I have a couple books - I'll check when I'm back in town. Problem is - they're very old. I'll see if I can either find something similar or copy some pages for you. I'll compare "A Simple Art" first though.

Jarvik7 wrote:

Just use cookpad.com.

Thanks for the site!  There are some simple versions of popular home-cooking there. And when several versions of a recipe are offered, it can help new cooks figure out what kind of variation is okay. (But man, some of the concoctions sound disgusting. blech! I don't fancy many of the Japanese versions of other countries' dishes.)

I thought the site might be a bit overwhelming for someone just starting both cooking and Japanese. But I guess the photos and Rikai-chan might make it workable.

Re salty shouyu  - yeah, I think excess salt is a problem in the Japanese diet. You can get reduced salt shouyu, but purists turn up their noses at it. I reduce the sugar or mirin in all recipes. If the OP is interested in other healthful changes: substitute brown rice and whole wheat, leave some skins on, avoid so much deep frying, steam rather than boil and rely more on herbs/broth for flavouring than the ubiquitous shouyu-mirin-dashi combo. (Some of my Japanese friends weren't too keen on my changes though - called it peasant food.) :-)

Thora wrote:

Re salty shouyu  - yeah, I think excess salt is a problem in the Japanese diet. You can get reduced salt shouyu, but purists turn up their noses at it. I reduce the sugar or mirin in all recipes. If the OP is interested in other healthful changes: substitute brown rice and whole wheat, leave some skins on, avoid so much deep frying, steam rather than boil and rely more on herbs/broth for flavouring than the ubiquitous shouyu-mirin-dashi combo. (Some of my Japanese friends weren't too keen on my changes though - called it peasant food.) :-)

I find myself of the complete opposite opinion. American food is incredibly salty compared to Japanese food. Any American food with potatoes is invariably served with a heap of salt. Likewise, most meats are seasoned with plenty of salt as well. The only thing I find especially salty in Japanese food is shouyu, and it is used sparingly in Japanese cuisine compared to other Asian foods, such as Filipino food. High blood pressure is a medical condition that plagues Filipinos, despite their often thin appearance. And yes, purists (i.e. Asian people) despise reduced salt soy sauce. Case in point, I have never seen reduced salt soy sauce served at a restaurant in any Asian country, and I've only seen non-Asians using it at restaurants in the U.S.

When it comes to your Japanese friends' opinions on your changes to Japanese dishes, I think substituting brown rice is the biggest foul. No Asian person eats brown rice. The very idea of it seems ridiculous. Instead of switching to brown rice, they would reduce their steamed rice intake or just stop eating rice altogether and switch to eating dishes with more vegetables.

(Warning: mini-rant incoming)

On the subject of brown rice, I find it condescending and a cultural slip when some person brags to me about how they've substituted brown rice in the "Asian dishes" they cook, and how healthy they feel as a result. While this may seem hostile on my part, please keep in mind what is being implied here. Basically, such a person is saying in a boastful tone that he's taken a traditional dish, oftentimes one that I've been raised on, and improved it. It's like shouting, "Stupid Asian people, they don't know anything about being healthy!" despite the overwhelming obesity of America compared to Asian countries. Perhaps that isn't the person's intentions, but that's how it comes across.

On the cultural slip side of thing, substituting brown rice in dishes is comparable to when Asian cooks create "Western dishes," which almost always taste nothing like the Western dishes they are meant to imitate. When some person brags to me about substituting brown rice, I feel like I've just encountered Borat. He thinks that he'll successfully establish a connection with me, but just ends up alienating me from him. Usually when I'm thrown into such a situation, I just smile, nod, and agree.

vileru wrote:

On the subject of brown rice, I find it condescending and a cultural slip when some person brags to me about how they've substituted brown rice in the "Asian dishes" they cook, and how healthy they feel as a result. While this may seem hostile on my part, please keep in mind what is being implied here. Basically, such a person is saying in a boastful tone that he's taken a traditional dish, oftentimes one that I've been raised on, and improved it. It's like shouting, "Stupid Asian people, they don't know anything about being healthy!" despite the overwhelming obesity of America compared to Asian countries. Perhaps that isn't the person's intentions, but that's how it comes across.

I don't think it's condescending to make personal choices in the food you eat. If someone's trying to eat less salt, sugar, fat, simple carbs, etc, that's their choice and I don't think it means they think lowly of the original food. I'm sure anyone who makes healthy choices in the foreign cuisine they eat does the same for food from their own country.
I think people get too picky about keeping things "authentic" sometimes.

Since I've become interested in cooking again (it's amazing what happens when you buy a new kitchen knife!) I've been looking for Japanese recipes again.

Cookpad gets a lot of recommendations but I really don't like grabbing recipes off the internet. I'm actually a weirdo that likes to purchase cookbooks and read about history or popularity of the dishes they present. (I did however, make some Saikyou Miso cookies off that site, subbing butter for margarine because I don't like margarine. It was actually pretty good!)

I did go to the Japanese bookstore because I became interested in 洋食、but I was dismayed when some recipes said things like "use the premade block of roux."

Lately I've been on a kick... I made omuraisu, though it's never been my favorite dish. Last night I made Japanese Fried Chicken （鶏唐揚げ）, tonight I'm going to try making とんかつ. I found recipes for 大学芋、 and I kept hearing people talking about さんま on TV so I'm gonna give さんま塩焼き a try this weekend.

Is there anything good I can use for lunch? I'm aware of all the bento recipes, but unfortunately Japan's tiny bentos are no match for my American appetite.

I've also been trying to incorporate more vegetables in my diet, but I've never been very good at it. Dried nori's been a decent snack, and I kinda feel weird buying the pickled vegetables at the Japanese supermarket.

Two must-haves to get into Japanese food:

Kobayashi Katsuo: The Quick and Easy Japanese Cookbook.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? … =0&y=0

Simple and tasty.

R. Hosking: A Dictionary of Japanese Food

http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Japane … amp;sr=8-1

Lots of obscure fish, food, etc kanji for you to learn. If I could take pictures of the ingredients I might even make an Anki deck out of it at some point.

I know you're leery about online recipes, and the site is in English, but if you're looking for bento, I suggest http://justbento.com/.  As luck would have it, Maki also just released a book about bento as well, so even though it's not in Japanese, it might be worth looking into.
Also, it's absolutely bizarre how often roux blocks are used.  It was near impossible to find a recipe for curry rice that didn't use a roux block, and even then, it wasn't that much better than the one made with pre-made roux.

Irixmark wrote:

Two must-haves to get into Japanese food:
Kobayashi Katsuo: The Quick and Easy Japanese Cookbook.

There's something about the words "Quick and Easy" that makes me lift an eyebrow. Maybe it's just the English version.

The book referred to earlier in this thread (man, more than a year and a half ago), Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji, is now out of print. The other popular recommended book I've found online is Elizabeth Andoh's Washoku, which I'll probably look at if I have time to swing by the bookstore.

The thing is though, I feel that since I know some Japanese that they would have a better resource in their own language. I wonder if they have some sort of definitive cookbook or author, ala Julia Child for French cooking...

quark wrote:

I know you're leery about online recipes, and the site is in English, but if you're looking for bento, I suggest http://justbento.com/.  As luck would have it, Maki also just released a book about bento as well, so even though it's not in Japanese, it might be worth looking into.
Also, it's absolutely bizarre how often roux blocks are used.  It was near impossible to find a recipe for curry rice that didn't use a roux block, and even then, it wasn't that much better than the one made with pre-made roux.

I'm leery of online recipes with no real backing, like cookpad.com. The English equivalent is something like allrecipes.com or epicurious.com. I like Maki's site since there's a personal touch and all the recipes are actually made. Some of them have been misses when I've made them, but I love reading Just Hungry.

A famous curry chain in Japan (CoCo Ichibanya) is opening up restaurants here in the LA area and after I had it I really wanted to make good curry at home... the S&B Box just doesn't do it anymore. I also wanted to learn how to make Hayashi Rice without roux but didn't know where to start...

I don't know what the difference is between a classic French demiglace and Japanese demiglace is. I'm pretty sure that real Hayashi rice is not made with a French demiglace and even if it were... it does seem like kind of a waste.

I only made omuraisu because whenever people talk about the first dish they make in Japanese cooking it almost always seems to be omuraisu. I'm actually not a fan of it. Well... next time instead of chicken I'll sub in some homemade bacon and see how that goes.

trusmis wrote:

www.cookpad.com   in Japanese (1 million+ recipes)
and
www.cookpad.it  in English

new source of sentences for my sentence deck. Thanks!

I have two bilingual cookbooks that were given to me by Japanese friends in Japan, so I don't know how easy they'll be to find, but here they are:

英語で楽しむ日本の家庭料理/Japanese Family-Style Recipes - 浦上裕子/Urakami Hiroko

英語でつくる和食/Recipes of Japanese Cooking - Yuko Fujita and Navi International

Recipes are in Japanese on one page and in English on the other.

kainzero wrote:

Irixmark wrote:

Two must-haves to get into Japanese food:
Kobayashi Katsuo: The Quick and Easy Japanese Cookbook.

There's something about the words "Quick and Easy" that makes me lift an eyebrow. Maybe it's just the English version.

May I suggest you watch Iron Chef (Episode 232), Potato Battle - Chen vs. Kobayashi. Or even better, give the recipes in the book a try. It's homestyle cooking, but it sure as hell beats anything that I've been served by Japanese girlfriends, their mothers, friends' Japanese girlfriends, etc., homestay moms... your cooking show won't run for 21 years if your recipes aren't unusually good and reasonably easy to replicate at home.

Irixmark wrote:

May I suggest you watch Iron Chef (Episode 232), Potato Battle - Chen vs. Kobayashi. Or even better, give the recipes in the book a try. It's homestyle cooking, but it sure as hell beats anything that I've been served by Japanese girlfriends, their mothers, friends' Japanese girlfriends, etc., homestay moms... your cooking show won't run for 21 years if your recipes aren't unusually good and reasonably easy to replicate at home.

Well, the thing is, there are a couple other books to choose from.

As for celeb chefs, a lot of recipe books are ghost-written and not home-tested, so you have a lot of angry home chefs wondering why their recipes don't work out.
There are also plenty of long running American cooking TV shows that produce recipes that are par/sub-par. I always loved Alton Brown's "Good Eats" show, but some of his recipes just weren't there for me.

So, at the very least, I do have justification for skepticism.
But since it's only $9 on Amazon, I might give it a shot.

dizmox wrote:

Surely only a real professional would really appreciate the difference between $300 ones and much cheaper ones?

I got one of those Kyocera ceramic 包丁 for $50 recently, not very traditional but it does the job...

The 出刃包丁 is mainly used for filleting whole fish, and the 柳刃包丁 is mainly used for cutting sashimi. I wouldn't consider either to be a daily task unless you work in the professional field, so it's more of a hobbyist thing. The 薄刃包丁 I'm not sure about; apparently there are features that make it good for certain tasks but I'm not sure if those carry over to other knives.

For some of the techniques, a very sharp edge is required.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h90Fxr_1L08

If it's less than very sharp, it either won't cut, or the knife will smash the meat/fish which can change the appearance/taste/etc. I've cut sashimi with a dull knife, it looked like crap and was really chewy.

There are advantages to buying nice knives but it really depends on what you want to do. I don't know anyone who fillets their own fish and I'm pretty sure that even high-end restaurants don't do it. I think it's a pretty rad skill though, so I want to learn it.

For most people, a good chef's knife and a small paring knife is more than enough.