Japanese Family-Style Recipes
A characteristic Japanese family meal, Tokyo-born Urakami tells us, includes ``a main dish of fish or meat, a side dish of braised vegetables, and a vinegared salad, accompanied by steamed rice and soup.'' The 53 recipes here feature vegetables such as sauteed burdock and braised daikon, as well as familiar dishes like yakitori , but as this book is meant for English-speaking cooks everywhere, Americans may find curious the instruction to ``coat the pot well with beef suet'' in the recipe for sukiyaki . Likewise, for ``marinated spicy fresh-water smelt,'' readers will want to know the size of the smelts (not given), and may be nonplussed by its substitute, ``horse mackerel fillets, cut into slices.'' The recipe for breaded fried swordfish lists only ``breadcrumbs for coating fish'' instead of panko , the coarse Japanese breadcrumbs that give a typically crunchy surface. Information is rather lacking on Japanese ingredients; in the refreshing-sounding recipe for salad with tofu dressing, the author assumes our familiarity with ``deep-fried tofu pouches'' and `` konnyaku (devil's tongue)sic .'' It is necessary to read the front matter; a recipe for the broth called dashi , used in more than half the recipes, appears under ``Cooking Notes.'' Helpfully, each recipe has its own color illustration.Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.