Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers

By Machiko Chiba

Book Overview

A new book that explains how to pair wine with modern Japanese food. Much has been written about the pairing of food and wine but almost nothing that focuses on Japanese food. It could be because Japanese food is not commonly associated with wine but actually many of its flavors may be perfectly paired with red and white, dry and even sweet wines. Reflecting the increasing popularity of Japanese food in the West and the new interest in wine as an accompaniment to food in Japan, Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers seeks to explain some simple ways to enjoy this non-traditional combination. Pairing wine goes beyond matching red wine with meat and white wine with chicken. The right match depends on personal tastes and adherence to some general guidelines intended to enhance the aromas of both the wine and the food and to prevent a clashing of flavors. In Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers , leading wine expert John Whelehan explains the elements of typical Japanese flavorings-soy sauce, ginger, sake, mirin, and sesame-as well as some of the more delicate flavors like raw fish and exotic mushrooms, and describes the best wine selections for each. He also gives descriptive recommendations for the best wines to savor with the 58 contemporary Japanese dishes created and presented in this book by best-selling cookbook author Machiko Chiba. The dishes in this book are simple to make and represent the new wave of cookery in Japan today. Amond the 58 mouthwatering recipes are White Fish Simmered in Spicy Miso, Thin-Sliced Octopus with Citron-Flavored Sesame, Tuna Tataki with Wasabi, Beef with White Sesame and Sweet Sake, Grated Mountain Yam and Carrot, Daikon Radish Gyoza Dumplings, and Tiny Dried Fish and Pine Kernel Onigiri Rice Balls. Beautifully illustrated and packed with innovative recipes, Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers fills a much needed place in our understanding of how to enjoy wine with today's dynamic Japanese inspired menus.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 4770030037
• ISBN13: 9784770030030
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: Kodansha
• Length: 119 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 10.0" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

This is exactly what i was looking for!!

I'm Japanese, and this book is exactly what i was waiting to be published for myself and my non-japanese friends! All the recipes are very simple and easy to follow and come with wine suggestions. I also enjoyed the beautiful pictures of every dish! What i hate most is a cooking book without picures. It's like a reading a novel and very boring. I need a cooking book to not only tell me how to prepare but also show me what I'm cooking. This book has met all the things I'm looking for in a cooking book. I've bought this book a few times already to give to my friends. It makes a great gift!

Use your thoughts instead of a critic

Certain reviews are Well lets just say if you're a typical gorging Burger King glutton who does nothing more than to stuff their face for the prime purpose of going into heart surgery the next morning Like 85% of the population in America than maybe this book isn't for you. However if you're a somewhat sensible eater and have some appreciation for food other than seeing how much you can fit in your mouth than you may grasp some knowledge and enjoyable sensations as was intended from this book. If your looking for a book on how to calcify every artery and expose every inch of cellulite that your body has to offer try reading the popular menu entries for Fast Food Endeavors for the Criminally obese.

61 contemporary Japanese dishes

Enhanced with advice about wine pairing by J. K. Whelehan, Japanese Dishes For Wine Lovers by Machiko Chiba (winner of many awards for cooking in Japan and founder of her own cooking school in Sendai, Japan) is a very special culinary guide focusing on pairing red, white, dry, and sweet wines with diverse Japanese dishes. Showcasing both traditional and non-traditional combinations, the dishes showcased in this enthusiastically recommended addition to any kitchen cookbook collection offers the enhancement wine has to offer to 61 contemporary Japanese dishes. Beautifully illustrated and offering easy-to-follow step-by-step preparatory instructions, these extraordinary recipes range from Crispy Onion Salad with Chirimenjako; to Mushrooms and Okra Sautéed in Butter and Soy Sauce; to Pork and Plum Stir-Fry; to Oysters on the Half Shell with Japanese Dressing, Japanese Dishes For Wine Lovers is a veritable "how to" manual for enjoying wine with dynamic, innovate, mouth-wateringly delicious Japanese cuisine.

Champagne and sushi, both served fresh and cold

Japan is not a country known for its love of wine. Foreign visitors are often horrified to see the bottle of red that they ordered arrive straight from the refrigerator, nicely chilled. The national beverages are beer and whiskey along with native drinks sake and shochu. Beer, whiskey, sake and shochu are all wonderful tipples, but often wine-lovers would like to pop a bottle of something to go along with their Japanese feast. Chef Machiko Chiba and Wine Expert JK Whelehan decided to take up this challenge, and have assembled a fine collection of paired-dishes in this cookbook, "Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers." Chiba has created a selection of dishes more "wine friendly" than traditional Japanese foods, fishes with thick sauces and light vegetable salads that would never appear in a restaurant in Japan. As she states in her introduction, these are dishes that she created over the years working in New York, adapting Japanese foods to suit Western tastes and trying to create dishes that partner better with the more wine-friendly West. Ingredients bounce back and forth between Western and Japanese, with interesting blends such as the "Avocado Tofu Salad" and "Seafood with Carrot Dressing." There is a good blend of vegetable, meat and fish dishes to suit any eating habits. Whelenan has taking these dishes, and found a reciprocal wine to go with each creation. In his introduction, Whelenan talks about the needs of pairing wines with the Asian taste of "umami," a fifth taste associated with Asian food separate from sweet, sour, salty and bitter. His essay on umami is quite enlightening in itself, and a very interesting read. He also touches on traditional Japanese ingredients such as soy sauce, mirin, wasabi, and shichimi seven-spice pepper, and the challenges of matching wine to each flavoring. His choices favor sparkling wines, which emulate the bubbles and freshness of the beer traditionaly served with these dishes, and champagne is a definite favorite to accompany foods such as sushi. The flaws in "Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers" are in two main areas. First, Chiba, a professional chef, has created recipes with ingredients that are obscure and difficult to find even in a Japanese grocery store, and a specialty store will need to be found in order to make these recipes as written. Some, such as the Japanese citrus fruit yuzu, are quite necessary but many more serve as little more than a garnish and can be substituted easily. Unfortunately, Chiba does not make any suggestions for substitutions for these hard-to-find ingredients or suggestions as to where to acquire them, so you are on your own. Secondly, Whelenan has paired a separate wine for every single dish, many of which are little more than appetizers. The portions are all quite small, in keeping with Japanese-style serving of many dishes of small sizes. An extraordinary number of bottles of wine would need to fill a table if one cooked a meal based on this cook