Michelin Award winning Japanese chef Akira Oshima is author of Yamazato, Kaiseki Recipes: Secrets of the Japanese Cuisine. The book contains recipes from the kitchen of the Yamazato restaurant in Amsterdam. It is amongst our favourite cookbooks. The recipes can be very challenging and time consuming as is getting hold of the right ingredients.
One of the recipes is for Takiawase, a mouth-watering combination of vegetables and fish. Every ingredient requires its own preparation and is simmered in its own dashi-based stock. The recipe of chef Oshima combines kabocha, eggplant, okra and shrimp. Indeed: four different kinds of homemade stock.

When shopping at Amazing Oriental we saw Garland Chrysanthemum, which made us think of another tasty dish, a combination of walnut sauce, chrysanthemum and shiitake called Shungiku Kurumiae. It’s actually two recipes, one for walnut sauce and one for chrysanthemum. The walnut sauce is a combination of roasted and blended walnuts, white miso, dashi, sake, light soy sauce and mirin (in that exact order). Very tasty with lots of umami and depth. It serves as a vinaigrette for the salad which is a combination of blanched and in dashi marinated chrysanthemum and grilled shiitake.

Yamazato, Kaiseki Recipes: Secrets of the Japanese Cuisine is available via the well-known channels, both in English and Dutch, second hand. The Dutch version is available via the webshop of the publisher for €34,50.

Drink Pairing

We prefer a glass of sake with our Shungiku Kurumiae, for instance a Junmai sake with fresh aromas and good acidity. The sake must be dry and well-balanced with a clean finish. You could enjoy a glass of white wine with the dish, provided it’s dry and mineral.

PS

We made too much walnut sauce for the salad, so we stored what was left in the refrigerator. But we were out of garland chrysanthemum (we wanted to use the remainder for our Matsutake dish) so what to do? The next day we fried some excellent organic pork belly and served it with Brussels sprouts and walnut sauce. Lovely combination!