Kitchen Culture Cooking Club

EXPLORE and PRACTICE Japanese cooking in your own kitchen

About 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 become a member of the KITCHEN CULTURE Cooking Club Facebook Group (formerly the TSUDOI Project), an interactive community space. If you are not already a member, please apply. Members are encouraged to post photos and a short description of what they make in their own kitchens in accordance with the chosen theme.

 

PROJECT Cooking with Fish Sauce

Five ways to use fermented fish sauce

There are lots of ways of using fish sauce. Here are a few popular examples:

(top, left) NAMONO (hot pots that get assembled ahead and simmered at table) are often made with a seasoned broth. IKANAGO NABÉ seasoned with funky ikanago shoyu, is brimming with fish, seafood, tofu and vegetables.

(bottom, left) A few drops of ishiri fish sauce added to the pot as daikon simmers imbues it with deep flavor. The tender-simmered daikon is then brushed with ishiri sauce and broiled. Daikon no Ishiri Yaki, multi-textured and richly flavored.

(top, right) NIMONO (simmered or stewed dishes) are yet another way of cooking with fish sauce Here, potatoes and squid are stewed in an ishiri-laced broth; a dab of mustard adds a spicy accent.

Here, fish sauce was used to marinate chicken before dredging it in cornstarch and deep-frying. This dish is known as Tatsuta Agé, a reference to the burnished color of autumnal maples along the Tatsuta River in Nara Prefecture (center, right).

Here, fish sauce has been used to make takikomi gohan. Takikomi is a method using seasoned broth instead of water to cook rice. When squid-based ishiri fish sauce is used, the dish is called ISHIRI GOHAN (click to download).

Using this recipe for ISHIRI GOHAN as a point of departure, create your own dish using ishiri or one of the other fermented fish sauces described in the post Funky Fish Sauces.

Please share what you make in your kitchen by posting a photo and brief description to Kitchen Culture Cooking Club. Looking forward to seeing what you make.

 

 

Check out the latest post to
KITCHEN CULTURE:
Funky Fish Sauces

Check out my FEBRUARY 2024 newsletter
all about Funky Fish Sauce.

 

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: Osechi-Making

PROJECT: Osechi-Making

December is a busy time… The Japanese aptly call the final month of the year shiwasu, written with calligraphy for "professor" 師 and "running about in a tizzy" 走. In Japan shiwasu is a time of frenzied activity that culminates with Oshogatsu (New Years) when families...

JAPAN’S POTATO LINGO & LORE:

JAPAN’S POTATO LINGO & LORE:

In Japan today, two types of Western-style potatoes are regularly enjoyed: mékuin (May Queen) and danshaku ("Baron"). The former was developed in Great Britain at the beginning of the 20th century and made its way to Japan via America shortly thereafter. Mékuin...

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...

TONBURI: Caviar of the Fields

TONBURI: Caviar of the Fields

The Japanese eat a number of "unusual" foods, and TONBURI (とんぶり) surely qualifies as one of them. Tonburi are the seeds of Kochia scoparia/Bassia scoparia,  also known as 箒草 hōki-gusa. Branches of the mature kochia plant are crafted into hōki brooms (yes, brooms that...

Recent Posts & Projects

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