Hiroko's American Kitchen: Cooking With Japanese Flavors Debuts Fall 2012

With the release of fall cookbooks around the corner, I'd like to draw your attention to Hiroko Shimbo's forthcoming cookbook, Hiroko's American Kitchen: Cooking with Japanese Flavors (Andrews McMeel, October 30, 2012, $24.99 USA, $28.99 Canada). Follow this link to the electronic blad.

Widely recognized as an expert on Japanese cuisine, Shimbo is a chef-instructor, consulting chef and cookbook author based in the United States. Her first two award-winning books, The Japanese Kitchen (Harvard Common Press, 2000) and The Sushi Experience (Knopf, 2006), are considered primers on Japanese cuisine and continue to attract professional chefs and home cooks.

Now, in her third cookbook, Hiroko's American Kitchen, Shimbo offers an entirely new perspective on Japanese cooking. Rather than teaching Americans how to cook authentic Japanese cuisine, she focuses instead on integrating Japanese flavors, cooking techniques and staples onto the American table.

Hiroko's American Kitchen eliminates hard to find, exotic (and often intimidating) Japanese ingredients, instead focusing on easily available key Japanese staples that can be found in grocery stores across the country, such as soy sauce, mirin, miso and rice vinegar.

The foundation of the book is six easily prepared homemade Japanese-style sauces and stocks, which can be prepared in quantity in advance and stored in the refrigerator or freezer for quick and easy use. The four sauces and two stocks, organized into six individual chapters, are the conduit for preparing the 125 recipes in the book, adding a dose of Japanese flavor to primarily American ingredients.

Hiroko's American Kitchen offers plenty of healthy and low-fat options and the colorful photographs and personal anecdotes within the book engage the reader on a personal level.

Highlights include:

- Chilled Edamame Soup (pg. 17) -- Edamame have become a favorite snack in America. Cucumber and green pepper add an herbaceous flavor. Frozen edamame work well in this recipe.

[Kelp Stock, Chapter One: Japan's most basic vegetarian stock. If finding kelp is a problem, Shimbo says that low-sodium vegetable stock can be substituted for the recipes in this chapter.]

- White Bean, Sausage & Vegetable Soup with Miso (pg. 46) - The classic Italian white bean soup is given a Japanese makeover with the addition of Dashi and Miso.

[Dashi Stock, Chapter Two: The most frequently used stock in the Japanese kitchen made by infusing dried skipjack tuna flakes in Kelp Stock. If kelp and fish flakes are hard to find, low-sodium chicken stock can be substituted for the recipes in this chapter.]

- Potato and Salmon Salad (pg. 89) - White miso sauce replaces mayonnaise in this easy salad that combines economical and healthy canned salmon with boiled potatoes, green peas, and corn kernals.

[White Sumiso Sauce, Chapter Three: A traditional sauce made from young, pale white miso, sugar and vinegar. Freezes well.]

- Skirt Steak Meets Spicy Miso Sauce (pg. 127) - A Japanese-flavored version of this economical cut of beef. Excellent grilled or cooked in the oven.

[Spicy Miso Sauce, Chapter Four: Made from aged brown miso, sugar, mirin and rice wine. Freezes well.]

- Tomato, Onion, Avocado, and Bacon Rice Bowl (pg. 141) - Donburi, rice in a bowl with a wide variety of toppings, is a Japanese meal-in-one dish. Bacon, tomato and avocado are given a Japanese boost with a teriyaki-style sauce.

[Best Basting and Cooking Sauce, Chapter Five: A blend of soy sauce, sugar and mirin. Similar to teriyaki, this sauce can wear many hats -- as a dipping sauce, cooking sauce, stir-frying sauce and basting sauce.]

- Tempura Fish & Chips (pg. 194) - Shimbo's home