Tim Anderson - JapanEasy: Classic and Modern Japanese Recipes to Cook at Home

CONTENTS

Japanese cuisine: loved and respected the world over for its emphasis on rare, top-quality ingredients, precise cooking techniques, and its adherence to strict traditions dating back centuries.

Thats the image, anyway. But you want to know the truth?

Japanese food is easy.

What are your favourite Japanese dishes? Sushi? Surprisingly easy. Gyoza? Very easy. Karaage? Soooooo easy! Tempura? Stupidly easy. Yakitori, yakisoba, miso soup? Easy, easy, easy.

I totally get that Japanese food can be intimidating its true that it features a lot of unusual ingredients that are often difficult to source (not to mention pronounce). And it has a reputation for requiring an exacting level of technique developed over years and years of study and practice. And while this is true for advanced or high-end Japanese cookery, you may be surprised at how many of your favourite Japanese dishes can be satisfactorily reproduced at home, even by novices with limited access to Japanese ingredients. In fact, many Japanese recipes require no specialist ingredients at all!

This book is designed as an introduction to the world of Japanese cooking via some of its most accessible (but authentic) dishes. But the recipes here do not cheat in any way none of them require inadequate substitutions for obscure ingredients, and none will suffer from lack of experience. Rather, I have chosen recipes that are by their very nature easy to produce, from the sourcing of ingredients straight through prep and cooking. If you are looking to replicate your favourite 20-hour pork broth ramen with all the toppings at home, look elsewhere that will never be easy (although it isnt really difficult, either). But if you are looking for fun, simple, relatively quick and, most importantly, really delicious Japanese dishes that you can actually make on a regular basis this is your book.

You love Japanese food. I know you do, because youre reading this book! And also because EVERYBODY loves Japanese food. Its delicious! You love Japanese food, and yet you never cook it at home. WHY? Here are some reasons excuses I frequently hear. Perhaps you have used them but NOT ANY MORE. You can cook Japanese food, and you can cook it today!

I CANT GET JAPANESE INGREDIENTS!

YES YOU CAN!

First of all, quite a lot of Japanese recipes dont require anything more obscure than soy sauce. Tempura, for example, is just flour, cornflour, eggs, sparkling water, oil, and good veg or seafood. But Japanese staple ingredients are everywhere these days even if you dont live anywhere near an East Asian supermarket, you will be able to find the majority of what you need at any ordinary, big supermarket. And if Im wrong, and your local big supermarket doesnt even have rice vinegar? Or if you dont even have a local big supermarket? Then there is still one magical source for all things Japanese to which you can always turn

THE INTERNET!!!

The internet is a fantastical wonderland of ingredients, Japanese and otherwise. Between online supermarkets, mega-marketplaces like Amazon or eBay, and smaller, specialist retailers, there are really too many sources of Japanese foods to name. They will deliver virtually anywhere in the country, often in a shorter time and for less money than you might expect. I live in London, where Japanese ingredients are relatively easy to find, but even so, I often find that online suppliers are simply the most convenient way to buy miso, seaweed, sake, or anything else I need to make a Japanese feast. Let me put it this way: you can order literally everything you need to make literally everything in this book ON YOUR PHONE while waiting for the bus!

THATS AMAZING! WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!

IVE HEARD ABOUT SUSHI CHEFS THAT SPEND TWO YEARS JUST LEARNING HOW TO COOK RICE. JAPANESE FOOD IS TOO DIFFICULT.

NO, IT ISNT!

Not only is most Japanese food easy, its also fun! Alright, so youre probably not going to be able to recreate the kind of Michelin-starred sushi dinner you may have seen prepared by a spry octogenarian and his two harassed sons. It is true that the highest level Japanese cookery just like any kind of cookery can only be produced by someone with years of experience under their belt. But dont let that put you off! Nobody, least of all yourself, should expect you to be able to cook like the Japanese masters, and besides, you dont have to cook at that level if all youre after is pure deliciousness. There is an enormous array of Japanese dishes that are so easy, a trained monkey could (probably) make them.

Forget about fancy knife-work, tricky techniques or complicated recipes you dont need any of them to make some seriously tasty Japanese food.

I HARDLY HAVE TIME TO COOK ANYTHING AT ALL, AND JAPANESE FOOD TAKES AGES TO MAKE!

NO, IT DOESNT!

Many Japanese recipes require only a handful of different ingredients to prep, and because ovens are uncommon in Japanese homes and theres not much of a stewing or braising tradition there, cooking methods tend to be fast: think boiling, grilling or frying. In fact, a rounded and satisfying Japanese meal can be produced from just one basic recipe and barely half an hour of combined prep and cooking time. For example:

STEP 1: Get some rice on the boil.

(5 minutes of prep, 20 minutes of cooking)

STEP 2: While the rice is cooking, whip up a quick . Rub this into fillets of fish or chicken and grill them.

(1020 minutes total)

STEP 3: Knock together a quick salad with soy sauce, sugar, lemon juice and a little sesame oil as a dressing.

(5 minutes)

STEP 4 (BONUS): Make miso soup! (From a packet is fine, this aint the Ritz.)

(2 minutes)

And BOOM youre having a delicious Japanese meal at home! AND ON A WEEKDAY! And its even faster if you make big batches of go-to to have on hand for whenever that Japanese craving strikes.

You have no excuse!

LETS COOK!!!

One of the wonderful things about Japanese cooking is that in many cases, simplicity is inherent. So many traditional Japanese preparations are actually quite minimal: fresh produce, simply prepared, seasoned with just a few highly flavourful ingredients, and cooked quickly or not cooked at all. A classic example of this is sashimi: top-quality seafood, sliced, served with soy sauce. Thats it! How lovely.

In fact, whenever I get my hands on a really beautiful piece of fish, I cant resist slicing off a tiny bit to enjoy raw, dipped in a spot of soy sauce. It is one of lifes simplest, purest gastronomic pleasures, like burrata with sea salt and olive oil, or really potent French cheese with really old French wine.