Japanese Pantry
Japanese recipes often call for sake. For someone outside Japan, that raises an obvious question: does this mean ordinary drinking sake, or is there a special product called cooking sake? At first, the answer seems simple. Regular Japanese sake can usually be used in cooking, but that is only part of the story. In Japan, some products are brewed specifically for cooking. They are not necessarily cheaper versions of drinking sake; their fermentation and flavor balance may be designed from the beginning for what happens after the sake goes into a pan. Other products contain salt and are sold as ...
Ask a Japanese home cook what mirin does, and the answer may be surprisingly vague. “It adds sweetness.” “It gives food a nice gloss.” “It makes the flavor feel more complete.” All of those answers are true. But none of them fully explains mirin. That is because mirin does not have just one job. It adds sweetness, aroma, gloss, and balance while also changing how other flavors work together. Japanese cooks use it constantly, often alongside soy sauce and sake, but many people rarely stop to think about what it actually is. And when you look closely at a Japanese ...
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