Soy sauce is probably the best known Japanese flavouring. It’s made by fermenting soy beans and wheat with salt and koji. In the supermarkets in the UK you often find “tamari” soy sauce. Tamari is actually a special type of soy sauce made from soy beans without wheat, which people don’t use very often in Japan. There are lots of different types of soy sauce, light-coloured salty ones, dark sweet ones, and I use a different type depending on what I am cooking.

Watch the clip below to see my partner Tom visiting the traditional Yamaroku soy sauce manufacturer, on Shodoshima Island in central Japan.