What is Yoshoku and How to Make It?

by Cath Lealand | LIFESTYLE

It’s no secret that Japan is home to enormous amounts of delicious, traditional cuisine - sushi, ramen, udon, yakitori - the list goes on. In addition, Japanese interpretations of well-loved international dishes often make the news for their somewhat controversial flavour combinations (strawberries on pizza, and wasabi kitkats are some that come to mind!). However, this fusion of culinary cultures is in no way a new phenomenon. Let’s take a look into the world of yoshoku, where elements of western and Japanese cooking combine to make dishes so well-loved, you’d be forgiven for thinking they have always been on the menu!

Contents

1. What is Yoshoku?
2. The History of Yoshoku
3. What are the Most Popular Types of Yoshoku Dish?
4. What Do You Need to Make Yoshoku Dishes?
5. How to Make your Own Yoshoku Recipes?
6. Where Can You Eat Yoshoku?

1. What is Yoshoku?

In a broad sense of the word, yoshoku means western cuisine (洋 yo western, 食 shoku meal/cuisine). However, in a narrower sense, yoshoku is a category of Japanese cuisine that refers to western-style or western-inspired dishes that have developed independently in Japan. One Japanese food critic has explained that "‘Western food’ is what goes well with bread, and yoshoku is what goes well with rice.”

Dishes such as pork cutlets (or katsu), Japanese curry rice, croquettes, fried shrimp, and omurice (omlette and rice) are but a few of the many western-inspired dishes reimagined for Japanese taste buds.

With a history dating well over a hundred years, yoshoku dishes and restaurants have a certain retro feel, but still remain popular meal choices for both Japanese adults and children alike even to this day.

2. The History of Yoshoku

Utagawa Yoshikazu, Making Western Food, 1860

The term yoshoku originated from restaurants and chefs that catered specifically for westerners during the Meiji Restoration in the late 1800s. Until the Meiji period, Japan had severely limited any trade or relations with foriegn countries for over two hundred years. As Japan’s isolationist foreign policy came to an end, so did the restrictions on foreign nationals entering the country. With these new visitors came new foods, and new food preferences.

The Japanese army and navy were modeled after the armies of the European powers (mainly the French and British armies), and introduced western-style cuisine into their lunches and field rations from early on. Today the curry rice of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is considered a naval tradition, and is known as kaigun kare, or navy curry. Additionally, a number of Japanese chefs trained and worked abroad, and, upon returning to Japan, opened their own restaurants in various parts of Japan.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, it was difficult for chefs to have a complete lineup of ingredients for western dishes, so easily available substitutes were often used. This scarcity of ingredients also made ‘real’ Western food somewhat unobtainable to the majority of Japanese people in the first decade of the 1900s. However, during the 1920s and 30s, ‘western’ restaurants for the masses began to appear, using Japanese ingredients and focusing on a more Japanese-style western food.

Following World War II, easier access to non-Japanese ingredients, as well the United States’ promotion of the use of wheat, led to a rapid westernization of the Japanese diet, and yoshoku and yoshoku restaurants became just as familiar as ramen or udon.

These days international cuisine that was once broadly referred to as ‘western food’ in Japan is now defined by its country of origin, such as French, Italian, Spanish, and so on. Yoshoku dishes are widely available in Japan in yoshoku-ya (Yoshoku restaurants), chain restaurants, and even in the ready-made meal section of the supermarket.

3. What are the Most Popular Types of Yoshoku Dish?

There are a large number of yoshoku dishes you can find in modern-day Japanese cuisine, and many regional varieties on top of that! Let’s take a look at some of the most typical yoshoku dishes. How many have you seen on the menu at a Japanese restaurant?

Tonkatsu (Pork Cutlets)

Tonkatsu, or just katsu, is a dish made by coating and deep-frying thick slices of pork loin with breadcrumbs. The name comes from the Japaese word ton, meaning pork, and katsu from cutlet. Whilst the origin of this dish is contested, a similar deep-fried pork dish appeared in Tokyo restaurant Renga-tei in 1899. Renga-tei’s dish was designed to be enjoyed by foreign and Japanese customers alike, and it became very popular. Tonkatsu are often served in a Japanese style with rice, miso soup, and pickles. Other interpretations such as katsu curry and katsu sandwiches are also popular and easily available.

Omurice (Omelette Rice)

Omurice consists of cooked rice, most often pan-fried with chicken and ketchup, wrapped in an omelet. It’s usually topped with more ketchup, demi-glace sauce, or béchamel sauce. Much like tonkatsu, there are several restaurants that claim to be the birthplace of omurice, the most famous being Hokkyokusei in Osaka, and Renga-tei.

Curry Rice

Curry rice often ranks as one of the most popular dishes in Japan, as well as one of the most often served! In Japanese households, curry is usually made using an instant curry sauce with onion, potato, carrot and meat. Although technically Indian in origin, through its introduction via the British and various alterations, Japanese curry is often mild (sometimes sweet!), with a gravy-like consistency. Curry udon, a further ‘Japanification’ of the dish is also very popular.

Hayashi Rice

Hayashi rice comes from hashed beef with rice, but the exact reason why it became hayashi is contested. Thinly sliced beef and onions cooked in a demi glace sauce and served over rice, hayashi rice, may have been introduced to Japan from a British-American cookbook dating from the 1880s. There’s also a theory that a certain Mr Hayashii invented it as nutritional food for patients when he was working as a doctor in Yokohama. Either way, it’s a yoshoku classic.

Naporitan (Napolitan Pasta)

Naporitan is somewhat of a divisive dish; pasta purists might claim it is a culinary crime, whilst fans of the dish would call a yoshoku dish incomplete without it. Cooked spaghetti is pan-fried in ketchup with onion, green pepper, and ham. Yes, you read correctly, ketchup. In the years following WWII, a chef from Yokohama’s Hotel New Grand, after seeing an American military ration dish combining ketchup and spaghetti, created naporitan. Naporitan or Napolitan takes its name from Italy’s Naples and is often served as a side dish with other yoshoku dishes, or even in Japanese-style ready-made bentos!

Those are only a few of the items on a yoshoku menu. Hamburger steak, korokke (croquette), doria, the list goes on!

4. What Do You Need to Make Yoshoku Dishes?

Most yoshoku dishes can be made with items and ingredients already easily available in the home kitchen. Ketchup and worcestershire sauce make appearances in numerous dishes, and many recipes require little more than a frying pan. However, there are few extra tools that yoshoku chefs use to perfect their dish.

Omurice Mold

To get that perfect, lemon-like shape of ketchup-fried rice, some yoshoku pros opt for a rice mold. Made in Niigata prefecture in Japan, Shimotori’s stainless steel rice mold gives you the perfect base for your omuraisu’s fluffy omelette every time.

Omurice Mold available at Amazon

Curry Boat

Whilst many countries might refer to it as a gravy boat, it is more often than not used to serve curry or hayashi in Japan, allowing you to get the perfect rice to curry (or hayashi depending on your preference) ratio.

Curry Boat available at Amazon

Curry Roux

For those just dipping their toes into the world of yoshoku for the first time, you can’t go wrong with curry rice. For most Japanese households, instant curry mix in the form of cubes or powder is the standard.

Curry Roux available at Amazon

With all that ketchup and demi glace sauce- yoshoku can get a bit messy! How about a traditional maekae apron whilst cooking to keep yourself spotless.

5. How to Make your Own Yoshoku Recipes?

If you’re wanting to make your own yoshoku meal, but want something a bit more challenging than instant curry, Chef Shintaro Eleazar Okuda of Bar Moga in NYC can teach you how to make a delicious dish omurice.

For those who want to have a go at the deep-fried world of yoshoku, Jun from Jun’s Kitchen can teach you how to make katsu curry: two yoshoku dishes in one!

6. Where Can You Eat Yoshoku?

Whilst yoshoku has a long history, many of the ‘birthplaces’ of the dishes mentioned in this article are still around today- and still draw long lines of yoshoku fans.

Akasaka Tsutsui, Tokyo

Enjoy the full range of yoshuku recipes in a gorgeous hidden-away location at Akasaka Tsutsui.

Renga-tei, Ginza, Tokyo

The reputed home of both omurice and tonkatsu, open since the Meiji period still exists in Ginza today. Take a visit and enjoy a taste of Japanese cuisine’s history.

Hotel New Grand, Yokohama

Hotel New Grand’s The Cafe still serves up its original dishes- Spaghetti Napolitan and Seafood Doria.

Yokosuka Curry Honpo, Yokosuka, Kanagawa

Considered the home of Navy curry, Yokosuka is not short on curry restaurants. Whilst many won’t have the opportunity to try the real curry issued by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, Yokosuka Curry Honpo, with an interior based on a real ship’s interior, is a pretty good substitute.

Whether you try yoshoku at home or at one of Japan’s many famous yoshoku-ya, dishes like tonkatsu are a great way to try a fusion of flavours that are filled with history.

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