813 recipes. Page 2 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
Okinawans are said to have made hirayachi on typhoon days, when going out was hard, from flour, egg and garlic chives already in the house. The batter can be loosened with either dashi or plain water. Its name refers to cooking something flat, and the batter is poured in quarters into an 18 cm pan and spread thin.
A white coat of amazake clings to thick daikon spears, which bend slightly yet still snap when bitten. Unlike fully dried takuan, this Tokyo pickle keeps the radish moist, with amazake supplying a gentle sweetness. It traces back to lightly pickled daikon sold at Edo-period Ebisu observances, and bettara stalls still appear at the autumn market of Takarada Ebisu Shrine in Nihonbashi.
Minced pork, crumbled fine, clings to thin glass noodles as they soak up a reduced doubanjiang broth, and those bits of meat on the strands give the dish its name. The liquid cooks down almost completely, so the result is moist and glossy rather than soupy. Glass noodles go in still slightly firm and finish cooking in the pan, absorbing the sauce without breaking.
Japanese-style cream pasta uses mentaiko, salted pollock roe, in two ways: two thirds melts into the butter and cream sauce, and the rest goes on top raw with crumbled roasted seaweed. A teaspoon of lemon juice at the end lightens the cream. The roe is stirred in with the burner off or barely on. Over strong heat it turns fishy.
Fried thick tofu (atsuage) and toasted white sesame are ground together into a thick dressing that clings to shredded daikon and carrot. The grinding goes on until no flecks of the tofu skin remain, which is what makes the coating smooth enough to wrap the fine shreds. It resembles shiraae, the Japanese tofu-dressed salad, in its nutty richness, but vinegar and Japanese mustard make it tart with a little nasal heat. Wringing the salted daikon and carrot out firmly in two or three goes keeps the coating thick after the vinegar is added and lets the vegetables keep their crunch. Thin diagonal slices of blanched snow peas add green against the white and orange.
In the Noto area of Ishikawa, this root vegetable side dish is made for New Year and other special occasions. Flattened soybeans, burdock, and fried tofu simmer in sweetened soy, while daikon and carrot strips are blanched separately and folded in afterward, and each keeps its own texture. Vinegar layered over the soy seasoning puts it somewhere between a simmered dish and a dressed salad.
Semolina makes up the batter, so each bite has a slightly coarse, sandy grain. Before baking, the top is scored into diamonds and an almond is pressed into each one. The lemony syrup goes on the moment the cake comes out of the oven.
Rousui comes from the Katsuura area of Tokushima, and the word is said to be a local form of zosui, Japanese rice porridge. Whole sweetfish are laid over rice, potato and eggplant as they simmer, and their aroma goes into the broth. Once cooked, the fish move to a plate to be picked clean of even the fine bones before the flesh returns to the pot. Broken up in the pot, those bones would be hard to find.
The name still says pork (buta), but in Amakusa, Kumamoto, octopus from the bay took the place of pork that was once hard to come by. Boiled octopus and eggplant get a sweet miso glaze with mirin and sugar.
Cubes of agar jelly that snap cleanly under a knife sit among fruit, chewy mochi, and red bean paste, and brown sugar syrup poured just before eating ties them together. Anmitsu grew out of mitsumame, agar with boiled beans, when red bean paste was added in the Meiji era.
Thick, sweet, and slowly turning sour, miki comes from the Amami area of Kagoshima, where cooked rice flour, sugar, and water are fermented with juice pressed from raw sweet potato. Only the juice is used; the grated solids are left out. Freshly made, it tastes plainly sweet. Over the following days a sour tang builds behind that sweetness, and how much tang you like decides when the jar moves to the fridge, more than the calendar does.
Kecap manis, Indonesia's sweet soy sauce, turns into dark glossy patches and light char once the chicken thighs meet high grill heat. Because the chicken first cooks gently in its marinade, the grill only has to color the surface, and the sugary sauce spends little time over the flame.
Beef shank marinated in fish sauce and garlic simmers for one to two hours with lemongrass and tomato paste, until the meat pulls apart and the broth turns red and lightly thick. It is often traced to southern Saigon kitchens where long French braising met Vietnamese aromatics, and street vendors in Ho Chi Minh City sell it from early morning. Some spoon it over rice; others dip a baguette.
In Gyoda, Saitama, okara and skin-steamed potato are kneaded with carrot, onion, flour and egg, shaped into flat oval coins and fried with no breadcrumb coating. The jelly in the name has nothing to do with dessert; it is thought to have drifted from zeni fry, or coin fry, after the koban-like shape. A Gyoda teahouse owner who served in the Russo-Japanese War is said to have adapted it from a vegetable bun of northeastern China, and it was common by the late Meiji period. The hot fritters get a brief dip in a six-to-four blend of Worcestershire and chuno sauces.
Blanched cabbage is layered with cooked salted trout, carrot, ginger and chili, and each layer gets a splash of amazake and vinegar. In inland Tsugaru, Aomori, fresh seafood was once hard to come by, and through about four months of heavy snow, pickled vegetables and long-keeping salted trout carried households through winter. Families ate the grilled flesh and put the remaining edible parts into pickles or shirani soup. The batch fills an 18L container and stays at 4°C or below from start to finish, so refrigerator space is the first thing to sort out.
Tamarind gives this fish broth its sour backbone, with flaked mackerel and rice noodles underneath and cucumber and mint on top. A finely blended paste of onion, garlic, and ginger forms the base and carries the chili heat. The mackerel is cooked and boned before it goes into the soup, so the bowl is easy to eat. Cucumber and mint add a cool, fresh finish to the hot, sour broth.
Napolitan grew out of postwar Japan, when ketchup and Vienna sausages were easier to find than pricier ingredients, and it still tastes like retro home cooking. The ketchup is fried in the pan before the noodles join it, cooking off its water so the raw tang turns into concentrated tomato sweetness, with Worcestershire adding a fermented, savory layer. Sausage browns first, until its edges color and the pan smells of it. The onion and green pepper get only a quick blast of high heat so they stay crisp, and a knob of butter at the end softens the ketchup's tang into a sweet, salty gloss.
Plump, springy edamame and soft, creamy avocado make the main contrast in the bowl. A dressing of soy sauce, lime juice and sesame oil gives it a light, salty-tart Asian profile, and cucumber and cherry tomatoes add crunch and juice. The only cooking is a few minutes of blanching the beans. Cool them completely before mixing; warm beans turn the avocado mushy. The avocado gets a little lime juice the moment it is cut to slow browning, and the finished salad has a better texture served cold.
Sarubogai, the small ark clams that Izumo in Shimane calls akagai, are steamed briefly in their shells with dashi, mirin, and light soy sauce for the New Year table. They are a separate, smaller species from the ark shell usually sold as akagai, with fewer ribs on the shell, and were once a signature of the brackish Nakaumi lagoon. Short cooking keeps the meat sweet and moist. Any clam that never opens is discarded, and the cloudy cooking liquid stays in the pot.
Portuguese missionaries brought this sponge to Nagasaki in the 16th century, and Japan turned it into a cake of its own. There is no baking powder: the rise comes entirely from eggs whipped for a long time, which gives a fine, even crumb that springs back slowly when pressed.
A golden crust called fan jiu forms where the rice touches the hot clay, while the top layer stays soft and glossy with fat from sliced Chinese sausage. Hong Kong dai pai dong stalls and old Guangzhou restaurants have long served it as a winter dish. At the table, a mix of soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sesame oil is poured over and stirred through, turning the white rice amber. A sharp scorched smell means the heat must come down at once, since clay holds heat after leaving the flame and keeps toasting the bottom. Too much water, whether in the pot or clinging to the soaked rice, keeps the crust from forming.
Rather than marinating the pork, this version sears thin slices of pork shoulder first and adds the soy, mirin, and fresh ginger sauce only for the last 30 seconds, when it reduces to a glossy glaze. Laid flat without overlapping, the slices brown at the edges instead of stewing in their own juices. Onion softened in the same pan adds sweetness, and the result is the ginger pork familiar from Japanese set meals and bento boxes.
Bite through the chewy rice skin and the sesame filling, softened with butter and sugar, runs out warm and nutty. The broth is not a sugar syrup: the dumpling cooking water is simmered with sliced ginger, so its mild heat cuts through the rich, sweet center.
Black tea is steeped extra strong with cardamom, chilled, and poured over ice, then topped with milk and condensed milk so brown and white layers form in the glass. The strength is deliberate: as the ice melts, a normal brew would fade, but this one still tastes of tea at the last sip. Cardamom adds a gentle spice that rounds off the tea's tannic edge and keeps the result from tasting like just another sweet milk tea. Stir it before drinking and the creamy sweetness spreads through the whole glass.