About a week ago I made Saizeria Milano Doria which is an example of a class of Japanese dishes inspired by European cuisine. (Doria are gratins on a rice base. The first Doria was invented in the Hotel New Grand in Yokohama in the 1930s with seafood.) This version is adapted from a charming Japanese Read More …
Saizeria is the name of a chain of Japanese-Italian restaurants. Doria is the Japanese name for western-style dishes consisting of a layer of cooked rice, topped with sauteed meat or fish and vegetables, a bechamel sauce and cheese. Milano Doria is a signature dish of the Saizeria chain, and a photo of it appears in Read More …
Milk bread is popular in Japan and is a moist and rich loaf which is very good for sandwiches, etc. Milk bread is different from standard western breads because it starts with a cooked starch paste, which allows the loaf to have a higher hydration while still being manageable. I recently saw an article in Read More …
The very last scene in the movie Goodfellas is the mobster Henry Hill talking into the camera and complaining about how boring life is in the witness protection program. A specific complaint is that he went to a local Italian restaurant and ordered spaghetti with marinara sauce and what he got was egg noodles with Read More …
We had a head of cabbage in the refrigerator and Carol challenged me to come up with a suitable cabbage salad to accompany some Japanese beef curry. Here is the basic idea of what I made based on a recipe in Nancy Singleton Hachisu’s book Japanese Farm Food. Just do everything to taste, and use Read More …
These Japanese patties are made with a mixture of beef, tofu, and shitake mushrooms, and are a tasty way to eat a bit less beef. I liked it with the optional okonomiyaki sauce, steamed rice, and stir-fried Asian greens. This will make 6 servings. 14 oz. package of firm tofu 1 lb. ground beef ½ Read More …
A unique style of curry is very popular in Japan, and I have made a good beef one from scratch. ( Japanese Retro Beef Curry ). For people trying to save time, packaged curry mixes are also very popular in Japan and available in the Asian foods section of my local Kroger, as well as Read More …
This post will be more of a commentary and memorialization of a recipe rather than the recipe itself. I recently bought Tim Anderson’s Tokyo Stories which is about the wide range of Japanese foods available in contemporary Tokyo, and I picked this dish to try because it was an example of the breadth of styles Read More …
In 1936 the Russian opera singer Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin was in Tokyo to record Mussorgsky’s “The Song of the Flea”. He was staying at the Imperial Hotel and asked the staff if he could have a very soft steak for dinner, because he had a toothache. This was the origin story for Chaliapin Steak which Read More …
Carol made for lunch yesterday a variation on a recipe in Japanese Soul Cooking. Her main change was substituting sliced pork loin for duck breast, since it was easier to get and adding fresh shitake mushrooms (since she likes them.) I am not including the recipe in this posting.