Japanese Home Cooking
Simple Meals, Authentic Flavors
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- $47.99
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- $47.99
Publisher Description
“A beautifully photographed . . . introduction to Japanese cuisine.” —New York Times
“A treasure trove for . . . Japanese recipes.” —Epicurious
“Heartfelt, poetic.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Expand a home chef’s borders” with this “essential guide to Japanese home cooking” featuring 100+ recipes—for seasoned cooks and beginners who crave authentic Japanese food (Martha Stewart Living).
Using high-quality, seasonal ingredients in simple preparations, Sonoko Sakai offers recipes with a gentle voice and a passion for authentic Japanese cooking. Beginning with the pantry, the flavors of this cuisine are explored alongside fundamental recipes, such as dashi and pickles, and traditional techniques, like making noodles and properly cooking rice. Use these building blocks to cook an abundance of everyday recipes with dishes like Grilled Onigiri (rice balls) and Japanese Chicken Curry.
From there, the book expands into an exploration of dishes organized by breakfast; vegetables and grains; meat; fish; noodles, dumplings, and savory pancakes; and sweets and beverages. With classic dishes like Kenchin-jiru (Hearty Vegetable Soup with Sobagaki Buckwheat Dumplings), Temaki Zushi (Sushi Hand Rolls), and Oden (Vegetable, Seafood, and Meat Hot Pot) to more inventive dishes like Mochi Waffles with Tatsuta (Fried Chicken) and Maple Yuzu Kosho, First Garden Soba Salad with Lemon-White Miso Vinaigrette, and Amazake (Fermented Rice Drink) Ice Pops with Pickled Cherry Blossoms this is a rich guide to Japanese home cooking.
Featuring stunning photographs by Rick Poon, the book also includes stories of food purveyors in California and Japan. This is a generous and authoritative book that will appeal to home cooks of all levels.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From her home kitchen in Los Angeles, Sakai (The Poetical Pursuit of Food) renders Japanese flavors for the Western cook with exquisite care. She creates basics more often purchased at the supermarket, fermenting miso (for at least six months), kneading soba dough "(Wax on! Wax off!)," and pressing fresh tofu ("one of the tastiest foods in the world"). All of this yields rich rewards in dishes like a spicy soup of crisp-skinned duck and delicate soba noodles, or a simple broth with mushrooms, tofu, and yuzu peel. Throughout, Sakai brings readers along as she explores the ingredients and traditions she and her family carried with them from Japan. Readers are transported to the 300-year-old Tokyo shop where Sakai's childhood friend had a job shaving woodlike blocks of preserved fish called katsuobushi, which is used to make a dashi broth. A bento box filled with inari zushi (fried tofu filled with sushi rice) and crab cream croquettes evokes Sakai's schoolgirl days. But, as Sakai says, "he goal is not to stress yourself out but to enjoy the creative process. People will appreciate your labor of love." Home cooks wanting to dive into Japanese cooking will find Sakai to be a delightful and encouraging guide.
