of sesame with a little bit of sweetness and it goes so well with the slight bitterness of chrysanthemum leaves. English spinach and other greens can also be…
A very popular Chinese dish, Happosai (Combination Stir Fry) is not modified very much from the original Chinese version. It is made with lots of vegetables, meat and seafood coated with a thick flavoursome sauce. Happopsai (八宝菜) translates to eight treasure dish (八 – 宝 – 菜) and it comes from China. Apparently “eight” (八)…
Agedashi Tofu (or Agedashi Dofu) is one of the a-la-carte dishes you always find on the menu at Japanese restaurants. It is delicate and simple but so yummy. The sweet soy sauce-based dashi goes so well with deep fried tofu. It looks tricky but actually it is quite easy to make. The proper name of this…
