509 Japanese recipes. Page 5 of 22. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Iwana no Shioyaki (Salt-Grilled Char), Dabu Chicken and Root Vegetable Soup.
A whole char of about 25 cm is threaded onto a long bamboo skewer in a gentle wave, salted and nothing else, and grilled slowly by the radiant heat of charcoal embers until the skin is dry and the flesh still moist. Char live in clear mountain headwaters and were hard to catch until Miyagi Prefecture became the first in Japan to farm them, which made the fish a familiar taste around Kurihara.
Every solid in this pot, from chicken and lotus root to taro, konnyaku and fish cake, is cut to the same 1cm dice, so each spoonful carries a little of everything. Dabu comes from the Karatsu area of Saga, and its name is said to echo zabu-zabu, the sound of plenty of broth sloshing around the ingredients. Neighbors once gathered to cook it in large pots for weddings, funerals and invited guests. The cut changed with the occasion: squares for celebrations, triangular konnyaku for Buddhist memorial meals.
Daikon buried in astringent persimmon puree takes on the fruit's flavor while staying crisp. The traditional month-long barrel cure is unsafe to copy at uncontrolled home temperatures, so this version heats the persimmon puree, adds vinegar, tests the pH and keeps every stage refrigerated. A calibrated food-grade pH meter belongs on the equipment list.
Young edible luffa softens into translucent, slightly silky pieces in barley miso soup and gives it a light body before the soup is poured hot over somen. Once the barley miso is in, the pot stays at small bubbles to keep it from turning harsh.
Okara (soy pulp) is dry-toasted until crumbly, then mixed with vinegar-cured sardine, salted cucumber and carrot, and sweet simmered fried tofu, all held together by a thick peanut and miso dressing. The dish comes from the Boso coast of Chiba, and each portion is squeezed by hand into a small rice-bale shape. Store-bought okara added straight from the pack carries too much water and turns the mix soggy, which is why it is toasted first. The salted vegetables and the vinegar-rinsed sardine also need to be well drained, or the shaped bales slump. Toasty okara, salty fish, sweet vinegared miso and yuzu peel land in a single bite.
Pig trotters simmer here until the bones slip out and the broth sets to a jelly once cold. The Okinawan method first blanches them in water spiked with awamori, the island's rice spirit, to strip away odor and excess fat, then adds kombu and daikon radish for the long simmer. Seasoning stays light, just salt and a little soy sauce, and the broth tastes clean. The dish carries on Ryukyu pork cookery, which used every part of the animal and passed from the royal court into ordinary homes.
White miso, toasted sesame oil, and whole sesame seeds go into these thin crackers with only a pinch of sugar, and salty, nutty flavors come before sweet. Stop handling the dough as soon as it comes together. Kneading builds elasticity, which makes it resist rolling thin and bakes into a harder bite. Fresh from the oven they can feel slightly soft, and they crisp as they cool.
This two-serving chirashi-zushi arranges salmon and tuna sashimi, thin egg crepe, cucumber, blanched lotus root, and salmon roe over rice seasoned with sushi vinegar. Fold the seasoning into the warm rice without crushing the grains, spread it out, and let the steam escape before adding raw fish. Cook the egg in a thin sheet and cut it into 3 mm strips. Blanch the sliced lotus root for 1 minute and drain it well so excess water does not collect on the rice. Keep the sashimi refrigerated until assembly, blot only surface moisture with a clean paper towel, and serve the finished bowls immediately.
With only carrot, egg, salt, and oil in the pan, how the carrot is cut decides most of the result. A coarse shirishiri grater or julienne slicer gives long strands of 4 to 5 cm that still have some bite after cooking; finely grated carrot goes soft and loses that texture. The egg ends up in loose, fluffy clumps tangled between the strands rather than a smooth scramble.
Honey in the batter keeps these small Japanese pancakes soft and pliable for hours after they cool, and their mild sweetness leaves the red bean paste in charge. Only one side touches the pan, so each round has an evenly browned face and a smooth, pale back.
On the domed jingisukan pan, lamb fat and juices run down the grooves into the bean sprouts, onions and squash ringing the edge. This Hokkaido style skips the marinade and dips the lamb after cooking in a soy-vinegar sauce made with grated apple, pear, garlic and ginger. The fattiest pieces cook first in the center, and their rendered fat coats the grooves so nothing sticks without added oil. Everyone eats as things cook, lifting off meat and vegetables as they are ready, with potatoes and squash taking the longest. Hokkaido began eating lamb when sheep were raised for wool in the Taisho era, and the dish is now cooked at home year-round and outdoors at spring blossom parties and summer barbecues.
Dough made from flour and glutinous rice flour is stretched by hand into short, flat pieces and dropped straight into the simmering pot. These dago are kept short rather than pulled into long, even noodles so a spoonful can hold them together with burdock, taro and carrot. The broth comes from dried shiitake soaking liquid and dried sardines, seasoned with pale usukuchi soy sauce.
With six kilograms of small eggplants in one batch, the fermenting crock, pressing stone and a month of refrigerator space need to be sorted out before anything else. In a pickling bed of steamed rice, rice koji, salt, coarse sugar and shochu, the eggplants take on sweetness and koji aroma rather than plain saltiness, with bamboo leaves and dried red chili layered in. Once the brine rises over everything, the weight is reduced so the contents simply stay submerged. Mold, a rotten smell or abnormal slime means the whole crock is discarded untasted.
Ice-chilled ramen noodles topped with neat stripes of egg crepe, ham, cucumber and tomato get a tangy soy-vinegar dressing poured over instead of a broth. Because the sauce is a drizzle, not a soup, each topping keeps its own flavor and color. Cutting the egg, ham and cucumber to the same thin width makes the plate look tidy and lets every bite pick up a bit of everything, and the dressing goes on only at the table so the noodles stay springy.
Kuzukiri starch noodles, wakame, sudare-fu, konjac, carrot, udo and cucumber are cut long and thin and arranged by color around a bowl of thick sesame and white miso sauce for dipping. Around Kaga in Ishikawa it was served at funerals and memorial services in place of sashimi, and the konjac is still sliced thin like raw fish. Each component is prepared its own way, so slippery noodles, springy konjac and crisp vegetables stay distinct on the plate.
Cheek meat, fin meat, skin, stomach, liver and roe from one large white-fleshed fish are each blanched or boiled separately, then arranged together on a big platter with seasonal vegetables such as cucumber. This feast dish comes from Taketa in Oita Prefecture, where large sea fish were scarce and nothing from one was wasted. Kabosu, a tart Oita citrus, is squeezed into vinegar-soy sauce for dipping, and each part brings its own texture in turn. Each part needs its own cooking time, which is why nothing shares a pot.
This is the shortcake you see in Japanese bakeries: three layers of airy sponge, raised only by whipped eggs, filled with cream and sliced strawberries. Pick out the best-looking berries for the top before you slice the rest.
Shucked clams and thick-cut scallion simmer briefly in miso broth, and the whole pot, liquid included, is poured over hot rice to be eaten while the broth runs between the grains. In the Edo period, Fukagawa was a tidal fishing settlement full of clams, and vendors sold the meat already out of the shell, so fishers could cook it fast and eat between jobs.
This Okinawan dish is made from sweet potato starch, and while it is as chewy as a rice cake, it is neither steamed nor baked but stirred nonstop in a frying pan. The thin batter forms translucent clumps and finally gathers into a single glossy mass. Fresh from the pan it is very hot; it is torn into bite-size pieces and left to cool briefly before eating.
Only a small amount of brown sugar is rolled into each thin wheat crepe, so the toasted wrapper comes through before the sweetness. Scattered widely, the sugar melts and leaks out the sides, which is why it goes down in one thin line. Eat them while they are still warm.
Only the surface of the bonito meets the flame, for 20 to 30 seconds a side, leaving a smoky crust around a center that stays red and cold. Since the inside stays raw, the fish has to be bonito sold and cold-handled for eating raw, not ordinary grilling fish. In the Kochi Prefecture style, thick slices are sprinkled with salt, splashed with yuzu vinegar and soy, and patted with the flat of a knife so the seasoning settles in. Paper-thin garlic and onion and chopped scallions are scattered on top, and the plate is eaten right away rather than left at room temperature.
Crosshatched purple eggplant skin looks like a turtle's shell, and ground sesame clouding the broth looks like mud, hence the name mud turtle soup. This summer soup from the Koto region of Shiga gets slight body from finely ground rice porridge, which also keeps the large amount of toasted sesame from sinking straight to the bottom.
Crunchy dried daikon, chewy toasted squid and nutty roasted soybeans all soak in the same sweet soy and vinegar dressing. The pickle comes from Miyazaki, a major dried-daikon region where winter wind and strong southern sun turn fresh strips into a pantry staple. Its name is said to echo impatient calls asking whether it is ready yet. Toasting the squid and dry-roasting the beans before mixing gives the jar a roasted aroma that a raw-vegetable pickle lacks, while kombu and ginger add their own savor and bite. It is served chilled after resting overnight under refrigeration.
Wide flour noodles from Yamanashi simmer straight in miso broth with kabocha, potato, daikon, and napa cabbage, leaving the soup thick and slow to cool. In mountain areas poorly suited to rice, houtou long served as a staple, and its lasting warmth means it is eaten most often in winter. Unlike udon, the dough has no salt and the floured strips are never boiled on their own, which leaves their starch to thicken the pot.