Sugar, Soy Sauce, Sake (Japanese) Sugar, Soy Sauce, Sake (Japanese)
Beef Teriyaki Beef Teriyaki
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Beef Teriyaki in Skewers, Close Up Beef Teriyaki in Skewers, Close Up

Japanese Food Flavor Principle

In this article, we will be talking about what makes Japanese food taste like Japanese food. In one of my previous posts, I mentioned Elizabeth Rozin’s book1. According to Rozin, what makes a cuisine distinctive, i.e. what makes Japanese food taste like Japanese food in our example, is in part due to the flavorings used.

Each cuisine has a combination of flavors that have been tried, tested, and refined over the centuries. For Japanese food, this flavor pairing or pattern consists of soy sauce, sugar, and sake. This does not mean that all Japanese food contains these ingredients all the time. No of course not. It does mean that Japanese food is unique in all of the world in its use of these three ingredients together.

Examples of the Japanese Food Flavor Principle

Beef or Chicken Teriyaki is a well known Japanese dish. In Martin Yan’s cookbook2, the marinade used is listed as

1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup Japanese rice wine (sake)
1/3 cup sweet cooking rice wine (mirin)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken thighs
2 tsp white sesame seeds
1 tsp cornstarch mixed with 2 tsp water
sliced green onion

Going back to a cookbook published in 1971 by Craig Claiborne3, the marinade is listed as

1/3 cup sake or dry sherry
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp grated fresh ginger or 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1/4 lemon, thinly sliced
1 lbs lean beef, preferably shell steak

Neat, isn’t it? It’s neat to me that the combination of these three ingredients makes the dish Japanese. Ok maybe it’s just me.

So the next time you are making a chicken or beef dish, a barbecue perhaps, and you want to make it Japanese, well now you know what to include in your marinade.

1 Ethnic Cuisine: How to Create the Authentic Flavors of Over 30 International Cuisines

2 Martin Yan’s Asia: Favorite Recipes from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Japan

3 The New York Times International Cookbook

Published 16 November 07 · Up Next: · Previously: 

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