Editor’s note: The theme of Gohan Lab is to help people make simple, tasty “gohan” (meals).

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The new four-part series starting this week focuses on ways to enjoy traditional Japanese cuisine in a more casual way. We will re-examine what are considered to be the set rules and come up with dishes you feel like cooking and enjoying when you feel like it.

First up is the hot pot. Ingredients are placed in the pot with umami-rich “dashi” stock and heated. All you have to do is wait while they bring out the flavors of each other. Feel this through the popular winter combination of “buri,” or Japanese amberjack, and daikon radish.

The straightforward soy sauce-based flavor enhanced by the umami of “kombu” kelp and shiitake mushroom is balanced by the spicy thick sticks of ginger.

As the name of the recipe shows, the fillet and bony parts are salted before cooking. Yet unlike the salted Japanese amberjack produced as preserved food, the salt is intended to enhance the flavor and texture of the fish.

Daikon radish, the partner, is cut into thickness of 1 cm which is just right to bite into. The flavor will seep in nicely while you enjoy the dish at the dinner table.

The arranged version is a rice dish with daikon and salted Japanese amberjack that is grilled this time. The former refreshes the fattiness of the fish and sharpens your appetite.

MERGING THE WISDOM OF THE OLD AND NEW

The cooking aspect of the four-part series to “familiarize Japanese cuisine” is supervised by Ryohei Hayashi, a chef born in Kagawa Prefecture in 1976.

After graduating from college, he began training at Kikunoi, an upscale traditional Japanese restaurant in Kyoto, and worked to spread Japanese cuisine overseas as well. In 2018, he opened his restaurant Tenoshima in Tokyo’s Aoyama district.

Hayashi is good at merging the newest theories on cooking with the wisdom handed down through old-style local foods. He will introduce simple and widely applicable recipes incorporating seasonal ingredients, which he hopes will also appeal to young people.

BASIC COOKING METHOD

(Supervised by Ryohei Hayashi in the cooking aspect and Hiroya Kawasaki in the cookery science aspect)

* Ingredients (Serve four)

700 grams fillets and bony parts of Japanese amberjack (buri), little less than 1 Tbsp salt (2 percent of weight of fish), 600 grams daikon radish, 4 dried shiitake mushrooms, a piece of dried kombu kelp 10 cm square, 2 pieces ginger (a piece is half the size of a thumb), 5 Tbsp sake, 2 Tbsp sweet “mirin” sake, 4 Tbsp soy sauce

About 540 kcal and 3.0 grams salt per portion

1. Pour 1 liter water in pot and add dried kelp and shiitake and preferably leave for more than 2 hours.

2. Cut bony parts and fillets of Japanese amberjack into pieces 4 to 5 cm on a side and lay in flat container. Sprinkle salt on all pieces (PHOTO A). Cool in fridge for more than 1 hour.

3. Peel daikon radish and cut into semi-circular pieces that are 1 cm thick (PHOTO B). Add to pot and place it on medium heat with dried kelp and mushrooms. When pot comes to a boil, simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes (PHOTO C). Add sake, sweet mirin sake and soy sauce and transfer contents of pot with liquid to another pot that will be served on the table. Cut ginger into sticks that are 4 cm long and 5 mm on a side and add to pot.

4. Bring water to a boil in the empty pot, add fish and remove on sieve when surface turns white. Rinse lightly and drain. There is no need to pat dry.

5. Heat pot with daikon on the table, add bony parts of fish and simmer for 4 to 5 minutes. Add fillets each time you wish to eat. Sprinkle seven-flavored chili pepper to taste.

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Ryohei Hayashi is the owner-chef of Tenoshima, a Japanese restaurant in Tokyo’s Aoyama district.

Hiroya Kawasaki studies the science of tastiness and cooking method at Ajinomoto’s Institute of Food Sciences and Technologies.

ARRANGED VERSION

Rice cooked with salted Japanese amberjack and daikon radish

This is a special rice dish cooked with grilled salted Japanese amberjack and daikon radish. Rinse 2 “go” (one “go” is 180 ml) of rice. Cook 100 grams salted Japanese amberjack in the fish-cooking grill. Add rice, 330 ml water, 30 ml sake, 1/3 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp soy sauce in pot, place grilled fish on top and cook. Cut 80 grams daikon into dices 7 to 8 mm on a side, chop 60 grams daikon leaves. Lightly cook daikon and leaves in lidded pot with the steam of rice after it is done and the stove is turned off. Mix entire contents of pot and serve.

COOKERY SCIENCE

When salt is sprinkled before the fish is cooked, the meat does not become dry and turns out moist in texture. This is because the salt-soluble protein of fish dissolves and the water holding property increases when heated. This prevents water from evaporating from the fish. Since the stickiness of the fish also increases, it is thought to be less likely to fall apart in hot pots.

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From The Asahi Shimbun’s Gohan Lab column