Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking [A One-Pot Cookbook]

I had always considered a donabe as a vessel for one-pot dishes, mostly hot pots, soups and stews. This book first suggests—then proves through chapters divided by different uses and different styles of donabe—that a donabe can be used for many types of dishes. You will find recipes for rice dishes; steamed vegetables and meats; roasted and fried fish, chicken, pork, tofu, and more; smoked meats, seafood, cheese, vegetables; besides the more well-known hot pots, soups and stews. This is a lovely compilation of Japanese recipes: Rich, warming, exciting and varied in flavors. If you are at all interested in Japanese foods and cooking, this is a book you need to work through. Plus, it has an entire chapter at the end, which gives recipes for dashi, sauces and condiments. It should be noted one of the authors of this book, Naoko Takei Moore, is the owner of Toiro Kitchen, a big seller of donabe cookware in the US. A good move on her part? Maybe. Her website has many styles and pieces of cookware offered for sale. And quality donabe from the Iga Provence of Japan is not inexpensive. Also on her store website are a LOT of donabe recipes. I have checked, and except for the basic rice cooking instructions, the 104 recipes on the website do not really overlap those in this book. Some come close, but they are different. You might want to take a look at those recipes, because they will give you a feel for those in this book. And be sure to check out the "Look Inside" feature on this product page. Ten Speed Press always does such a great job with this feature. A real donabe is not mandatory to make good use of this cookbook: I have been wanting to buy a quality donabe for several years now, and this book has helped me with my decision-making. The info in this book has also convinced me that my choice to NOT buy an inexpensive donabe from the oriental market was a good one. In the meantime, I have learned that I can get decent results—not perfect, but not bad—from regular pots on the stovetop and my electric rice cooker. I even use a huge vintage electric fondue pot from the 70’s with good results. Before introducing recipes, this book will clue you in on how to care for and season donabe, and dos and don’ts for handling donabe while cooking. It is a very helpful abundance of info. There are many vegetarian and vegan recipes included, and they are marked as such. There are also options provided to turn regular dishes into vegan dishes. You will also find suggestions to create a shime course (finishing course) from the remaining broth. I find some of the shime suggestions to be great recipes in their own right, and suitable for a separate meal. Beautiful photographs of prepared dishes, envy-provoking donabe pots, action photos, scenery. Substitutions are offered in many instances: Dijon for Japanese mustard, green onions for negi, mushroom and miso options, and more. Pantry ingredients are not hard to find if you’ve got an oriental market nearby. If not, Amazon has it all. There are pictures of each dish, sometimes the pre-assembled ingredients, sometimes the ingredients in the pot, sometimes its shime course. The first chapter is a compilation of hot pots using quite a variety of main and accompanying ingredients: Tofu, beef, pork, fish, oysters, duck, mushrooms, cabbage, gyoza (dumplings), even Korean kimchi, and more. I loved the “Chicken Meatballs in Hot Sesame Miso Broth”, a two-column list of ingredients, but ingredients that I can find easily at an oriental market or are usually on my pantry shelves. In the next chapter are rice dishes cooked in a donabe double-lidded rice cooker, and it is one revelation after another. There are several recipes that I will recreate again and again, but my favorite is a small red snapper, just gutted, cleaned and scaled, placed in the pot along with the rice and dashi, ginger, king mushrooms and a few other ingredients. I also love the “Juicy (boneless) Chicken-Wing Rice”. Love the chapter on soups, stews and braises: Everything from dried soybeans; simmered vegetables in dashi and sake, mirin and brown sugar; braised sweet and spicy kabocha; to salt-marinated 1 pound hunks of pork shoulder; miso Keema curry (Indian curry with ground meat); simmered thin-sliced beef with noodles and potatoes; soy and sake flavored ground chicken and eggs over rice. There is even a salmon chowder—and if you know chowders, you can adapt this recipe to just about any ingredient combination. There are also instructions for using a donabe for a sous vide technique, with a digital thermometer through the steam hole. The donabe can be used as a steamer: The chapter includes combinations of vegetables, fish or seafood and vegetables and tofu, and sauces. It provides a custard recipe. There are rice balls, dumplings, and steamed cakes. In the chapter using a tagine-style donabe, I found recipes that might just “force” me to buy this specialty donabe, (although a lidded heavy skillet already on your kitchen shelf might work): Roasted potatoes, steam-fried vegetables, steamed clams and vegetables, pork sukiyaki, crunchy lotus root in a vinegar sauce, and many more. There is a chapter on smoking, too. Dashi recipes, sauces and condiments are located at the back of the book, and you will find yourself referring to them often. Sometimes Japanese cookbooks are difficult to maneuver through, with so many foreign ingredients to understand and memorize. Maybe that statement is only true for cooks with brains like mine, which struggle with foreign words. But I had no trouble working my way through these recipes. (I will still take the book with me to the market….) Plus there is a decent 8-page comprehensive and valuable glossary. There are two pages explaining important kitchen tools and a short resource page. *I received a temporary download of this book from the publisher. I used it for several months, and when the book was finally published, I bought a hard copy—that is how much I like it.

This cookbook is wonderful. If you enjoy cooking with donabe, I highly recommend. I use it regularly and everything has always been delicious and the recipes clearly written and easy to follow.

Excellent book on history, use and recipes to prepare Japanese meals using donabe, clay pot. From stove/oven to table for serving. Also website to follow. Well designed. Good reading and photography.

First of all I want to thank Naoko for making this book as I have been waiting for this book since I followed a few of her recepies on her website with great success. I want to try out Japanese home cooking but minus all the technical and time consuming preparations. And, I rather wold like to keep the cooking time to under 45 minutes so we can actually have dinner after our busy day from work. Her book is beautiful. The recepies are very clear. I also enjoy simply reading her stories as well as other important supplements. Most importantly, I find the format extremely outstanding. The ingredient list not only shows the amount but follows the sequence of the preparation. The description compliments the list while added the how-to's and timing. Very clever and easy to follow!! We have now enjoyed many nights as well as friends' compliments to my new found cooking. We love this wonderful introduction to Japanese food, taste, texture and colors. We appreciate the down-to-earth donabe as a beautiful working of a functional art!

Book has 307 pages. There are 104 Recipes in it (Pg 66-297). Recipes include 86 Donabe Recipes + 18 Sauce Recipes. Each Recipe is on 1 page with a beautiful photo of the dish on the other side. I like this as it gives me an idea of how the dish will look at the end of the cooking process. At the top of each Recipe Page - it tells you number of serving portions, equipment (either 1.5Q or 2.5Q Donate Pot size), vegan options, Shime (finishing course). Ingredients are listed in Metric and USA measurements This is not a photo-by-photo, step-by-step instruction Recipe Book. But Donabe Cooking is really just cooking in a pot - even Beginners will have no difficulty following the written instructions. The Ingredients "Font" is smaller than the Recipe Font - need reading glasses! It would have been better to use up the wasted 30% "empty white space" available on each Recipe page or a bigger font for the Recipes. This is a Recipe Book to be read closely, instructions to follow and used in the kitchen ... not a Home Style Coffee Table Browsing Book. But a Donabe Pot works best with an open-fire, not induction heat (IH) or electric stove. I had to buy a portable gas-canister stove to use with my Donabe Pot. Also, the Recipes calls for many authentic Japanese ingredients eg Saikyo Miso, Karashi, Mizuna, Sake-Kazu, Usukuchi Shoyu - that you will have a very hard time, if not impossible to find in USA Supermarkets and Grocery Stores. Even in a Japanese USA Grocery Shop, I will not be able to find about 50% of the Japanese Ingredients needed eg Mizuna, Sake-Kuzu, Usukuchi Shoyu! This book will do very well for the Non-Japanese Speaker living in Japan. Otherwise, this is a beautifully-photographed good quality book (Printed in China, 2015) to have in one's Cookbook Collection.

I purchased this book as fall is approaching. Donabe meals are excellent this time of year. One pot meals cooked in a stone bowl is perfect for a cold day.

I am a first time donabe user. This book is great for learning new inspiring recipes and learning about the history and culture surrounding donabe. My only draw back is that some of the recipes require a special ingredient that I cant find anywhere since being a smaller town with only one asian market. It would be nice if they offered substitute options for the rare ingredients like sake lees paste

Ottimo libro per entrare nel mondo della cucina in pentole di terracotta giapponesi: estremamente chiaro e completo accompagna il lettore dalla scelta delle pentole, passando per la tradizione, fino alle ricette più moderne. Il tutto corredato da bellissime fotografie. Consigliatissimo. PRO: - Ottima qualità della carta - Ricette tradizionali e moderne - Fotografie bellissime - Molto ricco (oltre 300 pagine) CONTRO: - L'inglese può essere una barriera linguistica per molti. Nota: Alcune ricette hanno ingredienti molto difficili da trovare in Italia.

This book is utterly heartwarming. The author clearly genuinely loves donabe cookery, and has become a close friend of a family of 8th generation donabe makers. There is one chapter each on how to make different types of donabe produce their best food. It lightly sketches how the coarse clay of a good donabe contributes to incredibly flavourful food, through both its heat retention properties and infrared rays. I appreciate that vegan recipes/options are marked, although it's primarily an omnivorous book. Read it - you'll find yourself wanting a donabe to make intimate hot-pot tabletop dinners. It's a book that lingers.

I love this book! the recipes are easy to follow and the photos are fantastic. I specifically went to Nagatani-en (the maker of all the donabes pictured within) in Japan to purchase a donabe to try some of the recipes out. All worked well!

Es un libro muy completo de la comida tradicional Japonesa. Mucha variedad de sopas que. Inca fallaran cuando invites a tus amigos a cenar.

Das Buch finde ich sehr schön aufgemacht und sehr informativ. Auf jeden Fall zu empfehlen. Leider wurde das sehr hochwertige Buch nicht in einem Paket versandt, weswegen es grobe äußerliche Schäden am Buch gibt. Ich verstehe nicht, warum man so ein Buch nicht besser verpacken kann.. Ich werde es nun reklamieren und woanders bestellen