Fish

Kara-age is a technique for deep frying without a batter, to highlight the natural taste of an ingredient. Foods are simply dredged in flour or starch, to seal the surface, and plopped into a vat of bubbling oil (okay, not literally a vat -- a saucepan is fine!).

I've written about teriyaki before, the real teriyaki, that is -- the thin glaze brushed on while sautéing or grilling that instantly adds tremendous flavor and a beckoning sheen to foods. There are bunch of ways to prepare teriyaki; here's one I just tried that works amazingly well for fish, and is super easy:

Nobuko called me into the kitchen to gut these smelts -- why did I have to do the dirty work? Actually, I like gutting fish, and these were nice, fresh smelts.

Happy holidays, everyone! I want to share a few dishes from a fabulous home-cooked Japanese dinner I enjoyed this past week. I don't have recipes, but Nobuko, who's an amazing cook and prepared everything, explained what she did. So I'll try to explain the dishes here, in turn. First up, magurozuke, marinated tuna.

Making tempura is tricky, but if you understand the underlying fundamentals, you can definitely get the hang of it at home, and impress family and friends! (Not to mention cook a super delicious meal.)

Check out how Chef Abe demonstrates how to make the real-deal teriyaki, not the gummy goopy excuse for this technique we find too often here.

From our EN Japanese Brasserie workshop, here is what's called hoiru yaki in Japanese -- "hoiru" is Japanglish for "foil." This is a super simple technique but the results are amazing.

Miso is such a versatile ingredient (hey, we did a whole class on it). In this installment of our recent fish workshop at EN Japanese Brasserie, Chef Abe, owner Reika Yo and I walk through how to miso-cure fish, plus how to marinate fish for grilling yuan yaki style, a traditional, and incredibly easy, Japanese technique.

Okay, get ready for some serious how-to video. Last weekend I moderated an incredible Japanese fish cooking class at EN Japanese Brasserie featuring Chef Hiroki Abe and owner Reika Yo. We stepped through a dozen delicious techniques that any home cook can master -- and videotaped them.

This past week, something remarkable happened: More than forty of Japanese greatest chefs descended on the Napa Valley for the Culinary Institute of America's Japan: Flavors of Culture conference.

Okay, time for teriyaki, but I mean the real thing, not the ho-hum dish we typically see here in America, the one with a gummy, starch-thickened sauce that drowns chicken or fish.

I was curious to see the reaction of fellow commuters as I stepped onto a Brooklyn-bound subway holding a clear plastic bag filled with 20 pounds of salmon parts.