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Love Japan: Recipes from our Japanese American Kitchen [A Cookbook] Kindle Edition

by Sawako Okochi (Author), Aaron Israel (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 49 ratings

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JAMES BEARD AWARD NOMINEE • Discover comforting homestyle Japanese American cuisine with 100 unique, simple, and tasty recipes from the owners of the innovative Brooklyn restaurant Shalom Japan

A FOOD NETWORK BEST COOKBOOK OF THE YEAR

Steaming sukiyaki. Pillowy, soft shokupan. Springy ramen noodles. These famed Japanese dishes, as well as modern interpretations and evolutions, are all part of Love Japan, a collection of beloved family recipes from the married owners of Brooklyn’s Shalom Japan.

Like many of us, chefs Sawako Okochi and Aaron Israel lead busy lives and often find themselves short on time in the kitchen. Their secret to getting nourishing, delicious food on the table for their family? The Japanese-inspired dishes that Sawako grew up eating. While not rigid in tradition, these recipes are all rooted in the Japanese flavors and techniques taught to Sawako by her mother, with influences from Aaron’s Jewish heritage as well as the menu at Shalom Japan.

Through years of practice in their own home and in their Brooklyn restaurant, Sawako and Aaron have distilled these recipes for maximum flavor and minimum fuss, including Japanese staples and inventive, delicious fusions like:

• Karaage (Japanese Fried Chicken)
• Smashed Cucumber and Wakame Salad
• Roasted Cauliflower with Miso and Panko Butter
• Hiroshima-Style Okonomiyaki with Ramen Noodles
• Home-Style Matzoh Ball Ramen
• Omurice (Omelet Fried Rice)
• Slice-and-Bake Matcha Cookies

Through Love Japan's user-friendly recipes and gorgeous photography, Sawako and Aaron demonstrate that Japanese cooking can be everyday cooking—even (or especially) if you’re short on time, space, or energy. These satisfying dishes will open up a world of possibilities in your cooking routine.

From the Publisher

Bento Box spread with the copy: Japanese cooking is everyday cooking


Smashed Cucumber and Wakame Salad	Home-Style Matzoh Ball Ramen	Chilled Udon with Tsuyu


Lox Bowl	Miso-Honey Broiled Chicken	Matcha Parfait

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Gohan Desuyo! (Time to Eat!)

At its core, this cookbook is a love story about how two chefs from different worlds fell for each other, and for each other’s cuisines. We met in 2011 in New York City on a setup at a Chinese restaurant, which was soon followed by a procession of late-night dinners out, leisurely home-cooked breakfasts, and rooftop beers during the odd hours that chefs keep. Eventually we fell in love, moved in together, and decided to go all in and open our own restaurant, Shalom Japan, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It’s a quirky, improbable project, a Japanese-Jewish restaurant that melds the foods of our roots, which for one of us is in Hiroshima, Japan, and for the other in a Jewish American household on Long Island. To some, the concept may seem like a novelty, but for us, it’s a reflection of the life we built together, one in which matzoh ball ramen and lox rice bowls are as commonplace as spaghetti and meatballs are in other families.

As important as the restaurant is to our lives and livelihood, this book isn’t about that. It’s about the food that we cook and eat in our Japanese American kitchen. When we started to build our life together, it became clear how much we were influenced by Sawa’s mother’s home cooking, which is as flavorful as it is nutritious, heavy on vegetables and fermented foods, with lots and lots of variety. (She’d always tell Sawa to eat thirty ingredients a day so she could get nutrition from varied sources.) We wanted to provide the same nourishment for our family, and to yours. Whether or not you have a Japanese parent (or in-law), we still want you to be able to experience the unique pleasure of digging into a heaping platter of golden karaage (fried chicken) or crispy, juicy harumaki (Japanese spring rolls). Love Japan is our way of sharing these meals that we cherish the most with you.

Our life together hasn’t been a straight path. Balancing restaurant life and family life hasn’t been easy. Along the way, we’ve faced enough challenges to fill a whole other book, and, like everyone else, endured a pandemic. There have also been bright spots, like the birth of our two beautiful children. But through it all, sitting down together at the table has kept us grounded. There’s no better day off for us than one spent hanging out at home as a family and cooking together, like we did when we first met. It’s different now, with the kids and more responsibilities, but the pleasure and joy of feeding each other still remain.

When we start the day, there’s usually toasted Rakkenji shokupan (naturally fermented milk bread) on the table. Our Sunday brunch is a Japanese breakfast, with miso soup and rice, delicate tamagoyaki (dashi rolled omelet) and a host of vegetable dishes, such as gomaae broccoli (broccoli with sesame sauce) and spinach ohitashi (spinach with soy sauce and bonito flakes). Lunch might involve onigiri (rice balls) and Japanese sandos (sandwiches), both perfect for eating on the go. Dinner may take the form of a simple noodle dish like yakisoba, roasted kabocha squash smothered in mirinsweetened ground pork, or a hotpot feast, a relaxed, interactive way to cook at the table. It’s not all strictly Japanese. There are pizza nights and pho and lots and lots of pasta. The next day, we usually repurpose the leftovers into bento boxes for our kids’ lunches.

We’ve seen Japanese food come a long way in this country—it’s no longer viewed as just sushi and teriyaki. But many Americans still regard it as the domain of chefs and experts, and we seek to change that. These are dishes you can definitely make yourself, as most of them are simple enough to cook for your family or friends on a weeknight. Japanese home cooking is comforting, humble, and achievable by anyone. The purchase of just a few pantry items can easily make it part of your standard repertoire. We’re not rigid about tradition, but the recipes are very much rooted in Japanese flavors, ingredients, and cooking techniques. Our book is a primer for home cooks who are eager to integrate Japanese flavors into their everyday meals. If you are already fluent in Japanese ingredients, we also use them in unexpected and delicious ways that may surprise you.

When we cook at the restaurant, we like to create something for people that they wouldn’t make at home. At home, we’re looking for the opposite—something that we can make over and over again, that is achievable, simple, and satisfying, and that we can potentially execute while holding an infant. As two working chefs, we used to have dinner around 9 or 9:30 p.m. Now we’re on the clock, and get food on the table by 6 or 7. Our son is seven years old and eats most everything, while our two-year-old daughter is hopefully following in his footsteps. By a certain time, we have to give them baths and put them to bed, and dinner has to fit into a certain parameter. More often than not, it’s about making rice, a protein, and then convincing our daughter to try a carrot. Our cooking has become a lot more practical, but it’s still important that pleasure has a place at the table.

As much as we look to Japan for inspiration, the cooking in our home is also influenced by what’s around us. Seasonal eating is central to both Japanese cuisine and ours. We pack up our kids and a week’s worth of compost and go shopping every Saturday, choosing produce from the great vendors that come to our neighborhood farmers’ market at McCarren Park in Brooklyn. Depending on where you are, you can find some of the best Japanese ingredients locally. Our favorite vegetables come from Bodhitree Farm, which grows an amazing array of Asian specialty produce.

Between spring and early winter, we get a majority of the vegetables we eat at home from them, whether it’s shishito peppers, nasu (eggplant), daikon radishes, or satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potatoes). Hauling back a refrigerator’s worth every week with two kids is a lot of work, but totally worth it.

In this book we wrestled, and wrestled some more, with the details of each recipe, recognizing that everyone’s home kitchen is a little different. We’ve included many cues, through sight, smell, touch, or taste, to guide you through them. Of course, cooking is an imperfect science, and requires you to use your senses, experience, and knowledge of your own equipment. Not everyone has the same set of pots; no two ovens or burners function identically. And we know how subjective taste can be. What is too much salt for some, is not enough for others. So when you are trying out these recipes, keep in mind what you like and the equipment you’re using, but most of all, trust your instincts. Nothing would make us happier than seeing you use our recipes as a jumping-off point—like Sawa did with her mother’s so many years ago—and eventually making them your own. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

About the Author

Sawako Okochi is co-chef and co-owner of Shalom Japan in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, Aaron Israel. Sawa’s vibrant culinary background is rooted in her upbringing in Hiroshima, Japan. She has worked at some of the finest restaurants in New York City, including Chanterelle, Annisa, and The Good Fork. She also produced the Otakara Supper Club, which was featured in the New York Times, and appears in Women Chefs of New York and The Jewish Cookbook.

Aaron Israel discovered his passion for cooking while earning his BFA at Maryland Institute College of Art. After graduating, he worked at August in the West Village with chef Tony Liu. He later cooked with chef Andrew Carmellini and helped open Torrisi Italian Specialties. He has co-owned and operated Shalom Japan in Brooklyn with his wife, Sawako Okochi, since 2013.

Gabriella Gershenson is a James Beard Award-nominated food writer and editor based in New York City. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Saveur, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. She was an editor of The 100 Most Jewish Foods and On the Hummus Route. She is currently on staff at Wirecutter. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B9W83JGF
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ten Speed Press (May 16, 2023)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 16, 2023
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 352317 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 478 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #218,175 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #22 in Japanese Cooking
- #93 in Japanese Cooking, Food & Wine
- #99 in Comfort Food Cooking (Kindle Store)

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4.6 49 ratings

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Aaron Israel
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Aaron Israel is the co-author of "Love Japan." He is also co-chef and owner of Shalom Japan in Brooklyn, New York, along with his wife, Sawako Okochi. A native New Yorker, he attended art school at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, simultaneously pursuing his passion for fine art and food. After graduating, he moved back to New York and cooked with some of the city's most acclaimed chefs. He has been featured in the The New York Times, the New Yorker, and New York Magazine, and numerous other publications, as well as "The Jewish Cookbook." He is the father of two amazing kids and enjoys doing ceramics in whatever small amount of spare time he has.
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Joanna D.

21st Century Japanese Recipes

Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2023

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Not only "Japanese American" but very much the trendy foods that didn't exist a quarter century ago when I worked a short while in Japan, and definitely not fifty years ago, when I worked in a lab with a bunch of Japanese researchers. So if you are down with the vlogs featuring trendy Japanese cafes that serve "omurice" omelet and fried rice, karaage fried chicken, "hambagu" or "sando" sandwiches, you're going to love this book. There are also the absolute standards like cucumber and seaweed salad, stewed carrot and burdock (where do you buy Gobo in the US?) miso soup, shoyu-simmered eggplant and of course, Japanese curry. And there are recipes for "Shokupan" the Japanese milk bread that has gone viral.

I found some of the recipes more complex that I know then (curry in particular, and rather than add so many different vegetables, mine is always simple with potato, carrot and onion because those are always to hand, and I use a variety of curry roux brands to adjust the level of spiciness rather than just one brand, definitely a hack you should try.)

Other recipes are going to require ingredients that are every day ones found in Japanese home kitches but hard to get outside major US cities with Asian residents. (Our nearest H-Mart is 50 miles away.) The "Hambagu" and "Omurice" are definitely "home cooking"--things the average oka-san mommy would make on a weekly basis. The Hambagu is supposed to be very juicy, some people use ground chicken instead, and Omurice is geared to kiddy tastes, using sweet ketchup and chicken in fried rice, a non-challenging flavor profile that kids adore in Japan as much as American kids love chicken fingers with ketchup dip.

If you want straight-up traditional Japanese cuisine, this is not all that's in the book but if you want the more trendy, homestyle and perhaps Japanese convenience store style foods, you will have the recipes in this book.

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Lilico

Great book for Japanese home food - interesting twists

Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2023

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I was so looking forward to this book, and ordered it quite a bit in advance. As a Jew who lived in Japan for a few years, when I came back to the states I put on "Japanese shabbats" -- a hybrid of the two cuisines, that I sort of made up. Then I found the restaurant Shalom Japan in Brooklyn. Hey, that's me! That's my deal! I had heard about the sake kasu challah, and couldn't wait to get the recipe. After dining at the Brooklyn restaurant a few times, and being so blown away and inspired by the hybrid cuisines, I couldn't wait to get my book.

As a basic Japanese cookbook, it is excellent. The production values are terrific, plenty of pictures and the recipes are A+. But I wish there were more Japanese-Jewish recipes. The matzoh ball--ramen soup and the lox bowl are great, but where's the challah, and some of the other innovative combinations? I expected the title to be "Shalom Japan," but i suppose that the change to "Love Japan" was to cater to a bigger audience; this probably explains the regression to the mean -- basic (although VERY good) Japanese home recipes (Washoku).

I'm giving it 5 stars because I love these guys, I love the hybrid and what they do. But I wish they had followed through more on the original concept of Jewish-Japanese.

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Steve Galgas

Unfussy and Comforting Japanese Fusion

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2023

Love Japan is an unusual, unexpected cookbook. At first glance, the photography and design of Sawako Okochi and Aaron Isreal's book make it appear to stick to the exacting, fussy traditions of traditional Japanese cuisine. Looking deeper, you'll discover oddities such as "Maztoh Ball Ramen" and "Bonito-Cured Lox". Indeed, Love Japan is partially influenced by co-author Aaron Isreal's Jewish roots. Admittedly, I'd never considered what Japanese-Jewish cooking might be until now, and honestly, I wouldn't mind to see even more of the Jewish influence pop up in this book. Despite the novel concept, Love Japan's strength isn't in that Japanese-Jewish fusion, but instead in making Japanese food more approachable for the home cook.

Of the recipes I've had the chance to cook so far, there has been one particular standout- the Kale Salad with Carrot-Ginger dressing. It was a recipe that I didn't have particularly high hopes for; how good could another Kale Salad be? However, it instantly became one of my "forever recipes" with its craveable, flavor packed dressing ("I could drink that!" exclaimed my partner). It was also an incredibly easy recipe, one which I'll be reaching for whenever I need to supplement a mean with an easy, refreshing counterpoint to a rich main entree.

Other recipes were solid, if not quite on the same craveable level. I'd been forever looking for a good Japanese Curry recipe, and the one here is serviceable. Although it wasn't the definitive curry I was hoping for, the more I ate of it, the more I appreciated it on its own terms. The Miso-Honey Broiled Chicken was perhaps the easiest recipe of the bunch, and will probably remain in my repertoire of weeknight meals. The Gomaae Broccoli was perhaps the most underwhelming. Not to say it was at all bad, but for as many ingredients and steps as it took, didn't make much more impact than straight-up steamed broccoli.

In the end, Love Japan is a solid cookbook for home cooks who would like to explore Japanese flavors but might typically be intimidated by the precision of Japanese cuisine. Love Japan makes cooking approachable, and many of these dishes would be a worth addition to the weeknight table.

Ten Speed provided me with a free copy of this book; the opinions are my own.

11 people found this helpful

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Thomas Patti

Any beginner or accomplished cook will appreciate LOVE JAPAN

Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2023

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I love, love, this book. LOVE JAPAN is a thorough melting of two cultures. The descriptive sections on pantry and kitchen staples and produce and the Basics with clear and concise technique photos for purchasing and cooking were so helpful in introducing me to being able to cook some simple and special dishes that everyone in the family would love. Even my fussy teenage grandsons enjoyed helping me make foods in the Hotpot and dessert sections. With enough variation in the selection of recipes for both vegetarians and meat eaters - this book is a MUST in introducing anyone to Japanese cuisine with an American twist. I love, love LOVE JAPAN.

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Love Japan: Recipes from our Japanese American Kitchen [A Cookbook] Kindle Edition

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From the Publisher

Smashed Cucumber and Wakame Salad

Home-Style Matzoh Ball Ramen

Chilled Udon with Tsuyu

Lox Bowl

Miso-Honey Broiled Chicken

Matcha Parfait

Editorial Reviews

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

About the Author

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Aaron Israel

Sawako Okochi

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