Five Japanese ingredients you didn't know you needed—staples that will reshape your pantry

If you love Japanese food, but can't quite figure out why it isn't the same when you make it at home, it might be to do with the basic ingredients in your pantry. Cookbook author and Japanese food expert Jane Lawson talks 9Kitchen through five of her favourite Japanese staples that you should get to know.

Daikon

Commonly labelled as 'giant white radish', the carrot shaped vegetable is as versatile as it is long. The sweeter, sun-exposed stem end is traditionally used raw in salads, while the peppery tip is commonly grated then added to sauces or dressings as an excellent tempering agent to rich meats and fried foods such as tempura. The mellow middle portion works well in simmered dishes including hotpots, stews or soups, but can just as readily be added to a roast vegetable medley or made into hash-browns. Daikon's green leafy tips are excellent sautéed with garlic and ginger or blanched and dressed.

Daikon radish

Miso

You'll have spotted the mid-brownish variety (shinshu-miso) on supermarket shelves, but the salty, umami-laden paste—made by fermenting dried soy beans—comes in a range of flavoursome hues with immeasurable applications.  Small batch miso offers organic complexity, but most miso at Asian food stores come in just a handful of consistent styles including the sweeter 'white' (yellowish) shiro-miso, and its posh, pale and creamy cousin saikyo, robust 'red' (a deep caramel colour) aka miso, and the intensely rich, dark brown paste, hatcho. Mixing them in various ratios expands your range significantly. Freeze to extend shelf live (almost indefinitely). Served daily in soup as a digestion aid, miso paste is also frequently added to simmered dishes for depth or to tenderising marinades, perfect for grilled meats or roasts. It also turns up in a wide range of dressings and sauces.

Miso varieties

Sansho 

The highly aromatic berry from the prickly ash tree is related to the Szechuan pepper, and even has the tell-tale tongue-numbing effect.  Dried and ground to an olive green powder with a distinct citrus, peppery flavour, tangy sansho is brilliant for cutting through the richness of fatty meats and seafood. It's particularly good sprinkled over grilled eel, porky ramen, marbled beef and lamb-chops or added to sauces for duck or salmon.

Sansho pepper

Mirin

This Japanese pantry staple is a sweet, low-alcohol rice liquor made in a similar way to sake. Used predominantly as a seasoning in savoury cooking to balance the salt of soy or miso and acid of rice vinegar, it features in everything from salad dressings to rich glazes for yakitori, hotpots and delicate steamed dishes such as chawan mushi (savoury custard). Mass market offerings are far less flavoursome and layered than premium brands—think cheap balsamic versus a rich barrel-aged version. So seek out 'hon (real) mirin' for adding sweetness, a little acid and umami to vinaigrettes, tomato pasta sauce, or rich meaty casseroles. 

Mirin used in a broth base

Shiso

Refreshing and exotic, summery shiso is unlike any herb currently growing in your window-box—its flavour sits somewhere between basil and mint (to which it's related) with notes of citrus and aniseed. Both vibrant green and reddish purple varieties sport large, sawtooth edged leaves. Green shiso is usually sliced and sprinkled over salads or freshly cooked foods, mixed with other ingredients for anything from dressings to meatballs, or wrapped around morsels of meat or vegetables for grilling, simmering, or deep-frying. In fact the whole leaves make great tempura. Slightly bitter red shiso's main use is for colouring and flavouring umeboshi (Japanese pickled plums) but also makes a thirst–quenching cordial.

Fresh shiso leaves

Get to know that daikon radish with Jane Lawson's daikon hash brown recipe