Learn Vegan-Friendly Japanese Home Cooking with Healthy Fermented Ingredients

Healthy, Nutritious Food Filled with Rich and Satisfying Flavors

Fumie Nakajima is a culinary expert, author, and educator whose work focuses on pursuing wellness through wholesome Japanese home cooking. Rather than focusing on strict dietary rules, she experiments with ways to incorporate healthier ingredients without sacrificing taste, using seasonal vegetables and fermented ingredients to create a richer flavor profile.

Keen to share what she has learned with people from around the world, Nakajima decided to develop this private cooking lesson via Wabunka, focusing on one group at a time for a more personal experience. She looks forward to welcoming guests of all ages into her kitchen to discover that making healthy, tasty Japanese food can be enlightening, fulfilling, and a whole lot of fun.

Explore a Local Shopping Street to Find the Right Ingredients

Your cooking experience with Nakajima begins with a shopping excursion. After meeting your host at Motosumiyoshi Station, she will lead you along the shotengai—a local Japanese shopping street flanked by small specialty stores and restaurants. A stroll down a classic shotengai offers a retro atmosphere where you can take your time searching for what you need.

To procure the ingredients to be used in your cooking lesson, you will accompany Nakajima into a local grocery store known as Onoya Shoten. Inside, she will guide you towards the items that best suit the dishes you will make together, explaining what they are and where to find them. Many things in the store may be unfamiliar to you, so feel free to ask questions during your visit. Having purchased what you need, stroll back along the shotengai until you reach Nakajima’s cooking studio.

* If Onoya Shoten is closed on the day of your experience, your shopping excursion will take place at another grocery store.

A Unique Deliciously-Fermented Welcome Drink

Stepping into Nakajima’s cooking studio feels less like entering a classroom and much more like walking into the kitchen of a family friend. The broad wooden table at its center invites new arrivals to gather around and join their host in creating and enjoying home-cooked food together. Against the far wall, all the tools of the trade – pots, pans, stove, sink, and everything in between – stand at the ready.

Before the cooking itself begins, however, Nakajima will serve you a welcome drink of homemade amazake mixed with roasted tea (hojicha). This amazake is a refreshing non-alcoholic beverage made from rice koji and water. The mild natural sweetness of the amazake is complemented perfectly by the warm smoky flavor of the roasted hojicha tea.

As you taste this uniquely Japanese beverage, Nakajima will briefly explain the prevalence of fermented foods in Japan. Many of Japanese cuisine’s foundational ingredients – including miso, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sake, and mirin – are created through fermentation. In turn, many staple dishes are created using fermentation, such as natto, tsukemono pickles, and miso soup. Along with endowing vegetables and other ingredients with a greater variety of textures and flavors, many fermented foods are known to improve digestion and support the immune system.

Craft a Beautiful Homemade Japanese Meal With Your Own Two Hands

There is great beauty in simplicity, in art as in the kitchen. Nakajima’s cooking lesson begins with the most basic element of all—a traditional clay pot known as a donabe. While most homes in Japan these days use electric rice cookers, the gradual and more even heating of a donabe produces sweeter rice with a firm yet fluffy texture.

The rice you cook in the donabe will be used to create three onigiri rice balls. One will be flavored with umeshiso, a combination of pickled plums (umeboshi) and aromatic shiso leaves. Another will incorporate white miso paste, the same ingredient used to create miso soup. To the third, you will add radish leaves flavored with shiokoji, a fermented seasoning made using koji rice, salt, and water. Enjoy the process of shaping each onigiri with your own hands.

To complement your three tasty onigiri, you will also prepare a savory miso soup. Nakajima uses both white miso and red miso at different times in her kitchen depending on the season and the ingredients. Miso soup is an excellent base for experimenting with different combinations of ingredients. In this case, you will use vegetables acquired on your earlier shopping excursion under Nakajima’s guidance.

When it is time at last to taste what you have created, Nakajima will serve a selection of vegetables lightly pickled with shiokoji alongside your onigiri rice balls and miso soup. Take your time to enjoy the varied shapes and colors of the food, along with its rich aroma, before you tuck in and experience the varied flavors of this wonderful home cooked meal.

Home Cooking is a Tradition Best Shared with Others

As you conclude your cooking lesson with Nakajima, she will present you with a small but very meaningful gift—a copy of her own recipes for the dishes you have made together. This is indeed the gift that keeps on giving, as you can take these recipes home with you and try making tasty, healthy Japanese meals there too. Home cooking is a tradition best shared with others, so feel free to adapt the recipes according to the preferences of your family and friends.