Learn the building blocks of authentic Japanese home cooking with 85 satisfying, soulful, everyday recipes from the beloved BuzzFeed Tasty food personality “Rie’s marvelous recipes taught me new things about familiar ingredients, and reconnected me with the wonderful Japanese home cooking that I have always loved.”—Nobu Matsuhisa, chef and owner, Nobu Restaurant Group A BEST COOKBOOK OF THE Los Angeles Times, NPR, Good Housekeeping
Make It Japanese reflects Rie McClenny journey from her birthplace of Japan to the United States and how she learned to cook heartfelt recipes from scratch, often using only ingredients from her local supermarket. Throughout her culinary career, from home cook to star of BuzzFeed Tasty’s “Make It Fancy” video series, she has drawn inspiration from the nourishing food her mother cooked throughout her childhood and her extensive knowledge of Japanese cuisine and ingredients that she brought to life in an American kitchen.
In her debut cookbook, Rie shares just how approachable Japanese home cooking can be, no matter where you are. She presents a collection of comforting, homestyle recipes that use just a handful of easy-to-find Japanese ingredients, such as soy sauce, mirin, and sake, and simple, essential cooking techniques, like making rice bowls (donburi), frying the perfect home-style tempura, and gently simmering vegetables and proteins to delicious effect.
Each accompanied by bright, beautiful photography, these delectable recipes
• Traditional dishes with a Loaded Vegetable Miso Soup with kale and sweet potatoes, Roasted Cauliflower Goma-ae coated in toasted sesame dressing, umami-packed Easy Soy Sauce Ramen, and Mini Okonomiyaki pancakes • Can’t-miss delectable pork Tonkatsu, ginger-spiked Chicken-Tofu Tsukune, and Oyako Don, rice bowls topped with tender chicken thighs and egg • Interactive, hands-on recipes for festive Chicken Hot Pot with Ponzu perfect for a winter’s night, can’t stop Gyoza with Crispy Wings, and make-your-own hand rolls for a Temaki Party • And of course, the iconic Simple Strawberry Shortcake, irresistible Matcha Snacking Cake, and delightful Citrus Mochi Doughnuts
Whether making dinner on a busy weeknight or hosting a multi-course banquet, Make It Japanese is the ideal resource and perfect introduction to the world of Japanese cuisine, ingredients, and cooking techniques.
Make It Japanese by Rie McClenny is a wonderful introduction to Japanese home cooking. With eighty-five recipes, there is sure to be something that will please everyone and that is suitable to any dietary restrictions. There are several rice dishes, all with a little extra twist I never would never have come up with on my own. There is an entire section on Japanese breakfast which is made up of savory seafood dishes which also work well for lunch and dinner. There are egg dishes, noodle dishes, and several vegetable dishes. A standout for me was the broccoli and bean salad. It is a very simple dish to make with green beans, broccoli, and chickpeas seasoned with a lovely dressing. I really enjoyed the recipes where the author put a Japanese spin on some classic American favorites such as potato salad, chicken salad, and beef stew. Rounding out the collection are a few dessert dishes, the majority of which contain either matcha or beans. Photographs accompany nearly every recipe and with only a couple of exceptions, all recipes are contained to just one page making them very simple and attainable for all. Clarkson Potter provided me with a free copy of this book; the opinions are my own.
This is an excellent cookbook for any level homecooks: recipes are simple and adaptable. I’ve made 8 recipes, and all were delicious and I ended up making them multiple of times and experimenting with adjustments.
Some needed adjustments and others were beautiful as is. Rie generally does a good job explaining steps, but I do with there were additional visual guides or explanation for the reason for certain steps. I found myself referencing YouTube a few times.
I will admit I don’t have a lot of experience with Japanese food, but when Make It Japanese showed up on my porch one weekend, I was excited to learn more. Author Rie McClenny has a wealth of cooking experience, from working at her grandmother’s café in southwestern Japan as a child (she mostly poured water for tea) to translating for culinary students to running a cookware store in New York City to creating recipes and making cooking videos. She’s been to culinary school, she’s worked in kitchens, and she knows what she’s doing.
But McClenny knows that there are cooks out there like me, who don’t know a lot about Japanese ingredients and techniques. She starts out listing her favorite Japanese ingredients, including the brand names she likes best, and explains what they taste like. She does the same with equipment, explaining what they do and how they make cooking easier. But she doesn’t insist on cooks buying all new equipment. If you have something already that will work, use it. And then she dives into the recipes.
Japanese cooking is clean and doesn’t use a lot of ingredients to create rich, delicious flavors. A lot of these recipes use a dashi as a base, and McClenny offers a couple of different options, one vegan, but also talks about the option of buying instant dashi from an Asian grocery store or online. And then it’s on to vegetable recipes, like the Soy Sauce-Simmered Kabocha (squash), Fried Eggplant with Miso Sauce, Carrot Top Tempura, or a Potato Salad made with a little bit of apple and Kewpie mayonnaise.
She then moves on to recipes for meats and seafoods, like Karaage (Japanese fried chicken), Sweet Soy Sauce Chicken Wings, Curry Rice, Rib-Eye Steak with Shoyu-Garlic Sauce, Ginger Pork Chops, Nikujaga (a beef and potato stew), Parchment-Baked Lemon Miso Salmon, Red Snapper Nitsuke (simmered fish), Shrimp in Chili Sauce, and Sake-Steamed Clams.
And then it’s time for a master class in rice. She takes us through step by step to make sure this staple of Japanese cooking is perfect, whether you’re using a rice cooker or cooking it on the stovetop. There is a Salmon Rice Bowl, Katsu Don (pork cutlets simmered in dashi and eggs and served over rice), Taco Rice (made from the leftovers of last night’s tacos, courtesy of her husband), Garlicky Egg Fried Rice with Bacon, or Mushroom and Carrot Mixed Rice.
There are several recipes for Onigiri, filled rice balls that make a delicious handheld treat. In Japan you can find them in grocery stores or convenience stores, but you can also make your own with tuna or umeboshi (pickled plum) or even just sumac and salt. These can also be used as the basis for a bento box, which is the next lesson. McClenny talks about how to build a bento and even offers a few menu options to give you an idea on putting them together.
Then it’s on to noodles, for the Easy Soy Sauce Ramen, Yakisoba (pan-fried noodles, with the option for substituting spaghetti for the soba noodles with her baking soda hack), Creamy Soy Milk Udon with Pork and Bok Choy, and Camembert Cheese Mazemen with Prosciutto. And she finishes with ideas for gatherings and sweet treats. There is an Edamame and Pistachio Dip, Gyoza with Crispy Wings, Potato and Mushroom Gratin, Miso-Yogurt Roasted Chicken, and Easy Sushi Balls. And you can follow it all up with Matcha Snacking Cake, Almond “Tofu” Pudding, Fruit Salad with Rose Syrup, Strawberry and Sweet Bean Mochi. She even includes recipes for breads like Shokupan (milk bread), Citrus Mochi Doughnuts, Pork Buns, and Egg Salad or Katsu Sandos.
Make It Japanese is filled with recipes and techniques of Japanese cooking. The pages come alive with gorgeous photography and intriguing cooking techniques and flavors. But more than that, it sings with McClenny’s life experiences and love for her home country. She talks a lot about her mother’s cooking, about the foods she loved as a child and tried to replicate with the ingredients she could find here in America. It’s not just the food McClenny loves that she offers to her readers. She offers up her heart on these plates, and lets us have a chance to taste some of the happiness she finds in feeding her family, the same happiness her mother had found all those years before. These recipes are personal. They are memories and warmth and comfort and love, and those who read these words and cook these foods share in that love that McClenny so generously shares.
Clarkson Potter provided me with a free copy of this book (with many thanks); the opinions are my own.
Like many others, I discovered author McKlenny through Buzzfeed's "Make it Fancy," and other assorted similar videos (she also often shows up in other food/cooking related channels/videos as part of the Buzzfeed brand, etc.) so I was excited to see she had a cookbook coming out. While Japanese foods and cooking was something she occasionally delved into, this was interesting to me since I don't recall if she ever had a specific video (maybe a few?) dedicated to Japanese foods.
It's a cookbook where McKlenny talks about her background and heritage, how she moved to the United States, how she used food/cooking to talk to people in social settings (and therefore learned fascinating things about what people loved, what foods excited them, etc.), etc. And then there are recipes of many foods and dishes that are likely familiar and some that maybe you're not so familiar with. McKlenny also talks about the ingredients and where to find them.
The recipes and layout are easy to follow, with some gorgeous pictures (of not only the food but also of McKlenny herself and her son, Hugo, etc.). I did not try any of the foods or dishes myself, so I could not say how hard/easy it was. I would guess if you are someone with reasonable access to a lot of these ingredients you could certainly give these a shot.
That is mostly it. I found the book fun to read (she seems like a fun person based on the videos I've watched) and it was also sad to find out her mother had passed away during the creation of this book. I had noticed McKlenny seemed less active overall (although that may have to do with Buzzfeed reducing its video production and/or she's a parent, etc.) and so was sad to find out this was probably partially why. It was still touching to read her words about her mom, though, but while it is not extremely detailed, it involves cancer if that may be something that you wish to avoid.
Buzzfeed and its brands are occasionally mentioned but they are not part of the book and I don't believe they appear (a name or two in the acknowledgements), so if you're looking for more of a Buzzfeed focus this is not it. If you like her videos, etc. though, I certainly think it could be a fun book, especially if you would like to try cooking Japanese dishes. And I suppose if you're a Buzzfeed aficionado and want a "completionist" type of collection this would be a reasonable addition. You don't need to know much about the site, though to enjoy this book.
I would recommend looking up her videos on YouTube for fun, although they are not cooking-instructive (more like how she made something from other dishes, her thoughts about things her co-workers made, etc.). I borrowed this from the library and that was best for me.
My own title for this book is Japanese made EASY ! Make it Japanese begins with an introduction that reads like a lovely autobiography/memoir from the author. The next chapters on stocking a pantry and essential tools were both refreshingly short and easy to follow. Of the 25 or so ingredients suggested, you will easily have many on hand such as rice, sugar, soy sauce. The others are easily found in the supermarket or Asian Store. The Chapters are easy to follow as well : Vegetables, Meat, Seafood, Rice, Noodles, Gatherings, Sweets and Breads. Simple and easy to find a recipe. This is a good preview of how "accessible to the home cook" this book is. I appreciated several things about each recipe. Most all have photos, each one begins with a paragraph about the ingredients and/or technique, a tip or two is featured at the end and some recipes even have suggestions for using leftovers ! Yet, each recipe is short and sweet, easy to follow, but specific enough to be foolproof ! I made the broccoli and bean salad with dressing which I found could be a complete meal. It was simple to make, tasty, and used basic kitchen ingredients. It could easily be a weeknight regular. Also, I made the Miso Cod with Swiss chard. I had been meaning to try a “miso fish” for awhile but hadn’t found an easy recipe. This one used just a few ingredients, the steps were laid out easily and efficiently, measurements were perfect and the dish turned out - not just great- but, worthy of company ! So glad that Clarkson Potter provided me with a free copy of this book: the opinions are my own. I will enjoy this easy approach to Japanese cooking. .
I enjoy Japanese dishes but have always been afraid to try to cook from recipes that are somewhat long or with ingredients that are difficult to find. This cookbook has many recipes that are simple enough to prepare with ingredients that I can find in my usual grocery store. I like recipes that uses soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sesame oil--they're great for providing more flavor to dishes. One of the recipes found in this cookbook is the Broccoli and Bean Salad. They can be prepared in advance and only requires another toss before eating. Excellent hearty salad. I love twists to potato salads, and McCleeny's recipe for her potato salad looks really good. We love noodles in our family and the author's selections has some good ones for the home cook. My favorite is the easy soy sauce ramen. So satisfying. If you're looking for a cookbook with Japanese dishes, I recommend this cookbook. Clarkson Potter provided me with a free copy of this book; the opinions are my own.
Japanese cooking is more approachable for me after working through a few recipes in this book. Many of the recipes don’t involve complicated lists of ingredients available only at Asian markets, and even if some do, they aren’t expensive to acquire. My favorite trials were the Broccoli and Bean Salad (p. 49), the Salmon Bowl (p. 124), and the Matcha Snack Cake (p. 208). I may try some of the more adventurous choices or even give making my own Dashi a try. It’s really nice to see Japanese restaurant favorites clearly explained in smart, numbered steps! Clarkson Potter provided me with a free copy of this book; the opinions are my own.
We have tried many recipes out of this book already including one of my mom's fave foods, karaage chicken. That was a fave of everyone. We also tried making it frying it only once and it actually tasted better that way and was less work. The broccoli & chickpea salad is one of my faves (I usually don't have green beans when I make it so I just use extra broccoli) and the roasted cauliflower recipe is also tasty.
I have the digital version of Rie's book and enjoy how easy it is to click and be redirected to parts that I needed. The recipe is in the intermediate level where it's just right for me, if I had to discribe it, it would be elevated version of dishes that were originally simple that my parents use to make. What really stood out is the tone of the author, it is a mixture of demure and relatability which makes the reading enjoyable.
This cookbook is great! My daughter and son-in-law absolutely love this book so much, I gave them my copy and bought another. The recipes are easy to make and so delicious. The instructions are clear. The photography is beautiful. Just a note that Clarkson Potter provided me with a free copy of the book, but the opinions are my own.
The book explains well what's essential especially for someone new to Japanese cooking. I wish there were more vegetarian recipes. The desserts use less sugar than usual in the US and all sound delicious. Plus you might learn a thing or two about Rie you didn't know even if you've been following her on Youtube
This book has a beautiful presentation, so much so that you believe with all your heart that you can create every dish in it. But, alas. I found it a bit difficult for me. BUT, others with more patience won't struggle. I made oyako don and a matcha snacking cake. The smells brought back memories of Japan. The taste, not horrible, but not quite what I remember. I will practice with these dishes and a few others again. Excellent notes about ingredients for the best taste.
I love, love, LOVE these recipes! So tasty! I purchased this book before we moved to Japan and I feel like it did a great job of mentally preparing me for the meals to come lol. My fav recipes are the Orange Chicken and the Curry Rice. The layout of this book is very organizied and pleasing as well.
I love this cookbook! It’s fun to try out real, traditional Japanese recipes. The personal stories make it so fun to flip through. I have a bunch of the cooking implements she recommends on my Christmas wishlist!
I haven’t cooked enough of these to truly review but the variety of recipes is great, and the ingredients are not too overwhelming. I’ll update this review after I make 5 dishes.