Nikujaga, or Japanese Fricassee

Nikujaga is one of the most popular dishes in Japan. It is something like Fricassee in Japan. Firstly sliced onions are fried in a pot until they become soft. Then beef is added in the pot and they are being fried. When they have been fried enough, carrots, potatoes and noodle made from konnyaku which is paste of a kind of potato are poured into the pot. When they have been fried enough again, Japanese soup stock made from bonito and kelp are poured in the pot. After soup stock is boiled, soy sauce, sweet sake and sugar are poured into the pot. Finally they have been simmered with a wooden drop-lid over 20 minutes.
There are many kind of Nikujaga in Japan. Each Nikujaga is arranged by each mother or home.

Daifuku

Daifuku is a soft round rice cake stuffed with sweet bean jam. The surface of Daifuku which is made of rice cake is usually tasteless. But the interior of Daifuku is very sweat. When you eat a Daifuku, you must feel happy. So Daifuku means a big happiness in Japanese. The point of making Daifuku is pouring a little salt into sweat bean jam. You may wonder why. However salty taste can bring out sweaty taste.

There are many variations of Daifuku. We could mix rice cake with green peas. We could blend rice cake with mugwort. Furthermore we could insert a strawberry into sweat bean jam. This is called a strawberry Daifuku. When I ate a strawberry Daifuku for the first time, it’s just like I have met a girlfriend after a long time.

Teriyaki chicken

Japanese people mostly like teriyaki food. Teriyaki chicken is one of the popular teriyaki. Teriyaki means the method of baking the food. Firstly chicken meat is notched several times with a kitchen knife. If you grilled chicken meat without notches, chicken meat would shrink in fire. Then chicken meat is grilled on both sides in a frying pan. When chicken meat is grilled well enough, you pour soy sauce, Japanese sake and sweat sake on the roasted chicken meat in a frying pan. Chicken meat marinated in the above seasoning is grilled again. At that time you are fascinated by the smell of teriyaki chicken.

The taste of teriyaki chicken is salt but sweat.

Japanese omelet

What is Japanese omelet? Is Japanese omelet Japanese cuisine? Japanese omelet is called “Tamago-yaki” in Japanese. Of course, Tamago-yaki is Washoku, Japanese cuisine. We use a specific frying pan for making Tamago-yaki. It is rectangle shaped. The important point of making Tamago-yaki is to stir soy source, sweet sake, sugar and salt into raw egg. The secondary important point is to pour the above mixed raw egg into a frying pan in a few parts. Usually we pour four times. Firstly a quarter of mixed raw egg is poured into a frying pan. When it is baked half, it is rolled and moved to one side on the frying pan. Then a quarter of mixed raw egg is poured into the frying pan again. We repeat the above thing four times.
When Japanese people go to the picnic, Tamago-yaki is almost brought in the lunch box. In this season, the smell of Tamago-yaki is in the air around the park on holiday.