The essential guide to Japanese home cooking—the ingredients, techniques, and over 100 recipes—for seasoned cooks and beginners who are craving authentic Japanese flavors. Using high-quality, seasonal ingredients in simple preparations, Sonoko Sakai offers recipes with a gentle voice and a passion for authentic Japanese cooking. Beginning with the pantry, the flavors of this cuisine are explored alongside fundamental recipes, such as dashi and pickles, and traditional techniques, like making noodles and properly cooking rice. Use these building blocks to cook an abundance of everyday recipes with dishes like Grilled Onigiri (rice balls) and Japanese Chicken Curry. From there, the book expands into an exploration of dishes organized by breakfast; vegetables and grains; meat; fish; noodles, dumplings, and savory pancakes; and sweets and beverages. With classic dishes like Kenchin-jiru (Hearty Vegetable Soup with Sobagaki Buckwheat Dumplings), Temaki Zushi (Sushi Hand Rolls), and Oden (Vegetable, Seafood, and Meat Hot Pot) to more inventive dishes like Mochi Waffles with Tatsuta (Fried Chicken) and Maple Yuzu Kosho, First Garden Soba Salad with Lemon-White Miso Vinaigrette, and Amazake (Fermented Rice Drink) Ice Pops with Pickled Cherry Blossoms this is a rich guide to Japanese home cooking. Featuring stunning photographs by Rick Poon, the book also includes stories of food purveyors in California and Japan. This is a generous and authoritative book that will appeal to home cooks of all levels. “A beautifully photographed, clearly written introduction to Japanese cuisine, from a California-based Japanese-American teacher and recipe developer.” —Christine Muhlke, The New York Times “Heartfelt, poetic. . . . Sakai is particularly good at describing the purity and beauty of Japanese cooking.” —Tara Duggan, The San Francisco Chronicle   “Informative, beautiful, and full of recipes for everyone from the novice chef to the seasoned Japanese home cook.” —Lauren Joseph, Epicurious   “It’s been more than 30 years since Japanese cooking expert Sonoko Sakai’s first cookbook detailing the cooking of her heritage for American audiences. Her follow-up, Japanese Home Cooking: Simple Meals, Authentic Flavors , is worth the wait. Her teachings demystify the art of making soba noodles, and she transforms often ordinary-looking onigiri into beautiful rice spheres wrapped in seaweed and dried flowers. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of simple dishes like chawanmushi and fresh pickles to try out first before diving into more ambitious projects.” — Los Angeles Times “Sonoko Sakai has long been a champion of Japanese homestyle cooking, and the LA-based author and cooking teacher has written the essential book for favorites like soba, ochazuke, and oden.” — Eater LA   “This book is a treasure trove for anyone hoping to master a few everyday Japanese recipes, yes. But where Sakai really excels is in the digestible lessons on stocking a pantry and understanding the building blocks of Japanese home cooking; she guides you through the five basic seasonings and the practice of noodle making, for example. A teacher and cookbook author, Sakai has approached her work in food with a holistic approach, dedicating herself to the preservation of both Japanese culture and cuisine through cookbooks, classes, and recently, a grain restoration project with Anson Mills.” — Epicurious   “A gentle introduction to the flavors and techniques of Japanese cooking courtesy of Sonoko Sakai, an LA-based teacher and food author. From pantry staples like dashi to Japanese breakfast, learn the fundamentals of home cooking the Japanese way.” — Sunset   “A comprehensive, approachable guide to Japanese cooking at home.” — Remodelista   “Expand a home chef’s borders with Sonoko Sakai’s essential guide to Japanese home cooking.” — Martha Stewart Living “California-based author-teacher Sakai ( The Poetical Pursuit of Food , 1986) delivers, quite simply, everything home chefs need to know to master Japanese home cooking…. The 160 recipes include explicit directions, ingredient notes, and the necessary how-tos, along with color photographs: Grilled rice balls, homemade granola with lucky bean, fish bone soup, spicy duck soba noodles in hot broth, just to name a few….An exhaustive course that will take up no small amount of time and patience—and yield welcome results.” — Booklist (starred review) “Home cooks wanting to dive into Japanese cooking will find Sakai to be a delightful and encouraging guide.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “This is a beautiful love letter to the simple, soulful foods that bring together family and tradition, seasonality and sustainability. Sonoko Sakai presents the elements of a home-cooked Japanese meal with thoughtfulness and clarity, honoring the deep culinary heritage of Japan and celebrating the provenance of her local ingredients.” —Alice Waters “Sonoko Sakai’s passion for the Japanes