Cooking Recipe
Pick Up Stories

Chimushinji – Okinawan pork and vegetabl… [Cooking Recipe]
Okinawan people eat “Chimushinji” when they have a cold or fell otherwise sick. Ingredients in this dish include pork that contains proteins...Read More

Fried Okinawa noodles with ketchup [Cooking Recipe]
This noodle dish is easy and quick to cook, using ketchup with fried noodles to create a good old Okinawan flavor. This is straightforward h...Read More

Nakami Soup (Pork Guts Soup) [Cooking Recipe]
“Nakami” means guts or giblets of a pig, and “jiru (shiru)” means soup. This soup is very common in Okinawa and is offered at special cerebr...Read More

Misomayo salada – Miso paste and mayonnaise salad dressing [Cooking Recipe]
Do you think miso paste is just to make miso soup? You can use miso paste for many different dishes and this is one example. If you like Japanese goma (sesame) dressing, you might ...

Kinoko no butter shoyu itame – Mushrooms with butter and soy sauce [Cooking Recipe]
Butter and soy sauce?! Does this sound crazy to you? Well, it might, but it tastes great. You know Japanese cooking uses many different kinds of mushrooms, such as エリンギeringi, 椎茸sh...

Kabocha mochi – Pumpkin Rice Cake [Cooking Recipe]
Mochi is basically a rice cake, which is made using sticky rice. My participants often ask me if the rice I use for daily cooking is sticky rice. For Japanese people, we just use n...

Tougan to buta no nimono – Stewed winter melon and pork [Cooking Recipe]
Here is another recipe with winter melon. Winter melon itself doesn’t have a strong flavour but as you cook it with soy sauce and mirin (sweet sake), winter melon becomes really te...

Somen champuru – Fried somen noodles [Cooking Recipe]
Somen are a thin, white wheat noodles and very in Okinawa. In mainland Japan, people eat somen noodles with a dipping sauce but in Okinawa, it’s more common to make fried noodles o...

Tonyu kanten – Soymilk kanten [Cooking Recipe]
Have you heard of or used Kanten? Kanten is a natural vegetable gelatine and approximately 80% of it is fiber. Compared to gelatine, kanten is set firmly and it’s suitable for vege...

Shibui champuru – Fried winter melon and pork [Cooking Recipe]
Shibui in Okinawan, tougan in Japanese, winter melon has a long storage life. It is harvested in summer and you can actually store it until winter. The vegetable itself doesn’t hav...

Ensai Itame – Fried water spinach with garlic [Cooking Recipe]
Water spinach, エンサイ, grows in tropical and subtropical countries, so we have it in Okinawa. The first time I ever tasted this vegetable was at a Thai restaurant in Tokyo. It was on...

Shikwasa syrup – Flat lemon syrup [Cooking Recipe]
Have you seen Shikwasa at a farmers market? Shikwasa, or flat lemon, is a small, green citrus fruit native to Okinawa and Taiwan. Sometimes people call it Taiwan tangerine. As Shik...

Nasu no ohitashi – Steamed eggplant with broth [Cooking Recipe]
As eggplants are in season right now, I cook a lot of eggplant dishes. This is the dish I like to cook when I have really fresh eggplants (choose short and shiny ones when you shop...

Shishitou no nikumaki – Green pepper with pork [Cooking Recipe]
I’ve introduced shio-koji in this recipe corner before. Shio-koji is salt fermented rice malt and you can use it as a substitute for salt or you can use it as an ingredient in sauc...

Daigakuimo – Sweet potato with sesame and honey [Cooking Recipe]
Daigakuimo is a popular snack eaten in the Kanto and Tokyo areas. A direct translation is ‘university potato’ because it used to be popular among university students in the Tokyo r...

Maasuni – Fresh fish simmered in salt [Cooking Recipe]
Maasu means salt in Okinawan dialect. Maasuni is a traditional Okinawan dish of fish cooked with just salt and awamori. With this recipe, I added olive oil, parsley and mini...

Shabushabu salad – Boiled pork with sesame dressing [Cooking Recipe]
I know a lot of people find sesame dressing addictive. Sorry to spoil the fun, but did you know it has a high calorific value? I love sesame dressing as well, so this is a healthy,...

Shake no shio-koji yaki [Cooking Recipe]
Grilled salmon with shio-koji (salt fermented rice malt) There are many ways to use shio-koji. What is shio-koji? It is salt fermented rice malt and you can use it as a substitute ...

Yakinasu and shishito – Grilled eggplant and green pepper [Cooking Recipe]
Summer vegetables! Eggplants are now in season. This is my favourite way to enjoy fresh eggplant, nasu in Japanese. Also, I want to introduce Japanese green peppers, called ...

Moui no tsukemono – Red gourd pickle [Cooking Recipe]
This week, I’m introducing another seasonal local vegetable, Moui. I love living in Okinawa because you can feel the seasons through the local vegetables. If you love shopping at l...

Akajiso Juice – Red perilla juice [Cooking Recipe]
This juice is very seasonal as you can only find red perilla leaves early summer. When I start to see red perilla leaves at markets, it makes me feel the arrival of summer. Every y...

Umukujiandagii – Salty purple sweet potato cake [Cooking Recipe]
My cooking school is located in Yomitan and beniimo is a very special vegetable in this village. I did a sweet version of this cake recipe sometime in March this year. It was very ...

Umeshu – Plum wine [Cooking Recipe]
Have you tried plum wine? It is called umeshu in Japanese. It’s sweet and sour and I love drinking it with a rock of ice or with sparkling water. The plums you need to use to make ...