Cooking and Food in Monster Musume

The 5 S's of Japanese Cooking
In traditional Japanese cooking there are 5 basic seasonings that are essential for most dishes. They are: (listed in order of lightest to strongest flavour) Sugar (SATO (砂糖)), Salt (SHIO (塩)), Vinegar (aka Sour)(SU (酢)), Soy Sauce (SEUYU (醤油)), and Miso Paste (MISO (味噌)). The way these seasonings are remembered is by associating them with the "s" row of the hiragana/katakana alphabet; Sa(さ), Shi(し), Su(す), Se(せ), So(そ). (Sugar (SATO (砂糖)), Salt (SHIO (塩)), Vinegar (SU (酢)), Soy Sauce (SEUYU (醤油)), and Miso Paste (MISO (味噌))

The order that these seasonings are introduced into the dish is as follows:

1. Sugar:  Sweet taste is difficult to penetrate through other tastes. Due to this adding sugar first is usually advisable and allows more flexibility if the cook needs to adjust the sweetness with other ingredients. If salt or soy sauce is added before sugar, it becomes very difficult for the sweet taste to seep through the food due to the apposing tastes.

2. Salt: Salt is added at the early stage of cooking because of its strong permeation and high absorption nature. It is not only for flavoring but to pull moisture from vegetables and get rid of the smell in fish. It’s often used in defining the taste of the cooking.

3. Vinegar: Having vinegar come after salt is important, especially for vegetables as the vinegar will not seep in if there is too much moisture in the vegetables.

4. Soy Sauce/Miso Paste: Soy Sauce and Miso Paste are among the last ingredients to be added in a dish as the quality of both are susceptible to heat and will be ruined if heated for too long.

Egg Breakfast (Chapter 1)

 * Boiled Eggs:
 * Egg Omelet:

Centorea's Home Cooking (Chapter 21)

 * Egg and Tuna Sandwiches:
 * Vegetable Salad:
 * Fruit Salad:

Dinner Party (Chapter 25)

 * Fresh Mushroom Pasta:
 * Bread Pudding:
 * Hearty Fish stew:
 * Fish and Chips:
 * Carrot and Watercress Salad:
 * Vegetable Tempura:
 * Fried Catfish:
 * Fish Humburg Steak made from Catfish and Bean Curd:

Stingray and Fish Left-Overs Full Course Meal (Chapter 35)

 * Fish Dumplings with Cream Sauce:
 * Bouillabaisse Soup:
 * Baked Stingray and Herbs:
 * Fried Stingray on Vegetables:
 * Stingray Boiled in Soy Sauce:

Trivia

 * Miia is currently being taught to cook by Kimihito, she herself claiming that it would help her look better as a wife in his eyes. However, her cooking is outright terrible and on at least two occasions has given people food poisoning. Suu, due to her unique biology, is the only person who can eat it without any ill effects. Because of this, Kimihito has banned her from cooking until she reads a cookbook. The reason for her horrible food is that being a carnivore, she has 1/25 - 1/50 sense of taste sensitivity that humans have. Therefore even when she taste tests what she makes, she can't tell if it's bad or not.