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Black garlic mashed into miso and butter until it becomes a dark, jammy paste, then loosened with pasta water into a glossy sauce that clings. Sweet, deeply savory, and on the table in the time it takes the water to boil.

The Sunday-night clear-out-the-fridge dinner, done properly: cold rice, a screaming-hot pan, and tofu crisped until golden. Ready before the takeaway would even arrive.

Green beans blistered in a hot pan until they wrinkle and char in places, then tossed with garlic, soy and sesame. Ten minutes, one pan, and they disappear.

Dried chrysanthemum flowers and goji berries steeped into a pale gold, honeyed-floral tea, served cold with the softened berries still in the glass.

Chewy, dense squares of glutinous rice flour and coconut milk, baked rather than pounded, with a clean bitter edge from good matcha.

Frozen edamame pods boiled for five minutes and tossed with flaky salt, chili flakes and a little toasted sesame oil. One of the highest-protein snacks you can make from a freezer bag.

Boricha: roasted barley simmered into a nutty, toasty, faintly sweet brown tea, drunk cold all summer instead of water. No sugar at all.

Tofu roasted until firm and coated in a sweet-hot gochujang glaze, over rice with quick cucumber. Sticky, spicy and mostly hands-off.

A fiercely savory red stew built on well-fermented kimchi, tofu and gochujang. Sour, spicy and bubbling. The older your kimchi, the better this gets.

A clear, savory broth with silken tofu, shiitake and seaweed. The one rule is never to boil it once the miso goes in: that is what turns it flat and grainy.

Rice simmered far past the point of holding its shape, until the grains collapse into a loose, savory porridge. Ginger goes in at the start and scallions at the end, and every bowl is finished with soy and a few drops of sesame oil.

Soba, edamame and broccoli in a light soy-sesame dressing, served warm or cold. About as fast as dinner gets.

Cornstarch-dusted tofu fried until the edges shatter, then tumbled in a glossy teriyaki glaze that thickens around it in seconds. Steamed broccoli and rice make it dinner.

Chewy, flaky layered flatbreads shot through with scallion, fried until blistered and served with a sharp dipping sauce. The rolling technique is what makes the layers.

Mushrooms browned hard, then a quick miso broth poured over thick udon. Deeply savory for something that takes twenty minutes and five ingredients.

Cold buckwheat noodles in a nutty sesame dressing, loaded with edamame and crunchy raw vegetables. Fifteen minutes, and it is better after an hour in the fridge.

Glutinous rice dough wrapped around sweet red bean paste, rolled in sesame and fried until they puff hollow and crackle.

A block of chilled silken tofu turned out whole and dressed with soy, sesame oil, ginger and scallion. No cooking at all, and on the table in five minutes.

A warm rice bowl with each vegetable seasoned separately, crisp pan-fried tofu, and a sweet-sharp gochujang sauce stirred through at the table. The point is the contrast: you mix it all together yourself.

Numbing, savory and fast. Mushrooms stand in for the pork and nobody misses it. The chili bean paste and Sichuan pepper are doing the real work.

A thick, glossy, faintly sweet curry sauce over rice, with soft potato and carrot. Mild by design and deeply comforting. Japan's favorite home dinner.