Practical Japanese Cooking: Easy and Elegant [Hardcover]

Shizuo Tsuji (Author), Koichiro Hata (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1991

Sushi, yakitori, tempura, tofu, miso-the Japanese food explosion is here and many new and inviting dishes from Japan are finding their way into the Western heart and home.

For far too long Japanese food has been treated in the West as something precious and over-refined-pure elegant restaurant fare-when in fact it is prepared daily in millions of Japanese households without fuss of any kind. Here is the book that takes all that is good about Japanese food and brings it into the home.

All recipes are authentic, practical, and lavishly illustrated in color. Techniques, too, are represented in color and lucidly explained. Most important, however, is the selection of ingredients: only those available in supermarkets and oriental food shops in the West are used.

From the dainty and delicate dishes that have garnered Japanese cuisine a worldwide reputation to the hearty barbecue and one-pot cornucopias of fresh meat, seafood, and vegetables-all are here at their edible best, charming and accessible, in a cookbook that is a feast for the eyes as well as the family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The striking photographs and creative design of this oversize cookbook stressthe physical beauty of traditional Japanese cuisine. The wonderful surprise is that the book succeeds in making these artful effects accessible even to novices of Japanese-style preparation and cooking techniques. The most exotic-looking dishesclam soup, for example, or jade green deep-fried shrimpprove to be relatively simple to prepare. Unfamiliar cooking methods are illustrated by detailed, full-color sequence photographs. And in a lovely preface, Tsuji (Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, president of a professional culinary school in Japan (where Hata is head chef), encourages newcomers to make Japanese cookery their own, experimenting, substituting, rearranging without fear that they will violate the spiritof a most adaptable cuisine. Calories per serving are included with the varied, ample offerings. (September
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

SHIZUO TSUJI was the president of the Ecole Technique Hoteli�re Tsuji, the largest culinary school in Japan. He published extensively, writing the best- selling classic Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art and more than thirty books on gastonomy, music and travel in Japanese. Recognized by the French government for his tireless work in promoting French cuisine and culture in Japan, he was named Meilleur Ouvrier de France (M.O.F.). Mr. Tsuji passed away in 1993.
KOICHIRO HATA, head of the Japanese cookery facilities at Ecole Technique Hoteli�re Tsuji, appears regularly on nationally broadcast television programs, and is the coauthor of numerous cooking books in Japanese. He teaches and lectures on Japanese food not only in his native land, but abroad as well, most notably in the United States and Thailand. A discerning diner by profession, the low-profile head chef is invariably recognized by former students whenever he visits any of Japan's finer restaurants.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 152 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha USA; 1 edition (September 15, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870117629
• ISBN-13: 978-0870117626
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 8.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars P. J. C. is a nice expansion from sushi only cookbooks, October 29, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (McAllen, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practical Japanese Cooking: Easy and Elegant (Hardcover)

P. J. C. expands the novice Japanese cooks horizons from "sushi only" to a more complete Japanese cuisine experience. The recipes are clear and ingredients listed are by and large available. While this is certainly not a Japanese cooking "bible" it certainly serves as an excellent jumping off point for those new to Japanese cooking.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Authentic Step-by-step Recipes with Gorgeous Pictures, January 19, 2006

By 

Otto Yuen (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practical Japanese Cooking: Easy and Elegant (Hardcover)

Looking for authentic recipes? Yes, this is the right one and covers a wide range of Japanese cuisine like appretizers, soup, sashimi, yakitori, tempura, tofu, sushi, noodles, pot dishes, and even box meal. All recipes come with detailed and easy-to-follow instructions, large & beautiful photo pictures, and some delightful illustrations for showing the preparation steps. In addition, it covers some tips on using various ingredients like bonito stock, mirin, miso paste, wasabi, and ginger, etc. Very practical. Yet, if you're more interested in cooking methods, secrets, and techniques, you should go for one of the author's book by Shizuo Tsuji, "Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art", which is also the well-known bible in Japanese cooking.

(Reviewed by Otto Yuen, 19-Jan-2006)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not as good as Tsuji's other book, March 24, 2009

By 

Dena "Experimental chef and guerilla costumer" (Soybean Central, IL) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Practical Japanese Cooking: Easy and Elegant (Hardcover)

Tsuji's Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art is both monumental and seminal. This one, taken from his notes and finished by an assistant after his death, is just average. The first book doesn't have many pictures, though, and this one is full of them.

If you really like pictures, pick it up, but the pictures are the best part of the book. The recipes suffer by comparison. There are other cookbooks that teach the same things and do it better.

I bought it on the strength of his name, and have been vaguely disappointed ever since, though I do page through it for serving ideas because a lot of the pictures are gorgeous.

(Full disclosure: I've semiprofessionally taught Japanese cooking classes.)