I’ve learned a lot about Japanese cooking from my husband and his step-mother over the past 15 years. Diving into any kind of Asian cooking was completely foreign to me! It’s always a humbling experience to be the white blonde in an Asian market with no clue what an ingredient is, let alone where to find it. Nevertheless, I’ve learned a tone through YouTube and recipe books. If you haven’t tried cooking Asian food at home because it seems daunting to you, too, here are 7 of my family’s favorite quick & easy Asian recipes. Below I explain some key ingredients with links to their pictures and descriptions on Amazon along with some helpful tips to get you started. Since several friends have asked me about my recipes since the beginning of Covid-19 this year, I thought this blog might help. Enjoy!
KEY INGREDIENTS IN MY PANTRY
– Ponzu sauce is amazing if you’ve never had it. It’s typically found right next to the soy sauce in many grocery stories. It’s a citrusy soy sauce, and we put it on lots of our asian recipes once they are finished cooking (sprinkled like you might sprinkle soy sauce on chinese food), Try it on steamed rice, grilled salmon, or cooked shrimp (instead of cocktail sauce)!
– Nori Komi Furikake is available at most grocery stores now, too. It’s like a seasoned salt with flakes of seaweed and sesame seeds and is so yummy sprinkled on rice. If you have sushi fans in your house, they will probably like the flavor. I enjoy it on sliced hard boiled eggs, grilled salmon or steak, sprinkled on ramen, over cold soba noodles, and pretty much any vegetable that has been steamed.
– Sake is japanese wine available at most grocery stores in the wine section. Sake is a rice wine that has infinite flavors and price ranges just like wine made from grapes does. I don’t know which sake is the best, you can decide that on your own when you taste different kinds at restaurants. For now, when adding a bit to cooking, I’ve found I don’t need it to be expensive stuff. Maybe get a whole bottle and drink while you cook? 🙂
– Mirin is a japanese sweet cooking wine. It can be found in Safeway near the soy sauce. If you don’t have mirin, you can probably substitute with regular cooking wine, but I like how sweet mirin is myself.
– Sambal oelek is a chili paste, kind of like a thick sriracha sauce, that can be found in a jar near the soy sauce in Safeway or most grocery stores, too.
– Thai green curry paste, hoisin sauce, rice vinegar, and fish sauce (in a bottle like soy sauce – careful, it’s very fragrant and a little can go a long way) can all typically be found near the soy sauce at your local grocery store, too.
– Hondashi granules make “dashi”. The granules come in a tiny jar like the size of typically spices and mix with warm water to make a soup stock based on bonito (fish flakes). Sometimes dashi is sold already as a liquid. It’s kind of like the difference between chicken stock already coming in liquid and sometimes also being sold in cubes that make a stock by adding water. Dashi is harder to find at local grocery stores, but many actually have it. If it’s called for in a recipe, it usually won’t taste good without it because the bonito is such a unique flavor.
QUICK TIPS:
– My husband is a soy sauce snob. He says “Kikkoman” is the only way to go. My kids can now tell the difference, too! 🙂
– For a fun snack, slice some cucumbers and dip them in rice vinegar (seasoned or not, doesn’t matter). My kids gobble this up. If you have furikake, sprinkle that on, too!
– Many recipes call for grated or minced garlic or ginger. This isn’t unique to Japanese food, but it sometimes makes a recipe a little time consuming. As a hack, to make things super fast, I have one of those mini-prep food processors. I peel the garlic and peel the ginger, then I throw them in the mini-prep and zip it to mince. Even if a receipt says “shaved”, I find “minced” in this way typically works just fine. (The mini-prep is great for grating parmesan cheese if needed for other recipes, too.)
– Whenver a recipe says “matchstick carrots”, I just use the shredded carrots you can buy in a bag at Trader Joe’s or your local grocery store to make it easier. If you want to be authentic, then you can get a mandolin, but be careful you don’t cut yourself!
– To get the shaved meat described in my recipes, you’ll likely have to go to an Asian market. If you live in the East Bay of SF and you go to the 99 Ranch in Concord, here’s where it is: walk in, then head to the back. In between the back middle and the back right, you will see frozen meat in plastic wrap on a rectangular styrofoam plate. The shaved meat will be already frozen, sold by the pound. The labels will (thankfully) be in English, so you can find what you need, whether it is pork or beef. Since they are frozen, remember to take them out and put them on the counter to thaw on the morning of the night you want to make the recipe!
– If you do go to the 99 Ranch Market, head down one of the middle aisles and pick up some seaweed in snack size packages. They have some in Safeway and most local grocery stores, too, but Annie Chun’s brand is nothing compared to what you might enjoy from an Asian market. Inside the packages are little sheets of the nori seaweed that looks like little portions of what they use to wrap sushi. It’s very Japanese to hold the seaweed piece with your fingers and use the small sheet to grab a small bit of rice, then dip the rice into some soy sauce, and eat! Sort of like a naked sushi roll. Yum! 🙂
– Dress up Top Ramen – I didn’t make this a “recipe”, per se, but these tips help make a cheap version of ramen taste much better. Make the ramen per the package directions, then add a drizzle of sesame oil, some spinach sauteed in sesame oil, and some already cooked shredded chicken. Get super fancy by adding a soft-boiled egg! Ichimi togarashi pepper is particularly good on this. That’s a red pepper that you sprinkle (it kind of looks like chili powder).
– I highly recommend a rice cooker and asian rice (Nishiki short grain at Safeway will do for beginners; you can graduate to all kinds at the asian markets – we like Shirakiku Rice, Koshihikari) My favorite rice cooker, available via Amazon is this one, though it has more settings than I need. For each plastic cup included in the rice cooker, fill it with rice, then dump it in the rice cooker. Add some water and swish it all around a bit with your hands to “wash” the rice. Drain out as much of the water as you can with your hands, then fill the rice cooker with the amount of water that matches the amount of cups of rice you added in. For example, if you poured in and washed 3 cups of rice, then fill to the line in the rice cooker insert that shows the number 3. Cover tightly, press “white rice”, then “start”, and it cooks all by itself! It will stay warm as long as you need with the cover closed. The one I have allows me to set it in the morning, so it starts cooking later in the day. Huge help when I have a lot going on during the day. It can take 45 minutes for rice to cook, so it’s the worst when I am in the middle of making one of the quick and easy recipes and realize that I forgot to cook the rice!! Just set it and forget it early.
Enjoy your cooking!!