http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/ en Copyright 2010 Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:52:37 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Calling all friends of the Japanese Food Report! Just in time for summer grilling (or winter grilling south of the equator), my coauthor Tadashi Ono and I are in the thick of writing an exciting new cookbook for Ten Speed Press called, appropriately enough, "The Japanese Grill." We're now organizing a team of volunteer recipe testers to evaluate our dishes, and need your help.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/03/grill-time-need-recipe-testers.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/03/grill-time-need-recipe-testers.html Book grilling Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:52:37 -0500 Here's another method for sardines, thanks to Chef Isao Yamada: Marinate them in vinegar. In my last post I mentioned I wanted to learn more Japanese sardine preparations, to give me some options for this flavorful but underappreciated fish (at least in America).

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/03/vinegared-sardines-tosazu.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/03/vinegared-sardines-tosazu.html Fish Vinegaring theory vinegaring Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:28:50 -0500 Here's another amazing dish I cooked during my recent session with Chef Isao Yamada. I asked him to teach me a method for sardines, a delicious (and sustainable) fish that I feel more of us should be eating.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/03/simmered-sardines-and-umeboshi.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/03/simmered-sardines-and-umeboshi.html Fish Otoshibuta Simmering simmering theory Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:39:44 -0500 An amazing thing happened when I watched Chef Isao Yamada simmer ingredients in the Japanese way, a technique called nimono. When the simmering liquid started to boil, he laid a lid, a wooden lid smaller than the saucepan, directly on top of the cooking ingredients. The liquid immediately started boiling up, but then he adjusted the heat, and it calmed down, happily bubbling away under that lid. What was going on here?

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/the-power-of-the-otoshibuta-or.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/the-power-of-the-otoshibuta-or.html Otoshibuta theory tools Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:14:05 -0500 In my post on simmering kabocha and chicken, I got into some of the underlying ideas behind nimono, or Japanese simmering technique, that Chef Isao Yamada explained to me. I wanted to touch on a few more of Yamada-san's thoughts about nimono.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/simmering-more-thoughts-on-sea.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/simmering-more-thoughts-on-sea.html Simmering ingredients theory Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:08:42 -0500 I heard from a few readers curious about the beautiful piece of pottery in the picture of my post on simmering kabocha and chicken. This stunning vessel is the work of the esteemed Karatsu potter Jinenbo Nakagawa, who I met years ago and wrote about in a story for the late, great Gourmet in 2005.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/jinenbo-nakagawas-pottery.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/jinenbo-nakagawas-pottery.html Pottery pottery Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:17:32 -0500 In my last post I made dashi with Chef Isao Yamada, who I cooked with recently. So now that we had some beautiful dashi, the fundamental stock of Japanese cuisine, what to do with it? Yamada-san didn't waste any time cooking a slew of fantastic dash-based dishes, including this one.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/simmered-kabocha-pumpkin-and-c.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/simmered-kabocha-pumpkin-and-c.html Chicken Simmering Vegetables nimono theory Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:55:24 -0500 The first thing we did during my cooking session with Yamada-san was the most fundamental: Prepare a dashi. Dashi is the foundation of Japanese cuisine, the basic stock that infuses Japanese dishes with its distinctive, savory, umami-flavor.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/chef-yamadas-dashi.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/chef-yamadas-dashi.html Dashi dashi theory Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:29:59 -0500 Here was my grand idea: I wanted to invite a top-notch Japanese chef to come over to my apartment and cook with me. I've been fascinated by Japanese cooking for years, and have been studying the cuisine diligently, but I have lots of questions still begging for answers. Why not ask a great chef, while chopping veggies together at home?

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/cooking-with-chef-isao-yamada.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/cooking-with-chef-isao-yamada.html Chefs chefs Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:05:30 -0500 Tomatoes, garlic... hot pot? When the local Japanese-language newspaper in New York, Japion, contacted us about doing a story about our hot pot book, Tadashi got inspired to create a New York-style hot pot.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/new-york-hot-pot.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/new-york-hot-pot.html Hot Pot hot pots Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:30:01 -0500 Here's a simple method my pal and coauthor Chef Tadashi Ono of Matsuri mentioned to me last week: Steaming a whole chicken with sake. It couldn't be easier.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/sake-steamed-whole-chicken.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/sake-steamed-whole-chicken.html Chicken Steaming sake Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:50:36 -0500 I remember the first time I tasted sake, and sushi for that matter, back when I was in college in the 80s. A friend who studied in Japan took me to a sushi bar on Irving Place in Manhattan, where he introduced me to raw fish on rice and sake served as hot as a steaming mug of coffee.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/the-right-temperature-to-serve.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/the-right-temperature-to-serve.html Sake sake Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:28:29 -0500 My wife and I and a houseguest visiting from Japan cooked this dish on New Year's Eve from a recipe dug up in a Japanese newspaper. God, it was good.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/chicken-soba-hot-pot.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/02/chicken-soba-hot-pot.html Chicken Hot Pot Soba hot pots soba Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:46:11 -0500 I was going to wash the rice for dinner myself, but my houseguest, a talented young Japanese chef stepped in to do it.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/01/post.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/01/post.html Rice rice theory Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:54:42 -0500 For me, the holy grail of Japanese cooking boils down this: The ability to look in the fridge, see what I've got and cook something fabulous with it. I've witnessed this two-step over and over in Japanese homes, watching slack-jawed with admiration as home cooks knocked out great dishes on the spot.

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]]> http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/01/a-fast-spontaneous-chicken-dis.html http://www.japanesefoodreport.com/2010/01/a-fast-spontaneous-chicken-dis.html Chicken theory Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:54:25 -0500