Japanese Food

This week sees a Japanese State Visit with the arrival of the Emperor and Empress of Japan, a state banquet at Buckingham Palace – so a great time to praise the best of Japanese food – which is so much more than the well known Sushi offering.

Japanese cuisine is renowned for its simplicity and precision. At the heart of Japanese cuisine is the concept of harmony, known as "wa" which is the delicate balance and coexistence of contrasting elements - flavours, textures, colours, and even seasons - within a single meal. In Japanese cooking, this means finding a balance of sweet and salty, umami and bitterness, crunchy and tender. 

Japanese cuisine is also closely connected to the seasons, in a practice known as "shun."

For example, spring brings the beauty of cherry blossoms and fresh bamboo shoots. Summer sees an abundance of vegetables and seafood. Autumn is a time for mushrooms, persimmons, and the stunning transformation of maple leaves. Whilst winter's cold weather is met with delicious stews and hotpots.

This recipe is for Tātā Eatery’s famous Iberian katsu sando, consisting of beautifully tender pork collar paired with raspberry sauce and soft white bread. Recipe HERE

Yakitori is essentially just skewered meat Japanese-style, cooked over a grill and basted with a sauce called tare, but it never fails to go down a treat. The key to getting plenty of flavour into your yakitori is the tare dressing, which is made here by combining chicken stock with soy sauce, mirin, tamari and various other ingredients, and used for both dunking the skewers in halfway through cooking to get beautiful caramelisation and as a sticky dipping sauce at the table. Recipe HERE

 Okonomiyaki is made from a batter of grated potato or yam, cabbage and eggs, these gorgeous fritters can be served any time during the day, whether that be topped with a fried egg for breakfast or as a starter in the evening. Traditionally they’re topped with a sauce also called okonomiyaki and mayonnaise, with plenty of bonito flakes which gently curl up and flutter in the residual heat. Recipe HERE