Blog Categories

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

Japanese corn soup Here's a quick, healthy Japanese soup for you to make. I always thought this soup was French as it is called "corn potage" in Japan. but the strange thing is that I haven't ever seen it made here in the UK or on the continent. So perhaps it is a Japanese original after all! Maybe calling it "potage" encourages us gullible Japanese to think it's extra special because it's French when it's really not! It is certainly more popular in Japan than elsewhere! O

Ton Jiru.

Seafood stick Uramaki Sushi rolls Here's another "looks difficult but it's really not" recipe - seafood stick uramaki . Now, uramaki, as you'll already know if you're reading my blog, means "inside-out roll" and they're also known in the US as a California maki or California roll because that is where they were first made. The story goes that a sushi bar owner in California was struggling to get the locals to eat nori seaweed - obviously, if you don't want to eat nori, sushi

This is a healthy Japanese salad recipe with Ponzu dressing.

Aubergine / Eggplant recipe.

Here's my latest inside out California sushi roll dish. This time, I've made Natto California rolls - so, natto and cucumber with some black sesame sprinkled on the rice.

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

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

Souffle Pancakes Here's another Japanese expression for you, "fuwa fuwa" (it's pronounced fwa fwa ). What does it mean? If you imagine something light, airy and fluffy, you're headed in the right direction. The other day, I went to the Fuwa Fuwa cafe in Russell Square, London. It's a specialty outlet that sells one yummy product - you guessed it - Japanese souffle pancakes. The cafe has recently moved to bigger premises just a few units from where it began in the Brunswick S

Wasabi Rocket I don't know if you're well acquainted with wasabi rocket. If you are, maybe like me, you are a recent convert. Earlier this year, I was looking through my seed catalogue to see what new additions I could make to my little vegetable garden and, low and behold, I came across wasabi rocket. "Rocket leaves that taste like wasabi," I thought, "now that's something I have to try." So, the order went out to my seed supplier and I had a few hundred, tiny, grain-like wa

Try my Japanese fusion spaghetti.

Why not try my Japanese -Hawaiian fusion dish - the Teriyaki Chicken Poke bowl?