HARUMI KURIHARA
“In this new cookbook, I propose to start
cooking Japanese food with a bottle of soy sauce.”
Would you tell us about your new cookbook?
My first two cookbooks published outside of Japan were re-edited versions of my cookbooks already published in Japan. However, this time, along with English editorial staff, I created 60-70 recipes from scratch using ingredients available in England. I think these English ingredients are also on hand here in the U.S., so I give my 100% guarantee that you can make the recipes. Also, I tried to keep them as simple as possible.
Have you had difficulty finding common Japanese ingredients outside of the country?
Basically no. But sometimes they only have different varieties, and in these cases I tried to maximize their features. For example, Japanese carrots and those in England and America are very different. To tell you the truth, I prefer non-Japanese ones because they’re firmer. They’re actually too firm to shred unless you have a very sharp knife. But if you grate them, you can get a nice carrot topping. You should push hard when grating in order to get a crunchy texture, then sprinkle the carrot toppings on store-bought salad, and eat it with original dressing made from soy sauce and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Since the dressing is oil-free, it’s healthier than French dressing and mayonnaise. Also, the color of the carrot topping arouses your appetite. Even if you don’t like the sour flavor of lemon juice, the sweetness from the carrot reduces its tartness. So the idea is simple, but it makes a huge difference in terms of “eating well.”
Would you list some Japanese seasonings that are essential for Japanese cuisine?
When I wrote the first cookbook, I was kind of proposing something like this: You can cook Japanese food as long as you have this and that and follow my recipes. But I noticed that this would cause problems. Since there are many quasi-Japanese seasonings available in every country, it’s hard for the people there to tell which ones have authentic Japanese flavor. Also, once people start stocking Japanese seasonings like soy sauce, mirin and miso, they tend to think, “Oh, I want katakuri-ko powder, katsuobushi (bonito flakes), konbu (dried kelp), etc., and it never ends.
So, in this new cookbook, I propose that you start cooking Japanese food with a bottle of soy sauce. For example, people in England eat breaded pork cutlet with lemon and mustard, but it’s okay to eat with lemon and soy sauce. Also, ginger pork is best with a sauce including mirin, but it does not necessarily need mirin and you can make the sauce with soy sauce and sugar if you want. If you have soy sauce, your cooking repertoire will be broadened just by adding regular spices, herbs and ingredients such as garlic, ginger, and scallions. I don’t want people to think, “I can’t reproduce the real flavor of this Japanese dish since I don’t have the exact ingredients that are necessary.” Instead of that, you should be confident in the flavors you create from whatever you have on hand. That is what I concluded this time around.
Speaking of Japanese-style food presentation, do you have any tips that we can apply easily?
Yes. First, take your set of coffee cups and saucers and divide the saucers from the cups. Then use the saucers as serving plates.
What’s important here is to serve small portions?
That’s right. It’s easy, isn’t it?
In Japan you are known as a celebrity homemaker who creates home cooking recipes. What is the heart of your home cooking?
It’s to make use of leftovers.
Would you share your secret for that?
Well, I always check what’s in the freezer and refrigerator. I make it a rule to take a close look at what’s left there on Fridays. To complete this self-assigned mission, I try to avoid dining out and dinner meetings. Due to the nature of my job, it’s not unusual that only a small amount of ingredients are left. Since cleaning out the fridge is my highest priority, I try not to buy so much food on weekends even though I have guests to treat with my homemade dishes. Build up a food serving plan based first on your leftovers, and then go shopping if necessary.
That means the weekend meals at your house must contain lots of ingredients!
Exactly. Interestingly enough, I easily come up with good recipes in this situation. The most popular recipes are the ones that were born from this leftover cleaning. I think everyone can identify with me by just looking at such recipes and thinking, “Kurihara-san must have had leftover canned tuna in the fridge,” or something like that. The editor-in-chief of my personal magazine sometimes lists top ranking recipes from my repertoire, and my leftover recipes are always in the top ten.
I’ll share the most popular dish’s recipe. It’s Fried Chicken with Negi (Japanese Green Onion) Sauce. First, heat oil and saute minced negi with high heat. It’s overcooked if the negi becomes soft. So, the keys here are “quick” and “high heat.” Add soy sauce, rice vinegar, and a touch of sugar and taka-no-tsume (dried red pepper) to the sautéed negi and you get negi sauce. For fried chicken, marinate large-cut chicken with soy sauce and sake. If you don’t have sake, only soy sauce is fine. The point is to let the chicken absorb the marinade, so don’t add too much sauce. Bring it to room temperature and dust it with a lot of katakuriko (starch powder). The tip here is to put lots of katakuriko on the chicken. Now you can fry it at medium to high heat. While you are frying, you should repeat the action of taking the chicken out of the oil and dipping it again. This keeps the oil temperature stable and gives the chicken a crunchy texture. Once it’s done, cut the fried chicken into bite size pieces and pour the negi sauce, and there you have it!
It looks like a Chinese dish, but the flavor is absolutely Japanese. In my restaurant, it has been the best selling dish for ten years. According to your liking you can add garlic, ginger, sesame oil, toubanjan (red chili paste), and even wine vinegar to the sauce, but it’s best to start with a bottle of soy sauce!
Would you recommend a few destinations or activities to Chopsticks NY readers who are planning to visit Japan?
My home! [laugh] Well, I always like Kyoto, so Tokyo and Kyoto are must see places, I think. Also, I want them to see snow in Hokkaido…, as well as appreciate the wonderful feature of the four seasons in Japan. Shimoda, my hometown in Shizuoka prefecture, is also a great place to visit. The people are nice, it has great fish and vegetables, and the onsen (hot springs) there are nice. It’s mild and warm all year.
What sort of food should they sample in Shimoda?
Sun-dried horse mackerel and simmered kinme (golden eye snapper). Bonito sashimi is also tasty during the summer season.
———- Interview by Noriko Komura
Harumi Kurihara is the most adored celebrity homemaker in Japan, hosting TV shows, writing cookbooks, running a restaurant, and providing lifestyle ideas. While visiting New York to promote her cookbook Everyday Harumi being published in the U.S., she chatted with Chopsticks NY about Japanese home-style cooking.
Would you tell us about your new cookbook?
My first two cookbooks published outside of Japan were re-edited versions of my cookbooks already published in Japan. However, this time, along with English editorial staff, I created 60-70 recipes from scratch using ingredients available in England. I think these English ingredients are also on hand here in the U.S., so I give my 100% guarantee that you can make the recipes. Also, I tried to keep them as simple as possible.
Have you had difficulty finding common Japanese ingredients outside of the country?
Basically no. But sometimes they only have different varieties, and in these cases I tried to maximize their features. For example, Japanese carrots and those in England and America are very different. To tell you the truth, I prefer non-Japanese ones because they’re firmer. They’re actually too firm to shred unless you have a very sharp knife. But if you grate them, you can get a nice carrot topping. You should push hard when grating in order to get a crunchy texture, then sprinkle the carrot toppings on store-bought salad, and eat it with original dressing made from soy sauce and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Since the dressing is oil-free, it’s healthier than French dressing and mayonnaise. Also, the color of the carrot topping arouses your appetite. Even if you don’t like the sour flavor of lemon juice, the sweetness from the carrot reduces its tartness. So the idea is simple, but it makes a huge difference in terms of “eating well.”
Would you list some Japanese seasonings that are essential for Japanese cuisine?
When I wrote the first cookbook, I was kind of proposing something like this: You can cook Japanese food as long as you have this and that and follow my recipes. But I noticed that this would cause problems. Since there are many quasi-Japanese seasonings available in every country, it’s hard for the people there to tell which ones have authentic Japanese flavor. Also, once people start stocking Japanese seasonings like soy sauce, mirin and miso, they tend to think, “Oh, I want katakuri-ko powder, katsuobushi (bonito flakes), konbu (dried kelp), etc., and it never ends.
So, in this new cookbook, I propose that you start cooking Japanese food with a bottle of soy sauce. For example, people in England eat breaded pork cutlet with lemon and mustard, but it’s okay to eat with lemon and soy sauce. Also, ginger pork is best with a sauce including mirin, but it does not necessarily need mirin and you can make the sauce with soy sauce and sugar if you want. If you have soy sauce, your cooking repertoire will be broadened just by adding regular spices, herbs and ingredients such as garlic, ginger, and scallions. I don’t want people to think, “I can’t reproduce the real flavor of this Japanese dish since I don’t have the exact ingredients that are necessary.” Instead of that, you should be confident in the flavors you create from whatever you have on hand. That is what I concluded this time around.
Speaking of Japanese-style food presentation, do you have any tips that we can apply easily?
Yes. First, take your set of coffee cups and saucers and divide the saucers from the cups. Then use the saucers as serving plates.
What’s important here is to serve small portions?
That’s right. It’s easy, isn’t it?
In Japan you are known as a celebrity homemaker who creates home cooking recipes. What is the heart of your home cooking?
It’s to make use of leftovers.
Would you share your secret for that?
Well, I always check what’s in the freezer and refrigerator. I make it a rule to take a close look at what’s left there on Fridays. To complete this self-assigned mission, I try to avoid dining out and dinner meetings. Due to the nature of my job, it’s not unusual that only a small amount of ingredients are left. Since cleaning out the fridge is my highest priority, I try not to buy so much food on weekends even though I have guests to treat with my homemade dishes. Build up a food serving plan based first on your leftovers, and then go shopping if necessary.
That means the weekend meals at your house must contain lots of ingredients!
Exactly. Interestingly enough, I easily come up with good recipes in this situation. The most popular recipes are the ones that were born from this leftover cleaning. I think everyone can identify with me by just looking at such recipes and thinking, “Kurihara-san must have had leftover canned tuna in the fridge,” or something like that. The editor-in-chief of my personal magazine sometimes lists top ranking recipes from my repertoire, and my leftover recipes are always in the top ten.
I’ll share the most popular dish’s recipe. It’s Fried Chicken with Negi (Japanese Green Onion) Sauce. First, heat oil and saute minced negi with high heat. It’s overcooked if the negi becomes soft. So, the keys here are “quick” and “high heat.” Add soy sauce, rice vinegar, and a touch of sugar and taka-no-tsume (dried red pepper) to the sautéed negi and you get negi sauce. For fried chicken, marinate large-cut chicken with soy sauce and sake. If you don’t have sake, only soy sauce is fine. The point is to let the chicken absorb the marinade, so don’t add too much sauce. Bring it to room temperature and dust it with a lot of katakuriko (starch powder). The tip here is to put lots of katakuriko on the chicken. Now you can fry it at medium to high heat. While you are frying, you should repeat the action of taking the chicken out of the oil and dipping it again. This keeps the oil temperature stable and gives the chicken a crunchy texture. Once it’s done, cut the fried chicken into bite size pieces and pour the negi sauce, and there you have it!
It looks like a Chinese dish, but the flavor is absolutely Japanese. In my restaurant, it has been the best selling dish for ten years. According to your liking you can add garlic, ginger, sesame oil, toubanjan (red chili paste), and even wine vinegar to the sauce, but it’s best to start with a bottle of soy sauce!
Would you recommend a few destinations or activities to Chopsticks NY readers who are planning to visit Japan?
My home! [laugh] Well, I always like Kyoto, so Tokyo and Kyoto are must see places, I think. Also, I want them to see snow in Hokkaido…, as well as appreciate the wonderful feature of the four seasons in Japan. Shimoda, my hometown in Shizuoka prefecture, is also a great place to visit. The people are nice, it has great fish and vegetables, and the onsen (hot springs) there are nice. It’s mild and warm all year.
What sort of food should they sample in Shimoda?
Sun-dried horse mackerel and simmered kinme (golden eye snapper). Bonito sashimi is also tasty during the summer season.
———- Interview by Noriko Komura
Harumi Kurihara
Born in Shimoda, Japan. Often described as the “Martha Stewart of Japan,” Harumi Kurihara has been writing for cookbooks and magazines, appearing on TV shows, and running her restaurant and select shops for over 20 years. She started her current job while she was a stay-home mom. Her home-oriented cooking and lifestyle ideas appeal to wide audiences. Her cookbooks are always domestic best-sellers. In 2005, she became the first Japanese to receive a Gourmand World Cookbook Award. In the U.S., three of her cookbooks have been published: Harumi’s Japanese Cooking: More than 75 Authentic and Contemporary Recipes from Japan’s Most Popular Cooking Expert, Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking: Simple, Elegant Recipes for Contemporary Tastes, and Everyday Harumi. Official site: www.yutori.co.jp (Japanese only)
—————————————————–
Everyday Harumi
Harumi Kurihara’s third English cookbook published in the U.S. introduces more than 60 home-style Japanese cooking recipes. She presents easy recipes for soups, starters, snacks, party dishes, main courses, and family feasts, including Sirloin Steak in Miso Marinade, Tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet), Green Beans with Sesame Dressing, and Quick Pickled Cucumbers.
B-kyu Gourmet 
