Japanese cuisine, also known as "washoku", originated from the Japanese archipelago and gradually developed into dishes with unique Japanese characteristics. The staple food is mainly rice and noodles, and the non-staple food is mostly fresh fish, shrimp and other seafood, often paired with Japanese sake. Japanese food is known for its lightness, and we try to maintain the original flavor of the ingredients when cooking. In the production of Japanese cuisine, fresh materials, exquisite cutting, and artistic placement are required, and attention is paid to the harmony and unity of "color, aroma, taste, and utensils". In particular, not only the taste but also the visual enjoyment is emphasized. Japanese food requires natural color, delicious taste, various shapes and excellent utensils. Moreover, the materials and preparations emphasize the sense of season. There are many kinds of Japanese food, and each place has its own local flavor.

The most representative Japanese food is sashimi, sushi, rice balls, tempura, hot pot, stone grill, roasted bird, etc.

"Sashimi", that is, raw fish, is the best raw food for Japanese people. Japan has had the habit of eating raw food since ancient times. Before the Edo period, sashimi was mainly made of sea bream, sole, plaice, seabass, etc. The flesh of these fish was white. After the Meiji period, tuna and bonito with red flesh became the best ingredients for sashimi. Nowadays, the Japanese cut shellfish, lobster, etc. into thin slices, also called "sashimi". Thinly sliced ??puffer fish with the fugu poison removed is the best sashimi. Chefs who make puffer fish sashimi must obtain professional qualifications. This sashimi is tender and delicious, but it is very expensive. Eat sashimi with green mustard and soy sauce as condiments. The Japanese name for this mustard is "ゎさび", which is a plant called "wasabi" that loves cleanliness and grows under waterfalls or mountain springs. It will wither when exposed to pollution. Wasabi is like a radish with black skin and green flesh. Grind it into a ball and add soy sauce to eat it as sashimi. It has a special pungent and spicy taste that is both sterilizing and appetizing. Japanese sashimi is extremely fresh, even in thickness and length. The sashimi plate is decorated with shredded white radish, seaweed, and perilla flowers, reflecting the Japanese food culture that is close to nature.

"Sushi", also known as Four-Hi Rice, is the representative of Japanese rice. To make sushi, you need to add vinegar, sugar, salt, cooking wine and other seasonings to the rice, as well as seaweed, horseradish, etc. It is made into small rice balls and topped with various sashimi, fish, shrimp, shellfish, etc. This is called "sushi". Put the rice on the sushi, then add sashimi, seaweed, etc., and roll it into a cylindrical shape to make "rolled sushi". Sushi is delicious and refreshing, and the price is affordable, making it very popular among Japanese people. At Tokyo's "Kushimi Sushi", guests can eat while appreciating the chef's craftsmanship.

Onigiri is a medium-sized rice ball made from cooked rice with both hands, and is filled with salted prunes or salted salmon. Dip your hands in water and salt to give the rice ball a slightly salty taste, wrap it with seaweed on the outside, and eat it with some pickles. It is a traditional Japanese habit to wrap rice balls in bamboo wrappers and take them as picnics when traveling or outing.

"Tempura" is a fried food in Japanese food. It is made with flour, eggs, and water to make a paste. Fish, shrimp, and vegetables are wrapped in paste and fried in a pan until golden brown. When eating, it is dipped in The sauce of soy sauce and mashed radish is tender and delicious, fragrant but not greasy.

"Sukiyaki hot pot", also known as Japanese hot pot, became popular only after the second half of the 19th century. It is made by cutting beef into thin slices, boiling it with seafood, vegetables, etc., and eating it with a sauce made of raw egg juice, soy sauce and sugar. This eating habit existed in ancient Japan. Farmers put fish and vegetables on pots in pits and everyone cooked and ate them.

"Stone grill" is to cook the steak on a hot stone and eat it with fresh soy sauce. Japan has bred a type of beef whose meat is so soft that it can be peeled with chopsticks, melts in your mouth, and is extremely tender. This kind of Kobe beef and Matsusaka beef are internationally renowned, but they are expensive.

"Roasted Bird", cut the chicken into slices and skewer them on thin bamboo skewers, dip them in the sauce prepared with soy sauce, sugar, cooking wine, etc., and grill them on the fire. Chicken or pig offal is also used as raw material, but it is traditionally called roasted bird. It is cheap and many people like it as an appetizer. "Yakitori houses" can be seen all over Japan. Nowadays, Japanese cuisine mainly consists of fish, meat and vegetables. In ancient Japan, meat was one of the staple foods. However, in 675 AD, influenced by Buddhism, Emperor Tenmu issued a ban on eating cattle, horses, dogs, monkeys, chickens, etc. The Japanese habit of eating very little meat lasted for more than a thousand years. Until the Edo period, poultry and livestock were not slaughtered in Japan, but game cooked in hunting grounds could still be eaten. After the Meiji Restoration, the habit of eating meat was introduced from Europe and the United States, and it quickly became popular throughout the country.

The rice produced in Japan is rich in nutrients and of high quality. The cooked rice is shaped like pearls and overflowing with aroma. When eating rice, it is often paired with vegetables, fish, meat and other non-staple foods, as well as seasoning soups such as yellow sauce and pickles. Among the non-staple foods, many people now use Western or Chinese cuisine to match them. Japanese noodles are cheap and high-quality, especially buckwheat noodles, which are a popular food.

The Japanese have a simple and frugal concept of dietary life since ancient times. In addition, foods that are reserved and preserved to prevent poor harvests include pickles, pickled fish and meat, and dried foods.

Wooden chopsticks are generally used when eating. Japanese chopsticks are shorter than Chinese chopsticks, 22 cm for men and 21 cm for women.

Japanese society operates at a fast pace. Breakfast in Japan is very simple, lunch is also casual, and dinner is the most sumptuous.

Japanese people often eat red bean rice and sea bream with head and tail on every happy occasion.

Red beans are added to glutinous rice and steamed together to make red bean rice. The color of the red beans will dye the glutinous rice red, and red symbolizes the color of fire and the sun, and has been regarded as an auspicious color since ancient times. The body of the sea bream is bright red, so it has become a symbol of good luck.

Among the alcoholic drinks, Japanese sake (alcohol concentration 15% to 16%) is used in considerable amounts. In 1994, Japan's alcohol consumption was approximately 10 million liters, and its production volume was 9.34 million liters, of which beer accounted for 76%, Japanese sake accounted for 11%, and spirits accounted for 7%. Japanese people often drink with clients, colleagues or superiors after get off work to enhance interpersonal relationships.

The most popular beverage in Japan is green tea. Coffee is also deeply loved by modern Japanese people, and black tea and oolong tea are also quite popular.

You can taste a variety of world-famous dishes in Japan, but most of them are a bit Japanese in order to suit Japanese tastes. Tokyo is a showcase for international cuisine. The most common foreign food in Japan is Chinese cuisine, and there are quite a few restaurants run by Chinese. In addition, Korean, French, Italian, Indian and other cuisines are also very popular.

Nowadays, Japanese meals have gradually diversified, and American fast food, hamburgers and spaghetti have partially replaced rice balls. Chicken consumption has increased more than 10 times compared with 1960, while rice sales have decreased by one-third from more than 20 years ago, and are still declining. Quick-frozen foods are favored by housewives, and Chinese dishes such as dumplings, pot stickers, steamed buns, and noodles are also popular in Japan.

Four major cuisines: 1. Kaiseki cuisine The meal before sencha, in order not to affect the pleasure of tea tasting, the taste and ingredients of the cuisine are very particular. The teahouse owner carefully selects fresh seafood and vegetables according to the season and cooks them with great care. Kaiseki cuisine emphasizes the tranquility of the environment and the simplicity and elegance of the cuisine.

2. Zhuofu Cuisine Chinese cuisine is characterized by guests sitting around a table with backrest chairs, and all meals placed on the same table. This cuisine is a Buddhist vegetarian food that originated in ancient China and was promoted by Zen Master Yin Yuan as "Pu Cha Cuisine" (a cuisine that uses tea instead of wine). Because it is popular in Nagasaki, it is also called "Nagasaki cuisine". The chef used local aquatic meats in Buddhist vegetarian dishes and created Zhuofu Cuisine. The main dishes of Zhuofu cuisine include: shark's fin soup, tea, large plates, medium plates, side dishes, stews, rice cakes, adzuki bean soup and fruits. Side dishes are divided into five, seven, and nine dishes, with seven dishes being the most common. At the beginning, all the side dishes are placed on the table, and while eating, the shark fin soup and other dishes are placed on the table.

3. Tea Party Cuisine: The tea ceremony was popular in the Muromachi period (14th century), so the tea party "Tea Party Cuisine" appeared. From the beginning, tea party dishes were just embellishments of the tea ceremony, very simple. By the end of the Muromachi period, it became very luxurious and luxurious. Later, Sen no Rikyu, the founder of the tea ceremony, restored the original light and simple appearance of tea party cuisine.

Try to save space and labor in tea party cooking. Only three utensils are used for the staple food - rice bowl, soup bowl and small plate. Occasionally there are soups, prunes, fruits, and sometimes two or three delicacies from the mountains and seas, and finally tea.

4. Honsen cuisine is a ritual cuisine used for weddings and weddings. Generally, it is divided into three dishes and one soup, five dishes and two soups, and seven dishes and three soups. When cooking, pay attention to the harmony of color, aroma and taste. Certain patterns will also be made to show good luck. Pay attention to the rules when eating, for example: hold the bowl on the left with your left hand, and put the lid on the left with your right hand. Otherwise, use your right hand to lift the cover. First hold the rice bowl with both hands, put down your right hand, and hold the chopsticks in your right hand. Every time you take two mouthfuls of rice, you should put down the bowl, then hold the soup bowl with both hands, take two mouthfuls and then put down the bowl. Then, in the same way, eat two mouthfuls of rice and then pick up some vegetables.

Among the ninety-five sushi restaurants in "Japanese Sushi Introduction", only two have "sushi" as their name, and most of them use the word "鮨" in their name. Rice was added many years later. It's over. And adding rice is also for preservation, because rice can promote fermentation and improve the preservative ability. In other words, sushi was not a "rice and side dishes" food, but a way to preserve fish, and rice was a "medium" added for this purpose. This kind of bream whose main purpose is to preserve is called "tamed sushi", which is different from "hand-grip sushi".

(Professional word) "SHARI": refers to the rice used for sushi. "Silver Relic": the highest grade and most delicious rice.

"上がり(花)AGARI(BANA)": Freshly brewed tea.

"GARI": Ginger slices. Describe the sound made when eating ginger slices.

"Tongue (SHITA)": the axe-leg of the shell.

"GUNKAN-MAKI": A rice ball wrapped in seaweed and topped with sea urchin sauce or salmon roe. Viewed from the side, it looks like a warship.

(Unreasonable rules)

"Sushi Master" said: The taste of omelette sushi and cave fish sushi best represents the level of sushi restaurants. Because sushi restaurants rarely use such heated ingredients to make sushi, it reflects the skill of the chef. But the quality of a sushi restaurant still depends on the freshness of the ingredients.

"Sushi Master" said: You should eat red meat fish first and then eat white meat fish. Finally, it is the correct order to eat omelette sushi as a snack, etc.

But in fact, you don’t have to be subject to such restrictions. You can eat whatever you like!

Characteristics of Japanese cuisine

Since ancient times, Japanese cuisine has been called "a dish of five flavors, five colors and five methods".

"Five flavors" refers to sweet, sour, spicy, bitter, and salty;

"Five colors" refers to white, yellow, red, green, and black;

The "five methods" refer to the cooking methods of raw, boiled, roasted, fried and steamed.

The formation of the unique flavor of Japanese food is inseparable from its unique geographical environment and traditional oriental culture. Its basic characteristics are: strong seasonality; delicious taste, keeping the original taste light and not greasy, many dishes are eaten raw; the main ingredients are seafood and vegetables; fine processing and bright colors.

The primary characteristic of Japanese food is its strong seasonality, and different dishes are required in different seasons. It can be compared like this, the four seasons are like longitudes, and the festivals are like latitudes. They are intertwined with each other to form the dishes of each period and each season.

Ingredients: The raw materials of the dishes must be fresh, and vegetables and fish should be available in different seasons. Among the vegetables, the main ones are various taro, eggplant, radish, beans, etc. Fish are also very seasonal. People can eat different kinds of fresh fish in different seasons, for example: snapper in spring, squid in early summer, eel in midsummer, mackerel in early autumn, saury in autumn, salmon in late autumn, anchovy and dolphin in winter. . The main meat is beef, followed by chicken and pork, but pork is less commonly used. In addition, there are many varieties using mushrooms.

Cooking: When cooking Japanese food, the main purpose is to maintain the freshness of the food and the taste of the food itself. Many of the dishes are mainly eaten raw. In terms of cooking methods, they are mostly boiled, baked, and steamed, and there are very few oily dishes. In terms of flavoring methods, sugar and mirin wine are usually added first, followed by soy sauce and salt, because sugar and wine not only adjust the taste, but also protect various nutrients in vegetarian dishes. Also use as little MSG as possible. Ingredients: Most of the dishes are based on bonito flower soup, and water is rarely used. Therefore, bonito flower soup is very important in Japanese cooking, just like chicken soup in Chinese food and beef soup in Western food. Therefore, high-end dishes mainly use bonito soup and sake, and the amount of sake is also very large. There are three types of soy sauce used in Japanese cuisine, namely light, thick and heavy. The light taste is lighter in color, the thick taste is like ordinary soy sauce, and the heavy taste is darker in color and sweeter in taste. In terms of the taste of the dishes, the snack dishes are mainly sweet, salty and sour, the soups are mainly light, and the quantity of the dishes is small but refined. The decorations of side dishes change with the seasons, including pepper leaves, perilla leaves, bamboo leaves, persimmon leaves, chrysanthemum leaves, etc. In Japan, flowers and leaves of different seasons are used to garnish dishes, which can better express the content of kaiseki cuisine. The miso used in Japanese cuisine is also diverse. Generally, Shinshu miso or white miso is used for breakfast and miso soup for lunch. Use red bean paste to make miso soup at night.

There are many seasonings and ingredients in Japanese cuisine, but these are the main ones.

Japanese food cooking essentials:

Vinegar cooking essentials

In Japanese cuisine, the so-called vinegar cooking is to cook raw fish and shellfish or slightly Dishes made by blanching vegetable ingredients and mixing them with other mixed ingredients. Since other seasonings need to be added to the fresh food mixed with vinegar, fresh ingredients should be selected first, followed by washing and absorbing the water. As for vegetables that need to be blanched slightly, be sure to soak up the water before sprinkling them with soy sauce to avoid making the vegetables mushy. The taste of vinegar-based dishes can change with the seasons and dishes. For example, with spring and summer dishes, slightly sour vinegar will be more pleasing; in autumn and winter, it is better to reduce the acidity. For example, when paired with wine and dishes, it can be lighter and more refreshing, while when paired with rice, it should be slightly sweet. Finally, it is best to pour the sauce on vinegar-based dishes just before eating to avoid deteriorating the color and texture of the dish due to prolonged storage.

Instructions for cooking braised dishes

There are many things to pay attention to when cooking Japanese braised dishes, such as the size of the pot, the order in which seasonings are added, and what materials to use for the lid. Affects the deliciousness of food. The first is the pot. It is best to choose a pot that is consistent with the size of the portion being cooked, so that the ingredients can be arranged flat in the pot and the food can absorb the soup evenly.

The second step is the order in which seasonings are added to the pot. First, add wine and sugar with slower penetration, then add wine, soy sauce and salt. When cooking meat or vegetables, wait until the ingredients have absorbed most of the soup before adding seasonings; if cooking fish and shellfish, add seasonings first to adjust the soup. When cooking brine, it is best to use a wooden lid, and the lid can be filled with water first. Soak it moist so it doesn't pick up flavor or color. Use aluminum foil to cover fish and shellfish; use paper covers for foods that dissolve easily. In order to make the food taste evenly, when one-third of the soup is left, tilt the pot and gently stir the ingredients until the soup is cooked dry.

Instructions for cooking hot pot dishes

Cook There are many ways to prepare Japanese food, and each type of cooking has its own precautions. Starting from this week, I will introduce to you the essentials for mastering various types of cooking. First is the very "festival" hot pot dish.

Cooking Japanese hot pot is completely different from our Hong Kong people's "burning stove". They are very particular about the techniques and steps of cooking the soup base. First wash, slice or cut the hot pot ingredients, and then arrange them neatly. The soup base will be cooked in an ordinary pot first, and then transferred to a sand nest and served. There are a few points that require special attention.

First, the soup should be kept at a height that covers the ingredients, so add soup while cooking; second, remove the foam while cooking; third, don’t put too many ingredients into the hot pot at once, and add enough ingredients to eat at once. Fourth, because the soup will become thicker and thicker as it cooks, it is best to cook it at a medium heat.