The Japanese Kitchen: 250 Recipes in a Traditional Spirit

by Hiroko Shimbo

Book Overview

In this comprehensive IACP Award-nominated cookbook, Hiroko Shimbo gently and authoritatively demystifies Japanese cuisine for Western cooks. In Part One, Shimbo offers up an extended cooking-school lesson in Japanese ingredients, cooking methods, and implements, with ample advice on easy-to-find substitute ingredients and shortcut techniques. This first part also has all the basic recipes for sauces, stocks, dressings, and relishes, plus time-tested...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558321772
• ISBN13: 9781558321779
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Harvard Common Press
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Best Japanese cookbook I've seen.

I am an American who lived in Japan for several years. I teach Japanese language at the high school level. I have been cooking some of the Japanese foods that I loved in Tokyo, Odawara, Koenji, Fuchu, and other places, for years. This is the first cookbook I've seen that gives clear instructions on how to prepare these foods and explains the ingrediants so that a gaijin (non-Japanese) can understand and execute. She gives great stories of the foods that add to your understanding. When I get done cooking recipies from this book, my food tastes like the foods I ate in Japan. I recommed this as the first and primary Japanese cooking book in your kitchen.

Masterpiece of Japanese Home Cooking

This is the pinnacle of Japanese cooking. Here for our kitchen and table comes this expert advice on enjoying entry into this fascinating cuisine. It is full of tips and advice on ingredients, techniques and preparation of authentic Japanese dishes. There is task of finding rare ingredients first, from international cuisine section of supermarket or better yet from gourmet store, or mail order source in this book. Book is void of photos but has fine drawings which aid in prep techniques and ingredients. Have tried some new eating experiences from this book and have heard raves of diners who enjoyed the likes of: Japanese Stuffed Pancakes (Okonomiyaki); Swordfish in Yuan Style; Chicken Breast Fillets in a Crust of Mung-Bean Noodles. There is sizeable section on Sushi.

The DEFINITIVE guide to Japanese home cooking

This is THE BOOK to have on Japanese home cooking. 250 wonderful true homestyle recipes - I'm in heaven! Not only are the recipes delicious and instructions precise, Shimbo does a good job explaining WHY certain steps must be taken - these hints are great for making anyone a better cook overall, period. My only slight complaint is the lack of photographs - but I understand the cost would have been prohibitive and would have resulted in less recipes being published, so I can live with the tradeoff. A MUST-HAVE for anyone looking to have DELICIOUS, SIMPLE, and HEALTHY food on your table! Being Asian-American, this book allows me to have comfort food I thought I'd never get again after leaving my mom's house!

Beyond sushi

Books that delve into Japanese cuisine beyond the popular restaurant dishes like sushi and miso soup are few and far between. And in that sense, this book does not disappoint. Shimbo's recipes are a joy, introducing over 200 wonderful dishes from the Japanese culinary repertoire to Western readers. Agedashi tofu (crisp tofu cubes in tempura sauce), negima-nabe (tuna and leek hotpot), multiple variations on fresh ramen and yakitori skewered chicken, the unusual gyuniku no misozuke (miso-marinated steak), usuyaki senbei (homemade rice crackers), mitsumame (chilled gelatin in syrup), along with modern Japanified Western standards like ebifurai (fried shrimp in a crisp breading), omu raisu (rice-filled omelet), and kurimu korokke (creamy croquettes) are all here. Each recipe is prefaced with a tale about its origin or the author's childhood memories, and clear instructions make preparation of "exotic, foreign" specialties easy.Less successful are some of Shimbo's unique concoctions: soybean hummus (why?), eel burgers, "creamed" soup made of carrots, celery, garlic, miso, and soy milk. But these misfires, thankfully, can be easily overlooked.Another of the book's strengths is the author's deep investigation into ingredients.Shimbo, a native of Japan who teaches frequently at major cooking schools in the United States and Europe, took years to write this book, visiting artisanal food producers across Japan to gather first-hand information about how products are grown and manufactured. Her research is a goldmine for devotees of Japanese food. I've been cooking Japanese food for 25+ years, and am Japanese Food Host at BellaOnline.com, yet only from this book, for instance, did I learn that the plant from which konnyaku--a gelatinous cake used in hotpots and simmered dishes--is made, is related to taro! The plant's name is usually translated into English as "devil's tongue root," which doesn't give a clue to what it really is. To anyone familiar with taro through Hawaiian food, Chinese food, or even taro potato chips, a taro connection makes a lot of sense, given konnyaku's typical speckled gray appearance. It was like a light bulb going on for me.Each ingredient is described thoroughly with "what to look for" and "storage" sections explaining how to choose top-quality ingredients and keep them in peak condition. I'm especially impressed by Shimbo's clarifications of the differences among types of miso, noodles, and sake.But the book has two real weaknesses: its lack of photographs and its basic disorganization.Although line drawings illustrate a few unusual ingredients and cooking techniques difficult to explain in words, there are no photographs of finished dishes--a glaring omission for a cuisine that places so much emphasis on presentation. Okay, I can live with that, as some of my favorite older Japanese cookbooks are sparsely illustrated.What bothers me more is the book's organization--or lack thereof. I've owned this book for a month now, and still

An excellent book without Glitz

Ignore the rabble who say that this book doesn't give you presentation photos. You want that, go buy a picture book. I'll be reading this beauty, which details something lacking in many of the "high gloss" japanese cookbooks: the actual food preperation. Granted, many of the supplies are not easily available outside of the west coast, but it is STILL easily the best book on Japanese cooking I have read. This book actually tells you how to prepare the food, in clear simple, english. Further, the author give copius sections over to explaining what the less familiar ingrediants are, what they are made of and their nutritional value. This book is excellent. AS said before, if you want a picture book instead of a cookbook, then dandy, go elsewhere. If you want a REAL cookbook however, choose this text.