Japanese

I love the classic combination of beef, potato, and carrot cooked in a saucy, slightly sweet curry and ladled next to white rice. You can use whatever meat and vegetables you want, but for me, curry has two unbreakable rules: First, make sure that meat is nice and fatty. Second, embrace the premade blocks of Japanese curry roux. Curry is not health food, but neither are the deep-fried pork cutlets called tonkatsu, and I’m not planning to give those up either, no matter what my wife says!

There is no better use for leftover rice than chahan. A brief trip in a pan resurrects the grains and a few pantry ingredients—little more than eggs, oil, and salt—transform tired rice into a super-satisfying meal. To give the humble dish a little flair, I whip up a saucy broth filled with vegetables and shrimp and pour it on at the last minute. Of course, you can add any ingredients you like—peas or asparagus, kimchi or Japanese pickles, pork, or even, as I do at Morimoto Napa, duck confit.

The most popular person at any Japanese street festival is the yakisoba guy. Standing at a small cart with a hot griddle, he wears a twisted hair band and holds two giant spatulas, one in each hand. With great energy and fanfare he stir-fries a heap of vegetables and pork with chukasoba noodles—the yellow, springy Chinese-style wheat noodles more commonly known as ramen. He finishes with a glug of the special bottled sauce that tastes like a spicier version of tonkatsu sauce, and customers walk toward him like zombies. At home, however, the dish is best cooked one portion at a time.

For this nontraditional okonomiyaki recipe, you need to julienne the potato. Use a mandoline with the shredder attachment, or slice it very thinly into planks and then crosswise into very thin strips. Makes a terrific appetizer!

Sometimes all your body wants is a vacation from intense eating. That's where this feel-good (but fill-you-up) broth comes in.

You'll add the bok choy to the noodles during the last minute of cooking, and punch up a quick broth with ground pork, miso, and soaked dried mushrooms.

Serve this easy Japanese sauce with summer rolls, sushi, or dumplings.

Japanese shichimi togarashi is a blend of seven seasonings including chile, orange zest, and sesame seeds that can be found at Asian grocers.

A robust soup brimming with mixed vegetables and protein in a rich dashi broth, this one-pot stew is eaten by Japanese wrestlers in training. It’s wonderfully hearty without being heavy.