My love affair with Japanese food ...

Tokyo skyline at night

I have had an interest in Japanese culture - and especially it’s food – ever since I can remember.   Growing up, my father – who had fought against the Japanese during the Second World War – kept a number of mementos from that time hidden in various parts of our house. In a wardrobe I stumbled upon a silk Japanese flag which he had taken from a POW and, of even greater significance, was a ‘Samurai’ sword that I later discovered hidden under the house.   As a 10 year-old these things had a magical fascination for me.

The Imperial Palace in the heart of Tokyo

At university we studied Japanese cinema and, as my interest in Asian food and cooking broadened, with backpacking trips to Asia in the 1970s, I began to more seriously investigate the cuisine of the Rising Sun!   This was also a time when Japanese food ingredients were becoming available in Australia ... initially driven I remember by the 1970’s interest in ‘health foods’ and macrobiotics.

Then in the 1990’s I was fortunate to go on two work-related trips to Japan – sponsored by the Japanese Foreign Ministry – and here my interest in Japanese cuisine really blossomed.   Whilst I was filming for an Australian television network during the day, we spent the evenings exploring the bars and small outside food carts of Tokyo. 

A typical Japanese bar ... lots of atmosphere!

Most of these bars were tiny establishments by Western standards – often one or two floors underground in the basements of commercial buildings.   Smoke filled rooms, with dark lighting and Miles Davis on the sound system! But they all served an amazing array of tapas-like snacks – dumplings, sushi, sashimi, and a wild array of grilled seafood, meat and offal.

My faded menu from the 400 year-old Junsei Restaurant
in Kyoto

In Kyoto, the country's ancient capital, we ate at Junsei - a 400 year-old restaurant that only specialised in soy beancurd - or tofu.   It was served in beautiful ceramic pots floating in an intensely flavoured fish stock; the tofu just melted in your mouth and the meal was one of the most memorable I have had so far!

 Another of the meals we ate on one of those trips was at a country inn in the mountains outside of Tokyo.   This wooden hotel was so old that the ceilings were only about five feet high - with the beams covered in rubber foam to protect your head! - because 400 hundred years ago the Japanese were much shorter than they are today mainly due to their diet at the time!

One of the attractions of Japanese cuisine for me is the often utter simplicity of the recipes – using basic ingredients usually of high quality and cooked in very precise and delicate ways. The dinner we were served in this little hotel - surrounded by giant pine trees, mossy covered rocks and a stream that ran right past the windows - was Zen-like in its simplicity.   Grilled fish - caught from the stream outside - lightly garnished with rock salt and soy/shoyu sauce, steamed green vegetables with pickled ginger, miso soup with slivers of wild mushrooms and tiny blocks of tofu, and chicken yakitori - tiny satay- size sticks of smoked chicken grilled over hot coals.   Again this was one of the most memorable meals of my life.

I have tried since then to recreate some of these dishes and, more importantly perhaps, some of the atmosphere of those meals in my own cooking.   One of the lessons I learned from Japan was the concept of 'less is more'!   You don't need mounds of food and rich sauces to make an interesting and satisfying meal.   

One of my all time favourite cookbooks!

During my Japanese culinary journey I discovered a wonderful little book that replicated many of the dishes I had eaten in Tokyo and Kyoto: The Japanese Country Cookbook by Russ Rudzinski & Ryoichi  Kokku (Nitty Gritty Books, 1969).  My first copy of this book fell apart from overuse and I had it rebound in Melbourne; however, the printer stiched it back together 'back to front' so you had to open it from the back cover.   (Strangely, this is the way Japanese books written in Kanji are also printed!)     So I finally tracked down another copy in an on-line second hand bookshop and this is the copy I have with me in India

Here are a few of these country-style Japanese recipes that I have been cooking time and again over the past 15 odd years ... each an exercise in elegant simplicity!

Brussel Sprouts Hot or Cold

Ingredients:
½ kg brussel sprouts   2T shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)   2T dry mustard powder   2T water   2T sugar    1 T sake or white wine ... or vodka in India!?

Method:
Cut sprouts in half – leaving on part of the root/base to keep them together –and steam or boil 3 to 4 minutes.   Mix all other ingredients together and pour over drained sprouts – let marinate for at east 1 hour at room temperature.   Can be served cold or reheated.


Kara Pima  (Hot bell peppers or capsicum)

Ingredients:
4 capsicum – preferably red or yellow  2 fresh chillies   2T veg oil    1t shoyu    1t rice vinegar

Method:
Cut capsicums into bite size pieces, removing stems, seeds and white pith.   Mince chilli.   Heat oil till hot and add capsicum, toss for 2 minutes then add chilli & toss for 2 minutes then add shoyu & vinegar, cover the pan and cook a further 2 to 5 minutes.   Serve hot or cold.

Both these dishes can be served as part of a meal from many different cultures ... not just Japanese.

Tony saab/Hyderabad   July 2012