How to cook "with visual instructions" "using familiar ingredients from your local grocery stores" healthy, traditional and delicious Japanese dishes!!
In Japan, we sometimes cook hamburger steak with Tofu because we can make it healthier—lower in calories and fat. Tofu hamburger steak is mainly made from ground meat, tofu and vegetables.
Today I introduce you to a simple delicious tofu hamburger steak recipe. The ingredients are chicken, tofu and green onion. It is healthy, delicious and also the texture is amazingly soft because of the tofu’s texture. Tofu is high in quality protein so this steak has great nutrition!
Japanese Pan-Fried Dumpling (Gyoza) comes from Chinese food. The recipe was slightly adjusted for Japanese tastes. It is a very popular dish in Japan. Therefore, we have a lot of restaurants for dumplings and also we cook homemade dumplings. There are many ways to cook dumplings, such as pan-fry, steam, deep-fry and boil.
Today I introduce you to pan-fried dumpling which is the most popular way to cook dumplings in Japan.
In this recipe I show you how to make a dumpling wrapper, but you can also find prepared dumpling wrappers at Asian markets and they are easy to cook with.
This time I used ground chicken for the filling but you can use pork, beef or shrimp instead of chicken. Also in regard to vegetables for the filling, you can use any vegetables you want, such as cabbage, mushroom, tofu, herbs and so on.
My mother used to cook with just chicken and green onion for the filling because she said we enjoyed the chicken taste, and we did!
Agedashi-Tofu, which is a typical Japanese homemade dish, is fried tofu with Dashi sauce.
Tofu is an important ingredient in Buddhist cuisine. Japanese think this is a macribian food because tofu is high in great-quality-protein. Tofu is made from only soybean. The soybean is called “Meat of a field” because it is rich in nutrients, which are linoleum acid, lecithin, isoflavone, saonin, trypsin inhibitor and so on. And also tofu is low calorie and high in water so it is good as a diet food.
Let’s try to eat 1/4 pack of tofu every day!
{Ingredients (servings 2)}
1 pack (14 oz.) Firm Tofu
1 ½ cups Kelp Dashi Stock
(Recommended Dried Kelp for Dashi stock) Dashi Dried Kelp
This “Sushi Canapé” recipe is totally original and great for a potluck. The ingredients are easy and it is a simple finger food.
The manner for making a sushi roll for this dish is not traditional. I came up with an easy way to roll which everybody can do without fail. But the taste is totally like regular sushi! You can top it with whatever you want such as smoke salmon, fish row, vegetables and so on. Once you know this recipe, you can serve Japanese sushi to your family and friends!
Enjoy your sushi roll!!
{Ingredients (15~20 canapés)}
2 pints Steamed Rice
3 beaten eggs
¼ lb. Ground Chicken
1 Avocado
¼ tsp. Wasabi Paste or Organic Wasabi Powder(combine with water to make Wasabi paste)
This very flavorful soup brings you great nutrition because the ingredients are chicken, green onion, ginger, dried shiitake mushroom and kelp. This dish is high in vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin E, vitamin D, minerals, beta-carotene, allicin, calcium, protein and so on. Also it is low calorie and low fat. This dish makes you warm, gives your metabolism a boost, and helps improve your immunity so it is great to help you recover from sickness and get back a good appetite.
I highly recommend eating kelp occasionally. Recently, it is easy to get dried kelp at many grocery stores and at most Asian markets in the US. Japanese use kelp for Dashi stock and side dish like pickles. Dashi stock is used as seasoning in Japanese dishes. We use several kinds of Dashi stock such as dried anchovy, dried bonito, dried shiitake, dried kelp and so on. The kelp Dashi stock is great to compliment exquisite tasting ingredients. Kelp helps maintain your body’s alkaline. Also kelp has a good amount of fucoidan and iodine which are essential nutrients (in moderation) for humans.
{Ingredients (servings 2)} *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
Steaming is a simple and healthy way to cook. And you can steam in the oven so it is very easy! Steamed dishes are very flavorful, the ingredients are tender, and steaming helps keep all of the ingredient’s nutrition!!
Steamed fish in aluminum foil is a traditional Japanese dish; although Japanese used to use paper instead of aluminum foil. Steaming this way has many practical benefits such as not keeping a fish smell inside the house from cooking, using fewer dishes, great preservation of each ingredient’s nutrition, condensation of amazing flavor and so on. I used Tilapia, onion, carrot and green onion. You can also use a variety of different vegetables, most kinds of fish and shellfish, a variety of meats and so on. You can taste each ingredient’s great flavor, which makes this approach different from other cooking methods.
Tilapia is high in potassium and vitamin D, E and of course omega-3. And also it is bland-tasting so you can cook it in many ways, like frying, steaming, sauté, baking and so on.
Japanese eat fish a lot so I highly recommend eating fish at least occasionally to stay healthy.
Nikujaga (Japanese style Beef-Potato Stew) is a Japanese simmered dish with a sweet-salty seasoning. It is very popular and everybody likes it.
This dish is one of the “Homemade taste” dishes, and in old Japanese traditions women who can cook this kind of simmered dish were considered full-fledged wives.
Interestingly, in 1878, a person who had beef stew when visiting England explained to a Japanese chef how the beef stew tasted, and the chef cooked it using his imagination. Eventually that’s where Nikujaga came from. That’s why the ingredients are similar to beef stew.
In Japanese simmered dishes, Dashi stock is the most important thing to add Umami to the dish. I used Kelp Dashi stock this time because I wanted to bring out the flavor of the ingredients. Please see the post on Kelp Dashi stock as a reference.
{Ingredients (servings 2)} *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
½ lb. Beef (sliced meet)
1 Potato
1 Carrot
1 Onion
1 ½ cups Kelp Dashi stock
(Recommended Dried Kelp for Dashi stock) Dashi Dried Kelp
Okonomi-yaki (Japanese-style savory pizza pancake) is a traditional, well loved, representative cuisine from the west part of Japan (Kansai region). The recipe is very simple. It includes a baking mixture of flour, water, vegetables, shellfish, meat and so on.
In Japan there are many festival days in summer and many food stalls sell Okonomi-yaki (and usually have long lines because it is so delicious). These stalls cook it on a big cast-iron pan.
This dish is very delicious and easy to cook. It also has a lot of nutrition in one plate, so it was my family’s regular dinner on Sunday, and my father used to cook (this means very easy to cook because my father couldn’t cook anything else)
My mother always added ground dried anchovy to the mixture to add an anchovy Dashi stock flavor and fabulous nutrition such as calcium and DHA. You can put ground dried anchovy in most dishes to make the dish healthier. It works for omelets, soups, salad dressings, casseroles, pasta, and so on. Dried anchovy adds a slightly salty taste, so it doesn’t bother your dish’s balance. It is easy to grind dried anchovy with food processor (and we can get it at most Asian markets in the US).
In my recipe, I use “Japanese Sweet Ginger Beef” in the Okonomi-yaki dish. This makes the dish taste great and flavorful. Please see the “Japanese Sweet Ginger Beef” recipe to learn how to prepare the beef.
Japanese Sweet Ginger Beef is popular around my hometown area, the Kansai region, which is in the west part of Japan. It is also popular in the Kyushu region.
The seasonings are soy sauce and sugar, and I also use ginger to get rid of the beef smell and to make the dish flavorful so it is salty-sweet. It is a typical traditional, but incredible tasty, Japanese dish like Teriyaki!!
We use fibrous beef meat for the dish which is called beef shank in English (Number 12 in the picture). Shank meat is high in good protein, vitamin B12, and vitamin K. it is also low in fat and cholesterol. The meat is hard by itself, but when it is simmered slowly, it becomes very tender and flavorful, and it makes great beef broth too!
This dish takes a little bit of time to prepare, but it is easy and simple. You can use this sweet ginger beef as an ingredient in salad, pizza, hamburger, and so on.
Today I introduce you to a very easy, delicious and healthy recipe called Mushi-dori (Steamed Chicken). You can use this steamed chicken as an ingredients in your salad, soup, noodles, and so on. Of course, you can also eat it as dish by itself and goes well with any kind of sauce.
This is a popular Japanese dish. Also, it is similar to Chinese and Thai steamed chicken, although the seasonings are different.
For this dish I recommend using chicken breast because of texture, flavor and health benefits.
I steam the chicken breast with ginger and cooking Sake. Ginger is very nutritious and healthy. It helps our blood flow, helps speed up our metabolism, and blocks the oxidation process in our bodies. Also, ginger is very flavorful and helps rid the meat of its chicken smell.
Also, in this recipe I show you a famous sauce for steamed chicken called Goma-dare (Sesame sauce). You can also use this sauce for Shabu-Shabu (boiled, thinly sliced beef).
Sesame is also very nutritious. It is high in minerals, vitamins, fiber and protein. The most important ingredient in sesame is Lignan which is an antioxidant. Lignan helps liver function and cholesterol depletion. It is good for our health to take 1 Tbsp. of sesame per day.
{Ingredients (Serves 2)} *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
(combine with water to make Wasabi paste)
for rolling sushi
Your Home for Homemade Japanese Food 