Favorite Japanese Dishes (Quick & Easy)

Rating:
Summary: Japanese home cooking
Review: "Favorite Japanese Dishes" is the second "Quick and Easy" cookbook that I have bought, and I remain impressed with the series. There is a good variety of dishes, and very simple instructions for cooking.

This one focuses on five fundamental styles of Japanese cooking, basically what a Japanese family would eat at home on a day-to-day basis. Shabu-shabu are generally meat dishes cooked in a metal hot pot, Sukiyaki is both meat and seafood cooked in either a metal or a ceramic nabe pot. Tempura is battered and fried...well anything, really. Teppan-yaki is thin slices of meat and vegetables cooked on a metal hot plate. Teriyaki is a slow style of cooking fish and meats that produces a distinctive taste.

Shabu-shabu, Sukiyaki and Teppan-yaki are all very social means of cooking, where everyone sits around a bubbling pot or hot plate and cooks their own meal at a table. They are really great ways to have a dinner party, even better in the winter when you can huddle around a hot dish.

Each style has a good sample of different ingredients using the same method. There is typically a beef dish, a pork dish, a chicken dish and a seafood dish. While I haven't tried everything, the Seafood sukiyaki is amazing, as is the salmon teriyaki.

"Favorite Japanese Dishes" is probably not a very good cookbook for vegetarians, as almost all of the dishes have meat or seafood of some sort. The exception is tempura, which can be cooked with pretty much anything.