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clareh · Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Posts: 16

For someone that is really into cooking, does anyone know any good webistes/ books/ cooking courses for authentic Japanese food?

Lynn · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 696 Location: in between

about.com

J. · Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 327

Really glad to see someone else interested in Japanese cooking!!! Very Happy

I've been learning Japanese cooking these past few years and and am making everything fom casual foods like cha-han, Udon, and yakisoba to miso soup with home-made dashi, homemade umeboshi (I got the recipe from a student and boy are they good!), Nikujaga, Oden and the like. Here are three books from my bookshelf that I can reccommend. I bought 2 of them at Maruzen, which has a nice selection of Japanese cookbooks in English, and one was a gift from a friend. ( I think she got it at Miyawaki). I also recommend letting your students know that you are interested and if they don't know how to write a recipe in English, teach them. Then you can ask them for all the authentic recipes you want. One of my private students knows I'm interested and she regularly cooks me new foods to taste and brings them to my house for my supper. Sometimes she shows me how to cook something at my house. Needless to say, I appreciate her greatly.

Quick and Easy The Book of Miso Soup ( 110 Trouble-Free Recipes); Joie, Inc. This one has a lot of traditional and not-so-traditional recipes but I bought it for the great guide to different kinds of miso including colour pictures that make it easy to tell what kinds you're buying.

Recipes of Japanese Cooking; Yukio Fujita and Navi International. This has all the home-cooking favourites in a unique side-by-side English and Japanese pages style. You can even learn some Japanese.

And my favourite-- Japanese Homestyle Cooking by Tokiko Suzuki; 1999, Graph-Sha Ltd. This has elegant and absolutely delicious Japanese food and the best recipes for miso soup in the world. It also shows pictures of equipment. And every recipe has easy to follow beautiful colour step-by-step shots. And some seasonal recipes.

It's also useful to get a book on different kinds of Japanese produce and the names and kanji so you can shop for them, but my absolutely best tip is to find the Sunday market in your area and make friends with the farmers. They will point you to all the best and cheapest seasonal produce and if you become a regular you are bound to get all kinds of free bonuses and treats with your purchases. You can also buy traditional pickles at these places if you like them, as well as fresh fruit, tofu, eggs, rice and cooked tempura and even flowers for your table.

If you want to discuss cooking more, just let me know. I'm keen.

Happy cooking!

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

What's What in Japanese Restaurants. A Guide to Ordering, Eating, and Enjoying, by Robb Satterwhite, Kodansha International, (178 pages), US$10 (related web site www.bento.com/tokyofood.html )

A First Book Of Japanese Cooking, by Masako Yamaoka

Japanese Family-style Recipes, by Hiroko Urakami

clareh · Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Posts: 16

Thanks Glenski, I'll take a look at those books you suggested. Thanks for the great advice too, I'll keep it in mind and be sure to contact you if i find any tips or good recipes.

maya.the.bee · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 118 Location: Stgo

I'm a cooking newbie and in need of some help. Does anyone have a spicy udon soup recipe? Or any other easy cold weather recipes?

thanks

6810 · Joined: 16 Nov 2003 Posts: 309

can you make udon soup already?

find a recipe online (or ask someone Japanese), failing that, just make dashi and flavour it with soy sauce or something.

Then Korean-a-fy it! Fry up some guchuchan and garlic together until it gets fragrant - use plenty of oil. Place this in the bottom of each serving bowl and pour "regular" boring udon soup and noodles on top and you have a powerful winter soup that can keep you warm and kick you in the pants from 10 meters away!

Or, buy some curry roux mix (make it yourself if you can) brew up a thick sludgy curry with protein of choice and stir in your noodles (pre heated) before serving and you have - CURRY UDON!!!!

maya.the.bee · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 118 Location: Stgo

My best quess for what I'm looking for is kimchi chigae with the addition of udon (instead of rice) and a egg. Does it sound horrible? Kimchi udon. We'll see, that's dinner tomorrow or Tuesday.

what is guchuchan?

6810 · Joined: 16 Nov 2003 Posts: 309

maya.the.bee · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 118 Location: Stgo

I meant to post this a couple of days again, but...time got away from me.

Thanks for the guchuchan/kochujang/etc heads up. Quite a bit went into the udon but there was still some left for the yakiniku tonight. Yummi!

I think the kimchi udon turned out good. A bit spicy. I'm still a egg newbie and need to learn to cook the blasted things... but here's how it turned out:

Not the best looking soup but it hit the spot.

6810 · Joined: 16 Nov 2003 Posts: 309

alright! Always good to hear success stories. Don't forget the gochuchan/garlic combo either. Give the garlic a good seeing too in oil so it gets really brown and stinky!

Alberta605 · Joined: 23 Dec 2006 Posts: 94 Location: Japan

Well that was quite a crash course, and there I was thinking that the pinnacle of Japanese cooking is fried chicken. I'm not entirely at fault here. Most of my teenage students would gladly take a bullet for an extra piece of this delicious junk.

Eva Pilot · Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 4:48 am Post subject:

jesszilla · Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 35

For the OP, I've had success with these books:

The Japanese Kitchen by Hiroko Shimbo. It has a number of basic Japanese staple recipes, a good glossary, and an introduction to Japanese kitchen utensils. It also has some more advanced recipes and some fusion recipes too.

Stone Soup edited by Setsuko Watanabe. This is a bilingual collection of Japanese recipes prepared by a group of students at a vocational college. It has a good glossary and a number of bilingual illustrations that show the names of cuts of beef, pork, and chicken, the arrangement for a typical teishoku place setting, the different cutting styles, and Japanese kitchen utensils. It's really handy for setting up your kitchen and grocery shopping.

Also, anything by Elizabeth Andoh. I used At Home With Japanese Cooking, which appears to be out of print. It may be that the newer Washoku is a revision of the same book. I'm not sure. In any case, she also covers kitchen utensils, cutting, shaping and molding, and some of the aesthetic principles behind Japanese cooking.

Happy Eating!

ironopolis · Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Posts: 379