Approximately a decade ago, Sonoko Sakai was transitioning away from the film business and was falling in love with creating a local grain economy as she taught cooking. She brings a sense of deep respect and care to the process of creating food and teaching others how to do it. Her uncompromising sourcing combines with a rare dedication to searching for new flavors among the old. From her initial classes on soba noodles to her yearly hoshigaki workshops, Sonoko has become one of our local treasures. Her new cookbook is Wafu Cooking: Everyday Recipes with Japanese Style.
Evan Kleiman: It's lovely to have you. Tell me about the word "wafu." What is its linguistic definition?
Sonoko Sakai: Wafu means Japanese in style, and it's actually a pretty broad concept. It means anything — let's say ingredients, techniques, presentation, or even sensibility — that has a Japanese style.
“Wafu means Japanese in style, and it's actually a pretty broad concept,” says Sonoko Sakai, meaning anything from ingredients, techniques, presentation, or even sensibility. Photo by Rick Poon.
Give me an example of a couple venerable dishes or products that we think of as being classically Japanese, but are actually examples of wafu.
Let's take curry. Maybe it's not classical because you might associate curry with Indian dishes, but we were introduced to curry through the British during the late 1860s when Japan opened its ports to the rest of the world (it was closed for over 200 years) and we made it distinctly Japanese by tweaking the spices and the seasonings, maybe adding soy sauce here and creating a root to make it more stewy, that is a little bit closer to an English or French stew, then serving it over rice. You will not find that type of curry anywhere else, I don't think. That's one.
Is there another dish that we think of as being classic that's actually wafu?
How about ramen or tonkatsu? How's tonkatsu?
Tell me about tonkatsu.
Tonkatsu was introduced again during the Meiji period, in the 1860s when the Europeans introduced us to these western dishes. It's actually like a French cutlet. I'm not sure exactly how to pronounce it correctly but it's deep-fried with bread crumbs, and it was served with a fork and a knife. In the beginning, the Japanese were breaking the dishes because they were not used to using knives. They were used to using chopsticks. They pressed so hard they broke these dishes. So they said, "Well, how can we make it more adaptable to our customs?"
They basically cut it up into smaller pieces after they deep-fried it, and you could eat it with chopsticks. They served it with cabbage and with a tonkatsu sauce that is a sort of a blend of Worcester sire sauce, tomato ketchup, and soy sauce. They made it Wafu. They made it Japanese in style. To date, it is the most popular cutlet that we have.
Now, give me a dish that is more contemporary that most people would know about.
Gyoza, pan-fried dumplings. That is also something that was introduced to us. Actually, it was Japanese soldiers that tasted these beautiful dumplings in China, and they brought them back to Japan after the war. So if you go to Utsunomiya in Japan, it's a city outside of Tokyo, a lot of those soldiers actually opened restaurants that specialize in these pan-fried dumplings that have become distinctly Japanese. We sort of took ownership of it and we consider it a national Japanese, just like curry or Tonkatsu.
I think about the way I cook, which is deeply informed by all my years of study and cooking Italian food, so it's natural for me to kind of Italian-ify foods in a way that may not be "authentic." Is this similar to your natural way of cooking, to let all the places you've lived and foods you've experienced filter through your Japanese sensibility?
Yes, I do that without even thinking twice. If I don't have wine for my bolognese sauce, I might splash some sake in it, and if I feel like it needs a little kick of umami, sneak in a little miso or soy sauce, and let this Asian act like a ninja and improve the flavor. It does wonders. I like tweaking but I don't do it if it doesn't bring harmony. The word "wa," by the way, means Japanese, but "wa" also means harmony. I like to do things with harmony.
Sakai has two yuzu trees in her backyard. She uses the citrus to make a yuzu kosho. Photo by Rick Poon.
Yuzu kosho is one of my favorite condiments. Can you describe what it is and how we can make it ourselves?
It's one of my favorites, too, and right now the yuzu season is just coming in. I have two trees in the backyard. They're doing quite well and they're so precious to me, so I don't want to harvest them all, but what you do is you take the ripe yuzu fruit, you peel it, and you combine it with salt and some chili peppers. I use a Thai chili. I remove the seeds, I put the [yuzu] peel and the chili peels in a blender, and I blend it. You could also chop it too and then you salt it.
You could start using it, almost like as a salsa, a very fragrant, spicy salsa, but it takes about two or three months to ferment, and it becomes a really nice condiment for your grill dishes, for your sashimi, even a little bit in your salad dressing or with your ramen. It works really well.
Miso threads through the book. Is it an instant wafu-izer for you?
These days, I feel like Americans have caught on and fallen in love with this fermented seasoning so much that I don't even think it's that Japanese or that wafu anymore. I feel like it's become like olive oil. I don't really think of olive oil anymore as an Italian oil. I just think it's an essential cooking oil.
I'd love it if you would talk about a couple different ways you use it. You have this miso honey butter, for example, and you use it in apple pie and in banana bread.
It seems like lately, any time I do a cooking class, I always make a batch of that miso honey butter, and I'm just so happy that I have leftovers, because I'll continue to use it on my toast or I'll put it in my oatmeal. Pancakes are fine. If you need a little sweetness in your curry, you could put it in your curry sauce.
For an Italo-Japanese idea, tell me your risotto twist.
Oh, my risotto twist. I have a friend who's Milanese, she's from Milan. My great-great-grandfather is Swiss-Italian, born in Bergamo, and he's buried in Torino. I visit my family in Italy quite a lot, and they make risotto for me because they're from northern Italy.
One day, I was making risotto with my friend Francesca from Milan. We were playing with the broth and we were splashing sake in it. The part that made this risotto so delicious was finishing it with some bonito flakes. We were blown away. It already had some mushrooms in it, so it was already deep with umami, but when we topped it with bonito flakes, it was really, really delicious. I got the seal of approval from my Italian friends, right there, so I decided to put it in this. I don't know what my Italian relatives would say, but I said, it's good, I'm going to put it in here. I wafu-ed it.
"There's something about cheese and mochi that pair very well,” says Sakai of this French onion soup recipe. Photo by Rick Poon.
You do an onion soup with a topping that is, oh, my god, so unbelievable. You top it with mochi. Can you describe it?
It's crazy. The French onion soup with melted cheese, it's thick, and you dig in with a spoon, and I love eating that. There's something about cheese and mochi that pair very well, and during the New Years, people in Japan don't want to just eat mochi with soy sauce and wrapped in nori. They want to do other things like put melted cheese on it and broil it and puff it up. I was thinking, wow, that could maybe be good on the toasted bread of the onion soup. You just put it in the broiler at the same time, let the mochi puff up, place it on top and see how that works. We tried it, and it was so good.
One Pot French Onion Soup With Toasted Mochi
Serves 4
When mochi is toasted, it puffs up like popcorn, but the center stays gooey like melted cheese. The idea of adding it on top of the crusty bread of a French onion soup feels a bit decadent (carb on carb!), but it’s irresistible. Cheese was unfamiliar to most Japanese people until the 1950s, but once their diet became more yofu, or Western in style, and cheese became common, they discovered that it tastes wonderful melted on toast. Naturally someone tried it on toasted mochi. You can find fresh or shelf- stable “unsweetened” kirimochi mochi at Japanese markets. That’s what you need for this savory delicious soup.
Ingredients
For the Soup
- 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 4 yellow onions, sliced in half and then crosswise into ¼ inch (6 mm) thick slices
- Pinch sea salt, plus more to taste
- 4 cups (1 liter) Chicken Dashi (page 25) or dashi of your choice
- 2 garlic cloves, grated
- 1 teaspoon peeled and grated ginger
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1 bay leaf
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the Mochi Toast
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 4 slices crusty bread, sliced in pieces that will fit (with the mochi) your individual soup bowls
- 1 cup (120 grams) grated Gruyère cheese, or more to taste
- Four 2- ounce (53 gram) pieces unsweetened mochi, fresh or kirimochi, cut into ¼ inch (6 mm) thick discs or rectangles
- Sea salt, to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
Instructions
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To make the soup, heat the butter and oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Lower the heat to medium, add the onions and a pinch of salt, and sauté until onions are translucent, about 5 to 7 minutes.
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Cover with a lid, lower the heat again, and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, until the onions start to brown. Open the lid periodically only to turn the onions with a spatula to distribute the heat evenly, about 40 minutes. Remove from the heat.
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Put the caramelized onions, dashi, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and bay leaf in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over medium- high heat. Remove any foam that rises to the surface and lower the heat to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper.
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Preheat the oven to broil or a toaster oven to toast. Distribute the heated soup into individual, heat- resistant soup bowls.
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To make the mochi toast, butter the slices of crusty bread and place them on a sheet pan in a single layer. Sprinkle with the cheese and broil until the cheese softens, and then place a piece of mochi on top.
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Broil or toast until the mochi puffs up like popcorn and browns on the edges, about 3 to 4 minutes. You may sprinkle more cheese on top of the puffed mochi and toast again for a minute for a richer finish if you like. Place the cheesy mochi toast on top of each soup bowl.
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Finish with salt and pepper and garnish with parsley. Serve immediately before the mochi deflates. The soup without the toasted mochi will keep in the fridge for 3 to 4 days. Toasted mochi should be eaten right away or it will get hard.
Do we have to make the mochi ourselves or can we buy it?
You could buy it. The mochi that's in that picture in my cookbook is store-bought. They actually sell it all year round, and you just slice it. I like to slice it into thinner pieces because I want the mochi to puff up. It puffs up like popcorn. So you put it on the grill, it puffs up while the cheese in the soup is melting. You do it simultaneously, and then you combine it together. It's really nice and stretchy and squishy. It's all these great textures that Japanese love, and I think you will love it too.
Me too. I'm definitely into that.
"Wafu Cooking” offers Japanese flair to global ingredients and recipes. Photo courtesy of Knopf.