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By Sophie Hardach

TOKYO, April 1 (Reuters Life!) - To cook the perfect Japanese omelette, you need home-made fish stock, a special frying pan, and a folding technique that is best practiced with a dozen eggs and plenty of time.

After cookbook author and consultant Elizabeth Andoh shows how to patiently manipulate whispy-thin layers of egg with a pair of chopsticks, it comes as a surprise to hear her describe Japanese cooking as quick and convenient.

But she is not alone.

Chefs and food writers are bringing healthy Japanese home-cooking into U.S. and European kitchens, focusing on soup, vegetables and grilled fish rather than sushi and sashimi. They also argue that learning a few simple cooking and chopping techniques from the Japanese and applying them to Western food can transform the way people live, think and eat.

"You don't have to be Japanese and you don't have to live in Japan in order to benefit from knowing Japanese food culture," Andoh, an American who first came to Japan in the 1960s, told Reuters after a cooking class in her kitchen in suburban Tokyo. "What is specifically Japanese is a notion of balance."

Every Japanese meal is supposed to feature five colours -- red, green, yellow, white and black -- as well as five different ways of cooking food and five different tastes -- salty, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy.

While this sounds as complex as producing the perfect omelette, Andoh says the idea can easily be applied to an ordinary Western lunch, such as soup and tuna sandwich. Sprinkle an aromatic green garnish over the soup, place a slice of tomato on the sandwich, and all of a sudden the meal will come together.

At a restaurant summit in Tokyo, New York chef David Bouley pointed out that many Japanese techniques can be adapted to other cuisines -- for example, cutting a duck in a certain way to drain off some of the fat, or killing a fish quickly right after catching it instead of letting it suffocate.

KANSHA RHYTHM

Bouley believes so strongly in the health benefits of Japanese food that he is working with U.S. farmers to grow Japanese crops such as mountain vegetables at home.

"A lot of Japanese food can be very accessible if you can get your hands on simple but quality ingredients, and I think you can even integrate some of that practical approach into the way you cook your other meals, which will probably be better tasting," he said on the sidelines of the summit.

He combines Japanese and French cooking in dishes such as fish with a sauce of truffles and Japanese "dashi" fish stock, or a sauce containing "miso" fermented soy paste, fresh tomato juice and sparkling wine.

Bouley, who is working on a Japanese cookbook, said he noticed that his guests felt better and more energetic after eating Japanese food.

Andoh is also writing another book, exploring the culinary concept of "Kansha", or "appreciation", which she describes as a mindful awareness of nature's bounty and the efforts of those who harvest and prepare food.

Having lived in a Japanese farmhouse in the 1960s, where she had to pump water from a well and chop firewood to cook meals, Andoh is keen to avoid waste. In Kansha cooking, all the parts of a vegetable are used in different dishes. Stems and peels are set aside and used to make soup stock, snacks or pickles.

Since this requires some forward planning, Andoh argues that Kansha cooking encourages a healthier more thoughtful approach.

"I truly believe whether you are a busy professional or a mummy, once you get into the rhythm of Kansha kitchen you'll find it's less exhausting, you're eating better, and it's more environmentally friendly," she said. ELIZABETH ANDOH'S SOY-GLAZED, CHICKEN-STUFFED SHIITAKE

(Makes 12 to serve 4-6 people)

12 small fresh shiitake mushrooms

¼ teaspoon cornstarch

100 grams/3 ounces ground chicken (combination of dark and light meat is best)

1 teaspoon sake (rice wine)

2-3 scallions, finely minced (use green part only)

1 scant teaspoon "shiro miso" or "mugi miso" (mellow, light-coloured or barley-enriched bean paste)

½ teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

simmering liquid:

50 cc (1/4 cup) "dashi" (basic stock)

1 teaspoon sugar

1-½ to 2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon sake

Carefully remove the stems from the mushrooms, preserving the round well in the center. Rinse the caps and pat dry; let air dry for 5 minutes. Using a pastry brush dipped in cornstarch, dust the inside of the mushroom caps.

In a bowl, combine the ground chicken, sake, scallions and miso. Mix well; the mixture will be soft and a bit sticky.

With a butter knife, fill each mushroom cap with some of the chicken mixture; err to the side of stingy rather than generous when filling the caps (if you have extra filling, shape into patties and cook them with the stuffed mushrooms). Dust the filled caps with a bit of cornstarch.

Heat the oil in a skillet wide enough to hold all 12 mushrooms, meat side down, in the pan. Press down lightly. Sear the stuffed mushrooms over medium high heat for 12 minutes.

Carefully flip the mushrooms so that the meat side is facing up. Saute the mushrooms for about 1 minute before adding simmering liquid. Carefully re-flip the mushrooms, so that the meat side is facing down. Shake the skillet gently to distribute evenly, and lower heat to simmer. Cook for 1 minute.

Raise the heat slightly, and shaking the skillet gently, cook to glaze the stuffed mushrooms. Serve hot, or at room temperature, meat side up. Spoon any glaze remaining in the skillet over the mushrooms.

(Reporting by Sophie Hardach, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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