KITCHEN PRACTICE 1 — Cook the Full Meal, All Five Components
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TASK
Cook the full meal following the timing plan in this chapter. Aim to
have everything ready within a few minutes of each other, and note
honestly which part finished early or late.

WALKTHROUGH

Step 1 — Start the tsukemono first.
Get it salting or marinating before anything else touches the stove.

Step 2 — Wash and soak the rice next.
Get the soak underway even though actual cooking comes later.

Step 3 — Make the dashi.
Enough for both the soup and the simmered vegetable side.

Step 4 — Start the rice cooking once soaked.
Its own simmer-and-rest can run in the background.

Step 5 — Simmer the vegetable side while the rice rests.

Step 6 — Cook the glazed main last among the hot dishes.
Glaze only in the final minutes.

Step 7 — Finish the miso soup last of all, right before serving.

Step 8 — Serve everything together.
Rice to the left, soup to the right, main and sides arranged around
them.

Step 9 — Review honestly.
Which dish actually finished first? Which was still going when
everything else was ready? Note it plainly rather than glossing over
it - this is exactly what Kitchen Practice 2 asks you to reason about
for a different combination of dishes.

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WHY THIS MATTERS
Cooking five components to land at roughly the same moment is a
genuinely different skill from executing any one of them well in
isolation - this is the first time in the course you're managing
multiple timelines at once, and it's worth an honest post-mortem on
what actually happened versus what you planned.