Today I’m going to show you how to cook Japanese for entire day.
Japanese traditional breakfast consists of rice, miso soup, grilled fish, and some side dishes
like tamagoyaki egg omelet. It’s my favorite. If I have to choose a last meal, I’ll definitely
choose Japanese breakfast. Commonly we use a rectangle pan. This pan is just made to make
tamagoyaki. You’ll pour egg mixture very thin, almost like making a crepe. Then you’ll roll them
up and repeat the process until you run out of egg mixture. It looks very technical and difficult,
but it’s not that difficult. I think when I made it for the first time, I was 12 years old. In this
video, we use cheese and nori seaweed, but you can make it plain. It’s a staple dish for breakfast or
bento. Another typical main dish for Japanese breakfast is grilled fish, like salmon. Maybe
it seems odd for people from other culture, but this is what I grown up eating with. I think
Japanese people eat a lot of fish because our country is surrounded by ocean. Myself, I grown up
in a small fisherman town eating with a lot of fish, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It’s one of my comfort
foods. It’s full of healthy fats and fish is a very important part of Japanese diet. Another staple
dish for Japanese breakfast is miso soup. Tofu is one of the common ingredients. I’ll demonstrate
how Japanese chefs cut tofu on your pan. Basic ingredients for miso soup is wakame seaweed, tofu,
and enoki mushrooms. But you can use any kind of vegetables. I think each family or region
have their own way of making miso soup. My mom always prepared breakfast for us. I didn’t realize
how time-consuming it was to prepare breakfast in traditional way. I began to appreciate more
the effort it took since I started living by myself in the US. Now my typical breakfast is coffee and maybe
some yogurt. But I still miss both the taste and nutritious value of a classic Japanese breakfast.
For lunch, some moms makes bento called keraben, which is shortened words for character bento,
which is a trend in Japan. Keraben is a decorated bento which features food decorated look like animals
or characters. My mom used to make me rabbit-shaped boiled egg or octopus-shaped winner for my
bento. I remember made me smile whenever I see those kawaii animals in my bento box. My mom made
me bento every day when I was in high school. My favorite bento ingredient was fried chicken. Also,
she often put leftover from dinner or breakfast. For example, tamagoyaki from breakfast or fried chicken
from dinner. We bring bento to office. We bring bento to school. We can also buy bento at the station and
you can eat it in a train. Onigiri is typical item for bento. Onigiri is basically a rice ball. Basic
rice ball is seasoned with salt, has umeboshi inside, and wrapped with a piece of nori seaweed.
I remember my brother made banana fritto onigiri for mother’s day when he was little. It was pretty bad,
but I think my mom didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so she was eating them. Again, I took for granted my
mom making all those great amazing food for me. Thank you, mom. Okonomiyaki is my soul food. The best
way of describing okonomiyaki is savory pancake. There are two types of okonomiyaki, the Osaka style
and Hiroshima style. I’m from Hiroshima, so that’s the style I grew up with. Whenever someone visits my
hometown, everyone always will tell them to go out to okonomiyaki with their friends and family. All the
ingredients are layered and contains noodles. Since it’s basically made with flour, egg, and cabbage,
it’s a budget dinner you can make it at home. The sauce is called okonomiyaki sauce. It’s a little
sweet, almost like barbecue sauce. You can find them easily in Asian grocery stores in the US. I love
that my hometown has such amazing recipe to represent it. I also make it all the time at home for my
friends and family. My husband is Texan and he really loved this dish. I remember my non-Japanese
friend freaked out because when you top bonito flakes on top of something really hot, it moves,
almost looks like dancing. Okonomiyaki’s ingredients is really accessible. I can make it wherever I go
and bring a part of Hiroshima with me. I’ve already talked about mesmerizing Japanese dessert in last video,
so I’ll introduce a quick dessert you can make in a rice cooker. Most people use rice cooker for just
cooking rice, but you can cook so many other things in it. Once you get to know your rice cooker,
it’s your friend. This is a much easier way of making a jiggly cheesecake, which I know many of you
seems to like a lot. It may sound difficult to cook authentic Japanese food outside of Japan,
but I think it’s not too hard. The recipe I introduced today is using accessible ingredients all
throughout the world. It’s the easiest way to make you feel like you are traveling to Japan. I talked
about in my last video how cooking Japanese food was an easy way for me to feel at home whenever I
started feeling homesick, but now I’ve been in the US for 10 years, but still my favorite food is Japanese
food. I’ve come to love my new home, but when I can bring elements of Japan into the US and introduce it
to other people, it reminds me of where I came from and that Japan will always be my true home. I love
showing people Japanese recipes because they see a bit of my home and seeing their mate’s reaction
makes me happy. What is your favorite Japanese dish? Oh yes! Was I smiling?
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