Gyūdon - 牛丼

Gyūdon, literally 'beef bowl', is fast food Japanese-style. Salty and cheap, a fresh bowl of rice topped with saucy beef and onions will set you back 299yen (399yen for the large size) on a counter stool at one of the many chain eateries to be found near any train station. It's not quite as bad for you as a Mega Mac, but just like its friends at McDonalds you can make a much healthier version at home by using better quality meat, swapping white for wholegrain, cutting back on the oil and adding some vegetables.

I've tried a few different recipes over the years, some with added ginger, sugar, sake or white wine, but this bare bones recipe is what I usually use. If you want to add vegetables stir fry them at the beginning, remove, cook the beef and then add the veggies again right at the end to warm through. They get a bit dark and salty otherwise. Mushrooms or capsicums are really nice with this, as is a side salad with sesame dressing.

Recipe: Gyūdon - 牛丼
Serves 2

100grams super thin sliced beef strips
1 medium onion, cut into half moon slices
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup mirin
1/2 cup water
dash of sesame oil
rice to serve
pickled ginger (optional)

• Saute the onions in the sesame oil over medium heat.
  
  
• Add the beef, stir it around and add the soy sauce, mirin and water.
  
  
• Cover with a drop lid or piece of silver foil, then go and do something else for 10 minutes.
  
  
• Spoon the beef and onions over a bowl of warm rice with a little of the juice, adding some pickled ginger on the side if you like it.
  

Inari Sushi - 稲荷ずし

Do you ever have a kitchen inferiority complex? A technique or recipe that sounds so complicated or delicate you are forever putting off facing it, 'until I'm a better cook/more experienced/have more room/buy more expensive equipment/have an expert to hold my hand'?

A lot of people are in awe of the souffle, gelatin, or making creamy sauces. For me, it's always been baking with yeast. I know, people do it all the time, but somehow I fear the yeast will sense my nervous touch and refuse to rise. I don't mind eating my mistakes, but what do you do with a lump of flour?

Recently I've discovered my Japanese food fear - sushi rice. Something about the Japanese reverence for the skills of sushi chefs, the specialised equipment recommended and the heated internet discussions about the correct amount of vinegar has convinced me that the task of cooking some rice in a rice cooker and seasoning it with vinegar, salt and sugar is beyond me. Generally I believe in learning through making mistakes, and I've happily jumped in and butchered plenty of other Japanese dishes, but we're all a little illogical sometimes.

So for now I am gently skirting the issue, making faux sushi in all its varieties, reading up on the subject and, of course, sampling a lot of restaurant sushi to get a "feel" for it. The feel is very important.

This week's confidence booster was inari sushi pouches stuffed with a takikomi gohan mixture instead of the usual sushi rice. Inari sushi, pronounced inarizushi in Japanese, is named after the Shinto god of rice and is a homey sushi variation more comfortable in a bento box than a fine restaurant.

Most often filled with plain white sushi rice, I also see a lot of rice mixed with sesame seeds, furikake, seaweed or some thinly sliced vegetables. You could use whatever you like, but the rice should be the dominant taste.

Recipe: Inari Sushi with Carrot, Enoki and Kiriboshi Daikon
Makes 12 fully stuffed pouches.

1.5 cups of brown rice
2.5 cups of water
1 piece dried konbu
3 TBSP sake
2 tsp. mirin
2 tsp. shoyu
Carrot, grated or peeled into thin slices
Enoki mushrooms, cut into short lengths
Kiriboshi daikon (dried, shredded daikon, written as 切り干し大根)
12 ready made tofu pouches

• If you've got time, put the water and konbu in the rice cooker to soak ahead of time.
  
• Add the rice, seasonings and vegetables and press start.
  
• When the rice cooker says you're done, taste the rice. Adding other ingredients can confuse even the smartest rice cooker. You may need more time, more liquid or both.
  
• Rinse the tofu pouches in hot water, gently squeeze them dry and fill with rice mixture (I used a spoon for this, pressing down with the back to pack the rice into the corners).
  
• Sprinkle with sesame seeds and enjoy!
  

(I filled my sushi up to the top because it looks pretty, but if you want yours to look more like this just fill them about two thirds of the way, close the pouch and arrange flap side down.)

I found conflicting advice about heating and rinsing the tofu pouches. Some advised boiling the sealed package to keep in the flavoring liquid, others rinsing and squeezing the tofu as you would aburaage. For the sake of science, I tried it both ways and the rinse and squeeze is a) far easier to handle, b) retains the flavor just fine, c) tastes and feels a lot more like every other inari sushi I've had in Japan. You could probably skip the rinse, but definitely squeeze well.

Inari sushi pouches generally come pre-seasoned in a sweetish stock. If you're using plain aburaage, you may want to try one of these, stock recipes.

What I love about inari sushi is the way it fits perfectly into my bento box (a bento design feature, I wonder?) and neatly into my mouth. Even when I work up my nerve for maki sushi, I'm pretty sure I'll spill it all over me.

"A-I-U-E-Onigiri!" - おにぎり

"A-I-U-E-Onigiri!" - so goes the happy tune the onigiri case at my supermarket plays on loop, and so goes my head now that I've started thinking about onigiri. Over and over and over again.

Onigiri (also known as omusubi) are a packed lunch and conbini staple, easily over-throwing that western champion, the sandwich, as Convenience Food #1. Just like the sandwich they're easy to wrap and carry, no heating or cutlery is required and you can buy them almost anywhere, with a huge variety of fillings, for around $1.50. Plus, they're made of rice. The sandwich never stood a chance.

There are a million and one guides to making onigiri on the web, using moulds, your hands or plastic wrap to pack and shape them. I usually use a plastic mould I bought at a local kitchenware store for around 200yen but the top has gotten lost somewhere in the flurry of hanami packing and unpacking.

This seemed like a good chance to read up on different techniques and go it alone. After a bit of research, I went with Maki's plastic wrap method and my memories of our swift-fingered riceball vendor in Taipei. I also found some step by step photos for using a mould or hand shaping here.

A cup of uncooked rice and a small salmon fillet, grilled and flaked, gave me four nicely sized onigri and a handful of leftover rice. You could probably get 6 onigiri with more fillings, or make some plain ones. I also tried sprinkling one of the onigiri with furikake - packets of flakes for flavoring cooked rice. In the past I'd mixed a little into the rice mixture before forming the balls, which added a nice salty touch, but I kept seeing photos of pretty onigiri coated in sprinkles or patterns. Blehgh. To me it was too salty and totally overpowered the salmon in the middle. Perhaps everyone else is using a milder kind of furikake.

Anyway, over seasoning aside, the instructions were really easy to follow and produced some delicious onigiri. The next day I put the leftovers in the fry pan until the sides were browned and called it yaki-onigiri.



Mmmmm, warm and crunchy. Yaki-onigiri are usually basted with a little soy sauce and grilled, and they're a great side to order at a yakitori place when you're drowning in meat.

I'll probably buy another mould, if only so as not to waste plastic wrap, but it's good to know that even my uncoordinated hands can shape an onigiri without one. There are no excuses now.

(For some impossibly cute onigiri presentation ideas, try a search for onigiri on flick: hearts, faces, hello kitty, and blue ones!)

Rice with bamboo shoots - たけのこ ご飯

I think I've mentioned before how much I like Yasuko-san's Home Cooking, for the simple home-style recipes and cute step by step illustrations. I often check back to her daily food diary on the front page for inspiration, and this recipe for Takenoko Gohan, rice cooked with bamboo shoots, recently caught my eye.

Bamboo is in season at the moment, and whole shoots fresh from the ground, like these, have starting popping up at the local supermarket.

Unfortunately, they need to be pre boiled with rice bran and all sorts of things before you can use them. Since I was both lazy and unable to find instructions that didn't involve a pressure cooker, I bought my bamboo shoot pre-boiled. It was incredibly soft and squishy and smelt a little like tahini. Look for something like this:



or in a plastic bag, labelled たけのこ水煮. If you want this year's spring crop (and trust me, you do!) make sure the kanji 新 is involved somewhere.

Fresh bamboo is nothing like the canned shoots I used to buy in Australia, which seem stringy and hard in comparison, and this simple, fresh and crunchy dish was a pleasant reminder that the days of weary winter produce are over. Now if only the weather would catch up.

Ochazuke - お茶漬け

Literally 'soaked in tea', ochazuke is perfect comfort food. Freshly brewed green tea poured over warmed up rice and a few favorite toppings.

From the references to ochazuke I've seen in Japanese manga and popular culture, I have an image of it as the eggs on toast of Japan. Simple, nourishing food prepared by little old men and students in tiny bedsits, when you can't be bothered cooking but you want something hot, or when your stomach is worn out on rich, extravagant meals and you long for something subtle, almost bland.

When my family hosted some Japanese exchange students a few years ago they brought packets of instant ochazuke (freeze dried toppings and powdered seasoning similar to cup-a-soup) in their luggage, insurance against our unfamiliar cuisine.

I like to make mine with flaked salmon and nori, occasionally tossing in some leftover mushrooms or wakame seaweed, but the variations are almost endless. A brief internet search gave this list of possible toppings: tsukemono (pickles), umeboshi, arare (tiny rice crackers), bonito flakes, jako (tiny fish), nori, salted salmon, wasabi, wakame, mitsuba (a type of herb), furikake (rice seasoning packets), sesame seeds, tarako (fish roe), mentaiko (more fish roe), shiokara (pickled seafood), nori no tsukudani (nori seaweed paste or preserve), green onions, omelette, green peas, cubed tofu and various other fresh fish. Not counting more fusion suggestions like 'steak' or 'last night's stir-fry' that's at least 20 recommended toppings, with umeboshi, rice crackers, nori and pickles the most commonly suggested.

For the tea I use genmai-cha, green tea with toasted rice kernels, because I think it has a really deep, savoury flavor that works well in this dish. You can use whatever kind of green tea you fancy (hojicha, sencha, etc) but avoid powdered matcha.

Recipe: Ochazuke - お茶漬け
Serves 1

Rice (I use brown, but white short grain is more traditional)
Mug of hot green tea (any kind but matcha)
Salmon fillet, grilled or sauteed with lots of salt** and flaked into tiny pieces
Shredded nori
Soy sauce
Sesame Oil

• If using leftover rice, warm it up a little.
  
• Arrange the salmon (or toppings of your choice) on top of the rice.
  
• Pour the green tea over the rice until it's just covered.
  
• Season with a dash of soy and a sprinkling of sesame oil. (optional)
  
• Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.
  
• Sprinkle with nori and serve.
  

The most important thing is keep experimenting to find out what you like. Taste the broth with just tea, with different kinds of tea, with soy, salt, and different combinations of toppings. Some people also use hot water or dashi instead of tea.

After reading everybody else's favourites, I'm looking forward to trying some crunchy little arare in my next bowl of ochazuke but it will have to wait until I get back from Taiwan. I'm flying out tonight with my friend Christina for five days of sightseeing, beach lolling and culinary adventures. My Japanese friends who've been can't stop raving about the food and I'm dying to try something new, including perhaps a local delicacy: snake. After that, I'll probably be craving a nice simple bowl of rice and tea again.

** In Japan you can buy fresh salmon that has been soaked in salt (often labeled 甘口(sweet mouth) ) Perhaps, like me, you have already bought some by mistake and ruined another dish. If you're using this, you don't need to add more salt at cooking time.