A couple of months back, in order to feed my growing interest in Japanese cooking I decided to purchase a couple of books on the subject. Aside from a couple of reference books on the subject, I purchased the “New Art of Japanese Cooking” from Masaharu Morimoto. Chef Morimoto has is a celebrity chef who appeared several time on Iron Chef (both in Japan and the US) and is a great Japanese restaurator.
This book is well worth the purchase. In the past I had cooked Japanese dishes, sushi and the likes, but I was never satisfied with the results. I must say, however, at first going through the literature I felt like I had never cooked before, a lot of the ingredients were foreign to me but the learning curve wasn’t as steep as I first thought. The greatest thing that I learned from the books and research in Japanese cooking is: Treat your ingredients with the respect they deserve.”
Contrary to Chinese or French cooking where the methods are closer to chemical arrangements, the Japanese way lies more in the simple harmonization of subtle flavour differences. For example, in a sushi meal, all the sushi, sashimi, nigri, etc are prepared in the way that the entire plater’s flavours are harmonised with one another.
Of course we do so in other cooking styles but the Japanese do take it a step further. Attention to details in preparing, curing, cutting, cooking and presenting is always at the forefront. Have you ever wondered why you should cut a piece of meat one way or another. The Japanese always do!
A lot of the techniques and philosophies of Japanese cooking can be transposed to other styles of cooking. When I started looking carefully to the drivers of such complex simplicity it open a whole new realm of cooking ideas I had never thought of before.
I used an oxymoron which is totally representative of Japanese cooking. A lot of work and complex harmonisation is done prior to presenting as simple looking dish.
So I recommend starting to gain interest in this style of cooking. Really starting to break down the maths of the ingredients we put together and understanding why. Isn’t that what cooking really is at its grass root level.
Happy cooking
Entrepreneur spécialisé en gestion de projet, technologie et alimentation.
Je travail présentement avec mon père comme directeur du développement de la Fringale. Un traiteur scolaire de la région de québec. 
I hope you enjoy this article my english speaking friends. I will try to publish more english content going forward.
Happy reading