Photo/Illutration Japanese-style gapao rice with shiso leaves (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

Tatsuya and Shino are a couple and cooking experts who continue to offer ideas in ways that only a team can.

They met at a food-related company in 2017 and hit it off right away. After a while, they started living together. On the way home from work, they would meet at the local supermarket, decide on the day’s dinner while looking at the ingredients and cook together.

At that time, Shino was already sharing the dishes she made on social media. Although she had studied nutrition at school, she was only posting for fun. Seeing that, Tatsuya felt a little frustrated and told her, “Why don’t you do it on a larger scale?”

Feeling encouraged, Shino began posting her recipes as well.

“I was happy to get direct responses from people saying how good the dishes tasted,” says Shino.

She got hooked and would get up at 6 in the morning, take photos of the dish, go to work, come home and prepare for the next day’s dish.

Tatsuya recalls that she began to take on a “determined look.”

“I was cheering her on in the beginning but before I knew it, it had become my dream as well,” he says.

The two left the company and began working in food and cooking full time in 2019.

Tatsuya makes uses of his knowledge in cooking that he acquired through part-time jobs at an Italian restaurant, among others, and handles recipe development and video production.

With posts that reflect their changing lifestyles--from being a dual-income couple and having children to growing old and living as a couple again--as well as a variety of recipes that fit them, they hope viewers will “enjoy them all as if they are part of the process.”

Gapao rice is a dish they often made while they were company employees.

“You get to take in vegetables and meat from one plate,” says Shino.

20230330-taste-gapao-2-L
Tatsuya and Shino, who call themselves Gucci Fuufu (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

While basil and nam pla are used in Thailand, where the dish originated, they use shiso leaves and soy sauce instead to give it a Japanese twist. Children also love the dish.

Gucci Fuufu is a couple of cooking experts who were both born in 1988. They met at work in 2017, got married in 2018 and set up a company that handles recipe development and video production in 2019. They have written books including “Iroiro tsukutte kitakedo yappari kono aji” (We’ve cooked various dishes but this is what we come back to) published by Fusosha Publishing Inc.

BASIC COOKING METHOD

Main Ingredients (Serves 2)

200 grams of ground pork, 7 to 8 shiso leaves, 1 (25 grams) shiitake mushroom, 1/8 (20 grams) red bell pepper, 1/8 (20 grams) yellow bell pepper, 1 clove garlic, 300 grams cooked rice, 2 eggs, some oil, bit of salt and pepper, Seasoning A (2 Tbsp each of soy sauce and sweet mirin sake, 1 Tbsp sake)

1. Sprinkle salt and pepper on ground pork. Cut bell peppers and shiitake into pieces that are 1 cm on a side. Finely chop garlic.

20230330-taste-gapao-3-L
Fry and grill egg in extra amount of oil. (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

2. Pour extra amount of oil in smaller frying pan on medium heat. Crack egg in pan. Once one side turns crispy, fry until preferred level and remove. Egg may be flipped if preferred.

3. Heat 1 Tbsp oil in frying pan and slowly cook garlic on low heat. When aroma grows stronger, turn up to medium heat, add ground meat and cook while loosening lumps.

4. Add shiitake, bell pepper and stir-fry further. When they soften, add Seasoning A and stir-fry. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Tear up shiso leaves (leave 1 or 2 for garnish), add to pan, cook briefly and turn off heat. Serve rice on plate, top with meat mixture and fried egg and garnish with remaining shiso leaves.

20230330-taste-gapao-4-L
Tear up shiso leaves and add to pan. (Photo by Atsuko Shimamura)

About 760 kcal and 3.8 grams salt per portion

(Nutrient calculation by the Nutrition Clinic of Kagawa Nutrition University)

* * *

From The Asahi Shimbun’s Jinsei Reshipi (Life Recipe) column

Related News