Paper pot soup

Now don’t get me wrong. I love sushi. In fact, I love Japanese food as a whole. But most people seem to believe that Japanese food is sushi, and sushi is Japanese food. I agree that the sushi is a global rage, and there’s nothing that I like more than a raw slice of tuna dipped in wasabi. But the point I am trying to make is that sushi is just one kind of dish.

I got talking about this the other day with a friend who has been dealing with Japanese cuisine. On my mind was Japanese finger food, which I thought was a genre waiting to be discovered in India. The friend was equally enthusiastic. Come and meet our new chef at the Sakura in Gurgaon, she said.

So I had a nice meeting with Hitoshi Shigaki, the master chef of Sakura in Gurgaon and at The Metropolitan in New Delhi. The chef, who is from the Kanto region of Japan and has a wide range of experience in and outside the country, agrees with me that there is more to Japanese cuisine than raw food. But he points out — and here I agree with him — that the Japanese have taught the world the art of eating raw fish and turned it into a cultural experience. Carpaccio, a thin slice of raw meat popular in Europe, for instance, doesn’t carry the same weight that sashimi does. And not surprisingly, Chef Shigaki describes sashimi as the “crowning glory” of a formal Japanese meal, even though it is one of the earlier courses.

Boiled soyabean pods

Japanese food is usually served in small portions — with a great stress on presentation. “Today, it has become a style statement. From raw fish to udon noodles, Japanese dishes have acquired a cult following,” he says.

And many of these dishes, he stresses, can be described as finger food — though purists, I suppose, would like to call them chopstick food. Take assorted tempuras. If there is one Japanese dish after sushi that has gained currency across the world, it is the tempura — deep-fried battered vege- tables, seafood and meat.

Chef Shigaki points out that though it’s fried, the tempura is surprisingly light and fresh — and not the least bit heavy and greasy. Traditionally, tempuras were fleetingly dipped in and out of hot sesame oil, which gave the food a light touch. The cooking style, the chef stresses, gets the best flavour out of a range of ingredients from prawns and bean curd to sweet potato, lotus stem and eggplant.

Edamame, which is a baby soybean pod served whole, is a wonderful kind of finger food. The pods are boiled, and then served with light seasoning. Another dish that I enjoyed was boiled cod fish marinated with white soy bean paste, mirin and sake. The cod had been cut into small pieces — so that you could pick them up easily with chopsticks if you wished to. The texture of the cod was soft, and the sauces were light and flavoured.

“The most striking aspect of Japanese cuisine is the remarkable diversity of aromas and flavours and way of cooking that it brings to the table,” says the chef. And that’s true — for the food encompasses a wide variety of cooking styles, right from raw and grilled to sautéed and deep-fried. Raw food includes salads which are eaten as appetisers and grilled includes fish dishes such as salmon shioyaki or skewered yakitori. Tempuras are deep-fried, and the simmered dish of kamisuki nabe, which is a paper pot soup, is a delicacy served with finger food.

Boiled cod with white soyabean paste, mirin and sake

Indeed, the ka-misuki nabe is a great experience. The bowl for the soup is made out of paper, and the liquid keeps the paper from burning. Trust the Japanese, I said to myself as I took a spoonful, to find ways of serving even something as basic as a soup in an exotic fashion.

There are different kinds of furai — dishes fried with a coat of bread crumb batter. The asupara bacon furai, for instance, is an interesting dish of bacon and asparagus, coated with flour and crumb, and then deep fried. And if you like your eggs, there is nothing like the Japanese rolled omelettes — thin strips of egg with a sweet touch. “This isn’t your everyday omelette,” the chef explains. “It’s made in very thin layers, one upon another, until the omelette is about an inch thick. It is then chilled and sliced. Its delicate sweet taste marks it for a special treatment.”

As the omelette tells us, the Japanese do everything in style. Truly, nothing underlines this more than their cuisine. Bring out the sushi and the sashimi, I say. But let’s not forget the tempura and the yakitori. To say nothing of the omelette.        

Asupara bacon furai

Ingredients
(To serve four)

• 4 fresh asparagus • 4 bacon slices • 15gm refined flour • 20gm panko (Japanese bread crumb) • 2 eggs • 4 bamboo sticks Vegetable oil, to fry • Salt, to taste • Pepper, to taste

Method

Peel the asparagus from the bottom. Boil it and keep it aside. Roll the bacon on the boiled asparagus. Insert a bamboo stick in the centre of the asparagus and bacon roll. Coat it with refined flour then dip it in beaten egg. Cover with the panko. Deep fry till it turns golden in colour. Cut from the centre and serve.

Tamago yaki

Ingredients
(to serve four)

• 4 eggs • 3tbs dashi soup stock •2tbs sugar

Method

Beat the eggs in a bowl. Add the soup stock and sugar in the egg and mix well. Heat a frying pan on medium heat. Oil the pan. Pour a scoop of egg mixture in the pan and spread over the surface. Let it cook until half done and roll the egg. Oil the empty part of the pan and pour another scoop of egg mixture under the rolled egg. Cook until half done and roll the egg again so that the omelette becomes thicker. Cook until done. Cool, and cut into one-inch thick pieces.