877 recipes. Page 32 of 37
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A split hot dog bun, buttered and toasted on the inside, gets packed with saucy stir-fried noodles: carbs inside carbs, a Japanese street snack. The cabbage, onion, and carrot come off the heat before they wilt, leaving some crunch between the soft bread and the glossy noodles. A shake of dried parsley adds color and a light herbal note against the sweet-salty sauce.
The name suggests a cold soup, but Yonezawa's hiyashiru is really ohitashi: blanched vegetables steeped in plenty of chilled soy-seasoned stock and eaten with their liquid. The stock comes from the water used to soak dried scallop, while porous freeze-dried konnyaku and dried shiitake soak it up. Spinach, cabbage, soybean sprouts, and carrot share the bowl with yukina, a local winter green given only a quick dip in boiling water to keep its snap. An hour to a night in the fridge lets everything take on the broth.
Butter-seared steak, sliced thin and fanned over rice, gets a soy, mirin and garlic glaze made in the same pan. With no stock of its own, the sauce leans on the browned juices left after searing, and a deep crust on the meat pays off twice.
The beef and minari (water parsley) go in at equal weights, which keeps the minari's slightly bitter aroma clearly present behind the soy-seasoned meat. The minari gets only 20 to 30 seconds in the pan, enough to soften the leaves while the stems stay crisp.
Collagen from the oxtail joints melts into the pot over a long simmer, thickening the sauce to a glossy, sticky finish while the meat slips off the bone. The tails first simmer for 90 minutes with just green onion and ginger, so the meat is tender before the soy sauce and sugar are added. Radish and carrot join for the last stretch, sweetening the sauce and soaking it up. Chilled, the sauce sets like jelly and melts again on reheating, and lifting off the fat that hardens on top makes the braise taste cleaner. The dish is a fixture of Korean holiday tables.
Every bite mixes two temperatures: warm, savory slices of egg-battered beef on top of cold, sweet-sour gochujang noodles. If the thin beef is floured while still damp, the egg coating lifts and slides off in the pan.
Boned, opened loach and thin shavings of burdock simmer in sweet soy-seasoned dashi in a shallow pan, then beaten egg is poured over to bind it all softly. Unlike marunabe, which cooks the fish whole, this Tokyo hot pot uses split loach, and the burdock goes in first to give the broth its earthy flavor. A sprinkle of sansho pepper goes on just before eating.
Shiitake, carrot and burdock, cut into thin matching strips, are spread over the rice and cooked in dashi seasoned with soy sauce and mirin. They stay on top until the rice is done. Heavy vegetables mixed down into the grains keep the liquid from circulating and leave underdone patches.
Pork shoulder is browned until its fat runs, then seaweed stems join it for a quick toss. The roasted taste of the pork mixes with a smell of the sea, and the stems keep their snap.
Steaming a whole blue crab keeps more of its sweet juices inside the shell than boiling does, and the meat comes out briny and moist. In spring and autumn the crabs are full of roe and tomalley, which adds plenty to eat beyond the white meat. A simple dip of soy sauce sharpened with vinegar brings the sweetness forward. Eating it is hands-on work, cracking each leg joint and pulling the meat out piece by piece.
Chunjang black bean paste and ground pork cook down into a thick, waterless sauce, spooned over fresh noodles and tossed just before eating. With no added liquid, it catches on the pan quickly unless it reduces over low heat with constant stirring. Frying the chunjang first drives off its harsh raw smell and brings out a shine. Ground pork has to reach 71°C, not just lose its pink color. Crisp cucumber strips cool down the salty, dense sauce.
Twice-fried chicken thigh in a potato starch coating is sliced onto torn lettuce and buried under sliced scallion and cheongyang chili, a sharp Korean green chili. The sauce, equal parts soy sauce and vinegar with sugar, is poured over just before eating.
This is the Japanese home standby of raw egg and soy sauce over rice, with butter added. The butter melts in the middle of freshly cooked rice, and the raw egg cracked on top warms just enough in that heat to coat each grain in a silky layer. Since the egg is eaten raw, it should be very fresh.
The octopus is already boiled, so the pan only has to warm it through and coat it in gochujang sauce. The heat goes off the moment it starts to visibly shrink, and the onion and carrot are left a little underdone so they keep some crunch.
The potatoes finish with a sweet-salty soy glaze clinging to the outside and a floury interior. Because their wrinkled skins catch the sauce quickly, the shishito peppers wait until the potatoes are about halfway done and still keep a bit of crunch. The heat is mild enough for children, and once the glaze sets the dish holds its flavor at room temperature in a lunchbox.
A spoonful of yuzu marmalade goes into the soy marinade, so when you bite through the crust the chicken underneath tastes faintly sweet and of yuzu.
Warm soy tare goes over the tempura the moment it lands on the rice, and the grains take the sauce while the tops of the shrimp, sweet potato and eggplant stay freshly crisp. Shallow cuts along each shrimp's belly let it lie straight across the bowl.
King oyster mushrooms are firm and meaty while oyster mushrooms pull apart into soft strands, so cooking both together keeps the texture from being one note. Broccoli and carrot brighten it up, and soy and oyster sauce do the seasoning.
Tofu and shishito peppers carry this meatless braise, and the salty, mildly spicy sauce that remains is meant to be mixed into rice. The tofu is basted with a spoon rather than flipped, so the slices stay neat and square to the end. Onion cut on the thick side keeps its shape through the braise and adds a bit of bite. Patting the tofu dry one more time just before it hits the pan cuts down on spattering oil.
A dish from Oita's fishermen: sashimi-grade yellowtail rests for just ten minutes in a cold marinade of toasted sesame, soy sauce, sugar, and sake. One story says the recipe was learned from fishermen from Okinawa (Ryukyu); another says the name drifted from rikyu-ae, a sesame dressing. It goes to the table cold, or over hot rice, sometimes with tea poured on as ochazuke.
The eggs are cooked first until barely set and lifted out, then large tomato wedges go into the same pan with soy sauce and a little sugar. Some of the tomato breaks down into a thin sauce and the rest stays in pieces. The eggs return for a quick fold, and whatever red juice is left in the pan goes over the rice too.
Tiny dried anchovies end up glossy, sweet-salty, and crisp once the glaze sets as they cool. After they go back into the bubbling syrup, 30 seconds to a minute of tossing is all they need; chasing every last bit of sauce on the bottom only makes the coating hard and clumpy.
Instead of being stir-fried, shishito-style peppers are dusted with a thin layer of flour and steamed, which keeps their mild sweetness and soft bite. During steaming the white coating turns translucent, forming a thin film that the dressing of soy sauce, gochugaru, garlic and sesame oil clings to.
This takes the Chinese home classic of tomato and scrambled egg (xihongshi chao dan) and adds rice to the same pan. Sweet-sour tomato juice stains the rice red, with big, soft pieces of egg running through it.