1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (207 page)

Although the herb is commercially grown in Japan, and by a few boutique growers in the U.S., its cultivation is tricky. Wasabi requires an almost entirely consistent water temperature and takes years to mature, which explains why the fresh roots are difficult to find outside of Japan—where they are sold in grocery stores in pans of water—and quite expensive. And, perhaps, why the norm in most sushi restaurants has historically been a paste made of dried horseradish, dried mustard, and food coloring. It is a poor substitute for the vibrant, bracing, astringent, and yet addictive effects of the real thing.

Genuine wasabi can be found dried into a powder, which turns into the signature paste when combined with water. When starting with a fresh root, simply peeling, trimming, and grating it produces the superfine paste. In Japan, there’s a special grater just for this purpose, formed with a piece of sharkskin stretched tightly across a bamboo frame. Cooks run the root over the sharkskin, scraping together the finely ground paste that collects on the paddle.

Word to the wise: When first grated, the flavor of the fresh wasabi root is at its most powerful. Continued exposure to air weakens its heat.

Where:
In New York
, Masa, tel 212-823-9800,
masanyc.com
;
in New York, Los Angeles, and Honolulu
, Sushi Sasabune,
trustmesushi.com
and
sasabunenyc.com
.
Mail order:
For fresh wasabi root and wasabi powder, Real Wasabi, tel 877-492-7224,
realwasabi.com
; Pacific Coast Wasabi, tel 604-351-0969,
wasabia.com
; for sharkskin grater,
korin.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Washoku
by Elizabeth Andoh (2012);
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art
by Shizuo Tsuji (2012);
saveur.com
(search scallops with wasabi ginger; soba noodles with wasabi and shiitake mushrooms; wasabi mint granite).

Washoku
is the Japanese term for an aesthetic concept of complete kitchen and table harmony—including individual dishes, meals, and the way they are presented—and is the subject and title of an extraordinary cookbook written by Elizabeth Andoh. An American who in 1967 went to Japan as a student, she married a prominent Japanese businessman and made her life there, setting about studying the intricacies of the country’s food and culture before becoming a teacher and writer. Her beautifully illustrated, handsome book is graced with meticulously clear instructions on techniques, ingredients (including where to get them), and presentation, and should entice anyone seriously interested in understanding what Japanese food is all about. Making the recipes
and studying the book will greatly enhance readers’ experience and understanding of Japanese cuisine, whether at home or in restaurants. The recipes might even inspire inventive cooks to adapt Japanese methods and combinations to Western dishes.

As an introduction to the concept of washoku, Andoh presents its five basic principles. The first three concern the harmony of color (red, yellow, green, black, and white must be present for a dish to be considered balanced), flavor (salty, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy), and cooking method (simmering, broiling, frying, steaming). The fourth relates to the sensual nature of the food, meaning it must appeal to all five senses, not just taste and smell. The fifth principle is philosophical, with a basis in Buddhist teachings, and calls for proper appreciation of human labor and Mother Nature as joint providers of the meal.

More practically speaking, washoku will teach you how to cook perfect rice, find new types of noodles and vegetables to add to your repertoire, and prepare dishes—fragrant toasted rice in tea broth (
ocha-zuke
), red and white pickled radishes (
kohaku su-zuke
), citrus-and soy-glazed swordfish (
kajiki maguro no yuan yaki
), tangy seared chicken wings (
tori teba no su itame
), lemon-simmered kabocha squash (
kabocha no sawayaka ni
), and for dessert, poached peaches in lemon-ginger miso sauce (
hakuto no dengaku
), to name just a few—that are sure to become household favorites.

Further information:
Washoku
by Elizabeth Andoh (2005);
Kibo
by Elizabeth Andoh (2012);
Kansha
by Elizabeth Andoh (2010);
At Home with Japanese Cooking
by Elizabeth Andoh (1980); information on all aspects of Japanese cuisine is available at Andoh’s website,
tasteofculture.com
.

The apotheosis of bird on a stick.

Yaki
may mean grilled and
tori
may mean bird, but to describe yakitori simply as grilled chicken would be almost libelous. The tiny bamboo skewers of charcoal-broiled poultry, best savored at the counters of Japanese restaurants specializing in its preparation, are an apotheosis of the form. At its purest, yakitori is made with moistly succulent, dark leg and thigh meat, boneless and stripped of the skin. Marinated in a glaze of dark and light soy sauce, rock sugar, and the sweet cooking wine mirin, the chunks of chicken, sometimes along with gizzards, livers, and other organ meats, are threaded onto skewers alternating with snippets of scallions, tiny, whole sweet or hot green peppers, or asparagus tips, and cooked over hot coals until lightly charred and caramelized. The browned, salty-sweet morsels are eaten right off the skewers, sprinkled with a bit of aromatic
sansho
pepper powder or
shichimi
, a hot blend of seven spices, typically alongside a cold, crisp Japanese beer.

Deceptively simple, properly prepared yakitori can be a difficult treat to find, as all too often restaurants use white meat chicken to appeal to a broader clientele, sacrificing flavor in the process. Yakitori reaches total perfection, however, at the tiny, cramped Toricho in the Roppongi district in Tokyo. A fixture on the Ginza for seventy-three years, Toricho is now on its third generation of owner-cooks so devoted to their craft
that they used to close during the summer months, believing that refrigeration kills the flavor of chicken. At the ten-seat counter, yakitori variations are served in courses and might include skewers of grilled quail eggs, ginkgo nuts, mushrooms, and eggplant, with a final treat of sublime cubes of duck with scallions and a palate-cleansing
ochazuke
soup of green tea and rice (see
listing
).

Where:
In Tokyo
, Toricho, tel 81/3-3571-4650;
in New York
, Yakitori Totto, tel 212-245-4555,
tottonyc.com
.
Mail order:
for yakitori skewers and hibachi grills,
surlatable.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Japanese Grill
by Tadashi Ono and Harris Salat (2009);
The Essential New York Times Grilling Cookbook
(2014);
saveur.com
(search negima yakitori);
cookstr.com
(search chicken yakitori).
Special event:
Kurume Yakitori Festival, Kurume, Japan, September, tel 81/9-4238-1811,
kurumeyakitori.or.jp
.
See also:
Kebabs
;
Satay
.

Not too long ago, a mention of yuzu to Western diners might have gotten a puzzled look in return. But the mouth-puckeringly sour
Citrus junos
, long cherished in Japan and only slightly less so in the Himalayas and China, now appears on many Western menus, prized as it is for the sunny tanginess and lemon-grapefruit aroma it imparts to soups, sauces, salad dressings, and desserts. Now also cultivated in California, where it was first grown by Japanese immigrants in the nineteenth century, the yuzu looks much like a little, bright-yellow mandarin orange—but it is most valued for its knobby rind, which is pared off and slivered or grated over the dishes it enhances. The pungent juice, strained of its many seeds, is made into marinades for meats and into sauces like the soy-and mirin-based ponzu, the favored condiment for sashimi, while the pulp is usually simmered into jam.

The yuzu’s flavor is said to approximate a combination of lemon and lime juices, but that is only partially true, for it bears an extra punch of aroma, and a burnished, complex acidity that also evokes orange and grapefruit.

Because this fruit has a long growing season, stretching from late summer to midwinter, yuzu juice and rind most often appear fresh, but the juice can be purchased bottled or, like the shaved rind, frozen, during the rest of the year. Like the lemon in the West, the uses for yuzu in Japanese cuisine are seemingly endless, but appreciation of the fruit doesn’t end in the kitchen. In the Japanese custom honoring
toji
, the winter solstice, the ritual known as the
yuzuburo
involves adding several whole yuzus to a tub of hot water, so the bather can squeeze the yuzu juice onto his or her body while inhaling its nose-twitchingly sharp perfume, thus relaxing the mind and keeping winter illnesses at bay.

Where:
In New York
, Cagen, tel 212-358-8800,
cagenrestaurant.com
.
Mail order:
Melissa’s Produce, tel 800-588-0151,
melissas.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art
by Shizuo Tsuji (2012);
Washoku
by Elizabeth Andoh (2005);
epicurious.com
(search mushroom salad with yuzu dressing);
bonappetit.com
(search yuzu kosho);
saveur.com
(search grilled scallops with yuzu kosho vinaigrette; sencha sour).
Tip:
Look for firm fruit with no soft spots and a pronounced citrus aroma. Yuzu will keep up to two weeks at room temperature, and for a month in the refrigerator or freezer.

It’s hard to know which is the real draw in the Korean barbecue tradition—the succulent meats or the spicy side dishes.

Centuries before George Foreman introduced his “lean, mean grilling machine” to American shopping networks in the early 1990s, cooks across Korea were barbecuing thin, salty strips of beef to a gentle char on tabletop coals. Known as
bulgogi
(or
bool kogi
), from the Korean words for “fire” and “meat,” this Asian style of barbecue is cooked indoors as often as out, and derives the bulk of its flavor from a classic marinade of soy sauce, honey, sesame, scallions, and a generous quantity of garlic. Contrary to the “slow and low” American barbecue tradition, thinly sliced bulgogi is quick-cooked over searingly high heat atop a perforated, round piece of metal that covers the grill’s coals. Beyond the succulent, famously flavorful beef, marinated chicken, pork, tofu, shrimp, and squid are possible alternatives.

As is characteristic of Korean food, the protein comes with a host of accoutrements. Rice will always be present, of course, but so may the lettuce leaves or scallion pancakes that provide a wrapping for the meat, along with anywhere from five to twenty-five of the side dishes called
banchan.
These include the fiery chile paste
gochujang
for heat, the spicy fermented pickles or cabbage called kimchi (of which there are said to be more than two hundred variations) for sourness and crunch,
doenjang
(fermented soybean paste) for salt, and sliced fresh plum for a sweet, fruity tang.

Constructing plates with just the right balance is up to the diner—and in some barbecue joints, so is the actual cooking of the meat. Such is the case at Chicago’s legendary Korean barbecue house San Soo Gab San. (Its name means “mountain water valley mountain,” which is also the name of a mountain in North Korea beloved for its scenic views.) The restaurant keeps its coals lit until 5:00 a.m., making it a favorite of chefs just getting off work in the wee hours. In Los Angeles, home to a large and vibrant Korean community, it was only a matter of time before the passion for Korean barbecue merged with the food truck trend; and so it is that bulgogi trucks (called Kogi) now roam the city. As at all Korean grill restaurants, the beef, short ribs, and soowan galbi are also favorites.