The original meaning of cuisine in Chinese is to handle or organize, but the word cuisine in Japanese means dish. As Japan's economy expanded dramatically, the Japanese way of life spread around the world. As a member of the world's cuisine, Japanese cuisine has naturally taken root in various countries. Japanese-style huts, rice bowls, kimono-wearing waiters, and brightly colored Japanese dishes with elaborate cutlery make up a unique landscape in the food world. The taste of Japanese food and the way it is eaten have also begun to be widely accepted.

The following article introduces the various features and characteristics of Japanese cuisine.

Features of Japanese cuisine: Light, non-greasy, delicate, nutritious, and focusing on the matching of sight, taste, and utensils are the features of Japanese cuisine.

Japanese cooking principles:

Five flavors: sweet, sweet, sour, bitter and spicy.

Five colors: white, black, yellow, red and green.

Five methods: raw, boiled, grilled, steamed and fried.

There are three main categories of Japanese cuisine:

1. Honzen - Traditional Formal Japanese Cuisine

Originally from the Muromachi period (around the 14th century), it is a product of the Japanese Rikkyo system. Nowadays, formal "Honzen Cuisine" is rare, and is only served on a few formal occasions, such as weddings, funerals, coming-of-age ceremonies, and festive banquets, with dishes ranging from five courses and two soups to seven courses and three soups.

2, Kaiseki cuisine - haute cuisine [Kaiseki] is named after the ritual masters who, in the course of practice and fasting, held back hunger and embraced warm stones to keep warm. Originally, kaiseki was a dish that was used in conjunction with the tea ceremony to bring out the flavor of the tea, but now it has become synonymous with haute cuisine.

3. Kaiseki Cuisine - Banquet Cuisine Kaiseki Cuisine is not as strict as Honzen and Kaiseki Cuisine, and is eaten in a more free manner. In addition to focusing on deliciousness, kaiseki cuisine is enjoyed in a more relaxed manner.

Cooking characteristics of Japanese cuisine:

Japanese cuisine is recognized as an international cuisine that is meticulously prepared. A good chef must be the link between the eaters and nature, and with the chef's careful and meticulous cooking, the guests can taste the most authentic and natural flavors.

Japanese cuisine is characterized by a focus on natural flavors, and there is no doubt that the spirit of Japanese cuisine is paramount. The cooking style is very delicate and refined, from the broth that is slowly simmered for hours, to the seasoning and cooking techniques, all of which are designed to preserve the original flavor of the food.

The secret of Japanese cuisine is basically sugar, vinegar, monosodium glutamate (MSG), soy sauce, shibori, and kombu, which are the main seasonings. In addition to taste, the senses of taste, touch, sight, and smell should not be ignored.

In addition to the above cooking colors, there is also a lesson to be learned in eating, and it is important to eat [hot food while it is hot] and [cold food while it is cold] so that the taste, time and ingredients can be reflected in each other, to achieve 100 percent of the best taste.

Japanese menu

When we arrive at a Japanese restaurant, the menu can be divided into the following five categories:

(1) Sashimi: Simply put, this is a variety of raw seafood, such as fish, shrimp and shellfish.

(2) A la carte items: Traditional Japanese cuisine is usually distinguished by various cooking methods, such as deep-fried (yakiniku), grilled (yakiniku), stewed (boiled), steamed (steamed), soups (sukiyaki), and pickled vegetables.

(3) Sushi: Hand rolls, sushi, hanamushi, etc. in the usual style.

(4) Hot pot: Shabu-shabu, paper hot pot, pork hot pot, beef hot pot, seafood hot pot, etc. are common.

(5) Set meals: simple set meals and formal set meals.

Another characteristic of Japanese cuisine is that it utilizes seasonal and local ingredients, especially seafood, which plays an important role in Japanese cuisine and is also highly seasonal. As a result, you can enjoy a variety of different flavors of Japanese cuisine throughout the year.

If you want to enjoy Japanese food à la carte but don't know what to order, you can ask the wait staff for their advice or let them prepare the dishes for you, so that you can enjoy a wide range of Japanese food at an affordable price.

Common Japanese menus - Otumami Japanese small dishes are light and appetizing, and can be roughly divided into Tsukemono, Sumono and Sarada.

(1) Tsukemono: The familiar kimchi and pickles are seasoned with vinegar, salt, or other seasonings for a few hours to make them tasty. Tsukemono can be used as a drink or as an appetizer in a prix fixe meal. Miso cucumber, miso white grapes, etc. are common.

(2) Cold dishes:

These include sumono (vinegar), coleslaw, and various salads. Vinegar as the main seasoning of the small dishes is called vinegar, and cold small dishes in addition to vinegar, but also can be mixed with a variety of seasonings or firewood fish, kombu, etc. to cook, such as vinegar mixed with flowers, cold onions, miso cold tuna, cold tofu, and so on.

(3) Salad: In addition to the practice of Western salads, and then add Japanese cooking methods to develop the characteristics of Japanese salads, such as abalone salad, lobster salad, asparagus and shrimp salad, comprehensive salad and so on.

Japanese people began making pickles with coarse salt more than a thousand years ago, and today many different flavors have evolved into appetizers that are an essential part of Japanese cuisine.

Sashimi, a common menu item in Japanese cuisine

[Sashimi] is sashimi, which some people directly translate as "sashimi". Sashimi is a raw food dish in which fresh fish or shellfish is cut into pieces with the appropriate knife skills and served with a dipping sauce made of soy sauce and wasabi (wasabi).

People usually think that wasabi has a sterilizing effect, but in fact it does not, and wasabi is only used to enhance the taste. The seafood ingredients used to make sashimi must be purchased with attention to freshness and fatness, coupled with a senior chef at the helm, good knife skills, handling and cooking, condiments, and decorative techniques must be very familiar with and understand, in order to produce a plate of sashimi dishes that are visually appealing and palatable to the palate.

The most common types of sashimi in Japan are: trevally, salmon, tuna, snapper, swordfish, lobster, and shrimp. Among them, the sashimi of bluefin tuna, which is produced in May every year, is a delicacy that many diners savor.

Sashimi is not always eaten raw, some sashimi dishes are also slightly heated, such as: (a) charcoal grilled: tuna belly meat by charcoal grilled slightly, the belly of the fish oil ester through the grill to let the flavor, and then submerged in ice slices.

(2) Hot water immersion: Fresh fish is scalded with hot water, then immersed in ice water and allowed to cool down quickly, and then sliced, resulting in sashimi that is cooked on the surface but raw on the inside, which has a different taste and texture.

Sashimi is usually served as part of a set menu or as a table d'h?te, but can also be served as an appetizer, a side dish, or as an a la carte item.

Agemono, a common menu item in Japanese cuisine

Agemono is the name given to deep-fried dishes on Japanese menus. Yakitori is a dish that utilizes battered ingredients to create a crispy and delicious flavor, but the ingredients inside remain tender and tasty. Generally, the ingredients of fried food are fish, pork, shrimp, taro, oyster, melon, eggplant, tofu, green pepper, flowers, various vegetables and roots, and as the cuisine continues to seek new ideas, the variety of fried food is more abundant, such as the addition of durian and burdock, and so on.

Tempura is a familiar dish in Japanese cuisine, with white meat fish and shrimp as the main ingredients, and eggplant, bell peppers, taro, sweet potatoes or mushrooms as the toppings.

Generally, yamago comes with a seasoned dipping sauce and ground white grapes, which can be mixed into the dipping sauce and eaten at the same time. Some of the most common fried foods are tempura, shrimp, tempura, vegetable tempura, pork cutlet, oyster, and mushroom balls. In addition, we have developed a special crispy and delicious fried durian that has been well received by our customers.

Yakimono, a common menu item in Japanese cuisine

Yakimono, which is the Chinese name for what we know as barbecue, is one of the staple dishes in Japanese cuisine. The main ingredients of yakiniku are fish, beef, pork, chicken, shrimp, lamb chops, shellfish, etc. Yakiniku cannot be reheated in a pot, so it must be eaten while it is still hot.

Common barbecue methods can be divided into the following categories:

One, vegetarian barbecue: the salad will be spread on the ingredients, directly in the oven grilled.

The second is teriyaki, where the sauce is spread over the ingredients until the food is ready to eat.

Third, skewer: Skewer the food on bamboo skewers and place them directly on the grill grate, grilling over and over again.

4. Teppanyaki: Food is cooked on a hot iron plate.

Fifth, the rock barbecue: the first stone or rock on the fireplace barbecue to more than 300 degrees, and then the food, placed on the hot rock cooking.

Sixth, ZiYaki: A whole fish or shrimp is fixed in shape with a bamboo stick and placed in the fireplace or oven to cook until cooked through.

Seven, salt grilled: salt rubbed all over the ingredients, put on the fire, oven grilling, common salt grilled fish and shrimp Gou salt grilled and so on.

Eight, miso grilled: the fish will be immersed in the seasoned miso sauce, marinated for several hours, placed in the oven to cook.