Japanese Recipes for Healthy Living

Ponzu is a very useful sauce. It goes well with sushi, dumpling, fish,  shabu shabu and etc…

Ponzu is made by boiling mirin, rice vinegar, bonito flakes, and kombu over medium heat. Then yuzu, sudachi, daidai,  kabosu or lemon is added. Yuzu, sudachi, daidai and kabosu are Japanese citrus fruits. They’re very similar to lime or lemon. So go ahead and use lemon or lime.

Although I know how to make this, I hardly make it at home. In Japan, we sometimes have a shabu shabu party at home. Everybody eats from one huge pot (called nabe). I don’t know how many times I joined this kind of party, but I’ve never seen anyone  actually making ponzu from scratch, because you can get a really good ponzu at the grocery store.

The best brand is Mizkan.

MIZKAN PONZU, AJIPON

As Japanese food got more popular, I guess the demand for ponzu increased. I started seeing ponzu at American grocery stores like Ralph’s. If they have Mizkan Ajipon, get that. There are some crappy ponzu brands out there. I recommend Mizkan Ajipon.

You can add grated ginger or garlic to ponzu depends on the menu.  For example, I love adding both ginger and garlic to it for seared albacore tuna, and only ginger for fried mackerel (saba). One more good thing about ponzu is it doesn’t contain any oil, so it’s good for a weight-watcher!

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