So I found a blog recently about Japanese home cooking, and it seemed intriguing. I am not, by any stretch, an expert but do enjoy cooking from time to time. I’ve been trying a few of the recipes, and this is what I have prepared so far:

To note, the soy sauce I used was general purpose Kikkoman soy sauce for all the recipes, which is considered a Koikuchi soy sauce and not an Usukuchi (a point I wasn’t clear on from the recipes).

Hakusai and tuna fish nimono: This is a very simple and easy recipe that came out really well. Easy for any newbie, nice flavor, and good in a pinch, but I think I would have preferred it with minced pork. Will definitely be trying this one again.

Saba Nitsuke: This was also a great dish. Although, since I was using 4 filets of mackerel instead of the 2 in the recipe, I doubled the portions for the sauce. I don’t think this was necessary in the end, as I had way too much sauce while simmering the fish, and had a hard time reducing it to an acceptable thickness. It was still quite tasty, just wasted ingredients is all.

Yakinasu: I love eggplants. And this recipe had promise, but I don’t think I executed very well. Fairly simple, but takes patience and time. I only used the katsuobushi as a seasoning, and skipped the ginger. Also, because we were eating several dishes at once, and I had made a plate for each person, I forgot to put some soy sauce on the side for seasoning, which I think would’ve complimented this quite well. Overall, the dish was very smokey, and nice, but I felt lacked something to compliment the smokiness. Again, likely due to the absence of soy sauce.

Nuta: I used “white” miso paste for this recipe, but can use whichever you prefer. It was quite good, but due to other cooking distractions, I overcooked the green onions slightly. Still quite tasty, and complimented the above mackerel nicely.

As with most dishes, I served all of these with Japanese white rice. I highly recommend reading on how to prepare it, because having mediocre rice can really spoil a meal.

Will continue to go through these, and I suggest you do too. Lots to discover on this blog!