There Is Such a Thing as an Ultimate Cooking Sake
Like a magic potion, it makes everything delicious
I have been cooking Japanese food as a hobby for over a decade, but only recently has it started to feel like I’ve acquired any intuition with it. For a long time, I followed recipes to the letter; though I typically prefer to improvise when cooking, I always found that when I didn’t follow the instructions exactly, the final result never hit right.
Japanese cooking demands a precise pantry of imported ingredients to be convincing, but once you’re set, you can make magical food in moments. Even the most basic dishes rely on specific flavors like bonito flakes, fermented soybeans, and daikon radish. Sure, you can try to substitute chicken broth for dashi, but it’s never going to taste like the fried tofu from the izakaya. It’s no secret that choosing better ingredients increases your odds for success in the kitchen, but it’s not always obvious which things make the biggest impact when you’re learning an unfamiliar cuisine.
I’ve benefited most by focusing on the core set of condiments providing the tasty foundation on which most Japanese dishes are prepared: soy sauce gives depth, sweetness comes from mirin, dashi lends the elegant scent of smoke, and sake is cooking alcohol with umami.
