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If you ever done some research, read a book, or watched a movie about Japan then you have heard of some of the various Japanese food. I'm sure you have no idea what most of it is, thus I've made the Japanese food, quick reference page. I put all my favorites and all my least favorites.
My FAVORITE Japanese Dish: Okonomiyaki, (お好み焼き) Okonomi means "what you like" or "what you want", and yaki means "grilled" or "cooked" thus, the name of this dish means "cook what you like, the way you like". The batter is made of flour, grated yam, water or dashi, eggs and shredded cabbage, and usually contains other ingredients such as Welsh onion, meat, octopus, squid, shrimp, vegetables, or cheese. It is so incredibly good when you cover it in Okonomiyacki sauce and mayonaise. But it is even more fun to cook!
Every day in Japan thousands upon thousands of bento boxes are fixed and taken to school, to work, on a hike or where anyone is likely to get hungry. A bento box (弁当 or べんとう) is a box divided into compartments with different kinds of food. This is basically a portable lunch. Mostly it consists of fish, meat, pickles, eggs and vegetables along with rice and a sour plum. These are also served cold. The bento boxes will usually be fixed by mothers for their children going off to school and consist of pretty much the same kinds of things. I have a cute little Totoro Bento!
樹梨: Bento's are the greatest! During lunch time, my classmates like to compare who has the better Bento lunch. It's like who ever's mother put in the tastiest treat is the girl who is the most loved.
Takoyaki (たこ焼き or 蛸焼) is a popular Japanese dumpling made of batter, diced octopus, tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled ginger, konnyaku, and green onion, topped with okonomiyaki sauce. It is very good and fun to make.
Japanese curry rice (カレー) is served in a large soup bowl, with white rice on the left side and the curry on the right side. The curry sauce contains onions, carrots, and potatoes as well as pork, beef and chicken. It is my second favorite dish and is incredibly good!
Ramen (ラーメン or 拉麺) is a Japanese noodle dish of Chinese origins. It is served with a variety of toppings, such as sliced pork, seaweed, kamaboko, green onions and even corn. I'm getting tired of eating it, but it is still pretty good.
Udon (うどん; 饂飩) is a type of thick wheat-based noodle popular in Japanese cuisine. It usually served hot as noodle soup in a mildly flavored broth, in its simplest form as bukkake udon, served in kakejiru made of dashi, Japanese soy sauce, and mirin. It is usually topped with thinly chopped scallions. --->
Sashimi (刺身) is a Japanese delicacy primarily consisting of very fresh raw seafoods, thinly sliced into pieces about 1 inch wide and served with only a dipping sauce and a simple garnish like shiso and shredded daikon radish. It is pretty good when covered in soy sauce.
Oden, (おでん), is a type of stew served that has a lot of fish and some strange vegetables. I don't like it because it's soggy, but it's a very popular winter dinner and can be found at almost all Convenient Stores.
Miso soup ((味噌) is a traditional Japanese soup consisting fermented bean paste. It is served almost as much as rice, and it is not very good. Again, with my opinion, most Japanese would highly disagree.--->
Tempura (てんぷら or 天麩羅) refers to classic Japanese deep fried batter-dipped seafood and vegetables. Small dry bite-sized pieces of food are dipped in flour, then in batter, and then deep fried for 2-3 minutes. Often cooked in this fashion are shrimp, squid, shiitake mushroom, sweet potato, yam, kabocha squash, burdock, carrot, a wide variety of fish, and many others.
Yakitori (焼き鳥 やきとり) is a Japanese type of skewered chicken. It's usage refers to any sort of beef, pork, fish, seafood or vegetable kebab, which get skewered. The sauce is applied on the skewered meat and is grilled until delicately cooked and is served with the tare sauce as a dip. It's very tasty.
In simplest terms, Tamago is egg. Here is Yaki Tamagi, (卵焼き) it's just a different style of cooking the egg. They are in everyone's bento and pretty tasty.
Nori (海苔) is the Japanese name for various edible seaweed species of the red alga Porphyra. It is also Julie's worst enemy. Nori is commonly used as a wrap for sushi and rice balls.
**UPDATE** Julie LOVES nori after 5 months.
I've been in many arguments whether or not Hambagu os the same as Hamburger. The Hambagu (ハンバーグ) lost the bun and is covered in some fancy pants sauce but it tastes like a hamburger to me.
Tonkatsu (豚カツ) consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet one to two centimeters thick, and is generally served with shredded cabbage. Very good especially when covered in sauce.
Mochi (餅) is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. In Japan it is traditionally made in a ceremony called mochitsuki. While eaten year-round, mochi is a traditional food for the Japanese New Year and commonly sold and eaten at that time.
Omurice (オムライス) is a contemporary Japanese dish consisting of an omelet made with fried rice. The dish typically consists of fried rice wrapped in a thin sheet of fried egg. The ingredients that flavor the rice vary. Often, the rice is fried with various meats. I like Omurice.
Gyōza (ギョーザ) is a kind of Chinese dumpling, widely popular in Japan. This dumpling consists of a ground meat and/or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough, which is then sealed by crimping.
Soba, 蕎麦, is a thin Japanese noodle made from buckwheat. It is served either chilled with a dipping sauce, or in hot broth as a noodle soup. It's pretty popular, and it's not bad.
Sukiyaki: 鋤焼, or more commonly すき焼き is a Japanese dish that consists of meat slowly cooked or simmered at the table, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in a shallow iron pot in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and mirin. Before being eaten, the ingredients are usually dipped in a small bowl of raw, beaten eggs.
Karage, 唐揚げ, is Japanese-style fried meat, most often soy-flavored chicken. Small pieces of chicken are marinated in a tangy mix of soy sauce, garlic and ginger, deep-fried and finished with a slice of lemon or mayonnaise to dip it in.
Sōmen, 素麺 or そうめん) are very thin, white Japanese noodles made of wheat flour. The noodles are usually served cold and are less than 1.3 mm in diameter. Sōmen are usually served cold with a light flavored dipping broth or tsuyu, and noodles are dipped into the sauce, not poured over like other foods. The sauce is usually a katsuobushi based sauce that can be flavored with Welsh onion, ginger, or myoga. In the summer time sōmen chilled with ice is a popular meal to help stay cool.
Nigiri-zushi (握り寿司). The most typical form of sushi in restaurants. It consists of an oblong mound of sushi rice that is pressed between the palms of the hands, with a speck of wasabi and a thin slice of topping called (neta) draped over it. This is possibly bound with a thin band of nori, and is often served in pairs.
Temaki (手巻き) is a large cone-shaped piece of nori on the outside and the ingredients spilling out the wide end. A typical temaki is about ten centimeters long, and is eaten with fingers because it is too awkward to pick it up with chopsticks. For optimal taste and texture, Temaki must be eaten quickly after being made because the nori cone soon absorbs moisture from the filling and loses its crispness and becomes somewhat difficult to bite.
Oshizushi (押し寿司 ) is a block-shaped piece formed using a wooden mold, called an oshibako. The chef lines the bottom of the oshibako with the toppings, covers them with sushi rice, and then presses the lid of the mold down to create a compact, rectilinear block. The block is removed from the mold and then cut into bite-sized pieces.
Makizushi (巻き寿司). A cylindrical piece, formed with the help of a bamboo mat, called a makisu (巻き簾). Makizushi is generally wrapped in nori, but can occasionally be found wrapped in a thin omelette, sesame seeds, cucumber, or parsley. There are hundreds of different kinds of Makisushi, and it would be really difficult to name them all.
Umeboshi (梅干) are a type of traditional Japanese pickle, known as tsukemono, and are very popular in Japan. They are usually round, and vary from unwrinkled to very wrinkled. They taste salty, and are extremely sour due to high citric acid content. Umeboshi are traditionally made by harvesting ume fruit when they ripen around June and packing them in barrels with salt. I absolutely hate Umeboshi with a firey and burning passion.
Mapo doufu (Chinese: 麻婆豆腐) is a popular Chinese dish that has become part of the Japanese cuisine. It is a combination of tofu and minced meat, usually pork, in a spicy bean-based sauce, sometimes with other ingredients such as water chestnuts, onions or wood ear fungus.
Japanese Chinese cuisine, (中華料理) is a unique style of Chinese cuisine served by Chinese restaurants in Japan. Many of these restaurants are Japanese-owned, though there are some which are operated by overseas Chinese or Japanese of Chinese descent.Though formerly Chinese cuisine would have been primarily available in Chinatowns such as those in port cities of Kobe, Nagasaki, or Yokohama, Japanese-style Chinese cuisine is now commonly available all over Japan. As Japanese restaurants are often specialized to offer only one sort of dish, cuisine is focused primarily on dishes found within three distinct types of restaurants: Ramen restaurants, Dim sum houses, and standard Chinese-style restaurants.
Kimchi, also spelled gimchi, kimchee, or in Japan, Kimuchi. It is a traditional Korean fermented dish made of seasoned vegetables. The Japanese absolutely love it! And they have mixed it with their own tastes of rice and other Japanese foods. Kimchi is the most common Korean banchan eaten with rice along with other banchan dishes.
Taiyaki (鯛焼き) is literally "baked sea bream," is a Japanese fish-shaped cake. The most common filling is red bean paste that is made from sweetened azuki beans. Other common fillings are custard, chocolate, and cheese. Some shops even sell taiyaki with okonomiyaki or a sausage inside.Taiyaki is made using taiyaki or regular pancake or waffle batter. The batter is poured into a fish-shaped mold for each side. The filling is then put on one side and the mold is closed. It is then cooked on both sides until golden brown.
Hayashi rice (ハヤシライス) is a dish popular in Japanese 'family' restaurants. It usually contains beef, onions, and button mushrooms, in a thick demi-glace sauce which often contains red wine and tomato sauce. This sauce is served atop or alongside boiled rice. The sauce is sometimes topped with a drizzle of fresh cream. It resembles Japanese curry and usually appears on menus alongside curry.
Green tea ice cream (抹茶アイスクリーム) is a Japanese ice cream flavor. Okay so this isn't really a food, but no other country out of East Asia had such a funky taste. This flavor is extremely popular in Japan with almost all ice cream manufacturers producing a version of it. It is green in color.
Taco rice (タコライス, takoraisu?) is a Japanese dish, a popular example of Okinawan cuisine. It consists of taco meat served on a bed of rice and lettuce, often served together with tomato, cucumber, cheese and topped off with salsa. Occasionally, it might be served in a tortilla roll (with rice, of course).
A katsudon (カツ丼) is a popular Japanese food; it is a bowl of rice topped with a deep-fried pork cutlet, egg, and condiments. Variations include sauce katsudon, demi katsudon, shio katsudon, shōyu-dare katsudon, and miso katsudon (a favorite in Nagoya, I got to eat while I was there). Beef and chicken can substitute for the pork. It has become a modern ritual tradition for Japanese students to eat katsudon the night before taking a major test or school entrance exam. This is because "katsu" is a homophone of the verb 勝つ katsu, meaning "to win" or "to be victorious".
Gyūdon (牛丼), often literally translated into English as beef bowl, is a Japanese dish consisting of a bowl of rice topped with beef and onion simmered in a mildly sweet sauce flavored with soy sauce and mirin.
Oyakodon (親子丼), literally "parent-and-child donburi", is a Japanese donburi, or rice bowl dish, in which chicken, egg, green onion, and other ingredients are all simmered together in a sauce and then served on top of a large bowl of rice. The name of the dish, parent and child donburi, is a poetic reflection of the fact that both chicken and egg are used in the dish.
Unagi (うなぎ) is the Japanese word for freshwater eels, especially the Japanese eel, Anguilla japonica. Unagi are a common ingredient in Japanese cooking. Unagi is served as part of unadon, a donburi dish with sliced eel served on a bed of rice. Unagi has a distinct taste and is quite expensive. This distinct taste is called deliciousness.
Shabu-shabu (Japanese: しゃぶしゃぶ), also spelled syabu-syabu, is a Japanese variant of hot pot. The dish is related to sukiyaki in style, where both use thinly sliced meat and vegetables, and usually served with dipping sauces. However, it is starkly different in taste. The dish is traditionally made with thinly sliced beef, though modern preparations sometimes use pork, crab, chicken, duck, or lobster.
Korokke (コロッケ) is a Japanese deep fried dish originally related to a French dish, croquette. Korokke is made by mixing cooked chopped meat, seafood, or vegetables with mashed potato or white sauce, rolling it in wheat flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs, then deep frying this until brown on the outside. Korokke are usually shaped like a flat patty. And those using beef would be called beef korokke, those using shrimp, ebi korokke, etc.. Those using white sauce may also be called Cream Korokke.
Fugu (ふぐ） is the Japanese word for pufferfish and is also a Japanese dish prepared from the meat of pufferfish or porcupinefish of the genus Diodon. Because pufferfish is lethally poisonous if prepared incorrectly, fugu has become one of the most celebrated and notorious dishes in Japanese cuisine. Pufferfish contains lethal amounts of the poison tetrodotoxin in the internal organs. Therefore, only specially licensed chefs are allowed to prepare and sell fugu to the public. However, a number of people die every year from consuming improperly prepared fugu. The poison, a sodium channel blocker, paralyzes the muscles while the victim stays fully conscious, and eventually dies from asphyxiation.
Hiyayakko (冷奴) is one of popular tofu-based Japanese cuisine during summer season. It is a chilled tofu block with the toppings.
Chawanmushi (lit tea cup (Chawan) steam, "steamed in a tea bowl") is an egg custard dish found in Japan that uses the seeds of ginkgo. Unlike many other custards, it is usually eaten as an appetizer. The custard consists of an egg mixture flavored with soy sauce, dashi, and mirin, with numerous ingredients such as shitake mushroom, kamaboko, and boiled shrimp placed into a tea-cup-like container.
My absolute favorite Japanese sweet is the Manju. Manju (饅頭) is a famous, popular, and traditional Japanese confection. There are many varieties of manju, but most have an outside made from flour, rice powder and buckwheat and an inside filled with red bean paste. The bean paste is made from boiled azuki beans and sugar. They are boiled together again and kneaded.
Kakigōri (かき氷) is a Japanese dessert made from shaved ice flavored with syrup. Popular flavors include: strawberry, lemon, green tea, grape, melon, "blue-hawaii" and colorless syrup. Some shops provide colorful varieties by using two or more different syrups. To sweeten Kakigōri, condensed milk is often poured on top of it. It is nearly identical to a snow cone but can have a slightly finer consistency and a spoon is almost always used. In addition to the streets, Kakigori is also sold in festivals, convenience stores, coffee shops, restaurants; during the hot summer months Kakigōri is sold virtually everywhere in Japan.
Possibly the foulest food in the entire world is Natto. (It;s so bad, that I even included it on my introduction page) Nattō (納豆) is a traditional Japanese food made from fermented soybeans, popular especially at breakfast. A rich source of protein, nattō and the soybean paste miso formed a vital source of nutrition in feudal Japan. For some, nattō can be an acquired taste due to its powerful smell, strong flavor, and sticky consistency. The first thing noticed by the uninitiated after opening a pack of nattō is the very strong smell, akin to strong cheese. Stirring the nattō produces lots of spiderweb-like strings. The nattō itself has a nutty, savory, somewhat salty flavor that belies its odor. The materials and tools needed to produce nattō (soybeans and straw) were commonly available in Japan since ancient times, so the discovery could have happened as early as in the Jōmon period. But I like this story. Yoshiie Minamoto was on a battle campaign in northeastern Japan when one day, they were attacked while boiling soybeans for their horses. They hurriedly packed up the beans, and did not open the straw bags until a few days later, at which time the beans had fermented. Or rotted, thank you very much. The soldiers ate it anyway, and liked the taste, so they offered some to Yoshiie, who also liked the taste.
Dango (団子) is a Japanese dumpling made from mochiko, related to mochi. It is sticky and filling. It is often served with green tea. Dango are eaten year-round, but the different varieties are traditionally eaten in given seasons. Three to four dango are often served on a skewer.
Nikujaga or nikujyaga (肉じゃ) is a Japanese dish of meat, potatoes and onion stewed in sweetened soy, sometimes with ito konnyaku and vegetables. Thinly sliced beef is the most common meat used, although mince is also popular. Pork is often used instead of beef in eastern Japan. It is one of the "mom's" dishes and many Japanese claim that they miss it if they don't eat it for a long period.
Kamaboko (蒲鉾) is a variety of Japanese processed seafood products, called surimi, in which various white fish are pureed, formed into distinctive loaves, and then steamed until fully cooked and firm in texture. The steamed loaves are then sliced and served unheated (or chilled) with various dipping sauces or sliced and included in various hot soups, one-dish meals, or noodle dishes. Kamaboko is typically sold in semicylindrical, Quonset hut-shaped loaves. Some kamaboko are made so that a slice looks like an object.
Teriyaki burger (テリヤキバーガー) refers to a variety of hamburger, created by Mos Burger in the year of 1973. According to the recipe, the tare is poured into the bread, in limited quantities and coupled with lettuce, endowing it with its strong, yet sweetish, flavour.
Ikura (いくら) - Salmon roe. Large reddish-orange individual spheres. Since salmon eggs are also used as bait, first-time sushi eaters who have experienced fishing may be taken aback when served Ikura.
A nikuman, (肉まん), is a Japanese food made from flour dough, and filled with cooked ground pork, beef, curry, or any imaginable ingredients. Nikuman are steamed and often sold as street food. From about August or September, through the winter months until roughly the beginning of April.
Raw horse meat is called sakura (桜) or sakuraniku (桜) because of its pink colour. It can be served raw as very chewy sashimi in thin slices dipped in soy sauce, often with ginger and onions added. In this case, it is called basashi (馬刺し). Fat, typically from the neck, is also found as basashi, though it is white, not pink.
Onigiri (御握り; おにぎり) is a snack of Japanese rice formed into triangle or oval shapes and wrapped in nori, edible seaweed. Traditionally, the onigiri is filled with umeboshi, salted salmon, katsuobushi, or any other salty or sour ingredient. In practice, pickled filling is used for preservation of the rice. Since the onigiri is one of the most famed and popular snacks in Japan, most convenience stores in Japan stock onigiri in many popular fillings and tastes. Specialized shops, called Onigiri-ya, offer handmade rice balls for take out. The Onigiri is Japan's answer to the Western world sandwich.
In Japanese cuisine, ikizukuri (生き作り is the preparation of sashimi from a living animal. Ikizukuri usually begins with the customer selecting, from a tank in the restaurant, the animal (shrimp, octopus, lobster) they wish to eat. The chef, almost always a sashimi chef who has undergone years of training and apprenticeship, takes the animal out of the tank and filets and guts it, but without killing the animal, which is served on a plate, sliced, with the heart still beating. Ikizukuri of fish consists of thin, sheet-like slices or finger-sized pieces garnished with lemon wedges, a decoration of ginger, or nori (seaweed). Squid and small octopuses are usually wrapped around a chopstick and eaten whole.
Tamago kake gohan (卵かけご飯) or Tamago gohan in short is a popular Japanese breakfast food consisting of boiled rice topped or mixed with raw egg and—optionally—soy sauce. The raw egg is put on top of or mixed with rice, or a recipe for such a dish. Beaten eggs are sometimes used, as are non-beaten. Sometimes only the yolk of the egg is used. I love the dish, though I know I won't be allowed to eat it back home. Sal monella?
