YO Sushi: The Japanese Cookbook. Kimiko Barber

is an ideal sauce for those who like their food spicy and is particularly good with meat dishes. You can use it as a dipping sauce or for basting or seasoning. It is quite hot when it is first made but becomes milder after about two weeks. Use larger chillies rather than the small bird’s eye variety, which are very fiery.

       makes about 300ml (10fl oz)

       100ml (3 1/2fl oz) sake

       200ml (7fl oz) light soy sauce

       5 large red and 5 large green chillies, cut lengthways and deseeded

       1/2 lemon, sliced

      Put the sake in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Add the light soy sauce, bring back to the boil, then remove from the heat. Leave the sake and soy sauce mixture to cool down to room temperature. Put the chillies and slices of lemon in a glass jar and pour in the sauce. Seal and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

      sweet red miso marinade

      Miso is made of fermented soybeans mixed with other grains such as rice, wheat or barley. Miso comes in varying shades of brown, ranging from pale cream to almost steely dark brown. This recipe calls for the robust-flavoured red miso, which works particularly well with strongly flavoured ingredients such as mackerel, pork and lamb.

       makes about 300ml (10fl oz)

       200g (7oz) red miso paste

       100ml (3 1/2fl oz) mirin

       100g (3 1/2oz) sugar

       30ml (1fl oz) sake

      Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon. Reduce the heat to low once the mixture begins to boil. Continue to stir and let the mixture reduce to the consistency of thick yogurt, but be careful not to reduce it too much as it will become harder when cold.

      Leave to cool to room temperature before transferring to a jar or plastic food container. Seal and store in the refrigerator and use within 8 weeks.