Everyday Harumi: Simple Japanese food for family and friends

Going to try this book soon. Most recipes look super easy, but they do all include of mainly sake, mirin, and rice vinegar. I read a few reviews saying that it is bland, but I feel like most Japanese food aside from the typical hibachi and rolls are bland in flavor in general making it feel healthier in taste.Also, there are measurements in oz. versus cups and spoons. This can all be solve if you can invest in a kitchen scare that weighs both in lbs/oz and grams with a TARE setting. They aren’t that expensive, & you’ll never have to worry about wasting time googling and converting anything dealing with those measurements again. If you’re going to be cooking a lot, it should be on your must have list.Update 7/4/19: sirloin with miso marinade was absolutely disgusting, but that can be user error. I replaced sake with rice vinegar, but forgot to dilute it 1/3 part water. Also the soy sauce I use was Maggi, but she did suggested using a authentic Japanese soy sauce. I might try this again, but using Ohsawa soy sauce and diluting the rice vinegar with water or just suck it through with sake. That being said- her book doesn’t include a prep time, cook time, & marinade time. You have to read it to get the times/ idea on how long all will take.Update: 7/5/2019 Okay, the Yakitori was excellent!!! This time I used Japanese soy sauce (by Ohsawa) & Mirin (by Eden). There was no sake involve, so I didn’t have to worry about that. Officially the best yakitori in town here. I completely skipped/forgot the salt and pepper, but it really didn’t need it at all. However, you can’t find chicken thighs with skin and no bones here. So, I bought chicken thighs and took the bones out to the best that I can, and resumed with the recipe. The recipe told us to pan fried it, but said you can either barbecued them (which she did in photos) or broiled them. I opted to broiled them, because it’s too darn hot outside. That being said, she doesn’t tell you the time to cook them in either method or that you will need to flip them halfway.. So, I watched it browned/a little burnt especially the leek, & then flipped them for the same outcome.

I have three Harumi cookbooks, Harumi’s Japanese Home cooking (my favorite), Harumi’s Japanese cooking and Everday Harumi. Each book offers new recipes that are delicious, nutritious and easy to follow. I bought this book for my son for Christmas so I haven’t tried the recipes in this particular book. For a first choice, I recommend Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking.

I bought this book off a recommendation in Saveur magazine. I have always been hesitant of reaching out to Japanese books because of their need for fairly difficult to find ingredients that don't have much place in the other types of cuisine I normally cook. I am a big fan of Japanese food in general and have been eager to bring it home for some time.Construction:This is a very well made book. The paper stock and print is very well done. Aesthetically its very well presented and very clear and easy to follow/understand.5/5 StarsContent:This is where this book shines. I wish I could score this thing A+++ just for the content. The first thing this book does is break down your fear of cooking and then further remove any barriers to entry to Japanese food in general by going over the base ingredients you will need. The thing that's attractive here is that there are alternatives suggested to items so that if you cant find something or don't want to purchase it for a one off recipe there is a suitable alternative suggested. Very very cool. The next part of book that is amazing is the fact that the recipes are all everyday cooking recipes so they are not too involved. This translates to delicately crafted dishes that are not heavy on ingredients so if you were to stock a couple of the base ingredients Harumi recommends you are able to make a large number of dishes in this book. Cant ask for better let me tell you!5/5 StarsOverall:This is a no brainer, this is 5 star over and over again. This is a cornerstone book for anybody who wants to try their hand at Japanese food or even for those that want to take their skills one step further. Harumi is considered Japans Julia Child and this book tells you why. She has demystified Japanese cooking and made it accessible to the masses.5/5 Stars

I've really like the recipes I've made so far in this book and I like that they seem to be recipes used by Japanese people at home, so they are really different from other Japanese cookbooks out there. However, I do thing the instructions and the list of the ingredients are confusing and poorly written and could use a bit more information, especially if you are newer to cooking. Maybe this all comes down to poor translation, but there are a lot of inconsistencies in the types of measurements used and the instructions. One recipe may call for 3 cups green beans and then another calls for 9oz green beans. Or a lot of the units of measurements are unhelpful and I found myself having to use google to convert things. Like a rice recipe called for 11oz of rice, which is a strange measurement to use.Also, the instructions for the actually cooking are limited. One pork with green bean recipe I made said to lightly cook the green beans in boiling water and that was it. Did it want me to blanch them or cook it longer? I don't know. Just having recommended cooking times would be super helpful especially if you are using an ingredient you're unfamiliar with. Or a grilled fish recipe just said to grill the fish until done. I don't really grill fish that often so I had to look up a rough guide on the timing online. One recipe I glanced at said to add the ingredients to the the pan in a specific order cooking until ready to add the next, without rough outlines of how long to cook each item.So it's been a bit frustrating having to spend so much time with each recipe trying to figure out exactly how it wants me to do stuff and how much of each ingredient to use.

The book is, as its title claims, filled with easy and simple recipes you would offer in a Japanese home. There are plenty of all-time favourites such as Tonkatsu (breaded pork), Karaage (deep-fried chicken), Shougayaki (ginger pork) and Yakitori (barbequed chicken skewers) which are balanced with some less-well-known (but just as delicious!) dishes.Many of the recipes are real classics, you would eat at any Japanese home and often in restaurants too. It certainly brought back many fond memories of the time I spent in Japan. Some of the recipes have a slight Western twist to them, which I think makes the book even more interesting, as it gives the recipes some real uniqueness. And all of the recipes are dead-simple, allowing even cooking-challenged people to to enjoy Japanese cooking. Some of the recipes are actually pretty common in home-economics classes in Japanese schools.I also loved the fact that the only sushi recipe this book features is Mazezushi - a very easy and quick recipe too - as (unlike often assumed) there is much more to Japanese cooking than rice and raw fish! So this is the book for you if you want to expand your knowledge of Japanese everyday-cooking.Recipes aside, the book is also presented well, with pleasant thick pages nice to touch and beautiful pictures alongside every recipe, enticing your appetite. The overall appearance of the book is sort of muted and soft, perfectly in line with the homey feeling of the recipes.

This book contains many tasty recipes, which have become favourites in my house, but occupies an awkward space between the Japanese and "Asian" cookbooks on my shelf. Harumi's recipes here are by and large an adaptation of traditional Japanese food, written with a Western audience in mind- most of the recipes lack a japanese name, and few "exotic" ingredients are used that can't be picked up in a large supermarket (at least in Britain). However many of the recipes use dashi and other ingredients necessating a trip to a Japanese store. This isn't a problem, but is worth bearing in mind- if you can make the occasional trip to an Asian food store to stock up on sauces, seasonings and storecupboard ingredients this book is for you. If you can't (or would like to become a regular in your local Pan-Asian Supermarket), it probably isn't.For me, this book is perfect for getting the flavours of Japan into my food more regularly. The "authenticity" angle is far from a moot point, but seeing as I don't live in Japan (any more) this allows me to use the ingredients available to me to create passably Japanese food week in, week out. An okonomiyaki recipe would've sealed the deal.

I had a few other Japanese cookbooks before but what annoyed me was the fact that they mainly consisted of a collection of little side dishes. So you'd need to spend hours preparing all of the components to have a proper meal. Now apart from a few Japanese housewives, the normal working population doesn't even bother cooking this way anymore. This cookbook is therefore good for busy people who still want an authentic taste of Japan. The only key ingredients needed are: mirin, soy sauce, dashi, katsuoboshi and sake. No weird unobtainable vegetables or obscure components. They are all easily available from online or Asian shops. Once you have the basics the recipes are all quick and make proper meals without the need to have tons of side dishes.

I bought this book a couple of weeks ago because I am a keen cook and have been wanting to try cooking Japanese food for a while. I was a bit concerned that like other Asian foods it would require a load of ingredients that you can only get from a specialist supermarket or online. I was was very pleased when the book arrived and the ingredients required for nearly all the dishes can be found in a regular supermarket without trouble. There are one or two specialist ingredients but Harumi offers advised on suitable alternatives if you cant get hold of them. The number of ingredients required for each dish is usually short along with the preparation time in most cases (some require a little more effort but nothing too strenuous). The recipes are clear and concise and then end results delicious. Harumi also takes you through how to cook absolutely perfect japanese rice as a bonus. So far I have cooked the miso marinated steak and the ginger pork and both were easy to do and tasted fantastic. I'm looking forward to trying the other recipes soon and perhaps purchasing her other cookbook!

It is an interesting introduction to Japanese cuisine. I felt it was a bit repetitive though. The sauces are pretty much always made with the same basic ingredients (mostly soy sauce, to which you add mirin and rice vinegar; sometimes it is miso and a dashi). It can been seen as an advantage: you can buy those basic ingredients and you are not going to waste them, since they appear in all recipes. So it is certainly a good place to start if you want to get familiar with new tastes.