Tomorokoshi Gohan or Corn Rice is seasoned rice with corn kernels. Corn’s sweetness goes well with slightly salty steamed rice. It’s best using fresh corn, so this is the dish to make when corn is in season. Tomorokoshi Gohan is great as is for Bento but also good for Onigiri. Make extra for dinner, and use the leftover for next day’s lunch. Tomorokoshi Gohan tastes so fresh and delicious, and it’s super easy to make. Try it this summer!
Today’s miso soup is made with store-bought frozen Gyoza and fresh lettuce. It is seriously easy to make, and you don’t even need to cut anything at all. Choose frozen Gyoza dumplings of your choice, chicken, pork, or vegetable, from super markets, throw them in the soup along with lettuce leaves, and done! No compromise on the taste either. Add chili oil in the end if you like it a little spicy. Hope you like it!
In our mini-series of Japanese Cooking 101 in Kyoto, we are going to different stores from traditional to trendy, and show you a glimpse of the culinary scene of Kyoto in 2023. After we tasted delicious food at stores, we tried to recreate those dishes, not exactly but more in our own way, at home in Kyoto. We hope you enjoy our Japanese Cooking 101 food in a little different setting from our regular videos.
This episode is Butter Chicken. While dark brown stew-like Japanese curry is the curry we love, mildly spiced and designed for eating with Japanese Steamed Rice, Butter Chicken is a more spicy Indian curry. As spiced curry has become more well known and accepted in Japan, there are many spiced curry specialty restaurants that have opened up to serve Butter Chicken. As well as the popularity of spiced curry restaurants, one of the reasons Butter Chicken became so popular was boil-in-the-pouch Butter Chicken from a large household goods store chain called Muji. Their version got really good reviews on the internet and made the mainstream public know its name. That pushed Butter Chicken to be one of the favorite curry dishes on the list.
Purin (プリン) is a popular Japanese custard dessert that is similar to pudding or flan. The texture is light, soft and silky, and it’s almost like jello. In the past, we have made baked Purin that is more traditional and no-bake Vanilla Purin that is easier to make with gelatin. In this recipe, we made Matcha Purin (抹茶プリン) by replacing the vanilla in our Vanilla Purin with matcha green tea powder. Grassy and slightly bitter matcha goes very well with sweet custard. Instead of caramel sauce, a matcha flavored simple syrup is used. You can also add whipped cream on top if you like.
Today’s miso soup is made with shrimp and green onions. Since head-on and shell-on shrimp is packed with umami, there is no additional dashi ingredients needed. You can actually make this miso soup with just the heads and shells (without meat) when you use the shrimp for another dish. All you need is miso paste and some chopped green onions. It’s so simple, but it’s incredibly flavorful!
In our mini-series of Japanese Cooking 101 in Kyoto, we are going to different stores from traditional to trendy, and show you a glimpse of the culinary scene of Kyoto in 2023. After we tasted delicious food at stores, we tried to recreate those dishes, not exactly but more in our own way, at home in Kyoto. We hope you enjoy our Japanese Cooking 101 food in a little different setting from our regular videos.
Our first episode is Wakaayu. Wakaayu (Waka-ayu, 若鮎) is a seasonal “Japanese confection” (Wagashi, 和菓子）that is available at many sweet shops during summer. Wakaayu in Japanese cakes is made from Sweet Mochi wrapped with a thin pancake, like Dorayaki, formed in the shape of a sweetfish, called Ayu. It is chewy and sweet, but not overly sweet, and it’s a wonderful reminder of the beginning of the new season.
Cold Soba buckwheat noodles are the best food in summer when it’s too hot and you have no appetite. They are cold, delicious, and nutritious. In this recipe, we add green vegetables, so it’s even healthier! Fried Tofu croutons are crunchy, packed with protein, and a good alternative to bready croutons. This also uses all plant-based ingredients, so safe to eat for vegetarians. If you want to make it ahead, prepare greens and soba separately, and don’t mix with the dressing until just before you eat. That way the dish stays fresh, not soggy. Hope you like it!
Today’s miso soup is made with Egg and Tomato. It may look like a little unusual combination, but it’s delicious! Cook tomatoes long enough so that their tasty flavor seeps into the soup, and their sourness also softens. Eggs should not be cooked too long. Enjoy a fluffy soft texture just like egg drop soup.
Garlic Edamame are stir-fried and seasoned whole Edamame pods with garlic sauce. It is not the traditional Japanese Edamame appetizer, which is usually simply pods boiled with salt, but a rather Americanized Japanese dish. Garlic Edamame may be new, but it is a very flavorful tasty little appetizer that goes with Japanese beer and Chuhai.
Yaki Onigiri (焼きおにぎり) are Japanese rice balls that are grilled until crispy on the outside. Japanese short-grain rice are seasoned with soy sauce and formed into triangle shape by hand. The same sauce is then brushed on the surface during Onigiri are grilled.