Harvest Niseko

Book excerpt: Winner of the Gourmand World Cookbooks awards for 'Best of the Best Cookbooks in the World in 25 years' 2020, 'Best First Cookbook and Best Cookbook Photography' 2018 and 'Best Cookbook in Japan' 2017. Harvest Niseko is the guide to Japanese home cooking. Written together by friends and colleagues of Niseko's famous catering company Niseko Gourmet, Tess Stomski and Chisato Amagai offer over 100 recipes and an explanation on what to have on hand in your Japanese pantry. Each recipe is simple enough to cook for a week night dinner for the family yet when paired together will impress for a dinner party. Recipes are organised into 10 chapters of the famous 'Niseko-farmed' ingredients of cabbage, asparagus, egg, tomato, potato, rice, daikon radish, carrot and lily bulb, beans and tofu, and pumpkin, explore various cooking techniques and offer traditional and modern flavours from throughout Japan, all with the international kitchen in mind. Harvest Niseko also explores the lives of ten inspiring Niseko farmers and eight creative chefs as they reflect on their childhood memories, career defining decisions and culinary journeys. www.harvestniseko.com 'There's often a direct relationship between chef and farmer in Niseko that adds a special significance and quality to the dining experiences on offer here. When long-time local chef Tess Stomski decided to dig a little deeper and learn more about these connections, she uncovered an incredible world of stories surrounding the lives of local farmers and what goes on behind the scenes of Niseko's now-famous food industry. In this world a young 'natural-cultivation' farmer massages and sings to his tomatoes; an older farmer extracts flavour and sweetness from this carrots by storing them under the snow in winter; and a rice farmer introduces ducklings to his paddies in spring to organically control insects, before selling them as ducks to high-end restaurants in autumn. These stories and many more form the foundation of Tess's four year labour of love - exquisite new recipe book Harvest Niseko. The books' 100 recipes have been created in collaboration with Chisato Amagai, another local chef and colleague at Tess's former catering company Niseko Gourmet. Dishes are easy to cook traditional, and modern Japanese, with some taking inspiration from French, Italian or Asian cuisine but incorporating local ingredients. If you set yourself up with Tess' suggest pantry it's very easy to go out to your local supermarket wherever you live and cook up and authentic Japanese meal.' Kristian Lund, Powderlife Magazine