See also
- List of Japanese cooking utensils
- List of Japanese dishes
- List of Japanese condiments
- List of sushi and sashimi ingredients
- Sansai
The following is a list of ingredients used in Japanese cuisine.
Vegetables in the onion family are called negi in Japanese.
These fish are collectively called ao zakana in Japanese.
These fish are collectively called shiromi zakana in Japanese.
These fish are collectively called ika in Japanese.
Octopus is called tako in Japanese.
These foods are collectively called ebikani-rui or kokaku rui in Japanese.
Crab is called kani in Japanese.
These shellfish are collectively called ebi in Japanese.
Some insects have been considered regional delicacies, though often categorized as getemono [ ja ] or bizarre food.
Sushi is a traditional Japanese dish made with vinegared rice, typically seasoned with sugar and salt, and combined with a variety of ingredients, such as seafood, vegetables, or meat: raw seafood is the most common, although some may be cooked. While sushi comes in numerous styles and presentation, the defining component is the vinegared rice, also known as shari (しゃり), or sumeshi (酢飯).
Ramen is a Japanese noodle dish. It includes Chinese-style wheat noodles served in a broth. Common flavors are soy sauce and miso, with typical toppings including sliced pork, nori, menma, and scallions. Ramen has its roots in Chinese noodle dishes and is a part of Japanese Chinese cuisine. Nearly every region in Japan has its own variation of ramen, such as the tonkotsu ramen of Kyushu and the miso ramen of Hokkaido.
Onigiri, also known as omusubi (お結び) or nigirimeshi (握り飯), is a Japanese rice ball made from white rice. It is usually formed into triangular or cylindrical shapes, and wrapped in nori (seaweed). Onigiri traditionally have sour or salty fillings such as umeboshi, salted salmon, katsuobushi, kombu, tarako or mentaiko, or takanazuke. Because it is easily portable and eaten by hand, onigiri has been used as portable food or bento from ancient times to the present day. Originally, it was used as a way to use and store left-over rice, but it later became a regular meal. Many Japanese convenience stores and supermarkets stock onigiri with various fillings and flavors. It has become so mainstream that it is even served in izakayas and sit-down restaurants. There are even specialized shops which only sell onigiri to take out. Due to the popularity of this trend in Japan, onigiri has become a popular staple in Japanese restaurants worldwide.
Tempura is a typical Japanese dish that usually consists of seafood and vegetables that have been coated in a thin batter and deep fried. Tempura has its origins dating back to the 16th century, when Portuguese Jesuits brought the Western-style cooking method of coating foods with flour and frying, via Nanban trade.
Agedashi dōfu is a Japanese hot tofu dish. Soft or medium-firm silken tofu is cut into cubes, before being lightly dusted with potato starch or cornstarch and then deep fried until golden brown. It is then served in a hot broth made of dashi, mirin, and shō-yu, with finely-chopped negi and grated daikon or katsuobushi sprinkled on top.
Roe, or hard roe, is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses, of fish and certain marine animals such as shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, roe is used both as a cooked ingredient in many dishes, and as a raw ingredient for delicacies such as caviar.
Konbu is edible kelp mostly from the family Laminariaceae and is widely eaten in East Asia. It may also be referred to as dasima or haidai.
Cellophane noodles, or fensi, sometimes called glass noodles, are a type of transparent noodle made from starch and water. A stabilizer such as chitosan may also be used.
Senbei, also spelled sembei, is a type of Japanese rice cracker. They come in various shapes, sizes, and flavors, usually savory but sometimes sweet. Senbei are often eaten with green tea as a casual snack and offered to visiting house guests as a courtesy refreshment.
Ainu cuisine is the cuisine of the ethnic Ainu in Japan and Russia. The cuisine differs markedly from that of the majority Yamato people of Japan. Raw meat like sashimi, for example, is rarely served in Ainu cuisine, which instead uses methods such as boiling, roasting and curing to prepare meat. Also unlike Japanese cuisine, traditional Ainu cuisine did not use miso, soy sauce, or sugar, though these seasonings make an appearance in modern Ainu cuisine. The island of Hokkaidō in northern Japan is where most Ainu live today; however, they once inhabited most of the Kuril Islands, the southern half of Sakhalin island, and parts of northern Honshū Island.
Pollock roe, also pollack roe is the roe of Alaska pollock which, despite its name, is a species of cod. Salted pollock roe is a popular culinary ingredient in Korean, Japanese, and Russian cuisines.
A rice noodle roll, also known as a steamed rice roll and cheung fun, and as look funn or look fun in Hawaii, is a Cantonese dish originating from Guangdong Province in southern China, commonly served as either a snack, small meal or variety of dim sum. It is a thin roll made from a wide strip of shahe fen, filled with shrimp, beef, vegetables, or other ingredients. Seasoned soy sauce – sometimes with siu mei drippings – is poured over the dish upon serving. When plain and made without filling, the rice noodle is also known as jyu cheung fun, literally "pork intestine noodle", a reference to its resemblance of a pig's intestines. There is no official recording of the history of rice noodle rolls; most cookbooks claim that it was first made in the 1930s. In Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, people called the dish laai cheung because it is a noodle roll that pulled by hand.
Tsukudani (佃煮) is thinly-sliced seafood, meat or seaweed that has been simmered in soy sauce and mirin. As a flavorful accompaniment to plain rice, tsukudani is made salty enough to not go bad, allowing high osmotic pressure to preserve the ingredients from microbial spoilage similarly to other types of pickles. Its name originates from Tsukudajima, the island where it was first made in the Edo period. Many kinds of tsukudani are sold, and common ingredients include kelp, short-neck clam, young lancefish, and nori. Traditionally-made tsukudani is preservable and has been favored as a storable side dish in Japanese kitchens since the Edo period.
Japanese cuisine has a vast array of regional specialities known as kyōdo ryōri (郷土料理) in Japanese, many of them originating from dishes prepared using local ingredients and traditional recipes.
Rice flour is a form of flour made from finely milled rice. It is distinct from rice starch, which is usually produced by steeping rice in lye. Rice flour is a common substitute for wheat flour. It is also used as a thickening agent in recipes that are refrigerated or frozen since it inhibits liquid separation.
A rice cracker is an East Asian cracker made from bleached or unbleached rice flour. Many regional varieties exist, though most are fried or baked and puffed and/or brushed with soy sauce or vinegar to create a smooth texture. Some may also be wrapped in seaweed.
Tofu is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: silken, soft, firm, and extra firm. Tofu is translated as bean curd in English. Tofu originated in China and has been consumed in the country for over 2,000 years. Tofu is a traditional component of many East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines; in modern Western cooking, it is often used as a meat substitute.
Kushiyaki (串焼き) is a formal term that encompasses both poultry and non-poultry items, skewered and grilled. At times, restaurants group them as kushimono (串物) and yakimono.
