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 Adzuki: Sweet & Savory
PROJECT Adzuki: Sweet & Savory
The adzuki bean 小豆 plays a prominent role in Japanese cookery, especially in the making of sweets… though savory dishes also abound. This Kitchen PROJECT is about exploring the many possibilities.
I provide one sweet recipe for TSUBU AN (chunky red bean jam) and one savory recipe for SEKIHAN (festive red rice and beans) to get you started. Further suggestions below in the captions to the images.
Hope you’ll try making one or more dishes with ADZUKI beans.
The SWEET SIDE of ADZUKI
Pictured above from top left, clockwise: DORA YAKI pancakes with tsubu an filling. GRIDDLE CAKES topped with tsubu an and ice cream (kuro mitsu black sugar syrup in the small pitcher), tsubu an topping for SOFT SERVE ice cream, OGURA TOAST, a specialty of Nagoya where thick white bread is toasted and slathered with tsubu an and topped with a pat of butter.
Head to the Kitchen Culture page for more about adzuki beans.
My November 2022 NEWSLETTER is about Shichi Go San
celebration of children (girls aged 3 and 7; boys aged 5).
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.
Melon
Luscious, ripe melon bursting with delicious juice... Not wanting to waste a single drop, I scrape the seeds into a strainer set over a bowl to collect the juice... to make aspic. In Japan, fresh fruit is often a gift item, especially melons that can be exceedingly...
Shiso Maki
Shiso maki rolls, skewered and seared.Japan’s Tohoku region is justly famous for its walnuts – large, meaty orbs that produce an incredibly rich, aromatic paste when roasted and crushed – and its miso – a full-bodied red (burnished brown, really) fermented soybean...
Yamagata Dashi, a condiment
Chopped eggplant, cucumbers, okra and herbs such as shiso and myōga make salsa-like Dashi 山形だし Yamagata Dashi Somewhere between a salsa and chutney, Yamagata’s summertime signature dish Dashi is a refreshing mixture of chopped vegetables and herbs. It often tops cubes...
Hiya Yakko Chilled Tōfu with Condiments + Umami Essence
HIYA YAKKO 冷奴 When you see an item on a menu being described as HIYA, it means that dish will be served chilled. Pictured above is classic Hiya Yakko, blocks of cold tōfu garnished with grated fresh ginger, chopped scallions and curly flakes of smoky, dry-roasted...