Chef Hirohisa Koyama shares the Japanese cooking art

Maria Endah Hulupi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In Japanese cuisine, the country's century-old-cooking techniques play an important role in creating the lightness of its food while highlighting the natural flavors of fresh ingredients.

This stems from the traditional belief that delicious food does not require the use of strong spices because each food has its own natural flavor, and sauces are only to enhance it.

By respecting this standard, Japanese cooks can turn out various delicious dishes from fresh vegetables, fish and other lean meats.

Such light and fresh flavors are present in all Japanese menus, which consist of zensai (hors d'oeuvre), shirumono (soup), sashimi (raw fish dishes), nimono (steamed or boiled vegetables), tsukemono (pickled cucumber, cabbage, carrot and fish), shokuji (rice and misoshiru), dessert, syusai (main dish).

"The basic rule is to remove the unwanted parts of each food through skilled cutting and special cooking techniques," said chef Hirohisa Koyama, owner of a new Japanese restaurant, Basara (a Sanskrit word for Diamond) at Summitmas Building I on Jl. Jend. Sudirman, Jakarta.

Koyama said that fatty foods, like the chicken thigh has to be cooked in such a way to drain the fat. It is usually done by cooking the chicken thigh skin-side down, and cooking it until it has a nice brown and crispy look before seasoning it with soyu, mirin or other sauces. The end result will have a light flavor as the excess fat is discarded.

Apart from that, unwanted or inedible parts of the food are removed. The Krapu, a type of saltwater fish, is thinly sliced for sushi or other dishes.

Koyama, who was in Jakarta for the launching of his restaurant, recently tutored a cooking workshop held by the Japan Foundation.

Born in Tokushima area in Shikoku region, the 53-year-old chef studied culinary art in Osaka and has been passionately using simple old recipes from his hometown and modifying them to create palatable dishes.

Koyama is the third generation owner of an century-old family restaurant Aoyagi, which he first joined in 1976. He opened the restaurant's first branch, named Kaiseki Bento Aoyagi in Tokyo, in 1983.

His own recipes have been very well received by diners, which inspired him to establish Basara restaurant in 1986.

He opened Aoyagi Toranomon and Basara Harumi restaurants in 1996 and 2001 respectively. A Paris-branch Basara restaurant will be opened later this year.

Koyama also established Heisei Chorisi Senmon Gakko or Heisei culinary school and hosted a cooking program in NHK TV station.

He says he fell in love with the culinary goddess (Japanese people believe that elements of the universe are protected by gods or goddesses) and this passion is reflected in his cookbooks, including Koi Suru Ryori Nin (a Culinarian in Love) and a best selling book in France and Germany, titled Saveurs Du Japon.

Just like humans, Koyama explained, understanding each cooking ingredient is imperative.

As for its traditional flavor, Koyama said Japanese cooks use various light sauces to season the dish and the most common one is soyu.

"Almost all boiled and stir-fried vegetables and meat are seasoned with soyu to give a distinctive flavor," he said.

He added that the soyu sauce was one of three items, he took with him to Paris for a cooking demonstration a decade ago, also a knife and katsuo a type of saltwater fish with a distinctive aroma (locally known as cakalang or skipjack tuna).

Though they may look simple, however, some of the dishes use ingredients that have been through a lengthy and complicated cooking process, such as katsuo.

"From this processed katsuo and seaweed, I make a delicate flavored dashi (broth, used in various soup dishes)," Koyama explained.