Dining with the Chef

A special edition of 'Itadakimasu!' from Chang Mai, Thailand. From street food to home cooking, the secrets of healthy Thai dishes are uncovered. And we bring you Chef Rika Yukimasa's TOKYO CUISINE, this time fusing Thai ingredients to Japanese menus.

Chef Tatsuo Saito, famous for his Japanese cuisine, and Yu Hayami head for Washington, D.C., where the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. In April, Chef Saito was a participant in the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival, a cherry blossom festival held in Washington, D.C., where he took the stage at the Food Culture Pavilion and gave a fantastic talk and demonstration to everyone there about the world’s quickest soup stock to make: dashi stock, the lifeblood of Japanese cuisine. We’ll give you a look at this big hit event and the audience's excitement. We’ll also introduce our special menu for the day, designed for our guests drawn in by the cherry blossom trees! We’ll take a look at two authentic Japanese dishes we made with a variety of local ingredients including seafood and vegetables.

Chef Tatsuo Saito shows us how to make a light, soft and healthy Japanese Teriyaki Hamburger Steak. He serves it with Garlic Chives with Grated Daikon Radish that's easy on the digestion and Cabbage Miso Soup.

Chef Rika Yukimasa visits a sukiyaki beef hot-pot restaurant that's popular with foreign tourists and builds on this traditional cuisine to devise a Chicken Sukiyaki from poultry, leeks and other ingredients that are easy to find abroad.

Chef Saito grills fresh salmon with yuzu citrus, in a classic style called Yuan-yaki. He also cooks "Green Peas and Rice" and "Egg Drop Soup", and each menu item welcomes the new taste of spring.

Rika will show us how to make three different sea food dishes that makes a casual dining perfect. Today's main course is steamed Sea Breams with clams and potatoes on the side. Potatoes are perfectly steamed with Sea Breams and clams in sake based broth which makes all the ingredients taste even better.

Today's dish is sashimi with tuna and squid. Sashimi is the supreme form of Japanese cuisine. To achieve the simple beauty, there are many tips and techniques. Thickly cut tuna and thinly cut squid are arranged on a plate. The sashimi is then arranged with decoratively cut fresh vegetables.

Today's first dish is the octopus and rapini with egg vinegar dressing. This is a popular vinegary sashimi dish in Japan, and a perfect spring dish. Next dish is octopus and avocado caesar salad. The red octopus is outstanding in contrast to the pale greens. The avocado mingles with the caesar dressing, and it's so good!

A tonkatsu sandwich of fresh pork loin covered in a crisp bread-crumb coating and wrapped in lovely soft bread, is wonderful when you feel like treating yourself for lunch. Packed in a lunch box with some pickles, it's also perfect for a picnic amongst the cherry blossoms!

The theme for this episode is "cutting". We take a look at ushio-jiru soup using an in-season fish, sea bream. We'll show you how to fillet a sea bream and create a delicious soup with a fantastic aroma. It's garnished with iris-shaped udo and rapini to add a lovely touch of spring. The second dish is rice with sea bream, which uses dashi and leftover fish from the ushio-jiru soup, bringing out the umami of the sea bream.

The theme for this episode is a hand-rolled sushi party that children can enjoy, too! Our main sushi roll fillings will be chicken soboro and egg omelet. It is perfect for people who don't eat raw fish or who live in areas without easy access to fresh fish. We'll also show you how to make grilled tofu with a miso sauce which is perfect as an appetizer, as well as a warming Japanese comfort food, shiratama-shiruko (sweet azuki bean soup with rice dumplings) for dessert.

Our theme of this episode is seafood. For our main dish, we'll be making asari littleneck clam rice. Littleneck clams are in season right now, so Rika will be introducing this original recipe inspired by Fukagawa-meshi, some of Tokyo's regional cooking. We'll also be learning how to make a soup with oysters and turnips, which are sweeter and tenderer in the spring, as well as nokke tofu, or tofu topped with whitebait and shrimp, rounding off our three seafood dishes for this episode.

Our main recipe in this episode is tofu hamburger steaks, a healthy variation on the Japanese western-style standard, made with tofu and low-fat ground chicken instead of beef or pork. By steam-frying these hamburger steaks in a frying pan, they'll come out nicely light and juicy, and the sauce we'll make for them with ponzu and grated daikon radish gives them a deliciously light, clean flavor. For our sides, we'll also be making pumpkin salad, sugar-glazed carrot and shiitake mushrooms, and sugar snap peas, making for a beautifully colorful spread perfect for spring.

This episode's theme is Japanese home cooking, bridging the gap between East and West. Our main dish this episode will be shrimp doria with fava beans. While doria looks like a dish originally from Western Europe, its roots actually trace back to a long-established hotel in the port city of Yokohama. Buttered rice, topped with seafood and white sauce, then covered in cheese and baked, is the usual simplified homemade style that Rika will be making her own variant on, using a microwave to make a simple white sauce and flavoring the buttered rice with soy sauce. As a side dish, Rika will be making a fresh mushroom and shungiku chrysanthemum leaf salad with a hint of sesame oil, and for dessert, we have pudding made with matcha green tea, well known even overseas nowadays. We'll show you the secret to heating your pudding to give it a perfect, beautiful finish!

Our theme for this episode is deep frying. We'll be making fried shrimp, covered in three different coatings: white sesame seeds, aonori, and kakinotane rice crackers, making them a beautiful white, green, and red for visual variety to match the different flavors. Chef Saito will also demonstrate a variety of techniques for preparing shrimp from start to finish to make them look as good as they taste. For our side, we'll be making a soup with the springtime flavors of hamaguri clams and rapini, and showing how to make a beautifully clear dashi stock, as well as how to choose the freshest clams.

In this episode, we'll be cooking with fukinoto butterbur shoots, a spring vegetable with just a hint of bitterness. For our first dish, we'll be making an easy-to-eat variation on a rural Japanese home-cooked dish, fukinoto with miso. Our main dish is crispy and delicious tempura with spring shoots, featuring fukinoto butterbur shoots, as well as taranome shoots and kogomi fiddlehead ferns. You won't want to miss the way we show you how to make crispy tempura batter using carbonated water! The tempura is served with salt and sour sudachi citrus. We'll also learn about how to combine new potatoes with avocado for a beautiful green potato salad.

Our theme for this episode is making soboro, or tiny seasoned bits. Chef Saito will be showing us how to make soboro that come in very handy for home cooking or bento lunches. Whether it's the sweet and savory simmered chicken soboro or the deliciously fine scrambled egg soboro, they both go great with fresh snow peas for a beautifully colorful topping to rice. We'll learn Chef Saito's useful techniques and tricks for making soboro, including how to make all of the pieces evenly sized. For our side, we'll be making paper-thin pickled turnip, an elegant Kyoto specialty. We'll teach you everything you need to know to make this traditional and beautiful type of pickled turnip at home.

The island of Kyushu, at the southwest end of Japan, is home to the prefecture of Kumamoto. One thing that draws people to the area is its outstanding local cuisine, featuring the finest ingredients from both land and sea. To learn more about Kumamoto's cuisine, our host Yu Hayami will be visiting one of Kumamoto's preeminent chefs. In this episode, they'll be making Dago Soup, a traditional dish made with plenty of spring vegetables from Kumamoto, as well as mustard miso stuffed lotus roots, an iconic local favorite.

In this second episode in Kumamoto, our host Yu Hayami will be visiting chef Ai Hosokawa, a Kumamoto resident. Chef Hosokawa says that ingredients from Kumamoto have strong flavors, and she'll be using those flavors to make simple Italian-style dishes. She'll be using Kumamoto's famous horse meat and akaushi beef to make a tagliata sliced steak dish, served with a sauce that uses plenty of fresh local strawberries — strawberries that have attracted international attention of late. She'll also be making fragrant and delicious gnocchi, served with a sauce made with aonori seaweed, a sea plant that grows in brackish water.

Our main ingredient for this episode is Spanish mackerel. Spanish mackerel is known in Japanese as sawara, and is beloved as a sign of spring. We'll be sautéing it with butter and soy sauce, for a Japanese-style sauce. For our side dish, we'll be making two easy spring dishes. For our first, we'll be cooking freshly picked green peas and bacon with rice for an easy and delicious rice dish that combines the aroma of the peas with the rich flavor of the bacon. We'll also be making salad-style tempura with lots of seasonal vegetables, for a casual yet delicious side dish full of the flavors of spring in Japan.

Our theme for this episode is marinating. Saikyo-zuke is a marinating technique that uses a base of white miso from Kyoto, to slowly marinate meat or fish before grilling it. We'll be sharing some tips on how to make this fragrant and delicious dish at home. We'll be marinating Spanish mackerel, a fish that comes into season in spring, to make a dish with the sort of flavor you'll usually only find at a high-end Japanese restaurant. For our side dish, we'll be making sake-steamed clams and spring cabbage. Enjoy the tender, juicy spring cabbage, cooked with soup full of the rich flavor of asari clams.

Our theme this episode is grilling. Yakitori grilled chicken is a popular dish commonly served at izakaya pubs and restaurants that specialize in yakitori. We'll be serving it as a topping on a bowl of rice, for a casual and filling way to enjoy yakitori. A key part of our recipe is seasoning the thigh meat with yakitori sauce, and seasoning the breast meat with just salt, then finishing each with a different spice. The textures of the naganegi long onion seasoned with the yakitori sauce and the salted shishito peppers provide a delicious accent, as well. For our side dish, we'll be making rapini with mustard miso dressing. Using mayonnaise as the secret ingredient helps to mellow out the sharp spiciness of the mustard, while adding depth to the flavor. Enjoy a meal that feels like spring in Japan!

In this episode, we'll be making chicken sukiyaki, a unique twist on a traditional Japanese dish. The norm in Japan is to use thinly sliced, richly marbled beef for sukiyaki, but it's perfectly fine to use chicken for it, too, if you can't get your hands on that type of beef. Cooking it at the table, in the traditional way, makes the meal more fun. For dessert, we'll be making ice cream with sesame sauce — the perfect way to enjoy the rich aroma of sesame seeds.

Our theme this episode is frying. We’ll be making a traditional Japanese dish called kuwayaki: pan-fried chicken with a sweet and savory sauce made with soy sauce, mirin, and sake. The sweet and savory combination of soy sauce and mirin is an iconic Japanese flavor today; we’ll be marinating chicken and frying it to juicy perfection, adding the sauce to coat as we fry. We’ll also be making beautiful, delicious shrimp rice. The pink of the sakura shrimp and the green of the Japanese herb mitsuba come together for a wonderful springtime feel, as well as a great combination of textures and flavors. Join us and enjoy a meal that feels like spring is here!

In this episode, Chef Rika will be preparing her special dry curry rice, made by stir-frying curry and rice together in a frying pan. Alongside the spices, she’ll also be adding her secret ingredients: sushi vinegar and soy sauce. The dry curry rice is served topped with an omelet, for a wonderfully mild flavor when eaten together. Chef Rika will also be making two side dishes: pickled cauliflower, and spinach and tomato soup. Both of these are simple to make, for an easy way to add more healthy vegetables to any meal.

Our theme this episode is frying. We’ll be making hambaagu with plenty of beef, served with grated daikon radish, for a delicious favorite of kids and adults alike! The hambaagu are made with breadcrumbs, eggs, and other ingredients to make them juicy and flavorful, while the grated daikon radish helps give these hearty hambaagu a nicely light, clean aftertaste. We’ll also teach you the secrets of how to prepare hambaagu that are tender enough to cut with chopsticks. For our side dish, we’ll be making miso soup with a Western-style twist: bacon and celery! Miso soup works surprisingly well with nearly anything — the rich flavor of the bacon is an especially good match for miso. The soup makes a delicious side dish for our hambaagu, for a perfect pairing.

Learn about easy, delicious, and healthy cooking with Chef Rika! Featured recipes: 1) Rika’s Chakin Sushi 2) Sautéed Bell Peppers with Nori

Learn about Japanese home cooking with Master Chef Saito, based on traditional Japanese cooking techniques! Featured recipes: (1) Lamb Niku-jaga (2) Strawberry Shira-tama Dumplings.

Learn about easy, delicious and healthy cooking with Chef Rika! Featured recipes: (1) Tai Sashimi with Garlic Sesame Sauce (2) Soba with Spicy Meat.

Learn about easy, delicious and healthy cooking with Chef Rika! Featured recipes: (1) Easy California Rolls (2) Simple Hosomaki Rolls. The recipes are available at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/dining/20210427/2019289/

Learn about Japanese home cooking with Master Chef Saito, based on traditional Japanese cooking techniques! Featured recipes: (1) Buttered Clams and Broccoli Rice (2) Strawberry Shira-ae. The recipes are available at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/dining/20210504/2019290/

Learn about easy, delicious and healthy cooking with Chef Rika! Featured recipes: (1) Rolled Pork Roast with Shiso (2) String Bean Salad. The recipes are available at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/dining/20210511/2019291/

Learn about Japanese home cooking with chef Saito! Featured recipes: (1) Clear Soup with Hamaguri Clams and Egg Balls (2) Cherry Blossom-shaped Crab Rice. The recipes are available at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/dining/20220405/2019319/

Learn about Japanese home cooking with chef Saito! Featured recipes: (1) Crispy Pork Stir-fry with Myoga and Green Beans (2) Stir-fried Eggplant and Shishito with Miso Sauce. The recipes are available at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/dining/20220419/2019320/

Learn about Japanese home cooking with Master Chef Saito, based on traditional Japanese cooking techniques! Featured recipes: (1) Anago Sushi Stick (2) Clear Kamaboko Soup. The recipes are available at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/dining/20220517/2019321/

Chef Saito continues to teach us about traditional Japanese kaiseki set course meals. The second course is osuimono (soup). We learn how to make seasonal soup for spring and citrus umami udon. The recipes are available at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/dining/20230418/2019348/

Let's try popular Japanese rice dishes with Chef Rika! Featured recipes: (1) Bacon and Egg Stir-fried Rice (2) Rice Gratin with White Miso Sauce. The recipes are available at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/dining/20230425/2019349/

Chef Saito continues to teach us about traditional Japanese kaiseki set course meals. The third course is Otsukuri. We learn how to make sashimi and salads with sashimi to savor fresh fish. The recipes are available at https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/dining/20230516/2019350/

Spring is here! So let's make some colorful spring dishes: Chef Saito's Chirashi Sushi Cake, and Crystal-clear Cherry Blossom Jelly.

Chef Saito cooks Shrimp Spring Rolls with Japanese Herbs, and Butter-fried Nagaimo with Natto Sauce. Yu Hayami joins the chef as we learn about Japanese home cooking.

Indulge in the culinary arts with Chef Saito's original recipes: meat and tofu with juicy tomatoes, and tamagoyaki rolled omelet infused with nori. Join a class in flavorful Japanese cooking!

Learn how to cook tempura at home. Chef Saito demonstrates the techniques needed to make crispy tempura using mountain vegetables of spring.

Learn how to cook kabayaki, a savory grilled dish. Chef Saito introduces a recipe with mackerel, helping us to enjoy kabayaki and rice at home.

Chef Saito was born and raised in Osaka. He guides us around its restaurants, cookware stores, and kombu kelp specialty stores, in an introduction to the prefecture's traditional food culture.

Chef Saito introduces a dish often served on special occasions: fukusa-sushi. It's a visually appealing sushi, made by wrapping colorful ingredients and vinegared rice in a thin omelet.

Chef Saito introduces two classic Japanese dishes often served in Japanese homes: pork ginger and sunomono. You can enjoy the taste of Japanese home cooking, wherever you are!

Chef Rika introduces a unique, healthy style of Japanese ramen. Have a go at making soupless miso pork ramen, topped with miso-seasoned ground pork and plenty of vegetables.