Grilling

Here are more videos Tadashi and I shot for last week's Japan Society presentation of our book, The Japanese Grill. Check out how to turn out amazing steaks, scallops, chicken, veggies, using marinades and rubs with garlic-soy sauce, miso, yuzu kosho, sansho and more... So don't delay: Fire up the Weber and get grilling right away!

Last night my coauthor Tadashi and I gave a talk and demo on Japanese grilling at the Japan Society in New York. But how do you demo grilling in auditorium where you can't grill? With videos, of course!

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.

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 realize it's a little late for barbecue (at least in NYC), but I want to share this method, which you can also do on the stovetop using a skillet. I learned it from my friend and grill-master-of-the-universe, Chef Tadashi Ono of Matsuri. Sure, we wrote a hot pot cookbook together, but you gotta see this guy in action on the Weber.

On Mondays and Fridays at the Union Square farmers market, a farmer of Korean descent named Yuno sells lovingly grown Asian vegetables, the only one there who offers these varieties. Atsushi was thrilled to find at her stand fushimi togarashi, heirloom Kyoto peppers, and snapped up a bunch.

For our dinner with Atsushi, Kyoto native that he is, Chef Ono found a Kyoto variety of eggplant called kamo nasu. Kamo nasu are squat and round, about four inches or so long, eggplant that traditionally were native to Kyoto, which is a city that's also its own agricultural district.

For our dinner with Chef Ono's family, Atsushi and I picked up beautiful shishito pepper at the farmers market, a bright green Japanese pepper about an inch to two inches long that looks like a hot green chili but has a mild flavor (except for every once in a while, when you bite into a fiery one!). Chef Ono evidently also heard the shishito siren call, and picked up a bunch, too.