In mid-July, JETAA imparted their last nuggets of knowledge to the departing 2015-2016 JETs in the form of a cooking workshop! The workshop was held by seven JET alumni in the super spacious basement of Riverdale Presbyterian Church. The new venue not only had ample space to maneuver but even had an area specifically for sitting and tasting out the delicious recipes.
The 17 participating JETs brought bundles of energy and rotated through three cooking stations to learn how to make these dishes: Green bean Gomae, Furikake and Umeboshi Onigiri, and Japanese pickled cucumbers. One super busy alumni was kind enough to even whip up a meat and vegetarian kare-risu!
The alumni and genki JETs were so efficient that there was enough time for an impromptu Q&A for any last-minute burning questions before departure.
Everyone really got into the Japanese spirit and helped both with the setting up and cleaning up of the workshop.
We hope the departing JETs enjoyed the workshop and that they will have a few dishes to impress their friends with when they get to Japan. Ganbarimasu!
(Photos by Nick Jones. Article and recipes written by Sonomi Tanaka)
For those who couldn’t make it or were just curious about the recipes, they are listed below:
Onigiri
Ingredients
- Rice
- Nori (seaweed)
- Filling or Sprinkles (Furikake/ふりかけ)
Instructions (2 Kinds of Onigiri)
Furikake Onigiri
- Add furikake to onigiri while rice is still warm.
- Wet your hands or put a sheet of ceran wrap over your hand.
- Put seasoned rice in hand and softly mold a triangle with both hands.
- Wrap the rice ball with ceran wrap if you are using that method.
- Cut strips of nori and wrap.
Filled Onigiri
- Wet your hands or put a sheet of ceran wrap over your hand.
- Put rice in your wetted hands or on ceran wrap and press the filling into the center of rice.
- Softly mold a triangle with your hands.
- Cut strips of nori and wrap around your onigiri.
Pickled Cucumber
Ingredients
- ½ English cucumber or whole Japanese cucumber
- Dried wakame
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp julienned ginger
- 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 Tbsp dashi or water
- 1 Tbsp sugar
Instructions
- Soak wakame in water for 10 min to rehydrate.
- Peel cucumber so that the cucumber is stripped and slice thinly in half moons.
- Sprinkle cucumber slices with salt and massage them, leaving them for a few minutes.
- Squeeze cucumber of excess water and transfer to the bowl with wakame.
- In a saucepan, combine sugar, dashi and rice vinegar and stir until dissolved.
- Once the sauce has cooled, add it to the cucumber and wakame.
* Wakame is not for everyone. This salad is delicious just with sliced cucumber so you could double the cucumber and omit the Wakame.
Kare Risu
(4 People)
Ingredients
- Oil
- 2 medium potatoes cubed (1/2” cubes)
- 2 medium carrots sliced (1/4” slices)
- 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
- 500 grams sliced/cubed pork or beef
- Water (just enough to cover vegetables)
- 2-3 cubes of curry roux
Optional toppings: pickled ginger or other Japanese pickles
Instructions
- Add some oil in the bottom of a pot big enough for boiling, and place it on the stovetop at medium heat.
- When the oil is hot, place meat into the pan and brown it on the sides (as best as possible).
- Add vegetables to the pan and fry with meat.
- When the vegetables are coated in oil add water so that it’s just covering all the ingredients. Place the pan back on stovetop at high heat, letting it boil until potatoes and carrots are firm but soft enough to bite through.
- When the potatoes and carrots are ready, turn off the heat. Break up the curry cubes and mix into the water with the ingredients, stirring until the curry cubes have dissolved.
- Turn the stovetop back on and let the curry heat up to a simmer, stirring every once in a while for about 5 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and enjoy on a plate with some rice and a bit of pickled ginger or fukujinzuke pickle on the side.
Gomae Salad
Ingredients
- 2 packs of raw spinach
- 1/3 cup white sesame
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
Instructions
- Boil or steam spinach, then drain and cool.
- Squeeze as much water out of the cooled spinach as possible or you will have a soggy dish.
- Bunch the spinach and cut it into 1½ inch pieces.
- Roast the sesame in a pan until lightly brown (watch carefully or it will burn).
- Grind the roasted sesame in a mortar and pestle or suribachi.
- Add soy sauce and brown sugar to the sesame and grind until a paste forms.
- Mix spinach and paste together (add paste according to taste).
- Garnish with a bit of roasted sesame.