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3 Japanese stocks which is suitable for vegan and vegetarian.

Chilled Japanese Soba Noodles are called Zaru soba in Japanese. Zarusoba is easy and quick to cook and healthy dish as well.

If you've been following my blog, (and I hope you have!) you'll remember that I have been growing Shiso and Mizuna salad. some Japanese salad veg this summer. In fact, it's been a bumper harvest and my shiso and mizuna just keep on giving! So here's a healthy salad using these two lovely leaves and some other veg topped off with some edamame - it's quick, nutricious and just the thing for a warm summer evening when you want something easy and light on your tummy. The recipe i

Simple, quick and very satisfying salad - Tomato Bean and Shiso Salad recipe blog.

Here's another recipe featuring Japanese pumpkin, AKA kabocha.

Japanese easy stir fry vegetables.

Curried Okra This is the final dish in my "Japanese feast" feature which I started last week. You might recall that the other dishes were grilled & salted mackerel and stir fried lotus root. I must admit this dish sounds a little creepy in English, (old lady's fingers) but in Japan, it's simply known as "okra". It isn't indigenous to Japan but it is certainly popular and very easy to grow there. It's also a cinch to make this Curried Okra dish. Together with the mackerel and

Shiso miso The Japanese love to have a selection of fermented and pickled foods to eat with their rice at dinner and today, I'm looking at one of the best - shiso-miso. It's a great way to give your miso a sweeter flavour. Shisomiso hails from Tohoku prefecture in northern Japan. The original version (where miso is mixed with sugar, sesame and/or crushed walnuts and wrapped in a shiso leaf, then fried) is quite salty but as it has become more popular in Japan, the flavours ha

Natto Just like marmite in the UK, natto is a food that divides opinions in Japan - you either love it or you hate it. So what exactly is natto? Basically, natto is made of soya beans fermented using natto yeast (bacillus subtilis) which I understand comes from rice straw. Natto is well known for its health benefits - if you want to find out more about this, you can find find lots of information on the internet - (personally, I make natto and I eat natto because I like it bu

Simmered Hijiki Here's a very traditional Japanese side dish that uses a seaweed common in East Asia but (as far as I know) nowhere else - it's called hijiki. You can buy hijiki in most Japanese and Chinese food stores, as well as health food shops, in its dried form. As with other seaweeds, there's a lot to like about hijiki nutritionally - it's high in magnesium, iron, calcium and iodine and is full of dietary fibre. I should point out that it does also contain traces of ar

Kombu Tsukudani OK, first things first. What is tsukudani? Answer: Tsukudani is a cooking technique that involves simmering ingredients in a soy & mirin solution until the liquor has almost evaporated. Tskudani is a great way of creating a very concentrated umami flavour. But originally, tsukudani was used as a method of preserving foods in the days before refridgeration. Nowadays, kombu is the most common form of tsukudani but you can also use the technique with other ingred

Japanese simmered Burdock and Carrot - Kinpira Gobo Here's another dish to give your body a nutritional boost - simmered burdock and carrot, which in Japan, is called " kinpira gobo ." Kinpira can be translated as the cooking technique of "saute + simmer". Gobo is the Japanese name for burdock root, which in the UK is best known as one half of the cordial, dandelion & burdock. Burdock is native to northern Europe and East Asia so it's no surprise that it has a long history in

Tofu Katsu is vegan friendly Japanese dish. If you love Tofu, Tofu Katsu is for you.

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

This is a healthy Japanese salad recipe with Ponzu dressing.

Try this recipe- the breadcrumbs and the seasoning in this recipe lift the Aubergine (Eggplant) Katsu to another level

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

Aubergine / Eggplant recipe.

Daigaku Imo Here's my recipe for a dish called Daigaku Imo in Japanese which literally translates as "university potato". There are various stories about why caramelised sweet potatoes became associated with a university - some say the dish was invented by a student struggling to pay his fees, others that the dish was first popularised by an outlet selling its wares to students at the nation's #1 learning centre, Tokyo University. My guess is that these potatoes appealed to

This is a quick easy salad recipe with the tahini create a really rich umami flavour when combined with soy sauce in this dressing.