No Recipes – Techniques, inspiration and cooking tips from my Japanese kitchen

Sukju Namul (Korean Bean Sprout Salad)

One of my favourite things about Korean food (other than the spice) is that every meal is accompanied by a plethora of banchan (side dishes). At some restaurants, you’ll end up with 10 different complementary side dishes even though you only ordered a $9 bowl of soup. If you’re the type of person who loves [...]

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No Recipes vol. 6

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Happy Holidays Everyone! This will be the last post I personally post until after the new year as I will be in Napa for a few days followed by a much needed vacation in Seoul and Tokyo. To keep you from getting bored, I’ve scheduled a few posts to go up throughout the next week [...]

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Pomegranate Lamb Tagine with Preserved Meyer Lemons

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The other day I had a nice surprise waiting for me in the mail. POM sent a case of 100% pomegranate juice for me to try. I was excited to open it up and try one because POM Peach Passion Tea is probably one of my favourite beverages of all time (makes great cocktails too). [...]

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Niku Jaga (Beef with potatoes and carrots)

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If Japan had cowboys and burly lumberjacks, this would be their meal. It’s a real work horse of the Japanese home kitchen and quite literally translates to “meat and potatoes”. Being high in energy, low on prep time and very tasty, it’s no surprise why. This is also one of those dishes that tastes even [...]

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Milky Vanilla Baklava

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After making the apple pomegranate boreks I found myself with a lot of leftover phyllo dough. About the only other phyllo dessert I know is baklava, but I didn’t just want to make another honey and nut baklava. I was thinking of other flavours that might compliment the pistachios, almonds and butter. Then it struck [...]

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Simmered Saury and Daikon (Sanma No Nitsuke)

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If you haven’t noticed I’ve been on a bit of a meat kick lately. I wanted to balance things out a bit so I made this nitsuke with some Sanma I had in the freezer. Sanma or Pacific Saury is a long needle nosed fish with a shiny blue-tinted skin which puts it in a [...]

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No Recipes vol. 5

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No Recipes roundups are a way for me to share food that didn’t quite make the cut to get its own post. While most posts here come with recipes, these roundups capture the ethos of this blog in that cooking is more fun when “coloring outside the lines”. Perhaps it’s the cold weather but I’ve [...]

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Meyer Lemon Spound Cake

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Nope, that’s not a typo. I think I may have stumbled upon a new kind of cake, so I figured I should give it a name. It’s rich, moist, and buttery like a pound cake while at the same time being feathery light and spongy. This particular baking adventure started after seeing Michelle’s Warm Lemon [...]

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