My mom was born and raised in Kyoto, so she often cooks Kyoto-style dishes called obanzai in Japanese. Since summers in Japan are very harsh, she uses seasonal vegetables such as eggplants, winter melons, and manganji peppers (a variety that originated in Kyoto) to prepare several dishes in the morning. She stores them in a fridge to keep them cool. In the evening, she serves these dishes for dinner.

Since I was a kid, I've loved enjoying these refreshing homemade dishes in the summertime.

Today, I'd like to write about obanzai. Most of obanzai dishes are simmered with soy sauce, mirin (sweet cooking wine), sugar, salt and dashi(soup stock). People in Kyoto prefer using light soy sauce for cooking, and this style is called Kyo-fu (Kyoto style). Since regular soy sauce has a dark brown color, when you simmer with the light soy sauce, it's looks more appareling. However, the light one contains more sodium, so I don't use it. My version of obanzai look darker in color because of that.

I've posted three different dishes' photographs. The first dish is simmered eggplant. I first saute eggplants, and once they become soft, add soy sauce, mirin, and my homemade fermented ginger. Then, I simmer them until they become even softer.

The next dish is simmered manganji peppers. Manganji is a type of Kyo-yasai (Kyoto vegetables) in Japanese. A friend of mine gave those, and next year I'd love to try growing them in my own yard as well. Simmered manganji requires three different ingredients that are different from simmered eggplants: small dried sardines, sake and sugar.

The last dish is simmered winter melons. It requires potato starch. After adding basic seasonings, at the very end, you add the potato starch. It thickens the broth and enhances the flavor.

The last three pictures show that day's dinner. I stored the simmered dishes for eight hours in a fridge, so everything was nicely chilled. It's one of the best ways to survive from the brutal summer heat in Kyoto.

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