By Sophie Hardach TOKYO, April 1 (Reuters Life!) - To cook the perfect Japanese omelette, you need home-made fish stock, a special frying pan, and a folding technique that is best practiced with a dozen eggs and plenty of time. After cookbook author and consultant Elizabeth Andoh shows how to patiently manipulate whispy-thin layers of egg with a pair of chopsticks, it comes as a surprise to hear her describe Japanese cooking as quick and convenient. But she is not alone. Chefs and food writers are bringing healthy Japanese home-cooking into U.S. and European kitchens, focusing on soup, vegetables and grilled fish rather than sushi and sashimi. They also argue that learning a few simple cooking and chopping techniques from the Japanese and applying them to Western food can transform the way people live, think and eat. "You don't have to be Japanese and you don't have to live in Japan in order to benefit from knowing Japanese food culture," Andoh, an American who first came to Japan in the 1960s, told Reuters after a cooking class in her kitchen in suburban Tokyo. "What is specifically Japanese is a notion of balance." Every Japanese meal is supposed to feature five colours -- red, green, yellow, white and black -- as well as five different ways of cooking food and five different tastes -- salty, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy. While this sounds as complex as producing the perfect omelette, Andoh says the idea can easily be applied to an ordinary Western lunch, such as soup and tuna sandwich. Sprinkle an aromatic green garnish over the soup, place a slice of tomato on the sandwich, and all of a sudden the meal will come together. At a restaurant summit in Tokyo, New York chef David Bouley pointed out that many Japanese techniques can be adapted to other cuisines -- for example, cutting a duck in a certain way to drain off some of the fat, or killing a fish quickly right after catching it instead of letting it suffocate. KANSHA RHYTHM Bouley believes so strongly in the health benefits of Japanese food that he is working with U.S. farmers to grow Japanese crops such as mountain vegetables at home. "A lot of Japanese food can be very accessible if you can get your hands on simple but quality ingredients, and I think you can even integrate some of that practical approach into the way you cook your other meals, which will probably be better tasting," he said on the sidelines of the summit. He combines Japanese and French cooking in dishes such as fish with a sauce of truffles and Japanese "dashi" fish stock, or a sauce containing "miso" fermented soy paste, fresh tomato juice and sparkling wine. Bouley, who is working on a Japanese cookbook, said he noticed that his guests felt better and more energetic after eating Japanese food. Andoh is also writing another book, exploring the culinary concept of "Kansha", or "appreciation", which she describes as a mindful awareness of nature's bounty and the efforts of those who harvest and prepare food. Having lived in a Japanese farmhouse in the 1960s, where she had to pump water from a well and chop firewood to cook meals, Andoh is keen to avoid waste. In Kansha cooking, all the parts of a vegetable are used in different dishes. Stems and peels are set aside and used to make soup stock, snacks or pickles. Since this requires some forward planning, Andoh argues that Kansha cooking encourages a healthier more thoughtful approach. "I truly believe whether you are a busy professional or a mummy, once you get into the rhythm of Kansha kitchen you'll find it's less exhausting, you're eating better, and it's more environmentally friendly," she said. (Reporting by Sophie Hardach, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)
