“We are here on Earth to help others. What on earth the others are here for I do not know.” ~WH Auden
I am a big fan of east Asian cooking, especially Japanese food. The skilled miso makers who can magically summon flavours of caramel, chocolate, coffee or banana from the lowly soybean, the bold, punchy soy sauces and fresh, vibrant salads and sushi, the buzz of an Osaka street food market – to a chef, it’s an incredibly diverse and intriguing region. As a cuisine, it’s way ahead of the curve when it comes to low-impact eating too: despite only 12% of the country being used for arable land, Japan is almost entirely self-sufficient when it comes to producing vegetables and grain, according to a USDA foreign agricultural report from 2018.
There is a phrase; ‘seven gods live in one grain of rice’. It teaches us gratitude and appreciation for all the challenges, hurdles and hard work that went into your food at every step of its journey. This connection to nature and the land is so important in Japanese culture there are even special words and phrases that have no direct English translation. Kisetsukan is a phrase that describes having a sense of the seasons or a feeling of seasonality, which can describe a painting as much as the freshest hashiri at the market – the first harvest of the season, a highly anticipated and celebrated find. My favourite is the idea of shun, the sheer joy of eating food at its very peak of the season, its perfect ripeness or best, most flavourful moment.
We could learn a lot. For comparison, the UK is about 21% arable land yet we produce just over half of our veg in the UK in 2024, according to DEFRA. Anyway, the recipes. I’ve adapted these recipes from Emiko Davies’ book Gohan, a beautiful collection of stories and memories of Japanese home cooking.
Tofu katsu with griddled leeks and cucumber and sesame salad (serves 2)
One to bring out the big guns on date night or your next dinner party, this can be done in advance and thrown together in the last ten minutes. It’s deceptively easy and affordable too, the combo of tofu, soy sauce and smoky grilled leeks turbo charged with serious fire-power.
I was a little short on time today, so I used ready-made organic tofu from Devon-based company Dragonfly – since soybeans can be a problem, as a member of the globally recognised platform SEDEX they’re subject to regular onsite third-party audits to look at the social and ethical impacts of their supply chain. Like all beans, when grown on well-managed farms soybeans can repair the soil by nitrogen-producing bumps on their roots and are a great source of plant protein while using a fraction of the land and water needed to produce the same amount of animal protein.
The carrots, onions, garlic and leeks came from a organic and biodynamic local farm also offering regenerative farming support, consultancy for land-based businesses and nature-based wellbeing therapies.
- 2 carrot, unpeeled and roughly chopped
- 2 onions, roughly chopped
- 1 bulb of garlic, cloves separated and peeled
- 4tbsp olive or sesame oil
- 2tbsp mild curry powder
- 1 1/3tbsp garam masala
- 4tbsp white spelt flour – I like to use spelt flour rather than conventional wheat flour, as spelt is an important rotation crop and the flour works almost exactly the same for cooking or baking. If you can’t get it, organic wheat flour is fine.
- 1.4l veg stock, dashi or water
- 2tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1 1/3 tbsp natural honey
- Juice of 1 lime
To make the dashi, if using, soak 10g of kombu or other seaweed in 1l filtered water overnight. Strain, keeping the seaweed to make furikkake seasoning, then use in recipes. Freeze any stock you’re not using right away. Cut the tofu into 4 slices, then cut each slice in half so you get 8 roughly equal thick lengths. Marinate the tofu in 1tbsp sesame oil, 1tbsp soy sauce and 1tsp honey or black treacle.
Saute the carrot, onion and garlic in the oil in a deep, heavy-based pan over a medium heat. After 5 minutes, add the spices and cook for about 30 seconds, until aromatic. I used Mill & Mortar for dried spices, a Danish company claiming to source organic, fair trade, traceable and single-estate spices. It’s great quality and vetted by Sous Chef, but keep in mind I couldn’t find anything to confirm the Fairtrade certification. Suma, Spice Mountain or Essential Cooperative are a good alternatives if you’d prefer, though Mill & Mortar package their products in reusable convenient-size containers.
Anyway, after 30 seconds, add the flour and continue to cook for 1-2 minutes until the flour starts to smell nutty, then slowly whisk in the stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes until thickened. Blitz with a stick blender until smooth. Add the soy sauce, lime juice and honey to balance the taste, tasting and adding a little more of each as you go. This sauce can be made up to a week in advance, or frozen very successfully. Any leftovers are great with roasted veg and chickpeas, chicken or pork.
- 2 small or 1 large leeks, washed thoroughly and cut into 5cm lengths. Save the the green leafy tops for stock or stew another day.
- Marinated tofu
- A splash of sesame oil
- Wild rice, to serve (optional)
- Pinch of sesame seeds or chilli powder – I used an organic furikkake spice mix with seaweed, sesame and Japanese sansho pepper.
- 2 lime wedges
Simmer the leeks in lightly salted water for about 8 minutes. Lift out with a slotted spoon, reserving the cooking water. Leave to cool slightly, then gently squeeze out any extra water. This can be done in advance as well if you want. Add the wild rice to the leek water and simmer for 30-40 minutes until tender. About 10 minutes before serving, char the leeks in a hot ridged skillet for 6-7 minutes, turning regularly, then season with the chilli powder. Just before serving, place the lime wedges, cut side down, into the pan to caramelise for 2-3 minutes.
Remove the leeks and keep warm while you cook the tofu. Heat a splash of sesame oil in the same skillet, add the tofu and cook for 4-5 minutes, turning once, until golden and crispy at the edges. Serve the sauce in large warmed pasta bowls and garnish with the charred leeks, a pinch of black sesame seeds and lime wedges.
I paired this with an Italian organic and biodynamic white wine made without added sulphites, using spontaneous fermentation. It’s rich and funky, with a sort of farmyard taste about it, being so close to the land it came from. Glassy, citrussy, orange and pink, there’s something reminiscent of Italian blood oranges and raspberries in there. Perfect.
Blood orange anmitsu (serves 2)
I would trade all the chocolate in the world for anko – a Japanese confection of azuki beans cooked in sugar, taking as many different forms as the uses for chocolate. Hidden inside mochi with a whole strawberry, sweet and blushing red, inside soft, fluffy anpan buns or hidden beneath the intricately beautiful woven patterns in the gossamer-thin pastry of a mooncake.
An is the preparation of sweet, starchy, nitrogen-fixing or carbon-sequestering pulses or nuts; shiroan, white kidney beans, or kurian, chestnuts, well worth seeking out when in season and sometimes even sweet potato. I love the nutty smokiness of black beans here but it would work just as well with butter beans or red kidney beans. I’ve made a big batch, because there are so many uses for anko and it’s just so good it never hangs around in the freezer for long.
- 250g dried beans of choice, soaked overnight and drained
- 1l water
- 220-250g unrefined sugar
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
Cover the soaked beans with water and bring to a simmer, then cover and cook for 1 hour, or until the beans are soft enough to be easily squashed. Drain the beans, reserving the cooking water for making zenzai tomorrow, and return them to the pan with the sugar and salt. Set the pan over a low heat. Once the beans have released their water and are floating, use a stick blender to puree the mixture, leaving about a third of the beans whole.
Continue to cook over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until you can draw a line and it will hold for a second or two. Remove from the heat and let the anko cool completely, if you can resist not eating it by the spoonful! It will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.
- 125ml hazelnut milk
- 1tsp kanten or agar agar powder – a gelling agent made from seaweed, you might see this packaged as ‘vegan gelatine’ but check the ingredients to make sure it’s derived purely from seaweed with no weirdness. Arrowroot can work here, but you’ll get a softer set jelly.
- 1tbsp unrefined sugar
Traditionally, the jelly cubes for mitsumame might be made with any kind of milk or water, flavoured with matcha, lemon, yuzu, coffee or fruit juice. I’ve gone for hazelnut milk here for the carbon-sequestering properties of hazelnut trees, not to mention providing food and shelter for all manner of forest-dwellers. Be careful when you cook with hazelnut milk though, it has an annoying habit of going grainy if it gets too hot.
Heat the milk with the kanten or agar powder and sugar. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 1-2 minutes to hydrate the agar. Remove from the heat and pour into a small tray, silicone moulds or smooth loaf pan. Let the jelly cool at room temperature to set. When set, cut into small cubes about 1.5cm wide.
- 50g Okinawa black sugar – more traditional, but hard to find. I used black treacle instead.
- 2tbsp water
Simply heat the treacle and the water to make a syrup and cook until slightly thickened, about 1 minute or so.
- 2 small blood oranges
- 1 grapefruit
Just before serving, peel the fruit and cut into segments. To assemble the anmitsu, place a heaped teaspoon of anko in each of two small dessert bowls. Arrange the jelly cubes around the anko, then distribute the orange and grapefruit evenly. Serve immediately, with the syrup on the side to pour over.
This is a charmingly old-fashioned dessert, which can include a scoop of ice cream or small balls of mochi, both delicious additions to this refreshing, unique dessert that just so happens to be made out of environmentally restorative seaweed, nuts, fruit and beans. You can use any fresh seasonal or preserved fruit you like (popular old-school choices include tinned mandarin segments or marashino cherries) and all the elements can be prepared ahead of time.