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Japanese Egg Roll / Dashmaki Tamago Here's my latest recipe - Japanese Egg Roll / Dashimaki Tamago - this is much like your standard Tamagoyaki but with dashi stock added to provide a little more savoury flavour and no sugar. The target here is a savoury, soft, almost oozy egg roll with a silky texture and slightly umami flavour - that's why you add the dashi stock. No sugar means this recipe is less sweet (and less calories). The other trick to getting this egg as soft as y

Marinated Turnip and Choy sum I don't think there can be any doubt that the Japanese love their veggies - it's not uncommon for a Japanese dinner to include 2 or 3 separate marinated or pickled vegetable side dishes for the diners to consume. In the uk, the government advise a 5 - a - day regime for eating vegetables and fruit - in Japan, that's a whopping 13 - a - day and that's only the vegetables! One vegetable that is really commonplace on a Japanese table is the kabu

Let's give cabbage the preparation it deserves and turn it into a zesty, crunchy bowl of goodness that anyone can enjoy.

Daigaku Imo means Caramelised Sweet Potato and this is popular side dish in Japan.

The Japanese love their eggplant/aubergine (or nasu as it's called locally). It's far more a part of Japanese cookery than it is here in the UK, which is a shame for the Brits because aubergine is very good for you. Traditionally, aubergine was thought to have a cooling effect on the body (because of its high water content) but modern science shows it's also high in vitamin B6 and C as well as minerals like potasium and manganese. Eggplant /Aubergine and Pepper Nabe Shigi N

This is a quick easy Japanese vegetable side dish.

Lotus Root crisps I am sure you're all aware that American potato chips become crisps when you set foot in the UK and it probably doesn't come as a surprise that Japan sits in the American camp using the term chips as well. What might be more surprising is that the Japanese use other vegetables to make their chips (sorry, UK readers, I mean "crisps"). One of the most visually appealing alternative chips, I think you will agree, is the lotus root. This root vegetable is quit

Simmered Turnip with Fried Tofu) My latest post is another recipe designed to help you recover from the excesses of Christmas and New Year. This dish is called Simmered Turnip with fried Tofu. Turnip is a much under-rated vegetable here in the UK (in fact, more of it is fed to cattle here than humans which is crazy!) In Japan, turnip (known as kabu) is widely eaten in raw, cooked and also pickled forms. It's very good for you, containing high levels of vitamins a, c and k a

Broccoli with black Sesame Here's another simple vegetable side dish - Broccoli with black Sesame /Goma Ae- that's packed with nutricious uber-goodness and top scoring in the flavour chart too. What's more, it's ready for the table in a matter of minutes. I ground my own toasted sesame but you can make this even more quickly by using ready ground sesame instead, if you prefer. I used the whole broccoli head in this recipe including the stalk, which I cut into small chunks. If

Aubergine (Eggplant) with a spicy Soy sauce marinade Here's my latest recipe - fried aubergine (Eggplant) in a spicy soy sauce marinade. I know aubergine (or you might know it as eggplant, melanzana, brinjal, patlican or berenjena depending on where you come from!) isn't a very popular vegetable choice here in the UK but it is used a lot more in Japanese cooking and Asian cooking generally. (In Japan, aubergine is known as Nasu). Aubergine is a good source of fibre and the m

This is easy cook Japanese Potato Salad recipe using Kewpie mayonnaise.

Turnip & Smoked Salmon Have you ever come across the Japanese term, "sappari suru"? It means "refreshing" or "cleansing" as in when you come home after a hot day and you take a shower and then maybe enjoy a cold beer. "Sappari suru" describes this dish of salted turnip, onion and smoked salmon perfectly - it has a lovely combination of salty and smoky flavours and the crunch of raw turnip and onion. The onion is pre-soaked in water to extract any bitterness. In Japan, I'd us

This is quick and easy sweet potato salad recipe.

This is easy and quick Edamame Salad.

Vegetable Tamagoyaki Here's a recipe that really takes me back to my childhood. I've never been an early riser but if there was one thing guaranteed to get me out of bed and ready for the schoolday, it was my mum's vegetable tamagoyaki or egg roll. Just the smell of it wafting up the stairs and into my bedroom would wake me up! These days, I'm still not an early riser but I still love my vegetable tamagoyaki (which literally means " fried egg roll"). The technique of getting

This quick and easy Fennel and Pear Salad isn't Japanese salad but I love it.

Soy Butter Vegetable stir fry It seems difficult to believe now, but time was when butter was almost unknown in Japan. I admit I'm going back a few years but even in my childhood in the 1960s, butter was regarded as something of an out of reach luxury. Like many Western things, butter (known as "bata" in Japanese) began to be assimilated into Japanese cooking during the post-war years of the US military occupation. At that time, butter was still so rare in Japanese food cultu

Roots Vegetables are good ingredients for making salad.

I used carrot and celery as burdock root isn't that easy to find where I live in the UK as it is in Japan.