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Pan fried Celery and Shimeji with Bonito flakes Here's a big question for you. Are food likes and dislikes inherited or based on the environment? The reason I ask is that both my husband and I love celery and mushrooms but our sons won't touch either and remove them from their plate with a grimace whenever I serve them up. How did this happen? Answers, please! Anyway, today's dish is one I make when I'm cooking for one or two. I like celery when it is lightly fried and pai

Ebi fry is bread coated prawns or shrimp.

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

Berry fruit Kanten Serving a chilled dish of kanten in Japan is a true sign that summer has arrived - when the mercury is into the thirties and the cicadas outside are in full song, there's nothing like a little bowl of chilled kanten and fruit to give you that, "ah...i needed that.." feeling. If you haven't heard of kanten, it's a seaweed based gel that is derived from red seaweeds. You could be forgiven for concluding that kanten is in fact, agar agar, but the two are a lit

Introducing unique Japanese sauce called Ishiri sauce and a few recipes using Ishiri sauce .

Ishiri sauce is a bit similar to fish sauce.

If you checked out my latest Youtube tutorial on interesting Japanese foods, you'll know that I recently started using an unusual...

Miso Tahini sauce I am a big fan of combining Japanese ingredients with foods from other cultures. So the other day, I tried out a new sauce combining Japanese miso with tahini. Both miso and tahini are quite rich and I thought the combination might be a bit overwhelming but, somewhat to my surprise, the result is truly outstanding. What you get is a thick, rich sauce with a big umami-ful nutty miso flavour. Combining miso and tahini also means you're getting a lot of protein

Tofu Skewers in Miso Tahini sauce I'm in Japan at the moment visiting friends and family. Before I left, I developed a really nice Miso Tahini sauce which I thought would be a perfect accompaniment for barbecue foods - I posted it on the blog last week. The weather at the time wasn't great so I resorted to my grill indoors to try out some grilled Tofu kebabs with the sauce and I can safely say it worked very well! This is a great dish to serve to vegetarians, vegans and als

I use teriyaki sauce a lot in general Japanese cooking.

Teriyaki Salmon skewers I hope you checked out my "easy teriyaki sauce" post last week - it's a quick way to make a yummy teriyaki sauce without any of the nasties (stabilisers, emulsifiers etc) that you get with a shop bought sauce. Here's a great way to use teriyaki sauce - teriyaki salmon skewers. Summer is beach barbecue time in Japan and this is a firm favourite, especially if you want want something a little lighter over your charcoal than steak. Of course, you don't ha

Coffee Kanten with Whipped cream Do you remember a recipe for berry fruits kanten that I posted a few weeks ago? I'm a fan of kanten (agar agar, jelly) because it's easy to use, versatile, low/no calorie and contains no animal products. So, I thought I'd post another kanten based dessert today - this time using coffee as a flavouring. As kanten has no calories, I thought I'd be a little extravagant and top these desserts with whipped cream but, of course, that's up to you en

Here's a recipe for those days when you want something nutricious but not too filling.

How to make Japanese Cold soba with summer vegetables.

Fried Mackerel with Rocket and Onion How may times have you been to eat out and ordered something that left you thinking, "I think I'll try to make that myself." Here's a recipe for a dish that is most often found in Japanese pubs (known as "Izakaya") although it's also popular in Japanese homes these days as well. The fish is mackerel, which despite its well known health benefits, gets a bit of a bad wrap for the fact that it has a reptilian-looking skin and is, well, perhap

How to make Tamagoyaki and Shiso Uramaki Sushi Rolls. Tamagoyaki means Japanese Egg Omelette and Uramaki means inside out sushi roll.

Two layer Fruit Kanten Hello everyone. Here's my latest offering - a kanten based dessert made in two layers. For anyone who hasn't come across kanten before, (agar agar is a close relative,) it's an algae based product used to make jellies and other desserts. It's similar to gelatine but it's completely a non-animal product, so suitable for vegetarians and vegans. It's also full of fibre so it's also great for your digestion. This recipe is healthy, a cinch to make and it a

This week's recipe features fillets of salmon marinated in soy sauce & mirin then wrapped in a sesame coating. This is a combination that...