Category Archives: Recipes

Beef, Japanese, Vegetables

Kabocha No Nimono Recipe (Braised Kabocha Pumpkin)

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Japanese pumpkin, braised in sake, sugar and soy sauce. An easy side dish, packed with lots of color and flavor.

kabocha no nimono

I was looking for some side dishes to serve with my Niku-jaga the other day when came across this dish. I remember having eaten it once, a while back with some friends but I had forgotten all about it until I saw this recipe online. I immediately wanted to make it because I love kabocha and pumpkins in general! Lucky thing, kabocha squash (or at least something very similar in shape and colour) are found in abundance at the local Kuching markets.

This dish is so easy to make, plus it really packs a lot of flavor! If you cannot handle too much sugar, try substituting some of the sugar with agave or a sugar substitute like Splenda. This dish would make a nice option for a holiday side dish if you’re looking for something different. And, it doesn’t take any room in your oven! What more could you ask for?

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Beef, Japanese

Niku-jaga Recipe (Japanese Meat and Potatoes)

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Niku-jaga is the Japanese equivalent of Western-style “meat and potatoes”. Just like its Western counterpart, it is total comfort food.

Niku-Jaga (Japanese Meat and Potatoes)

niku jaga

The first time I had this dish was at the kitchen of my graduate dorm in Hawaii (yes, that place AGAIN!). A Japanese friend of mine was making it and the smell was heavenly. She offered me a small bowl and it was sooo good. I shared it with another Japanese friend who lived next door to me and she was transported back to Japan. She then proceeded to make it within that week herself (but she used ground beef—remember we were poor graduate students!).

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Japanese, Tofu

How to Make Miso Soup From Scratch

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What Japanese meal would be complete without miso soup? Sure, you could make it from prepackaged stock but it’s more fun to do it from scratch!

Miso Soup From Scratch

miso soup from scratch

Updated 3 Dec 2009
Originally posted 10 March 2007

My son loves miso soup almost as much as he loves Mac and Cheese. Whenever we are at a Japanese restaurant, it’s so easy to feed him. Get him a bowl of miso soup and a bowl of rice. He would take that bowl of rice and proceed to dunk it all into the bowl of miso soup, treating it almost like rice soup! Then, in less than 10 minutes, he would’ve slurped up the whole bowl and many times, would ask us to get him another one. We always watched in bemusement because it’s so simple and so cheap (compared to our love for sushi which costs a gazillion times more!) to make. Happily I’ve learned to recreate miso soup at home for him.

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Fish, Japanese, Vegetables

Basic Dashi and Second Dashi

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Dashi is a simple broth that is a very important component to a lot of Japanese foods. The Japanese use dashi as a base for miso soups, noodle soups and as a liquid in many simmering braises.

Making Dashi

making dashi

We’ve been living in Kuching for a little over 3 months now. We’re settling in all right, getting to know the place and people. But we haven’t had a big party of guests over to our house yet, like we used to do almost weekly back in San Jose. We really wanted to invite our friend Paul (who welcomed us on our first day to Kuching) and his family over for a meal.

Annie mulled over the different menu options and eventually decided on a Japanese menu. Of course, there would have to be miso soup. She also wanted to do niku-jaga (meat and potatoes) dish. Both dishes call for dashi as part or most of the ingredients list.

The base of making dashi is the use of kombu/konbu (a dried piece of kelp seaweed) which is placed in cold water then heated to almost a boil. The other ingredient is katsuobushi (bonito flakes) which is added after taking the kombu out. These days, you can get handy instant dashis that you just add to water. But there is nothing like making your own dashi from scratch. And they are not very hard to make at all.

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