Japanese Cuisine
116 flashcards by MentisLibrary
How Japanese food actually works: dashi and umami, soy sauce and miso and the rest of the pantry, rice and the noodle families, sushi and sashimi, simmered and grilled dishes, regional cooking from Hokkaido to Okinawa, sweets and sake, and table manners.
- Dashi
- The light stock that underlies most Japanese savory cooking, most often made from kombu and katsuobushi and ready in minutes rather than hours.
- Ichiban dashi or niban dashi?
- Ichiban dashi is the first, delicate extraction used for clear soups. Niban dashi is made by simmering the same ingredients again, giving a stronger, cloudier stock for simmered dishes.
- Why should kombu never be boiled?
- Boiling draws out bitterness and a slimy texture along with the flavor. Kombu is steeped below the boil and lifted out before the water reaches it.
- Should you wash the white powder off kombu?
- No. That bloom is dried glutamate and mannitol, which is most of the flavor. Wipe off grit lightly with a dry cloth if you must.
- Katsuobushi
- Skipjack tuna that has been simmered, smoked, dried and often fermented with mold until it is as hard as wood, then shaved into paper-thin flakes.
- What is umami and who identified it?
- The savory taste of glutamate, isolated from kombu by the chemist Kikunae Ikeda in 1908 and named as a basic taste alongside sweet, sour, salty and bitter.
- How do you make a vegetarian dashi?
- Steep kombu with dried shiitake. The mushrooms supply guanylate, which reinforces the kelp's glutamate the way katsuobushi normally would.
- Niboshi dashi
- A stock made from small dried sardines, stronger and more fishy than katsuobushi dashi, used for hearty miso soup and some noodle broths.
- What are the main types of Japanese soy sauce?
- Koikuchi, the dark all-purpose standard; usukuchi, lighter in color but saltier, favored in Kansai; tamari, made with little or no wheat; and pale shiro and rich saishikomi.
- Why is usukuchi soy sauce lighter in color but saltier?
- More salt is used in its brewing, which slows fermentation and keeps the color pale. The point is to season without darkening the food.
- What are the main kinds of miso?
- Shiro, white and sweet from a short ferment with plenty of rice koji; aka, red and deep from a long one; awase, a blend of the two; and hatcho, made from soybeans alone.
- Mirin
- A sweet seasoning brewed from glutinous rice, koji and distilled alcohol, which adds gloss, mild sweetness and depth. True hon-mirin contains real alcohol.
- What is the sa-shi-su-se-so rule?
- A mnemonic for the order seasonings go into a simmered dish: sato (sugar), shio (salt), su (vinegar), seuyu (soy sauce) and miso.
- What is real wasabi, and what is usually served instead?
- Real wasabi is the grated rhizome of Wasabia japonica, fresh and fleeting. Most wasabi served outside Japan is horseradish with mustard and green coloring.
- Shichimi togarashi
- A seven-ingredient spice blend built on chile, typically with sansho, sesame, nori, dried citrus peel, hemp or poppy seed and ginger. Ichimi is chile alone.
- Sansho
- The ground pod of the Japanese prickly ash, bright and citrusy with a tingling numbness rather than heat.
- Yuzu kosho
- A hot paste of yuzu peel, fresh chile and salt, fermented briefly, sharp and intensely fragrant.
- Ponzu
- A citrus and soy sauce dressing, usually with dashi and mirin, tart and light.
- Koji
- The mold Aspergillus oryzae, grown on steamed rice or barley. Its enzymes break starch into sugar and protein into amino acids, which is how sake, miso, mirin and soy sauce are all made.
- What is panko and why is it different?
- Coarse, jagged breadcrumbs made from crustless bread, which absorb less oil and fry into a lighter, crunchier crust than fine dry crumbs.
- What is katakuriko used for?
- Potato starch, used to coat food for frying and to thicken sauces into a clear glossy glaze.
- Momen or kinugoshi tofu?
- Momen, cotton tofu, is pressed and firm enough to grill or fry. Kinugoshi, silken tofu, is set without pressing and is soft enough to eat with a spoon.
- Aburaage
- Thin slices of tofu deep fried twice until they puff into a hollow golden pouch.
- Umeboshi
- Ume fruit salted, weighted and dried, sometimes with red shiso, giving an intensely sour and salty pickle.
- Tsukemono
- The pickles that accompany rice at almost every Japanese meal, ranging from a few hours in salt to years in a rice bran bed.
- Natto
- Soybeans fermented with Bacillus subtilis until they are sticky, stringy and strongly smelling, eaten at breakfast over rice.
- Konnyaku
- A firm grey jelly made from the corm of the konjac plant, nearly tasteless and almost calorie free, valued for texture.
- What kind of rice do Japanese meals use?
- Short-grain japonica rice, which cooks up glossy and sticky enough to be picked up in a clump with chopsticks.
- Why is rice rinsed and rested when cooking?
- Rinsing removes loose surface starch that would make the grains gluey. Resting off the heat lets the moisture even out through the pot so the top and bottom match.
- Onigiri
- A hand-formed rice ball, usually triangular, seasoned with salt and often holding a filling, wrapped in a strip of nori.