Thursday, April 17, 2008

Asian Cuisine - Japanese

This week in Asian cuisine we prepared the following Japanese dishes:
  • Asari Clam Soup (Asari no ushio-jiru)
  • Vegetable Maki Sushi (Futomaki)
  • Spinach w/ Sesame Dressing (Horenso gomea-ae)
  • Chicken, shrimp, mushroom custard (Chawan-mushi)
  • Pork Teriyaki (Buta teriyaki)
  • Duck and soba noodle soup (Kamonanban Soba)
  • Vegetable and Shrimp Tempura
  • Sweet bean paste dumplings (Gamo-anko manju)
Asari no ushio-jiru - This is a very light flavoured soup with the stock created during the cooking process of the clams, with sake and shoyu (Japanese light soy sauce). The soup is garnished with daikon or watercress, as well as yuzu citron or lemon zest. The stock should be very clear with no floating sediment. As in all Japanese dishes, the flavour should be balanced, sweet nor sour overpowering the other.

Our soup turned out quite well, the stock was very clear and we had plentiful clams, some shelled and others not for presentation. The soup was served in a more traditional western bowl which did not suit the Chef. The Chef said the flavour was quite good, although the sour was slightly strong and it could have used a little more sweetener to balance that out.

Futomaki - A dish any sushi-eater should be familiar with, this is a roll made from vegetables briefly cooked in marinade to enhance flavours. The vegetables should maintain their texture and be cooked just until tender. The roll should have the vegetables perfectly centered, with a layer of rice being one grain thick on the toasted nori (seaweed) before rolling.

Our roll turned out very well, with the vegetables centered well and the roll holding together well. Chef commented that our presentation was a little basic but worked, and that there wasn't a lot negative to say about the dish.

Horenso Gomea-ae - This is a dish of cooked spinach tossed in a sesame seed dressing. The key to this dish is to ensure that the spinach does not get over cooked and that it is thoroughly squeezed to remove as much excess water as possible so that the flavour in the dressing is not diluted.

Our presentation and flavour for this dish was very good. However, the spinach was still too wet, thus diluting the flavour of the dressing. Chef commented that the flavour was excellent, but it was simply not strong enough due to the water still on the spinach.

Chawan-mushi - This is a custard dish of chicken, shrimp, and shiitake mushrooms steamed to produce a velvety texture. The key to this dish is appropriate cooking time to ensure the custard has cooked but is not overdone.

Our custard ended up being overcooked, causing the dish to be too firm. Outside of this fact, the flavour was as intended and presentation was fine, although affected by the overcooked custard.

Buta teriyaki - This is a marinated pork dish which is then grilled and basted with the teriyaki marinade to produce a moist and flavourful piece of meat.

Our presentation for this dish was very good, the appearance of our pork skewers being very good on the plate of rice. Chef commented that the flavour also was quite good, although it hadn't quite soaked into the meat enough, requiring more marinating time.

Kamonanban Soba - This is a flavourful duck soup with soba noodles which should have a clear broth and long noodles. The duck is briefly cooked to golden in a pan along with green onions which are then added to the soup.

Chef said that our soup was very flavourful, the taste being good although the stock was cloudy. The duck was cooked well, but the pieces should have been a little smaller than they were cut. Lastly, the noodles had broken and some were short, a bad presentation item in Japanese cuisine.

Tempura - Tempura is a batter used to cover ingredients to be briefly deep fried, producing a crispy coating for the item. Mastering the creation of a tempura batter takes years of training under a Japanese chef to create a batter which is light and produces the appropriate shapes and texture when deep fried. We used shrimp, zucchini, sweet potato, and mushrooms for our tempura.

Our tempura turned out quite well, with appropriate texture and flavour. We had not prepared our shrimp appropriately for the tempura batter - they usually have the tail removed and are straightened to create a long, straight piece of tempura. Outside of this, Chef was very happy with our presentation and flavour of our tempura dish.

Goma-anko manju - This is a dish of azuki beans cooked and then puréed to create a sweet paste (anko) filling for dumpings which are then steamed.

We added dark sesame seeds to our dumpling batter, adding an extra visual element to the presentation which ended up working fairly well. We did have some issues preparing our paste and it didn't turn out exactly as we expected, and during cooking our dough seemed to become a little too sticky.

1 comment:

Goofball said...

ah you are still alive. Where were you?