Drawing inspiration from traditional Sichuan Chili Shrimp, Chen’s Ebi Chili incorporates ketchup and a blend of fragrant aromatics. Adding ketchup may seem unconventional, but it’s and easy way to balance the chili paste’s heat with the subtle sweetness of tomatoes, creating a harmonious flavor profile that enhances the shrimp’s naturally sweet notes. Why This Recipe Works? Brining the shrimp in baking soda and salt gives the shrimp a firm springy snap, like biting through the casing of a good sausage....

I recently had the honor of learning this technique from its creator, Chef Isao Yagi of Nihao Honten. At 90 years old, Chef Yagi is still a force in the kitchen, and the opportunity to learn directly from the master was truly humbling. His innovative method involves steaming the potstickers in a flour and water batter, forming a thin, crispy skirt around the dumplings as the water evaporates. Since learning Chef Yagi’s method, I’ve been on a mission to perfect my crispy gyoza game, and I want to share my recipe to get restaurant-quality results at home....

Although Hijiki No Nimono is a cooked dish, it’s typically served at room temperature. This is partly because Japanese meals are usually served with many small bowls of sides called kobachi (小鉢 literally “small bowl”). Since it would be pretty tough to prepare 5 sides and keep them all warm, some of them are made ahead so that they can be quickly dished out. The other reason why this Hijiki No Nimono is served at room temperature is that it needs time to rest to taste its best....

Other Chilled Noodle Recipes Homemade Udon Noodles Soba Noodle Salad Traditional Zaru Soba Kale & Maitake Ramen Salad 📖 Recipe

What is Hondashi? Hondashi (ほんだし) is a brand name which literally means “real dashi.” It comes in dried granules that look a bit like beige colored coffee crystals and melt almost instantly on contact with water. The irony here is that Hondashi is loaded with MSG and flavorings. While convenient and widely used, it’s not exactly a yardstick by which good dashi should be judged. These days there are many other equally convenient alternatives to making dashi from scratch, which is why I don’t recommend using instant dashi granules....

Hamburg Steak is considered yōshoku, or Western food in Japan, but it’s become one of the most popular home-cooked meals over the past 70 years. It’s typically served with a sweet and sour sauce made from ketchup, wine, and chunou sauce, but Teriyaki Sauce is another popular condiment. Why This Recipe Works? Microwaving the onions not only softens them up, but it also makes them sweeter without having to saute them....

The Fish - Kanpachi I love making carpaccio with Kanpachi. It’s a white-meat fish in the Amberjack family that’s supple and yet tender and creamy. This makes it very easy to slice thinly, and it has a fairly neutral flavor, which makes it the perfect foil for all the other ingredients. Kanpachi can be found at Japanese grocery stores when it’s in season (spring), but if you can’t find it, other white-meat “sashimi-grade” fish such as Hamachi(Japanese Amberjack), Hirame(flounder) or Tai(sea bream) will work as well....

Teriyaki Chicken Sandwich (照焼チキンサンド - Teriyaki Chicken Sando) has become such a popular variation on the classic that it’s sold in almost every convenience store, as well as many bakeries around Japan. Where Western versions of this sandwich often feature grilled pineapple, a Japanese Teriyaki Chicken Sandwich almost always includes an egg. This usually means egg salad at convenience stores, but you may find a quivering over-easy egg atop the chicken in bakeries or restaurants....

Before you conclude that I’ve totally lost it, let me explain. Tofu is one of those things that people either detest, or are just okay with. Unlike other broadly disliked foods (like brussel sprouts), you never hear anyone proclaiming their unholy love for tofu. People seem to either hate it for its blandness or because of that “tofu” flavor that comes through in almost anything you make with it. So for all you tofu haters, here’s a dish where you can’t taste the tofu and is far from bland....

Making great chicken stock can be challenging. Boil it long enough to get lots of flavor in your stock and you end up with dry pasty chicken. Don’t cook it enough and you end up with a watery broth. It’s a trade-off that leads many to throw away the meat used to make the stock and then cook a separate batch of meat to serve with the soup separately. Given that one in seven people around the world are chronically hungry, this just seems gratuitously wasteful....

Why This Recipe Works? Squeezing grated ginger to extract ginger juice is a technique used in Japanese cooking. It’s an excellent way to add ginger flavor to dressings and sauces without adding fibrous pulp. Using a combination of sesame paste and toasted sesame oil is a quick way to add loads of sesame flavor to the dressing without grinding your sesame seeds. The balance of creamy ingredients like mayonnaise and sesame paste with tangy rice vinegar keeps the richness in check while making a creamy salad dressing that coats slippery vegetables like snap peas and cherry tomatoes....

I’ve taken a slightly different approach for my version by turning this into a spread that doubles as a dip. This allows you to use it to make mentaiko bread, but you can also use it as a spread or dip for veggies. Why This Recipe Works? Mentaiko provides salt, briny umami, and a hint of spiciness to this simple four-ingredient spread. Mascarpone is rich and not as acidic as sour cream or cream cheese....

Although every household makes it a little differently, the omelette is usually stuffed with chicken rice, which is fried Japanese short-grain rice that’s made with chicken and seasoned with ketchup. This gives it a vibrant red color and savory-sweet taste, which is the trademark flavor of this dish. As for the egg, classic styles of omurice were made into an oval shape or football shape and wrapped in a thin layer of egg; then, the smooth omelette surface was decorated with ketchup hearts or stars....

Drizzle it on breakfast foods like French toast (Pain Perdu), Matcha Oatmeal, granola, Matcha Pancakes, or yogurt for a vibrant start to your day. It even makes for a fun dipping sauce for Sata Andagi (Okinawan Donuts), or a snack-sized plate of sliced fruit in the middle of your day. Aside from being delicious and versatile, this raspberry sauce is also ludicrously easy to make, taking about five minutes from start to finish....

Whether it’s the bitter cold, or the historical Russian and Mongolian influences in the region, they do things a little differently up there. The countryside is a patchwork of potato and dairy farms that looks more like a scene from Denmark than what you’d expect from the northernmost island of Japan. I’ve mentioned before that Japanese curry is the de facto national dish of Japan. With its sweet roux-thickened gravy, Japanese curry seems like just the type of dish to take the edge off sub-zero temperatures, and yet determined to buck the trend, Sapporo has come up with its own take on curry....

I often tell people that I’ll become vegan on the day that there are equal or better tasting plant-based substitutes for all my favorite foods. With this mushroom pho, I can cross another one of those foods off my list. I’d be lying to you if I told you it tastes exactly the same as a bowl of beef pho, but it hits all the right notes, and it’s brimming with meaty umami you wouldn’t normally expect from a plant-based soup....

While they go great with maple syrup, I decided to up the ante a bit and make a kuromitsu syrup to drizzle on top. Kuromitsu literally means “black syrup” in Japanese and it’s a popular condiment used for desserts like Anmitsu and Warabimochi. Aside from providing a stunning contrast to the vibrant green pancakes, the kuromitsu has a delightful caramel flavor with smoky notes and a pleasant bitterness that’s the perfect compliment to the matcha....

These whisper-thin strands of hand-pulled noodles have served as a welcome respite from the heat for centuries. So whether you enjoy scooping nagashi somen up from a bamboo flume of ice-cold spring water or you prefer a somen salad topped with a colorful explosion of summer produce, each mouthful is a testament to the fleeting beauty of summer in Japan. Why This Recipe Works? Because somen noodles are so thin, it’s essential to be precise with the time when you boil and chill it....

Like most foods, Massaman beef curry has many creation myths about where, when, and by whom it was created. One theory is that “Massaman” is an evolution of the term Mussulman, which is an archaic name for Muslims. Another theory posits that the name was derived from the Malay word for sour (“masam”), presumably due to the tangy tamarind juice in the curry. One thing that isn’t disputed is its Muslim roots, which is why Massaman curry is never made with pork....