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

Buta Kakuni (Japanese braised porkbelly)

Pork belly is one of those unctuous guilty pleasures that you know will kill you some day, but you can’t resist taking another bite. Unlike “pork butt”, porkbelly actually comes from the belly of the pig and has layers of glorious fat. Salted and smoked, this cut is called “bacon”… need I say more? Cooked [...]

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Eggplant and Quinoa Involtini

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Some of my favourite foods involve a filling wrapped in something. Potstickers and bacon wrapped dates are just two examples of little parcels of tastiness whose wrappers not only serve to hold everything together, but add complimentary tastes and textures in the process. Involtini is a southern Italian dish typically made with veal or beef [...]

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Pizza and a dream (grilled lettuce pizza)

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Do you ever hear people talking about their technicolor dreams that defy the laws that govern our conscious minds and wonder… “hmm… is this person making this up?” I’m one of those people that purges his memories of any dream on my way to consciousness and as a result I never remember much of my [...]

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Nettle Pasta with Fava Beans

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My refrigerator is retarded. Items left on the top shelf spoil because it’s not cool enough up there. Things on either of the bottom two shelves, especially towards the back tend to freeze. I’ve always thought of this as a curse (have you ever seen frozen tofu?), but today it actually ended up working out. [...]

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Unagi Kamameshi (iron pot rice with eel)

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While it’s not exactly a culinary mecca, Texas is loaded with gut bustin’ soul satisfyin’ comfort food. My weekend was filled with elephant sized portions of smokey bbqed sausage, cajun spiced bbq burgers, tender carne asada, and chicken fried steak drowned in creamy gravy, all washed down with margarita’s and Coors light. Gut busted and [...]

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Hamachi with yuzu and olive oil

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This is actually one of my favourite ways to have sashimi. It’s so simple and light, somewhere between carpaccio and ceviche. The 2 types of yuzu add a phenomenal flavor with a floral tartness form the juice and a bit of green spice from the yuzu kosho. The salt crystals, provide little bursts of brine [...]

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Nasu dengaku (grilled eggplant with sweet miso sauce)

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Here’s part 2 of last night’s light Japanese dinner. But first I have to tell you about this left over stew I made tonight. After eating Tacos Al Pastor for 2 nights, I was getting bored with them, but I still had almost half of the roast left. I felt like something a little saucier [...]

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Choi sum goma-ae (chinese greens with sesame sauce)

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After the meat bomb the past 2 nights, I was feeling a need for some cleansing today and decided to do a nice light Japanese veggie (well almost) dinner. By the time I got home from work, I was starving, so I cut up some lebanese cucumbers into bite size sticks and wrapped them in [...]

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