This new work by the doyenne of Japanese cookbook authors will be welcomed by everyone who loves washoku. Everyday Harumi is filled with easy-to-cook, home-style recipes that cover a wide range of meat, seafood and vegetable dishes.

The book opens with an entire chapter on cupboard essentials for making Japanese cuisine, in particular sauces that you will go back to often: ponzu, men-tsuyu, and vinegar with mirin.

Among the basic recipes are chicken karaage, shoga-yaki(ginger pork) and classic vegetable dishes like tofu salad with sesame dressing. Kurihara has also adapted a few recipes so that they’re easier to prepare with ingredients found in the Western kitchen—watercress, celery and cauliflower. There’s even an udon dish with a ground-meat miso sauce that could be mistaken for pasta bolognese.

Even if you’re a collector of Japanese cookbooks, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the new recipes to be discovered in Everyday Harumi. Bonus: the food is presented in lovely Japanese pottery and other traditional vessels.

By Harumi Kurihara
Conran Octopus, 2009, 192pp, ¥3,098

This review first appeared in Metropolis magazine:

http://metropolis.co.jp/dining/local-flavors/delicious-reads/