Niku dango no Amasu-an (meatballs in sweet vinegar sauce)

Niku dango no Amasu-an (meatballs in sweet vinegar sauce) a photo by js_hale on Flickr.

I've been very, very sad lately about the terrible aftermath of the Sendai Earthquake. Cooking makes me feel a little better - if I can't get on a plane and go rescue somebody, at least I can feed my family a tasty meal. The dango came out great, and this was a super easy recipe.

One of my favorite cookbooks is called "Let's Cook Japanese!" It's intentionally campy in its tone, and is written by a female expat who used to live in Tokyo, and now resides somewhere in the bay area. The book has all these great homey recipes that you'd only eat if you were privileged enough to be invited over for dinner at someone's house.

The recipes are also not what Westerners would expect from a "Japanese" cookbook - rather, it's a cookbook of everyday food in Japan, which is not "washoku" (Japanese food) per se. It's a mix of influences - Chinese, French, Italian, German, etc., changed a bit for Japanese palates. The "Amasu-an" sauce is a perfect example - chicken broth, soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, water and cornstarch - in other words, a typical Chinese-style stir-fry sauce. These are IKEA meatballs, by the way - the dish was as easy to make as it gets, and so, so tasty-good.