Vegetarian Glossary

Vegans' Club for Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes

The top page of Vegans'Club for Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes

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Some of the Japanese terms used in the recipes are not translatable into English. Here is a Japanese-English vegetarian glossary with explanations of some of the terms. We hope this will help you understand the recipes enough to enable you to prepare the dishes yourself. Please feel free to contact us if there is anything (any words) you do not understand.

Japanese-English Vegetarian Glossary

Japanese	English
abura-age	slices of fried tofu
asatsuki	A very thin kind of leek. Chinese chives.
aojiso	edible green leaf often used to decorate sashimi (raw fish slices)
daikon	large, white Japanese radish
eda-mame	young green soybeans in the pod. Often boiled and served in the pod as a drinking snack
fu	wheat gluten slices, often added to miso soup
genmai	unrefined rice, brown rice, unpolished rice
gobo-	(Elongate the second syllable) Long thin root of burdock used in many Japanese dishes, especially boiled stew-like ones.
harusame	'spring rain': a light, colourless noodle made from bean-starch vermicelli
itafu	dried wheat gluten slices, often softened and added to miso soup
kanten	Agar; a gelatinous substance derived from seaweed. Used in a wide variety of wagashi, Japanese confectionary
katakuriko	katakuri starch, a sauce-thickener usually made from potatoes
konbu	kelp (a seaweed)
konnyaku	konnyaku jelly, made from the starch of the corm of the konjac plant (Amorphophallus konjac)
kuzu	kudzu, Japanese arrowroot, Pueraria lobata
mentsuyu	dip for noodles.
mirin	an essential Japanese condiment made from Japanese sake. Very sweet. Commercial products contain no or very little alcohol. Usually used in teriyaki sauce (tare).
miso	A traditional Japanese food produced by fermenting soybeans (usually), rice, or barley with salt and the fungus koujikin. This makes a thick paste which is used for making the well-known 'miso soup' and other foods.
mizuna	A good salad green known in English as Japanese mustard or potherb mustard, this is a Japanese name used primarily for cultivated varieties of Brassica rapa nipposinica
"momen" tofu	"cotton" tofu, a slightly hard tofu
myoga	Myoga or myoga ginger (Zingiber mioga, Zingiberaceae) is an herbaceous, deciduous, perennial native to Japan that is grown for its edible flower buds and flavorful shoots. Flower buds are finely shredded and used in Japanese cuisine as a garnish for miso soup and other dishes.
natto	A gooey fermented soybean food. It's a bit like baked beans in a gooey brown sauce, but eaten cold on rice and so on. It's a very 'Asian thing' and some non-Asians never get used to eating it...
okara	a byproduct of the manufacture of tofu (bean curd) from soybeans.
okara konnyaku	a meat substitute made from mixing okara into konnyaku jelly
shiso	Sometimes known in English as the 'beefsteak plant', this plant is usually grown for it's edible and decorative leaves - green ones are 'aojiso' and red ones are 'akajiso'. The seeds are also edible.
shichimi	Literally "seven tastes", a mix of spices for sprinkling on soba or udon noodles.
soba	common buckwheat, Fagopyrum esculentum. The starch from the seed is used to make flour, which is often used to make noodles - soba noodles.
sukiyaki	Japanese dish usually consisting of thinly sliced beef, tofu, vegetables and so on, cooked in a pot (often iron) at the table. Not the song by Kyu Sakamoto, which has very little to do with sukiyaki.
takuan	Pickled white Japanese radish. It is usually a nice yellow colour and has an interesting taste that may take you a little while to get used to.
tempura	Vegetables and fish fried in batter.
teriyaki	broiling or grilling in a sweet soy sauce marinade (tare)
udon	Thick wheat flour noodles
umeboshi	Pickled Japanese plums. A dark red colour and very sour.
Myoga	Myoga or myoga ginger (Zingiber mioga, Zingiberaceae) is an herbaceous, deciduous, perennial native to Japan that is grown for its edible flower buds and flavorful shoots. Flower buds are finely shredded and used in Japanese cuisine as a garnish for miso soup and other dishes.

Please let us know if there are words in the recipes that you do not understand, but are not listed here. We will do our best to ensure that you can understand everything in the recipes.

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