Thursday, September 30, 2010

Japan

When you look at Japan on a globe, 2 things pop-up: lots of ocean surrounds the small, thin islands and their latitude is not that different from our own.  Now that we were discussing this, the ingredients in dashi, the Japanese soup stock base, suddenly made total sense sense to me.

Thank you to our student A. M. for his photographic talents!
Dashi is easy and fun to make, the students loved shaving the whole dried fish to make bonito flakes.  Then we added miso and poured the heated soup over our cooked soba, tofu & green onions.  The garnish salads added a cool crunch and smooth sweetness. Our desserts used up a part of a large zucchini donated to our cause (thank you JH), which allowed us to bring in some more unusual Japanese sweets, daifuku and a green tea jelly using agar-agar (again the ocean!).

What was intriguing about our meal, as we focused on teamwork and timing with the additional dishes and with needing to keep the soup hot, was that as we tasted, we started comparing how eating a bit of one item can affect the flavor of the next item--and this could actually be intentional.  Tea sweets are designed just for this kind of enjoyment - the pungency of the tea makes the sweet that follows even more enjoyable.  

This intentional playfulness of menu composition gets lost in our society's rush, but it is a good way to slow down, and perhaps better appreciate a meal for its combination of flavors, textures & influences, instead of how fast it gets to the table and how big the plate is.  We could see the appreciation in our students as we "played" with our food in this way.


Menu:
Miso Soup with Soba Noodles, Tofu & Onions
Gomaee (cold spinach salad with sweet sesame dressing)
Sunomono with Cucumber & Seaweed
Zucchini Spice Bread
Daifuku (mochi with sweet red bean paste)
Green Tea Jelly

Friday, September 10, 2010

You mean they're alive? Right NOW???





"They better be," was our answer.  The menu this week arose out of student voice and, actually, lack of voice too.  Those who had never had clams before kept quiet, which meant all we heard was "clam chowder!"

So we went for the classic which set the menu up for a Boston theme, and found a delicious recipe (thank you Hog Island).  In the interest of budget and waistlines, we cut the cream down to less than half for our class sampling.  Everyone loved it, and watching the clams from start to finish was completely intriguing... until the chocolate ganache came out for our dessert.  

Here is the complete meal:

Boston Clam Chowder
Chinese Chicken Salad
Cheese Biscuits
Mini Boston Cream Pies

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

It Is A New School Year...

... and it was only the second week(!) when we cooked this full meal, visiting the culinary world of Jamaica. 

Above: Jamaican Jerk Chicken (wet marinade), Jamaican Bean Stew over Rice with Cilantro Garlic Cream, Fried Plantain, Cabbage Salad with Pickled Onion Garnish

Below:
Jamaican Gingerbread & Coconut Bread with Whipped Cream & Mint


Great job team!