Japanese Cooking

Cinflo58

Does anyone know about Japanese cooking? I love sushi, ramen (sorry low carb folks) and all things japanese except fermented soybeans. Can anyone give me any tips or recommend a good Japanese cook book. I live near a HUGE Japanese market and don't know what to buy. The market is Mitsuku in Edgewater New Jersey. Thanks!

foxyninja398

Personally, I don't think anyone sane likes natto.

I would probably do an Amazon search and look at the reviews to see what books they suggest.

Sabine_Stroehm

LOVE Japanese food. Sushi, sashimi, edamame, and SOBA!

Alas, I only know how to do nori rolls.

Cinflo58

I did but there were so many books that I didn't know which one to get. I also googled natto and found an article in the journal of nutrition that said it was shown to prevent osteoporosis in Japanese woman and a Japanese woman at my job told me her people swear it is a great anticancer food. If I knew that I would have forced myself to at least try it. I read that it tastes better than it smells Guess I'll have to actually go to Barnes and noble

CharityGC

I lived in Japan for awhile and miss the food! Good luck finding a good cookbook!

chrisdavey

I did but there were so many books that I didn't know which one to get. I also googled natto and found an article in the journal of nutrition that said it was shown to prevent osteoporosis in Japanese woman and a Japanese woman at my job told me her people swear it is a great anticancer food. If I knew that I would have forced myself to at least try it. I read that it tastes better than it smells Guess I'll have to actually go to Barnes and noble

I do not care if this was proven to prevent cancer. Natto is BY FAR the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted.

For good japanese cooking instructional vids look up "cooking with dog" on youtube. They are great

k8eekins

Does anyone know about Japanese cooking? I love sushi, ramen (sorry low carb folks) and all things japanese except fermented soybeans. Can anyone give me any tips or recommend a good Japanese cook book. I live near a HUGE Japanese market and don't know what to buy. The market is Mitsuku in Edgewater New Jersey. Thanks!

Love Japanese cuisine! Recommend Master Chef Murata's "Japanese Home Cooking" and Kurihara's "Everyday Harumi."

jerryatrics

I did but there were so many books that I didn't know which one to get. I also googled natto and found an article in the journal of nutrition that said it was shown to prevent osteoporosis in Japanese woman and a Japanese woman at my job told me her people swear it is a great anticancer food. If I knew that I would have forced myself to at least try it. I read that it tastes better than it smells Guess I'll have to actually go to Barnes and noble

I do not care if this was proven to prevent cancer. Natto is BY FAR the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted.

For good japanese cooking instructional vids look up "cooking with dog" on youtube. They are great

I love that channel! (just realized saying "I love cooking with dog" may sound strange to those unfamiliar with the youtube channel :P)

ecogranny

There is a big Japanese chain in uk called Wagamamas and they are expanding in USA. On the website www.abebooks.com you will find THE WAGAMAMA COOKBOOK by Arnold Hughes. You should I hope get some excellent ideas from there. We are keen on Indian and Thai food which we cook from scratch. Having lived in Hongkong my husband worked for a spell each year Nepal and our taste for Indian started then Great to make on a wet, cold Saturday for serving up on Sunday complete with Indian or even easier, Lebanese bread.

Ge0rgiana

*bump*

KANGOOJUMPS

OH YUM!!!! LOVE!! LOVE LOVE!!!!!!

Hezzietiger1

yumm yumm

petithamu

Hey,

My family owns a Japanese restaurant so I'm used to do a lot of Japanese cooking. Cooking with Dog is great. The instructions are clear and easy to follow and you can easily replicate her recipes. Books with Harumi Kurihara is also easy to follow.

Here are some key ingredients you should always have at home if you want to do Japanese cooking on a regular basis:

Mirin - get a big bottle. Most dishes has mirin in it.

Hon Dashi - saves you the chores of making fish stock

Miso paste - white or red, doesn't matter. Don't get the pouch one, get the fresh one in a container. It'll hold for a long time. It's not just for soup, you can use it for marinade as well! Heard of Miso Black Cod? Yes, cost you an arm and a leg at Nobu when you can make it at home for quarter of the price.

Dry seaweed like wakame

Sesame Oil

Rice Vinegar

Panko bread crumbs

And soy sauce

These should get you started with some ramen soup, some chicken katsu...etc

Hope this helps!

Cinflo58

Thanks everyone for your replies! LOL about the natto - I didn't know what I was ordering and you're right I ended up ordering the most vile thing. It was tiny brown fermented soybeans with strings of what looked like mucous hanging off them. It smells like vomit. BUT, it is consisdered healthy

i will check out cooking with dog youtube video's. My dog didn't like that idea. But I explained that it is not literally cooking with dog. Or is it? Like that twilight zone episode. TO SERVE MAN......IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!

DouMc

yum! I love japanese food. Totally going to try out some of these ideas!

callmejessica

Yes, natto is pretty gross. That's my least favorite New Year's tradition. If you're looking for a good cookbook, The Wagamama Cookbook is awesome!

girlinahat

natto tastes like something is actively decomposing in your mouth. Honestly, as I type this I can remember the taste of it, and that was eleven years ago.....*shudders*

I have a bilingual book called 'stonesoup' It's sort of readers recipes, and not sure how good it would be ingredientswise, but it should give you a good grounding in everyday Japanese food.

it doesn't have an okonomiyaki recipe in unfortunately. Osaka-style is best....just sayin'....

Oishii

Heeeey! Stop Nattou bashing! It's my favourite food!

If you get a tofu skin pocket thing, fill with Nattou and grill it, I find that a great snack, or mix with raw egg and eat on rice. Nattou sushi with shiso is also amazing.

Personally, I find the grossest Japanese food to be 'uni' (sea urchin). I never want to taste that again!

LadyMustard

When you gat the chance, try googling "Just Bento". The site has tons and tons of Japanese recipes tweaked to fit what is more widely available in America. I love making bentos for when my hubbie and I go out to conventions or on road trips, and the site has everything!! Try making Tomagoyaki, OMG ADDICTION... So good! There is also a recipe for Hokkaido style corn and miso soup that looks to die for. There's lots of pictures too, so you can't go wrong. (There's even a section on sushi for beginners, which I now make for lunches quite often)

JessHealthKick

I am the resident Japanese lover. Everything from the food, culture, language to even the men (yes bf is Japanese) and I live here too - stuff Western food, I'll have Japanese food every day thanks!

I find the staples in Japanese cooking are soy sauce, mirin (kinda like cooking sake), vinegar, miso paste, dassi (fish broth), konnsome (vegetable stock), katsuoboshi (dried fish), shiokosyo (salt/pepper), sesame oil, sesame seeds. For fresh things, you often need garlic, ginger, negi (kind of like spring onion). These are just off the top of my head though of course!

I would recommend to stay away from making sushi - really Japanese don't really eat sushi rolls that much but rather onigiri (gasp, Japanese don't live off sushi?!) And ramen requires a lot of skill in cooking the pork broth etc (which I have no patience for, plus you can get good ramen here for $6 so why bother?). Japanese have a lot of pretty raw foods - nabe hot pots, salads, tofu. Also they have amazing katsu (pan fried pork/chicken with bread crumbs) which is to DIE for with sauce.

Yes, another note. Sauce. Get ready to fill your cupboard with like 15 different sauces. I wouldn't hesitate to bet that Japanese have the widest range of sauces, it's somewhat overwhelming!

And yeah STOP NATTOU BASHING! I have it... my boyfriend has it with a raw egg on rice every morning! I prefer my egg a little poached and will pick at his nattou, and of course add in umeboshi (picked plum). Heaven is Japanese breakfast IMO.

If you have any questions feel free to message me

Hope this brain-vomit of a reply is helpful!

RM10003

For cookbooks, anything by Elizabeth Andoh. The Japanese Farm Food by Nancy Singleton Hachisu is quite nice, too.

Sqeekyjojo

I love Japanese food. Well, not ramen. I prefer udon myself. And, sacrilegious though it may be, I tend to use chicken stock as I don't like packet dashi. The odds of getting proper bonito and kombu over in the UK seems fairly minimal. Even with relatively easy access to some great Chinese/Japanese/Thai stores round here.

Anyhow, I use quite a lot of tamari, mirin, sake and sesame/goma. It's fairly high in sodium, but I think, as long as you have all aspects of a Japanese diet like lots of vegetables, not just tempura and tonkatsu, it's pretty healthy.

Anyhow, start off with tamari/soy, mirin, sake and miso. If you aren't into strong tastes, I think white miso is probably the best to start with. Use combinations of those as marinades for fish. Serve with lots of different vegetables.

Oh, and have fish and veg that is in season. It tastes a whole lot better than hothoused stuff.

I must confess that my number one treat meals are sushi, sashimi and tempura, though. Plus mochi with a strawberry tucked inside. It's hard to restrain myself when it all tastes just soooooo good.

bostonwolf

Does anyone know about Japanese cooking? I love sushi, ramen (sorry low carb folks) and all things japanese except fermented soybeans. Can anyone give me any tips or recommend a good Japanese cook book. I live near a HUGE Japanese market and don't know what to buy. The market is Mitsuku in Edgewater New Jersey. Thanks!

Mitsuku is one of the best Japanese markets in the US. And for the record this slow-carber (who lived in Japan for six months) LOVES ramen, though I much prefer it in a ramen-ya made fresh with a super fatty and delicious broth to slurp.

I have a couple of Japanese cookbooks at home that are pretty good. I will grab the names tonight and try to remember to add them here. Ping me if I don't just to remind me.

bostonwolf

I did but there were so many books that I didn't know which one to get. I also googled natto and found an article in the journal of nutrition that said it was shown to prevent osteoporosis in Japanese woman and a Japanese woman at my job told me her people swear it is a great anticancer food. If I knew that I would have forced myself to at least try it. I read that it tastes better than it smells Guess I'll have to actually go to Barnes and noble

The Japanese also have a horrible herd mentality. Fads (like natto) are so commonplace over there it's ridiculous. One study showed those findings and the manufacturer jumped all over it, marketed the hell out of it and made a ton of money on it.

bostonwolf

There is a big Japanese chain in uk called Wagamamas and they are expanding in USA. On the website www.abebooks.com you will find THE WAGAMAMA COOKBOOK by Arnold Hughes. You should I hope get some excellent ideas from there. We are keen on Indian and Thai food which we cook from scratch. Having lived in Hongkong my husband worked for a spell each year Nepal and our taste for Indian started then Great to make on a wet, cold Saturday for serving up on Sunday complete with Indian or even easier, Lebanese bread.

To be polite, Wagamama's sucks. There is no pork on the menu! How can one pretend to serve ramen and not offer pork broth?

bostonwolf

natto tastes like something is actively decomposing in your mouth. Honestly, as I type this I can remember the taste of it, and that was eleven years ago.....*shudders*

I have a bilingual book called 'stonesoup' It's sort of readers recipes, and not sure how good it would be ingredientswise, but it should give you a good grounding in everyday Japanese food.

it doesn't have an okonomiyaki recipe in unfortunately. Osaka-style is best....just sayin'....

Oh man....okonomiyaki. One of my friend's landlord owned an okonamiyaki restaurant in Tokyo that we went to once a week. Each table was a grill and they just brought you two bowls. Wet and dry. After a month or so they loved us because we were the gaijin who knew how to make the pancakes ourself and did not have to be shown. I so wish a restaurant like that existed in Boston.

RM10003

I must confess that my number one treat meals are sushi, sashimi and tempura, though. Plus mochi with a strawberry tucked inside. It's hard to restrain myself when it all tastes just soooooo good.

If you ever find yourself in or near Hilo, Hawaii, make sure you get to Two Ladies Kitchen, which is a mochi shop. Their strawberry mochi is so good....

bostonwolf

I visited a farm when I was in Japan and helped mochi. The old ladies LOVED me because I could (and did) pound the hell out of the rice powder. The benefits of being 6'3 (190cm) and weighting 260 as I did back then.