Kanako's Kitchen

She’s cute!

…but Kanako never finds time to add new recipes anymore.

In the meantime, you can still enjoy the Recipe Photo Index, though!

It’s pretty much an online cookbook at this point…

Chilled Udon Noodles          Sea Kelp Rice Topping                    Gobou fries                 Minced Chicken over Rice

Grilled Aubergine                 Mock Pork Roast with Tea       Seasoned Rapini                  Ginger-flavored rice

Chilled Noodles                   Marinated Fried Vegetables       Noddles with Salad             Simmered Mackerel

Shrimp-Lettuce Stir-fry         Braised Saury Fillets              Lotus Root Dumplings            Azuki pound cake

Inari Sushi                                 Seasoned Okra                        Pickled Turnips                      Tofu Salad

Cabbage Pancakes                      Raw tuna on rice              Salmon roe with daikon            Fried Mackerel

Potato Salad                            Ginger flavored stir-fry          Garlic-sprout stir fry              Miso soup with tofu

Simple hot pot                          Vegetable tempura                  Bean sprout stir-fry                 Rice balls

Stuffed peppers                          Boiled taro roots                   Green onion miso salad       Grilled Pacific Saury

Hijiki Seaweed Stew                Clear egg-drop broth            Rice with shiso leaves           Miso soup with pork

Classic spring rolls                 Potato pancakes                   Chicken vegetable fritters      Seasoned spinach

Chicken and egg on rice              Japanese Curry               Garnished Daikon Radish     Chickory rice topping

Stir-fried udon noodles        Konyaku scrambled eggs       Dainty vegetable salad        Rice with chestnuts

Gyoza Potstickers                  Fried tofu with sauce              Boiled mixed vegetables      Udon soup with egg

Vinegar based salad                  Beef stir fry                         Rice porridge with shrimp        Basic white rice

Roasted sweet potato            Clear broth with fish             Boiled daikon with pork          Korean pancakes

Japanese cutlet                      Miso soup with pumpkin        Seasoned spinach                  Tempura

Braised Burdock Root           Bitter Melon stir-fry             Boiled tofu with vegetbles     Savoury Rice

We’re pleased to announce that, from today, Kanako will be contributing a regular column on Japanese cuisine for Menuism.com – a growing Social Networking Site for restaurant fans. Check out her intro interview here.

And if you’ve just come from Menuism, welcome! We already have 72 detailed Japanese recipes up on this blog – each with step-by-step illustrations – and we add new ones all the time. So there’s plenty to choose from for the aspiring Japanese home cook: just get yourself a good, sharp knife, make friends with the clerk at your nearest Asian grocery store, and get started!

[Kanako's husband here, pitching in a cheeky little post without her knowledge.]

Back in November, we bought this monstruous, one gallon jerrycan of Kikkoman soy sauce at the big Angel Seafoods sale in Montreal. Just to look at the thing in our shopping cart, I couldn’t really imagine how we’d ever finish it.

And yet today, just 92 days later, that jug officially ran out!

That’s an average of 41.2 milliliters a day of soy-y goodness. Or, for the less metrically inclined among you, 1.38 fluid ounces – or 2.8 tablespoons – of the stuff each and every day.

Bliss!

“So you’re from Japan and you love to cook?…we have to make sushi some time!”

You can’t imagine how many times I’ve heard this in the five years since I moved to the West. I think my words must get distorted somehow as they travel through the air, because when I say “Japanese food” people invariably hear “sushi”.

“One day,” I told my husband, “I want to start a Japanese food blog. I’m going to cram it full of recipes, and I won’t put any sushi in it at all!”

Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing wrong with sushi. It’s great to sit at the counter in a quiet, artisanal sushi bar just near the sea, watching the taisho craft each morsel by hand.

The problem isn’t sushi, the problem is the sushi monoculture in the West: the automatic identification of Japanese cuisine with sushi and only sushi.

And to be more specific, the problem is the nigiri-sushi and maki-sushi monoculture: this strange conviction people in the west seem to have that Japanese people eat sushi rolls and balls of flavored rice topped with raw salmon or tuna every single day.

It’s just wrong!

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