SUSHI AT HOME

Sushi at Home is one of our signature classes to learn and experience the amazing hand-work dishes from Japanese cuisine. And sushi is in fact the perfect type of cooking class to learn online. Because sushi making is all about details. And, this is a great opportunity to connect our cooking studio in Tokyo wherever you are in the world to experience authentic sushi. In this class, we will be learning how to make sushi vinegar, delicious sushi rice, mixing sushi vinegar to hot rice. And, let’s learn how to handle raw fish. You can purchase sliced sashimi if available, or pick a sashimi block. Will show you how to slice it. We will make clam miso soup with sushi, which is a classy combination when we go out to eat sushi in Japan.

Class menu:

• Nigiri with your choice of raw fish,Tamago
• Thin rolls with cucumber and shiso if available, minced raw tuna with spring onion
• Gunkanmaki with salmon roes or sea urchin
• Clam miso soup

Ingredients Required:

Ingredients for sushi rice, 4 servings

3 cups Japanese rice

3 cups water

1 cucumber

4 to 6 leaves shiso leaves

Your choice of raw fish, tuna, salmon, salmon roes, sea urchin

Eggs

Milk

1 cup of rice vinegar

White sugar

Salt

Sushi seaweed sheets

Miso

10cm/3 inch wide dry kelp, Konbu in Japanese

Required cooking tools

1 small soup pot for making sushi vinegar (1 cups capacity at least)

1 soup pot for miso soup with ladle

1 small frying pan either non-stick or regular pan, but not cast iron, a spatula for Japanese style rolled egg omelette

1 set chopping board and knife

1 small bowl

Cooking chopsticks

Bamboo sushi mat

Sushi rice mix FLAT tray and spatula

Requirement prior to class

measure ingredients and wash vegetables

RAMEN

Ramen is absolutely my guests’ favorite Japanese dish. And, it is a unique dish that Japanese locals usually never make at home, but the current “Stay Home” situation is a different story. I am sure the most missed Japanese dish is ramen now! I have thought over and over again what would be the best ramen recipe for online class. It has to be easy to understand with accessible ingredients, and it should not take 10 hours to simmer stock! This is the recipe that I have come up with using chicken stock and soy sauce as the base for the ramen. We will make chashu in class, and we will not waste any ingredients from the soup stock or the chashu we make for ramen topping, it is going to be a rice dish with Japanese onsen egg! No ramen noodle available in your area? No worries, we will transform dry spaghetti into chewy egg noodles by using a secret trick! 

Class menu:

• Shoyu ramen with freshly made chicken ramen stock, homemade chashu braised pork belly or shoulder whichever is available in your market
• Chashu rice bowl
• Boiled chicken wings with sesame vinaigrette

Ingredients Required:

Ingredients for Chashu

Block of either pork belly or shoulder

Sake

Soy sauce

Sugar 

Ingredients for stock

Chicken wings or drumstick or mix

Onion

Ginger

Garlic

Carrot

Sake

Water 

Seasonings for soup

Soy sauce

Mirin

Sugar

salt

Ingredients of toppings

Eggs

Greens you have in your fridge, ig. baby spinach, arugula

Spring onion

Ramen noodles

Fresh or dry ramen noodle 

OR

Dry spaghetti

Baking soda

Chicken wings dish

Either potato or corn starch or all purpose flour

Cooking tools required:

Medium size pot for boiling noodle

Medium size soup pot for soup making

Small pot for boiling eggs and braising pork

A couple of bowls, ladle, spatula, and spoons

Small pot for cooking rice

Chopping board and knife

Additional Notes:

If you have any special dietary requirements, food allergies or other requests, please inform us when you make your reservation.

Itinerary:

Meet Up

We will connect on ZOOM, say hello, and begin the class

Cooking

We will cook together and you can ask questions as we go

Eat & Drink

We will enjoy eating & talking together until class ends

Class duration is approximately 1.5 hours.

* All times are Japan Standard Time

VEGETARIAN/VEGAN RAMEN

I came out creating a Vegan or Vegetarian ramen recipe during one of the early days of opening my cooking school. Ramen in general is a very animally fatty dish, and start thinking about Vegans and Vegetarians must be craving ramen too, but there are no vegetarian options in any ramen shop back then. I am not a vegetarian everyday but it is my favorite ramen. Soup is very flavorful using accessible ingredients in your supermarket, and won’t take 6 hours to make. The Noodles are not freshly made but I’ll share with you  jaw-dropping chewy ramen noodles from spaghetti! In my class, I always talk about how umami is made, and kinds of seasonings to use, store, choose, the differences, and other recipe ideas. 

Class menu:

• Vegetarian ramen with miso, soy milk, and tahini
• Hand broken tofu salad with nori sheet (sushi roll seaweed sheet)
• Easy easy black sesame ice cream

Ingredients Required:

Two kinds of mushrooms( ie: shiitake and cremini), or one type is find if not available

Garlic, ginger

Carrots

Spring onion

Green leaves you have in fridge spinach or arugula

Mini tomato, if not large is ok

Farm tofu, Nori sheet (dry sushi roll seaweed sheet)

Unflavored and sugar free soy milk

Toasted or untoasted sesame seed, black and white

Your favorite vanilla ice cream

Seasonings

Miso

Soy sauce

Sake

Mirin

Tahini

Sesame oil

Black pepper corn

Sugar

Rice vinegar

Chili paste if you have

Ramen noodles

Dry spaghetti

Baking soda

Cooking tools required:

Medium size pot for boiling noodle

Medium size soup pot for soup making

Small pot for boiling eggs and braising pork

A couple of bowls, ladle, spatula, and spoons

Small pot for cooking rice

Chopping board and knife

Mortar and pestle

GYOZA

If I choose one dish to eat on my last day, I absolutely choose gyoza! And, definitely Japanese-style super crispy, thin skin, pan fried gyoza. In this class, we will learn how to make gyoza skins from scratch. Some form of rolling pin is required (either a thin or pie rolling pin). We will make two forms of gyoza and wonton, and two kinds of cooking, pan fried and boiled. And two flavors, one if ponzu dipping sauce for fried gyoza, and chili oil for boiled wonton. If spicy food is not your favorite, then we will make spring onion sauce with garlic and ginger. 

Class Menu:

• Pan fried gyoza
• Tofu Spicy and Sour Soup
• Chili oil

Ingredients Required:

4 servings

Gyoza

All purpose flour 200g+

Hot water

Salt

Gyoza Filling

Ground chicken or pork thigh 300g

Coriander or spring onion 80g

Sake, soy sauce, sesame oil

Salt and pepper

Cooking oil, Canola or any unflavored oil (not olive oil)

Sauces

Rice vinegar

Soy sauce

Sesame oil

Sugar

Garlic

Ginger

Chili Oil

Shallots

Red pepper flakes

Chinese chili bean paste

Soy sauce

Sugar

Salt

Cooking tools required:

1 large stainless bowl for gyoza dough making

1 to two sets of cooking chopsticks

1 medium size bowl for gyoza fillings

Chopping board and knife

Non-stick frying pan

2 small pots for soup and chili oil

OKONOMIYAKI

This is the recommended Japanese cooking beginner class you will enjoy taking. This is one of the top dishes that my guests who visited Japan loved eating while they traveled to many places in Japan. Accessible ingredients and cooking tools, cooking skills are beginner. But we will learn one of the most important umami ingredients is bonito flakes, it is a smoked bonito fish and grated into flakes. And, the sauce for this dish is very unique, we will make it using accessible ingredients in your pantry. A bit of background of this dish, this style of savory pancake is originally from Osaka. Osaka is the second largest city in Japan, and the food culture is known as reasonable and delicious. I hope this dish is going to be a staple menu after taking this class!

Class menu:

• Okonomiyaki, Osaka style savory pancake with cabbage and pork 
• Miso soup
• Easy black sesame ice cream

Ingredients Required:

The most required ingredients for this class are bonito flakes for non-vegetarian, and dried shiitake or porcini mushrooms for the vegan version.

Okonomiyaki (1 serving)

Bonito flakes

3 to 4 Cabbages leaves

One egg

3 slices pork belly or bacon

Green part of spring onion

Optional: seafood, kimchi

Cooking oil

Sauce 

Ketchup or tomato puree

Worcestershire sauce

Soy sauce

sugar

Lemon juice

Toppings

Bonito flakes

Mayonnaise, ideally Kewpie mayo 

Miso Soup

Onion

Carrot

Potato

Spring onion

Miso

Black sesame ice cream

Your favorite store bought  vanilla ice cream

Black sesame paste or grounded black sesame

Cooking tools required:

A small to medium size frying pan

A couple of bowls, ladle, spatula, and spoons

Chopping board and knife

Mortar and pestle if not a ziplock and rolling pin or wine bottle

JAPANESE POWER BREAKFAST

Truly excited to introduce Japanese breakfast to the world through our online cooking class. Some flavors and tastes might be super foreign to your pallet, but it is a beautiful experience to cook and learn the secret of longevity in Japanese cuisine. I would say, this is the most fundamental and essential Japanese cooking that covers our culinary tradition. In this class, you will learn so much about Japanese basic ingredients, a few kinds of seaweeds, smoked bonito fish, natto, kinds of miso, how to grill fish using your cooking tools. Please do not feel this is an advanced Japanese cooking class, we will move step by step with each student in a small class. And, our classes are based on this principle, an instructor is not only a speaker. We believe that the best way to learn is to ask “why” and ask questions. We use two cameras in class, one is front (facing instructor) and another one is shooting a cutting board and heat. This is not required, but if your tablet, phone, desktop, notebook can change the angle to shoot your hands, that would be fantastic for us to see your hands-on cooking in your kitchen. We hope that this cooking skill becomes a treasure in your life that can make others happy and healthy!FYI: Please do not worry about having small Japanese plates and cups as pictured. We can create Japanese plate using a large dinner plate with one to two green from your plant for color!

Class menu:

• Miso soup with potato, onion, seaweeds
• Japanese style egg omelette
• Grilled salmon with Umeboshi, (pickled plums)
• Fresh silken tofu with bonito flakes and grated ginger
• Natto with chopped sweet tomato and coriander
• Nori sheet, (sushi seaweed wrap)
• Rice

Ingredients Required:

Ingredients for Miso soup, 2 servings

3 cups water

2 tbsp brown color kind miso

1 small potato

1/2 cut onion

1tsp dry seaweeds, Wakame in Japanese

1/2 cup bonito flakes

10cm/3 inch wide dry kelp, Konbu in Japanese

Ingredients for grilled salmon, natto, egg omelette, silken tofu, rice

2 filets salmon

2 eggs

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp mirin or maple syrup or brandy

2 packs store bought natto, please find in Asian market

2 tsp bonito flakes

1/2 tsp grated ginger

soy sauce

pinches salt

mini tomato or regular tomato

1 stem of coriander

1 cup of Japanese white rice

Required cooking tools

1 soup pot (3 cups capacity at least), ladle, cooking chopsticks if you have

1 small frying pan either non-stick or regular pan, but not cast iron, a spatula

1 set chopping board and knife

1 small bowl

Serving plates and cups 1 large dinner plate

OR

rice cup

miso soup cup

grilled fish plate

small bowl for tofu

small bowl for natto

small plate for Nori sheet place

Requirement prior to class

measure ingredients and wash vegetables

JAPANESE DESSERTS

Japanese desserts are something that I was missing so much when I was living in the States. Small delicate soft chewy mochi dough and sweet fillings are typical types, expiration dates for these desserts are the day you bought! Because mochi gets hard the next day. Japanese sweets are very different from western desserts. Most of the classy Japanese desserts are fat free and many of them are gluten free. And, we don’t really use an oven, so lots of them are gas top quick recipes except some sweet fillings, such as red or white beans paste. There are many good techniques you can learn from this online class. And it is going to be “WOW desserts” if you serve after a sushi party!

Class Menu:

• Strawberry daifuku, mochi stuffed red bean paste with strawberry
• Dango with soy sauce caramel
• Dorayaki with butter and red beans

Ingredients Required:

Please Note: These ingredients are a must for this class

Mochi flour

Already made red bean paste

Ingredients

Mochi flour 100g

Already made chunky type of red beans paste, if available in a can or in plastic 400g

Strawberries

Potato or corn starch

White sugar

Flour 90g

Eggs M-size 2

Mirin

Honey

Unflavored oil; canola oil, avocado, grapeseed oil

Butter

Soy sauce

Cooking tools required:

A couple of bowls for mixing

1 tray

Spatula, spoons, whisk

Small saucepan for soy sauce caramel

Table spoons

Scale

Steamer if not microwave works

Frying pan