buta no kakuni

Ok, so you're not sick of Japanese food... good, cause I'm on a roll! Tonight: Buta no Kakuni - braised pork belly! But rather than spend hours describing how delicious dinner was, I'm going to review the cookbook I used for the recipe.

Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art was originally written in 1982 by Shizuo Tsuji. At the time, Japanese food was relatively unknown in the US, especially outside of a few coastal cities. Many of the key ingredients were nearly impossible to get. Sushi was still exotic. Yet there it is, uncompromising in it's use of traditional ingredients and chock-full of great information. The book is both insightful into Japanese culture and extremely useful to anyone interested in learning how to cook Japanese food. The first section discusses ingredients, techniques, tools, and much more. This isn't a typical five page list of basic things you need in your pantry, as with most other cookbooks. No, this is 340 pages of detailed and carefully researched information, including six pages on the art of simmering, 15 pages on how to select and cut fish, and a discussion of every ingredient used in the book. I haven't read the whole thing, but whenever I need answers quickly, I know where to look.

The second section includes another 100 pages full of recipes. Each includes a philosophical explanations about why certain techniques are used and the purpose of the key ingredients. There are only a few pages of color photography at the beginning of the book, but you really don't miss pictures as your thumbing through recipes. Most pages have clear illustrations detailing the many critical techniques used - which makes the book seem less "dense" and a pleasure to read. The only possible reproach I have is that this book doesn't have any "modern" Japanese recipes. This is traditional food. But in my mind this is hardly an issue, because it teaches you the essentials, educates you about ingredients, and you have the entire internet to find whatever other recipe you might want. 

I'm going to steal a line from an Amazon review I just read. "At it's worst, it is impressive".  If you have any desire to learn Japanese cooking, this is where you should start. As for the pork belly braised in soy, dashi, mirin, sugar and sake - this picture doesn't do it justice. It's a perfect balance of sweet and salty, with plenty of umami, whatever the hell that is. Delicious!