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 Potato
PROJECT POTATO
Most white-fleshed potatoes generally fall into either of two categories: fluffy OR waxy.
Fluffy potatoes are high-starch and tend to crumble when simmered; they are perfect for mashing, and when making korokke (croquettes). The Japanese often describe these dishes as hokahoka (“steaming hot“). The most commonly available high-starch potato in Japan is DANSHAKU (男爵) — pictured above, to the left. These fluffy spuds are also good prepared as MISO KAMPURA.
Waxy potatoes are lower in starch. When you want potatoes to hold their shape and not crumble — many curries, stews and some potato salads — are best made with waxy spuds such as MayQueen ( メークイン) pictured above to the right. Dishes made with waxy potatoes are often described as shittori or moist.
Chips and fries can be made with either type of potato but tend to be crisper, crunchier if high starch spuds (such as danshaku) are used.
What kinds of potato dishes do you make?
Try your hand at making several (maybe one of each type?) and then share your kitchen activity with us by posting to the KCCC Facebook group.
Learn about Japan’s Potato Lingo & Lore by visiting my Kitchen Culture blog.
Read my November 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 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...
Project Champuru
チャンプルーPROJECT Champuru This Kitchen Culture Cooking Club PROJECT is about making champuru (a stir-fry that is a signature dish of Okinawa) in YOUR kitchen… and sharing with fellow members what you have made. Every household in Okinawa will have its own variation on...
CHAMPURU a Happy Hodgepoge
チャンプル・CHAMPURU In the local dialect CHAMPURU means “hodgepodge.” It is essentially a stir-fry; the signature dish of Okinawa. Every household will have its own version though most will include some sort of tōfu and lots of vegetables, most likely bitter melon or what...
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