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Kitchen Culture Cooking Club
EXPLORE and PRACTICE Japanese cooking in your own kitchenAbout Kitchen Culture Cooking Club
Welcome to the Kitchen Culture Cooking Club, a community space providing encouragement to those who want to EXPLORE and PRACTICE Japan’s washoku wisdom in their own kitchens.
To facilitate this, themed projects will be posted to this page periodically. Project Assignments and links to relevant reference material stored on this site will be posted to this page. Anyone, anywhere in the world, with a sincere interest in Japanese food culture is welcome to browse the contents of this page and then replicate the themed project in their own kitchen.
For those who wish to display-and-discuss their projects with like-minded people, I invite you to join the KITCHEN CULTURE Cooking Club Facebook Group (formerly the TSUDOI Project), an interactive community space.
Project TAKIKOMI GOHAN
![](https://tasteofculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/takikomi-gohan-collage.jpg)
PROJECT TAKIKOMI GOHAN
Takikomi-style rice dishes are cooked in a flavorful stock extracted from the ingredient being featured (in this case, MUSHROOMS). Takikomi rice is truly a delicious way to enjoy seasonal bounty.
Download a recipe for KINOKO GOHAN to get started.
It does, however, take an hour or more from start (stock-making) to finish (serving the flavor-packed, fully cooked rice). That’s not practical for most people on a busy weeknight. Thankfully, though, there are several points at which the flow of activity can be temporarily suspended… and easily resumed.
- FIRST… prepare standard stock or a vegan stock from kelp and dried shiitake mushroom stems ahead. The mushroom-infused broth used in this recipe can be prepared several days ahead and refrigerated in a glass (or other non-reactive) container. The delicate woodsy aroma however, gets lost when frozen.
- NEXT… wash and drain rice. Washing rice removes excess starch that otherwise creates a barrier to flavor transfer. Allow the rice to drain for at least 10 minutes before cooking; you’ll notice the translucent rice becomes opaque. Once it does, place the rice in your pot or bowl of your rice cooker and add stock.
- THEN… cook. Using an appliance with a timer feature means you add stock to rice in the morning before leaving the house (and set the timer to finish cooking that evening). Or, if making obentō lunch boxes, set your rice cooker at night to have rice ready when you wake up the following morning.
To celebrate the year’s rice harvest in your own kitchen, seek out shin mai new crop rice in a market near you. Japanese-style short or medium-grained rice is preferable because it absorbs cooking flavors well; many are grown in California, Texas and other areas of the United States and in Europe, too. New crop rice requires slightly less liquid to cook (each grain contains more moisture) than stored-from-the-previous-year rice. Adjust accordingly in your kitchen.
Learn about Kakashi Guarding the Fields by visiting my Kitchen Culture blog.
Read my September 2023 newsletter.
Show Us Your Kitchen Project
QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?
Ready to SHARE YOUR KITCHEN PROJECT with others?
KITCHEN CULTURE Cooking Club members, head over to our Facebook Group. Not yet a member? Please join – membership is opt-in and free of charge.
Looking forward to seeing what you’re making in your kitchen…
Recipes and Resources
Stock (Dashi)
Dashi stock is essential to making soups and simmered or stewed dishes. Dashi is also used when making many egg dishes and all sorts of sauces, dips and dressings. Using good dashi will make a noticeable difference in the outcome of so many dishes you prepare.
Click to download recipes for (vegan) Kelp Alone Stock or Standard Sea Stock + Smoky Sea Stock
How to Cook Rice
In Japanese, the word for cooked rice, ご飯 GOHAN, is the same as the word for a meal, ご飯 GOHAN. Indeed rice is central to the meal. Download the Rice with Mixed Grains recipe.
How to Prepare Sushi Rice
Sushi dishes are made with rice that has been seasoned (with sweetened vinegar) AFTER being cooked. Download the Classic Sushi Rice recipe.
Quick Pickles
The Japanese enjoy a wide variety of tsukémono pickles, many can be assembled quickly and are ready to eat within a short time.
Download a recipe for Quick-Fix Hakusai Cabbage.
Project Salmon
SALMON・鮭・SAKÉ PROJECT SALMON is about preparing salmon, and sharing with fellow members of the Kitchen Culture Cooking Club a salmon dish that you make in your kitchen. Salmon lends itself to variety of cooking methods -- it can be skillet-seared, steamed, broiled,...
KAMBUTSU: The Dried Darlings of the Japanese Pantry
In the photo above, there are five vertical columns, from left to right: KAMPYO (soaking in water with kombu; deep-fried to make chips; used as an edible tie for kombu rolls); KANTEN (sticks and powdered form, made into a savory bamboo shoot and asparagus aspic, lemon...
PROJECT Rice Flour
米の粉PROJECT: Komé no KonaRice Flour In Japanese cookery there are four types of rice flour that are commonlyused. One is made from uruchi mai or "table rice," several are made from mochi-gomé or "sticky rice" and one is made from a combination of them. The different...
Moon-Viewing Dumplings
月見団子 TSUKIMI DANGO The moon can be seen shining from any place on our planet and people everywhere see beauty in a full, luminous moon. But ritual contemplation of the “moon of the middle autumnal month” (chūshū no meigetsu) has its origins in China. The practice...
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