Featured Writings
Hiroko enjoys producing high-quality stories and recipes for magazine readers to enjoy online and in print.
She has been a guest contributor for major culinary publications worldwide.
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Featured Writings
Food & Wine: Beef Sukiyaki Noodles
A mix of colorful vegetables and juicy, thin-sliced steak is tossed with spaghetti for this sweet and savory Japanese-inspired dinner. Cookbook author Hiroko Shimbo riffs on Japanese sukiyaki, a hot-pot dish featuring beef and vegetables simmered in a sweet and savory sauce, in this weeknight-friendly meal. In lieu of a hot pot, Shimbo uses a skillet to quickly sauté sliced rib eye, cauliflower, and Broccolini in a maple syrup–sweetened sukiyaki sauce. Served with thin spaghetti, this satisfying meal is ready in under 45 minutes. Continue reading on Food & Wine >
Food and Wine: Okura No Nibitashi
This chilled, umami-rich dish features tender okra pods marinated in a sweetened dashi sauce with katsuobushi. Crisp whole okura, or okra, take on the lightly sweet and smoky flavors of Japanese cooking authority Hiroko Shimbo’s dashi and are served cold with the broth. Continue reading on Food & Wine >
Food Republic: Chorizo And Shrimp Rice Recipe
My teaching trips to Spain have inspired this combination of Spanish chorizo and shrimp takikomi gohan. I often make a double batch and freeze some for a quick and satisfying lunch. In this recipe, I use wholesome brown rice, but this dish is also very good with polished white rice. Continue reading on Food Republic >
Clean Plates: 10-Minute Miso Soup
This is as fast as food gets! Award-winning cookbook author Hiroko Shimbo tells us how to make the easiest miso soup. “I want to have this soup right now!” she tells us. Just have some dashi stock or high-quality (if not made-from-scratch) chicken stock on hand. Water as the soup base works, too, if you must, but Hiroko—ever the purist—says that that’s the “worst case” scenario. Continue reading on Clean Plates >
The Wall Street Journal: Kelp Wanted
What's the secret to making all kinds of dishes infinitely more delicious? It's in this simple Japanese stock. Whenever I see the leathery black kelp known in Japan as kombu, I think of my mother, reaching into our pantry and retrieving a sheet or two several times each day. As a little girl in Tokyo, I had no idea why kombu was so important to her cooking; I just knew it was omnipresent. As I grew older, I learned that infusing this kelp in water makes an elemental stock with a round, rich taste, a mild sweetness and a touch of saltiness from the sea—the basis for countless Japanese dishes, and the source of their profound depth of flavor. Continue reading on WSJ >
Saveur: Serious Sake
On a chilly February morning at Nemoto Shuzo, a centuries-old family-run brewery about 90 miles northeast of Tokyo, I tasted truly wonderful sake for the first time. Having grown up in Japan, I was, of course, familiar with sake—rice wine; but it was invariably the mass-produced variety, usually served warm to mask its harshness. What I drank at Nemoto Shuzo was something else: the unfortified version (junmai-shu) of a high-quality artisanal product. It was cool, with a rich, fruity flavor and a slightly acidic tingle. It was a revelation. Continue Reading on Saveur >
Saveur: Magical Miso
This sweetly pungent fermented soybean paste is at the very heart of traditional Japanese cooking. Miso, that elemental paste of fermented soybeans, was once made in most Japanese homes, both in the cities and in the countryside. Recipes and procedures were well-guarded family secrets, the process took months, and no two batches of miso would ever taste the same—due to varying proportions of salt to soybeans, the common (but not essential) addition of rice or barley, and the length of fermentation. Even the soil in which the soybeans were grown could make a difference. Miso, as a result, became a source of great family pride. "Temae miso desuga," one would say—meaning "I don't want to boast about my miso, but..." Continue Reading on Saveur >