Cooking Japanese

[yuujirou]

Alright, so for those of you who remember my "Sushi Gallery" thread, this is another food focused one. Like in the aforementioned link, everything I'm about to type is as I understand it. I am entirely open to and would very much appreciate some proper criticism (looking at you nyororin =D).
Or, if you have any questions regarding the cuisine, please feel free to ask.

**/This thread is meant to be used as a guideline to advancing your understanding Japanese cuisine. In order for this to be useful, you will have to apply some of your own logic./**

The Basics of Japanese Cuisine

The basics of Japanese cuisine revolve around a relatively small set of ingredients. If you can acquire an understanding of these and their utilisation, then you can very easily re-create nearly any Japanese dish you come across.

Sauces

Sauces are one of the most important aspects of any dish. It provides a depth of flavour profiles as well as adding textures, and colour.

A few principles to consider when making a sauce:

• Acids thin, meaning if you add lemon to a cream based sauce, it will reduce the viscosity of the sauce.
• Starches thicken. Typical examples would be when you use a roux or corn starch to thicken a sauce.
• Reducing concentrates flavours. To reduce means to simmer for an extended period as to evaporate the water from your sauce.
• To deglaze a pan is to add a liquid (broth, water or wine) to the pan so to absorb the residue from previously cooked products. This is how gravy is made.

Nearly every sauce uses one or more of these ingredients:

• Shoyu (soy sauce of varying darkness')
• Sugar
• Sake (Japanese rice wine)

This following list contains the ingredients that are strictly or at least distinctively Japanese and are apart of the above list:

• Mirin (a by-product of sake)
• Miso (from red(dark) to white(light) with red being saltiest)
• Dashi (made from first boiling kombu in water then adding katsuo or bonito shavings)

Just to give a few examples:

• Tentsuyu (the sauce for tempura) is comprised of dashi, shoyu, and mirin.
• Teriyaki is made with shoyu, mirin, and sugar.
• Shoyu Ramen is very easily made by adding shoyu to dashi.
• A zuke sauce (which is bloody awesome with tuna) can be made from a 1:1:1 ratio of shoyu, sake, and mirin.
• Miso soup is nothing but dashi and miso.
• Gindara is even simpler. Marinate a white meat fish (chilean sea bass is a favourite) in a 1:1 ratio of sugar to miso for two days and broil at 350 for 5-8 minutes on each side to make one awesome side.
• Age-dashi tofu is made by pouring a mixture of dashi, mirin, and shoyu over deep fried tofu.
• etc. etc. etc.

If you've noticed, all those sauces revolve around a central list of ingredients in differing ratios. They're all very basic recipes and many people have their own variations (such as adding a small amount of ginger to the teriyaki sauce or squeezing some yuzu into the zuke.)

[Columbine]

Ooh, goody. I liked your sushi post, so it's good to see you back again.

Do you use red or white miso for the Gindara?

[NanteNa]

Cooking Simon! You should make some sort of series on youtube : D I'd befriend you fo' sho'!

[steven]

This is a great thread! I could never get Japanese food to taste right until I watched my wife cook... I was very surprised at how simple a lot of it actually ended up being.

I was thinking of making some videos of it with my wife to put on youtube to help people cook Japanese food (particularly foreigners who are in Japan). You can save a ton of money if you can cook Japanese food from scratch instead of going out all the time or buying ready-made packaged goods.

"If you've noticed, all those sauces revolve around a central list of ingredients in differing ratios. They're all very basic recipes and many people have their own variations (such as adding a small amount of ginger to the teriyaki sauce or squeezing some yuzu into the zuke.)"

This is the key! Those small variations is what is so great about cooking on your own. They have so many citrus fruits that you can use to add all kinds of nuances to your food. Of course there are things like ginger as well (which I absolutely love!). Sprinkling a little bit of parsley on things is also a nice addition (even miso soup).

Those citrus fruits are also great to add to drinks! If you make lemonade (or CC lemon type stuff from the powder) it's nice to add a squeez or slice of a citrus fruit to make it taste better. They are also good for alcoholic drinks

[yuujirou]

Originally Posted by Columbine

Ooh, goody. I liked your sushi post, so it's good to see you back again.

Do you use red or white miso for the Gindara?

Personally, I prefer white miso. The red miso is too salty for my tastes. Then again, I never buy salted butter, lol.
Perhaps it's because I want the option to choose the degree of flavour I want.
But, it's entirely up to you.

And I'm glad you enjoyed my previous thread xD

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by yuujirou

Personally, I prefer white miso. The red miso is too salty for my tastes. Then again, I never buy salted butter, lol.
Perhaps it's because I want the option to choose the degree of flavour I want.
But, it's entirely up to you.

And I'm glad you enjoyed my previous thread xD

I guess it depends on the fish too. I mean, cod could handle all the salt of red miso, but that would totally overpower something like the sea-bass you mentioned.

[Nyororin]

I think this thread is quite a nice idea - I`ll have to get around to posting a list of the common sauce mixes. I have a handy little chart that lists about 15 or so that are used commonly.

When it comes to miso, there are countless different types. Far more than just white, red, and mixed. Depending on what the miso is made from there are huge differences even within the same "color". (Not to mention hatcho, which is quite different to begin with).

[steven]

I know Nagoya is famous for their Red Miso... but I'd like to hear about all the other types that you know of Nyororin.

I've heard of like Yuzu Miso and mixes like that (as in not red miso vs white miso)... and I'm curious to know about some of the other kinds out there that I haven't been able to try yet.

I think it would be interesting to talk about all the different kinds of vegetables here. I think some of them are very intimidating at first (for those who are not used to them), but once you discover them they will increase you repertoire (as well of the flavors of things you already know how to cook).

[yuujirou]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

I think this thread is quite a nice idea - I`ll have to get around to posting a list of the common sauce mixes. I have a handy little chart that lists about 15 or so that are used commonly.

When it comes to miso, there are countless different types. Far more than just white, red, and mixed. Depending on what the miso is made from there are huge differences even within the same "color". (Not to mention hatcho, which is quite different to begin with).

Ah yea, I've seen a 'couple' variations of miso; honestly hadn't a clue as to how expansive miso could be.

But mainly, the only varieties that I've seen available in my local markets are those two. I suppose it was wrong of me to have assumed that it was the same for the majority of the readers out there >.<
And like Steven, I too, would enjoy some enlightenment on this subject ;D

p.s. I'm also on board about the posting of vegetables, their properties, and their applications in this thread as well.

[dogsbody70]

forgive me referring to the subject heading on this thread.

I sincerely hope that nobody is actually cooking Japanese. I suspect cooking in Japanese style rather than cooking Japanese people!