Cooking Techniques of Japanese Cuisine

I have tried cooking most of cuisines around the world, Chinese, Continental, Indian, Thai, Spanish, etc. but never before have I tried cooking Japanese cuisine. So recently, when I got the invite from Rushina to learn few Japanese dishes at APB cook studio, I grabbed the opportunity.

Detail of this workshop is written very eloquently by another food blogger Shanti Padukone, who had also attended this workshop. You can visit her post at Riot of Flavors

We were a small group of twelve women, we worked in pairs.

We started with handmade Udon noodles.

 Dissolved the salt in 1/2cup water and mixed it with 200gms of high quality flour to make a dough. Kept it for 1 hour, rolled it, using flour to dust the rolling pin and work surface. Folded the dough up into fourths and cut it into flat noodles, boiled in boiling water to produce shiny udon noodles.

In separate pot we made mushroom soup, adding onions, mushrooms, celery, soya sauce, vegetable stock, vinegar, sesame oil and boiled noodles.

We then sat around the table to make some Sushis.

Boiled the ‘sushi rice’ at the ratio of water:rice as 1:1..added vinegar to the boiled rice. Sushi rice is very sticky, hence wetting finger tips makes the work easier.

Place seaweed on the mat, spread vinegar flavored sushi rice, put the layer of stuffing and roll it tight. The stuffing contained eggs, that was cooked in a special way (fried into paper thin consistency, rolled several times, and then cut into strips). The stuffing should be colorful, so can add yellow strips of eggs, white strips of cucumber or radish, red strips of crab meat or carrot, green strips of capsicum. 

Sushi tastes good with pickled ginger, soya sauce and wasabi.

Okonomiyaki is the cabbage patties. ½ Cabbage is shredded and kept in water for 15minutes. When ready to eat, it is drained thoroughly and mixed with 3eggs, salt and 100gms flour. The mixture is fried till crisp and garnished with mayonnaise, oyster sauce and chopped spring onions.

Since dessert is a must, we made sweet potato cakes. Boiled sweet potato is mixed with butter and sugar to make a smooth paste. Mix in egg yolk. Add cream and rum and squeeze out from a nozzle into the baking tray. Brush the top with egg yolk or milk and bake for 10-20 minutes till it is crisp.

It was a fun event, specially the eating part.

Get the detail account of this workshop at Riot of flavors

At this moment I wish to thank Rushina and APB Cook Studio Team for giving me this opportunity to learn this new technique of Japanese Cooking.

Now waiting for some guests to arrive to test my cooking skills.

Chicken Roti of Suriname

I have happy memories of Surinam. Whenever I think of Surinam I am reminded of the food that I enjoyed while I was there and the memories comes alive whenever I have visitors from that place. We discuss food and relish the virtual taste, sometimes exchanging notes. I used to love the street food the most, there is a different kind of pleasure while eating in the open air on the wooden benches.

Just next to my house (in Surinam) lived a Javanese family who ran a restaurant. On the days when I was too lazy to cook, I would order duck Bami with mixed vegetables from my balcony. She would pack a large portion which would last me for two full days, full value for money.

The food in Surinam had a very peculiar taste that I have never been able to find anywhere else. My favorite used to be chicken roti. I have often asked my cousins (who live there) to pack me the cooked Surinamese food whenever they make their trip to India but they just laugh it off. 

They do come and cook for me whenever they visit me, replicating the taste as closely as they can but alas! It is just not the same.

The main taste of this chicken gravy is in Surinam masala. I must ask my cousin to send me this

I asked my cousin to send me the picture of Roti Chicken so that I could drool on it and she sends me this.

Well, this is not the way we used to get back then. It used to be dhal roti brushed with the layer of chili chutney and stuffed with chicken gravy, potatoes and beans, folded like a roll.

I came across this blog of Kayotic Kitchen and she explains step by step, the method of preparing this dish, which is quite time consuming but very tasty. She has used potato stuffing for roti pancakes but the authentic roti is the one made of dhal.

To make the stuffing of Dhal, you need to soak split peas overnight then boil until soft. Place the boiled split peas in a food processor, add cumin, onion, garlic and salt, process until well-blended but not pureed.

A similar Roti chicken is also sold at Trinidad roadside stalls, but the taste is a bit different. I think the taste lies in the curry powder and how it is used. For example, in Tom’s recipe of Chicken curry, he has mixed curry powder and turmeric powder, added water and stir fried till it becomes a thick paste and then added the other ingredients. His chicken also has mustard paste in the marinate mixture. But the results are equally good.

Some things are best enjoyed when cooked by native chefs. Also the person who has tasted, can cook it too if she has the right ingredients, maybe I can too, if I have the right ingredients….

 Hello…you hear me?? My family in Surinam?? …So now you know what to get for me when you visit me in India.

Nephew Cooks Exotic Meals For Me

When you belong to the family of food lovers you are likely to be satisfied during every casual gathering, for besides the idle chatter and jokes, food is a must. A visit to a restaurant or to some way side inn may bring equal amount of joy but nothing compares to the joy of cooking and eating together in the midst of aroma, and the steam filling the kitchen, it's altogether a difference experience when one is busy taking each bite in between the cooking, tasting for salt, chili, flavor and the joy of seeing the finished dish on the table which has been created from the ingredients which were spread before you in their raw state only a few moments ago. The rich flavors of the sauces and its' rich taste is the one to die for and the party continues, everybody eating and over-eating and still wanting some more till the tummy begins to protest and groan loud enough for us to stop.

Such is the beautiful moment that I experience each time I visit my family in Poona and this week-end it was no different.

It was the Easter week-end and this time, it was my nephew who volunteered to cook one of his specialties, steamed fish and wanton soup, which was decided after a reasonable thought given to many different options that included Dimsims too. For me, it didn’t matter, as long as I was to get some exotic food and that too at home.

The remarkable quality about my nephew’s cooking is that there is no recipe-book to refer to and all his dishes are made on instinct factor and of course there will be some accidents but all is taken in one’s stride, with due encouragement given periodically by his parents who themselves are good cooks, and can offer great culinary advice by just glancing at the dish.

So, when I went for evening walk with a friend down the lane (to be out of his way of cooking and prompting), I refused all the street food lined along the side-walks so that I could be hungry at dinner time and enjoy the flavors on an empty stomach.

At 9pm, the drool flooding my palate, I enter the house, to the sumptuous meal, only to see the kitchen with ingredients still scattered on the kitchen table. In moments like this a glass of drink would be an option, or should I nibble on something? I glanced at the wall clock and it stared back at me with a loud signal "Wait!"

The wanton were to be made of shrimps, but the frozen-last-minute-shopping-in-emergency shrimps were stale and after cooking they smelled terrible and had to find their exit into the garbage can, this had to be replaced by another-frozen-in-the-freezer-last-minute-no-choice-boneless-chicken. The wanton dough was rolled out into circles for the cooked-minced-filling but because the shrimps had to be replaced by chicken-filling, the wanton circles dried up during that lapse, therefore after filling, when they were dumped into the soup for boiling; it giggled and stubbornly oozed out the filling into the soup and it had to be remolded with wetting-and-making-it-behave-as-it-is-supposed-to-behave-that-means-not-sprouting-the-filling-and-floating-limply-with-a wrinkled-skin.

It was one of the worst days perhaps, because the mixie betrayed too and refused to work and all the grinding had to be done on a chopper, but the spirit did not drip and my nephew continued to cook, having promised to cook a tasty meal.

I waited, when finally nephew emerged from his kitchen, his face flushed red with steam and heat, nodding his head side-wise and announcing his regret at not being able to cook to perfection.

‘Aw’ said I,

‘Aw’ said his mom, 

‘Aw’ said his dad, 

All of us showing sympathy but encouraging him nevertheless adding that mistakes do happen even to the professionals.

We waited with bated breath as his dishes made appearance, one by one, at the dining table.

Nephew knows that the dish should be visually appetizing and his presentation did make us drool, The aroma that followed the steamed fish didn’t match the apology that came with it. The steamed fish was beautifully decorated with pakchoi, red capsicum, and spring onions. A spoonful of fish melted instantly into the mouth with the perfect flavors of sweet and salt exploding in the mouth. Within minutes, the fish disappeared from the plate leaving behind its bare bones; it was so tasty that only a yum was heard between the bites.

The soup was delicious too with wantons floating in the soup and the spring onion garnish making the dish more appetizing. The resulting dish was mind boggling and I was not surprised when I over-ate and didn’t stop until I burped. It was worth the wait, only two hours late.

But then most of the tastiest dishes are normally enjoyed at 11pm. Who was I to complain?

Vegetarian Noodle Soup

Nothing is more satisfying than the bowl of soup especially on a day when I am too confused to cook anything else

For me, soup is not just ripping off the packet of Maggi, (or any other soup packets like Wai-Wai or Mama), and cooking as instructed on the wrapper.

 Nah! I make it into a full meal, more appetizing and more nutritious.

 On one flame I have water boiling with the ingredients like oil, red chillie powder and dehydrated vegetables, that were included in the noodles packet.

 I have another pan on a high flame where I stir fry garlic, dried red chillies, green/red/yellow pepper, carrots, mushrooms, baby corn, onions, etc

 Just for a minute I stir fry all the fresh vegetables on a high flame till the aroma sizzles me and then off they go, dumped into the clear soup.

 I squeeze out the lime juice, add chilly sauce and mushroom sauce and taste a spoonful to check if it's okay.

 When I am ready to eat, I take a clean bowl, empty the noodles from the packet, pour the hot soup over it and garnish it will basil leaves.

 So while contestants are busy producing innovative dishes on Master Chef, here I am savoring my noodle soup, and not drooling a wee bit while watching that colorful and fancy cuisine.

 Other foodies are also making innovative dishes and sharing their recipes with Master Chef India, should be interesting I am sure!