Japanese food made easy

Kyoko Rabbetts’ New Japanese Kitchen cookbook combines the conventional and contemporary, with innovative tweaks here and there.

KYOKO Rabbetts (pic) has arrived later than expected from a previous engagement. And I have arrived earlier than expected, for our meeting. As a consequence, the bubbly, consummate hostess hasn’t had a spare moment to cook, as she is wont to do when people come to her house.

“I’m so sorry, I normally make something when people come,” she says, looking woefully in the direction of her kitchen.

Before I can allay her concerns, she runs to the kitchen and bustles about for a few minutes, emerging with two different kinds of drinks, some Japanese biscuits and an assortment of chocolates.

“I love people and I love entertaining,” she says, and you know instantly that this is totally true. Rabbetts is a warm, inviting hostess who laughs often, coaxes you into eating far more than you need to and has such a comforting presence, you instantly feel like you’ve made a firm friend.

Rabbetts’ sharing nature and entertaining-loving spirit are also New evident in her first cookbook, Japanese Kitchen,

published under the umbrella of the MPH Masterclass Kitchens.

The book is a compilation of recipes she learnt from her mother, a Kyoto native (Rabbetts herself grew up in Osaka) as well as improvised, fusion-infused Japanese-Western configurations she came up with herself.

“People from my mother’s generation like more authentic Japanese food, but the younger generation eats much more fusion-type of things, so they like this sort of thing,” she says.

You’ll find recipes for all sorts of interesting things like tricolour stuffed niku miso bell peppers, eggs Benedict with mentaiko, edamame quinoa salad and green tea Nutella cake.

Then there are also sprinklings of true-blue Japanese recipes like temarizushi (sushi balls from Kyoto) and the ubiquitous karaage chicken.

The book took Rabbetts nearly two years to put together and she confesses it was a bit of a challenge, largely because she worked hard to make sure all the recipes were pork-free and alcoholfree, which also meant she had to find suitable substitutes. “That was very challenging, because I have never, ever seen this in other cookbooks before. My kitchen was like a chemistry class – I kept experimenting and trying different things,” she says.

One of the discoveries that Rabbetts is most enthused about is agave nectar, which after much trial-and-error, she realised could be diluted with water to form a great substitute for mirin (rice wine)! Rabbetts is also passionate about the concept of food looking beautiful, something which her mother and grandmother frequently drummed into her. As a consequence, nearly all the dishes in the book are vibrant and multi-coloured – nothing is one-dimensional or boring.

Rabbetts’ background as a cake designer also weaved its way into the book, and she put her artistic skills to good use, even fashioning sugar flowers to enhance the aesthetic appeal of dishes like her gorgeous sakura and matcha mousse.

“The food has to be pretty – it has to look nice and taste good, too. My mother and my grandmother really emphasised that when I was young. As a child, the concept confused me and I used to ask my grandmother, ‘How do you eat with your eyes? Show me! Show me!’, ” she says, laughing.

Rabbetts says ultimately, she hopes the book will help dispel the myth that Japanese food is difficult to make.

To this end, she has gone out of her way to show just how easy Japanese cooking can be, with detailed step-by-step instructions (with pictures), tips at every turn, and an incredibly useful pictorial guide to essential Japanese ingredients.

Perhaps the most interesting element that Rabbetts talks about in her book is the idea of freezer management, which she says is essential to prep work – for instance, sushi rice and shiitake mushrooms, which can be stored in the chiller until their services are required.

“Once you have the basics, it’s so easy. I think Japanese cooking is one of the easiest cuisines to master. You just have to have some key ingredients and things that you can freeze and take out later. It looks complicated, but it’s actually so simple,” she says.

Now that she’s got her first cookbook under her belt, Rabbetts is already hard at work on her second one, which she says will be focused on even easier Japanese recipes. And the driven home cook isn’t content with that – she’s already playing with the idea of coming up with a Japanese dessert cookbook as well!

“I have so many things that I want to do. I like creating new things, and I always want to do something different – that’s my strength,” she says.