Lesson 7: Hoba-Zushi: Sushi Rice with Grilled Trout Wrapped with Hoba Leaves Serves 4-5

Dear our cooking friends,

Cooking class with Shuji begins at 18:00 Tokyo, Japan time, Saturday 11 July 2020.

Please make your way to the waiting room at 17:45 Tokyo time.

All regular members do not need to fill in a booking form.

If you wish to attend the class, please email Shuji at shujioz@gmail.com, or send a message to Facebook Messenger.

Please make your payment of ￥2,000 Japanese yen via PayPal on Inquiry and Booking page of this website.

Shuji will then send you an invitation.

We look forward to cooking with you and your family and friends.

Cook well, Stay well!

Shuji & Mum Hideko Ozeki

朴葉ずし a hoba-zushi unwrapped

The blue Nagara river where the salmon-trout fish returns to the river from the ocean in May.

Oze-Ukai, cormorant fishing begins in May. Local Master Ukai fishermen go after 鮎 Ayu, sweet fish for 6 months until October.

In the early summer months of May and June, a unique salmon-trout family fish called Satsukimasu (satsuki means May, and masu means trout in Japanese) is line-caught in the Nagara River, where the snow melted water from the deep northern mountains of the Okumino region of Gifu Prefecture invites the trout to return to the river. 

Chef Shuji gets the freshest Masu, trout at a local fish market. The trout is nice and rich in Omega 3 oil in May

The Japanese archipelago stretches from north to south over 3,000 km in the far eastern end of the Hmonsoon zone of Southeast Asia. Summer here is muggy. However, our ancestors created some cool foods and handed them down to us to enjoy our summer and make it feel rather cooler.

Hoba-Zushi is one good example of such food. The rice farmers and the woodcutters living in the Hida and Oku-Mino regions of our prefecture take hoba-zushi when they go to work in the rice paddies and the forests. Today, hoba-zushi can also make a nice picnic lunch for family and friends.

Hoba is the leaf of Honoki, or Magnolia Obovate, and is used to wrap sushi rice mixed with grilled trout or salmon. Hoba leaves are anti-bacterial. They keep the food nice and safe even on a muggy early summer day.  The timber of this tree is used to make scabbards for samurai swords made by the swordsmiths in my hometown of Seki. This wood prevents the sword from rusting. Seki has been renowned for its samurai swordsmiths for over 850 years, and also for its quality kitchen wares and knives.

kinome leaves and peppers on a sansho, Japanese pepper tree

Fresh-green hoba leaves on a tree

A list of cooking utensils for Hoba-Zushi class           18:00 Saturday 11 July 2020

A list of cooking utensils:

1.     A rice cooker. If you do not have it, Shuji will show you how to cook rice with a normal pot.

2.     A mixing bowl about 20 cm in diameter to mix freshly boiled rice with sushi vinegar

3.     A fan to cool off the rice when mixing with sushi vinegar

4.     A cheesecloth 30 cm by 30 cm to cover the rice when cooling off the mixed sushi rice

5.     A normal frying pan about 20 cm in diameter to make a sheet of thin egg, if you do not have a round-shaped frying pan like Shuji has when making egg sheet and egg omelette.

6.     A tweezer to remove bones of the fish fillet

A waiting room opens at 17:45, in case something goes wrong.

Wendy suggests that you use Google Chrome to access Cooking Class with Shuji on Zoom. You do not need a password to access. All you need is the link Shuji has sent you.

Ingredients

150 g fresh Satsukimasu trout fillet (salmon or ocean trout can be substituted) 

2 sun-dried shiitake mushrooms (soak in 1 cup water overnight) 

8 fresh kinome leaves (budding leaves of the Japanese pepper tree, fresh dill or julienned cucumber can be substituted)

8 large hoba leaves (banana leaves can be substituted)

20g gari (sliced new season ginger blanched in salted boiling water for five seconds and pickled in sweet sushi vinegar) 

Salt as needed

Canola oil as needed

To make sushi rice (A) 2.5 cups Japanese short-grain rice (washed, rinsed, drained), 2.5 cups water, 5 g kombu (dried kelp), and 1 teaspoon sake 

To make sushi vinegar (B) 90 ml rice vinegar, 60 g caster sugar, 1 teaspoon salt

To cook shiitake (C) 2 sundried shiitake mushrooms, shiitake-soaking water, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon koikuchi soy sauce 

To make julienned egg (錦糸たまごkinshi-tamago ) crack 1 egg into a bowl and beat it well with chopsticks. 

1g Yoshino-kuzu, arrowroot powder (1 g cornflour can be substituted) and 1 teaspoon water, and add to the beaten egg and mix well with chopsticks (You can do without the arrowroot powder, but the egg sheet may tear as you flip it over with one chopstick to cook the other side.)  Yoshino-kuzu, arrowroot powder makes the egg mixture stronger so the egg sheet may not be torn. 

Yoshino-kuzu, arrowroot powder (吉野葛粉）

1. Rinse the dried shiitake mushrooms in water. Soak dried shiitake in one cup water overnight then remove and discard the stems. Cook the shiitake in the water they were soaked in (C), skim the froth and add sugar and soy sauce. Keep cooking on medium heat until the water is almost gone. Slice the cooked shiitake thinly.

2. Combine (A) and cook the rice in a rice cooker. 

3. Evenly salt the fish fillet and grill it. Remove the bones and skin from the fish and break it into cherry petal size flakes.

4. Making the egg sheet will be shown during your cooking class. 

Julienne the egg sheets.

  cutting egg sheets into julienne                                  egg sheets

1. Mix the fish flakes and shiitake with the freshly mixed sushi rice. Place one serving of sushi rice (100g) onto a hoba leaf and top it with julienned egg, a kinome leaf, and pickled ginger slices. Place one by one on a tray and put another tray on top then let it rest for about half an hour. If you plan to take the hoba-zushi for a picnic lunch, I suggest that you steam them in a steamer for about 7 minutes and allow them to cool off. Hoba leaves are antibacterial and can keep the fish and sushi rice fresh longer on a hot summer day in Japan.  

• 1 cup is 200ml, 1 teaspoon is 5ml, 1 tablespoon is 15ml

• If hoba leaves are not available, you can plate the sushi rice on a large platter and top with julienned egg, ginger, and kinome leaves or fresh dill or julienned cucumber. Party sushi without sashimi!

Cheyenne from Hong Kong and Juju from Shanghai mixing freshly cooked rice       

  Mum showing the guests how to wrap sushi rice with a hoba leaf

  with sushi vinegar and keep fanning to cool off the freshly cooked rice.  

To watch Shuji make Hoba-Zushi by the rice paddy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU8CA1XWubc

Lesson 6: Katsu, Pork Cutlet Sandwich Serves 4

Dates and time:

6 pm Japan time, Saturday 27 June 2020

7 pm Eastern Standard time the USA, Friday 3 July 2020

4 pm Western Standard time the USA, Friday 3 July 2020

8 pm Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, Friday 3 July 2020

I was born as the first son in a family where my parents had been running a western-style restaurant (洋食屋) called Restaurant Yamakyu. I still remember some of the popular dishes were the pork-cutlet and the wagyu-beef cutlet (牛カツ). 

A breadcrumbed and deep-fried pork-cutlet is called ton-katsu (トンカツ) in Japanese. Ton means pork and, katsu means breadcrumbed and deep-fried.

The Japanese love katsu, which is a Japanese version of schnitzel. We have created popular dishes with katsu such as pork-cutlet sandwichs, katsu-don (sliced pork-cutlet cooked with dashi broth and egg and served on top of boiled rice in a large bowl called a donburi) and Miso-katsu (sliced pork-cutlet with sweet Hatcho miso sauce).

Ingredients 

4 Pork loins (120g-150g each slice, 1.5cm thick) (Chicken breast fillet, beef and white flesh fish can be substituted)

8 Slices of bread (1.5cm thick)

Panko breadcrumbs as needed (200g)

One egg 

100ml water as needed

50g wheat flour as needed

Canola or soybean oil as needed ( I normally need 1 litre.)

Dijon or honey mustard or Karachi, Japanese mustard as needed

Salt and pepper as needed

Lettuce as needed

(A) To make the sauce, mix 50g tomato sauce and 50ml Worcestershire sauce

(B) To make the batter, crack one egg into a bowl and beat it well, add 100ml water and mix well and add 50g wheat flour and mix well

Method

1.

Boiled Broccoli Dressed with Miso and Sesame Seed Sauce Serves 4 ブロッコリーの白ごまみそ和え

Ingredients

200g broccoli or nabana(rape flower)

3 tablespoons white sesame seeds (lightly toasted)

Miso paste as needed

Mirin as needed (sherry or port can be substituted)

1. In a Japanese mortar (suribachi, coy-paste a pic) grind the lightly toasted sesame seeds with a wooden pestle (surikogi, coy-paste a pic) then add miso paste and mirin to your taste and mix well. The mixture should have a creamy texture. Add more mirin or cherry to your taste, if needed.

2. Boil the broccoli in salted boiling water. Drain the broccoli well in a strainer and toss with the miso sesame dressing sauce to mix well.

Chef’s Tip 

Genuine mirin normally contains about 12% alcohol. When you make this dish for children, remove the alcohol from the mirin by boiling it and flambé before adding it to the miso and sesame to make the sauce. 

Walnuts, peanuts, pine nuts, and macadamia nuts can also be used instead of sesame seeds. Nabana, green beans, spinach, green asparagus, and broad beans can also be used for this dish. 

The Japanese love to eat nabana buds in long-awaited early spring after a long winter. 

Nabana buds are rich in vitamin C, iron, and calcium. Its bitterness beefs up the immunity.

handpicked nabana buds

Shuji's cooking videos: www.youtube.com/user/shujiozeki

Edited by Wendy Gough, May 2020

Lesson 5, Cook with Shuji: Let’s Make Yakisoba and Char-Grilled Ocean Trout at the Ozekis!

Serves 4    Yakisoba 焼きそば

Ingredients: 

 Four packets of yakisoba noodles

200g thinly sliced pork belly meat (If you do not eat pork, you can use calamari)

200g cabbage (julienned)

Salt and pepper as needed

2-3 tbs Worcestershire sauce or as needed

Aonori (if available, dried seaweed powder)

Beni-shoga, pickled ginger ( julienned) if available

Method

1. Cut cabbage into 1cm  bite-sized pieces.

2. Cut pork belly meat into 1cm bite-sized pieces.

3. Heat the frying pan on medium-low heat and add 2 teaspoons vegetable oil. Separate the yakisoba noodles with your fingers as you put them into the frying pan.

4. Heat the frying pan with some more vegetable oil and stir fry the pork meat then set it aside and put in the cabbage and stir fry it. Put the yakisoba and pork meat back into the frying pan. Add salt and pepper as needed and mix well. Pour 2 tablespoons (or 3 tbs or to your taste) Worcestershire sauce into it and mix well. Plate the yakisoba and top it with aonori, dried seaweed and beni-shoga, pickled ginger.

I use two frying pans when making yakisoba at home.

With a spatula press the yakisoba noodles as shown in this photo to toast them. Well-toasted yakisoba is nicer!

When the bottom is lightly toasted, flip the yakisoba noodles over and toast the other side. When the yakisoba noodles are nicely toasted, set them aside.

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Char-Grilled Ocean Trout with Japanese Pepper Leaf Sauce

Char-Grilled Ocean Trout with Japanese Pepper Leaf Sauce

マスの木の芽焼き

Serves 4

 Ingredients   

 4 ocean trout fillets with skin on (substitute is salmon)

 Salt as needed

 8 Kinome leaves (Japanese pepper tree) ( fresh dill can be substituted)

 Half a teaspoon of boiled rice (leftover boiled rice is good)

 3 tablespoons vinegar

 Method:

Shuji will show you how to grill the fish and how to make kinome leaf sauce during our cooking class.

Lesson 4: Pan-Fried Aubergine Topped with Minced-Beef Sweet in Miso Sauce

Serves 4

One large aubergine

Green onions as needed (cut into finely)

Canola oil as needed

To make dengaku sauce: Combine 2 teaspoons. vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon diced ginger (peel skin, slice finely and dice finely), 100 grams minced beef, 1 tablespoon. sake, 80 grams Hacho-miso paste, 40 grams caster sugar, 2 tablespoons mirin (substitute is sherry or port), 40 ml water.

＊Taste the sauce and add more sugar to your taste if needed.

1.     Heat a saucepan with the vegetable oil. Add diced ginger and stir fry, add the minced beef and keep stirring until the minced beef is cooked. Add sake and mix well. Add the miso paste, sugar and mix well then add the mirin and water and mix well. Let it simmer and keep stirring with a spatula then remove from heat. 

2.     Cut the aubergine into 2-centimetre medallions and poke with a fork, then pan-fry in canola oil over medium heat oil. Remove from the heat and place the auberge on a paper towel. Squeeze to remove the excess oil.

3.     Serve the aubergine with the sweet dengaku miso sauce topped with chopped green onions.

I prefer to use Hatcho-miso to make sweet miso sauce for this dish. Hatcho-miso is a dark smoky flavoured miso made in Okazaki in Aichi Prefecture and has a history of over 350 years. This sauce without the minced beef is dengaku-miso (田楽みそ). Japanese people love to use the sauce during Sakura (cherry blossom) season in spring. The sweet miso sauce with or without minced meat goes well on grilled tofu, stir-fried or deep-fried aubergine, char-grilled bamboo shoots and the list goes on and on. If some of your guests are vegans and vegetarians, you can make this sauce without the minced beef.

Again, this dish is complimented nicely with freshly boiled Japanese rice and miso soup.

The oldest miso-maker in Japan is Maruya Hatcho Miso in Okazaki. I visited there in January 2020. One of these wooden casks full of matured-miso can make miso soup for a family of four three times a day every day for over 200 years according to a Maruya sales manager. The town of Okazaki was once called Hatcho village because the distance from the village to the Okazaki Castle where Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa resided in the Edo period was hatcho (about 870 m). Hatch means 8 and cho was a measure of distance in those days.

Happy dinner guests and the two chefs, Cheers! After a long and enjoyable day working together with Chef Yagi at Namur Ogawa, May 2018. Yagi to the left, Shuji to the right and two dinner guests from London in-between us.

In May 2018, I made this dish at Namur Ogawa, a Japanese Sushi Restaurant run by my friends Yagi and his wife Himin Lin. They visited my kitchen 5 years ago to learn authentic Japanese cuisine and they invited me to visit their restaurants and home in Namur, Belgium the next time I went to Europe. They also own a Japanese Ramen restaurant Sanga which is run by a Japanese Ramen Chef. At Shanga, I showed the dinner guests how to make soba noodles from scratch and I made kamo-serio, soba noodles served with duck breast fillet slices in a hot dipping sauce. Chef Yagi ate 5 servings of this dish for supper after we finished a long day preparing and cooking a five-course dinner for our guests.

When in Belgium, I highly recommend that you book a dinner at Namur Ogawa: https://www.ogawa.be/ Chef Ygi Lin is the father of two lovely children and a sweet husband and hard-working chef.

This recipe was edited by Wendy Gough. Thank you Wendy for your help.

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Lesson 3, Sukiyaki Chicken & lot's of veggies 鳥すき焼き

All prepared food plated on a large platter and ready to cook on a large cast-iron pan placed on a table-top gas stove. Let’s party with sukiyaki!

Sukiyaki and Geisha were probably the most commonly known Japanese words to many people in the west in those days. Sukiyaki, in particular, has been known as one of the best Japanese songs to the world in those days and maybe still is today.

As you may know that Sukiyaki song has nothing to do with sukiyaki, one of the most popular Japanese meals. Good old Sukiyaki song was sung by Kyu Sakamto and touched the heart of millions of people around the world before. Sukiyaki song cheers you up when you are down. On YouTube, Sukiyaki song has been sung once again by many people around the world this month.

For those who missed our lesson 1 and 2, please read the recipes of kuwayaki BBQ sauce and boiled rice. Boiled rice goes well with sukiyaki. You will need to have cooked rice by the time we sit at a dining table to cook and enjoy sukiyaki with sake, beer and wine on Monday 4 May.

I invite you, my friends, around the world to join me cook together Sukiyaki and enjoy dinner together and cheer us up!

Ingredients:  Serves 4

4 eggs and more if needed

800 g chicken thigh fillets with skin on (cut into bite-size)

8 large green onions (cut into 5 cm long both green and white part)

12 fresh shiitake mushrooms (substitute is oyster mushrooms, brown mushrooms, or any mushrooms that you like to try using in your sukiyaki)

1 bunch nabana or rape flower (substitute is white and green asparagus, broccoli)

100 g Japanese pumpkin (cut into 5 mm thick)

100 g boiled bamboo shoots (optional, cut into bite-size)

1 yaki-tofu (if available)

1 packet kakufu (kakufu is gluten curd as shown in this picture. Only if available.)

packet of kakufu

vegetable oil as needed

Kuwayaki BBQ sauce as needed (You can find kuwayaki recipe in Cook with Shuji, Lesson 1 and 2 on Shuji’s website recipe blog page.

sugar as needed

sake, or 2nd dashi stock, or water as needed

Method:

1.     Cut green onions diagonally into 5cm long.

2.     Cut to remove stems of shiitake mushrooms. If your shiitake are thick and large, cut into bite-size.

3.     Cut off the hard bottom ends about an inch of nabana.

4.     Cut yaki-tofu into an inch cube.

5.     Cut kakufu into half lengthwise and slice diagonally into 5 mm thick. Boil for one minute and dunk into cold running water and drain.

6.     Cut carrot into 5 mm thick medallions.

7.     Arrange all ingredients except for chicken meat on a large platter.

8.     Set up the dining table with a table-top stove (if you own on), plated all ingredients, eggs in a bowl, kuwayaki BBQ sauce, a bottle of sake, second dashi stock or water,  v and a pair of long cooking chopsticks or a tong.

9.     If you do not own a table-top stove, you can begin cooking in your kitchen when your family is all home and hungry.  

10.  Heat up the cast-iron sukiyaki hotpot or normal saucepan with preferably heavy bottom. And put into pinch salt and cook chicken thigh meat skin side down to sear and render. Salt helps render better. Put into green onions and brown lightly and set aside. As the fat comes out, take the chicken meat out and cut into bite-size and back into the pan and cook on high heat. You do not want to overcook the meat as they will eventually be braised in BBQ sauce and sake (or second dashi stock or water) and become tender. Add into it some, but not all the ingredients plated on a large platter. And stir fry a bit on high heat and pour into kuwayaki BBQ sauce and 1 tablespoon sugar (or raw sugar if you prefer) and cook on simmer until chicken and vegetables are cooked. Taste the broth and, if needed, add more sugar, kuwayakaki sauce, sake, (stock or water) to your taste.

11.  Crack an egg into a serving bowl and beat well with chopsticks. Enjoy your own creation of chicken sukiyaki with beer, wine and sake!

Lesson 2: Steamed Salmon fillet & seasonal vegetables with Kuwayaki BBQ sauce

The theme of Lesson 2 : Eat salmon and get in the sun!

According to Dr. Tadashi Mitsuo specialized in anti-aging medicine, vitamin D is created in the skin during at least 20 minute-exposure in the sun. Salomon and so called blue-backed fish (青魚aozakana) such as sardine, horse mackerel, and Spanish mackerel are rich in vitamin D.

The effects of intake of vitamin D from fish and exposure to the sun:

1.     Suppresses inflammation of the body.

2.     Strengthens the bones.

3.  Maintains muscular strength.

4.  Prevention of depression and the improvement of the mental disease.

サーモンと季節野菜の蒸し煮　くわ焼きのたれ　木の芽

4 salmon fillets (deboned)

90 ml kuwayaki BBQ sauce

4 fresh shiitake mushrooms (cut stems off, substitute is any mushrooms available that you and your family like.)

8 green asparaguses

1 yellow bell pepper (remove seeds and cut into 1 cm width strips, I use boiled bamboo shoots as they are in season right now.)

konasansho powder as needed (If the fresh leaves of sansho, Japanese pepper tree are available, chop up and put on the steamed salmon.)

1.     Heat up a saucepan on medium heat, add 90 ml kuwayaki sauce and put in salmon on skin side down and reduce heat to low and cover.

2.     Keep simmering on low heat with a lid on for 3 minutes. Turn over salmon and put shiitake mushrooms, yellow bell pepper and green asparagus to steam cook. Keep simmering for 3 minutes with cover.

3.     Remove a lid and poke the fish with a fork to see if the fish is cooked or not. I showed you how during Cooking with Shuji Lesson 1 on Monday 20.

4.     If the inside of the fish is hot and cooked, flip over the fish and pour the thickened kuwayaki sauce over the meat side of the fish a few times to glaze.

5.     Plate the steamed fish and vegetables and pour over the thickened kuwayaki sauce and top with chopped sansho leaves or konasansho powder.

Steamed Salmon fillet with Kuwayaki BBQ sauce Shuji uses boiled bamboo shoots as right now in season in Japan.

Japan National Tourism Organization JNTO’s new travel brochure, 100 Experiences in Japan –Find the Japan of your Dreams!

July 2019, JNTO, Japan National Tourism Organization’s new travel brochure, 100 Experiences in Japan - introduces activities within seven categories: Tradition, Outdoors, Cuisine, Cities, Nature, Art, and Relaxation.

The details of Ozeki Japanese Cooking Class is numbered 44 and published on page 3 of Passion : 03 Cuisine of the brochure.

Here is the link: https://partners-pamph.jnto.go.jp/simg/pamph/928.pdf

braised kinmedai, the splendid alfonsino 金目鯛の煮付け

braised kinmedai, burdock and kinome leaves                                                                             

金目鯛の煮付け ごぼう 木の芽 kinmedai no nitsuke　  Serves 4　

Kinmedai, the splendid alfonsino is found around the world.

In Japan the fresh kinmedai can make a nice sashimi and also a tasty braised dish like this recipe during summer months.

2 whole kinmedai

20g ginger (peel skin, cut into julienne),                                                                                

20cm burdock (wash gently to remove dirt and cut into half lengthwise and cut into 5cm long)

To cook fish: 50ml sake, water (to cover the fish or as needed), 2-3 tablespoons sugar, 2-3 tablespoons soy sauce, 1-2 tablespoons mirin (or as needed)

1.     Scale the fish, remove guts and gills and wash to clean and dry with paper towel. Normally the Japanese fish mangers do this process for you.  Score the skin diagonally three times on *facing side as shown. This helps fish flesh soaks up the sauce. * Facing side of the fish means that when the fish is placed in a saucepan with its head to the left and tail to the right. This is the way how we normally plate the cooked whole fish.

2.     Place the fish in a large saucepan with its head to the left and tail to the right and add sake and water just to cover the fish. Cook on high heat, skim the froth not to thoroughly (avoid skimming fish oil as it is umami-flavour of the fish), add julienne ginger, 3 tablespoons sugar and cook for a few minutes and add 3 tablespoons soy sauce. Keep cooking on medium heat with an *otoshi-buta till the sauce is reduced to half and taste it. If needed add more sugar and soy sauce to your taste. As the sauce is thickened, taste the sauce add mirin as needed and pour the sauce over the fish with a ladle over and over again to glaze until the sauce is almost gone. Be careful not to burn the fish.    

l  Otoshi-bura (落し蓋) is a wooden lid which can be placed directly on the fish, chicken, beef and vegetables braised in a saucepan. It gives steaming effect and helps infuse the food making it moist and tasty. You need to soak the ososhi-buta in water before use to shield it.

l  Substitute for kinmedai is mebaru, black rockfish and rock cod.

copyright 2019 Shuji Ozeki www.ozekicookingschool.com