Customer Reviews

Let's Cook Japanese Food!: Everyday Recipes for Home Cooking

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

i'm not a novice cook, but just like other reviewers i wish to expand my repertoire of japanese dishes. i admit that i was initially seduced by the cover and the art direction, but the recipes i have tried so far have all tasted great and been happily eaten by my family (my kids are very accustomed to eating a wide variety of foods). there is a helpful section at the beginning which explains essential ingredients and implements, although most avid home cooks will have some version of the necessary tools (for example, a mortar & pestle can stand in for a suribachi).

based on my limited experience with more homestyle Japanese restaurants (not sushi joints), the results i have gotten from these recipes have been great. when i would try to reproduce japanese dishes at home, i would often not know what flavorings to add in order to get the right taste. for example, i never knew dashi was what was missing from all my broths! this book has helped take some of the mystery out of the flavors.

somebody mentioned that there are few vegetarian recipes in this book - the author admits in the notes that she increased the meat portions in order to appeal to the western palate - this is not a pure japanese cookbook, it's written for western schlubs like me! i've simply reduced the portions that she calls for and in some recipes eliminated them with normal vegetarian tricks. i'm not a committed vegetarian but like to minimize the animal products i eat.

i own roughly 40 cookbooks, but right now this is the one i take down most often for dinner ideas. if, like me, you want to learn to cook more Japanese dishes but weren't sure where to start, this is a great primer.

I bought this book after a positive review was written in the Oregonian's Food Day section. I enjoy Japanese food, but haven't had the nerve to try making it at home. Amy Kaneko's descriptive details helped me get over the fear of trying it myself. The meal I chose was simple to prepare, and the ingredients were fairly easy to find. (Note to anyone else about to try this - mirin, or sweet sake, wasn't with the sakes in the wine department, but next to rice vinegars in the Asian food section - it's not a drinking sake.) I was very pleased with the results - a much more complex flavor than the simple preparation would have led me to expect.

The only negatives about this book are that vegetarians will be a little surprised to see how much pork and chicken winds up in the 'vegetable' section of the book, and that there is no dessert section.

i love this book. she makes recipes super, super easy... but all the food is also realy great. it's simple, so if you're into difficult recipes, this might not be your book... but if you want great food explained in an easy way, this is your book.

I checked this book out at the library.
It caught my eye because it is different from the usual traditional Japanese dishes, instead it was all the foods I had grown up with that my Japanese mother had cooked for our family. Many of the recipes, I used the instant-boxed version (eg kare-rice and hayashi rice), so I was delighted to see a homemade version! Some reviewers said that this book isn't "authentic" because it was written by an American married to a Japanese, but her mother-in-law definitely taught her very well, and many of the recipes, most Japanese are very familiar with and are a classic favorites! ^.^

If you want to make some really simple easy to make Japanese food then this is good book to buy. You should know that it is written by an American woman who moved to Japan with her husand. With every recipe there is a paragraph on how the author discovered these dishes. All the ingredants are given a decription at the beginning of the book. In the back of the book there is a short list of websites soyou can get some of these Japanese ingredients, like ponzu sauce or miso paste.

Because the writter is American i feel that most of the recipes are Japanese takes on western food. The books itself is very thin. It's worth buying if you want to try a few new things or you want to learn how to make a few dishes that you have tried in Japanese Resturants. If you want to do more advance food then look at some other books.

My hubby was born in Tokyo, but came over at 7. He's a great cook, but his repertoire of from-scratch homecooked Japanese food is pretty limited -- miso soup and fried rice. He's taught me those. Everything else Asian that we eat at home comes partially out of a box/bag from the Asian grocery -- curry, mabo tofu, real ramen, and okonomiyake.
I've bought several Japanese homecooking cookbooks, but something was missing from the translation on the **method.** The author of this book explains those missing methods in ways I can understand.
For example, the author explains how to cook kabocha squash. Kabocha is probably in everyone of my Japanese cookbooks. Being used to boiling potatoes for American fare, I've always put way too much liquid in it. I end up with mush. She says 1/2 inch of liquid at the most. I can't wait to try this out when the weather gets cooler.
I love the narratives that come with every recipe.
You don't get a whole lot of recipes in this book, but I think her explanation of *how* to cook Japanese homestyle food is well worth the price.

the recipes here are great. I love the fact that it's simple, but not boring. It's well organized, although I wish there were photos for every dish in the book. Otherwise, a great cook book for people who want to start cooking japanese food. It also has a decent glossary for ingredients and such.

This is a wonderful cookbook for those who love to eat Japanese food but are a bit intimidated by how complicated preparing it may seem. I've been making simple Japanese dishes for years, but I wanted to add more than just onigiri, sushi and udon into the mix. Amy Kaneko's book provides a good variety of dishes that are not that difficult to prepare and are sure to make your family's tummies satisfied. Even the pickiest of eaters (kids) will find some of Amy's recipes rather tasty.

This cookbook features a glossary to help you figure out what the various Japanese ingredients are, and the author even helps solve your shopping woes by providing alternative ingredients to items you might not be able to find in your market (although most of what's in the book should be found in the Asian food aisle at any major grocer). There's even a list of web sites that sell many of the ingredients used in the recipes, should you be at a complete loss at your local supermarket.

I'll admit that the reason I even picked up a copy of "Let's Cook Japanese Food!" in the book store is its beautiful art direction. The colors and patterns featured on the cover and pages of this book are vibrant and cheerful, and they complement the gorgeous photos very well. Even if you don't feel like cooking, this book is great to thumb through because it's nice to look at. But because Amy's book is filled with stories and helpful information as well, the book is even better.

I got this book from the library with high hopes to become the next great Japanese chef. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed, but at no true fault of the author. Most of the recipes require a lot of ingredients (that is just how Japanese food is) and yes, she does give good examples of how to replace the tricky ingredients with other things, I am just too cheap to spend a lot of money on ingredients I might not use for other recipes. I ended up making only 1 recipe in the book (Tamagoyaki, Sweet Rolled Omelet) and it was really good, tasted just like the egg sushi that I get at the restaurants.

Ms. Kaneko has created something unique -- a Japanese cookbook that reads, in its way, like Betty Crocker. These are recipes that she and her family make at home in California, and she has used commonly-available ingredients, with substitutions noted for things like teriyaki sauce and tonkatsu sauce. I have used a couple of recipes (and look forward to trying more as our schedule opens up) and found them to be delicious and no more complex than a good American recipe. The measurements are in English (Imperial) rather than metric (which also makes it friendlier to an American cook). If you are trying Japanese cooking for the first time, this is the cookbook you want.