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Let's Cook Japanese Food!: Everyday Recipes for Authentic Dishes
Turn your idea of difficult Japanese cooking on its head with this new edition of “Let’s Cook Japanese Food!’ People love Japanese food but think they have to go out to a restaurant to get it. But it’s something everyone can cook, easily and deliciously, at home! When you think Japanese food—it’s sushi, or ramen, or raw fish—or just too hard. Amy Kaneko, an American married to a Japanese husband, learned from the best—her mother-in-law and sister-in-law—and brings her culinary experience to your kitchen. Using easy-to-find ingredients, familiar techniques, and authentic flavors, you won’t believe how simple it is to make real Japanese food that is this delicious.
Home-style Japanese cooking is demystified in this refreshing and informative cookbook. After marrying into a Japanese family, the American author was taken under her mother-in-law's wing to learn the ins and outs of Japanese cooking. Here she presents her acquired knowledge in an appealingly designed book with Japanese graphic motifs and color photos. The recipes themselves are a mix of family favorites and restaurant dishes Kaneko learned to recreate at home. Yet readers will see few of the familiar foods available in Japanese restaurants in the U.S. Instead, the book illustrates how to make Japanese home-style favorites, like Gyoza and Tempura , as well as Yoshuko dishes combining Japanese and Western influences, like Curry Rice, and Omu Rice , an omelet stuffed with tomato-y chicken fried rice. In a helpful glossary, Kaneko identifies the basic ingredients and equipment needed to recreate these recipes in an average Western kitchen. Chapters devoted to Tofu and Eggs; Vegetables, Fish and Shellfish; Meat and Poultry; and Rice Noodles and Dumplings intersperse recipes with boxes that highlight Japanese traditions and recollections on the author’s time living in Tokyo.
From Amazon.com :
This is a wonderful cookbook for those who love to eat Japanese food but are a bit intimidated by how complicated preparing it may seem. I've been making simple Japanese dishes for years, but I wanted to add more than just onigiri, sushi and udon into the mix. Amy Kaneko's book provides a good variety of dishes that are not that difficult to prepare and are sure to make your family's tummies satisfied. Even the pickiest of eaters (kids) will find some of Amy's recipes rather tasty.
Home-style Japanese cooking is demystified in this refreshing and informative cookbook. After marrying into a Japanese family, the American author was taken under her mother-in-law's wing to learn the ins and outs of Japanese cooking. Here she presents her acquired knowledge in an appealingly designed book with Japanese graphic motifs and color photos. The recipes themselves are a mix of family favorites and restaurant dishes Kaneko learned to recreate at home. Yet readers will see few of the familiar foods available in Japanese restaurants in the U.S. Instead, the book illustrates how to make Japanese home-style favorites, like Gyoza and Tempura , as well as Yoshuko dishes combining Japanese and Western influences, like Curry Rice, and Omu Rice , an omelet stuffed with tomato-y chicken fried rice. In a helpful glossary, Kaneko identifies the basic ingredients and equipment needed to recreate these recipes in an average Western kitchen. Chapters devoted to Tofu and Eggs; Vegetables, Fish and Shellfish; Meat and Poultry; and Rice Noodles and Dumplings intersperse recipes with boxes that highlight Japanese traditions and recollections on the author’s time living in Tokyo.
From Amazon.com :
This is a wonderful cookbook for those who love to eat Japanese food but are a bit intimidated by how complicated preparing it may seem. I've been making simple Japanese dishes for years, but I wanted to add more than just onigiri, sushi and udon into the mix. Amy Kaneko's book provides a good variety of dishes that are not that difficult to prepare and are sure to make your family's tummies satisfied. Even the pickiest of eaters (kids) will find some of Amy's recipes rather tasty.
168 pages, Hardcover
First published March 8, 2007
81 people are currently reading
171 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 16, 2011
I identify so much with Kaneko's experiences as an expat in Japan. Her anecdotes remind me a lot of my own experiences with my homestay family in Osaka. Her portrayal of everyday Japanese food is spot-on for me - omu-raisu, hamburg, cream stew (yeah, really!). The only gripe I have is that some recipe directions are vague, but if you are an experienced cook, they're largely sufficient. This book is perfect for expat cooks who are homesick for "real" Japanese food.
April 6, 2020
I use this book a lot to make all kinds of home-style Japanese recipes. I appreciate that she walks you through the more old-school options (curry from scratch without the store-bought roux, e.g.), and that the recipes are for the kinds of food you'd expect your mom or aunt to make.
January 23, 2021
Really good intro to Japanese cooking!
Great explanations and easy to follow methods. We tried the agedashi dofu and several of the soups. All yummy! If you have never made Japanese food at home before, start with this. Great for beginners.
Great explanations and easy to follow methods. We tried the agedashi dofu and several of the soups. All yummy! If you have never made Japanese food at home before, start with this. Great for beginners.
November 8, 2019
Good Japanese cookbook with five sections to reminisce traditional Japanese home-cooked food. I would say the introduction section is the gist of the book. Authentic and and contemporary.
September 26, 2020
It's okay.
May 2, 2024
Simple recipes
March 25, 2009
Great cookbook for people who love to eat Japanese food but are a bit intimidated by how complicated it seems to prepare it. I've been making simple Japanese dishes for years, but I wanted to add more than just onigiri, sushi and udon into the mix. Amy Kaneko's book provides a good variety of dishes that are not that difficult to prepare and are sure to whet your family's appetite. Even the most finicky of eaters will find some of Amy's recipes tasty.
This book features a glossary to help you understand the various Japanese ingredients, and the author even helps solve your shopping woes by providing alternative ingredients to items you might not be able to find in your market (although most of what's in the book should be found in the Asian food aisle at any major grocer). There's even a list of Web sites that sell many of the ingredients used in the recipes, should you be at a complete loss at your local supermarket.
On the purely physical side, "Let's Cook Japanese Food!" is a book with beautiful art direction. The colors and patterns featured on the cover and pages are vibrant and cheerful, and they complement the photos of food very well. Even if you don't feel like cooking, this book is great to thumb through because it's nice to look at.
This book features a glossary to help you understand the various Japanese ingredients, and the author even helps solve your shopping woes by providing alternative ingredients to items you might not be able to find in your market (although most of what's in the book should be found in the Asian food aisle at any major grocer). There's even a list of Web sites that sell many of the ingredients used in the recipes, should you be at a complete loss at your local supermarket.
On the purely physical side, "Let's Cook Japanese Food!" is a book with beautiful art direction. The colors and patterns featured on the cover and pages are vibrant and cheerful, and they complement the photos of food very well. Even if you don't feel like cooking, this book is great to thumb through because it's nice to look at.
November 25, 2013
Love it! So nostalgic. Let's Cook Japanese Food! has quite a bit of Japanese home-style recipes, just what I've been looking for. The recipes are easy to follow. The beginning has an "Ingredients and Equipment" section, which actually seems pretty helpful for a broad spectrum of people with varying degrees of familiarity of Japanese ingredients. This section shows how to achieve an authentic Japanese home-style flavor using ingredients found at your local market, which is super handy if you don't have an Asian market nearby or don't want to spend a fortune at your local Asian market (^_^)...like me...who always goes overboard.
Don't get me wrong, while I really like this cookbook because it highlights a lot of dishes that are very familiar and nostalgic to me, it is a pretty standard, fairly basic book. If you're looking for more advanced dishes served outside the dinner table, this probably isn't the book for you. And unlike most Japanese cookbooks I've come across, there actually isn't a Bento section.
Don't get me wrong, while I really like this cookbook because it highlights a lot of dishes that are very familiar and nostalgic to me, it is a pretty standard, fairly basic book. If you're looking for more advanced dishes served outside the dinner table, this probably isn't the book for you. And unlike most Japanese cookbooks I've come across, there actually isn't a Bento section.
July 5, 2009
After reading Bento Box in the Heartland, I wanted to try some Japanese cooking. I made the onigiri from that book, and found this Japanese cookbook while browsing the book shop. It has a lot of different recipes, all the type of thing home cooks really make in Japan. I just tried the recipe for Okaasan no Potato Sarada (My MIL's Potato Salad). It is fabulous. I love the idea that there are Japanese adaptations of food from other countries, who knew?
I'll try a few more things, including her instructions for making rice the Japanese way. I do wish there was a photograph of every dish, that is helpful for me (my only criticism so far).
I'll try a few more things, including her instructions for making rice the Japanese way. I do wish there was a photograph of every dish, that is helpful for me (my only criticism so far).
January 19, 2016
There are many dishes I miss from Japan. and would like to learn to make. I've searched for easy to follow recipes and had no luck. This is the first cookbook I've found that teaches how to cook real everyday Japanese food. Written by an American who married a Japanese man it explains things in an easy to follow way. I liked that she includes substituion ideas in case you can't find an exotic ingredient. There are lots of color pictures and a guide to ingredients that you could use at the supermarket. A great book! Everything I've tried making from this book has worked.
March 16, 2008
Cooking as done in a regular Japanese household.
The author of the cookbook married a Japanese man and spent several years living in Japan where she was taught how to cook by her mother-in-law. The book is not just recipes, but is interspersed with stories about the recipes and about Japanese foods in general, making it a much more interesting read.
The author of the cookbook married a Japanese man and spent several years living in Japan where she was taught how to cook by her mother-in-law. The book is not just recipes, but is interspersed with stories about the recipes and about Japanese foods in general, making it a much more interesting read.
August 5, 2008
I just browsed through and the recipes look fairly easy, don't have too many weird ingredients, and look like the sort of thing people probably make for dinner at home in Japan (I recognize several dishes--rolled sweet eggs, curry--not from "Japanese" restaurants but from reading manga).
They have the breaded pork cutlets my husband loves--I'll definitely have to try that recipe!
They have the breaded pork cutlets my husband loves--I'll definitely have to try that recipe!
November 26, 2008
I enjoyed this cookbook b/c it is how to cook homestyle Japanese food, and it's from the perspective of a non-Japanese woman who married into a Japanese family and had to learn how to cook things for her husband. I'm really looking forward to cooking things from here when I have more money to spend on food, as her recipes are simple and straightforward.
December 9, 2011
This book is great for beginners. The recipes are pretty easy & the ingredients are pretty basic. I'm lucky enough to live near a Japanese market, so I just got the basic ingredients the author lists and started my journey to making Japanese food! The pictures are visually appealing--a bonus. ;) I definitely recommend this book.
November 13, 2020
Great book to learn how to cook Japanese food. I learned how to cook udon and Japanese stir-fry for the first time during the pandemic. However, it doesn't give you complete instructions like how to make the Japanese egg with the special yolk, so I had to find a video on YouTube to supplement. Overall really good book and easy to follow the instructions.
March 22, 2008
Easy-to-prepare. The recipes in this book can be incorporated in everyday meals, granted you have access to a Japanese market that carries the hard-to-find ingredients. Definitely healthy stuff, but I'd switch the canola oil to pure coconut oil (non-flavored) to reap the most benefits.
October 7, 2008
Yummy!
And simple and easy, you almost don't have to be a cook. Almost…
And simple and easy, you almost don't have to be a cook. Almost…
Want to read
January 29, 2011I am not absolutely convinced I would like Japanese food but my friend Amy wrote this so I definitely want to try something...
March 29, 2013
Love this book! Great recipies
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews