Temaki Zushi

Aka, make it yourself-by hand-sushi. Actually a really awesome idea when making sushi at home and you're not so 上手 (jyo-zu[talented]) with rolling everything together. Besides, this way is much more fun!!!

Slicing up the fish. Not as easy as it looks. And that knife is quite sharp too!



Our final spread. The sushi was arranged on the plate kinda weird but it tasted good and that's what we all agreed was the most important part!


Here's a video of our teacher explaining to us how to make the final product. She starts by grabbing a square of Nori (dried seaweed) and puts a shiso leaf on it (Japanese cilantro, I hate the stuff). She then grabs some wasabi and puts a HUGE glob on the shiso. It doesn't look like it but that wasabi was REALLY strong! I was tearing up and I used half of what she did!

After that adds some fish then realizes she forgot to add rice. Rice is the first thing to go on!!!!



She's so 適当(tekito- [haphazard])


Here's the final product. It came out looking really good! Which is funny because the tuna I have here is the stuff I cut myself. I cut it so poorly that it ended up falling apart into little sections. Still yummy!

Food

I haven't done too much these past few weeks, as I'm sure you can imagine. But I have a few interesting food related stories I thought I might share.


About 2 weeks ago I volunteered to teach 6th grade students about America. It was quite similar to my self introduction lesson that I would do back at the high schools in Kochi but this time, it was all in Japanese! I was excited.

Afterward, we all went outside and made Mochi. (Mochi is basically mashed rice. You roll it into a ball and can eat it as part of a meal or a dessert, depending on how you season it. It's a very traditional new years food.)

Here's a video of one of the teachers showing the 6th graders how to make it. Later, they all got to try it out themselves.





The next day I was cold and craving American food so I made Shepherds pie. (AMERICAN Shepherds pie has beef and not lamb [cottage pie in Europe] and usually has cheese :3)


It looks odd because I only added cheese to half the pie. My friend who wanted to try a bit said that he didn't think cheese went well with it. I proved him wrong in the end but it was good both without as well.

Also, I have started Japanese cooking class! This was my group from last week. We made Sukiyaki Kansai style. Sukiyaki is a great winter soup. Very sweet and savory. Kansai style has less broth (if any) and therefore has a much more concentrated flavor.


Lastly, this past Friday I volunteered to teach the elementary school PTA about America (again, in Japanese) only this time I thought I'd make it more interesting so I made S'mores in the microwave. They didn't go over as well as they usually do with my high school kids but it wasn't a complete failure either.

The front middle people are all Yamasa students. Taiwanese, Korean and American.


To see more pictures of everything, check out facebook!
They've been added to the original "Okazaki" folder so you may have to flip through a few old pictures. Enjoy!
 

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