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You will love the texture of this stir fried lotus root dish.

I have a love/hate relationship with Japanese shiso (which you might know as green perilla) - you know, those large sweet mint leaves with serrated edges you get when you eat sushi and sashimi at a restaurant.) don't get me wrong - I love eating the leaves - not just with sushi but also in salad, or mixed with miso (a dish which is called shiso miso) on rice but I hate buying shiso leaves - they are sooo expensive! Shiso So, the ideal solution is to grow them myself which I n

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

How to grow Mizuna and a recipe for using Mizuna.

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.

Onigiri-Rice balls.

Delicious vegetable tempura.

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 t

Here's a light salad dish that's easy to make, healthy and, best of all, delicious!

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

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.

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

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

Sweet Potato Miso Soup Today, I'm posting one of my favourite miso soup recipes - sweet potato miso soup. This is a great combination - the sweet potato enhances the flavour of the miso and makes for a more substantial meal - you could eat this with a bowl of rice for your lunch and not feel short changed. Along with the sweet potato, you get onion and shiitake mushrooms for 3 of your 5 a day veggies. Making sweet potato miso soup is simplicity itself - as always with a miso

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