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Masters at work: Why Japanese chefs spend a lifetime perfecting techniques
17 Feb 2021
My first exposure to Japan's total dedication to culinary excellence came in a tiny eel rice spot hidden down a Tokyo side street. They have been in business for more than 130 years and the elegant, timeless interiors looked like nothing had changed since they opened.
Only one dish was on the menu, unadon. Steamed white rice in beautiful lacquer boxes was topped with fillets of grilled kabayaki eel that had been glazed with a sticky, sweet sauce called tare. The pot in which the tare was mixed was itself more than 80 years old and lined with mahogany-colored streaks from decades of the same sauce being cooked, day in and day out.
It made for a sublime, extraordinary food experience, seemingly simple, but in fact built on more than a century of learning. When I complimented the proprietor on the food and asked whether they had ever been tempted to try crafting other dishes, he looked at me with utter disbelief: "But why?" He responded. "Every day I come to work, there's a chance that the unadon will be slightly better than yesterday." His mind-blowing answer, dedication and unwavering passion for his craft is typical of Japanese culinary artists, many of whom who spend their lives mastering one dish.
Another such maestro is Chef Taisuke Kojima at one-Michelin-star Tempura Mizuki in the elegant but relaxed surrounds of The Ritz-Carlton, Kyoto. As diners take one of eight seats along the massive granite counter, they are in for an unforgettable Kappo-style tempura meal. Chef Kojima prepares everything in front of them, providing a window on his own years of learning and experience.
Chef Kojima started his career at "Tempura Yasaka Endo" in Gion, Kyoto. From 2016, he refined his cooking skills at The Ritz-Carlton, Kyoto "Tempura Mizuki", and after training at "Tempura Kondo" in Ginza, Tokyo in 2019, became the chef of "Tempura Mizuki" in early 2020. As he explains, his journey to the craft is a long one: "Usually, it takes at least ten years for us to be able to stand at the tempura counter. Every day, day and night, I asked the chef to taste my tempura and got his advice."
Tempura is an especially skilled technique as there are no sauces involved, meaning that the cooking has to be absolutely perfect, every time, in order to bring out the natural flavour and quality of the finest seasonal produce: "Tempura cannot be seasoned or cooked with sauce, so the most important thing is the quality of ingredients itself, so I’m trying to bring out the flavour of them as much as I can."
Clearly the tempura batter is vital in the process and the approach at Tempura Mizuki could not be more precise: "We cool the cake flour to minus 60 degrees to make the particles finer. We then sift it and mix it with egg yolk and iced water at about three degrees." The tempura are then cooked in special stainless steel pans:"The cooking times and techniques are completely different for each vegetable and fish. We change the condition of the tempura batter every time by adding water and egg water as necessary."
When the menu includes ingredients such as prawn, uni, sesame tofu, arrowhead, Mitsurou sweet potato, lotus root, Shogoin turnip, kujo green onion, Hirai beef, blowfish, filefish, densuke conger eel and splendid alfonsino - then clearly it is an incredibly labour-intensive service.
What's more, the oil used also affects the tempura's texture and shows regional differences in tempura cooking. So, for example, tempura in and around Kyoto is distinct from that in the Tokyo region, as Chef explains: "Sesame oil is used in the Kanto region, but the Tempura in Kyoto is light and thin while the flavour of ingredients is brought out more. We get a crispy finish by using natural Benibanayu - safflower oil - which adds a distinctive light flavour to tempura."
The result is beautifully light tempura, perfectly cooked, every time, gently giving the finest produce the crispiest and thinnest coating imaginable. Ever modest, however, he says that he feels happy when the guests say it's delicious, "but I don't feel I've achieved something." Intriguingly, Chef Kojima feels that tempura may lack the same recognition as other Japanese culinary traditions:
"In Japan, there are still few tempura specialty restaurants and it’s recognition in Japanese culinary culture is still low. I want tempura restaurants to be as famous as sushi or soba restaurants."
But with his craft, dedication and focused passion, there's a very strong chance that Chef's tempura artistry and that of his fellow chefs will soon get the recognition it truly deserves. Indeed, one day Tempura Mizuki may also reach 130 years in business, becoming another Japanese culinary icon in the process.
