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

Cheesy fried green tomatoes

I picked these green tomatoes up at the farmer’s market this weekend with every intention of turning them into a nice light tomato mint sorbet. Instead, I woke up Sunday morning with a hankerin’ fer some fried green ta’maters. I guess I should have known this was going to happen when I bought them, and [...]

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Paella

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Being Asian, I like rice. Being Japanese, I love seafood. Add to that my affinity for smoked meats and it’s no wonder why Paella is one of my favourite foods off all time. Sadly it’s so often relegated to the ranks of mediocrity by pan wielding Cretans manning the stoves at “Spanish” restaurants here in [...]

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Killer Meatloaf

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No, this isn’t some reference to a bad horror flick from the ’50, nor is this a post about a portly 80′s rockstar known for his power ballads. I’m giving it this name because it’s so good it will probably kill you. This is the most unhealthy thing I’ve come up with since I made [...]

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Cherry blossom rice

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Normally I don’t post about packaged things I make, but this was just so unique, I couldn’t resist. It’s rice that’s cooked in a broth make with cherry leaves and blossoms. Then when it’s done, you sprinkle some salted cherry blossoms on top. It’s a very spring thing to eat in Japan and I found [...]

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Tofu stuffed squid

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Over the past month I’ve seen a couple bloggers writing about stuffed squid and it got me curious. Kyoto Foodie posted about ika meshi that they picked up at Takashimaya. Then last night, Jonny at We Are Never Full posted a delightful looking Morcilla Stuffed Squid. On the way home from work tonight, I stopped [...]

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Shabu Shabu Salad

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When in need of a quick simple meal I often turn to Japanese food for inspiration. While some preparation and presentations can be extremely time-consuming, at it’s core, Japanese food is about simplicity. Shabu Shabu is typically considered a winter dish because it involves cooking paper thin slices of meat and vegetables in dashi at [...]

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Inspiration comes in many forms

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Shag leather rug or mushrooms? I scored an unexpected bounty today at a farmer’s market that until this morning I had no idea existed. I came into work this morning to see one of my co-workers munching on fresh peas straight out of the pod. Perhaps sensing an interrogation in the making he volunteered the [...]

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5 salts from around the world

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Salt is one of those ubiquitous ingredients that not only makes food taste better, but is a necessary part of the human diet. Chemically speaking, it’s a compound formed by sodium and chloride ions arranged in a lattice structure which is why it forms crystals. While many take it for granted these days, there was [...]

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