Sachie's Kitchen

Sachie goes to the largest fish market in the world - Tsukiji Market in Tokyo - where more than two hundred different types of fish are sold. The high point is the famous tuna auction where tuna from all over the world are sold for sashimi. Back in her kitchen Sachie prepares tuna tataki, sugar and spice salmon and stuffed squid.

The variety of food sold from roadside stalls is amazing in Japan and nowhere is it more evident than Osaka, the city with the food motto "eat till you drop". From octopus balls to dumplings to the local specialty - a kind of thick fritter called okonomiyaki - Sachie does eat till she drops.

Noodles are one of Japan's most popular meals, so popular that the people voted instant noodles their most important invention of the 20th century. Sachie visits a living museum dedicated to ramen noodles and gets to see the master noodle chefs at work - then back in her kitchen she makes a soy based soup using spaghetti instead of noodles and a miso based noodle soup.

Sachie goes on an international rice journey from planting seedlings in a paddy field in Japan to harvesting full grown rice stalks in Northern California and then following the rice as it's processed in a factory.

Japanese people are constantly on the move and to match this hectic lifestyle they've refined some special kinds of fast food; from thirty second udon noodles to the elegant bento boxes containing up to fifty different Japanese delicacies.

Sachie and her family go foraging in the hills for bamboo shoots and other special vegetables for a Japanese style barbecue.