There is so much to say about Japanese cuisine. Where do I start? Let’s begin with eggs. How is it that Japanese cooks are so excellent with eggs? Seriously. I’ve never had a breakfast buffet with scrambled eggs so luscious and creamy. The gentle curds ribbon across the mound of rice as I create myself a little bowl of omurice, a simple dish that somehow slipped through the cracks of my Tokyo eating schedule.
Then there’s tamagoyaki, the perfectly set, slightly sweet (to my palate) rolled omelette that graces the ideal sushi set in the eyes of my partner. Obviously it’s not just these eggs though. We saw cryovaced bags of what appeared to be soft-boiled miso eggs hanging not in the fridge as you might expect but in the shelf-stable section of multiple convenience/konbini stores. And trust me, we visited a handful of convenience stores each day. How could you not?
A friend remarked that you could easily eat all your meals from these stores, such is the variety they offer. Obviously, there’s the perennial favourite Lawson’s, plus the ever-present Family Mart, 7-Eleven naturally plus Daily Yamazaki and Mini-Stop to name the top contenders. Very often at least one of these is within eyesight, sometimes several at once.
If you’re still going from the night before, a konbini will sell you a clean t-shirt, a charge pack for your phone, cosmetics, deodorant, and breakfast supplies such as onigiri, a quintessential egg sando, tea or coffee in all permutations. If you plan to continue the party, you could opt for beer/shochu/whiskey and an armload of fried treats to keep you fuelled. By the way, I’m waiting for my local convenience stores in Melbourne to now step up their game since a Japanese company is part of the new owners of 7-Eleven in Australia.
I blame konbini for the fact that I now crave onigiri for breakfast. I am determined to learn to make my own filled with all manner of treats like tuna mayonnaise, pickles, fish roe etc. First though, I need to master making the sushi rice – selection of the correct variety, washing, rinsing, soaking, measuring, cooking, resting – and that’s before I even begin forming the onigiri. Many YouTube videos watched and cookbooks read and I’m ready to begin.
I am still very much at the start of my odyssey into Japanese cuisine but these are my thoughts thus far.
I think the backbone of Japanese cuisine as being rice and dashi. I’ve made dashi several times from scratch and have even bought a sachet of instant dashi that I’m going to give a go. I appreciate the aesthetics of a Japanese set. The interplay of colour and texture from a side of pickled vegetables to the small bowl of miso soup/broth as well as something hot and warm and cool. It is never dull on the eye or the palate.
The following are what I consider the necessary pantry staples to get you started on your cooking journey: dashi (can buy instant powder), rice, vegetable pickles, miso, sesame oil, shoyu(soy sauce), mirin, sake, katsuoboshi, nori, furikake, ponzu, panko, noodles (udon, soba etc) dried mushrooms eg. shiitake.
You can begin your Japanese home cooking anywhere but these are a few dishes we enjoy regularly: Japanese curry, gyoza, tonkatsu (breadcrumb fried pork schnitzel-esque), donburi (rice bowls topped with bits), okonomiyaki, and ramen to name a few.
Two good reference books:
Two Asian Kitchens – Adam Liaw
The Gaijin Cookbook – Ivan Orkin & Chris Ying
We live in a small apartment with a very small kitchen, so I run a tight ship. Anything that earns space in there has to punch above its weight. Products have to prove themselves. If they don’t earn their keep, they’re out.
This is a hug in the shape of a loaf tin, reassuring in only the way an old-school reliable pantry cake can be. I say pantry cake because mostly I have all the ingredients in the pantry, even if that is a set of drawers in my small, city apartment.
Last weekend I gathered a handful of friends at someone’s house and we cooked together. Not a dinner party where one person does the work and everyone else arrives with a bottle. Not a formal class in a commercial kitchen. Just a group of curious eaters in a real home…