If you are not particularly Japanese food lover, it's really worth to buy a big bottle of Shoyu 醤油 or しょうゆ (pic left; soy sauce) at a oriental shop. I usually buy a 1 litre of Kikkoman cost me around £5 to 6. But for you, it lasts for ages.

pic right is Mirin みりん (sweet cooking alcohol/sake/wine). I fortunately say that you cannot replace this by anything. However, probably you are able to manage to make close taste by using honey,,,,, but,,,,,  or just omit it. Cost would be  £5 to 6 for 600ml?

Both are very important ingredients for Japanese cuisine.

Other ingredients are sugar and sake. Using those basic four ingredients, and ad some more, you can make many many different tastes.

My mother really amazed me that she made many different dishes using those basic ingredients +. She didn't use any measuring spoons or cups!!! Now I do the same as my mother did!!

Miso paste 味噌 or みそ (pic left; soy bean paste). Japanese cuisine uses variety of miso, as light, dark etc. THis made by soy beens like shoyu. In Japan, your morning doesn't start without miso. Miso-shiru みそ汁 (miso soup with tofu {pic; right} and wakame is very popular). The price is from £ 3 to 5, depends on the size. 

Nowadays, you can buy a pack of Tofu (pic) at a big british supermarket (pic; as below). This Marinaga Tofu is very easy to handle. I think it's £ 1,10 to 1,30.

Sainsbury's oriental corner. They are not all Japan-made products, but if you cook Japanese dish very occasionally, it would be enough quantity. For me as Japanese, they are too small for my daily cooking.
If you really are a Japanese food lover, surf chinese or oriental shops in your town.
If you live in a big city or the capital city, like London, you can find many Japanese food shops. Means you can get some proper Japanese products. In addition, Korean products are quite similar to Japanese ones. 
But for me, sometimes the levels are all Korean language. No clue at all!!!

This picture is an instant Japanese curry packet. カレー. In a British supermarket, they have only small ones there. If you want to have a bigger size, go to the oriental shop and buy a 12 servings, 340g. There're even a instant stew packet too. Maybe the cost will over £ 3 to 5. Not too cheap, but 12 serves!!
I don't think this is healthy food, but it's so easy to cook. It's one of the popular dishes for the kids in Japan. A kind  of national dishes, though.







P.S I have to say sorry to everybody reading "Touch of Japan" regularly, because I didn't up dated for a couple of month. My Macbook, which my son gave to me 3 years ago, had been working so funny. I struggled to fix this machine and managed it in the end. However, I think I have to buy a new Macbook very soon. I changed the OS X Leopard to Lion, this time it worked OK, but when I bought the new Macbook (would be MC Air?), I will degrade Lion to Leopard again. My old Macbook is still workable. I wouldn't buy a Window PC, even the Window 8 is fine. My very very old Toshiba MC, which is still W-XP, is finely working. My husband uses Windows7,,,,, I don't think it's good machine. Anyway, I really enjoy my Apple machine.

Up dated my Facebook page "masuyo" 。よろしく！！！xxxxxxx