Japanese

Miso soup always seems like such a perfect start to a sushi dinner. The briny broth wakes your stomach without weighing it down, warms you up, and primes you for the rice and fish meal to come. Making miso soup at home is actually quite easy and requires just a few ingredients. But which miso should you buy, and is there really a perfect one for making miso soup?

Q: Why doesn’t the miso soup I make at home taste as good as the kind I order at a sushi restaurant? I use white miso, make dashi, and use scallions and silken tofu. Is there a secret ingredient or technique I’m missing? Sent by Susan Editor: Susan, an extra shake of bonito flakes can add a lot of depth to miso soup and we notice that restaurants often garnish the soup with them. Readers, what are your best tips for making really great miso soup?

With their thin, edible skins and tiny seeds, Japanese and Persian cucumbers are easy to prep and a joy to eat. But for even sweeter and tastier cucumbers, try this Japanese trick: give them a salt rub!It sounds like a high-end spa treatment, but the technique is simple. Place about one teaspoon of salt in the palm of your hand and rub it firmly over the skin of the cucumber until a green foamy substance appears and you detect a slight “green” chlorophyll smell.

Do you dream of churning out charred chicken skewers or blackened shishito peppers just like a Japanese yakitori restaurant? If you don’t have the funds or the space for a specialized Japanese grill, there is an easy and inexpensive way to rig up a DIY yakitori grill.Setting two foil-covered bricks on the grates of any type of grill will give you an elevated surface that mimics the steady, indirect heat of a traditional Japanese grill.

Japanese rice balls, called onigiri or omusubi, are compact triangles of cooked rice stuffed with a tasty filling and often wrapped in a sheet of toasted nori. Cute, portable and healthy, they’re one of our favorite ways to eat lunch on the go. In Japan, onigiri can be purchased at any convenience store or supermarket, but they’re also often a homemade treat tucked into lunch boxes.

When shopping at Asian markets, you might see these long, flat, brightly-colored green leaves sold in big bunches. They look like very long blades of grass. Take a whiff and you’ll notice a very distinctive smell of garlic. These are nira, otherwise known as garlic chives and Chinese leek!Nira are common in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cooking. They are added to dumplingsstir friessoupskimchigreen onion pancakesThey taste a little bolder than bulb garlic and they have a very good flavor.

These long, thin mushrooms with tiny caps are commonly found in Asian dishes, particularly Japanese dishes like nabemono and sukiyaki. Easily cultivated, they are grown and packaged in clusters, have a very crisp texture, and can keep for a week in the fridge.Pick mushrooms that are firm and white; reject any enoki that are discolored or slimy. Store them in a paper bag. When ready to use, pick apart what you need from the main cluster and trim off the woody parts of the stems.

Tobiko, or “poor man’s caviar,” is the roe of the flying fish. It is a popular sushi ingredient, usually served sprinkled on top of maki sushi rolls or on its own. The eggs are very small, smaller than salmon roe or masago. They often come in various colors; what’s the deal?In its natural form, tobiko is bright orange. But when infused with certain flavors, the colors change.

Perhaps you’ve seen these trees with the beautiful fan-shaped leaves in your neighborhood or in a local park. The female members of these trees produce an edible nut; unfortunately, the fruit enclosing the nut smells really bad. Their fragrance deters most people from trying them, much like the durian fruit. Once the fruit is removed, inside lurks a nut that looks like a closed pistachio. Beneath the shell is a glossy kernel that ranges from golden amber to bright jade in color.

These mushrooms, whose name means “pine” (matsu) and “mushroom” (take) grow under pine trees in Japan, parts of China, and the North American West Coast. They’re also found in parts of Northern Europe. Sought-after and prized by the Japanese, these mushrooms can sell for up to $2000 per kilogram in Japan. Here in San Francisco, I found them going for $10 per pound. Their seasonal window is very short, usually from October to January.Their fragrance is wonderful.

For such a small island nation, Japan has a surprisingly wide variety of citrus fruit. I saw some of them when I traveled in Japan last winter. Sadly, we don’t get most of them here in the US, and I wish we did! It’s so interesting to see such variety. Some of these varieties are used in flavoring tea and alcohol, others are used in marmalades, and some are eaten raw. I just love the green-skinned, orange-fleshed aomikan tangerine – it’s so pretty!

If you like cooking Asian food at home, then you should have a bottle of ponzu in your cupboard. It is an essential condiment and marinade with a wonderful, zingy flavor that pairs well with vegetables, seafood, and meats. Sadly, it’s very little-known outside of Japan and it deserves more widespread knowledge.Ponzu is a citrus-based sauce used in Japanese cuisine as a marinade or an addition to soy sauce. It is made with rice wine, rice vinegar, bonito fish flakes, and seaweed.

Lotus root is popular as a vegetable throughout South and East Asia, where it is cheap and plentiful. Its texture is crisp and crunchy like a jicama. Unlike a jicama, lotus root can’t be eaten raw, and must be steamed or cooked first. Lotus root is available in Asian markets, and depending on location, I’ve seen them available at farmer’s markets and in the exotic fruit and vegetable section of most supermarket produce departments.

We recently hosted a grilling potluck, and among the foods left by our friends (we couldn’t get to everything in one meal!) was a package of ita konnyaku. We had tried konnyaku at restaurants and seen it in Japanese markets but had never really stopped to think about what it is, or how to use it at home. Are you familiar with this ingredient?Ita konnyaku is a Japanese food made from the starch of a tuber called konjac or devil’s tongue.

I consider myself a pretty adventurous eater. I’m nowhere near the level of Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, but I’m willing to experience strange new culinary delicacies more than most people I know. My parents always encouraged me to try new foods; when I was 3, I had my first taste of escargot, and when I was 6, I had my first linguini with baby squid in marinara sauce. I was not a fussy eater as a child; the only vegetable I didn’t like was sweet potatoes.