The Kitchen

Overview

Slice, simmer and fry gathered ingredients into finished dishes. Cooking grows beyond furnace meals into a kitchen of preparation tools and cookware.

Things to enjoy

Your first dishes

Once you have some iron, make a small pan or pot and place it directly above a lit campfire. The pan supplies oil; the pot supplies water. Follow the charts under Representative recipes to make fried eggs, grilled salmon, cooked rice and edamame.

Find wild rice in swamps and wild soybeans in sunflower plains. Mine rock salt in the mountains for salt. For your next meal, browse All Dishes in the Wiki by the cookware you have.

Choosing a size

For both pots and pans, choose a size that fits the ingredients in the recipe. Small cookware works quickly, medium cookware at the standard pace, and large cookware takes longer. Larger cookware also accepts recipes that fit smaller sizes, but still processes one recipe set at a time; the extra space does not multiply the yield.

Small, medium and large pans

Use the small pan for quick dishes with few ingredients, such as fried eggs or grilled salmon. The medium pan suits everyday combinations such as fried rice. Choose the large pan for recipes with more ingredients. All need heat below and supply the oil used for frying and sautéing.

Small, medium and large pots, and the irori pot

Start with the small pot for rice and other recipes with few ingredients. The medium pot handles everyday combinations, while the large pot accommodates more ingredients. The irori pot cooks the same recipes at the same pace as the medium pot; hang it from a jizaikagi or use it over an ordinary heat source. Pots supply cooking water. For bottled results, put empty bottles in the separate vessel slot.

Steaming and deep-frying

The steamer cooks food with steam and supplies its own water. The fryer deep-fries food and requires a bottle of oil alongside the ingredient, unlike a pan. Both need a heat source below.

Grill nets and skewer grills

Use the grill net for food cooked over direct heat without skewers or oil. The skewer grill makes skewered dishes; put bamboo skewers in their separate slot. Both need heat below, and skewers used by the grill are consumed with the dish.

Cutting, grinding and grating

Place food on the cutting board and use a knife to cut it. The suribachi grinds sesame and sauce ingredients into pastes; the grater finely shreds daikon or ginger. Rice polishing and flour milling belong to the ishiusu. Choose the tool for the preparation you need.

Supplying heat with a stove

The stove supplies heat without fuel refills. Set it beneath pots, pans and other cookware that needs heat.

Turn harvests into meals

Combine vegetables, river and sea fish, prepared tofu and noodles. Oils and seasonings become ingredients for finished meals.

Connect the kitchen

Feed cookware and collect its products with hoppers. Dispensers can work cutting boards, opening up kitchen automation.

Key items

• Fried EggAn egg fried sunny-side up on the pan.
• Grilled SalmonA salmon fillet grilled plain on the pan.
• Cooked RiceCooked rice — the base of every meal.
• EdamameSoybeans boiled with salt in a pot.
• KamadoThe always-hot cooking stove; heats a pot or pan directly above.
• Small PotA small pot for quicker cooking over a heat source.
• Medium PotAn everyday pot that cooks at the standard pace.
• Large PotA large pot for more ingredients, with a longer cooking time.
• Small PanA small pan for quicker frying and sautéing.
• Medium PanAn everyday pan that fries at the standard pace.
• Large PanA large pan for more ingredients, with a longer frying time.
• Wooden SteamerTwo square wooden trays stacked over a hagama kettle.
• Deep FryerThe copper fryer: one oil bottle, one food, golden results.
• Grill StandA hearth for grilling on skewers — keep bamboo skewers in the side slot, load the ingredients, and heat it from below.
• Grill NetA net set over charcoal — for everything you grill without a skewer, and without oil.
• Irori PotA pot with a bail for a jizaikagi.
• Cutting BoardLay food on the board and work it with a knife — the heart of prep work.
• KnifeA cooking-only tool for filleting, slicing and preparing sashimi on the cutting board.
• IshiusuA stone mortar for milling grain.
• Usu and KineA hollowed wooden mortar for pounding steamed rice into mochi; the pestle comes fitted to it.
• SuribachiA mortar for grinding and mashing cooking ingredients, separate from the grain-milling ishiusu.
• GraterGraterA utensil that finely grates ingredients for cooking preparation.
• Pressing VatThe pressing vat for brine, juice and oil.
• Fermentation JarThe brick fermentation jar: load an ingredient and an additive and let time work.
• Drying RackThe stick-and-string rack; dries under open daytime sky instead of heat.
• Bamboo SkewerA cooking skewer cut and pointed from a bamboo splint.
• Rapeseed Oil BottleRapeseed Oil BottleOil pressed from rapeseed.
• Fried PotatoesPotatoes deep-fried plain — shoestring style.
• Miso SoupMiso dissolved in stock with cut tofu, negi, and mitsuba.
• Simmered RenkonLotus root rounds simmered in dashi, soy sauce and sugar until the broth soaks through.
• Ginger PorkPork seared in a sweet-salty ginger sauce until glossy.
• ChawanmushiEgg thinned with stock, chicken and mitsuba settled into it, set soft in the steamer.
• KaraageChicken seasoned with shoyu and ginger, dusted with potato starch, and fried until it colours.
• Salt-Grilled SabaSaba salted, skewered, and grilled over the coals of the grill stand.
• Yaki OnigiriShio musubi brushed with soy sauce and grilled until it browns.

Representative recipes

Related activities

• Fields and Paddies
• Fermentation and Drying
• Pottery and the Table