One week cooking from Japanese Cooking: Contemporary & Traditional

Japanese food is my favourite, favourite food. So when I was leafing through my cookbook stash for the next candidate for a 'one week cooking from', I was quite pleased when I decded it was time to do  Japanese Cooking: Contemporary and Traditional.

First up, Potstickers. Oh yes, little pillows of loveliness. I've made potstickers before, with fillings including gingery tofu (win) and tamarindy pumpkin puree (not so win). This was my first go with dehydrated soy mince, an ingredient I don't tend to use much because it doesn't really have much of a flavour of its own. But, as the potstickers prove, if you chuck enough ginger, soy sauce, shiitake and spring onions, even soy granules can become a deserving potsticker filling.

Next up, a couple of side dishes, including Sesame Potatoes. It looks a little like something that's been dragged out of a tar pit, no? You think I shouldn't have used black sesame seeds? You could be right. Still, they were lovely too, if a little damp. You think I shouldn't have left boiled spuds in their steamy pan after I finished cooking them? You may have another point.

Daikon and Tofu Pouches in Miso Soup? Don't mind if I do. 

This one came as a bit of a surprise: I like miso a lot, but this I just loved - truly more than the sum of its parts. The chewy tofu pouches, crisp daikon and sweet miso were such a nice combination, I could quite happily have put it in a pint glass and chugged it.

My next foray into Japanese Cooking was another revisit of a dish I've made more than once and in more than one different way: Tofu Steak. JCCT's version uses a mix of some of the classic Japanese flavourings: soy, mirin, sake, garlic and sesame. I cooked it up with some onigiri and spinach with a tahini dressing. The result was, to put it mildly, SO GOOD. So maybe it doesn't look amazing, but who cares? It's not going to stay on the plate long enough to bother anyone.

I also cooked Sukiyaki, but I haven't included a picture of it as it looked more like a Doctor Who villain than a dinner. The idea of sukiyaki appeals - slices veggies, tofu and noodles in a pot in their own individual little piles and cooked in a soy broth. I used, as the recipe called for, shirataki noodles, and I think that'r what through this dish off - the texture is just a little weird, like gristle or something. *Shudder*. That said, I only had half the ingredients the recipe asked for, so once again, my bad.

As I said, Japanese is my favourite food ever. My week cooking from Japanese Cooking: Contemporary and Traditional just made it even more favouriter.