Our cookbook of the week is Wafu Cooking by Sonoko Sakai.
Jump to the recipes:chunky chocolate miso banana bread, pasta with miso Bolognese sauce and miso-honey butter on toasted onigiri.
Cook, teacher and writer Sonoko Sakai has called many places home. From being raised in places such as Mexico City and Tokyo to working in the film industry and being based in California, diverse influences have left their mark on her culinary style. In her fifth book, Wafu Cooking (Knopf, 2024), Sakai features recipes that showcase her global approach to Japanese cuisine.
Today, foods such as curry, miso and noodles may seem quintessentially Japanese, Sakai highlights, but they’re the result of adaptation. Many staples now taken for granted came from elsewhere in Asia — such as China or the Korean peninsula — and spices from as far as Persia.
“I want to start celebrating the exchange that we had for centuries and acknowledging that we’re not that authentic,” says Sakai, laughing. “And what is authentic? I thought not being authentic was a negative thing before, but I love my diversity. I love that I can sometimes put two different nationalities on the same plate, and that’s exactly who I am.”
Wafu means Japanese in style. Sakai explains that it’s a “broad, amorphous definition” that could encompass wabi-sabi, architecture or interior design. It wasn’t until the 1970s that people started using wafu to name Western dishes adapted to a Japanese palate. Kewpie, maker of the iconic mayonnaise, came out with a soy sauce-flavoured salad dressing called Wafu Dressing in 1978. Sakai says it was around this time that Japanese people, including herself, started commonly using wafu to define Japanese-style food.
In their wafu form, Western pork cutlets with demi-glace became panko-crusted chops served with tonkatsu sauce, shredded cabbage, miso soup, rice and pickles. Waffles merged with mochi (a glutinous rice cake) to create gooey mochi waffles, which Sakai spreads with black sesame butter.
“(Wafu) includes the tradition and sensibilities, ingredients, techniques. As Japan started to look towards the West, we were starting to import Western dishes, for example, or Chinese dishes, and we had to adapt. That became a pretty revolutionary kind of adaptation because (Western culture) was so different from Asian culture — like miso and soy sauce and noodles. It was totally alien or foreign. And so, we had to adjust it by maybe adding a little miso or toning down the spices.”
Wafu-ing — “yes, I use the word as a verb” — a dish could involve a splash of sake instead of white wine in a Bolognese sauce, a risotto made with dashi and topped with bonito flakes, and miso mixed into banana bread batter or stewed apples to fill a slab pie.
Sakai likes the word wafu because “wa” can refer to Japan itself and also means “harmony.” (“Fu” means “style.”) “What we’ve learned to do is never to overwhelm or kill the original ingredient. We’ve always dealt with seasonal ingredients with the utmost respect, and I think that’s the same with Western dishes. We take something, and we tweak it a little bit. And I call it almost secretly — like the eater won’t even notice.”
Sakai teaches in-person and online cooking workshops, and her experiences have greatly influenced her cookbooks. “I don’t think I’d have anything to say if I wasn’t a teacher or a student. The back-and-forth, the dialogue that I have with people, is how I get inspired.”
She considers home cooking essential, carrying the flavours we miss and find comfort in. The more than 120 recipes in Wafu Cooking represent how Sakai merges her varied influences at home — though she didn’t always announce what made her dishes unique. “I’ve always cooked this way, but I was sneaking it in without telling people. It’s called kakushiaji, which in English means ‘secret ingredient,’” she says. “I love that there’s a little bit of a mystery, but it’s still a minestrone, or it’s still a Bolognese sauce.”
Sakai doesn’t believe recipes should be regimental — every cook can tweak them to suit their palate. In her previous book, Japanese Home Cooking (2019), she set out to preserve time-honoured techniques and foundational recipes such as curry bricks, homemade soba noodles, pickles and ferments. Wafu Cooking may be more relaxed, but it’s still rooted in tradition. And, as with Japanese Home Cooking, Sakai hopes readers start with the best ingredients when cooking from it — a sensibility that she considers “very Japanese.” Sakai believes 90 per cent of cooking is using high-quality, seasonal ingredients, and 10 per cent is technique.
Growing up, Sakai’s parents transferred so often for work that she jokes she didn’t know what her mother tongue was. In addition to Japanese, she became fluent in Spanish and English. Writing Wafu Cooking allowed her to research the history of Japanese culture and reflect on her upbringing. Sakai says that she feels fortunate to have learned about the Meiji period (1868 to 1912) from someone who lived it.
“(My grandma was) from that Restoration period when Japan opened to the West, and I got to hear her tell me the stories, and my mother telling me the stories of what it was like during the war and how her cooking was influenced by moving to America and Mexico. And that’s why I felt like, ‘I need to record it before all of the people take it for granted that everything is just wafu.’ We need to appreciate the history — the process we took to adapt and come up with these distinct flavours. And I continue to do that in California, which is what this cookbook is about.”
In Wafu Cooking, Sakai starts with the flavours that underpin the rest of the recipes in the book: yakumi and furikake (garnishes), dashi and fermented condiments, such as miso and shio koji. Sakai emphasizes that even with modern wafu dishes, cooks still need a foundation. Once you understand the base flavours, then you can start experimenting.
“I’m looking for harmony. I’m really lucky that I spent time at my grandmother’s house in Kamakura for six years as a young girl, visiting her kitchen every single day, just standing next to her and watching her cook — and she also let me cook. But to feel, to make me understand Japan, Japanese cooking. And I stand on that foundation, so then I could invite others.”
CHUNKY CHOCOLATE MISO BANANA BREAD
Makes: 1 loaf
4 medium bananas, overripe and brown all over (see note)
1 3/4 cups (210 g) all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp (42 g) butter, softened
3/4 cup (165 g) brown sugar
2 tbsp (30 g) red miso (see note)
3 tbsp (30 g) sour cream or buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup (85 g) chocolate chunks, preferably dark chocolate
2/3 cup (80 g) chopped walnuts
3 tbsp Okinawa Black Sugar (Kokuto) Syrup (recipe follows) or molasses (optional)
2 tbsp toasted black sesame seeds
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 350F (176C). Butter a 10- by 5-inch (25- by 13-cm) tin loaf pan and dust with flour to prevent the batter from sticking to the pan.
Step 2
Peel the bananas. Slice one banana in half lengthwise and put it aside. This will be used for decoration. Mash the remaining bananas in a bowl with a fork until they are chunky.
Step 3
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder and baking soda.
Step 4
Put the butter, sugar and miso in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, or use a hand mixer, and mix until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Slowly add the buttermilk, then the beaten eggs, a little at a time, followed by the vanilla extract, and mix until well incorporated. Add the mashed bananas, dry ingredients, chocolate chunks and walnuts and mix until just blended. Avoid overmixing. Transfer the dough to the prepared pan.
Step 5
Arrange the halved banana on top of the batter, cut side up. Brush the top of the banana with the kokuto syrup, if using. Sprinkle the sesame seeds on top and around the banana. Bake for 60 to 65 minutes or until a toothpick or chopstick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow the bread to cool on a rack for 30 minutes before taking it out of the pan. The banana bread will keep in the fridge for 2 to 3 days, or in the freezer for 1 month.
Notes: Be sure to use overripe bananas. Buy yellow bananas a week in advance of the baking and allow them to ripen in a brown bag.
When adding red miso, begin with less than what the recipe calls for because every miso is slightly different.
OKINAWA BLACK SUGAR (KOKUTO) SYRUP
Makes: 2/3 cup (80 mL)
1 cup (136 g) Okinawa black sugar (also known as kokuto) or dark brown sugar
1 cup (240 mL) water
Step 1
Add the sugar and water to a medium saucepan and cook over low heat for 30 minutes or until it thickens into a syrup. Store for 2 months in the fridge.
PASTA WITH MISO BOLOGNESE SAUCE
Makes: 4-6 servings
1 tbsp olive oil
2 oz (56 g) pancetta, diced
1 small yellow onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 medium carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1 medium stalk celery, finely chopped
2 tbsp unsalted butter, divided
3/4 lb (454 g) ground beef chuck
1/4 lb (127 g) ground pork
1 cup (240 mL) milk
Pinch ground nutmeg
1 cup (240 mL) sake or white wine
One 28-oz can (793 g) plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped, with their juice
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
3 leaves fresh sage
2 tbsp miso
1 tbsp mirin, or more to taste
Sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup (240 mL) dashi, or more if needed
1 1/2 lb (680 g) pasta (tagliatelle, spaghetti or rigatoni) or udon noodles
1/4 cup (22 g) freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more to taste, for garnish
Step 1
Add the oil to a large pot set over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook until lightly brown, about 3 minutes. Add the onions and stir and cook until they become soft and translucent, about 4 minutes. Then add the garlic, carrots and celery, stir to combine, and continue cooking for about 4 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Cooking over low heat helps bring out the aromas and amami — the sweetness.
Step 2
Add 1 tablespoon of the butter to the pot and raise the heat to medium. Add the meat and cook until the pink is gone and the water from the meat has evaporated. Add the milk and continue stirring until it has evaporated. Add the nutmeg and stir to combine.
Step 3
Add the sake or wine to the pot, scrape up any bits sticking to the bottom, and continue cooking over low heat until the alcohol has evaporated.
Step 4
Add the tomatoes, bay leaf, thyme, sage, miso and mirin. Stir to combine, and continue cooking, uncovered, over low heat for 1 1/2 hours. Taste. Add salt and pepper as needed. The sauce will thicken as it cooks, so replenish with 1/2-1 cup of dashi if needed and continue cooking for another half hour.
Step 5
To serve, bring a large pot of water to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook the pasta according to the package instructions, then drain, reserving some of the cooking liquid. In the meantime, reheat the meat sauce over medium-high heat. Add a little pasta water to emulsify the sauce. Add the cooked pasta and turn off heat. Add the remaining butter and toss several times to combine. Garnish with grated Parmesan.
MISO-HONEY BUTTER ON TOASTED ONIGIRI
Makes: 6 onigiri
1 cup (240 mL) water
1 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp light sesame oil or toasted sesame oil, and more for the pan
6 cups (1.2 kg) cooked brown or white rice, freshly made or a day old
Miso-Honey Butter (recipe follows)
Step 1
To make the onigiri, prepare a clean cutting board to work on. Put the water and salt in a small bowl and stir. Use this water to wet your hands so the rice grains don’t stick to them while you are forming the onigiri. Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper and brush with sesame oil.
Step 2
Divide the cooked rice into six equal mounds, one cup each, and place them on the cutting board. To shape the onigiri, wet your hands with salted water. Clap your hands in the air to remove excess water. Transfer the mound of rice to your moistened palm and mould it into a triangular shape. Cup one hand to hold the rice ball. To make a triangular onigiri, press gently with your other hand to create the triangular point, using your index and middle fingers and thumb as guides. Turn the onigiri and repeat a couple more times to give it three corners. The onigiri will be about 1 inch thick. Place the formed onigiri on the oiled parchment paper. Repeat with the remaining rice. Brush the onigiri with a little oil to prevent them from sticking to the paper.
Step 3
Heat the oven to broil on high. Set the rack 6 inches (15 cm) from the heat source. Broil the onigiri on both sides until crisp and slightly toasted, 5 to 10 minutes on each side depending on the heat. While broiling, cut 6 coins of the compound butter, 1/8-1/4 inch thick (3-6 mm). Remove the pan of broiled onigiri from the oven, place a round of butter on top of each, and return to broil until the butter melts, caramelizes, and becomes toasty. Serve immediately while the onigiri are piping hot.
MISO-HONEY BUTTER
Makes: 3/4 cup (about 160 g)
1 stick (113 g) unsalted butter, softened
3 tbsp (45 g) white or red miso
2 tbsp (42 g) honey (if using)
Step 1
Mix together the softened butter, miso and honey, if using, in a small bowl. Use a whisk to thoroughly mix the ingredients until they are fully incorporated and emulsified. Spoon the mixture into the centre of a piece of parchment or wax paper. Use the paper to form the butter gently into a log and wrap it. Set in the refrigerator or freezer until firm, then slice off rounds as needed. The miso-honey butter will keep in the fridge for a month.
Variations: Serve the miso-honey butter on hot oatmeal with raisins and toasted flaked almonds. On a hot bowl of rice. On steak. On pancakes. Add 3-4 tablespoons minced fresh chives to the miso-honey butter along with the honey, mixing until evenly distributed; or 1 tablespoon of fresh jalapeño pepper, minced; or 1 tablespoon of grated yuzu or lemon peel.
Recipes and images excerpted from Wafu Cooking by Sonoko Sakai. Copyright ©2024 by Sonoko Sakai. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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