150 recipes. Page 2 of 7
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Gunma suiton dough is never rolled or cut. A loose flour batter is simply spooned into dashi already simmering with daikon, carrot, taro, shiitake and fried tofu, and that ease made it an everyday dish that stood in for rice when rice ran short.
On the streets of northern China this crepe is made every morning: thin batter spread on a griddle, an egg cracked over it and smeared across, then sweet bean sauce, chili sauce, cilantro and a crisp fried wonton sheet before it is folded into a rectangle to eat by hand. Mung bean flour in the batter, alongside the wheat, gives it a nutty flavor. The wonton sheet goes in just before eating to keep it crisp.
In Gunma homes, wide unsalted noodles go straight into a pot of root vegetables and dashi without being boiled first. The broth comes out slightly cloudy and thick rather than clear, and that is how it should be. Taro, burdock, daikon, shiitake, and fried tofu make it a hearty one-pot meal seasoned with both soy sauce and miso. Noodle thickness and vegetables change from one household to another.
Thick slices of hard, unripe green tomato are salted, dried and dipped in buttermilk and flour before frying, and they have to hold together when turned in hot oil. Firmness matters more than color: softer fruit chosen only because it is green falls apart. The coating happens just before the slices hit the oil, two at a time, before the tomato's moisture can dampen the flour.
Hot-water dough is rolled thin, brushed with sesame oil, salted and scattered with scallion, then rolled into a log, coiled like a snail shell and pressed flat. The oil-and-roll step happens only once, yet when the pancake comes out of a medium-hot pan and is torn open, it separates into thin layers, with edges that crackle.
Five firm, cookie-like layers are stacked with dried-apple filling and then left in the refrigerator for 48 hours, during which they draw moisture from the apples and turn sliceable. Freshly baked layers are not supposed to look spongy. Boiled cider is reduced apple juice syrup, not vinegar or a fizzy drink.
Split open a coin-stamped Korean 10-won bread and mozzarella stretches out in long strands, with sweet corn kernels scattered through the salty cheese. The batter is mixed only until no dry flour remains, since extra stirring turns the thin crust tough instead of lightly crisp.
Piped through a star tip, the dough comes out deeply ridged, which gives the oil more surface to work on and crisps the whole outside evenly. The churros are rolled in cinnamon sugar straight from the fryer, sometimes with a quick sauce of dark chocolate melted with an equal amount of cream. After about ten minutes the oil seeps inward and the crunch fades fast.
Onion and celery are sauteed, simmered in stock and blended, then smooth peanut butter and cream are stirred in. Chunky peanut butter would spoil that smooth texture, and the only crunch comes from chopped roasted peanuts scattered on top.
In Takasago, Hyogo, nikuten gets built in layers instead of mixed like okonomiyaki: potato, konjac, cabbage, scallion, beef tendon, and tempura crumbs stack on a thin round of batter, which folds in half after saucing. Because nothing is stirred together, the floury potato, soft tendon, and crisp crumbs each keep their own texture. The potato and konjac simmer with the tendon in soy sauce, sugar, and mirin, so all three share the same sweet-salty seasoning.
An orange shrimp sauce colored with annatto blankets thin rice noodles, finished with boiled egg and a squeeze of lime. Shell-on shrimp are worth buying, because the savory depth comes from a stock made with their shells and fish sauce.
Bite-size rounds of okra take an egg-and-milk dip and a flour and cornmeal coat, then fry to a deep gold in small batches so each piece gets its own thin crust. The pods are washed and dried whole before slicing, and the slime on the cut faces is left alone rather than rinsed off again. They come to the table plain, without a dipping sauce.
The name says mochi, but these Gunma griddle cakes are wheat: flour and baking soda mixed with scallion and shiso, then kneaded with miso dissolved in water. They reflect the prefecture's strong wheat culture, built on wheat growing and double cropping, and similar cakes are called oyaki or jiriyaki in some areas. Farm households made them for koju-han, a hearty break between stretches of fieldwork, and also ate them with tea or carried them into the mountains.
With baking soda doing the lifting, the batter goes into the pan as soon as it is mixed, with no rise to wait for. Three mashed bananas supply most of the moisture and sweetness, with melted butter and an egg making the crumb dense and tender. Baking it a day ahead costs nothing: the banana flavor gets stronger overnight and the loaf stays moist once cool. Walnuts or chocolate chips can be folded in for texture.
Korean street vendors sell this egg bread in winter; here it bakes in a home oven. Muffin cups stand in if you lack the special molds, and eggs left at room temperature cook more evenly on top. After about 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius, the white is set and the yolk sits between soft and firm.
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.
A quick winter supper from farm kitchens in Kagawa, uchikomi-jiru cooks fresh, slightly thick noodles directly in a root-vegetable miso soup. Kagawa's celebrated handmade udon is boiled on its own; this everyday dish skips that step, and the flour on the noodles thickens the broth. Low rainfall made the region good for growing wheat, and the Seto Inland Sea supplied the dried sardines for the dashi.
Brine-soaked cucumber already brings the salt and sourness, so the cornmeal coating carries only paprika, garlic powder and pepper. Flat chips of even thickness suit this method better than spears, which hold more moisture. Weigh them drained, since the figure on the jar includes the brine.
Thin slices of duck breast are dredged generously in flour before going into the broth, and that coating does two jobs: it protects the meat and gives the sauce its body. This is a Kanazawa dish from Ishikawa, with sudare-fu (ridged wheat gluten sheets), taro, shiitake, and flower-shaped fu each cooked separately in the same sweet-salty soy and mirin dashi. They are plated with the duck and blanched spinach under the thickened sauce, and a small mound of fresh wasabi cuts through the sweetness.
The coarsely chopped walnuts are toasted in a pan before they go in, so they come through as distinct nutty pieces in the moist banana crumb. Only half a teaspoon of cinnamon is used, not enough to cover the banana.
Coarsely chopped roasted peanuts crunch through a soft, buttery crumb in these mold-baked street cakes. Grinding the peanuts too fine keeps the nutty flavor but loses the crunch. They stay chunky, with a few pieces set on top for looks.
Brown sugar water turns this steamed cake dark all the way through, and toasted black sesame covers the top. With baking powder instead of a slow rise, farm households in Miyagi could steam one quickly as a snack for children or a break during field work. One explanation says the dark, fluffy cake reminded people of wild-goose meat, and the brown version is also called kuro-ganzuki.
Breaded oysters, fried first, sit in a skillet of eggs as distinct pieces rather than disappearing into a seafood scramble. The bacon goes in already cooked, since the short egg stage can only reheat it, not cook raw pork buried in a thick omelet. A wide pan keeps the egg layer shallow enough to set without long, fierce heat. The lid helps finish the top, though leaving it on too long steams the oyster crust soft.
In the Tsukui area of Kanagawa these buns can hold adzuki beans, dried daikon, mushrooms or pickles; this one is filled with kabocha mashed with its skin. They are browned in a dry pan first and then steamed, so they come out soft and puffy with toasted spots still on them.