Japanese Cuisine, Food of Japan
Tue, Aug 21st 2007, 00:00
The Japanese way of eating is to combine staple foods, called shushoku (typically rice or noodles), with a soup and okazu (dishes with fish, meat, vegetable or tofu to complement the staple food).
These are accompanied with sauces like dashi, miso (a thick paste from fermented rice, barley or soybeans and kojikin mould), and soy sauce.
A standard Japanese meal would generally consists of several different okazu, rice, a bowl of soup and some pickles, tsukemono. The typical meal has 3 okazu and is called ichiju sansai (one soup, three sides). Different cooking techniques are applied to each okazu ... raw, grilled, simmered, deep fried, vinegared or dressed.
Rice has been the most important food stuff in the Japanese cuisine for over 2000 years. The Japanese japonica rice is a short grain variety, with unique stickiness and texture. A bowl of rice usually accompanies lunch and dinner, but it is also part of the traditional Japanese breakfast: eaten plain, or mixed with a raw egg and soya sauce (tamago kake gohan), natto (strongly smelling sticky fermented soya beans) or other toppings.
As an island nation, the Japanese consume a lot of seafood.
Sashimi is raw seafood enjoyed with soya sauce and wasabi (a green paste of Japanese horseradish). A favourite is Unagi (eel). It is prepared in many ways, but grilled unagi is favoured in summer for quick energy. Fugu (blowfish) served boiled or raw, is a winter delicacy.
The soya bean features a lot in Japanese cooking. It is used to make tofu (soy curd), natto (fermented soybeans), and miso. Yudofu are tofu pieces boiled in a clear, mild soup and dipped into a soya based sauce.
Agedashi tofu is deep fried tofu pieces. Miso soup is often served as a side dish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is made by dissolving miso paste in hot water and adding additional ingredients such as wakame (kelp), seaweed and small pieces of tofu.
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