Japanese

Here's how to make this fluffy, cloud-like bread.

These aren't your average pancakes.

One of my favorite takeout lunches from Whole Foods is their sushi rice bowl, which usually contains a mixture of fish and vegetables over a bed of sushi rice. Since I don’t have easy access to sashimi-quality fish, vegetable-based rice bowls are much easier (not to mention more budget-friendly) to throw together at home! This rice bowl is chock-full of delicious vegetables and hearty enough to make a satisfying lunch or dinner.

This smart technique makes quick work of a favorite dinner dish.

If you're new to Japanese food, and want a place to start, miso soup is the easy gateway.

Because I almost always include salmon in my weekly meal plans, I’m constantly on the lookout for new ways to cook it. Like so many dinner favorites, it’s very versatile, and yet I often resort to the same preparation week after week (usually some sort of mustard-glazed situation). In an effort to change things up, I turned to teriyaki.

Slow-cooking salmon makes it incredibly tender and nearly impossible to overcook.

Say hello to your new weeknight salmon recipe.

You know this carrot ginger dressing from the sushi, teriyaki, and hibachi restaurants who serve it over crisp iceberg lettuce at the start of many meals. The orange hue boasts a zippy sweetness, thanks to the carrots, sweet onions, and fresh ginger. Think this dressing is a one-trick pony? Try it as a marinade for grilled chicken or serve it on cold noodles and you’ll know why I’m never without a batch in the fridge. And the best part?

This is the time of year that we cooks often forget to nourish ourselves; the ordinary meals that fall between the holiday feast and the baked treats can be rushed and overlooked. Here’s a recipe and a book to help you stay centered and nourished in the kitchen: a new favorite, a quiet, thorough look at Japanese home cooking from the perspective of a Western cook. This book is an absolute delight, and the recipe here? Well, we’re getting ready to make it right now.

This recipe is a great way to use up cucumbers. Pickled cucumbers are traditionally served as an accompaniment with rice or sushi, but feel free to serve any way you like.

I had a wonderful meal at the restaurant Bar Tartine in San Francisco a while back. One of the many highlights was the first thing on the table: a delightful array of brine-pickled vegetables served up in jars gathered on a rough wooden tray. Read on for three recipes from this repertoire and a few hints on how to create a pickle platter at home. Each pickle had a distinct taste, from the spicy but earthy carrots in turmeric to the bright, dilly (and also spicy) green cherry tomatoes.

Do you love picked ginger but aren’t so interested in the red dye and white sugar many commercial brands use to sweeten and color the pickles? Or maybe you’re curious about how to switch things up if you used a different vinegar/sweetener combination? Breakaway chef Eric Gower has been experimenting with pickled ginger for years, and he’s found that you can step way out of the box with this delicious, palate cleansing condiment. How Does Pickled Ginger Become Pink?

It has the crispiest, most flavorful tofu around.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to make a California roll that anyone can make, even if you’ve never rolled sushi before.

Top with a fried or hard-boiled egg for extra protein.

Coming of age in the High Mall Era meant the food court was the first stop before buying a new halter top or catching Freddie Prinze Jr.’s latest flick. Despite being a mall regular, I always debated between choosing the oversized pizza slice or sticky-sweet chicken teriyaki. Chicken teriyaki always won. Today, I rarely make it into a mall, but on days when my energy is low and the need to feed my family is high, the urge for chicken teriyaki takeout is strong.

Perhaps it’s all the time I’ve been spending at the beach, or that I’ve been reading a wonderful new book on sea vegetables, or the fact that seaweed seems so cooling on a hot day, but I’ve been craving seaweed salad in a major way this summer. Recently at a Japanese restaurant I had a seaweed, or kaiso, salad garnished with deep-fried rice crackers, which offered a nice, crispy counterpoint to the tender seaweed.

It’s wonderful when recipes we’ve forgotten suddenly reappear. This side dish of fresh green beans tossed with a rich and flavorful paste was one of our dinner party staples several years ago, but it had faded into the background. This weekend we resurrected it and remembered why it’s such a favorite…This recipe came from a New York Times Dining article about Yumiko Kano and her brand of Japanese cooking.

The first meals alone in a foreign country are always intimidating. When I moved to a small city in central Japan to teach English for two years, onigiri was the first food I clung to. Like a life raft, these seaweed-wrapped rice balls — sort of the sandwiches of Japanese cuisine — kept me afloat in a sea of unfamiliar foods labeled in a language I could just barely read.

Chirashi, also called chirashizushi (ちらし寿司) is one of my favorite Japanese meals. The word “chirashi” means “scattered,” so this is basically a big bowl of rice mixed with fish, vegetables, and additional ingredients of your choice. I like this dish a lot, because it’s a delicious one-bowl meal that is very filling and very versatile.

Have you ever had umeshiso maki sushi? The next time you are in a sushi bar, ask the chef if they can make it for you. It’s a simple maki roll with two fillings; umeboshi pickled plums and fresh shiso leaves. The saltiness of the plum contrasts nicely with the freshness of the shiso. It’s also very easy to make at home.

This snack has everything going for it: easy to make, good for you, addictively crunchy, and totally crave-inducing. Need we say more?Inspiration for this recipe comes from Mark Bittman, who wrote about making nori chips in his Minimalist column a few weeks back. We also have to give some credit to Annie Chun’s, the company we can thank for bringing Thai ingredients into mainstream markets. We recently sampled their new “Seaweed Snacks” product (a.k.a.

Simple and refreshing hiyayakko is a quintessential summer dish in Japan. I can understand why: it takes minutes to make, doesn’t require the stove or the oven, and is one of the best ways to appreciate the subtle flavor of fresh tofu.The dish is made by topping a small block of tofu with a drizzle of soy sauce and a sprinkling of chopped herbs, ginger or other toppings.

My favorite appetizers are simple affairs: easy to make, easy to eat. These elegant little cucumber cups fit the bill quite nicely, with the added bonus of making it appear as though they were much more difficult to make than they were. Paired with a gin & tonic, these are a total dinner party win. Cucumbers and soba are a classic pairing and one that never gets old for me.

When I moved to Japan in 2005, I was surprised to discover how utterly simple the food was. The sticky, salty sauces and over-the-top sushi rolls I knew from Japanese restaurants back home were as American as hamburgers and French fries, I realized. Japanese food, and especially Japanese home cooking, was actually subtle, nuanced and basically simple, creating a myriad of dishes with a handful of basic pantry staples and the freshest, tastiest produce and proteins available.

To me, at this moment in time, hiyashi chuka just makes sense. Not only is the Japanese chilled noodle salad absolutely refreshing – a must during these sweltering days of summer – but it also features the sweetest, crispest vegetables available at the market right now: tomatoes, corn, cucumbers. Plus a light and tangy sauce that takes no time to whip up. Hiyashi is typically made with chilled ramen noodles, also known as chuka soba.

Going Paleo doesn’t mean giving up sushi — especially if you make it yourself. Temaki (seaweed-wrapped hand rolls) make a regular appearance in our household because I usually have all the ingredients in my refrigerator and pantry. I simply chop up a few vegetables and make a simple crab salad before hollering at my family to assemble their own no-cook meal.

Our meal plan this week is from one of our favorite chefs, Jacques Pépin, and it starts out with this super-simple salmon recipe. When I spoke with Jacques, he mentioned this recipe multiple times as one of his favorites and how he loves incorporating ingredients from different cuisines together. Jacques says, “I have both baked and grilled miso-glazed salmon, but I find that broiling it gives a great result and is also the easiest way to cook it.

A few years ago, I tried a Japanese-inspired version of Chex Mix that used furikake, that delicious seasoning of sesame seeds, spices, seaweed, and dried fish. The crunchy cereal coated with furikake blew my mind, so why couldn’t the same idea be applied to popcorn? Here, I’ve turned kettle corn on its head and given it a fun Japanese twist that you can add to the movie night snacking rotation.

I’ve always loved eating Japanese soba noodles in soup, but these chewy noodles also make for a great cold or room-temperature salad. Soba soaks up dressing readily, while still keeping its texture. Thanks to that sturdiness and versatility, it’s a great base for experimentation with a number of mix-ins. In this rendition, the surprise ingredient is silky smoked salmon.

California rolls may be a sushi restaurant staple, but they’re not really a make-ahead dish since the seaweed gets soggy quickly. It also takes some time to make enough rolls to feed a crowd. Turning it into a dip served with seaweed instead of crackers takes much less time, and people will love making their own sushi bites! I first had a version of this dip years ago at a barbecue and loved the concept so much I just had to recreate it for myself.

In Hawaii, poke, a salad of marinated uncooked tuna, can be found in pretty much every situation where food is present. I’ve seen it on fancy hotel buffets next to the seafood bar, in the deli section of grocery stores, and on the table by the tub at family potlucks and birthday parties. Here’s the thing: Poke is pretty simple to make. All the work for this recipe happens when you’re grocery shopping because the ingredients are what really matter.

This hearty dish, made on the stovetop in a Dutch oven, is an all-in-one dinner. Packed with crisp-tender vegetables and juicy chicken, and glossed-up with an easy homemade teriyaki sauce, this colorful one-pot dinner is a meal that pleases many a palate and is decidedly kid-friendly. When picking the veggies for this dish, stick to fresh vegetables that you’d find in a Japanese restaurant, and think about balancing crispy, sweet, dense, and soft ones.

With Easter just behind us, we have eggs on the brain — specifically soy sauce (shoyu) eggs. These delicious, salty, umami-rich soft-cooked eggs are traditionally used as a garnish for ramen, served cut in half so their beautiful, just barely set yolks are revealed. They make all manner of things — including grain bowls and porridge — more delicious. They’re pretty divine on their own, too, as a satisfying high-protein snack. These Japanese eggs are easy.

This satisfying soba noodle bowl is packed with savory miso-butter mushrooms, crisp-tender edamame, and a jammy egg.

I’ll admit that when I plan meals, the sides are often an afterthought. And by “afterthought,” I mean that I’m scrambling to find a simple yet interesting side dish to throw together in a hurry while dinner is cooking. A tall order, I know — but with this quick-roasted Broccolini, it’s one that can be easily solved with just a handful of ingredients. Not to be confused with its thicker, fuller, and more bitter cousin broccoli, Broccolini is a milder vegetable.