Japanese Home Cooking (Essential Asian Kitchen)

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful introduction to Japanese home cooking!
Review: I LOVE this cookbook! It's a great introduction to simple Japanese cooking at home, with VERY detailed directions and beautiful color photos to show how the end result should look. For example, when Fukushima talks about deep-frying, he doesn't tell you to just add enough oil for frying - as most cookbooks assume you know - he specifies 3 inches of oil, along with the specific frying temperature. Not that this book is about deepfrying - outside of the Tempura and Tonkatsu recipes, he does a wonderful job covering the side dishes ubiquitous at a Japanese table - the pickled cucumbers, cold spinach in sesame dressing, and other dishes that are so wonderfully cooling in the heat of summer. The broiled eggplant is delicious - a much healthier way to eat eggplant (outside of the usual frying or smothering in cheese) and still be able to taste the original vegetable flavor. My only reason for not giving this book 5 stars? I wanted MORE recipes to be included!