Simple Japanese Recipes

neuro-praxis

Unfortunately, I have nothing to to offer. I'm looking for your ideas!

A few years ago I bought the Wagamama cook book and gave a few recipes a go. They were by far the most dramatic and hilarious of all of my many cooking disasters. In a large part, it was before the days when there was an Asian shop on every Irish street corner, and I haphazardly attempted to substitute ingredients I did not have. This did not work. :pac: I later gave the book away.

I am looking for a few simple, tasty Japanese meals that you make yourselves at home. Of course I can go google stuff randomly, but I like the tried and tested kind. If anyone can help me out I'd be delighted. And so would the people I feed!

trackguy

What meat/ fish do you like?

neuro-praxis

I love beef, chicken, and prawns. After that I like pretty much anything but those would probably be my top three for everyday cooking.

trackguy

For japanese recipes you'll need to buy in a few ingredients for the larder.

Light Soy Sauce
Dark Soy Sauce
Rice Vinegar
Sake (Japanese wine)
Mirin (Sweet wine)
Sesame Oil
Oyster sauce

I have a few recipes from the Wagamama book that are always good.

The TERIYAKI MARINADE is versatile - you can use it to glaze any meat/ fish or as a nice sauce for a stir-fry.
Combine 100g sugar with 4tbsps of light soy sauce and heat in a small pot. Simmer it until it is think and syrupy. Add in 2tbsp of sake and 1tsp dark soy.

I also have a salmon recipe called SAKE AMIYAKI GOHAN. Again it could be applied to any meat/ fish. The fish is just grilled and added to the plate at the end. Serve this with rice or noodles.

Heat oil in a wok until hot. Add 1 crushed garlic clove and 1tbsp of grated ginger. Immediately add 1 roughly chopped red onion and 1 sliced red chilli. Stir-fry these for 30 seconds. Pour in 500ml boiling water, 1tbsp of oyster sauce and 2tsp of light soy. Add 1 tsp salt and 1 tbsp of sugar. Bring to the boil. add in about 15 mangetout and cook for 1 minute. Add 1tbsp of sake and 1tbsp of sesame oil. Mix 1tsp of cornflour with a little water to form a paste. Add a few tbsps of yur sauce to the cornflour paste and mix until incorporated. This can now be added to the sauce in the wok. Simmer for 5 mins until slightly thickened.

Serve with your rice/ noodles and top with your chosen meat/ fish.

Twee.

You could make tempura batter and use it with prawns or chicken. serve with sushi style rice and sweet chili or soy sauce. Yum!

jam_mac_jam

http://www.justhungry.com/

There is a lot there and most are quite easy.

These are yummy

http://www.justhungry.com/2007/01/onigiri_omusubi_revisited_an_e.html

kylith

I love Okinomiyaki. It means, basically, 'whatever you have, chopped up and fried'. I make it Hiroshima style.

Pancake mix
Chopped cabbage
Whatever else you have lying around that can be chopped up and fried
Noodles
Sesame oil
1 egg per person
Okinomiyaki sauce (available in the Asian shop at the Jervis Luas stop)

Make a pancake. Put to one side and keep warm.
Put noodles on to boil. Meanwhile fry whatever you have lying around the only real necessity, so to speak, is chopped cabbage. I usually mix that with bacon bits, but you can use any leftover meat, fish or veg.
When the noodles are done fry them, I like sesame oil. Meanwhile fry an egg Just as the egg is cooked drop the noodles onto it; the egg will cook into the noodles and help to hold them together.
With the egg on the bottom, then the noodles, put the fried stuff on top of this (I recommend adding some cheese at this stage, then the pancake on top. Finish with Okinomiyaki sauce.

Definitely get everything chopped and ready to go before you start cooking as everything cooks fast, and pretty much simultaniously, you won't have any time to spare once you start going.

For other recipes I recommend the YouTube channel 'Cooking with Dog'. The recipes are great and pretty easy to follow. The version of Okinomiyaki on there is different, with everything mixed into the batter, Kansai style. I would urge you to try the Yaki Gyoza too, delicious steamed/fried pork dumplings.

reallyrose

kylith wrote: »

For other recipes I recommend the YouTube channel 'Cooking with Dog'. The recipes are great and pretty easy to follow. The version of Okinomiyaki on there is different, with everything mixed into the batter, Kansai style. I would urge you to try the Yaki Gyoza too, delicious steamed/fried pork dumplings.

I'm so happy someone suggested this. I wanted to suggest it but I didn't want to seem like a lunatic. :pac:

But someone else likes Cooking with Dog, win!

I've made a few of those recipes and they have turned out well.

You'll need the basic japanese ingredients, mirin, rice vinegar and dashi.
Those are in loads of the tastiest Japanese foods.

Minder

Seafood doria - a Yoshoku dish (Japanese Food Western Style) - a short grain rice dish of mixed seafood topped with a bechamel sauce and baked. Should look something like this.



I can copy out the whole recipe if you like, but basically it's make a bechamel, cook some short grain rice. Mix cooked rice with sweated onion and garlic. Cook raw prawns and scallops to just done. Cook bacon and mushrooms (same pan). Add a tablespoon of tomato puree to the pan with a little water and boil for a minute. Add to the rice. Mix the rice with the seafood, vegetables, a sachet of dashi granules, some nori flakes. Pile in a buttered lasagna dish and level out. Top with bechamel, parmesan and mozzarella cheese. Bake at 180c for 40 to 50 minutes or until the topping is golden.

trackguy

Minder wrote: »

Seafood doria - a Yoshoku dish (Japanese Food Western Style) - a short grain rice dish of mixed seafood topped with a bechamel sauce and baked. Should look something like this.



I can copy out the whole recipe if you like, but basically it's make a bechamel, cook some short grain rice. Mix cooked rice with sweated onion and garlic. Cook raw prawns and scallops to just done. Cook bacon and mushrooms (same pan). Add a tablespoon of tomato puree to the pan with a little water and boil for a minute. Add to the rice. Mix the rice with the seafood, vegetables, a sachet of dashi granules, some nori flakes. Pile in a buttered lasagna dish and level out. Top with bechamel, parmesan and mozzarella cheese. Bake at 180c for 40 to 50 minutes or until the topping is golden.

I've never heard of this - it looks absolutely amazing!

Minder

A doria is a French dish, but the Yoshoku style in Japan takes western culinary styles and makes them Japanese. Rather than some modern fusion fad, Yoshoku has it's origins in the 1850's in the Meiji Restoration, when Imperial rule was restored in Japan. This lead to a period of westernisation in Japan which included the Emperor lifting a ban on red meat and promoting Western cuisine, which was viewed as the cause of the Westerner's greater physical size.

the beer revolu

I love Miso soup - it's really light and tasty and crazy easy to make if you have the ingredients.

Thing is, it can be hard to buy bonito flakes (sometimes Asian shops have them - or you can get them on line)
You can get instant miso too but it tends to be very artificial tasting and too salty.

First off, you make the dashi (light stock).

Soak a piece of kombu (kelp) seaweed in water for an hour or two.
Bring this to the boil, then remove kombu and add a good pinch of bonito flakes per bowl. Let this infuse for a few minutes and strain. You now have your dashi.

To make the soup you simply stir in dessert spoon of miso paste into the hot dashi and whisk. Most Asian shops have miso paste which is fantastic stuff and comes in different varieties.

I like to serve it with finely sliced spring onions, little cubes of tofu and soaked wakame seaweed.

You can also boil up the kombu and bonito flakes to make a 'second run' stock. I find this a little watery but the cats love it.
There are loads of recipes on line for miso soup too.

I'm gonna have me some tonight!!

neuro-praxis

These are great ideas. I'm saving this thread and I'm going to hit the Asian stores in a week or two and build up my Japanese storecupboard to get started. Thanks so much! Feeling a lot less intimidated about cooking Japanese food. Particularly looking forward to making gyoza. Any more recipes keep 'em coming.

Minder

Other ingredients to look out for are

Dashi powder - sold in small sachets in a box of 6 or 8, this makes instant dashi stock when you don't have access to bonito flakes or you're in a hurry.

Miso pastes - several varieties (recipe dependant).

Umeboshi - sold as plums, seasoning liquid and paste. Umeboshi is a variety of apricot. It is pickled in brine - the brine is sold as a seasoning (very good as a souring agent for anyone with an allergy to vinegar). The plums are eaten as a pickle.

Togarashi spice and sansho pepper

Panko breadcrumbs and tempura flour

Ponzu sauce (A citrus soy)

Minder

One other ingredient that comes up often in japanese recipes is Shiso. This is a herb - a leaf similar to a nettle leaf. It has a mild aniseed flavour. Shiso is also known as perilla. It is usually very expensive, a japanese supermarket I used to visit would sell ten leaves for two and a half quid. But help is at hand. Shiso or perilla is very easy to grow, it's an annual, is reasonably hardy and can be grown in pots, comes in two varieties - purple and green. I grew some a couple of years ago, but the taste wasn't particularly to my liking, so I haven't bothered with it since.

neuro-praxis

Well I thought I'd pop by and let ye know that I got my Japanese store cupboard in order today. I also picked up a few Chinese items. Looking forward to some Asian cooking in the weeks to come. Thanks for the advice here.

I bought:

Light soy sauce
Dark soy sauce
Rice Vinegar
Mirin
Sesame Oil
Chilli sauce
Oyster sauce
Panko breadcrumbs
Tempura flour
Potato starch
Miso paste
Dashi
Gyoza wrappers
Pancake mix
Sesame seeds
Various herbs and spices

Can't wait to give this thing another go.

reallyrose

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Well I thought I'd pop by and let ye know that I got my Japanese store cupboard in order today. I also picked up a few Chinese items. Looking forward to some Asian cooking in the weeks to come. Thanks for the advice here.

I bought:

Light soy sauce
Dark soy sauce
Rice Vinegar
Mirin
Sesame Oil
Chilli sauce
Oyster sauce
Panko breadcrumbs
Tempura flour
Potato starch
Miso paste
Dashi
Gyoza wrappers
Pancake mix
Sesame seeds
Various herbs and spices

Can't wait to give this thing another go.

Where did you get the dashi? What does it look like? Maybe I've just been walking past it in the asian market.

neuro-praxis

I bought it in the Asian Emporium on Jervis Street. It was in a white box about the size of the kind that might have a bar of soap in it. The writing on the front is in an Asian language I don't recognise. I had to ask the staff if they had any because I couldn't find it myself. Hope that helps!

pickarooney

I started making gyoza recently. I found the recipe in a kids' book and made it with my three year old. They're fun to make and taste delicious. If you happen to have a pasta roller it makes things a lot easier as well.

reallyrose

neuro-praxis wrote: »

I bought it in the Asian Emporium on Jervis Street. It was in a white box about the size of the kind that might have a bar of soap in it. The writing on the front is in an Asian language I don't recognise. I had to ask the staff if they had any because I couldn't find it myself. Hope that helps!

Ok, cool. I'll go look the next time I am passing. Thank you!

neuro-praxis

pickarooney wrote: »

I started making gyoza recently. I found the recipe in a kids' book and made it with my three year old. They're fun to make and taste delicious. If you happen to have a pasta roller it makes things a lot easier as well.

Can I have your recipe? I always prefer tried and tested methods.

pickarooney

It's currently on the hard drive of my computer whose motherboard is dead so I don't remember the exact proportions, but it should be fairly obvious when the dough is the right consitency and how much filling you need for them.

Mix 250g flour and a little over half a cup of water- enough for 4 people or 25-30 dumplings. Add the water slowly until it becomes a nice, pliable lump. I mix this with chopsticks (purely because I hate clearning whisks!) but if you have an electric mixer it will probably be even easier. Knead it for five minutes and leave to settle for at least half an hour. This gives you time to make the filling.

The filling can be anything but I like to mix two small minced chicken breasts (or very finely chopped if you don't have a mincer) with a small amount of grated ginger, a tablespoon of soy sauce and half a small leek (the white end). You can go mad experimenting with this - pork, beef, prawns, leeks, cabbage, shredded carrot, sesame oil, egg all taste great - but I like the simplicity of just a few ingredients.

I use a pasta roller for the next bit, passing the dough through once on the thickest setting and again on the second-thinnest setting. You'll probably need to throw a bit of flour everywhere and regularly wash, dry and flout your hands for the next bit. I use a drinking glass to cut out discs of dough (about 10cm in diameter), then add a teaspoon of filling to each, moisten the edge of the disc and fold, then crimp the edges.

You can then either add them to boiling water or shallow fry them in a pan. It should take 6 minutes either way.

They will look and feel very delicate and you will need to be careful adding them to the water/oil (I use a slotted spoon) but I've never had one disintegrate yet.

Dip in soy saucecut with water or sweet chili sauce.

neuro-praxis

Thanks! I actually bought gyoza skins in the Asian market so I was looking for a filling recipe. I'll go with your chicken/leek combo. Do you pre-cook the meat?

muckety

Chicken yakitori is one of our favourites, especially in summer for the bbq - sample recipe here

http://japanesefood.about.com/od/chickenturkey/r/yakitori.htm

pickarooney

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Thanks! I actually bought gyoza skins in the Asian market so I was looking for a filling recipe. I'll go with your chicken/leek combo. Do you pre-cook the meat?

No, the mince cooks in about a minute in boiling water.

breakfast roll

neuro-praxis wrote: »

Thanks! I actually bought gyoza skins in the Asian market so I was looking for a filling recipe. I'll go with your chicken/leek combo. Do you pre-cook the meat?

Try using ingredients- chinese leaf cabbage, minced pork, dry woodear (it's like a black dried mushroom and needs to be soaked in hot water till it softens) dried chinese mushroom (again has to be softened in hot water) or ****ake mushrooms and some rice vermicelli (in a blue packet-the really thin ones, soaked in hot water and cut up into shreds). Mix all the ingredients together with seasoning and wrap with the gyoza skins. Tried and tested and very tasty ! These are very good pan fried !

Twee.

Will definitely be trying the gyoza recipe, thanks. I could eat them all day long!

breakfast roll

Twee. wrote: »

Will definitely be trying the gyoza recipe, thanks. I could eat them all day long!

Served with a chili, garlic, soya dip ! yum yum yum

pickarooney

breakfast roll wrote: »

Try using ingredients- chinese leaf cabbage, minced pork, dry woodear (it's like a black dried mushroom and needs to be soaked in hot water till it softens) dried chinese mushroom (again has to be softened in hot water) or ****ake mushrooms and some rice vermicelli (in a blue packet-the really thin ones, soaked in hot water and cut up into shreds). Mix all the ingredients together with seasoning and wrap with the gyoza skins. Tried and tested and very tasty ! These are very good pan fried !

That's almost identical to the recipe I use for nems and I can confirm it's a delicious combo. I usually add prawns and crab to the pork for nems though.

neuro-praxis

So I had a go at the gyoza today.

I made a filling of minced chicken, garlic, ginger, onion, mange-tout and spinach.



Here's one raw.

I boiled them for 2 minutes and they looked a little limp, so I coloured them on the pan for a few moments.



Cooked

We ate them dipped in a sweet chilli/soy/water dip. For a first attempt they were pretty fab. Thanks for all the tips!

neuro-praxis

This took a little juggling time-wise but was really spectacularly delicious. It looked beautiful too, but I left my camera at a friend's house.

Serves 2

For the teriyaki sauce:

1/2 cup dark soy sauce
Heaped 1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 clove garlic, crushed

For the stir-fry:

Olive oil
Vegetable oil
150g soba noodles (buckwheat noodles)
2 sirloin steaks
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 head of broccoli, chopped
1/2 a red pepper, thinly sliced

1. Put your soba noodles on to boil. When tender, rinse under cold water and set aside. Warm some bowls in the oven.
2. Combine the teriyaki ingredients and heat until bubbling and syrupy. Set aside.
3. Heat up a cast iron griddle pan for the steaks. Rub the steaks liberally with olive oil. Griddle to your liking (I like 'em rare), wrap in tinfoil and allow to rest a few moments.
4. As the steaks are cooking, heat a little vegetable oil in a wok. Stir fry the garlic, broccoli and red pepper to your liking. Add the noodles to the wok and heat through. Drizzle with some of the teriyaki sauce, toss, and transfer to the warm bowls.
5. Slice the steaks across the grain and arrange on top of the noodles and veg. Drizzle with more of the sauce and serve.