Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers [Hardcover]

Japan is not a country known for its love of wine. Foreign visitors are often horrified to see the bottle of red that they ordered arrive straight from the refrigerator, nicely chilled. The national beverages are beer and whiskey along with native drinks sake and shochu. Beer, whiskey, sake and shochu are all wonderful tipples, but often wine-lovers would like to pop a bottle of something to go along with their Japanese feast. Chef Machiko Chiba and Wine Expert JK Whelehan decided to take up this challenge, and have assembled a fine collection of paired-dishes in this cookbook, "Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers."

Chiba has created a selection of dishes more "wine friendly" than traditional Japanese foods, fishes with thick sauces and light vegetable salads that would never appear in a restaurant in Japan. As she states in her introduction, these are dishes that she created over the years working in New York, adapting Japanese foods to suit Western tastes and trying to create dishes that partner better with the more wine-friendly West. Ingredients bounce back and forth between Western and Japanese, with interesting blends such as the "Avocado Tofu Salad" and "Seafood with Carrot Dressing." There is a good blend of vegetable, meat and fish dishes to suit any eating habits.

Whelenan has taking these dishes, and found a reciprocal wine to go with each creation. In his introduction, Whelenan talks about the needs of pairing wines with the Asian taste of "umami," a fifth taste associated with Asian food separate from sweet, sour, salty and bitter. His essay on umami is quite enlightening in itself, and a very interesting read. He also touches on traditional Japanese ingredients such as soy sauce, mirin, wasabi, and shichimi seven-spice pepper, and the challenges of matching wine to each flavoring. His choices favor sparkling wines, which emulate the bubbles and freshness of the beer traditionaly served with these dishes, and champagne is a definite favorite to accompany foods such as sushi.

The flaws in "Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers" are in two main areas. First, Chiba, a professional chef, has created recipes with ingredients that are obscure and difficult to find even in a Japanese grocery store, and a specialty store will need to be found in order to make these recipes as written. Some, such as the Japanese citrus fruit yuzu, are quite necessary but many more serve as little more than a garnish and can be substituted easily. Unfortunately, Chiba does not make any suggestions for substitutions for these hard-to-find ingredients or suggestions as to where to acquire them, so you are on your own. Secondly, Whelenan has paired a separate wine for every single dish, many of which are little more than appetizers. The portions are all quite small, in keeping with Japanese-style serving of many dishes of small sizes. An extraordinary number of bottles of wine would need to fill a table if one cooked a meal based on this cookbook. A few balanced courses would have been nice, with a single wine that would work for the meal.

From this, "Japanese Dishes for Wine Lovers" succeeds as a cookbook first, and as wine-paring advice second. Chiba's recipes are innovative and delicious. The "Salmon Marinated in Sake," "Silver Cod Simmered in Spicy Miso," "Tofu and Salmon Stuffed Peppers" and "Deep-Fried Sea Bream with Burdock" have all been absolutely delicious. The dishes are presentation-quality, great for inviting friends over for a meal when you are looking to impress, and with flavors balanced enough to suit Western and Japanese tastes. Whelenan's introduction serves as mini-lesson on pairing wine to this type of food, and an adventurous host will probably be able to use that just as much as his specific advice when planning and preparing a meal.

Good inspiration for Japanese cooking. Good pairings in the wine and food. Fun to cook the original style foods

I'm Japanese, and this book is exactly what i was waiting to be published for myself and my non-japanese friends!

All the recipes are very simple and easy to follow and come with wine suggestions.

I also enjoyed the beautiful pictures of every dish!

What i hate most is a cooking book without picures. It's like a reading a novel and very boring. I need a cooking book to not only tell me how to prepare but also show me what I'm cooking.

This book has met all the things I'm looking for in a cooking book.

I've bought this book a few times already to give to my friends.

It makes a great gift!

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