How to cook "with visual instructions" "using familiar ingredients from your local grocery stores" healthy, traditional and delicious Japanese dishes!!
Today I introduce you to “Pan-fried garlic chives and egg”, called Nira-Tama in Japanese.
It is a very common homemade dish and takes only 10 minutes to cook.
Garlic chives have a great garlic flavor as it is named. It is also called Chinese chives or Asian chives. In ancient times, garlic chives were used for medicinal purposes in East Asia because it is rich in nutrients.
Here is a tip for storing garlic chives. The chives are easy to wilt in the refrigerator. I highly recommend to froze it. Wash fresh garlic chives, dry them and put in a freezer bag. Use within one month.
A bunch (about 4 oz) garlic chives, cut into 4-inch-length
The recipe is very easy and quick.
In a small bowl, combine beaten egg, dashi powder, soy sauce, salt and pepper and mix well. In a pan, heat sesame oil over medium heat and sautee garlic chives for 3 minutes. Pour the egg mixture to the pan and cook without stirring until the edges of the eggs are slightly cooked. Reduce the heat to low, using a spatula, gently gather the cooked part toward the center of the pan and spread the uncooked egg toward the edge of the pan. Fold the edges over onto themselves until cooked all the way through. This gives the dish a fluffy texture.
Stuffed cabbage is not a traditional Japanese dish. It came to Japan from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. It has a very soft texture and amazing flavor. Japanese like to have it in chicken soup style or tomato sauce style.
Cabbage is high in vitamin C and U. Vitamin U is officially called S-methylmethionine which is a good ingredient for stomach problems such as digestion, upper stomachache and so on. Japanese have the highest incidence of stomach issues in the world, despite having lower rates of most other health problems, because of our stomach/gut shape. Therefore, we often eat fresh cabbage for salad and for garnish. And also we have many kind of stomach medicine (over the counter) and most of those use vitamin U as an ingredient.
I believe you will enjoy this dish as a fancy and healthy dinner!
The book I wrote is for people who wants to cook bentos for many great reason, such as saving environment, saving money, saving time and, of course, your health!! Using easy ingredients and simple methods, you can make your own delicious bento within 10 minutes in the morning. In the book I also show how to store the dishes safely and deliciously.
Moreover, If you are intimidated by Japanese cooking methods, you should take this book. It is the easiest Japanese cooking book!!
Today I introduce you to “Egg-Drop Tofu”. This is a very common homemade Japanese dish. The seasonings are Dashi stock and soy sauce, so it is savory, flavorful and delicious!! I usually use tofu, onion and shiitake mushrooms as ingredients. You can add any vegetables you want. Also you can use any kind of Dashi stock. If you use kelp Dashi stock it is a vegetarian dish. If you use fish-based Dashi stock it is not vegetarian, but the dish may be more flavorful.
This is a very nutritious and easy-to-digest dish. The ingredients are simmered in the Dashi stock so the dish has a very tender texture. And also, it has a lot of healthy protein from the egg and tofu.
The recipe is easy.
Heat Dashi stock and seasoning. Add cut vegetables and cook. Pour in beaten egg and steam for a few minutes.
Today I will introduce you to “Homemade Chicken Teriyaki”.
This is a main dish I highly recommend. It is a very popular dish all over the world because it is very flavorful and extremely delicious!!
However, in my opinion in the U.S. the taste (from the sauce) is slightly different from Japanese Teriyaki. In the U.S. the Teriyaki sauce is too sweet by Japanese standards.
I want you to be able to taste “Authentic Teriyaki,” which has a great taste and is not greasy. And also I want to show you how to cook juicy chicken using a pan. The tip is pan-frying and steaming. This makes the chicken soft, juicy and perfectly moist.
The recipe is very easy. It takes less than 20 minutes.
Cook chicken and simmer it with seasonings.
Ingredients (servings 2)
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Today I introduce you to a very popular homemade Japanese dish: “Pan-Fried Udon Noodles,” which is called “Yaki-Udon” in Japanese. The ingredients are cooked Udon noodles, sautéed vegetables and turkey sausage seasoned with soy sauce. It is good for a quick meal because you can get carb, protein and vitamins from one dish. And it is very delicious!!
The recipe is very simple and quick. If you sometimes cook pasta dishes in your house, the cooking process will be familiar to you.
Sauté turkey sausage and vegetables.
Boil Udon noodles.
Dress all with seasonings.
You can use any vegetables and meats. And also you can cut the ingredients however you want. If you like to eat chunky vegetables, you can cut into big pieces. if you or your family don’t like vegetables very much, you can mince well and stir in as a seasoning on the Udon noodles.
Enjoy your-own-“Yaki-Udon”!!
{Ingredients (servings 2)}
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Today, I will introduce you to a great homemade sushi roll, the “Egg and Vegetable Sushi Roll.” For filling I used egg, spinach, carrot and Shiitake mushrooms. I seasoned the filling deliciously so you don’t need to put it in soy sauce when you eat.
In the PDF recipe, I explain with easy instructions how to make sushi rolls with a great shape and I provide you with detailed pictures (and some special tips) so you can do it even if this is your first time making a sushi roll.
On YouTube recipe video, you can see how I actually do.
The recipe is
Cook rice and make sushi rice
Cook fillings
Roll the ingredients with the sushi rice and dried seaweed.
You may think making sushi is too hard until you learn the tricks to doing it well. It is definitely worth it to learn. However, if you want you can skip the rice cooking process if you can get prepared steamed rice. And also you can pick easy ingredients for sushi fillings such as avocado, cucumber, smoked salmon, Sashimi and so on. This egg and vegetables filling recipe is actually what I grew up with. I think it is the best.
First, you wash dried rice like you wash vegetables before you cook it to get rid of dust and to polish the rice. Polishing rice makes it digest smoothly when we eat it. And also washing rice brings us great taste and great final presentation. Lately, some people say we don’t need to wash rice as hard as we used to because the technology of rice polish is getting better. In addition, if you use no-wash rice “Musen-Mai”, you don’t need to wash. You can also use brown rice and multigrain rice instead of white rice if you want.
Lately, I made “Thin-Fried-Egg Roll Sushi” instead of wrapping with dried seaweed. This is also delicious!!
For making any sushi roll, you should get Makisu which is a bamboo mat to roll sushi. You can get Japanese Makisu: Bamboo Sushi Mat Makisu from Amazon.
{Ingredients ( about 15 pieces)} *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
Today I introduce you to Japanese Style Homemade Chicken Meatballs: “Tori-Tsukune”. This is a kind of Yakitori so you can have it in Yakitori restaurants. These homemade meatballs are delicious, easy to cook and great for to-go-lunches!
I used ground chicken, green onion and tofu as the meatballs ingredients. Tofu gives the meatballs a soft texture and makes them more nutritious. It also allows you to make a larger number of meatballs. You can use only ground chicken if you don’t want to use tofu. In addition, you can add more vegetables secretly if your family doesn’t like vegetables very much, such as onions, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli and so on. I recommend mincing them really well and then adding the meat mixture.
What I love about Japanese style meatballs is they are very flavorful because they are seasoned with grated ginger. And the sauce is sweet-savory like a Teriyaki sauce. It is seriously delicious!!
The recipe is easy.
Mix the meatballs ingredients.
Cook the meatballs and dress with the sauce prepared in advance.
Skewer the meatballs if you want to make the final presentation great!
{Ingredients (25 balls)} *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
Today I introduce you to a traditional Japanese bean side dish “Gomoku-Mame,” which is simmered beans and vegetables. This dish is never served as a main dish, but it is very popular and very important in the Japanese diet.
The basic rule of traditional Japanese diet is called “Ichi-juu, San-sai.” This means basic meals should consist of one bowl of cooked rice, one kind of soup and three vegetable or fish side dishes. Of course we don’t have enough time to cook this many dishes when cooking each meal so we tend to stock simmered vegetable dishes in the refrigerator. Lately there are a lot of pre-made, reasonably fresh, store bought vegetable side dishes in Japan. This is because there are many people who are too busy to cook who, however, care about their health and don’t want to eat fast foods.
Also, the Japanese diet contains many kinds of ingredients. We always think “Eat a balanced diet” which means we can have anything we want such as meat, fish, rice, bread, vegetables, seaweed and so on. But we have to be careful about the balance of the ingredients and eat in moderation. Japanese food is very healthy when we follow these rules.
The recipe is very easy.
Put all ingredients and seasoning in a pan and simmer.
To store, transfer to a container and keep in the refrigerator. Use within 5 days.
{Ingredients (servings 8)} *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
Today I introduce you to “Udon Noodle Salad”. This is similar to “Pasta Salad”. In this recipe I used soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil and grated ginger for the dressing so the taste is different from general Pasta Salad.
It is great for a quick lunch because the recipe is very quick and easy. Of course it is also delicious and healthy. You can use any vegetables that are in your refrigerator.
Here is a tip for storing ginger.
Peel the skin and wrap it with kitchen paper and then with aluminum foil. Keep it in the freezer and use within 1 month. You can grate the frozen ginger (you don’t need to defrost).
The recipe is easy.
Cut vegetables and mix with boiled Udon noodle and the dressing.
{Ingredients (1 serving)} *Click BLUE TEXT to link to the product on Amazon*
from Amazon.
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