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Iriko Dashi & Daikon Miso Soup

On his last morning at my apartment, Atsushi explained this dish to me. First, let's talk about iriko dashi, a traditional dashi prepared from small dried fish. While konbu and katsuobushi dashi is intricate and involved, iriko dashi is the opposite: Totally simple to make.

August 25, 2008

More on Dashi...

Today the NY Times ran my story about dashi, a look at how Western chefs across the country are now cooking with this essential stock of Japanese cuisine. As regular readers of the Report know, I'm intrigued by dashi. I thought to add a few more ideas about this remarkable broth to expand on the article.

October 15, 2008

Chef Yamada's Dashi

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.

February 21, 2010

Konbu-Kasuobushi Dashi & Silken Tofu Miso Soup

Let's talk about how to make a dashi before we get to this simple, delicious soup. Everything I've read about preparing konbu-katsuobushi dashi (kelp and dried, shaved bonito) says to first add the konbu to a pot of water and bring it to just a boil, then to remove the konbu before the water starts to really boil. Atsushi took a totally different approach.

August 6, 2008

Miso Clams Over Rice, From "Dashi and Umami"

When I worked on a story on dashi last fall, I searched mightily for all the English-language information I could find on kombu and katsuobushi (dried kelp and dried, shaved bonito), the elements that make up a classic Japanese stock. I wish "Dashi and Umami" was available when I was writing my article.

March 13, 2009

Chef Yamada's "1.5" All-Purpose Dashi

When Chef Isao Yamada recently returned to my place for another cooking session, one of the first questions I asked him was prompted by a reader's comment asking for a method for an all-purpose dashi.

April 1, 2010

Fried Eggplant Served with Dashi

Here's another dish Chef Honma taught me at En Japanese Brasserie. Like the mushroom ohitashi, this obanzai-inspired dish relies on dashi.

October 1, 2008

Turnips, Carrots and Okra Simmered in Dashi

When Atsushi and I visited New York's Union Square farmers market together we found lovely okra as well as fresh carrots and white Japanese turnips (kabu). I asked Atsushi to prepare a simple dish to bring out their natural, peak-of-season flavors, so he decided to simmer them in dashi, and add a touch of usukuchi shoyu to give the vegetables a little saltiness.

August 6, 2008

Dashi-infused Japanese Cucumbers

At Saveur, Atsushi demonstrated a fundamental notion of Japanese cooking through this utterly simple dish, composed of Japanese cucumbers, a good konbu-katsuobushi dashi and myoga for garnish.

August 22, 2008

Spring Vegetables Steeped in Dashi (Ohitashi)

Now that summer's coming soon to a neighborhood near you (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), you have to keep this simple but magical technique -- ohitashi -- in mind. Ohitashi is a method of steeping vegetables in a delicate dashi, which infuses ingredients with umami and lovely flavor but retains the food's natural taste and sensibility.

May 21, 2011

Konbu Dashi Soup with Egg and Scallion

This dish, like the konbu dashi soup with clams, once agan demonstrates the power of konbu, which infuses water with an irresistible savoriness or umami to serve as a flavor foundation for other ingredients. In this case, Atsushi prepared a simple soup with egg and scallion that was fast to prepare and extremely tasty.

August 20, 2008

Steeping Vegetables in Dashi

Now that summer, I mean the real thing - 90 degrees, sticky and humid - has finally arrived in New York, I want to share some simple Japanese dishes perfect for these scorching days.

August 12, 2009

Steaming Large Clams with Dashi & Sake

I found these big, hunky clams at the farmers market this weekend, each at least 2 inches across. But how to prepare them? My wife Momo found a bunch of recipes online, but we decided to go as simple as possible -- steam them with sake.

November 15, 2011

Grilled Eggplant Simmered in Dashi

I found some beautiful (or, "byu-DEE-ful," as they like to say here in my homeland of Brooklyn) Japanese eggplants at the local market, so I started digging through my notes and cookbooks for ideas on how to prepare them.

August 23, 2009

Dashi Spray

September 29, 2009

Konbu Dashi Miso Soup with Snow Peas

A simple soup that evokes the ideas of mottainai and the power of konbu: Atsushi collected turnip peels and scrap pieces of carrot from preparing other dishes and added them to a pot of water with a piece of konbu in it. He turned on the heat and cooked it until the konbu gave off a pleasing aroma, then strained the liquid. In the meantime, Atsushi sliced a handful of snow peas on the diagonal.

August 20, 2008

Konbu Dashi Soup with Clams

One of the many things I love about Nakahigashi Restaurant is how Mr. Nakahigashi can bring out the sublime natural flavors of ingredients even though he does very little to them. Atsushi expressed this idea in a simple clam soup with just three ingredients: Clams, water and umami-rich konbu. Actually, when he explained what he was about to cook, I suggested he add a little yuzu citrus peel to give the soup another layer of flavor. Atsushi politely demurred -- that's not the Nakahigashi way, he explained. Clams and konbu are all you need. No accents or garnishes necessary.

August 4, 2008

Simmered Kabocha Pumpkin and Chicken

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.

February 25, 2010

Cooking with Chef Ooe at Kozue

"Japanese cooking is simple," Chef Ooe told me as we stood in his kitchen at Kozue, the stunning Japanese restaurant of Tokyo's Park Hyatt. "Only cutting, dashi, grilling... simple." The hard work of achieving this simplicity? Well, that's why I was in his kitchen...

May 4, 2009

Elizabeth Andoh's "Kansha"

My friend and hero Elizabeth Andoh has just published her latest cookbook, Kansha. Make sure to pick up a copy! As I paged through the book, Elizabeth's recipe for age-dashi dofu, or crispy creamy tofu, as she describes it, caught my eye (p 178). I had to cook it, and it was delicious! Here's my adaption of her recipe, for 4 servings:

January 4, 2011

freestyle hotpot

After I wrote about nabe, or home-style hotpot cooking, last month, I asked a friend in Japan to research the many regional varieties of this social and comforting soul food. She just sent me a list of twenty styles of nabe, dishes prepared with salmon, tuna, octopus, pork, chicken, root vegetables, even wild boar and snapping turtle. These hotpots all reflect local foods, customs and geography, and their histories and lore are absolutely fascinating: One traces back to the cooking of Japanese pirates, another originated with bear hunters. There's a nabe invented by sake makers living inside breweries during production season and one that's supposed to be eaten in the dark (yikes!). There's even a nabe invented in 2005 to commemorate the merger of three cities. Like I said, fascinating.

January 28, 2008

Cooking with Atsushi

For the past two weeks, I've had a visitor from Japan stay over at my apartment here in New York, a terrific guy named Atsushi Nakahigashi. All of 22-years-old, he's already an accomplished professional bass fisherman -- and an accomplished chef. Since the age of 14 or so, Atsushi's been working at his father's legendary restaurant in Kyoto, Sojiki Nakahigashi. His dad, Mr. Hisao Nakahigashi, is one of my absolute culinary heroes, a wonderful man who I've had the privilege to get to know and write about. Atsushi's his dad's talented protégé, and since he was here in New York... I put him to work in my kitchen! Actually, Atsushi, wise, thoughtful and mature way, way beyond his years, graciously offered to teach me a few things about Japanese cooking. It's been a seminal couple of weeks.

August 4, 2008

Japanese Mushroom Ohitashi

Chef Honma of En Japanese Brasserie features this dish on his seasonal obanzai menu, which evokes the traditional home cooking of Kyoto.

September 29, 2008

Udon-Chicken-Clam Hot Pot

So I was talking to a Japanese chef friend named Rio Irie about clams, and he brought up something interesting. Cooking clams together with chicken in a liquid, Rio told me, creates a broth with a remarkable mouthwatering flavor synergy...

January 26, 2012

Scenes from a Japanese Cooking Workshop

Last week, a couple of dozen curious food lovers joined me at the Saveur magazine test kitchen for a Japanese vegetarian cooking workshop with the amazing Chef Masato Nishihara of Kajitsu restaurant. What an incredible night.

November 5, 2009

Three Great Techniques from the CIA Conference

Master Japanese chefs shared amazing techniques, recipes, ingredients, know-how, theory and more during the two and half days of the CIA's Japan:Flavors of Culture. Here is a trio of methods I came across that I loved, and jotted down in my notebook:

November 9, 2010

Baby Gen's Japanese Dinner Party

Too bad baby Gen can only eat mashed rice: The chefs of the fabulous Kajitsu and their wives came over to our place in Brooklyn the other night for an impromptu Japanese dinner party, and I wish Gen could have tasted the amazing spread.

August 17, 2011

Notes from Tokyo Taste

Hollywood has its paparazzi. So, apparently, does food. I took the shot above at last week's Tokyo Taste event in Japan, where a ruck of photographers rushed to snap dishes prepared by famous chefs. What a sight.

February 13, 2009

hiroshima-style oyster nabe

December 23, 2007

Udon for the New Family

As my wife and I adjust to our new life with Blizzard Baby -- our cute son was born smack in the middle of last weekend's raging snow storm (getting to the hospital was an unbelievable saga) -- I wanted to whip up something fast, delicious and comforting for din din last night, our first of 2011. Okay, so how about udon in a hot broth with spinach, eggs and enoki?

January 2, 2011