There is a lovely young couple from Switzerland today’s class.    They requested Ramen class so I gave the class on the Saturday afternoon.
They traveled over Japan for a couple of week, and the cooking day was the day before they fly back to Switzerland. I was  wishing the class would be one of the memorable experiences their trip in Japan.
I usually share how to make Dashi stock, which is Japanese fundamental soup stock, however, I don’t give when the ramen classes because the stock made from chicken.   The today’s guests asked about what is the dashi stock, so I shared how to make dashi stock.
Adding a pinch of salt makes dashi flavor nicer for tasting like a clear soup.I served the soup during our cooking time.

It is dashi-kampai time.   I was glad they liked it.
We had kept cooking Ramen after the tasting and finally we enjoyed ramen for early dinner.

 
  The menu on Oct 22nd ’16
        Miso ramen  with sautéed vegetables, sautéed minced pork, braised pork, a seasoned egg
Cucumber with sesame dressing
    Pork Gyoza

Since the eating time was early dinner  around 4:00pm, I suggested to visit a basement of  Takashimaya department store (depachika)  in Shinjuku  after the class.  Depachika is one of the Japanese food cultures, foodies MUST visit during Stay in Japan.
Here is about the Depachika
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/attractions/dining/depachika/
 
Thank you for the precious time!
Kisshy

The cooking class guests today came from Boston  and Seattle in US. I had a request for  Chicken Karaage  as the main dish.
A young couple from Boston had traveled in Japan for a couple of weeks and they flew back to Boston the next day of the class. The other guest, traveled alone  has a culinary background and she is interested in Japanese traditional cooking. It was a great time to cook together with them.
We usually cook bonito dashi stock at the beginning of the class. This stock is fundamental of Japanese taste like chicken stock for French cooking. We cooked the stock at this time as well and shared little cup of the liquid for the tasting.
They “Kanpai!”  Japanese meaning of Cheers! with the stock. I’m glad they understand such aromatic dashi stock flavor.

  Today’s menu on Oct 13th
Chicken Kara-age s
Shredded cabbage with wasabi dressing
Cucumber sesame dressing
Simmered egg plant
Rice/ miso soup
Matcha pudding
                               
I usually ask the guests to do the table setting. I believe it is a bit challenging for people who are  not familiar with them but knowing the plate allocation is also good to know Japanese food culture.

Thank you for attending the class. Hope you’ll cook Chicken Kara-age in your kitchen!
Kisshy

We have a ramen class today.
I accepted special requests as “No sea food”, ” no pork” for the menus. Usually I use sautéed minced pork  as well as braised pork for the ramen garnish. unique pork flavor produces savory umami taste so that it is one of the fundamental ingredient for the bowl in most of ramen shop.
*However, there diverse population from different countries visit Japan now a days so some ramen shop produce ramen without pork.
http://www.feeljapank.com/halal/halal-tokyo02.html
 
I prepared ground chicken and braised chicken for those guests and we cooked both chicken and pork in the class.  I usually very careful to serve specific religion food and allergy food for each requested guests and I also ask all the participants to  cooperate do the process securely.  I appreciate the guests all the time they are cooperative with kind.
Ramen menu on Oct 7th ’16
Pork/chicken Miso ramen ( garnish with sautéed vegetables, sautéed  minced pork/chicken, braised pork/chicken,  simmered egg)
Pork / Chicken Gyoza
Cucumber sweet sour sesame dressing
Green tea pudding/agar-agar

I’m always glad when the guests say “good taste” for the ramen since it takes many times of practice for making recipe.
Many thanks for today’s guests from Australia and Israel!
Kisshy

The class welcomed a couple from L.A.  It was the last cooking class on September.  It was still hot and humid day even though it was almost autumn season on the calendar. I believe this summer in Japan must be hard for human!
Although the weather was like summer, I’d like to express autumn on the dining table.  we prepared sweet potato rice  at this time.
Japanese  sweet potato has a unique texture I, and the customers never seen in outside of Japan.
The outside is beautiful purple and inside is white. It contains a dense starch so the potato become nice and soft texture, but not watery when it cooked.  We Japanese have been eating  baked potato as a natural healthy snack.
I had a request as no pork for the ingredients so we cooked fish Nanban-zuke for the main course.
 Today’s menu on Sep 29th ’16
     Mackarel Nanban-zuke
   Cucumber  sesame dressing
eggplant with miso-egg sauce

I’ve shared information of halal café in my neighborhood  just opened the day before.  There is in Sophia University in Yotsuya.  Everybody could visit the café.
Tokyo Halal deli & café
http://www.sophia.ac.jp/eng/info/news/2016/9/globalnews_2042/09262016
There is a pray space in a same building.
The today’s guests visited the café and said very nice and clean.
Many thanks for a sweet couple from L.A!!
Kisshy