Cooking method of Japanese cuisine
Raw food
If a raw food is edible, Japanese people like to eat it.
Especially, fish is the main food for Japanese people, so eating fresh fish is one of pleasures.
Sashimi is the sliced raw fish, and it is a famous dish.
The topping of Sushi is also raw fish.
Raw tofu is a popular side dish, and the name of the dish is Hiya-yakko.
In addition, Japanese people often eat raw egg.
Because most foreign people have no custom of eating raw egg, that may be an amazing discovery in Japan.
Beaten raw egg with a little soy sauce is mixed with hot boiled rice.
It is a favorite dish for Japanese people, and it is one of popular dish of breakfast.
And, when we enjoy "sukiyaki", we dip the boiled beef and vegitable in the sauce of "raw egg".
To eat raw food, Japanese people have been careful in food sanitation from production to consumption.
So it is very rare to get food poisoning by raw food in Japan.
Boiling in water
This is the simplest cooking method.
The most important staple "rice" is made by boiling uncooked rice until water evaporates.
Boiling Japanese noodles such as "udon" and "soba" is a preliminary cooking procedure.
There are some dishes by only boiling in water.
Ohitashi is the dish of only boiled vegetable.
Usually, it is served after cooling.
It is eaten after pouring any sauce such as soy sauce.
Yudofu is a simple pot dish.
Tofu is boiled in the water with a piece of dried konbu.
It is generally eaten with ponzu (citrus seasoned soy sauce).
Boiling in dashi and shoyu
This is one of popular cooking method.
Some foods are boiled in the soup mixed dashi and shoyu.
And miso, mirin, sugar or sake are added depending on individual taste.
Some kinds of vegetables, fish and meats are combined, so various dishes are made.
Sukiyaki is a famous Japanese dish, and beef, vegitables, tofu, etc. are boiled in thick stock of dashi, soy sauce and sugar in iron pot.
It is also in this category of Japanese cuisine.
Broiling over an open fire
This is also one of popular cooking methods.
Fish or meat are broiled over charcoal fire.
In the mountain, there is a method that skewered fish is stuck in a fireplace and is broiled by the fire.
It is, so to speak, an indoor barbecue.
Main methods of broiling are the following.
When salt is sprinkled on the food and it is broiled, it is called "Shioyaki".
When the food is broiled with a sauce mixing soy sauce and sugar, it is called "Teriyaki".
Teriyaki of long fish such as eel is especially called "Kabayaki".
As the name of the dish, the followings are known.
When small pieces of chiken are broiled, it is Yakitori.
When sliced meats are broiled, it is Yakiniku.
Steam food
Steamed food dishes are also important cooking method.
For this cooking, special steam pots or steaming baskets made from bamboo are used.
Various foods can be cooked by steaming.
Fancy dishes as Chawan-mushi or Saka-mushi are made by this method. ("Mushi" in Japanese is a nown form of the verb meaning "steam".)
Frying in deep oil
Original Japanese cooking use no oil.
But the method using oil was introduced from foreign countries.
Tenpura is famous as Japanese fry cooking.
It is said that Europian missionaries introduced it with Christianity in the 16th century.
Seafood and vegetables are coated in a thin batter and deep fried.
In the late 19th century, "cutlet" was introduced from Europe.
In 1899, a Japanese restaurant invented Tonkatsu like cutlet of pork.
Thick sliced pork is coated with bread crumbs and deep fried.
This method is applied to seafoods and potatoes, and is called "furai" (fry).