Humble Bean | Japanese Recipes for the Home Cook (2024)

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I love the idea of taking an American classic and reinterpreting it with Japanese ingredients. The use of tofu instead of mayonnaise was interesting! The miso, rice vinegar, and mirin all sounded promising! Even the photo looks like it delivers, no?

No, something was missing. The recipe was on the right track, but the flavors didn’t come through like I had expected. I was hoping for something close to the American version, but it was nothing like it. But I’m not giving up on it! Maybe next time I’ll take a cue from the Germans and let the hot potatoes soak up some vinegar and shoyu to give it more flavor. Or I’ll use mayonnaise instead of the tofu. Health-wise, cutting out the mayo was a great idea, but who are we kidding? Tofu is never a sufficient substitute for mayo.

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Posted in Contemporary Recipes, Salads, Vegetables| Tagged miso, potato, salad, tofu| 4 Responses

We sunk our teeth into a juicy piece of stewed daikon and savored the sweetness of the slow-cooked daikon, the rich saltiness of the miso, and the zesty citrus.

The preparation is a little obsessive, but I guess you learn to expect that with Japanese cooking. After peeling the skin of the daikon and cutting it into thick discs, you take your knife and trim around the edge to dull the corners. Cooking with my mom when I was young, I remember her telling me when vegetables are simmering, they bump into each other and the edges will break off, muddying the stew. Rounding the edges prevents this from happening. Also, there’s the additional step of boiling the daikon first with rice, before adding the kombu to the pot with fresh water and simmering for an hour. This is to maintain its white color. Such consideration!

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Posted in Traditional Recipes, Vegetables| Tagged daikon, miso, radish, stew, yuzu| 5 Responses

I made takikomi gohan for my roomate when I was in college and she thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. She raved about it, but I was a little embarrassed since all I did was pick up a package at the store, wash the rice, empty the pouch of prepared vegetables, and turn the rice cooker on. She loved it because the rice was full of flavor and she could eat it as a meal on its own.

This time I made it from scratch. The rice is cooked in dashi instead of water and the chicken (with the marinade) gets tossed in along with carrots, shiitake mushrooms, gobo (burdock root), and konnyaku. The flavor is earthy and mild—I like to eat it with a side of Japanese pickles and soup.

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Posted in Rice Dishes, Traditional Recipes| Tagged gohan, gomoku, mixed rice, Rice Dishes, takikomi| 14 Responses

This is what they mean when they say umami.

I say this surprisingly because the recipe was relatively simple. Slices of pork loin (I used kurobuta from the Japanese market) goes in a quick 5 minute marinade, gets a coat of katakuriko (potato starch), then pan fried and cooked in a shoyu, mirin, and sugar. Then it’s topped on a bowl of rice sprinkled with slivers of shiso and nori. Done! It’s that easy.

The katakuriko creates this amazing gooey coating that absorbs the salty-sweet sauce. The chewy pork, the sticky rich sauce, a hint of ginger from the marinade, and the pungent shiso (I don’t know what it is about shiso, but damn! It elevates any dish) are simple ingredients transformed into a satisfying mouthful. A mouthful of umami.

You must make this.

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Posted in Favorites, Meat, Traditional Recipes| Tagged donburi, kuwayaki, pork, rice bowl| 13 Responses

I pulled hot matcha rolls out of the oven today and ate 3 of them like it was nothing. Thanks to the free sample bag of Dakota Matcha (a grade of matcha meant for baking) from Matcha Source, I confronted my minor fear of bread making and was rewarded with these soft sweet rolls.

And really, I don’t know what I’ve been afraid of because anything baking in the oven will seduce you with the scents that fill the kitchen, even before you take your first chewy bite.

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Posted in Appetizers + Snacks, Contemporary Recipes| Tagged baking, bread, green tea, matcha, rolls, sesame seeds| 10 Responses

If you don’t have nimble fingers, no matter. This gyoza is simple to assemble—the most low-maintenance version I’ve seen. The gyoza skin is filled, folded in half, and the top section is pinched at one point. No laborious crimping, no fear of air pockets, no mending needed when the filling pokes out.

The filling is made with pork belly, which I bought thinly sliced at the Japanese grocery store, then chopped into small bits at home. It’s mixed with green onions, fresh ginger juice, pepper, tien mien jiang, shoyu, sake, and sesame oil. This is weird to say about raw meat, but as I was mixing the ingredients, the aroma was delicious!

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Posted in Appetizers + Snacks, Favorites, Meat, Traditional Recipes| Tagged chinese, gyoza, pork, potsticker| 7 Responses

There isn’t anything easier than shoyu chicken. Mix, pour, simmer. That’s it. But it simmers for a good hour, so be sure you’ve planned ahead. The meat soaks up the sauce and becomes very tender and could win over anyone, even the most picky eaters.

This recipe is from one of those community cookbooks from the Hawaii Soto Mission in Oahu. I’ve had several recipes tagged, but haven’t found motivation to cook from it until now. There aren’t any photos, which is a little fact I’ll have to overlook if I’m to scarf down yummy Hawaiian food like this.

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Posted in Contemporary Recipes, Meat| Tagged chicken, hawaiian, shoyu| 13 Responses

Some beautiful linens I’m eyeing over on Etsy. Makes a great housewarming gift!

Top:ÂFLOWER FIELD Organic Linen Napkins / Set of 2, $30 (Natsumi Nishizumi)
Left:ÂColander Napkin Pair, $18 (Elizabeth Bentz)
Right:ÂLinen Coneflower Dish Cloth, White $14 (Sarah Kusa Design Goods)

Posted in Stores| Tagged elizabeth bentz, etsy, handmade, linens, natsumi nishizumi, sarah kusa| 2 Responses

Fall has been slow to arrive in Los Angeles, but that didn’t stop me from making this milky miso soup. The salty miso, sweet kabocha, and creamy broth were nothing but a recipe for comfort. I liked it so much I might switch to making milk misoshiru in the fall and winter months, and back to the traditional misoshiru for the spring and summer. Like most dishes of this nature, day 2 was even better.

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Posted in Contemporary Recipes, Recipes, Soups, Traditional Recipes| Tagged abura age, kabocha, milk, miso soup, misoshiru| Leave a comment

It so happens that a teeny tiny onigiri/omusubi shop In New York validated some of my long-held views.

Oms/B has a beautiful selection of omusubi. This isn’t your run-of-the mill umeboshi or okaka. The selection is vast and imaginative. Take a look at their menu—it’s not easy to settle on just three. For a quick, on-the-go lunch, Oms/B was quite good and the line was perpetually long. I was impressed.

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Posted in NYC Guide, Restaurants| Tagged musubi, nyc, onigiri, restaurant| Leave a comment

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