Japanese Cuisine

If French cooking is the cuisine of technique and Chinese the cuisine of heat, Japanese is the cuisine of respect for the ingredient. The founding idea is that the least possible intervention is best, so the ingredient's own flavour shows.

Dashi and umami

Dashi is a base stock of kelp (kombu) and dried fish flakes (katsuobushi), ready in ten minutes. It's the source of umami in half of Japanese cooking — and umami itself was first identified scientifically in Japan in 1908.

Teriyaki

Teriyaki isn't a bottled sauce — it's a method: soy, mirin, sake and sugar reduced until thick, brushed onto the food in coats as it grills. The gloss that forms is the origin of the name.

Sushi rice

Sushi rice isn't ordinary rice: it's rinsed until the water runs clear, cooked at a precise ratio, then folded with rice vinegar, sugar and salt while hot and fanned to cool. That ratio and that folding are half of sushi.

Miso

Fermented soybean paste used in soup, marinades and sauces. Salty and deep, it goes in at the last moment because boiling kills both the cultures and the flavour.