Natto has diehard fans, but some people cannot get past the thick whipped-up threads surrounding the beans. Here, the natto is not aerated, and the spicy wetness of grated daikon helps mitigate the fermented funkiness, rendering the dish much more widely appealing and a tasty, healthy bite to start the day.

Try to source natto made locally rather than in Japan; imported natto is typically frozen for shipping and loses some of its unusual delicacy. (We like the New York-make NYrture brand—look for it in local specialty stores or online.) Konbu dashi is easy to make from scratch, and a batch can be used to make a variety of vegetarian Japanese dishes.

This recipe is adapted from Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook and was featured in “This 1-Ingredient No-Cook Stock is at the Heart of Japanese Vegetarian Cooking.”

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Serving cold tofu as a light side dish for a summer meal is a popular method for combatting the hot, humid weather in Japan. Here the cucumber vinegar is an especially refreshing and tasty dressing for the tofu, but also could be combined with lightly roasted sesame oil or fruity olive oil as a dressing for summer tomatoes. Konbu dashi is easy to make from scratch, and a batch can be used to make a variety of vegetarian Japanese dishes.

This recipe is adapted from Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook and was featured in “This 1-Ingredient No-Cook Stock is at the Heart of Japanese Vegetarian Cooking.”

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Konbu, or edible kelp, is ubiquitous across Japanese cuisine, and it’s arguably the most essential flavor base in the country’s vegetarian dishes. Cooked over low heat (or steeped overnight in cool water), it becomes konbu dashi, a versatile soup stock that brings the seaweed’s savory, briny flavor to countless Japanese specialties, from soups and stews to simple vegetarian sides. A pot of konbu dashi can unlock a wide variety of plant-based possibilities. 

Species of Konbu

Though there are 18 edible species of konbu, four types are most common: ma-konbu, Rausu konbu, Rishiri konbu, and Hidaka konbu. 

• Ma-konbu is mainly produced along the Hakodate coast of Hokkaido. These thick, wide strands are generally regarded as the best-quality Japanese konbu—it has an elegant sweetness and makes a clear yet rich dashi. 
• Rausu konbu is harvested along the coast adjacent to the town of Rausu at the northern tip of Hokkaido’s Shiretoko Peninsula. The strands are a soft brown, with a lovely fragrance, producing a yellow- tinged, yet aromatic, rich dashi. 
• Rishiri konbu is gathered along the coasts of Rishiri Island and Rebun Island off the northwestern coast of Hokkaido. The strands are firm and slightly salty, yielding a clear, gentle-flavored dashi, prized for high-level, elegant cuisine.
• Hidaka konbu is produced along the Hidaka coastal area of southern Hokkaido. The soft strands are a dark blackish green with an appealing viscosity when simmered. Hidaka konbu is perhaps the most readily found konbu in Japan and abroad. It makes a good traditional dashi, but is most suitable for konbu-maki (konbu rolls), tsukudani (sweet shoyu-simmered preserve), or other dishes in which the konbu is simmered. 

How Konbu Is Harvested

Konbu gathering is tightly controlled by the local Japan Fisheries Cooperative Associations, and is only allowed during a six-week period from around July 21 through August 31. The season starts slowly, with gathering restricted to a short couple of hours three days a week, eventually extending to a five-hour period. 

Konbu is harvested by fishermen who motor out in small boats over vast undersea kelp forests close to shore. The fisherman thrusts a long, hooked pole into the roots of the kelp, then wrenches up the heavy strands into a large pile on his boat.

The konbu is then hauled off the boat to a washing area before being spread on the pebbled beach to dry. The drying process is crucial and involves many steps. The kelp is turned once and, after about half a day, brought inside while it is still pliant. Finally, the konbu is sun-dried before being stored in a large, airtight, zippered storage room. 

The Future of Konbu

Despite environmental precautions and restrictions, konbu harvests have been steadily declining due to ocean pollution and climate change. In 2019 only 13,000 tons of kelp were harvested, compared with 38,000 in 1990; the price of konbu has doubled in the last five years. Konbu extinction is a very real possibility, and the highest-quality varieties have already become quite difficult (and pricey) to obtain. Thankfully for home cooks, gnarled or lower-grade konbu still produces flavorful dashi, so do not despair. 

How To Make Konbu Dashi

To make konbu dashi, first source the best-quality konbu you can find. (There’s no need to wipe off the white substance, which is called mannitol, that forms on the konbu—it’s harmless and contains a lot of umami.) Break an approximately six-inch-by two-inch piece of konbu in half, then place it in a small pot with one quart of cold water. Set aside to soak for three hours, then place the pot on the stovetop and turn the heat to low. Cook just until steam rises from the water and small bubbles form on the konbu, about 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool to room temperature before straining out the konbu and using the dashi. (The leftover konbu can be used to make a variety of dishes, like konbu tsukudani, or simmered konbu.) This process makes about 3½ cups of konbu dashi.

If you have time, you can also skip the stovetop process and simply soak the konbu overnight in the refrigerator and use the cold stock straight from the fridge. Or, if you are in a hurry, skip the preliminary soak, but still cook the konbu (just be sure to cool for at least 30 minutes before using).

Excerpted from JAPAN: The Vegetarian Cookbook © 2023 by Nancy Singleton Hachisu. Photography © 2023 by Aya Brackett. Reproduced by permission of Phaidon. All rights reserved.

Recipe

Mountain Yam with Vinegared Sesame Sauce

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Natto with Grated Daikon

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Cold Tofu with Cucumber Vinegar

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Mountain yam aficionados love its viscosity when finely grated, but for the uninitiated, fresh julienned pieces are an excellent way to enjoy the crisp texture of the tuber. In this mountain yam recipe with vinegared sesame sauce, the rich dressing balances beautifully with the delicately flavored vegetable.

When cutting mountain yam, place a clean cloth atop the cutting board, so the slippery pieces don’t slide around as you julienne. To counteract the itchy properties of mountain yam, wash your hands and forearms with warm soapy water after handling.

Konbu dashi is easy to make from scratch, and a batch can be used to make a variety of vegetarian Japanese dishes. Look for white sesame paste at your local Japanese market, or online. Different brands of sesame paste have varying consistencies, so you may need to add more konbu dashi to make the sauce pourable.

This recipe is adapted from Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook and was featured in “This 1-Ingredient No-Cook Stock is at the Heart of Japanese Vegetarian Cooking.”

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American food magazines were a lifeline during my early years in ­Japan. In the 1990s, English-­​language books weren’t available where I lived, in the outer Saitama prefecture, so when Issue 27 of Saveur arrived in my mailbox during the summer of 1998, I eagerly flipped through the pages. About a third of the way in, the words “Magical Miso” jumped off the page. The photos in the piece looked familiar, and the captions revealed that the story’s author, Hiroko Shimbo-­Beitchman, had visited my local miso-maker, Yamaki Jozo, to report her piece.

Related: How To Stock a Japanese Pantry

Jozo is the Japanese word for “brewing,” and the term is typically used to refer to shoyu-brewing companies. In addition to shoyu, Yamaki Jozo produces both organic and nonorganic miso using exclusively Japanese-grown beans, rice, barley, and salt. The Kitani family, who owns the company, encourages their farmers to adopt 100 percent organic methods as they work toward ramping up international distribution.

Twenty-one years after Shimbo-­Beitchman wrote about the brand for Saveur, Yamaki Jozo miso is even more exceptional than it was then. Products like miso and shoyu rely on 100-plus-year-old cedar barrels and expertise in culturing the koji that drives their fermentation process. This longevity of craft is worth seeking out for making the best and most authentic bowl of miso soup you have ever tasted. —Nancy Singleton Hachisu, author of Food Artisans of Japan

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At its very best, vegetable tempura is piping hot and airy crisp, without a hint of heaviness or oiliness. And at its worst, it is a questionable soggy fry-up strewn atop a bowl of rice. While there are plenty of examples of the latter to be found in subpar interpretations worldwide, techniques borrowed from the tempura temples of Tokyo can lead you to easy mastery of one of Japan’s best dishes.

In the 16th century, when an early thick-battered version of tempura was introduced to Japan, likely by the Portuguese, oil was not yet being widely used in the country’s cooking. Since extraction methods at the time produced so little oil—usually sesame­—­it was extremely costly and reserved mostly for use at banquet meals. Once oil-extraction methods improved toward the end of the Edo era, in the 18th century, tempura joined sushi and soba as an inexpensive food served at both popular restaurants and roadside stalls.

Over the years, tempura (along with sushi and soba) continued to be refined, and today it can be found at some of the highest-­level restaurants in Japan. But one thing that has not changed is the cooks’ aversion to too-oily tempura. Fumio Kondo, chef at Tokyo’s two-star Michelin restaurant Tempura Kondo, says tempura should be regarded as a method of steaming ingredients, not deep-frying them. He believes that lightly dusting the ingredients in flour before dipping them into a wet batter helps to create a perfect gap for steaming the vegetables to firm-tender perfection while the outer batter fries and crisps.

Historically, the Japanese have not included much meat in their diets; and while seafood tempura may be used to punctuate a formal coursing in restaurants, vegetables are largely still the main attraction. Though enjoying a well-­executed tempura meal at a restaurant can set you back $100 or more (plus a plane ticket to Japan), preparing it at home from some in-season vegetables is not as difficult as you’d think. The first step? Rethinking how to serve tempura in a home kitchen. Rather than piling the freshly fried foods together high on a plate and serving them warm (at best) in the center of the table, if you fry and serve as you go, everyone can enjoy hot, crispy bites as they come out of the oil—even the cook.

Pop open some beers and turn your fry session into a party, because perched around a counter is the ultimate way to eat tempura at home.

4 Steps to Perfect Vegetable Tempura

Theories abound on how to achieve a lacy, feather­light tempura shell. For Tokyo-style tempura, use a 1-to-1 ratio of flour to water, forgo gimmicks, and employ these simple steps.

1. Sift the Flour

Chefs Yokota and Kondo suggest using cake flour for the lightest tempura batter. Its naturally lower protein content helps minimize gluten formation, helping to keep the exterior delicate, not chewy. Sifting helps prevent caked-up masses.

2. Consider the Dry Dredge

Not every Japanese tempura chef adds this step, but Kondo believes it helps lend crunch to the fried batter while protecting the vegetables from absorbing too much oil. Use thick chopsticks to very lightly dredge the vegetables (one by one, or in small groups) in sifted cake flour before wet-battering them and frying.

3. Treat Each Vegetable Uniquely

Once your batter is thin (like that for a crêpe) with tiny lumps of flour (a good thing), prepare the vegetables according to their individual properties. Keep kabocha squash in large pieces so the interior cooks to a fluffy consistency. Dip and fry small or thin items such as corn kernels and green beans in clusters. Skewer shishito peppers in pairs, and batter only one side to keep colors vibrant. And partially slice eggplant to shorten its cooking time.

4. Monitor Oil Temperature

Fragile, lacy tempura that’s not soggy, doughy, or bronzed is about controlling the temperature of the frying oil. Kondo’s method uses room-temperature (not iced) water so as not to overly cool down the oil during frying. When you add the vegetables to the oil, you should see lots of active, tiny bubbles—they’ll elicit almost a high-pitched sound—indicating that the moisture from the vegetables is escaping, he says. When the bubbles subside and the tone gets lower, the tempura is done.

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For the majority of our married life, my husband, Tadaaki, has grown our food. I have tried to help when I can with weeding or picking, jobs that I can jump in and out of. But being a successful farmer requires planning and forethought: buying the seeds, tilling the fields (he always reminds me that I should learn how to drive the tractor myself), then sowing the day it is due to rain.

Growing radishes is far less complicated. All radishes grow like clockwork—30 days and they’re ready.

“Just tossed some radish seeds in the field…what are you up to in thirty days?” read one memorable invitation I sent out to friends a while back.

We live in the Japanese countryside in Saitama, so most of our friends travel one or two hours to get to our house. Having chosen to live in a rural setting with a Japanese farmer, I felt a deep obligation to create a more diverse social context for our three homeschooled sons as they were growing up. And with that in mind, I threw parties several times a year, often inviting about 20 adults and 20 kids at a time. Understanding the effort it took to bundle everyone into the car and drive two hours to our home, I enticed my guests with a preview of what might be on the menu. Radishes were always a big draw.

Each spring, I plant my radish of choice, French breakfast, which has a subtle, nuanced heat and a shape that lends itself to thin, elegant slices.

Because we have a farm and not merely a garden, we end up planting more than we can handle as a family. Truth be told, we always have an excess of everything, but because radish season is so short-lived, we find ourselves eating them madly. The good news is that radishes are just what you want after a long winter. Their fresh pepperiness is the perfect flavor to wake up your winterized palate.

But don’t think radishes grow easily only on a farm: They’re versatile, and can be raised in small planter boxes or in a corner of the garden; thus they are as doable for urbanites as they are for those of us living in rural areas. My one caveat is to make sure you are not overzealous in your seed planting: Spread them out, otherwise too many roots end up vying to occupy the same space and the plants get crowded. Small children do not make good radish planters.

So what to do when this inevitable overabundance of radishes pops up a month after a seed toss? I am fond of the classic French treatment of slathering butter on a baguette, sprinkling it with salt (or draping it with anchovies, my favorite), and laying a few whole radishes, leaves and all, on top for a kind of do-it-yourself communal-style sandwich party.

In years past, our group was a motley crew usually consisting of a mix of Japanese natives, expats, and small children, all of us sprawled about the floor of our tatami room eating casually from a low table strewn with baskets of radishes and bread. These days, with the children grown up, my dish of choice has evolved into something more elegant, yet just as simple: a composed salad with goat cheese and cilantro. Though I’m often working on books, teaching culinary classes, or filming food programs for local TV stations, I can always find the time to throw some radish seeds into the ground and send an email around to gather friends. And our children often come as well, since our radish parties are the time to celebrate the arrival of spring, and they are fairly effortless field-to-table events that keep all of us in touch with each other and the rhythms of the changing seasons.

Nancy Singleton Hachisu is a teacher and the author of, most recently, Preserving the Japanese Way (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2015)

See the recipe for Radish, Goat Cheese, and Cilantro Salad »

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“Radishes are almost impossible to buy in peak condition, even at farmers markets,” says Nancy Singleton Hachisu, “because the skins start to toughen immediately upon harvest.” So she prefers to grow them herself each spring. In this simple Japan-meets-California salad, she tosses them with cilantro and a fragrant rice vinegar and soy sauce vinaigrette before topping them with goat cheese.

Featured in: Radishes are the Ultimate Grow-at-Home Taste of Spring

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