Tag Archive for:  ramen

Private Class for Vegetarian Dishes with Autumn harvests

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The main dish was chosen as Vegetarian Ramen for a guest lady from Israel who has been vegetarian for many years. Side dishes include cold fresh cabbage with Konbu, Gyoza dumplings with lotus root, Kaki (persimmon) & greens dressed with creamy Tofu sauce, etc.
My guest was very interested in Japanese Dashi soup stock with dried Shiitake mushrooms & Kombu kelp. Both are essential products for Umami in our cuisine.
Kombu is very rich in glutamate or glutamic acid, which is contained in most vegetables but by far the most in dried Kombu. Another ingredient known for richness in glutamate is dried tomato.
Dried shiitake is known for its richness in guanylic acid or GMP, like many kinds of mushrooms around the world including dried porcini. This may be explaining why many Japanese people are deeply in love with Italian food!?

My guest lady was a medicinal food professional with vast knowledge about Chinese herbal medicine & diet, so it was very inspiring to share some time with her in the kitchen cooking and talking about various vegetables and foods!
Many thanks for coming!
Akiko

Vegetarian & Chicken Ramen for a family reunion

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It was a request from a daughter who is now working in Germany to cook vegetarian Ramen & Gyoza, with her loving parents visiting from Australia. My pleasure to host a family reunion in Tokyo!
For Mum and Dad, we cooked some simmered chicken for Ramen and included pork in the Gyoza filling.
For vegetarian Ramen, the topping was fried Tofu, cilantro, diced tomato, stir-fried eggplant & mushrooms, etc. Of course, soy sauce and Mirin flavored egg, too.

There were a lot of preparations to do but my guest family made it and our lunch tasted wonderful!
Before coming to my place, they were traveling the route of a Japanese poet, Matsuo Basho’s tour up north to Matsushima and it was very interesting to hear about their experiences, including a beautiful Haiku poem father created during his stay in Matsushima!
Many thanks for coming!
Akiko

Ramen class

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Always yummy and taste naturally!
At the Ramen class, we make Gyoza(pork dumplings) and one more side dish. Making Gyoza with friends or family is always so much fun!
Looks so yummy !
Itadakimasu!!!

Ramen and Gyoza class

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Today’s class was Ramen and Gyoza class for 6 students !!! From U.K, France, Spain…all over the Europe:-).
I always start prepare cooking the Ramen soup stock (made by Chicken and Pork and ginger and green onion) the day before the class which I always explain to the students advance. To make Ramen Soup stock takes long time and getting better taste if it takes a time.

We made 80 Gyoza(pork dumplings) !!!!! and everyone ate all !!!! To make Gyoza with the family and the friends is so much fun !
Looks yummy right !!!!??? You can’t stop eating Gyoza !!!!!

Itadakimasu !!!!!
We had a fun lunch together !
Thank you for coming today.

Pork ramen class with guests from Hamburg & Pescara

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My guests for this pork ramen & gyoza class were couples from Pescara,  Italy, and Hamburg, Germany. It was a terrible morning as the huge typhoon was passing Japan the night before and our notorious rush-hour trains were packed and crowded as ever!  Still, they all managed to arrive at my place & I was very very grateful.

One of their favorites was  ‘Char Siu, grilled pork slices on top of Ramen. They showed me a few photos of Menya Musashi bowls and my goodness, their pork slice is so thick!  For sure, Ramen is evolving in various directions….

It was also very interesting to hear about various types of ramen in Europe today. I love exchanging foodie information!
Many thanks for coming!
Akiko

Honeymooners from Tel Aviv cooking Japanese comfort food

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Today’s guests are happy sweet honeymooners from the IT capital, Tel Aviv, Israel. We cooked Ramen with pork soup stock.

I also adventured to use simmered Konbu kelp in cabbage salad, which is our family’s favorite quick dish. Here we use Konbu as herbs and it goes nicely with sesame oil. Please try if you have some leftover Konbu after making Dashi broth.

The couple told me some very interesting stories about their culture & life, my favorite part of doing cooking classes for travelers!
Many thanks for coming!
Akiko