Japanese Cooking Class: 101

Today we had a cooking class in a beautiful Japanese home. Our host, Toshiko Kodama, was a retired pharmacist.

 

We learned how to make chirashi-sushi (seasoned rice). They start with a large pile of steamed rice and put it in a wooden bowl. Here you add vinegar, kinshi-tamago (shredded egg), ginger, shrimp, and sea eel.

 

 

Next, I learned how to make tempura (fried vegetable). I explained to the cooks, American's love for fried food. They would not believe me about the fried butter and fried oreos. HAHA. Lets just say, I was a pro at the tempra station.

 

 

Next was the Takoyaki station. Here you put all of the ingredients into the griddle hole and add batter. As the batter cooks you flip the balls around. This way you get even cooking and a nice circular shape. Inside the balls were ginger, cheese, dried dumplings, and OCTOPUS. The kids were our helpers. This is their first time meeting people from America. They were very excited and helpful.

 

 

We also had rice rolls wrapped in seaweed paper. So good!

 

Here is the whole cooking class group together. There is a few mother daughter pairs and tons of grandchildren. The kids were on break from school til the middle of April.

And no meal is complete without dessert. This was a yogart/jello mold with fresh fruit. Then they drench simple syrup all over it. And those chocolate truffles were to die for. I ate four of them.

 

It was a great day and cooking experience. Thank you to Toshiko Kodama, Hisako Teraoka, Fumiko Gamon, MIzuho Yasuda, and Kumi Nejihashi! Hard to believe we had another feast 3 hours later. The food just does not stop here. I should probably going running at some point (yeah right lol).