Shoga-yaki: Stir-fried pork with ginger
Literally, shoga-yaki means “ginger stir-fry” but, of course, the shioga (“ginger”) refers to the flavoring rather than the main ingredient. As its name implies, the fragrance of grated ginger is the key to this dish: combined with the sweetness of onions and the succulence of pork, it makes for an absolutely winning stir fry!
When I started to write this post, I tried to do my usual thing: a bit of online research to try to find out where it’s originally from. Turns out it’s really hard to pin shiogayaki down: anywhere in Asia where there’s ginger, soy sauce and pigs somebody will try to put the three together on a hot pan.
And the results are…well, just give it a try. This dish will make a believer out of you in no time.
Gyoza: Meaty Potstickers
Here’s a recipe that doubles as a communal activity: Gyoza are labor-intensive little packets of flavor that you can make together with your friends and family.
You’ve probably already run into Gyoza: they’re commonly available as an appetizer in sushi places these days. Turns out you can make those at home! While they’re certainly a bit of work, you can also save a lot of money if you skip the restaurant bit.
Kids love Gyoza, and as a kid I used to love making Gyoza as well. So consider pressing your little ones into service here: their gyoza may not be the most symmetrical but they’ll love it, and gyoza-making is a skill they’ll be glad to have for the rest of their lives.
This is another dish of slightly questionable Japaneseness: Gyoza are strongly rooted in Chinese cooking. But that’s a historical footnote: Gyoza are so firmly established in the Japanese Kitchen these days, it’s absurd to think of them as “foreign” anymore.
You can find ready-made Gyoza pastry shells in most Asian stores. Buy a packet and then all you have to do is mix the filling and start folding…it’s fun!
Daikon-no nimono: Cooked Japanese Radish
A massively oversized radish, daikon is a popular Japanese winter root vegetable. Less spicy than Western radishes, daikon features in a lot of seasonal cooking, and boiling brings out its natural sweetness wonderfully. Today’s dish is a simple but deeply satisfying side: basically slow cooked radish with a bit of pork in a classic Japanese sauce.
Wait, pork? In a vegetable side dish? Actually yes, just a bit. Makes everything much tastier.
This is a basic (if under-appreciated) principle of Japanese cooking: almost every dish has some kind of meat or seafood in it, even the vegetable side-dishes. Usually, it’s a very small amount: more to flavor the dish than anything else. On the other hand, very few dishes are centered around a big piece of meat or fish, like they so often are in the West.
In other words, in traditional Japanese cooking we eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
(more…)
1 comment